Defectors

6

TOM MCPHERSON ARRIVED WITH two heavy cases of equipment—lamps and filters and folding reflector discs for backlighting, all of it nestled in loops of wires that took half an hour to untangle and set up.

“I thought it was going to be just you and a Brownie,” Frank said, amused.

“Not for Look.”

“Is all this supposed to make me look better?”

He was wearing the cardigan, as promised, and waiting placidly behind the typewriter while McPherson adjusted the lights, the study now an obstacle course of tripods and cables. Joanna had made them tea and then retreated.

“How about you and your brother,” McPherson said to Simon. “Working on the manuscript.”

“Come on, Jimbo,” Frank said. “Are we supposed to look at the pages or up at you?”

Simon stood by the desk, reluctant to sit down.

“Come on. This was all your idea in the first place,” Frank said smiling.

Act as if nothing had changed. Simon took the chair next to him.

“A little closer,” the photographer said.

“I won’t bite,” Frank said, slightly puzzled, Simon still holding back, at the edge of the picture.

“Okay, this way,” McPherson said, and in the flash that momentarily blinded him, Simon saw his father looking at the magazine, head down, shamed by a notoriety that now included both boys, not just one. Making a profit on treason.

“How about one by the radio?” McPherson said. “Where you listen to the news.”

Frank turned toward the old console with its mesh speaker and Bakelite knobs and leaned in, concentrating on the news.

Boris, usually in the other room, stayed with them in the study, fascinated by it all, the screen test prompting and the paraphernalia, examining McPherson’s case as if he were looking for contraband. When he finally got bored and went out to get more tea, McPherson took an envelope from his breast pocket and slipped it to Simon. Documents, presumably the exit visas for Frank and Joanna. What DiAngelis knew they needed. What Frank hadn’t asked for.

“They said to check the—” McPherson began, cut off by Frank’s pointing up to the chandelier.

“One more by the radio?” Frank said, still in character, nodding to McPherson.

Simon shoved the envelope into his briefcase, evidence now, buried under manuscript pages, safe from Boris’s snooping, but how could it be explained? Illegal documents. Prepared by the Americans. He looked at Frank, turning the radio knobs again. For a trip nobody was going to take.

Think it through. What he’d been doing since that night at the dacha, staring up at the ceiling, suddenly alone. Run to the embassy and tell DiAngelis? With some Service ear listening. There had to be one, maybe more, who’d ring alarm bells straight back to Frank. And what would Frank do? Wave him off fondly at Sheremetyevo? Shrug as DiAngelis got away? Explain it to the Service? A scheme that went wrong, Simon the X factor? They’d never listen, never forgive. Frank couldn’t let him go, not yet. He’d never make it to the airport. Only to the Lubyanka. He saw Gareth’s face in the church, stunned, Frank ready to accuse him, turn the truth inside out. Who do you think they’d believe, you? Not Simon either, the Agency tool, luring his brother back. Another Gary Powers, caught red-handed, the pieces of evidence right there in his briefcase. Would Frank actually do it? He’d have to. He couldn’t just run away this time, leaving a mess. He’d have to save himself. And if they didn’t believe him? Simon thought of the Rubins, all of them at the lunch, tentative, nervous, the Service like a scythe hanging over them. And if it struck, or didn’t, Joanna was trapped forever, would die here, lost in a haze, even her privileges gone. Some plan, one that let Frank’s play out to the last minute, both sides of the board unaware that they were now part of a different game. Too late to stop now, not this close. Be the smart one. Work out the details. Back at his desk at the OSS, planning operations. There was still time, a few days. Enough to think it through.

“The telephone,” Boris said, coming back with a tea mug. “The office.”

“Now what,” Frank said, but getting up eagerly, summoned. “Why don’t you get a few shots of Boris?”

“It’s not permitted.”

“Oh, I’ll get it cleared,” Frank said, waving his hand.

“Not for the magazine,” Simon said. “The book. We’re going to use some of the pictures for an insert. Don’t you want to be in the book?”

Boris had only half-followed this but got the end and smiled, pleased. “Yes, in the book,” he said, then went over to stand against a bookcase, shoulders back.

“And Mrs. Weeks?” McPherson said, still shooting Boris.

“She’d rather not. She’s not in the excerpt, so—”

“But you’ll want her in the book.”

What could Simon say? Plenty of time for that later?

“We’ll use some old pictures. From when she actually appears in the story.” There must be some, not just the ones in his head.

“Boris, you look like a commissar,” Frank said, coming back, breezy, in good spirits. “Take a few, so we have a choice. How much longer, do you think?” he said to McPherson. “I’ve only got the morning now. Have to go to the office this afternoon.”

“The office?” Simon said.

“Don’t worry about the book. We can finish it on the train or something. Anyway, you’ll need to pack. Good news. We leave tonight. The Red Arrow. I was afraid the train would be—but it’s all right. All fixed. We’ll have to skip Riga, though. They want me back by the weekend. Lucky I could get away at all. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Tonight?” Too soon. What about the meeting with DiAngelis? He couldn’t just pick up the phone. DiAngelis would have things to arrange on his end. Too soon.

“Well, pack light. It’s Jo I’m worried about. Where else would you like me?” he said to McPherson, professional again.

“We’ve got plenty of books. How about outside, in front of the building?”

“Can’t. Believe it or not, it’s supposed to be a secret. Where I live. In case the CIA wants to kidnap me. Or worse. I know, but back then— Anyway we never changed it, the rule. What about Patriarch’s Pond? I walk there a lot, and you’ve got the water. Just down the block. Maybe Jo would like to come too. Some fresh air.”

“So we leave midnight?” Simon said, trying to form a timeline in his head, Frank ahead of him again. Ahead of everybody, taking the board back, not giving anyone time. Did he know? Had he seen it in Simon’s face, the eyes opening behind the blur?

Frank nodded. “That’s right. The overnight train. You keep saying you’ve got to get back, so the sooner the better, no?” Simon’s idea now. “I thought we’d do something special this evening. You know, your last— And the Service came through.” He opened his hand, voilà. “Seats at the Bolshoi. You can’t leave Moscow and not see the Bolshoi. Fyodorovna doing Swan Lake.” He turned to McPherson. “They tell me the embassy’s got a bunch of season tickets. Diplomatic perk. You have any friends there, tell them this is the night they want to use them.” Said casually, but his eyes steady on McPherson. “You don’t want to miss Fyodorovna. They should definitely go tonight. Everybody’ll be there. Even us,” he said, amusing himself, with a quick glance to Boris to see if he’d been too direct, insistent.

“I’ll do that,” McPherson said, message received.

Simon looked at Frank. Another feint, in plain sight, as clever as a card trick. Ahead of them.

“My last night,” Simon said to himself, thinking.

“Yes,” Frank said. “Doesn’t seem possible, does it? The time just—went.” His voice affectionate, no longer breezy, as if the idea of Simon’s leaving had just hit home. Even the tone right, how a brother would feel. And for a second Simon wanted it to be true, not something for Boris and McPherson, for him, the old voice.

“Whose last night?” Joanna said at the door.

“Simon’s. Well, not last. You’ll have to come back to Moscow to fly home. We’re moving up the trip,” Frank said to Jo. “The Red Arrow tonight.”

“Tonight? Why the change?”

“I have to be back this week. And we don’t want to rush Leningrad. I know it’s last-minute—”

“Everything is these days,” she said, disconcerted, trying to read his face. She turned to Simon. “Usually it takes months to arrange anything. See what a VIP you are. Oh, but Simon, you’re going?” A crack in her voice.

“Not yet.”

“I mean, I knew you would, but not so—”

“All the more reason to make the most of it now,” Frank said. “We’ve got the Bolshoi tonight.”

“We do? You hate the ballet.”

“Maybe the Metropol first?”

“To celebrate,” Jo said vaguely, still looking at Frank, trying to work something out.

McPherson moved a standing lamp. “Now that you’re here,” he said to Jo, “would you mind? How about the two of you sitting over there?” A quiet evening at home.

“With my knitting,” Jo said, sarcastic.

“We were going down to the Pond,” Frank said, conciliatory. “Maybe something there?” He paused. “For the book.”

She glanced at Simon, then nodded. “Let me put on some lipstick. I’ll catch up.”

“Better bring that with you,” Frank said to Simon, indicating the briefcase. “Ludmilla tidies up—she means well but then you can’t find anything. You don’t want her near the book.”

Or the exit visas. Left behind for anyone to find. An amateur’s mistake, the kind Frank didn’t make. Think.

They walked to Patriarch’s Pond in pairs, Boris trailing.

“What’s going on?” Jo said to Simon.

“What do you mean?”

“He’s scarcely been into the office for months and now all of a sudden he has to be back? Nobody makes travel plans at the last minute. This is Russia. There are channels.”

“The Service—”

“Oh, the Service. I know. Always pulling rabbits out of hats. But why now? I know him. He’s got that voice that goes over his voice. Has he said anything?”

“Honestly, I don’t—” The words sticking in his throat, lying to her. But what was a lie now?

“He trusts you. He never tells me anything. I’m a drunk. I’m not reliable.”

“You’re not a drunk.”

She looked at him, a small smile. “Not the way he thinks I am. Maybe that’s why I do it. If I’m unreliable, he won’t tell me things. So have a drink. But you noticed. How far it goes. He doesn’t. You notice things.” She laughed to herself. “You’d make a good spy.”

“I doubt it,” he said, uneasy. “My mother used to say my face was an open book.”

She turned to him. “Not anymore. I watched you at lunch. You hated them all, but you never let on.”

“I didn’t hate—”

“Disapproved, then. You disapproved. But you kept it to yourself. You do that. I should be grateful. Imagine how I’d feel if I knew—you disapproved.”

“Jo—”

But she was turning away. “Would you do something for me? A favor? Don’t make a fuss about these pictures. I don’t want to. So they can see what I look like now? Poor thing. But what can you expect? No, thanks.”

“You look fine.”

A half smile. “Well, you’re supposed to be goofy about me. Were, anyway.” She stopped, her mood shifting. “I can see. I know what I look like.” She put a hand on his arm. “Don’t make a fuss, okay? They’ll listen to you. I really don’t want to.”

He imagined her stepping off a plane, surrounded by flashbulbs.

“You’re part of the story, you know,” he said gently. “I can’t change that.”

“The first part. Not now.”

“So we use the same old pictures. The ones the papers ran after you left.” He looked up, as if the idea had just occurred to him, not a detail on a checklist. “How about your passport? Do you still have it?”

“My passport?”

“Your American one. The one you used to get here. It’s exactly when you leave the story. I’d get it back to you.”

“That doesn’t matter. It expired.”

“But you still have it?”

She nodded. “I don’t know why. Memento, I guess.”

“But the picture—”

“Oh, Simon, it’s a passport picture.”

“Which makes it authentic. Like a time capsule.” He paused. “The way you looked at the time.”

She stared at him for a second. “Now you’re doing it too. What Frank does, the voice on top of the voice. The two of you—” She stopped. “All right, fine. Do you want Frank’s too? Two mug shots. Like an FBI poster.” She brushed his arm before he could speak. “But none today, promise? Just the old ones.”

“Promise. Dig them out later, okay, so we don’t forget?”

She hesitated. “Simon, you’d tell me, wouldn’t you? If something were—I don’t know, wrong, anything?”

“You’re imagining—” he started, not trusting his voice. Deflect. “By the way, when I was noticing things? At lunch? I think you’re wrong about Marzena.”

Jo raised her eyebrows, waiting.

“She’s not his type.”

“Oh, his type,” she said.

“You’re his type.”

She looked at him, stopped by this.

“Still,” he said. Catching her, what she wanted to hear. What Frank would have done.

McPherson was fixing a camera on a tripod at the edge of the pond, framing the yellow pavilion across the water. Boris had found his bench near the bronze statue of Krylov and was lighting a cigarette just as he had that first day—how long ago now? Days. Everything different except the pond.

“How about you and Mrs. Weeks walking toward me?” McPherson said.

“We’ll do Jo another time,” Simon said, taking her place with Frank. “One more of us? How far away do you want us?”

“Go up halfway and start walking back. When I signal,” McPherson said.

“What’s wrong with Jo?” Frank said.

“Camera shy. Anyway, we need to talk. The Bolshoi?”

“It’s plausible. For DiAngelis to be there. Everybody wants to see Fyodorovna. Then plausible to have a pee at intermission. You too. It’s a long first act. McPherson will tell him to wait if you’re not there, wash his hands again, something.”

“Me.”

“I can’t be seen with him. Not even by accident. So it has to be you.”

“And what do I say to him?”

“You give him the meeting time and coordinates.”

“The coordinates.”

“For the boat.” He pointed to a toy sailboat idling in the middle of the pond. “Like an address on the water. Thirty-Fourth Street and Fifth, except coordinates. Nautical locations. You’ll have to remember them, nothing in writing, but they’re easy. Anyway, you have a steel-trap memory—you still do, don’t you?”

“I’ll remember.”

“You don’t want to get it wrong. If you’re off by even—”

“I’ll remember. Does this give him enough time?”

“He’ll have to scramble,” Frank said, smiling a little. “But he will. And now there’s less chance of a leak. People hang around waiting, they talk. This way it’s just him. The coordinates stay up here.” He tapped his head. “No one else. He should know that, but it doesn’t hurt to remind— No one else.”

“Except me.”

Frank nodded. “So any leak, it’s from his side. Better remind him of that too. No leaks. If he wants me alive.”

Weaving another strand, all of it real to him.

“But don’t your people know? Somebody must. If you’ve organized this—a boat, all the rest of it.”

“We don’t have leaks. You don’t think the Agency has anybody inside the Service, do you? The Service would never let that happen.” Still proud, closing ranks.

“Unless he’s one of their own.”

Frank glanced at him, uncomfortable. “That’s right. Now, what’s wrong with Jo?”

Simon shrugged. “Vanity. She doesn’t want anybody to see—”

“The little wrinkles. I know.” He paused. “It’s not that. She doesn’t want to have anything to do with the book. With me.”

Simon looked over, a crack, an opening. “When are you going to tell her?” he said, asking something else. When are you going to tell me? Tell me I’m wrong, it’s all just as you say. Not a scheme, a real plan. There’s still time to fix things. You can fix anything. Tell me I’m wrong.

“You can tell her. On the ferry.”

“When we’re safe and sound,” he said, drawing a line.

“That’s right,” Frank said, not seeing it.

Simon felt something twist in his chest, a tightening. Save yourself.

“Okay, come back,” McPherson shouted. “Straight toward me.”

They started walking. Two men in a park. The photograph another lie, their real faces erased, like an old Stalinist picture.

They were another hour, Simon joining Boris on the bench to smoke, Jo gone home to fix lunch.

“Complicated. Photography,” Boris said, watching McPherson change lenses.

“Why don’t you come with us to Leningrad?” Simon said. The devil you know.

“Thank you,” Boris said, pleased, taking this for a compliment. “It’s important to you, this trip? To see the art? It would be better to stay in Moscow.”

“Better?”

“For Colonel Weeks. Better to stay close to the office.”

The medieval fortress, Moscow’s mental geography.

Simon looked at him. What had Frank told him? Anything? Off in the Sochi sunshine while Frank made his play. Or was he part of it, another sleight of hand. But part of what? Which side of the board?

“Why?”

“Busy time. It’s good for Colonel Weeks to be busy again.”

“Hasn’t he been?”

But now Boris said nothing, closing down, the Lubyanka a protected world.

“Anyway, it’s too late now,” Simon said. “He’s gone to so much trouble—”

“For you. To show you Russia. Good things here. But sometimes you need to—what’s the English? Protect—no, watch your back.” Easy and idiomatic, not his usual halting phrases.

“Does he need to do that?” Imagining a maze of office corridors, shadows.

Boris smiled a little. “A precaution. Many changes now at the Service.”

Like the old days at Navy Hill, then down at State, glancing over your shoulder. Not sure of anyone, except Frank.

“Then I’ll get him back as soon as I can,” Simon said easily. “Not that he listens to me.”

“To you, yes. Think of the book, the episode with the Latvians.”

Simon glanced over. Hearing everything, not just reading Izvestia.

“Well, sometimes. Maybe we can just do Leningrad and back. Skip Tallinn,” he said, trying it. What did he know? “What’s there anyway?”

But Boris didn’t bite. “Yes, maybe just Leningrad. It’s better, I think.” Not playing on either side.

He sat back, as if somehow this had settled things, and drew on his cigarette, squinting at the water. “Maybe he will have to swim for it,” he said.

“What?”

“The boy,” Boris said, pointing to a child squatting at the edge of the pond. “His boat. No air to move it.”

Simon looked at the boat, lying still in the water, the boy trying to make waves by splashing. No way to reach it until a breeze came up again. Trapped on the water, rocking gently in its coordinates. Boats were unreliable that way, sometimes a trap, impossible to maneuver quickly. Thinking. Now a leap, not plodding anymore, an idea that pulled its own details behind it. Too late once you were on the water, vulnerable. Better to be off the board, an unexpected move. In plain sight.

He got up and walked toward the pond. McPherson, finally done, was packing up his equipment.

“Let me give you a hand,” Simon said, grabbing a tripod. Then, to Frank, “Are you really gone all afternoon?”

Frank looked at him, surprised at the question.

“I was just wondering if I could borrow Boris. I mean, if he’s not going—”

“Borrow?”

“To take me to Tolstoy’s house. It’s the one thing I wanted to see, and if we’re leaving tonight—”

“Tolstoy’s house?” Frank said, a tolerant smile. “The book man. I forgot.”

“If I go by myself, he’ll just have to get somebody else to tail me, so it’s easier—”

“Yes,” Frank said, a glance at McPherson, embarrassed by this. “Let me ask. Strictly speaking, it’s his time off. When I’m at the office.” The office, neutral, as if it were still an insurance company. Simon watched him head for Boris’s bench.

“Would you take another message,” Simon said.

“To DiAngelis.”

“No. Remember Spaso House? The guy who introduced us?”

“Hal Lehman.”

“You know how to reach him?”

“We’re in the same building. Press ghetto. They put us all together. Saves tails,” he said, a quick nod in Boris’s direction.

“Tell him I want to see him. Tolstoy’s house. After lunch.”

McPherson waited.

“I promised him a story. And now we’re leaving.”

“So you want to meet him at Tolstoy’s house.”

“Two birds with one stone.”

McPherson just looked.

“Can you do it? Get the message to him? I don’t want to call.”

McPherson nodded. “If he’s around. What’s the story?”

“Family stuff. How did it feel seeing Frank again—all these years.”

“How did it?”

“This one’s for UPI. Not Look. After the pictures run, don’t worry.”

“Doesn’t matter to me. I’m freelance.” He turned, looking back at Frank. “He doesn’t seem to have many regrets, does he?”

“No,” Simon said, “not many.”

Tolstoy’s house, hidden from the street behind a long wooden fence, was a country house in the city, solid and plain rather than grand, set on grounds that seemed to be outgrowing their keepers, scraggly and wild in patches, even the grass along the gravel walkways needing a trim. There was a white-haired woman in a kiosk at the entrance who, surprisingly, spoke to them in French, like a governess in one of the novels.

“Deux? Voilà, un plan de niveau de la maison.” She handed him a worn sheet of plastic, protecting a faded floor plan.

Boris frowned, the French like some Romanov ghost, a reproach, then saw that Simon was charmed and let it pass. The place itself seemed another ghost, deserted in mid-afternoon, only a gardener clipping away at the side of the house, the same stillness he remembered at the Novodevichy. Boris found a shaded chair near the entrance and settled in as watchdog.

The quiet followed Simon inside, through the big dining room, settings in place for a family dinner, then up the stairs to the large salon, where Tolstoy had read to Chekhov and Gorky, and Sofia offered supper. Where was everybody? The meeting should look like an accidental encounter in a public place, not something arranged. Finally he saw two women in the next room, heads together, admiring Sofia’s knickknacks. He glanced at his watch. Lehman was supposed to be here first. A Spartan bedroom, the daughter’s. Then Tolstoy’s study, the desk where he wrote, and Lehman standing beside it. A pretense of surprise.

“Why here?” he said.

“Sort of place a publisher would go, don’t you think? Look, his shoemaking tools.”

“He made his own shoes?”

“To make a point.” He glanced behind him, the two women still inspecting Sofia’s drawing room. “Thanks for coming. We have to be fast. I’ve got the KGB waiting downstairs.”

Lehman looked up.

“Just part of the service. For my protection. But curious. You know. So we have to be—”

“You have a story for me? The interview?”

“Well, that too. But better. You may not want it. All I ask is that if you don’t, you just say so and go away and you never saw me. Agreed?”

“What’s going on?”

“Agreed?”

“Agreed. Why wouldn’t I want it?”

“It comes with some strings attached. For one thing, you’d be chucked out. Maybe worse. Still interested?”

Lehman peered at him. “They’re going to throw me out anyway.”

“This would guarantee it.”

“You trying to scare me?” Lehman said, not sure whether he should be amused.

“Warn you.”

“So, what? This is the story on your brother?”

“Part of it.”

“And this is coming from him or from you?”

“Me.”

“With strings attached.”

“And some incentive. You’ll be out of a job here but the story will get you back to New York. With a book contract when you get there. Keating & Sons.” He looked at Lehman. “There’s some risk.”

“A book contract,” Lehman said. “With you dangling it. And this is—what? You’re the devil. And I’m being tempted?” he said, holding up his hand to mime a paper dangling.

“Something like that. No eternal life, though.”

“Just a story.”

Simon nodded. “Look, I need your help. It’s worth a contract to me. But you have to decide if it’s worth it to you. Like I said, there’s some risk.”

Lehman stared at him. “How about we start over? What story?”

“I have your word? If you’re not interested, this never happened?”

Lehman waved this away.

Simon looked around the study, like standing at the end of a dock. Jump.

“Frank is going to defect.”

“What?” Lehman said, just to make a sound.

“It’ll be your story. Exclusive.”

“Defect,” Hal said flatly.

“He wants to go home.”

“Home.” Another echo effect.

“And you’re going to help. So, your story.”

Lehman said nothing.

“Want to hear more or do you want to go?” He lifted his fingers. “No strings yet. Your choice.”

“He can’t. He can’t do it.”

“No, but I can. That’s why I came.”

Another long stare, Hal’s mind trying to catch up, not even aware of the sound of Russian coming into the room. The two women. Simon pointed to the adjoining washroom where the shoemaking tools had been.

“See the bicycle? He didn’t take it up until he was in his sixties. Physical fitness kick. Come this way.” Nodding to the women and putting his hand on the small of Lehman’s back to steer him down the stairs, an English-speaking guide, perhaps, or two foreign Tolstoy enthusiasts.

Still, English, something suspect. The women stopped. And then luckily there was the sound of more Russian, a tour group clomping through the dining room.

“What do you think this is?” Simon said, pointing to the small room off the back stairs. “Pantry? Can you read the Cyrillic?”

Lehman said nothing, still slightly dazed, then leaned forward to read the card next to the doorjamb. “Pickling room,” he said.

“That explains the barrels. Imagine a whole room just for pickles.” Chatty, turning his head slightly to see if the women were listening. But they now seemed to be fascinated by the writing desk.

“Boris is outside. We have to talk here. You have to decide today—you’ll see why in a minute. If it’s no, just leave some kind of message for me at the National. Anything, it doesn’t matter what. Otherwise, I’ll assume we’re in business, okay?”

Lehman nodded.

“I’ll tell you how this is going to work. Then you figure out the odds yourself. No contract is worth the wrong odds. So you decide. All right?”

Lehman said nothing, still calculating.

“Hal?”

“Tell me.”

A large, noisy Intourist group had taken over the Metropol’s dining room, but the maître d’ said he’d arrange for some food in the bar.

“We won’t make the ballet if we wait for a table,” Frank said. “Anyway the point is just to see this.” He pointed to the vast room, a tsarist relic of tables grouped around a central fountain, potted palms, and lamps on tall gold standards, all dwarfed by a vaulting stained glass ceiling, bright blue, a glass sky. “Paris had the Ritz and Vienna had the Imperial, so Moscow had to have one too. To keep up.”

“Hard to imagine now,” Simon said, taking it in, the worn red velvet, the usual Soviet dinginess. “That must have been the string quartet.” He nodded to a raised platform at the end of the room.

“While they stuffed themselves with caviar. And outside people were starving,” Frank said. “The good old days.” He looked over at Simon. “Nobody starves now. So there’s that. Let’s have a drink. Jo won’t be here until the last minute. Hairdresser,” he said, touching his own hair. “To look nice for the trip. All packed?”

Simon nodded.

“Almost there,” Frank said, putting a hand on Simon’s shoulder to lead him to the bar. “Got the coordinates?”

Simon repeated them.

“Let’s hope old Pete’s memory’s as good as yours.”

“We’ll only have a minute in the men’s room.”

“Say something twice and it’s yours. So make him say it twice.”

They were on the second glass of Georgian wine when the waiter came with small plates of food.

“Will I be followed? At the Bolshoi?” Simon said.

“No, you’re with me. He will be, though. So make it quick. Just what you’d do in a men’s room. Wash your hands. Get a towel. Excuse me. Beg pardon. Like that. In and out.”

“Like that.”

“Don’t worry, it will be.”

“And if he has a question? Wants to change the meeting spot—something.”

“He won’t. It’s like I showed you on the map. They’ll still be in international waters. They’d never cross into Soviet territory. Agency rule. I know, I wrote it. They’d never risk that. So we go to them.”

“Outside Soviet waters. And the Service has no problem—”

Frank brushed this away. “It’s not like a fence. Just water. Sometimes it’s hard to know which side of the line you’re on. And he’ll be close enough to make them think he’s over. If he follows the coordinates.

“So your people intercept—outside Soviet territory.”

“They don’t have to know that. They just know there’s an American boat out there up to no good. And coming in. Better to act and figure out your location later. For the record.”

“When it’s your word against DiAngelis’s.”

Frank looked at him. “Except I won’t be here.”

Simon sipped his wine. “What if DiAngelis says he can’t make that time. For whatever reason.”

“Then he’ll miss the high point of his career,” Frank said smiling. “Don’t worry, Jimbo, he’ll make it. The leverage is on our side. They want me. It would be a coup for them.”

“And vice-versa.”

Frank looked up.

“DiAngelis would be a coup for you. If it worked the other way.”

Frank said nothing, not sure how to respond. “But it’s not the other way,” he said finally.

“No. So what could go wrong? Just in case.”

“Come on, Simon. You see somebody in the men’s room, that’s all. Say a few words and out you go. Mission over.” He looked down at his watch. “She’s cutting it close.” He raised his head, taking in the other end of the bar. “Well, look who’s here. Back at the old watering hole.”

Simon half-turned. Sergei, nursing a drink.

“How does he afford it?” Frank said.

“Doesn’t he get Gareth’s—?”

“No. Next of kin. Except there is no next of kin.”

“So what happens to him now?”

Frank shrugged. “He finds somebody else.”

“Or the Service does,” Simon said, curious to see Frank’s response. “A new friend.”

“That’s not how it works. Gareth picks somebody up, we have to vet him. Make sure he’s not—a plant. But we don’t provide.” Still we.

“Let’s go before he sees us.”

“We just sat down.”

“I’d rather not, that’s all. Considering.” Glancing down at his hands, seeing them squeezing.

“Considering what?” Frank said blandly. “Nothing happened.” Each word emphasized. Simon looked up at him. And nothing had, Novodevichy not even a bad memory. “Anyway, he’s seen us. He’s coming over. Sergei,” he said, raising his voice, public. “I’m sorry we’re going to miss the funeral. We’ll be in Leningrad.”

“No funeral. They don’t want to attract attention.”

“They?”

“The office. You know. They’re afraid the foreign press—” He hesitated. “So, for the obituaries, he died after a long illness. And that’s the end of Gareth. A long illness. I asked, could he be buried in Novodevichy—you know, so close to us and he liked to go there. But they said no. Somewhere out near Izmaylovo Park. So far. Who goes there? An hour on the Metro if you want to visit the grave.”

“I’m sorry. But maybe it’s for the best,” Frank said, his voice steady, reassuring.

“Yes,” Sergei said, polite, not believing it, then looked up at Frank, hesitant again. “I know we’re not supposed to say, but I wanted to thank you. What you’re doing for him.” Simon looked up.

“Me? I don’t—”

“I know. Everything’s a secret there. But people talk. So I just wanted to say thank you, that’s all. Now they’ll find him.”

“Find him?” Simon said, not following.

“The murderer. I thought at first, it’s like the funeral. Sweep it away. Pretend it never happened. But now they have to do it. They’ll listen to you. And to bring her in—it sends a message. Gareth used to say there was no one like her. A bloodhound. So now maybe we’ll find out.”

“Sergei,” Frank said quickly. “You don’t talk—office business. Not in front of—”

“No. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Nervous now, guilty. “Excuse me. It’s just—” He turned to Simon. “I wanted to say thank you, that’s all. Your brother, he’s a hero to me. Gareth, too. He always liked you. And now to do this for him. I know what the others think, how they laughed at him. But now something will happen. Justice.”

“Let’s hope so,” Frank said smoothly, a kind of dismissal.

“So please go on with your drink,” Sergei said, about to move away, and then grasped Frank’s hand and shook it. “They said today, nothing so far, but maybe soon. Justice. How pleased he would be, Gareth, to know it was you. Excuse me.”

Simon watched him go, heading toward the ornate lobby and out into the Moscow night. He pressed his fingers to the bar, holding himself in, and looked at Frank.

“He talks too much,” Frank said. “Everybody talks too much. Most secret organization in the world and everybody talks too much. What Pa used to call an irony. Come on, let’s finish here.” He tossed back the rest of the wine.

Simon kept looking at him, not sure how to begin. “Brought who in?” he said finally, already knowing.

“Elizaveta,” Frank said, looking back.

“To investigate Gareth’s murder.”

Frank nodded. “Under me. Would you rather have someone else in charge? She’ll look at everybody but me. It warms the heart to see it, how grateful she is. To be back at the office. The Service is like that—once it’s in your blood. And now she owes it to me. One of the foreigners. Another irony. All of them suspect now except one.”

“Until there’s no one else.”

“But by then I’ll be gone. We couldn’t let this get in the way. It would have ruined everything.”

“And if you don’t go?”

“What do you mean?”

“Hypothetically. If you were still here. You couldn’t call her off now. How would that look? What happens if she doesn’t come up with anyone?”

“But she will. The Service always does. Someone will have to pay. But not me.” He looked over. “Not you either. I told you I’d look out for you.”

Simon turned back to his drink, stomach clenching again.

“What did he mean about today? Nothing so far today.”

“There was an interrogation.”

“Ian,” Simon said quietly.

“Yes.”

“That’s why you were there today.”

“Well, you have to show a certain amount of interest. Especially in the beginning. Before you let her off the leash.”

“You interrogated him?”

“I was there.”

“Did he know, on Saturday, that it would be you?”

“No, of course not. It’s better this way.”

“Better?”

“It throws them off balance. Even your friends suspect you. Why? What did you do? You think about everything you’ve ever said, how it might sound. You go over it and over it. You’d be amazed what comes up, all those things you thought you forgot. That might explain it. Why you’re there.”

“And then you get tired. Say things.”

Frank nodded. “It’s not my favorite part of the job—”

“But he didn’t do it.”

“We have to give Elizaveta somewhere to look.” He paused. “I never said it was pretty. But neither’s Norilsk. Freeze to death. Starve. Or a bullet. You pick.”

“And when she doesn’t find anything?”

“We’ll be long gone. But she’s very good, you know. And she needs a win. She just might pull it off.”

With Frank still here, helping her.

“When were you going to tell me this?”

“I wasn’t. If Sergei hadn’t opened his—” He stopped. “You’re not used to it, the business. I didn’t want you to be—distracted.”

“Distracted? Frank, we killed a man. And now we’re making someone else—”

“Listen to me,” Frank said, grasping his arm. “We didn’t do it. That’s right, isn’t it? We didn’t do it. So somebody else must have. Or do you have a better plan?”

Prince Siegfried had already celebrated his birthday and was off with his hunting bow to Swan Lake before Simon could pay any attention to what was happening on stage. Up to now it had just been part of the blur—the lines of black Zils with Party officials, the lamps in Theater Square, Jo all dressed up, turning heads, as if she had stepped out of the Metropol’s fantasy of itself, how people used to look. They had crossed the square into another piece of tsarist Moscow, red velvet and gilt, the royal box still like a throne room at the center of the mezzanine.

“Stalin never used it,” Frank said. “He used to sit there, on the side.”

“Man of the people?”

“No. Afraid somebody would take a shot at him. In the tsar’s box. Sitting target.”

“But not in his box?”

“Well, he used to sit back, away from the railing. I didn’t say it made sense. He was crazy. That’s the way he thought.” He smiled at Simon’s expression. “My loyalty was to the Service, not him. I used to think, if we can survive this—and we did.”

“At a cost.”

“That’s right. At any cost. First you have to survive. Right?”

Simon stared at the curtain for a second, then turned to him, his voice low. “Frank, promise me something.”

Frank waited.

“Ian. Promise you won’t let him be—I mean, it’s bad enough, Gareth—” He stopped, glancing across to Jo, but she was looking around the theater, distracted.

“But you can somehow talk yourself into believing that was self-defense,” Frank finished. “Is that it? But not Ian. Even though it comes to the same thing.”

“No, it doesn’t. It’s not right.”

Frank looked at him. “Not right. Still Mt. Vernon Street. One of Pa’s dinner problems. Right. Wrong. You think it matters?”

Simon said nothing.

“Anyway, in a few days I’ll be suspect number one, not Ian. Unless you forget the coordinates.” Trying to be playful.

“Promise me anyway.”

“What’s this all about?”

“I don’t know. Bad luck, maybe. We don’t need another—”

“You’d rather they think it was me.”

Simon looked at him. Turn the board. “You’ll be gone. What difference does it make?”

Frank held his gaze for another second, caught off guard, then turned. “Fine. Ian didn’t do it. Feel better?”

“You’ll make sure?”

Another curious look.

“This is what you’re worrying about? Tonight? Ian fucking McAulife?”

Simon shrugged. “Now it’s one less thing.” As if Frank would do it, his promises real.

“What a pain in the ass you are,” Frank said, not able to let it go, then faced forward again. “It’s all self-defense, Jimbo.”

“What are you two whispering about?” Joanna said, leaning over.

“Stalin,” Simon said.

Her eyes darted left, uncomfortable, as if he had made a bad joke.

“Where he used to sit.”

“Up there,” Frank said, pointing.

“How do you know? You never went to the ballet then. Or now. I can’t think why you—oh look, the ambassador. They always stick out like sore thumbs, the Americans. It’s the suits. And the haircuts.” Glancing toward Mike Novikov’s crew cut, heading down the center aisle. Next to him a tall, vaguely familiar man and his wife. No DiAngelis.

Simon looked back up the aisle. No stragglers, no one else in the party. But he had to be here. In the embassy seats.

“What’s the matter?” Jo said.

“Nothing. I must stick out then too. The suit.”

“Mm. Isn’t it funny, you at the Bolshoi?” She looked away. “Any of us.”

Novikov was settling in next to the ambassador. Still no DiAngelis. One intermission, only one chance before they left.

He felt the audience stirring behind them, heads craned, a line of gray suits entering the royal box. For a second he half-expected to see Khrushchev, the tsar, but the familiar bald head never appeared, just the gray suits with blank faces, presumably Politburo members everyone else recognized. A big night at the Bolshoi. Would this mean extra bodyguards, plainclothesmen, all of them alert to American suits? He glanced around the crowd. Who was anybody? No DiAngelis.

And then the lights were dimming and the music was starting and he felt his stomach jump, not just nerves, not butterflies, a falling, a sense that something was wrong. He stared straight ahead, past Prince Siegfried, running through a mental checklist. Tomorrow they’d be under the watchful eyes of the Service, new eyes, eager to impress. The meeting had to be tonight, only a minute, two, swallowed up in an impersonal crowd. DiAngelis would need the time to set things up. Maybe he was sitting somewhere else, the ambassador a blind, waiting for the intermission.

The stage got darker, the lake at night, Siegfried with his bow. Simon twisted in his seat, restless, but everyone else was still, expectant. He had always assumed Swan Lake was kitsch, a ballet for tourists, but here it meant something else. There was a fluttering of white, the entire stage suddenly swirling with white, darting, floating. A quiet gasp went through the audience, a collective pleasure, everything as it should be, the precise toe steps, the graceful leaps, inexplicably beautiful, the dreary city falling away, mad Stalin in his side box, the brutal prison stories, lives with years snatched away, betrayals, all of that gone now, out of sight, nothing visible but this twirling, what the world would be like if it were lovely. Nobody moved, drinking it in, an old ritual, maybe their way of reassuring themselves they were still capable of this. He turned to Frank, prepared to smile, an appreciation, and saw that he wasn’t watching at all, his eyes fixed on the embassy seats, waiting for DiAngelis.

After the swans flew off, he lost the thread again. Odette would become Odile, or was it the reverse? In New York, there would have been a synopsis to follow in the playbill. Here it was already in the blood, the whole implausible story. Real stories, Frank’s stories, were plausible. Simple. We intercept them coming in. But there were two stories, so the trick was keeping them both simple, both plausible, easier to juggle. Run through the details again. No surprises. Except there was always something you couldn’t control, someone. You couldn’t do it alone, you had to trust someone. The way Frank trusted him.

He glanced to his side, Frank still scanning the audience, then back to the stage. Any minute now and he’d have to get up, do it. During the war he’d never had to do anything, all the careful plans passed on to someone else. Now, finally, he had to act, like the boy in one of Pa’s dinner problems. Right. Wrong. The question isn’t what’s right, his father would say, tracing lines on the tablecloth with his fork. The question is, what’s the right thing to do? How do we act? They’re not always the same. What’s right is just an idea. But what we should do—there are other considerations. So it’s not always clear. But if it’s right, Frank had said, then it has to be the right thing to do. And then had done it, acted, and blown up all their lives. People were applauding, the curtain coming down. The jewel box room getting brighter. Now.

“I’ll be right back,” he said, standing.

“Meet us in the foyer,” Jo said over the applause, putting an imaginary cigarette to her mouth.

Simon started out, only to be blocked by clapping people in the row. Impossible to step over them. He looked back, a few people trickling out, the aisles beginning to clot. At the embassy seats, the ambassador and his wife were following a path Novikov was making for them.

“Relax,” Frank said. “It’s a long intermission.”

Some people were still clapping, but now the rush began. Out to the grand foyer, under the giant chandelier, then down the white marble stairs to the tiled vestibule, looking for a men’s room. What was the word? Muzhskoy. But what would that be in Cyrillic? Finally a sign with stick figures, one with pants. Follow the arrow, the crowd now thick around him, the long room already filling with cigarette smoke, all the doors open to the outside.

“Simon?” A voice behind him, American. He turned. “I thought it was you.” Hannah Rubin, all smiles. “Isn’t it wonderful? I’m so glad you got to see it. I never miss the Bolshoi. Saul, he could care less. He falls asleep. I said, you could do that at home.”

Which meant she was alone, eager to talk. Simon glanced past her head, searching the crowd for DiAngelis.

“But I thought you were going to Leningrad.”

“Tonight. Later. Frank got tickets for this last minute.”

“Well, he could. And lucky you. Fyodorovna—”

Settling in for a chat. Heads passing behind her. There’d be a crowd in the toilets soon.

“I was just heading for the men’s room,” he said, anxious, actually having to pee now.

“Men. I don’t even bother. The line’s always out the door. You’ve heard? About Ian? No wonder he was so nervous about Elizaveta.” She stopped. “Well, I suppose I shouldn’t say, but you were at the lunch, so you already know—”

“What?”

“They’ve kept him overnight. That’s not a good sign. Something must be—”

Not now. Now he had to meet somebody. One chance.

“I thought they did that all the time,” Simon said, looking over her shoulder again, then realized he had offended her.

“Not unless there’s something wrong,” she said, believing it, the sleep deprivation, the lights in your face, the isolation cell just bits of melodrama the West used to discredit the system.

“Well, let’s hope not. He seemed a nice man. Hard to believe he’d—”

“It always is, isn’t it? What interests me is why. Why would he—why would anybody—?”

More heads passing.

“Excuse me. I really have to go.” A weak grin. “Call of nature.”

“And here I am yakking away.” She put her hand on his arm. “So nice to run into you. Is Joanna here?”

“In the foyer,” he said, pointing up.

“Oh good, then maybe I’ll see you again before we go in.” She paused. “Did you say tonight? You must be going straight to the station. Me, I’d be a nervous wreck.”

“Boris is meeting us with the bags.”

“Oh,” she said, filing this away, even stray information worth something. What? “I’m always hours early. Saul says it’s a thing with me. But I don’t miss the train either. Go, go,” she said, shooing him off. “I’ll see you upstairs.”

He started through the crowd, taking in faces in glimpses, like snapshots. No one he knew. Late now, but DiAngelis had been told to wait. Near the men’s room door, a man with a cigarette stared at him, then looked away. The Service? But so was Hannah. Who just happened to be here. Maybe he was being passed along, one observation post to the next. Why not Hannah? A woman who hid the atomic bomb design in her hat. And got on the train. Me, I’d be a nervous wreck.

DiAngelis wasn’t in the men’s room. Simon peed, then took his time washing his hands, looking at people in the mirror. A few looking back, at his suit. Everything noisy, toilets flushing and people talking in Russian, stall doors banging. DiAngelis wouldn’t be in one of those. He needed to be seen. Simon wiped his hands on the towel, people passing on either side of him. He couldn’t stay here much longer. Maybe DiAngelis had already come and gone, just outside in the vestibule, waiting. The line for the urinals inched forward. Novikov’s crew cut, his head looming over the line. The last thing Simon wanted, somebody who’d recognize DiAngelis, see them meet. Leave. But Novikov had spotted him, made eye contact. When Simon passed, he nodded.

“How are you?” The English low but audible as something separate. “Enjoying it?”

The man behind Novikov was looking away, pretending not to listen. Novikov leaned toward Simon, his voice almost a whisper.

“Have a cigarette. Outside. Last pillar on the left.” Then louder, pulling his head up again, “The second act is supposed to be even better.”

Simon went out to the vestibule, packed now, the crowd spilling out to the portico, the sky still light. No one was supposed to know but DiAngelis, no leaks. Unless Novikov was literally just a messenger, repeating words. Last pillar on the left. A few people, but not so many as near the central columns. Simon went to the very edge of the portico, where it began to sweep down to the square, and stopped at the last pillar. He lit a cigarette.

“Over here.” DiAngelis, leaning against the building. “Go around to the side.” He motioned his head left. The Maly Theatre side, another long portico, not as grand as the main entrance, just somewhere to stay out of the rain.

“I thought you weren’t coming.”

“With the ambassador? Whose idea was that? Tell Frank he’s getting rusty. Moscow rules. Two changes of cars. No tails. Usually takes the whole evening, just to shake them. So when?”

“Thursday. We go to Leningrad tonight. Tomorrow we see the sights. Wednesday, the Peterhof. Then Tallinn. Boat goes out at six. Memorize these.” He gave him the coordinates. “Do it twice, make sure. That’s the meet the Agency’s expecting. And the Service. Now these. Lat 60.7095 by Longitude 28.734.”

DiAngelis looked up. “That’s in Russia.”

Simon nodded. “You’d make a good sailor. Vyborg. You won’t even need the coordinates. Just head for the port.”

“What the fuck’s going on?”

“Wednesday. An alternative boat. This one you arrange. Yourself. No leaks.”

“The Agency doesn’t have—”

“Just assume. Thursday is still the plan. But if anything happens, if we have to move faster, then Wednesday. Vyborg. Where nobody’s expecting us. Except you.”

“In the Soviet Union. I can’t do that.”

Simon nodded. “Send locals. A fishing boat. Finnish. Maybe they need some repairs. Wednesday, late morning. If we don’t show, they go home.”

“Why Vyborg?”

“Close to Finnish waters. If we have to make a run for it. The port’s not far from the train station. An easy walk for us.”

“How do you know?”

“I can read maps.”

“You or Frank?”

“Get someone who’s never heard of Frank, or the other plan. Keep them separate.”

DiAngelis looked up, his face a question mark.

“The Lubyanka’s been jumpy. They lost a man and that makes them crazy. Especially about the foreign agents. So we have to be careful. We’re assuming it’s still a go Thursday. But if anything happens, we need an escape hatch. In case.”

“And I’m supposed to arrange all this in a day.”

“You’re the Agency. Start tonight.”

DiAngelis started to say something, then stopped. He dropped his cigarette. “He’d better fucking be there.”

“He will. One or the other. Let’s hope it’s Thursday. So you can haul him in yourself. Your big fish. You already have the boat?”

DiAngelis nodded.

“Then we’re set. Oh, one more thing. I need a gun.”

“A gun. Where do you think you are? This is the Soviet Union. You get caught with that—a foreigner—and you don’t leave. Ever.”

“That’s something to keep in mind.”

“Don’t be a smart-ass. You even know how to use it?”

“It’ll come back. I was in the OSS.”

“In an office.”

“After training. We’re wasting time. I need the gun.”

“What for?”

“Protection. What do you care? I’m delivering Frank. I don’t want to get nervous.”

“And where the fuck am I supposed to get it?” He glanced at his watch. “At this hour?”

“You’re the Agency, aren’t you? You can do anything.” He put up his hand to cut off DiAngelis’s reply. “Just get it to me. We’re on the Red Arrow tonight. Compartment 62. Or the Astoria in Leningrad tomorrow. I don’t care how you get it to me, just do it. Before Wednesday. Or the whole thing’s off.”

“Off?”

“One that works. I don’t want to blow my hand off. Have Mata Hari leave it on the train. However you want to do it. You must have Moscow rules for this too. Or use your imagination.” He looked over. “I don’t move him without it.”

DiAngelis said nothing for a second. “I thought he was moving himself.”

Simon looked at him. “And I’ll make sure he gets there. Anything else? I was just supposed to give you time and place and go.”

“Then that covers it. Tell him I got the message.” He paused. “You don’t want to let all this go to your head. The cloak and dagger. People get hurt with guns.”

“Want to give me the coordinates one more time?”

“Go fuck yourself.”

He waded back through the crowd in the vestibule, feeling a little dizzy, as if he’d been holding his breath and could now exhale. He’d done it. And no one knew. The stares, the curious looks, were for his suit, not him. Nobody followed him in from behind the pillar, trailed him up the stairs, even thought him capable of espionage. In the heart of Moscow.

Frank and Jo were still in the main foyer, smoking near the open windows.

“I thought you got lost,” Frank said.

“There was a line.”

“You just missed Hannah,” Jo said. “She said she ran into you downstairs.”

“Everything okay?” Frank said, unable to resist.

“Yes, fine. Just crowded, that’s all.”

“Think what it’s like for us,” Jo said. “All the clothes. And back then. Those skirts. Oh, there’s Melinda. And Donald. I’d better say hello. They get wounded if you don’t.”

“No Scrabble,” Frank said, then when she’d moved away, “No Scrabble. So that’s one thing to look forward to. Everything went all right?”

“He’ll be there Thursday.”

Frank breathed out. “Well, that’s that, then.” He looked around the bright room, as if he were saying good-bye, then turned to Simon. “Thanks, Jimbo.”

Odette’s lookalike came to seduce Prince Siegfried, the swans now in black, and the ballet went on and on, Simon trying to keep his eyes fixed on the stage, not be obviously restless. Would Frank sense something, guess what was happening? Used to reading people, the rhythms of an interrogation. But Frank just seemed bored, restless himself, his mind elsewhere, but not on Simon. Thanks, Jimbo. Odile twirled. What exactly would Ian’s motive be? The simple, the plausible. Gareth had caught him making contact with MI6, the move Elizaveta had been expecting for years. But why would Frank suspect? Simple. Something Perry had said, no longer here to contradict, another scientist, a man willing to sign letters. Let’s go over it again. He wouldn’t have to plant evidence, just the suspicion. Hannah already believed it. Sitting somewhere behind them watching Siegfried betray Odette. The setup by Von Rothbart. The air they breathed here. One more day.

The applause lasted for several curtain calls and gifts of flowers, as endless as the ballet itself. Finally the row began to move toward the aisle, joining the stream out. Simon checked his watch. Plenty of time. Novikov’s head again, behind him the ambassador and his wife. They paused to let people out into the aisle, then looked up and stopped, recognizing Frank. A flash of surprise, then embarrassment, Frank’s being there something that couldn’t be acknowledged. The ambassador looked away, as if he hadn’t seen anyone, and took his wife’s elbow. More than just a social snub, a turning away, afraid to make contact. What Frank was now, a pariah.

Simon glanced back to see if Joanna had noticed. A slight flush, biting her lower lip, following the ambassador’s wife, her back like a closed door. What it would be like, a line of turned backs. But what was it like here? She looked down, shoulders dropping, and Simon saw her on the dacha couch, turning pages. The album. It hadn’t occurred to him. She’d be leaving with the suitcase she’d brought to Leningrad, no pictures, no Richie. Impossible to get them now, a detail overlooked. What else hadn’t he done? All planned, but he’d forgotten the pictures, something she’d miss for the rest of her life. Pointless to think they could be sent on later, with the Service hunting for Frank.

A car took them to Leningradsky Station, one of three railway terminals surrounding Komsomolskaya Square. After the Metropol and the Bolshoi, Simon somehow expected another piece of nineteenth-century extravagance, built for the Age of Steam, but Leningradsky was gritty and functional, a hangar-like shed with scratchy loudspeakers and passengers looking for the right train. Boris was waiting for them on the platform, the bags already inside. The Red Arrow, Simon saw, really was red, a splotch of bright color in the gray station. Inside, the compartments were red too, swagging drapes with tassels, even the folded white bed linens, stacked neatly, trimmed in red.

“I hope you don’t mind,” Boris said to Simon. “We will have to share. The train—so crowded. I’ll take the upper berth. So you won’t be disturbed.”

“You’re coming? But I thought—what happened to Sochi?”

“Sochi later. It was decided I should go to Leningrad.”

“Decided?”

“Just to be on the safe side,” Frank said blandly. “You know, since Gareth. The office was a little nervous—traveling by ourselves.”

“So. You don’t mind, for the one night?”

“No, of course not,” Simon said, an automatic response, calculating. He looked into the compartment. What if the gun had already been delivered? But there was nothing, just the stowed bag and his briefcase with the manuscript. And the visas. But Boris wouldn’t have bothered with that. He knew the briefcase.

“Better get out your earplugs,” Frank said, genial. “I’ve bunked with Boris. You get the full orchestra. Well, why don’t we all have a nightcap?” He pointed to the fold-up table under the compartment window, laid out for tea and snacks. “I put a bottle in the small bag,” he said to Boris. “Or are you on duty?”

Boris made a show of checking his watch. “On holiday.”

Frank smiled. “So. Your place or ours?”

In the end they went to Frank and Jo’s compartment, clinking glasses as the train pulled out, Simon’s mind still on the briefcase next door. Locked, but that wouldn’t stop anyone. Why leave the visas there? Then where? Carry them with him to the Bolshoi? He had expected to have the night to himself, to sort things out. Now Boris, a few feet away.

After another round, conversation stalled. At home Boris was part of the furniture, just there. Now, facing one another in the small compartment, they felt awkward, strangers thrown together.

“When does the porter make up the beds?” Simon said. “I need to get some sleep.”

“No porter. Soviet train. I make beds,” Boris said, standing up.

“No, no, you don’t have to do—” Simon started, then was hushed by a wave of Boris’s hand.

“Good night,” Boris said, a formal nod to Frank. “So, I am next door.” He turned to Simon. “A few minutes only for the beds.”

“A Soviet butler,” Frank said, amused, as Boris closed the door.

“Is he going to be with us all the time?” Simon said to Frank.

“Can’t be helped. It’s going to be like this—until they find who killed Gareth. A precaution.”

“Am I allowed to go to the ladies’ alone?” Jo said, picking up a cosmetic bag. “Take off the war paint. If I’m not back in twenty minutes, send the posse. Good night, Simon. Never mind about Boris. You get used to it. You think you do anyway.”

“Was this your idea?” Simon said to Frank when she’d gone.

“In Leningrad the station chief would be worse. Very by the book. Easier to provide our own man. But in Tallinn we’ll let the locals take over.”

“He’ll get in trouble. At least in Sochi he’d be—”

“Boris is a big boy. He can take care of himself.” He finished his drink. “First Ian, now Boris. All these scruples. Jimbo, you can’t. Not in this business. They’ll trip you up.”

“I’m not in this business.”

Frank smiled. “So you keep saying.” He looked up. “Don’t worry about Boris. I have his back.”

Simon’s bed, made up on the pulled-out settee, was half again as wide as the upper berth.

“Are you sure—?” About to propose drawing matchsticks.

“I can sleep anywhere. You learn in the war.”

He was sitting on the facing settee, smoking one of his strong Russian cigarettes, already undressed for bed. A thick old robe that looked as heavy as a carpet, pale, oddly thin legs sticking out, the top open to reveal an undershirt. The casual intimacy had taken Simon by surprise, but how could it be otherwise? Roommates. And now what? Change in the bathroom at the end of the car? That would only embarrass them both. He turned his back and started undressing. Boris, indifferent, gazed out the window at the flat, dark landscape.

“You have seen that film Ballad of a Soldier? Was very popular in America.”

“Yes. Everywhere.”

“They sleep in the hay. In the freight car. A luxury compared to how we had to sleep.” He drew again on the cigarette, blowing smoke toward the open window vent. “A sentimental film. The soldier with the one leg? And the girl is happy to see him. You think it was like that?” He shook his head. “It was hard.”

Simon turned, belting his robe. “Your wife died, you said.”

Boris nodded. “An air raid. So at least quick. At the front people would lie there, waiting. Sometimes they would ask you to shoot them. To stop the pain.” He poured himself another glass, settling in. “You were in the war?”

“Not like that. At a desk.” He sat on his bed, lighting his own cigarette, shaking his head no to the offered bottle.

“Hm,” Boris said, almost a grunt. “A desk.”

“Like Frank. Operations planning,” Simon said, as if that explained anything.

Boris looked up. “You worked together?”

“No. Frank got involved in the operations. I was strictly a desk man. An analyst.”

“He likes that. The operations. The risk.”

“Well, he didn’t actually go on any. He was a desk man too.”

“But think of the risk for him. Every day. At that desk.” He put out his cigarette. “Passing documents. You know there were so many they would pile up here? So many to read. But for him each one could have been a death warrant. If he had been caught. So a man who took risks.”

Simon said nothing for a minute, looking at him. “What’s wrong, Boris?”

Boris raised his eyes, meeting Simon’s.

“Why should anything be wrong?” Moving a man into place.

Simon shrugged his shoulders. “No reason.”

“No,” Boris said, lighting another cigarette. “No reason. A man who’s a hero of the Soviet Union. Now a book. Thanks to the good brother.” He dipped his head. “Soon famous everywhere. Such a man should retire. What’s the English? On his laurels.”

“I thought he had.”

“That’s what he tells you?”

“He doesn’t tell me anything. First of all, he’s not allowed. And second, I don’t ask. I don’t want to know. He’s not a hero to everybody.”

“But you’re his brother.”

“And?”

“You would want to protect him.”

“From what?”

Boris shrugged, out of specifics. “From risks.”

Simon waited. Another piece being moved.

“You know, the Service, it’s an office of secrets, but if you listen, sometimes you hear things.” He paused. “Something here, something there. An operation—there’s an excitement. People talk. Maybe just a little, but they talk.”

“What operation?”

Another shrug. “I asked myself, why Tallinn? Riga? Of course interesting, but the brother, he’s a man of books. Why not Yasnaya Polyana? So I listened. About Tallinn, Riga. Then no more Riga, so Tallinn. And the office approves, they want him to go. At such a time, when all the foreign—”

“You think he’s running an operation? Why not just ask him?”

“That’s not possible. So I ask you.”

“Me? He’d never tell me anything like that. Anyway, isn’t he getting a little long in the tooth for that?”

A puzzled look.

“Old. Frank doesn’t run operations anymore. Not according to the book anyway. That was years ago.”

“Unless there’s a special expertise he can bring. A familiarity.”

“Familiarity?”

“To know the enemy so well, it’s an advantage. To know the patterns, how they do things.”

“Who’s the enemy? Us?”

Boris smiled a little. “Always you. The Main Adversary. But this time closer to home. You remember in the book, the story of the Latvians? Like that, very similar. But now Estonians. It’s always the same there. Nationalists. Sentimentalists. Even a few can make trouble. So of course the Main Adversary encourages them. But if we can stop them before they—” He let the thought finish itself.

“And you think Frank’s involved with this?”

“I think he offers his expertise. But plans—that’s one thing. What happens is another. Not so predictable.” He looked over. “For a desk man.”

“So that’s why they sent you? To watch him?”

“No. They sent me to watch you.”

He had raised his eyes so that for a second they seemed to be looking over a handful of cards, and Simon saw that it wasn’t chess they were playing, but some elaborate game of poker, all of them playing, all of them cheating.

“Me,” he said, his tone flat.

“The Agency allows you to publish this book. Perhaps you do a favor for them.”

Simon shook his head. “It doesn’t work that way. They don’t ‘allow’ me. Anyway, what kind of favor?”

“The usual kind. Make confusion. Misdirect. So the operation doesn’t succeed.”

“Work against Frank, you mean. Do you think I’d do that?” All of them cheating.

“The Service is careful.” He looked down. “Me? No.”

“Then why—?”

“I’d like your help.”

“What, watching Frank?” Rearranging the cards now, out of order.

“A shorter trip. Leningrad only. You can suggest it. He’s making this trip for you.”

“But I thought you said the Service wants him to go to Tallinn.”

“Not everyone in the Service is his friend.”

They looked at each other for a moment.

“You know that he won’t listen to me if the Service has asked him to do something. He can’t.”

“Suggest anyway. Then we know. Then I know how to help him.”

“What’s wrong, Boris?” Meaning it this time.

“An instinct. You learn that in the war too. You feel it. Get quiet. Don’t move. Why? Because something tells you.”

“All right. I’ll ask,” he said, getting up. “But you know he won’t.” Another minute. “You look after him, don’t you?”

“It’s my job.”

Later, when he lay in bed, nodding to the clicking of the wheels, he realized it was quiet enough to hear footsteps in the corridor, someone’s late night visit to the bathroom. So Boris didn’t snore after all. Unless he was lying awake too, listening.