Page 178 of The Oligarch's Daughter

“We just go with it, okay?” Trombley said. “For every single event, there’s a hundred narratives. I suggest you climb aboard mine.” She looked right at him, her tone direct. Not confrontational, but blunt. She wasn’t joking around.

“Fine,” Paul said, happy to leave all that bureaucratic bullshit behind.

“And that’s where it ends,” she said. “But you know . . . Look, I’m sorry to say this, but if you ever say a word of this—either one of you—we’re going to come after you.” Now she was looking at Tatyana, who was close enough to overhear everything she said.

“‘Come after us’?” Paul glanced briefly at Tatyana, then turned back to Trombley. “I know you’re just crossing yourt’s, so I’ll try not to take offense at your hard-ass tone. If your message here is that this time capsule needs to be buried, and deep? I get it.”

“Appreciate that, obviously,” Trombley said. “As to all your other stuff?” She was referring to the willful retention of national security information charges as well as the identity theft charges arising from Paul’s using Grant Anderson’s Social Security number for five years. “Those charges have all been dismissed. You should be fine now.”

He nodded his head to acknowledge his gratitude.

“So—what’s next, Paul?” Trombley asked. “You going back to your old life, make a bundle on Wall Street? You can do it.”

“No, I don’t think so,” he said. “Tatyana and I prefer a simpler life. Turns out I’m happiest when I’m working with my hands.”

Tatyana smiled at his last remark. She took his arm, held his hand. “By which he means, building boats for rich people.” Tatyana had moved into Paul’s farmhouse in Derryfield. “I don’t have any money, really, anymore,” he’d told her one evening around the kitchen table. “Neither do I” was all she’d said.

“So you guys setting sail?” Trombley asked.

“This very minute—in fact, could you help out and uncleat the bow line?” Paul said, untying the line at the stern of the boat and tossing it onto the dock.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Trombley said.

Paul pointed. She untied the line and threw it onto the bow.

They pulled away from the pier, sails luffing, until Tatyana turned the boat to windward and the sails filled, not a wrinkle. The boat heeled, leaned over into the water, and they were under way. She was a good sailor. Trombley waved goodbye from the pier.

Tatyana was sitting on the leeward side, her hand on the tiller. She was watching the sails, gauging the wind. “Man the sheet, Paul, okay?” she said.

He pulled the sail in, and they heeled a bit, but not uncomfortably.

She patted the deck. “Come sit next to me,” she said. This was her boat, and she was in charge.

Now they were cruising. Paul felt the breeze at his back, the sunlight on his face. They were going the same speed as the wind. The sunlight sparkled on the water. Everything had gone wonderfully silent. There was a stillness, being in nature and being one with it. They were cooperating with the wind, they were one with the wind, and it was blissful and quiet.

“Where are we going, anyway, Pasha?”

Paul shrugged, smiled. “Wherever you want,” he said.