Page 2 of The Oligarch's Daughter

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He woke just a few minutes before five the next morning, before his phone alarm sounded, and he turned it off before it could wake Sarah, who was staying over. It was still dark. He made coffee, dressed, and drove the ten miles to the harbor. He arrived by quarter of seven and found theSuzanne Bdocked where she always was.

There’s a whole routine to starting up a boat. He pulled out the rods, set her up. Lyle kept a stack of folding chairs in the cabin so they wouldn’t get wet from condensation overnight. Grant unlocked the cabin and retrieved them, set them up on the deck. He checked the engine, turned on the valves. Lyle’s boat was only three years old and still looked new. He took excellent care of her, was fanatical about cleaning her, thoroughly scrubbing her down before and after each trip.He’d want me to do the same, Grant thought.

He gathered the cleaning solutions from the pilothouse down below, and in fifteen minutes he’d cleaned and sanitized theSuzanne B, first with boat soap and a long scrub brush and then with Clorox bleach; finally, he sprayed the deck with an alcohol-based product.

After checking the oil, Grant started the engine, let her warm up. The customers were scheduled to arrive by seven thirty, so there was plenty of time. He switched on the radios and talked to some of the early-bird fishermen who were out there already, to find out where the good fishing was. You’d think they wouldn’t want competition, and some didn’t. But a few Good Samaritans told him where they were having luck. It’s a bountiful ocean.

Right at seven thirty a stout man appeared at the boat wearing a navy windbreaker and jeans and expensive-looking sneakers. He was balding, with curly black hair at the sides, and wore steel aviator-framed sunglasses. He had the air of an athlete gone to seed, soft around the middle but stocky, thick-limbed in ways that could be muscle as much as flab. He looked to be in his forties, and with his pasty complexion, he didn’t look much like a sportsman.

“You’re not Captain Lyle,” the man said.

“My name is Grant Anderson,” Grant said, “and I’m filling in for Captain Lyle, who’s sick today.”

“All right, Captain Grant,” the man said. “My name is Frederick Newman.” He had a little tic, the cheek below his left eye twitching every so often. He was studying his phone.

“We’re waiting for your wife, is that right?” Grant said.

“No, my wife is not coming,” said Newman. “She’s under the weather. She won’t be fishing with us this morning.” He had the barest hint of an accent, which Grant couldn’t quite place, but it made him nervous.

“So it’s just you?”

“Right.” Newman’s cheek twitched, and he resumed studying his phone. “I’m good to go, Captain Grant.”

Grant gave the man a version of Lyle’s introductory spiel, Newman nodding impatiently throughout as if he’d heard it all before. Probably he had. Grant said he just wanted to make sure he had a good time. He showed the man all the gear, explained about the wire line. Newman kept nodding.

He wanted to catch striped bass, he said; bluefish was too fishy to eat. Grant told him the secret to cooking bluefish was to soak it in milk for a half hour. Newman didn’t care; he wanted striper. Then he said, “Hey, how about we go shark fishing? Use the speargun?” His cheek twitched.

“We’d better not.” Shark fishing destroyed a lot of equipment. Captain Lyle wouldn’t be happy about it. Grant knew Lyle used a speargun recreationally for striper or bluefish or flounder fishing once in a while. It was a powerhead speargun, a .44 magnum. Good protection against sharks. When Lyle fished for tuna, he used his speargun to kill sharks that tried to steal his yellowfin.

Grant returned to the pilothouse, the enclosure that allows you to stay out of rain or direct sunlight, and took the wheel. They steamed out to a cove where there was a big drop-off. TheSuzanne Bwasn’t fast, could go maybe thirteen or fourteen knots, but she was a good, sturdy boat. Mackerel swam around the edge and top of the sandbar, around thirty feet down. And striped bass loved mackerel.

Grant throttled the engine down, slowing the speed to two knots. Now they were over a school of fish, according to his fish finder. No other vessels were in view. Newman was sitting on a deck chair, examining Lyle’s speargun. “I went shark hunting with this famous guy out of Miami once,” he said. “That was awesome.”

“Be careful with that thing,” Grant said. Threaded onto the end of the speargun was a .44 magnum bang stick, a smooth stainless-steel screw-on cylinder that held a cartridge.

Newman was studying him. “You know, you look familiar,” he said, setting the speargun down on the deck. “You always had a beard?”

“Oh, yeah,” Grant said, attempting to sound casual, but his heart was drumming. “Long before it was cool.” He was pretty sure now that Newman’s very slight accent was Slavic. An eel of unease squirmed in Grant’s belly. It had been years since he’d heard a Russian accent. Newman’s fluent English had the flat Americana’s of an émigré who’d spent most of his adolescence in the United States. Probably came to the U.S. as a teenager.

Frederick Newman shook his head. He was speaking to Grant in a low voice, but Grant could barely hear him over the thrum and whine of theSuzanne B’s engine.

“Excuse me?” Grant said.

Newman raised his voice. “You must have known this day would come, Paul,” he said calmly.

Grant’s stomach caved in on itself. He was looking at Newman’s face, at the eyes behind those aviators. They were intent, alert, almost the eyes of someone playing a video game, neither cruel nor kind. Grant expected that tic to return, but Newman’s face was absolutely placid.

“I’m afraid you’ve got the wrong person, Mr. Newman. I’m Grant Anderson.”

“You know, Paul, everyone dies one day. With me, it’s different. Clean, quick, no suffering.”

Grant caught the quick flash of gunmetal. The man’s right hand. Something had taken hold of Grant, something icy and willful and deliberate. His heart was racing, and he felt the first prickles of sweat on the nape of his neck. He didn’t know what to do.

“You’ll need to pilot the boat out another seven miles or so,” Newman said, “so we’re catching the Labrador Current. Best to have no body washing ashore.”

“But you’re making a mistake,” Grant said. With a calm, slow motion, he took out his wallet and drew close to Newman. “I told you, you have the wrong man. Here, let me show you my captain’s license.” He opened his wallet to his driver’s license and displayed it, holding it too close to Newman’s face. He had no captain’s license. “See, you’ve got me confused with someone else.”

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