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At work the next day, Chad stopped by Paul’s office around noon and asked if he wanted to pop out to grab a sandwich. This was so unusual a request—given the spread laid out for them every day, there was no reason to go out for lunch—that Paul immediately understood that Chad wanted to talk. He got up and walked out of the office with him, neither of them speaking. It wasn’t until they exited the lobby that Chad spoke.

“Dude, I’m scared shitless. They’ve been asking around about me. Like, am I a troublemaker.”

The two fell into silence. The sandwich take-out place, called Baguette, was halfway down the block. They joined a long line that looked like ten minutes of waiting. Chad said hello to a guy who was leaving with his sandwich; he was a pudgy, pasty-faced guy with black curly hair and steel-framed glasses and a nervous tic in his left eye. Paul vaguely recognized him as a new associate but couldn’t place the name. He looked around the line, behind them and in front of them. Both sets of people were couples he didn’t recognize engaged in conversation.

Chad looked uncomfortable talking about work with other people so near. The two of them discussed football until they got their sandwiches. Chad found an empty table—the take-out place had four or five small, round high-tops for customers.

“Have you seen the security guys Galkin uses?” Chad finally said.

“Oh, yeah.”

“Those thick-necked bodybuilding guys who love their weapons?”

“I have.”

“They’re ex-KGB or -FSB or -GRU. And I hear the Russian security services recruit sadists. I’ve heard they kill people with flamethrowers.”

“Great.” Was Chad trying to scare the shit out of him? Unfortunately, it was working. “You think one of those guys killed Larsen?”

“Wouldn’t surprise me at all,” Chad said.

Paul remembered Mr. Frost asking about Chad and his “dissatisfaction” with the firm, but decided not to tell Chad. He didn’t know whom to trust.

Paul turned to look out through the plate glass onto the street. Walking past was Andrei Berzin, Galkin’s security director. Berzin turned, peered in. He made eye contact with Paul.

Adrenaline coursed through him. Had Berzin seen him talking with Chad? Maybe so.

Maybe not.

*

“This is a golden opportunity,” said Special Agent Mark Addison. He was wearing another one of his nondescript gray suits with a nondescript blue tie. The normally phlegmatic Addison was more excited than Paul had ever seen him. The two were sitting in a coffee shop a few blocks from Grand Central, a short walk from Paul’s office. It was a crunchy sort of place—brick walls, battered leather sofas, Latin music on the playlist.

“Opportunity for what?” Paul asked.

Addison lowered his voice. “Galkin sails with family and close friends and certain business associates, and we want to know who. Names, nationality, passport numbers, port of embarkation, all that.”

“How the hell am I supposed to get passport numbers?”

“They’ll be on the ship’s manifest. Maybe IMO Form 98. Or the IMO FAL Form. And take note of names when you meet people.”

Paul exhaled. “How am I supposed to get the ship’s manifest?”

“It’s always on file in the captain’s office, and it’s often posted around. You’ll find a way.”

“Is there security on the boat?”

“Nothing like at his office. Because his passengers are his friends, and he trusts them.”

“I don’t think Arkady trusts anyone.”

“He’s starting to trust you.”

“I think he did, for a while. But then I went to his institute in Moscow, and I took a trip upstate to the offsite files, and . . . his people suspect me, and I can tell he’s wary of me. I feel like something’s changed.”

Addison didn’t say anything.

“So what is Phantom, do you think?” Paul said. He’d handed Addison the little silver object when he arrived, and the agent now palmed it like a magician doing legerdemain.

“We’ll see when we examine the flash drive. But our working theory is that ‘Phantom’ is the code name for the entity that sent all that money to Galkin. This little doodad might well contain all the financial records. It’s like gene sequencing—it will likely reveal the actual origin of the funds.”

“If there’s anything on it,” Paul said. He wondered if it was okay for him to admit that he’d inserted the drive and looked at it, that it was all garbage text, or so it seemed. Or that he had made a copy. He decided against it.

He changed tack. “Let me ask you something . . .” he began.

He’d once heard from his uncle Thomas that hundreds of seafarers went missing every year and were never heard from again. Dozens of people went missing from cruises. If you want to kill someone , Uncle Thomas had said, do it on the high seas . Under maritime law, he explained to Paul, you’re not required to report a murder you witness aboard a ship. Turns out, prosecuting crimes committed at sea is extremely difficult. It’s often unclear who has jurisdiction when you’re in international waters. Governments may occasionally attempt to investigate, but their chief motivation is always to clear their names. That’s why bodies tend to disappear at sea.

“Yes?” Addison said.

There was a long pause while Paul’s mind revved with paranoia. But this line of thinking seemed so farfetched, so implausible and fantastical, that he decided to keep it to himself. “Nothing. Never mind,” he said.