Page 56

56

The business meeting the next morning was as pointless as the one the day before had been. Paul and the two other AGF men had gone to the modernist headquarters of Lukoil, a Russian energy giant, to explore various investment opportunities. They discussed a couple of deals, including selling Lukoil’s refinery in Sicily. But it was all hot air, another time waster.

When the meeting broke up, and they were leaving, Orlov and Matlovsky invited Paul to join them for lunch at the White Rabbit, a Michelin-starred restaurant with a panoramic view of the city. But Paul had other plans. He told them he was going to meet up with his wife. He returned to the hotel to check in with Tatyana, but she was already gone. She’d left a note saying she was meeting her mother for lunch at Café Pushkin.

Paul came out the front entrance to the hotel, where he saw a cluster of black luxury vehicles—a Bentley, a Range Rover, a Mercedes S-Class. The Bentley rolled down its driver’s-side window and a voice called out, “Meester Bright-man!”

His driver: a rotund young man with greasy black hair.

“Thanks, but I’m going for a walk,” Paul told the man. “I’ll be back in about an hour. Spasibo .” Thank you.

He wished he had his iPhone with him to help him navigate, but he’d left it in his room, as Addison had instructed. He’d brought with him a small map of central Moscow he’d gotten at the front desk. The hotel was near Revolution Square and GUM, the famous Russian department store where he’d been directed to go.

So was he being followed?

He’d have to assume so, even though he didn’t see anyone walking behind him.

Addison had told him that too many foreigners came to Moscow these days for the FSB to follow them all. There weren’t enough FSB agents. Plus, there were surveillance cameras everywhere, in this new Moscow.

GUM—the initials in Russian mean “main universal store”—was an enormous, handsome structure built in the nineteenth century in the Russian Revival style, with an arched entrance, white and pale yellow. It was directly across from Red Square. Inside was a shopping arcade consisting of three levels of walkways and a glass roof and bustling with people speaking all kinds of languages—French, Italian, Japanese, Russian, and English.

It was elegant, nicer than a lot of high-end shopping malls Paul had seen elsewhere. It was also crowded. He saw Prada and Louis Vuitton and all the brands you’d expect to see. Famous-in-Moscow restaurants like Canteen No. 57 and Beluga Caviar Bar. In the crowd in front of the Burberry boutique, he was jostled by someone, a young woman, who apologized in Russian. When he entered the boutique, a phone began ringing. He was startled to realize the ringing was coming from his own coat pocket.

He reached inside his pocket and found an iPhone identical to his own and a little white AirPods case.

The woman he’d bumped into.

He answered the phone.

“You have a tail,” a man’s voice said. He had an American accent.

“What am I supposed to do about it?”

“Did you tell someone you were going to GUM?”

“No.”

“Take the nearest exit to the street. It’ll be on your right. Don’t hang up.”

He put in the AirPods.