Page 174 of The Oligarch's Daughter

Now Paul turned to Galkin, whose face was flushed. The former oligarch looked enraged. “You see, she’s not your ally anymore,” Paul said. “She’s your enemy. She could put you and your whole family in peril. You really want to leave your fate in her hands? It’s like you said, a puppet is free as long as he loves his strings!This is your chance to cut your strings.”

Paul looked at Dempsey, trying to gauge her reaction, then noticed, in his peripheral vision, a quick, dark furtive movement.

Galkin had pulled out a gun and was pointing it directly at Geraldine Dempsey. His case officer. His control. Where had Galkin gotten a weapon? He hadn’t said anything about it.

“Don’t be an idiot,” Dempsey snapped. Paul could see the whites of her eyes in the twilight. She didn’t know what her former asset might do now. “Put that down before you get yourself shot.”

On cue, Shawn, the security agent, obediently raised his own weapon and leveled it at Galkin, and for a moment, there seemed to be a standoff. The man was doing his job, protecting his charge.

Galkin’s gun wavered a bit in his grip. He was pointing it at Dempsey, then at Shawn. Back and forth, his expression fierce, perhaps a little frightened, too.

Paul recalled Agent Trombley’s words:That’s the CIA’s Security Protective Service . . . former FBI SWAT agents. Maybe Shawn, too, was ex-FBI, he thought. Odds were he was.

So Paul tried again to provoke Dempsey. “How can you live with yourself?” he said to her. “You hired thugs to take out FBI agents. These were colleagues of yours, fighting the good fight, and you had them killed! How could youdothat?”

Shawn, pointing his gun at Galkin, seemed to be listening.

“Oh, please,” Dempsey said. “Spare me your nauseating self-righteousness. Yes, five years ago we had to cauterize a well-intentioned but potentially disastrous inquiry. And because the Phantom project survived, we were able to gain invaluable, policy-shaping intelligence. My colleagues and I send operatives into harm’s way all the time. We never do it lightly. But you can’t protect this country from danger withoutacceptingdanger. The men and women who volunteer to be this nation’s sentinels accept that reality. In this case, the termination of this unit was an utterly tragic decision—and an utterly necessary one.”

Shawn looked at Geraldine Dempsey, lowered his gun, his eyes narrowing. “Madam, what did you say?”

Dempsey’s face flashed with annoyance. But had something just changed in the dynamic between her and her security guard? Galkin continued leveling his gun, now only at Dempsey.

Paul looked at the security officer, and their eyes locked. “Yeah,” Paul said to him. “Extremists like her always imagine they’re in the right. But as soon as human beings, good people, are considered pawns, we’ve lost our way.”

“Shawn, I’m under attack here. Do your job—take them both down,” Dempsey commanded.

The security officer shook his head ever so slightly.

Furiously, Dempsey shouted, “Shawn, take themdown! And you, Galkin—do you think your family isevergoing to be safe? I will cut you all off altogether! You will havenoprotection whatsoever!”

Paul was deafened by an explosion.

But it wasn’t Shawn who had fired. It was Arkady Galkin. He looked stunned at what he’d just done. “I am not puppet!” he shouted.

Geraldine Dempsey’s body twisted and collapsed to the ground, her handbag dropping a few feet away. “God!” she cried out, scrabbling at the earth.

Dempsey appeared to have been shot in the thigh. Galkin raised his gun again and pointed it at her.

Another ear-splitting explosion.

Arkady Galkin’s chest had turned into a terrible bloodied mess. His gun dropped beside him as he crumpled to the ground. Shawn had taken him down.

Galkin was moaning. Paul turned. His former father-in-law was clearly in agony but hadn’t yet died. He gasped, his mouth opening and closing like a fish’s, and then Paul realized that Galkin was trying to say something, looking at Paul the whole time.

Suddenly a squad of FBI agents burst through the trees. A couple of them grabbed Geraldine Dempsey and handcuffed her. She was protesting loudly, indignantly. At the same time, though, she was seriously wounded, so she was placed on a folding stretcher, squawking.

Paul turned and knelt where Galkin lay dying, saw the grotesque slick red mess that was the oligarch’s chest, nearly heard the faint words, barely audible, the whisper low and crackling. Rivulets of blood streaming from the corner of his mouth. He was trying desperately to tell Paul something.

Paul leaned down, his ear close to Galkin’s head, straining to listen. But the oligarch’s mouth had stopped moving. The mouth had gone slack, and it was pretty evident that he was dead. Paul couldn’t help but think he looked at peace.

Epilogue

A Month Later

The cemetery was outside Derryfield, a nondenominational burial ground whose gravestones dated back to the eighteenth century. The funeral for Stanley Brightman was sparsely attended. He hadn’t left many friends. Paul was apprehensive that no one would show up. He was pretty sure Sarah wouldn’t. He didn’t expect her to. That was over. Stan’s body had finally been released by the FBI, after all this time. He was half-expecting the Deacon of the off-gridders, Stephen Lucas, but he didn’t appear. Still, Professor Moss Sweetwater had come from Pittsburgh. So had a childhood friend of Paul’s, a man named Walter Beckley, who’d flown all the way from Bellingham, Washington.

Stanley Brightman had left no instructions for his funeral, so Paul had improvised. He’d brought in a rabbi from Bethlehem, New Hampshire. A rabbi from Bethlehem seemed appropriately nondenominational. Paul’s father had never practiced any religion. He didn’t believe in it.