Page 55 of The Oligarch's Daughter

He passed a tiny stream; it was somewhat engorged because of the rain. Flowing water was at least safer to drink than standing. He took out the aluminum cup from his bag and knelt beside the stream and scooped up some water. He swigged it down gratefully, scooped up another cupful and drank that down, too.

Then he tilted his head and listened. After a while, he thought he heard faint voices. He focused his attention, tried to determine whether they were coming closer or moving farther away. They weren’t getting quieter. They were coming this way.

He picked up a roughly ten-inch stick and drove it into the ground. Another trick to determine direction. But the sky was too cloudy: the stick didn’t cast a shadow. Now what? You were supposed to put a pebble at the tip of the shadow the stick cast, wait until the shadow had discernibly moved, then place another pebble at the tip of the shadow, that much he remembered. But then what? That he didn’t remember. And without a shadow, the trick wouldn’t work anyway.

There was another way to tell direction, using a leaf floating in a puddle of water. But he didn’t remember how.

Let’s see. Moss grows on the north side of the tree, or is that one of those rules that doesn’t always hold true? Or he could find Polaris, the North Star, on the handle of the Little Dipper, but he’d have to wait until dark to do that. And when the skies were clear again.

Finding north, his father would say, was one of the most important skills to master, along with purifying water and making a fire. It was important, surely, but he hadn’t paid much attention, and as a result, he’d screwed it up.You’re doing it wrong.

Still no cell signal out here, so he couldn’t use the phone’s GPS. All he could do was keep moving and hope that he was moving west. Later, when he saw the sun dipping in the west, he could follow that.

The faint voices—were they hikers?—faded as the Russians seemed to move off in another direction.

He had to keep going. He had no way to determine how far he’d gone, in terms of miles. There were no landmarks to help him gauge distance. He knew how much time had passed only because of his watch.

A few minutes later, he heard a helicopter overhead.

PART SIX

MISFIT TOYS

Five Years Earlier

35

When Paul arrived for his first day of work at the new firm, he half-expected to be met by Arkady Galkin himself. Instead, when he introduced himself to the icily beautiful receptionist, she smiled stiffly, nodded, and said, “Let me get Mr. Frost.” Paul had no idea who “Mr. Frost” was. He hadn’t been given an org chart nor told who his colleagues and bosses would be. He knew only that the company was called AGF Limited, a generic-sounding name that stood for Arkady Galkin Finance.

Two minutes later, a tall, bald man appeared in the lobby. He was wearing an expensive suit and dark horn-rimmed glasses. He had a strong brow and a weak mouth, a tall dome of a head and large ears. With a solemn expression, he said, “Mr. Brightman?”

“Paul,” he said, stepping forward and offering his hand. “Nice to meet you.” He had worn a jacket and tie, not sure what the dress code would be. You could always take off your tie.

“Paul, then. I’ve heard much about you. Your reputation precedes you. It’s marvelous to have you here.”

“Thank you. I look forward to it.”

Mr. Frost had a very slight foreign accent, probably Russian, though his surname wasn’t Russian. He had the broad shoulders of an athlete and moved smoothly, like a cat. Walking quickly and fluidly down a plush hall, he brought Paul to his new office.

Paul was introduced to his new administrative assistant, Margo Whitworth, whom he shared with a colleague, Chad Forrester. Margo was an attractive dark-skinned woman with short black hair, shaved on the sides; she was quick-witted and seemed pleasant. Paul liked her at once. Her desk was outside his and Chad’s offices.

Paul’s office wasn’t very big but had a postcard view of the city. On top of a mahogany desk was a three-panel monitor array, a phone, and nothing else. An armoire stood on the left of the room. The desk faced away from the million-dollar view. His first real office.

The entire firm was sumptuous. Cherrywood and granite, subtle lighting, two terraces, a full gym with locker rooms and showers. The break room was outrageous. An automatic German coffee machine that dispensed espressos and cappuccinos. A juice refrigerator with some thirty kinds of juice. A breakfast spread of half-bagels with cream cheese and lox and mini-omelets of various kinds. Fruit bowls (raspberries and fresh-cut pineapple, strawberries, mango, and papaya). The breakfast was cleared away at eleven, when lunch was served. It was like a continuous buffet at the Four Seasons.

Mr. Frost brought Paul to the morning meeting, which was already under way in a conference room filled with twelve people, only two of whom were women. Arkady wasn’t there. The uniform here for the men seemed to be dress shirt, no jacket or tie. Most of the men wore leather sneakers.

During a pause, Mr. Frost introduced Paul to the group. “He comes to us from Aquinnah Capital,” he said. “He’ll be portfolio manager for U.S. equities.”

Paul was introduced quickly to his colleagues—“Ivan Matlovsky, real estate; Chad Forrester, emerging markets; Jake Larsen, venture capital,” and so on, and finally to Nikolai Galkin. Niko was identified as being in “Special Projects,” which probably meant a sinecure: he got paid to do nothing. Paul couldn’t help but wonder if any of them knew about his relationship with the boss’s daughter, but no one said anything.

Mr. Frost brought him next to the large corner office of the boss, Arkady Galkin. (Frost’s office, he saw, was right next door.) Galkin lumbered around from behind his desk. He was wearing a finely cut navy-blue suit and light-blue tie. He broke into rapid-fire Russian, and Mr. Frost replied in Russian just as fluent, sounding like a native.

“I warn you, Paul speaks Russian,” Galkin said in English to Frost.

“Barely,” Paul said.

Mr. Frost excused himself.

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