Page 72 of The Oligarch's Daughter

What was Chad saying—that Larsen had beenkilled? That his overdose was staged? And by whom—by someone in Galkin’s orbit, like the security director, Berzin? That seemed a preposterous allegation. Paul had seen a Tom Cruise movie where his character goes to work for a law firm that seems too good to be true, only to discover that anyone who steps out of line turns up dead. Was that sort of thing happening here—disenchanted employees getting murdered? Instead of just being fired?

Chad pursed his lips in a crooked smile. “Like they say, no one is indispensable.”

The sidewalk tilted under Paul’s feet. It took him a moment to steady himself. Then he cleared his throat and said, “I should get back inside.”

When he returned to his office, he found Mr. Frost sitting behind his desk.

PART SEVEN

TRAIL ANGELS

Present Day

45

Maybe the helicopter overhead had nothing to do with him.

But what if it did? What if Berzin had hired people to search the vast wilderness from above, for a lone man on the run? He’d probably use the pretext that they were searching for a lost hiker.

The helicopter’s din, the whapping, roaring noise, remained constant. The helicopter was directly above.

He had to avoid any open areas, where the searchers would definitely spot him. If he remained in the densely wooded parts of the forest, they wouldn’t see him. He’d be the proverbial needle in the haystack.

And what if the searchers in the helicopter were using an infrared technology that would allow them to look for heat given off by a living creature? He’d read enough newspaper articles about searches using infrared. With such technology, you could even see someone, from a helicopter above, hiding inside a house.

So he had to hide. Conceal, obscure his heat signature. But how the hell to do that? Somehow he had to get into a shelter of sorts where his body heat wouldn’t be detectable. He didn’t have time to build one. A cave would be ideal. Or a cleft between boulders like the one he’d recently taken shelter in, but that was probably miles behind him.

He needed to hidenow.

Then he remembered his space blanket. The emergency Mylar covering, which resembled a giant sheet of very thin aluminum foil. Maybe it would block the infrared signature. He’d read somewhere about a search-and-rescue in the forests of New Hampshire that failed because the lost hiker was covered in a space blanket.

Paul got the Mylar blanket out of the go-bag, where it was crumpled into a loose ball. Impossible to fold. He quickly collected a pile of leaves and twigs and downed branches. He spotted, ten or so feet away, two scrub pines that had grown close together, with branches low to the ground. He tossed the Mylar blanket on top of the lower branches so it acted like a tarp, a canopy. Foil side down, so it wouldn’t flash and glint in the sun and attract attention. On top of the blanket, he scattered the twigs and leaves as camouflage. Then he dove under the blanket, lying flat on the damp ground. Between his body and the Mylar was around a foot of air. He figured this would further block his heat signature, prevent heat transfer, and make him less visible from above. Of course, this was all speculation, a theory. He didn’t know if it would work in practice. If he’d even remembered it correctly.

From the whumping of the helicopter, he determined that the aircraft was still overhead, hovering.

Had he been detected?

He breathed in and out slowly, to steady his nerves. His heartbeat pounding in his ears.

He waited . . .

Closed his eyes like a kid playing hide-and-seek who imagined that closing your eyes meant the seeker couldn’t see you, that you, magically, could never be found.

Gradually, the helicopter racket diminished, and soon it was apparent the chopper had moved on.

But he stayed in position, under the Mylar-and-leaves canopy, and waited. And pondered.

*

A few months after he became Grant Anderson, he saw aNew York Timespiece online about the disappearance of the young American husband of an oligarch’s daughter. There was speculation that the husband had been killed, but so far, investigations had turned up nothing. After a flurry of interest in the lurid story—did a Russian oligarch have his American son-in-law killed?—there was a gradual fading of interest. As far as he knew, there was never any follow-up.

In the meantime, he became Grant Anderson. A less-than-prosperous but talented boatbuilder, a good and helpful neighbor who volunteered at the town’s one church, modest and reclusive but well liked. A good citizen of Derryfield.

In his first year of being Grant, he was beset by worries. He would see someone and think he recognized them; he was constantly afraid the Russians would track him down. But he was disciplined. He lived his Grant life, making friends, working for Mr. Casey and then, after Mr. Casey’s death, continuing his business. Casey, who had no children, had left the business to him.

He never called anyone from his Paul Brightman life. He’d left behind his old friends, even Rick. And now, this made-up Grant Anderson was going to disappear, too, shrink into nothingness.

Years before, while Grant, he had concocted a plan in case he needed to go on the run again. There was a powerful, well-connected senior statesman he knew, Ambassador John R. Gillette. The father of J.R. Gillette, a Reed College classmate of his and Rick’s. The kid was troubled, but the father had always liked Paul. Paul felt Gillette would help him, if it ever came to it.

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