Judgment

61

When her flight landed at Reagan National Airport in Washington, she made a point of observing her fellow passengers as they got off, and the people waiting for the next flight, and people walking near her. It was near crazy-making. It made her anxious. Plenty of people looked suspicious, if you were inclined to look at people that way. She also realized that looking people in the eyes often made them nervous. You generally avoid people’s eyes out in public.

Situational awareness, Hersh had instructed her. “Look for patterns. And anomalies. If they’re following you, they’ll probably use a team, to do handoffs and keep you unaware of the followers.”

In the cab on the way to Lafayette Square, to a steakhouse near the Treasury Department and the White House, she looked back a few times, but that seemed pointless. She wasn’t a spy or a detective; this wasn’t her expertise, checking for a tail. So was someone following her? She had no idea.

She entered the restaurant and immediately spotted her old friend Aaron Dunn. Dunn was around her age, early forties, but it seemed that the pressure of his job had aged him. He looked very late-middle-aged. He was bald, with a gray fringe around his ears, the kind of balding pattern that inspires many men to shave their heads. He had heavy-lidded eyes that made him look bored or supercilious, though he was seldom either.

“Judge Brody!” he said. “Hey, at the risk of sounding superficial, you look great.”

She smiled, gave him a hug. “Thank you so much for doing this.”

“No problem. He’s at the table.” He pointed. She looked over, saw a rotund guy with white hair, busy tapping something out on a phone. “His name is George Hastings. He’s the Director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control in the Treasury Department.”

“Okay, wow.”

“So he’s a guy with juice,” Dunn said quietly, leading her toward the table. “He never goes out for lunch, so this is a big deal for him.”

“I appreciate it.” She looked around. The restaurant was in a hotel located in the Old Post Office building. The decor in the restaurant was interesting: the old steel trusses and struts had been exposed and painted white.

She introduced herself to Hastings, who stood up, a large, bulky man in his sixties with a shock of white hair and a red, chafed face. His demeanor made it plain he had better and far more important things to do. He was clearly doing his friend a favor.

“I already ordered the candied-bacon appetizer,” Hastings said. “I’m on a tight schedule.” He had a soft southern drawl. “Try it. Great stuff.”

She wasn’t late; he’d clearly gotten here early. She looked at the menu. The burger cost twenty-six dollars.

She decided to get right to the point. They could be social afterward. She told him that, in the course of presiding over a sexual harassment case, she happened to come across some internal company documents. These documents revealed that the secret owner of the company was a Russian oligarch named Yuri Protasov. “You know the name?”

“Sure. The Protasov Great Innovations Prize.” That was the rich prize, worth four million dollars a year to the lucky winner, given to a leading “innovator” in science — physics, chemistry, mathematics, or life sciences.

“That’s the one. He’s gone to great lengths to keep his ownership of this company a secret.”

Hastings shrugged. “So?”

“So the financing for his purchase of this company came from a sanctioned Russian bank.”

“Ah.”

“Which I figured you might be interested to hear.”

“Indeed. Do you know which bank?”

“I think it’s called VTB. The VTB bank.”

His eyebrows shot up, but he said nothing. “You know, Protasov is not an SDN.”

“A what?”

“A Specially Designated National. A blocked person. One of the named individuals you’re not supposed to do business with.” He said it with a slight smile, which surprised Juliana. It seemed to imply it was a rule that no one takes seriously. “Which means he’s okay to do business with. And this company — Wheelz, obviously — is not sanctioned.”

“Okay, but as I said, the money came from a sanctioned Russian bank. Making it an illegal transaction and one that the US Government can shut down.”

“Mrs. Brody... Judge Brody, excuse me — forgive my bluntness, but is it appropriate for you to be doing this inquiry?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I’d have to ask a judge.”

He smiled. “I see. Well, the thing is, Judge, we’re not really doing much by the way of enforcement these days.”

“You’re not?”

“No, our enforcement and compliance unit is gone.”

“How do you mean, gone?”

“No one ever got appointed to run it. The position’s been vacant for a few years now. The whole unit — people left, retired early.”

“There’s really no enforcement?”

“There’s self-disclosure. Voluntary compliance. But no... no cops running around arresting people for sanctions violations. Anyway, look.” He sighed. “Okay, he’s a Russian. All this paranoia about Russia — people are tired of it.”

“They are, huh?”

“Enough, already. I wish I could help you, but I don’t have the time or the resources or, to be perfectly plain about it, the inclination. I’m not the type of person to go on a one-man crusade, fighting the bureaucracy.”

She nodded. “I understand.”

She didn’t understand, actually, not really, but saw nothing to be gained by arguing with the man. She thanked Hastings, and when he got up to go back to work, she excused herself to use the bathroom.

As she passed the table next to theirs, her eye was caught by the shoes worn by the businesswoman sitting next to them. They were nothing fancy — a pair of black napa leather round-toe pumps, well worn, the heel neither skinny nor chunky. The soles of the shoes were red and badly scuffed.

She had remembered seeing the exact same pair of shoes on a woman at her departure gate at Logan Airport in Boston that morning. She knew that red soles were a trademark of Christian Louboutins. And she remembered because she’d noticed how scuffed-up the soles were. She’d thought: They must be well-loved, those shoes.

She looked from the scuffed red soles up to the woman’s face. She was a bland-looking person, forgettable — short brown hair, glasses, a dowdy brown suit. The sort of person who blends into the background. She was dining with a man who was equally forgettable.

Juliana’s eyes met the woman’s, and her stomach clenched and her heart started thudding.

The woman quickly looked away, and Juliana continued on to the restroom. There, she stared at herself in the mirror above the sinks.

It was no coincidence that the woman with the Louboutins was here, next to their table, maybe listening in.

She’d seen this woman before. She was sure of it.

And she wondered how much of her lunchtime conversation had been overheard.