Page 177 of The Oligarch's Daughter

“Happy to hear it. Congratulations.”

“Thank you. Nice little rig you’ve got there—did you build it yourself?”

Paul nodded. “So, you found us.”

“That’s what we FBI agents are supposed to be good at,” she said.

“I guess that’s right. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I thought you’d be interested to know that Geraldine Dempsey is on her way to prison for twenty-five years to life, depending on the judge. Since you last saw her, she’s been living in the Washington, D.C., Correctional Treatment Facility.”

“For what?”

“She’s going away for the massacre of Mark Addison and five other FBI employees.”

Paul nodded, busy checking the lines.

“All thanks to the fact that you got her to finally incriminate herself with her own words.”

Tatyana peeked out from behind the jib. “Paul, we good to go?” she said. “Don’t forget to make sure our phones are set.”

He nodded. “We’re good,” he said. He’d secured their cell phones in Ziploc bags down below, so they’d stay dry. There was also a cooler down there filled with sandwiches and beer.

“The shoes, Paul,” Trombley said. “I had to laugh. Very smooth move.”

Paul smiled, remembering how he’d played it. He had expected Dempsey to frisk him for recording devices at their meeting at the safe house, and had left her plenty to find—a transmitter taped to his lower back, a pen that recorded and transmitted, all the usual spy gadgets. But he guessed they wouldn’t think to check his shoes, which were equipped with recording and transmitting devices—and which had broadcast Dempsey’s entire confession to the waiting FBI team.

He’d been right.

Paul was watching Tatyana put the centerboard in the slip. She so clearly loved this boat.

“I know it’s not exactly thePechorin,” Paul said.

“Oh, but isn’t she yar?” Tatyana said to Paul in her best Hepburn imitation. That was fromThe Philadelphia Story.Yarwas one of those old nautical terms that was hard to define. It meant fine, or ready to move, or shipshape.

Trombley wasn’t finished. “The word from Langley is that Dempsey’s excesses have been curbed and heads are going to roll.”

“Let me guess,” Paul said. “They’re ‘cleaning house.’”

Trombley smiled ruefully and nodded.

“And she got away with it all these years,” Paul said, “because Phantom was self-financing and she didn’t need budget approval from anyone. She ran the unit using the money Galkin made. She didn’t need money from the intelligence budget to fund Phantom. It made its own money.”

Trombley gave a slow smile. “Kind of genius, right?”

“So where’s Andrei Berzin?”

“He’s been arrested,” Trombley said, fussing with her gray hair, which was blowing in the wind.

“But he was a CIA agent. I don’t get it.”

“He was arrested for the murder of a police officer in New Hampshire, Alec Wood. This is someone you know.”

“He was a friend, yeah,” Paul said. “But what I don’t understand is why Dempsey was so determined to protect Arkady Galkin these last few years.”

“She wasn’t protectingGalkin. She no longer cared about Galkin. He was no longer of any operational significance. She was protecting herself. Covering her ass. The official story is that she went rogue.”

“Went rogue?” Paul said. “What are you talking about? She reported to several layers of CIA executives and the director of national intelligence. Theyallmust have known what she was doing.”

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