Liars & Thieves

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The very real defection of Vasili Mitrokhin, the retired archivist for the KGB, to Great Britain in 1992 was the inspiration for this tale. He left Russia with six suitcases full of notes that he had taken from classified KGB files over a period of twelve years. (See The Sword and The Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB by Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, Basic Books, 1999.) I have wanted to write this tale since I read that book. My editor, Charles Spicer, and his colleagues at St. Martin’s Press offered me the opportunity, for which I am extremely grateful.

My wife, Deborah Coonts, had a large creative input to the plot of the novel as it developed. Engineer and physicist Gilbert “Gil” Pascal read the manuscript and offered technical suggestions, as he has been kind enough to do many times in the past. A heartfelt Thank You to both of them.

This story is a work of fiction. As usual, the author is solely responsible for the plot, characters, incidents, and dialogue contained herein.