Page 94

94

Berzin watched the scene with visible alarm.

“Excuse me a moment,” Paul said to Berzin. He didn’t follow Tatyana into the bedroom. Instead, he turned and left the apartment, his heart hammering. He was in a state of shock as he descended the stairwell.

Tatyana knew something was in the tea and had gone along with it. There was no other explanation. His own wife had betrayed him—worse, had cooperated with Berzin to . . . what? Poison him?

Tatyana had known what Berzin wanted to do.

She had warned him: When it came down to it, she was a Galkin.

Nobody was lurking on East Seventh Street, no vehicles idling, no one apparently waiting for him. He walked down the block to St. Mark’s Place. Maybe Berzin had been telling the truth that he’d come alone. But Paul didn’t believe that. He had to have reinforcements in place, people who were ready to grab Paul if the poisoning scheme didn’t work.

Earlier that day, Paul had bought a disposable phone at a bodega. It took a few minutes to download WhatsApp to the phone and set it up.

Now he turned off his iPhone. He had to assume that Berzin’s people had cloned his phone, that they knew his whereabouts at every moment, from the phone’s GPS. He’d read once about some kind of Israeli software that allowed governments to secretly install spyware on your phone, remotely, enabling them to monitor your calls and track your location.

Yes: he couldn’t use his iPhone anymore.

Then he called Special Agent Addison on WhatsApp. He let it ring and ring until the call went to voicemail. Paul left a message, telling Addison to call back immediately, that it was an emergency.

A few blocks out of St. Mark’s Place, he came to Third Avenue and walked to the Bleecker Street station, where he caught the 6 train and took it to Spring Street. A Black man sitting across the car glanced at him and looked away, the way you try not to look at crazy people on your train who might be provoked by your glance.

Adrenaline was flooding Paul’s system. His heart was knocking. He walked down Lafayette Street a couple of blocks. He looked around, didn’t see anyone obviously following him, but if they were good at what they did, wouldn’t he not see them anyway?

He tried Addison again on his cell phone. It rang five times and then went to voicemail once again.

When he arrived at East Houston Street, he found the narrow white-brick building across from the great deli, the one with the tourist souvenir shop on the street level. The door to the lobby was open. He took the elevator to the fourth floor.

When the elevator stopped and the door opened, he saw the door with the curved retro gold lettering that read KNIGHT blood spattered the walls and the desks, and then there was that terrible smell, the acrid smell of gunfire and the dry, sweet, metallic tang of blood, like a copper penny in your mouth.

He heard sirens.