Page 107 of The Oligarch's Daughter

“You do?”

“She was a front for Moscow.”

“Jesus. So Arkady Galkin is a money manager for the Kremlin,” Paul said, as much to himself as to Addison.

“Exactly.”

“So what is Phantom?”

Addison startled. “Where did you come across that name?”

“It’s in the KYC forms—the ‘Know Your Customer’ documents. Beneficial owner in every case was something or someone called Phantom.”

“That was in there?”

Paul nodded. “What is it?”

“That’s what I need you to find out. Anything you can. Anything in Galkin’s files.”

Paul shook his head. “I think I’m done here.”

“Almost. Not quite.”

“Don’t I have a choice? Are you going to push me so hard that they finally catch me?”

“You need to take another deep dive into Galkin’s files. You know, do your due diligence. Find out what you can about Phantom.”

“Shit.”

Addison tented his fingers and leaned back slyly. “So I hear you have a name. ‘Ludmilla.’ A fine old-fashioned name.”

Paul just nodded, waited. Addison was studying his face.

“There were five Ludmillas on the faculty of the Bauman Institute when Galkin was a student there,” Addison said.

Now Paul smiled. Some junior FBI research associate had done grunt work.

“What will it take for you to give us her complete name, or as much of it as you have? I think we’ve been pretty transparent with you and very reasonable.”

“And I think you know what I want.”

Flatly, Addison said, “You want your wife shielded from our efforts.”

Paul nodded again.

“She’s quite central to our case, that’s the problem, Paul.”

“That’syourproblem. You already agreed to it. I want it in writing.”

A long moment passed. Paul listened to traffic noise from the street. Finally, Addison said, “Would a handshake do? We’re both men of honor.”

Paul looked at him hard. “What if something happens to you?”

“I’m a survivor of a lot of knife fights, Paul.”

69

Up till now, he had almost bought into the myth of Arkady Galkin, the self-made man who’d built his fortune over the years steadily, maybe ruthlessly, but on his own.

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