Page 176 of The Oligarch's Daughter

“You talked about him a lot.”

She was wearing a long black dress fringed at the hem. He didn’t know if it was vintage or just secondhand. Her situation had changed, but she hadn’t, as far as he could tell. “Speaking of fathers and dying . . .”

There was a long pause. Tatyana took his hand in both of hers. “I think he knew when he pulled out a gun at the CIA safe house what would happen to him. I think he as good as committed suicide. Because the life he knew was gone. He was never going to get it back. He didn’t want to live that way.” Tears were streaming down her face.

“Where’s your family? What’s happening to them?”

“The government has been very good to us. Because of Papa’s service all those years. They offered to resettle us all somewhere under another name in a foreign country, but it turned out to be Paraguay, and Polina put her foot down. That was out of the question. She’s staying in the house on the base.”

“And Niko?”

“He’s here, Pasha. We drove together.”

“What, you rented a car?” He was trying to get a handle on what their life without money looked like. He nodded. In the distance he saw Niko standing next to the handsome black-haired guy he’d noticed before driving Niko’s car.How the hell can he still afford a driver?Paul wondered. Then he saw the man squeeze Niko’s hand, and the penny dropped.

“That’s not Niko’sdriver, is it?” Paul managed to say, astonished.

Tatyana smiled, closed her eyes, shook her head. “My father wasn’t the only one playing a role. He’s much easier to be around now.”

A long pause as Paul processed what he’d just learned. Then he said, “Are you guys all safe? Do they think anyone’s coming after you?”

“Not with Papa dead. That’s who the Russians really cared about. The rest of us, not so much.”

“And you? Where are you living?”

“For now, I’m living with Polina on the base. It’s not ideal, but it’s all I’ve got.”

He looked at her a long time. “Do you like to sail?”

“You know I love the water, Pasha.”

“I don’t mean hanging around a yacht, Tatyana, I meansailing.”

As soon as he said it, he wondered if mentioning her lost world would upset her, but she was smiling at him.

“I know how to sail, Pasha, I had sailing lessons since I was six years old.”

Of course she did, he thought. “Okay, good.”

“Why do you ask?”

Three months later

It had taken him nearly four hundred hours—ten weeks of working full time—but Paul finally built Tatyana the wooden sailboat she wanted, a Herreshoff twelve and a half. A Herreshoff twelve and a half was probably the finest, most elegant sailboat ever made. When she was first designed, by Captain Nathanael Herreshoff in 1914, she was built entirely of wood. Paul found the plans at MIT, including a modification with a centerboard, which would allow Tatyana to sail in shallower water. The boat was made in classic New England style, with oak framing, cedar planking, and teak trim. Sitka spruce for the mast and spars. All bronze fastenings and fittings and hardware, highly polished. A traditional laid-canvas deck. A most elegant boat.

He named her theTatyana, a fact he’d managed to keep hidden from her till the boat’s unveiling. She tried to play it off—she punched his shoulder, called him corny—but there were tears in her eyes. “You done good,” she whispered.

He and Tatyana launched the boat two days later, from the Hamlin Pier, on a perfect spring day.

They checked that everything was secure, that there were no lines hanging off the boat in the water. He made sure the anchor line was nicely coiled, tied to its line well. That the bailing bucket was tied to the mast. He looked up to make sure the line wasn’t tangled in the sail. The bow line and stern line were cleated to the pier. The sails were stiff, new; they’d have to be worked a while.

Paul was checking the lines again when he heard somebody approach.

He looked up and saw Special Agent Stephanie Trombley standing on the pier. She was wearing jeans and sneakers and a blue dress shirt rolled up at the sleeves. He’d never seen her looking so informal.

He felt a pulse of apprehension. “Agent Trombley, what a surprise.”

She nodded and smiled. “Actually, it’s Deputy Assistant Director Trombley now, partly thanks to you.”