Page 145 of The Oligarch's Daughter

He’d also bought a plane ticket from Chicago to Quito, business class, one way.

Paul had the cab drop him on Forty-Second Street, and he entered Port Authority, New York’s main bus terminal. It was said to be the busiest bus terminal in the world, and he believed it. In the mental state he was in, adrenaline-frazzled and scared, it seemed nearly postapocalyptic.

He found a ticket vending machine and bought a one-way bus ticket to Chicago with his Paul Brightman Visa card. It cost over two hundred dollars. The bus trip sounded like a grueling ride, over twenty-five hours. He had done a fair amount of googling on his laptop on extended-stay hotels in Chicago. He had no doubt that Berzin’s crew kept track of his credit card payments. That wasn’t hard to do. It was also likely that once Tatyana realized her husband had disappeared, she would call NYPD. They would probably investigate. They had access to credit card charges and the camera in this vending machine that was pointed at him. Once they found that he’d bought the plane ticket from Chicago to Quito, they’d begin to put together a theory.

At least, that was what Paul hoped.

He exited the terminal at Forty-Second Street, and very close to the entrance, he saw a homeless guy sitting on the sidewalk with a sign that read,TOOUGLYTOPROSTITUTE,TOOHONESTTOSTEAL!

He dropped a buck into the guy’s Starbucks coffee cup. “I like your sign.”

“Well, all right.” The man smiled a gap-toothed smile. He appeared to be in his sixties but probably was a lot younger; living on the streets or in homeless shelters will do that to you.

“Can I enlist you to help me with something?” Paul had taken a twenty from his wallet, and now he was waggling it.

“Hell yeah, you can. What you need help with?”

“Buy me a cell phone from that newsstand over there?” He tore the twenty in half and handed half to the man. Pointing at the newsstand, he said, “You get the other half when you come back with the phone. Cheapest one they have. The phone will cost you nineteen bucks.” He handed him a twenty, this one intact. “Come back with the phone and keep the change. Then you get the other half of the twenty.”

Paul half-expected the man to disappear with the twenty bucks. But he stopped at the newsstand and returned with a Nokia TracFone in a plastic blister pack.

“Wanna make another twenty?” Paul asked.

“You want another phone?”

“How about buying me a bus ticket to Albany? You know how to do that?”

“Oh, sure.”

“Here’s fifty bucks for the ticket.” He took out two fifty-dollar bills, handed the homeless guy one. “It should cost around forty. Keep the change.” He tore the fifty in half and gave the guy one half. “When you give it to me, you get the other half of this.”

“Albany? One way or round trip.”

“One way.”

“One way, huh? Ain’t coming back?” the man said.

Paul hesitated. “’Fraid not.”

PART ELEVEN

THE SAFE HOUSE

Present Day

97

For a long time, Paul stared at the Deacon.

Paul Brightman, he’d said, to which the Deacon had replied,I thought so. So who the hell was this Stephen Lucas, and how did he know Paul’s name?

“Get in there, Brightman,” Lucas said.

Paul scrambled into the shelter. Underneath the blanket of leaves was a ridgepole supported by a couple of sturdy branches lashed together with twine. Inside, the shelter was lined with pine needles and leaves and grasses as insulation. Looking up, he glimpsed the branches that formed the ribs of the structure. This was an ingenious cocoon. His father had once made one from forest debris, meant to look like a deadfall, a pile of fallen trees and brush. It was far more elaborate than the debris shelters he’d constructed.

It was cold in there, but he knew that his body heat would warm the space up quickly. It was designed for that.

He heard Lucas say, “Hal, Leon, would you set up a stakeout, make sure this gentleman is safe?” The other two grunted, and Paul heard the crackling of twigs on the ground as they departed.

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