Page 64 of The Oligarch's Daughter

64

He clambered down the inner stairwell of Ludmilla’s building, down floor after floor, his footsteps echoing in the space. On the ground floor, he looked around quickly for a rear exit, but didn’t find one. There was no one in front of the building, so he chanced it and ran out that way.

He tried to call to mind the map of the Chertanovo District as he ran back the way he came. He saw the statue of the cosmonauts in the small park, saw the Metro entrance, and decided not to go that way. Don’t go the way you came , he directed himself. If the FSB is coming for you, don’t make it easy for them.

They’ve probably come to question me , he thought. To find out who was meeting with Ludmilla Zaitseva. But why? Being publicly critical of the Kremlin would get you arrested in Russia these days, Paul knew. That was a fact. So meeting with someone like her—was that enough to get him arrested?

He didn’t want to find out. But if he were detained, couldn’t he simply call Arkady Galkin? Galkin had to be connected to the top. He could surely make one call and have the whole thing go away.

Still, Paul didn’t want to be taken into custody and questioned. He had to elude the FSB, in a city where he was a novice, in a country where they had their own rules. Heart thudding, he walked past the Metro entrance and crossed busy Chertanov Street. He knew he looked like an American, and there weren’t a lot of them around this remote part of town.

Down Kedrova Street, then a right onto Trade Union Street, crossing the street and striding down the median separating opposing lanes of traffic. He glanced at his watch.

There wasn’t time to call an Uber, so he went to the side of the road and waved his arm. A compact SUV, a black Chevy Niva, pulled over, its tires squealing. A gypsy cab. A rip-off, he knew, but he didn’t have time to do anything else.

Heaving a sigh, Paul sank down in the car’s backseat.

The driver, who wore a flat, gray woolen cap, said, “ Kuda? ” “Where are you going?”