Page 171 of The Oligarch's Daughter

“What happened?”

“War. Now nobody in Kremlin trust nobody.”

“So you’re useless to the CIA?”

“Correct. They say I am”—he smiled, said the words slowly—“‘notviable’ no more. So, for three, four years, we live as prisoners on naval base.”

“All your money,” Paul said carefully, “wasn’t yours?”

“Wasn’t mine? I invest! I build! I turn a few billion into many billions.”

“But the original infusion of cash that set you up in business in the first place—”

“Ach.” Galkin waved a hand in the air dismissively.

“That woman I met in Moscow—you know, the blind old woman, Ludmilla Zaitseva—was a CIA asset. She recruited you. She helped channel money from the CIA, is that right?” Paul flashed on Ludmilla’s cryptic words:The moment you think you have it all figured out is when you learn how dead wrong you are. And then:As for who pulling strings, that’s where things get complicated.

That had puzzled him, until now.

Galkin shrugged. “Who is CIA, who is KGB, all this I can’t keep track.”

“Okay.” Paul thought for a moment. “But you still know how to reach your handler. Your case officer. You have her email.”

He shook his head. “All channels closed. I am done now.”

“What about in an emergency? Like if your life is threatened?”

“Yes, yes, there is way. I send up flare.”

“Now, where did you used to meet with Dempsey?”

“Hotels, mostly. Sometimes safe house.”

“Where?”

“New York, Washington.”

“Safe house in D.C.?”

“Yes. Near. So?”

113

Brightman had had a thriller reader’s notion of a CIA safe house, a capacious but discreet redbrick Georgian mansion in the tony Virginia suburbs with landscaped property. Instead, the safe house where Arkady Galkin had several times met Geraldine Dempsey was a humble single-story ranch-style house in the woods of Cabin John, Maryland. White-painted clapboard, faded red shutters, a set of gray-painted concrete steps in front. The cedar shingle roof was stained from the trees overhanging it. A couple of white concrete planters in front, with flowers that looked ignored. The house was surrounded by forest: a cabin in the woods, at the end of a long dirt road. It was entirely private, no neighbors, no one to observe the comings and goings.

Galkin showed up nearly half an hour late wearing a blue blazer and a tie. He’d dressed up for the occasion, Paul noticed.

“You sure this is it?” Paul asked.

“Absolutely. Is rented house. Government always cheap.”

“How do you get in?”

“Is easy.” Galkin found a lockbox hanging from the porch railing, pushed four buttons, and popped it open. Inside was the key. All very low-tech.

“The CIA must trust you,” Paul said.

“Once they did.”