Джозеф Файндер - Judgment

So far no one had called her out, no one had asked her to repeat her name, no one had checked a list to find she wasn’t there. Everyone assumed she was there because she was supposed to be there. Look like you belong and you’ll fit right in, Rosalind Brody used to say.

A waitress in a short black dress offered her caviar and crème fraîche tartlets on a tray. She shook her head. Didn’t seem like breakfast food, and she didn’t care for caviar anyway.

Then she saw, across the room, a handsome blond woman with a hard face who had to be Olga Kuznetsova, the FSB colonel. Kuznetsova was wearing a navy blazer over a white blouse, a pantsuit. A heavy gold chain necklace. She was talking with the pretty Asian girl, who seemed to be telling her something. Olga was shaking her head, scowling, clearly the boss.

Olga then turned around and moved shark-like through the crowd until she reached a couple of men talking. Juliana saw it was the man himself, talking to Senator Hugh Comstock of Illinois.

Yuri Protasov was surprisingly short, or maybe he just looked short next to Comstock. He was a virile-looking man in his midfifties, rugged. Graying sandy hair, a closely trimmed salt-and-pepper beard, a heavy brow. He wore an elegant dove-gray suit, a crisp white shirt, a maroon tie. He laughed at something the senator said, displaying very white capped teeth.

She saw Olga sidle up to Protasov and whisper something. She looked angry. Protasov nodded, furrowed his heavy brow, whispered something back. It looked like she was dressing him down.

Then his eyes searched the room and landed on Juliana.

Their eyes locked.

Protasov did not smile politely. His eyes were cold.

Juliana stared back. Her “objection overruled” stare. Then she smiled.

Now he was angling through the crowd, heading toward her, she realized.

When he reached her, he said, “Please come with me,” and kept striding. “Certainly,” she said, and fell in behind him. She followed him out of the sitting room and across the entry hall into a room with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, dimly lit. The air in there was cool. She looked around, scanned the shelves, saw books by Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Pushkin, Bulgakov, Gogol, Chekhov, Nabokov. Serious Russian literature. These books weren’t props brought in to decorate a room. Protasov was obviously some kind of intellectual.

A bulky young guy in a suit that looked too tight entered the library and approached Protasov. They spoke, quickly and quietly, in Russian. Protasov stood back and folded his arms, watching. The young guy came up to her and said, in a thick Russian accent, “Please stand with arms at side.”

He gave Juliana a long impassive stare, like a zoologist peering at a specimen that might or might not be a new creature to him. “Mr. Protasov will be with you in minute.” Then he produced a metal object somewhat bulkier than a cell phone and proceeded to run it silently over Juliana’s clothing, over her shoulders and arms, and down to her legs.

She was frozen in fear. She was wearing a belt, and a pin, and there was a lipstick in her purse that contained no lipstick but recorded. And her shoes. She had multiple recording devices on her person. Any one of them contained microcircuits and were detectable.

The guy was looking for these devices. If he did find one, or several, what would happen then? The not knowing, the very uncertainty, was terrifying.

Her heart thudded, but her face was composed: calm, triumphant, brassy.

Protasov watched, arms folded.

The guard, or whatever he was, finished running his little device over Juliana; then he looked at it closely. He turned and said something quietly to Protasov in Russian.

She waited. Her heart beat so hard she thought it almost might be audible.

But the young guy just nodded and left the room.

Did that mean the recording devices hadn’t been detected? She wished she hadn’t had so much coffee. On the other hand, she’d needed it to fight the crushing wave of fatigue settling over her from not sleeping.

She could feel her heart dancing in her chest. She had no idea what was about to happen. She didn’t know what to expect.

Yuri Protasov walked slowly up to her. “Judge Brody,” he said boomingly, “I’m afraid you’ve caught me at a very busy time. My board is about to meet, and these are not people you keep waiting.” He spoke fluent English, his accent British.

“We have a little business to discuss, you and I,” Juliana said. “Shouldn’t take long at all.”

Protasov offered his hand formally, bowing slightly. “Yuri Protasov.”

“Juliana Brody.”

“So you just show up here uninvited?” He gave a little smile. A flash of white. “And apparently breeze right through my security?”

“If you can’t get in the back door, try the front.” Another Roz Brody pearl of wisdom.

“Well played. Very clever of you, coming at a time when there are a lot of people around. Protection in numbers, right?”

They understood each other. “Something like that.”

“So what do you want?”

“Actually, I’m here to offer you something.”

“Well, that’s a change. I’m all ears.”

“A decision in a case of interest to you. A motion for summary judgment.”

“Oh?”

“Your people have made it clear what you want. You want all documents sealed that might reveal that you’re the owner of Wheelz. So you want to shut down a sexual discrimination lawsuit against a company you own. I get it.”

“I’m not sure what you’re referring to.” A tight smile. “This sounds like fake news to me.”

“You want this whole Wheelz sexual discrimination case thrown out. Well, let me make it clear to you: I think the plaintiff’s case is quite strong.”

He tipped his head skeptically. “And?”

She said, “And for me to put my beliefs and my morals up for sale, well — that’s going to cost something. It’s not something I do lightly. That’s going to weigh on me for a long time. I’m going to require some serious consideration.”

He said nothing, waiting.

“So you will wire ten million dollars to my account. Which I think is cheap, frankly, for a woman’s honor.”

She opened her purse and located the card that Venkovsky had given her. The business card of an assistant general manager at a Cayman Islands bank. On the other side of the card she’d written out the nine digits of a bank account. She handed it to him.

He looked at it for a few seconds, and then he slipped the card into his front shirt pocket. Did that mean he agreed? She couldn’t tell. She was confident that Protasov’s people — or maybe the FSB? — had monitored the conversation she and Duncan had had in her lobby.

“After what you put me through — put my family through — I call this compensatory damages.”

He blinked a few times, his expression stoic.

“If it comes out that your fund was illegally underwritten by a banned, sanctioned entity, I think it could be ruinous to you. All those fancy board members out there will flee.” She waited. Saw his cold hard stare.

Finally he smiled grimly. “Your justice is expensive.”

Protasov was no longer pretending to be unaware of what she was talking about. They were past that. And he had just surrendered.

“Well, I hope you’re right. I also want it made explicit — and I want to hear you say it, right here — that my family will always be protected. That nothing will ever happen to them.”

Protasov lifted his chin. “You have nothing to worry about,” he said. But his eyes said something different. They were cold and gray and steely. Her stomach turned over.

“You’re going to have to be more explicit,” she said.

“Your family, your husband and your two lovely children, nothing will ever happen to them; you have my word on that.” He spoke gently. “I would never do that.”