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Paul’s stomach went tight. Now what the hell did Permafrost want? He couldn’t shake the paranoid suspicion that Mr. Frost always knew what he was up to.

“Why don’t we trade places?” Frost said, getting up and reseating himself in Paul’s visitor chair.

“How can I help you?” Paul said pleasantly.

“Are you a smoker?”

What had Frost seen or heard? “No, but every once in a while I need to get out of the office. Get some fresh air.”

“In a smoking area?”

Paul shrugged. “How can I help you?” he said again.

Frost had an unnerving way of looking directly into your eyes without blinking, lizard-like, and without looking away, as if he were interrogating you under klieg lights. “The U.S. Navy is planning to build ten new destroyers,” he said. “Five defense firms are bidding. The usual suspects. We’d like you to buy call options on BAE Systems and buy put options on the others.”

So, a gamble , Paul thought. “How big an investment?”

“Fifty million dollars, all in.”

“BAE Systems is a British company,” Paul said. “Doesn’t seem likely that a British firm would beat an American firm on a U.S. Navy contract.”

Frost smiled, one of his rare smiles. “Nevertheless, our prediction is that BAE will prevail, and we’re comfortable with the risk.”

“What’s the logic?”

Frost paused, his smile fading. “The logic is because Mr. Galkin says so.” He shrugged and got up. “Oh, and congratulations on your wedding.”

After Mr. Frost left, Paul checked his email and then all the usual databases. The coverage all said that the likely winner of the contract would be a General Dynamics subsidiary, Bath Iron Works. The other bidders included Huntington Ingalls, Fincantieri, and Austal USA. If Galkin and Mr. Frost were spinning the roulette wheel, they were probably going to lose.

Unless they knew something they shouldn’t.