Page 168 of The Oligarch's Daughter

They met at a Chipotle on Tenth Street, in D.C., across from the FBI headquarters. She came alone, as she promised she would.

She had wanted Paul to meet her in her office inside the FBI building, but he had refused. Too risky. Now she stared at him as she entered the restaurant. When she sat down at his table, she said, “So youarealive.”

“For now, anyway.”

“I wondered. The best law enforcement agents in the country couldn’t find you. What happened?”

“Some bad luck.”

“Explain.”

For a moment, he hesitated. How much could he tell her about how he’d killed an assassin, a man who’d come to kill him?

“I was spotted in a small town in New Hampshire,” he said.

“How?” She tucked her hair behind her ears.

“I think a traffic camera captured my face.”

She nodded. “So, that’s how Dempsey and Berzin found you. And sent one of their killers after you. But you—”

“A littlegoodluck. Killed him first.” He explained about the speargun. “I wondered at first if it was Galkin who was after me. For running out on his daughter. But I guess his investment firm is shuttered.” Paul had googled “Galkin” and read that he, like all the other Russian oligarchs, had been sanctioned after the Ukraine invasion. His yacht, his real estate around the world, his assets—everything confiscated. His firm dissolved. But after a few articles about Galkin’s sanctioning, there was nothing further about him at all. Where he lived now, several years after the invasion; where he’d gone in the past year—a complete mystery.

“He’s no longer a rich man. No longer in the position to offer a bounty on your head. Not that he would have. But you’re still on the run.”

“Right. And I need your help.”

“I don’t know what I can do for you, but go ahead and tell me what’s on your mind.”

“Who was after me in New Hampshire? I saw Berzin. Then I saw an FBI team.”

“Well, it’s complicated. Since the massacre of the FBI agents, Dempsey’s unit was shut down, and an internal probe was launched inside CIA. Geraldine Dempsey and her team have methodically erased records of the operation, knowing that if the truth about the massacre came out, she’d be toast. There was just one dangling thread to be snipped off—and that was you. And when Berzin learned you were in New Hampshire—”

“But Berzin . . .”

“Berzin has been a longtime employee and asset controlled by Dempsey at CIA.”

“Berzin! So he was working forDempseythe whole time—not for Galkin?”

She nodded.

“Explain.”

She did.

The pieces were coming together now. He listened impassively, not showing his surprise. Finally, he said, “She cooked up these intelligence charges against me. They’re bogus. I want you to get your colleagues to drop the charges against me.”

“That’s not so easy. It’s in fact incredibly complicated.”

“Aren’t you a supervisory special agent?”

“One of hundreds.”

“I know you can do it. Did you guys ever figure out who this Natasha Obolensky is?”

Trombley smiled. “A closely held secret. Took us forever to crack it.”

“But you did?”

---