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The rest of the weekend passed quickly, a succession of meals ever grander and more impressive, costly wines and champagnes. Paul and Tatyana didn’t talk much, and when they did, she felt far away. By the time they got out of the helicopter at the East Thirty-Fourth Street Heliport, he was ready to come home.

They arrived at Tatyana’s old apartment, and Paul knew at once that something was wrong. To begin with, their welcome mat had been turned upside down.

“What is this?” Tatyana said.

“Strange,” Paul said but didn’t elaborate. Maybe it was nothing. Kids in the neighborhood pulled random pranks. People stole Amazon packages from people’s front doors.

He keyed open the door, and Tatyana entered. Meanwhile, Paul felt on top of the door for the little strand of dental floss he’d left there.

It was gone.

Before leaving, without telling her, he’d put a few little telltale items in various places. Like spies do in the movies. So he would know if someone had been there while they were gone. Their lock was easy to pick.

He hoisted their suitcases and brought them into the foyer. She carried Pushkin in his carry case.

“Did you leave the lights on?” he asked her.

“Definitely not. I remember turning them off. You must have.”

He didn’t reply. He knew he hadn’t left the lights on. Someone had been here and wanted him to know it.

His heartbeat thumped in his ears.

He went into the bathroom next to their bedroom and noticed right away that his razor blade had changed places with his shaving cream. The intruders had deliberately made their work obvious.

He emerged from the bathroom and went to the kitchen while Tatyana wheeled her suitcase into the bedroom. He pulled out a screwdriver from the junk drawer, returned to the bathroom, and locked the door behind him. He switched off the wall sconce to the left of the mirror.

Holding his breath, he unscrewed the backplate. He found the thumb drive still taped inside the plate. Still there.

He let out a breath. He’d successfully hidden it from them. They hadn’t found it. He congratulated himself: not a bad hiding place after all.

He removed the little device and slipped it into his pocket, then screwed the sconce backplate back on.

Tatyana knocked on the bathroom door. “Can I come in to take a shower?”

“Sure,” he said.

While she took her shower, he opened his laptop and inserted the thumb drive. Only a white X over a red circle appeared on the screen, and a few lines of text:

OSError: The volume does not contain a recognized file system. Please make sure that all required file system drivers are loaded and the volume is not corrupted.

The flash drive had been wiped clean. Before, it had been gobbledygook. Now even the nonsense text was gone.

He suddenly felt short of breath. Someone had indeed found the concealed drive, and they’d erased it.

And put it back.

He texted Special Agent Addison and asked to meet him as soon as possible.

*

While they were getting ready for bed, and Tatyana was removing her makeup, she said, “When do you want to move?”

Her question caught him by surprise: he’d been lost in thought about how this might be one of the last times he’d watch her remove her makeup. About how he’d probably never live with her anymore. He had no choice about this, he was sure. Galkin’s people would get him unless he took off before they had a chance. “Move what?” he said distractedly.

“To the new apartment, silly. Should we wait until this weekend, when you’re free?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“Of course, it might take a while to get a moving truck—I don’t know if anyone’s going to be free this weekend, last minute.”

“We don’t have that much to move,” he said, deciding to play along. If he did decide to leave, it was crucial that it be a surprise to her father.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, what are we moving? I’ve got maybe two suitcases’ worth of clothes in my apartment, and you—you might need a wardrobe trunk for your nicer clothes and that’s it.”

“What about my couch and dining table and chairs?”

“Why don’t we sell them? The new place is already furnished, and your furniture might look funny there.”

He knew he would never live with her in their enormous new apartment.

*

In the middle of the night, his cell phone rang, but he’d left it charging in the living room and didn’t hear it.

*

In the morning, on his way to the bathroom, he snatched his phone from the coffee table and checked it. One missed call. It was from Chad Forrester. He’d left a voice memo.

While he made coffee, he listened to Chad’s message. As he listened, his stomach grew tauter and tauter, and he suddenly didn’t want coffee anymore, didn’t want or need the jolt:

Brightman, I’m so fucked. I’m, like, a dead man. They think I downloaded some top-secret files from, like, the inner sanctum or something, which I definitely did not do. I have no fucking idea what they’re talking about. And, like, they say they have me on video leaving the office at two in the morning last week. Which is bullshit —I was home asleep! And they have audio recordings of me bitching about the firm.

I don’t know what’s going to happen to me, man. I mean, look what they did to Larsen, and if I die of an overdose, you know it’s not true. And you’re next, man. Don’t come into work, man. I saw the security people coming out of your office, and you know what that means, right? I saw them going into Larsen’s office right before they killed him. So, call me, man. Now.

Chad had called at 3:10 a.m.

When Paul called him back, the phone rang and rang and rang.