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Arkady Galkin reclined in his leather airplane seat. He was wearing a burgundy polka dot dressing gown and embroidered smoking slippers, and he was smoking a cigar, which was stinking up the whole plane. But it was his plane.

It was a long flight to Moscow. Nine hours from Teterboro. The Gulfstream G650 would fly nonstop to Vnukovo Airport.

Tatyana had brought her best camera, a Leica M11. Paul had never seen her so excited, not even before her gallery opening. Now she was in the front of the plane watching a movie, The Notebook , which she’d seen dozens of times.

Galkin had invited Paul to the back of the plane to join him for dinner. Over steak and a great red wine (a 1989 Pétrus Pomerol), Galkin talked, and Paul listened. Robin, the flight attendant, poured. Paul could get used to wines like this one.

“You never been to Moscow? What you expect?”

“Gray and cold,” Paul said with a wry smile.

“Very American. You listen to propaganda. Watch silly movies, read silly thrillers.” Galkin stabbed an index finger in Tatyana’s direction as he chewed a large mouthful of steak. “Moscow is world-class city now. World-class. Greatest, most fun city in Europe. Sexiest women, best restaurants, best hotels. Better Italian food there than Rome or Milan.”

“So I’ve heard,” Paul said.

“Yes! Streets clean, stores full. Is even naked barbershop. You get hair cut by naked women. Is completely different, Moscow today, than when I was young. When I was boy, I had one pair jeans. My mother constantly—” He mimed sewing.

“Repaired. Darned.”

“Yes. I would save my seven kopecks for ice cream. When I was teenage, friend got Rolling Stone record, and we played it and played it till it was too scratched to play music anymore. You know ‘Let It Bleed’? Now I hire Mick Jagger to play for me.”

“Amazing,” Paul said. It really was.

“Chekhov said, ‘In Moscow, you sit in huge room in restaurant and you don’t know nobody and no one knows you—but you don’t feel a stranger.’”

A little drunk, Paul asked, “Why did you want me on this trip? Obviously not for how well I speak Russian.”

“Is because you are smart. Also, is useful to have American face in meetings.”

Neither Galkin nor Frost, who wasn’t on the trip, had filled Paul in on what exactly the business was in Moscow. It remained a mystery. Maybe his Russian-speaking colleagues knew more. And what meetings was Galkin having? Paul wondered. Fortified by the wine, he asked, “Who are we meeting with?”

“ You are meeting with venture capital funds. I have my own meetings.”

“What sort of meetings do you have lined up?”

Galkin gave him a hard look. “Is personal.” He took a sip of wine and signaled for more.

“Got it,” Paul said, forcing a chuckle.

“Don’t drink tap water in Moscow,” Galkin said sternly, pointing directly at him. “Only bottle.”

*

Paul was a bit woozy from the wine, and he had a headache. He’d been having headaches more and more often, and he knew it wasn’t from the stress at work. Work stress he was used to, after years at Aquinnah. No, it was something else, a tension headache that had started when he’d made a decision that was irrevocable.