Page 86 of The Oligarch's Daughter

“What am I supposed to do about it?”

“Did you tell someone you were going to GUM?”

“No.”

“Take the nearest exit to the street. It’ll be on your right. Don’t hang up.”

He put in the AirPods.

57

Who was following him? Everyone, it seemed, was watching him. Everyone could be. That car idling by the curb whose middle-aged driver was staring at him? The teenage girls walking next to him on the sidewalk, glancing over and giggling? Well, maybe not them. But the lone older man in a T-shirt with a backpack and ear buds in, a few paces behind? Or the young guy holding his phone in front of him and talking into it? Muscovites didn’t look the way he’d expected. He didn’t see many old grandmothers,babushki, with scarves over their heads. It was a chilly morning, but he didn’t see many fur hats, either. Maybe they were out of season. A lot of smokers, though, more than on the streets of New York.

The man on the other end of the phone began to speak again. “I want you to stop in front of the souvenir shop on your left and look down at your phone.”

Paul did as he was told, and as he stood with his back against the plate glass, he saw a couple of burly men pass by and glance at him. Weretheythe tail? They kept going without glancing again. So maybe not.

He noticed surveillance cameras on the street, mounted to the sides of buildings and to lampposts. Addison had told him there were more than a quarter million CCTV cameras in Moscow powered by facial recognition software. Not as many as in London, not yet. Nor as in China. But Moscow was racing to catch up. Surveillance cameras were used to identify protesters and journalists.

“Now what?” Paul said into the phone.

“Go to Yandex and order a cab.”

“Yandex?”

“The app’s been preloaded onto your phone under a false name and a different credit card. It’s a cab-hailing service. Order a cab to meet you in front of the Hotel Metropol in twenty minutes. Your name is Robert Langfitt.”

“Where am I going?”

“To meet me. We want to make sure you’re not followed, obviously. Just follow my instructions, and everything will be fine.”

“Okay.” Paul checked his new phone and found the app, called Yandex Go, and opened it. The language was already set to English. He fumbled around for a few moments until he figured out how to call for a cab and then put in the desired location. “Done,” he said.

“Okay. Now, when you get to the end of this block, I want you to take a sharp left and then enter the building on the corner. It’s a small boutique hotel. See it?”

He spotted a graceful art nouveau building on the corner and entered it. Inside was a bright, surprisingly modern lobby furnished in bold purples and pinks. The air was delicately perfumed. Loud electronic dance music was playing. He glanced back, didn’t see anyone who looked like they’d followed him inside.

“Head to the front desk and give them the ticket.”

“Ticket?”

“It’s in your pocket. A claim check.”

He reached into the same jacket pocket where he’d found the iPhone, and sure enough, there was a paper stub with numbers printed on it in red. At the front desk was a stylish young woman with short brown hair and a lot of makeup on, teased eyebrows and full red lips. She smiled at him, must have instantly assessed him as a foreigner, and said in English, “May I help you?”

“Good morning,” he said, handing her the stub.

“One moment, please.”

She disappeared into the back and returned a minute later with a black nylon carry-on case. She wheeled it around the end of the counter. “Thank you for staying with us, Mr. Langfitt.”

“Thanks,” he said. How, he wondered, did she know his cover name? In his ear, the voice said, “There’s a men’s room behind the front desk. Take the suitcase with you and change into the clothes we’ve provided. Hang up now, but call me back when you’ve changed.”

“Okay.”

Change clothes? This was crazy. He was an American businessman in Moscow, accompanying a Russian oligarch. But maybe it was inevitable that the Russian authorities wanted to keep close tabs on him. Or maybe it was Galkin’s people. If he was indeed being followed, as this disembodied voice claimed, it wouldn’t be that surprising.

Yet, if he was seen meeting with a known FBI agent, he was screwed. Addison had told Paul that the FBI had special agents stationed in Moscow, in the American embassy, as legal attachés. That the FSB would recognize all FBI special agents working in Moscow. So this particular agent was right to be careful.

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