"In that case, you may think of me as a diplomat as well." He snorted under his breath. "What else does he like to read? More things like this Hunt trash?"

"You'd have to ask him. He's a collector."

"I am sure. What are his duties?"

"At his job?"

"Of course at his job. Do you know of any special duties?"

"No."

"You are sure of this? Do not lie to me."

"Yes. I'm sure."

"Has he not asked you to do his bidding while you are in the German Democratic Republic?"

"His bidding?"

"Observing things. Then reporting back to him, once you are home."

"He didn't even know I was coming."

"Yes, that is a useful story for you, I am sure." He smiled smugly. I've never been a violent person, but at that moment I wanted to lunge across the table and grab him by the neck. He stared a while longer and then, as if he'd suddenly grown bored, he stood and left without a word. A Vopo reentered, took away the bottle, and shut the door.

I had no idea what had prompted his questions, which at the time only seemed bizarre. In light of recent events I now wonder if "special duties" was a reference to my father's courier errands. Had Dad been under surveillance? And why were they interested in my father's books?

The fellow in the brown coat must have concluded I had little to offer, because he never returned. Litzi was another matter. He spent the next ninety minutes grilling her. By the time she finally emerged, just after a Vopo escorted me onto the platform, she was hugging herself for either warmth or comfort.

"Are you all right?" I asked. I stepped toward her, but a Vopo held us apart. "Litzi, are you okay? Did he-?"

Sniffling, she shook her head as if to reassure me, but she looked pale and frightened.

Another Vopo brought our bags. I later discovered that the condoms were gone. They also took the Hunt novel.

They bundled us into the back of a rattling Wartburg that was idling in front of the station. The driver was a civilian in disheveled clothes. A second car followed us for a few miles, then peeled away toward Bad Schandau. Neither Litzi nor I spoke during the forty-minute ride to Dresden. We didn't know if the driver was a plainclothesman or some hack they'd hired off the street. He, too, remained silent. Now and then I glanced at Litzi, but she was invariably gazing out her window.

The driver dropped us at the Dresden Hauptbahnhof, more than two hours after we would have arrived by train. He sped away without asking for a fare, our gift from the German Democratic Republic. Litzi sagged into my arms.

"What did they do?" I asked. "Why did they keep you for so long?"

"The usual harassment," she said. "I'm an Austrian national with a Czech father, so they have to take their pound of flesh."

That was when I first learned that Litzi's last name hadn't always been Strauss. Her dad had chosen it after switching from Marek. He had grown up in Bohemia, a Czech national who'd fled to Vienna during the Second World War and then somehow managed to stay once the Soviets began repatriating all East Bloc nationals, just like they did with Harry Lime's girlfriend Anna in The Third Man. No wonder Litzi didn't like the movie.

"They can't deport him," I said. "Not now."

"Not legally, no."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't want to talk about them anymore. And I don't want to stay in Dresden any longer than we have to. I want to get to Berlin. West Berlin."

She refused to say more about the ordeal. I've always assumed she would eventually have loosened up over time, but my dad and I left Vienna three weeks later, so I never found out.

From Dresden, Litzi and I caught an early train the next morning to Berlin, and spent the day moping around its sights and its museums before boarding our reserved overnight compartment for Vienna. Litzi was still in too much of a daze for us to enjoy the ride the way we'd hoped.

Our families were furious, but they let us keep seeing each other during my final weeks in town. But the jolt of the experience cast a pall over our last days together, and even seemed to darken our correspondence afterward. For a few months we gamely lived up to our promises to write regularly, but never achieved quite the spark we'd had in Vienna. By the time I started traveling to the States to pick a college, we had stopped as if by mutual consent. Then we lost touch.

Now here we were again, seated in the Braunerhof at the very table where we'd hatched our first big adventure. And damned if we weren't planning another one.

"You're sure you want to go through with this?" I asked.

"Of course." Neither of us was smiling now.

I checked my watch.

"Time to go."

"Moscow Rules," she muttered. "Hope that that doesn't mean we'll see the man in the brown coat."

"Oh, I hope it does. He owes me a dozen condoms."

She laughed, but only briefly. Then she tightened her grip on my arm.

13.

Kollnerhofgasse was a bustling little street. Number 11 was the most run-down building on the block. The lock on the main doorway was broken, and the stairwell stank of cat urine.

In keeping with Moscow Rules, Litzi and I circled the block once in reconnaissance before entering, pausing several times to check for surveillance. The passage from Smiley's People had said the safety signal would be a pin "shoved high in the first wood support as you entered." A yellow chalk line would indicate it was too unsafe to proceed. I looked left as we came through the entrance. A red pushpin protruded from the door frame just overhead.

But what did we do now?

"Check the mailboxes," Litzi whispered.

There were two rows of eight, each with its own buzzer. The locks were sprung on three. The name "Miller" caught my eye, written neatly in black ink for 4-B on an immaculate slip of paper.

"That's our man."

"Miller?"

"Brand-new card, and it's the name Vladimir used in Smiley's People."

"Nice work, Mr. Folly. Maybe that's how you should introduce yourself."

"As long as you use his girlfriend's name. Carolista."

Litzi made a face. I pressed the button.

We waited several seconds before the buzzer sounded to unlock the inner door.

In most big old buildings like this you hear a wide variety of noises as you make your way upstairs. Babies and televisions, dogs and stereos, an argument or two. Number 11 Kollnerhofgasse was as quiet as a tomb, and by the time we reached the fourth floor we were a little unnerved.

I knocked loudly. There was a flash of movement behind the peephole. Then the door swung back to the limit of a security chain. The smell of sweat and unwashed clothes poured through the breach. A short older man with unkempt black hair, late sixties probably, peeped out at us with a hint of fear in bloodshot eyes. He said nothing.

"Herr Miller?" I tried.

"That's what it says on the mailbox." His German had a heavy Slavic accent, probably Russian. "Is that all you can offer?"

"Vladimir Miller?"

He nodded. Some of the alarm faded from his eyes, and he shut the door to undo the chain. When he opened back up and saw Litzi he blocked our way.

"The message said nothing about two of you."

"I didn't send the message. Did you send mine?"

I moved again to enter but he held his ground. I raised my voice so it would echo down the stairwell.

"Shall we continue talking with the door wide open, so that anyone below can hear?"

He glanced over my shoulder, scowling, then motioned us inside.

"Sit on the couch," he said.

We obliged him. He stood by an armchair with torn upholstery, watching carefully.

"You are not to move while I address you. You will do exactly as I say. Understand?"

Litzi and I looked at each other from opposite ends of the filthy couch, and when neither of us answered right away he produced a butcher knife from behind his back and rapidly approached me. I made a move to stand, but he was too quick, using his free hand to shove my chest and force me back into the seat.

"I said, do you understand?" The knife blade was inches from my face, tilted downward.

"Yes," Litzi said from her end. "We understand."

He backed away, but only a few feet.

"Did anyone follow you?"

"Not that I know of."

"That is not a good enough answer."

I shrugged.

"We checked several times," I said. "Moscow Rules."

"And you relied on her?"

"I'm not exactly a trained professional, or didn't they tell you?"

He wearily shook his head, but kept the knife pointed forward. It was rusty and stained, and probably dull, not that I cared to find out.

"Who is playing with my security like this?" he asked. "Do you know?"

"You'll have to ask your handler."

"My handler!" he said disdainfully. "He has been dead eleven years. These people now are never of any use except for themselves."

He paused, thinking over what to say, while I took stock of the room. The apartment was in the same shape as Vladimir. Plaster cracked, ceiling watermarked. The lumpy couch reeked of cat urine, and the upholstery was shredded along the back. No carpeting, just scuffed oak, with mouse droppings in the corners. The heat was off, and it was chilly.

Vladimir stepped to the window and flipped back a heavy curtain, which ejected dust into a pale band of sunlight. He looked down at the street in both directions, then dropped the curtain and came back to the couch, knife still at the ready. I glanced at Litzi, but she was watching Vladimir. I'm not sure what I'd expected, but it hadn't been anything like this.

"I assume you have some sort of message for me. For us."

"You are to tell no one of my location. They would pay good money to know it, but if you take their money you will be dead inside a week."

"Whose money?"

He waggled the knife and stepped closer.

"Don't treat me as a fool unless you wish to exit through the window."

Then he retreated to a far corner, where he knelt in a scatter of mouse droppings and, without turning his back, began working at a floorboard with the knife.

A scene from Len Deighton's Berlin Game flashed into my head-Bernie Samson, scolding a contact for hiding something beneath the floorboards, because that's where the searchers always looked first. Vladimir seemed to have run out of energy and ideas, an old spy at the end of his tether.

The board came free. He pulled out a small, clean envelope and stood unsteadily, then brought it to the couch and tossed it in my lap. When I moved to open it, he stepped closer and thrust out the knife in warning.

"Not here." The blade was inches from my nose, close enough to smell the rusty steel. "Anywhere you please once you've left, but not here."

"Okay."

"Tell your people it is from my own files," he said. "I knew someday there would be interest." He waggled the knife, flicking it across the tip of my nose as if he was scratching an itch. "If the wire transfer does not occur within three days, then I will come for you. For both of you. But if your clumsiness leads the others here first, then you can be certain that they will next come for you."

"Who are the others?"

He scowled as he had at my previous claim of ignorance. Then he slowly, achingly, raised the blade until it was touching the hair on my forehead. He flicked it sideways, scratching the skin and tossing my hair.

"Ask such a question again and I will shove this straight into your lying mouth." I listened to his breathing, trying to remain as still as possible and not daring to look away from his eyes. He slowly backed away, but only a step, and he continued to hold the knife forward.