Page 143 of The Oligarch's Daughter

Paul picked up his cup, then took one of the Piccadilly butter biscuits and dipped it into his tea. Then, leaning forward, he offered it to Tatyana’s little dog, who licked his chops.

Tatyana let out a sudden screech and yanked Pushkin away from him, from the biscuit. Cradling her dog, she ran out of the room, and Paul got to his feet, his nerves jangling, his heart ricocheting.

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Berzin watched the scene with visible alarm.

“Excuse me a moment,” Paul said to Berzin. He didn’t follow Tatyana into the bedroom. Instead, he turned and left the apartment, his heart hammering. He was in a state of shock as he descended the stairwell.

Tatyana knew something was in the tea and had gone along with it. There was no other explanation. His own wife had betrayed him—worse, had cooperated with Berzin to . . . what? Poison him?

Tatyana had known what Berzin wanted to do.

She had warned him: When it came down to it, she was a Galkin.

Nobody was lurking on East Seventh Street, no vehicles idling, no one apparently waiting for him. He walked down the block to St. Mark’s Place. Maybe Berzin had been telling the truth that he’d come alone. But Paul didn’t believe that. He had to have reinforcements in place, people who were ready to grab Paul if the poisoning scheme didn’t work.

Earlier that day, Paul had bought a disposable phone at a bodega. It took a few minutes to download WhatsApp to the phone and set it up.

Now he turned off his iPhone. He had to assume that Berzin’s people had cloned his phone, that they knew his whereabouts at every moment, from the phone’s GPS. He’d read once about some kind of Israeli software that allowed governments to secretly install spyware on your phone, remotely, enabling them to monitor your calls and track your location.

Yes: he couldn’t use his iPhone anymore.

Then he called Special Agent Addison on WhatsApp. He let it ring and ring until the call went to voicemail. Paul left a message, telling Addison to call back immediately, that it was an emergency.

A few blocks out of St. Mark’s Place, he came to Third Avenue and walked to the Bleecker Street station, where he caught the 6 train and took it to Spring Street. A Black man sitting across the car glanced at him and looked away, the way you try not to look at crazy people on your train who might be provoked by your glance.

Adrenaline was flooding Paul’s system. His heart was knocking. He walked down Lafayette Street a couple of blocks. He looked around, didn’t see anyone obviously following him, but if they were good at what they did, wouldn’t he not see them anyway?

He tried Addison again on his cell phone. It rang five times and then went to voicemail once again.

When he arrived at East Houston Street, he found the narrow white-brick building across from the great deli, the one with the tourist souvenir shop on the street level. The door to the lobby was open. He took the elevator to the fourth floor.

When the elevator stopped and the door opened, he saw the door with the curved retro gold lettering that readKNIGHT&HAWLEYACTUARIALCONSULTING. The window in the door was dark. The venetian blinds were closed.

But why was the FBI office closed, in the middle of a workday? The blinds were closed for some reason.

He found a doorbell button to the right of the doorframe and pushed it.

Nothing happened.

About to push the button again, he instead decided to knock on the door. As he knocked, the door came open.

The first clue that something was off was the smell in the air: sharp and familiar and coppery.

It was dark in there—all the window blinds were closed, and the fluorescent lights were off. In a moment, his eyes adjusted to the darkness, and he saw a sight that didn’t register at first. It looked like the assistants at the front counter were napping, their heads down. He knew what he saw a moment before it made any sense to him.

Blood everywhere.

It was nearly kaleidoscopic and vaguely unreal, that first image, the colors. Dark red blood under the glaring overhead light. It looked like several of the victims—who, he now saw, included Special Agent Mark Addison—had pulled out their weapons, but clearly not in time. A few of the agents had tried to run but had been cut down. He didn’t stay long enough to count the victims, but it looked like six. He was pretty sure he didn’t see Special Agent Stephanie Trombley. All around the room, cell phones were ringing.

The image was too real to be real. At first, it reminded him of a scene from the kind of horror film he’d always hated, with gruesome deaths and blood and disfigurement.

He looked back at Addison. His head was lolling forward on his chest. In his outstretched hand was a black Glock. Blood was pooling on the wall-to-wall carpet, seeping into it; blood spattered the walls and the desks, and then there was that terrible smell, the acrid smell of gunfire and the dry, sweet, metallic tang of blood, like a copper penny in your mouth.

He heard sirens.

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