Page 96 of The Oligarch's Daughter

“I did what I thought was best for everyone.”

“How? What did you do for him?”

“No, no. Welet himmake his fortune. Let him take over distressed assets. Cut through the miles of red tape. Gave him the chance to get rich. He was smart enough to amass his own fortune. As long as the Russian bureaucracy stayed out of his way.”

“So now . . .” Paul faltered. “Not sure I get this. Is he independent? Or is he controlled by the Kremlin?”

“All these oligarchs, they’re marionettes. Marionettes with their own bank accounts.”

“And the Kremlin’s pulling the strings.” Paul thought of what Galkin had said at dinner at the Aragvi:A puppet thinks he is free if he loves his strings.

“As for who pulling strings,” Ludmilla continued, “that’s where things get complicated.”

Paul paused. “Does that mean you’re still connected to the Kremlin?”

She shrugged. “Look at me. You think I am still part of government now?”

He nodded that he got it, didn’t reply.

“We were all squeezed out years ago. And I? I am thrown away like so much garbage. Look how I live.”

“Butwhothrew you away?”

She shrugged again.

Paul shook his head. “Galkin must know you’re in desperate straits, but he doesn’t support you?”

Her eyes flashed. “He wants nothing to do with me.”

“Why not?”

Another shrug. “Maybe he wants everybody to think he became a rich man because of his genius. He doesn’t want anybody to know he got help.”

“Or that he’s two-faced.”

“Two-faced? Count again!”

“Huh?”

“For a thousand years Russia has had an imperial court in one form or another. And everyone interested in power in this court develops at leastthreefaces.” She held up one finger after another as she said, “The face you turn to the empress. The face you show your peers. And the face that confronts you in the mirror.”

“Ah,” he nodded.

Wagging a crooked forefinger, Ludmilla said quietly, “The moment you think you have it all figured out is when you learn how dead wrong you are.”

Paul nodded, and said, “Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery, or whatever the Churchill quote is.” One of his Russian teachers at Reed liked to quote that.

She shook her head. “No riddle. You Americans, you believe in brute force. We believe in innuendo and disinformation and a slick of poison on the doorknob. And now you have a new prime minister in England named Boris!”

Her phone rang. It was an old-fashioned black rotary dial phone like you’d see in the United States in the last century. She reached for it and after just a second or two of fumbling was able to grasp the receiver in her hand.

“Allo!” She listened. Spoke in rapid Russian, then hung up.

“You were followed here?” she said with alarm.

Paul’s stomach dropped. “I don’t know. I can’t be certain, but I didn’t think so. Why do you—?”

“The FSB is coming. Not regular police. I have friend in FSB.”

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