Page 85 of The Oligarch's Daughter

“Oh, yeah?”

“Sure. You’re trying to impress the big man. But you’re in a little over your head, aren’t you? You don’t know the lay of the land. And I can help.”

“I didn’t ask for your help.”

“Let me tell you a few things that might be very useful to you, something you can’t get on your Bloomberg terminal. You’re looking to buy a stake in a Russian paper company called Hyperion—‘Giperion,’ as the Russians call it.”

Paul was surprised the man knew that one of the companies AGF was looking at was a huge pulp and paper mill in Siberia. “What about it?”

“Well, for years they’ve been pumping toxic waste into Lake Baikal. Which you may know is the largest freshwater lake in the world. And they were just shut down by a regional Siberian court. You don’t want to own the biggest polluter in Russia. Not to mention, any equity stake you take in this company is going to come with a bloodbath of red ink. That company is what Russians call a bear trap. Don’t take my word for it. Do the research yourself.”

“So why are you telling me all this?”

“I’m establishing my bona fides.”

“Meaning you want something from me.”

“Of course I do. I can help you, and I suspect you can help me. I want to know who he’s meeting with in Moscow. I don’t mean you, the junior lackeys. I mean the great man himself.”

“That I can’t tell you, because I don’t know.”

“But you’re a smart young man and, in this instance, well connected. You can find out.”

“I don’t think I can help you. I know what I know, and I know what I don’t know.” Paul put his drink down onto the wooden bar top with a thump. He took out a handful of rubles, but Foley waved them away.

Paul got down from the stool and extended a hand. The men shook, and Foley said with a smile, wriggling his fingers, “All my fingers—all there!”

56

The business meeting the next morning was as pointless as the one the day before had been. Paul and the two other AGF men had gone to the modernist headquarters of Lukoil, a Russian energy giant, to explore various investment opportunities. They discussed a couple of deals, including selling Lukoil’s refinery in Sicily. But it was all hot air, another time waster.

When the meeting broke up, and they were leaving, Orlov and Matlovsky invited Paul to join them for lunch at the White Rabbit, a Michelin-starred restaurant with a panoramic view of the city. But Paul had other plans. He told them he was going to meet up with his wife. He returned to the hotel to check in with Tatyana, but she was already gone. She’d left a note saying she was meeting her mother for lunch at Café Pushkin.

Paul came out the front entrance to the hotel, where he saw a cluster of black luxury vehicles—a Bentley, a Range Rover, a Mercedes S-Class. The Bentley rolled down its driver’s-side window and a voice called out, “Meester Bright-man!”

His driver: a rotund young man with greasy black hair.

“Thanks, but I’m going for a walk,” Paul told the man. “I’ll be back in about an hour.Spasibo.” Thank you.

He wished he had his iPhone with him to help him navigate, but he’d left it in his room, as Addison had instructed. He’d brought with him a small map of central Moscow he’d gotten at the front desk. The hotel was near Revolution Square and GUM, the famous Russian department store where he’d been directed to go.

So was he being followed?

He’d have to assume so, even though he didn’t see anyone walking behind him.

Addison had told him that too many foreigners came to Moscow these days for the FSB to follow them all. There weren’t enough FSB agents. Plus, there were surveillance cameras everywhere, in this new Moscow.

GUM—the initials in Russian mean “main universal store”—was an enormous, handsome structure built in the nineteenth century in the Russian Revival style, with an arched entrance, white and pale yellow. It was directly across from Red Square. Inside was a shopping arcade consisting of three levels of walkways and a glass roof and bustling with people speaking all kinds of languages—French, Italian, Japanese, Russian, and English.

It was elegant, nicer than a lot of high-end shopping malls Paul had seen elsewhere. It was also crowded. He saw Prada and Louis Vuitton and all the brands you’d expect to see. Famous-in-Moscow restaurants like Canteen No. 57 and Beluga Caviar Bar. In the crowd in front of the Burberry boutique, he was jostled by someone, a young woman, who apologized in Russian. When he entered the boutique, a phone began ringing. He was startled to realize the ringing was coming from his own coat pocket.

He reached inside his pocket and found an iPhone identical to his own and a little white AirPods case.

The woman he’d bumped into.

He answered the phone.

“You have a tail,” a man’s voice said. He had an American accent.

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