"Why send you to see her? Couldn't your handler have talked to her just as easily?"

"Maybe she's come up with something new that she'll only discuss in person. Or maybe it's just to further my education, so I'll know what to do next. As long as she's not another fake Russian, that will be an improvement."

The rain slackened as we reached the outskirts of the city, then fell harder as we eased into the darkness of the countryside. We missed a turn, getting lost enough that we had to backtrack ten miles, and by the time we finally pulled onto the gravel driveway it was nearly ten-thirty. The rural night was black behind its screen of rain, and the country lane was so rutted and mushy that once I nearly got stuck, fishtailing the rear wheels. Finally our beams lit the walls of a two-story stone farmhouse with a pitched shingle roof. There were four mullioned windows across the front of each floor, but only one was lit, downstairs and to the right. There was a separate garage with both doors shut, so we parked in the mush and sprinted for the door.

An overflowing gutter cascaded across the front. We took shelter on a small porch and I knocked loudly. An outside light came on, one of those yellow bulbs for keeping away bugs. A deadbolt slid back before the door eased free.

Any illusion I'd had of meeting a dissipated old drunk, gone to seed like Connie, was immediately dispelled. Valerie Humphries was in remarkable shape, her posture upright, every silver hair in place. But the real surprise was that I recognized her-she was the "Val" from the funeral on Block Island, the one who'd called Lemaster a "pariah" and had then been talking to Nethercutt's wife.

Fortunately, she didn't seem to recognize me, although she did inspect us both from head to toe. She wore a smart black wool skirt, a cream-colored blouse, and a string of pearls, the kind of older woman my father used to call "well preserved" when he was part of the embassy social scene. I would've wagered she dressed like this every night, one of those exacting personalities who demanded as much from herself as from those around her. As she looked us over, she seemed far less impressed with us than we were with her.

"I suppose you're Mr. Furse," she said, employing the code name.

"Yes. Sorry for the late arrival."

"Come in."

I introduced Litzi, but changed her last name to Hauptmann. Humphries raised her eyebrows at the first name, and I was pretty sure I knew why.

"No one warned me about you," she said to Litzi as she ushered us in. "I can't say that I enjoy these surprises, but I'm not the one who makes the plans, and never have been. I'd offer you coffee but the cook is asleep, and if I wake him there'll be hell to pay. Mine is undrinkable, so Burgundy will have to do."

"Burgundy would be generous," I said.

Especially since, with Connie Sachs, Smiley had to provide all the alcohol. The hard stuff, too, as an inducement to memory.

The room was comfortable, with low lighting, rich oriental rugs, and warm colors on the walls. There was a book on the couch that she must have been reading, with a Czech title. A scattering of crosswords and number puzzles were piled to the side-done in pen, not pencil. Maybe it was how she kept her mind sharp, although, as I was about to discover, her tongue could be sharper.

She picked up an open bottle of Burgundy from an end table along with a half-filled glass and led us further into the house. We came to a sitting room with harsher lighting, white walls, and firmer chairs, as if she was warning us not to get comfortable. Then she fetched two more glasses from a sideboard and poured them full.

"Thanks," I said.

Even Dad, far more discerning than I, would have appreciated the vintage, which tasted dusky and complex enough to have some years behind it.

"How did you end up living here?" Litzi asked.

Urban Europeans were always curious about Americans who chose to maroon themselves in the Continent's outback.

"I married a Czech emigre who worked for the Agency. He always wanted to come back, and after the Velvet Revolution he bought property here. We came over after retiring. I suppose he thought he would become some sort of gentleman farmer. Two years ago he had a heart attack while riding his tractor. It kept rolling, clear across the farm and onto the highway, where it came to rest against an old poplar on the far side of the road. Blocked traffic all afternoon, or I might not have found out for days."

She spoke of it rather clinically, as if she'd just been reviewing his file, then she polished off her summation with a sip of Burgundy before turning to Litzi.

"I don't mean to be inhospitable, but when you've finished your wine you'll have to leave the house. I'm only prepared to discuss certain matters with people who I know have been cleared for the information, and I won't have you eavesdropping on me from some other room."

Litzi was incredulous. First she looked at me, as if this might be my doing, then looked toward the window, where the rain was still pelting down in the dark.

"You may use my rain slicker and hat," Humphries said. "They're in the closet by the door. You can borrow my Wellington boots as well." Litzi's expression changed from surprise to indignation. "If it makes any difference, there are horses in the barn, and you're welcome to visit them. I say that not just because the barn is warm and dry, but because you look as if you've ridden before."

Litzi tilted her head, reassessing this straightforward woman.

"You're right. I rode quite a lot as a girl." That was certainly news to me. "I'll be happy to visit your horses. They're probably friendlier."

"No doubt, my dear."

Litzi set down her wine and headed for the exit. Humphries waited while we listened to the creak of a closet door, the shuffle of a rain jacket, the squeak of boots. Finally we heard the front door opening to the sound of the storm. Then it shut with a rattle.

"Part of your cover, I suppose, but I can't say I approve."

"Excuse me?"

"The girl. And those ridiculous names you're using. Did they actually think I'd enjoy the joke?"

"The joke?"

"Oh, don't play stupid. Litzi was Philby's first wife. Furse was his second wife's maiden name." That was news to me. Lemaster's idea of a prank, perhaps. "But the less I know about you, the better. Besides, he sent you, didn't he?"

Was this a trick question?

"Who's 'he'?"

She smiled appreciatively.

"Good. Exactly how you should answer. And I certainly won't mention his name, either."

For the first time since I'd set out on this quest, I experienced the excitement of having at last brushed up against the source of it all. Not just an email address, but a direct and personal link. Humphries was apparently an old colleague of my handler's-at least that's what she seemed to think. She also seemed convinced that I was a CIA man. A professional, not a freelance. Meaning I had better start acting like I knew what I was doing, lest she get suspicious and clam up.

The rain came harder as a gust of wind shook the windows. I felt a pang of sympathy for Litzi, but it was time to get down to business.

25.

"She's jealous, by the way, that girl you're calling Litzi."

It was an odd way for Humphries to begin, but I could hardly let it pass without comment.

"Jealous of you?"

She shook her head, frowning at the absurdity.

"Of you, and of what you know. But she must know things, too. You have to know at least part of the picture to be jealous of those who know the rest. And that's where your colleague is now. Her face was broadcasting it from the moment you walked in the door."

"And you know this how?"

"From more than forty years of observing other people just like her, in a business where what you knew defined your status. Reading files teaches you to read people, believe it or not."

"I'll keep that in mind."

I'd brought the folder from the Mercedes, which turned out to be a mistake. She reached over and nimbly snatched it from beside me on the chair. Opening it, she flicked through the pages and sighed when she saw the Le Carre passage.

"Spare me the goddamned Connie Sachs crap, if you don't mind."

"But I didn't-"

"No sense in denying it. I can see it in your stupid mooning face, the star-struck look of the devoted reader who thinks he's finally found the real thing. Well, get it out of your head. The real Connie was some MI5 gal, Millicent Bagot. She died four years ago. Look it up, if that's what you're into. But I don't come from a book, and no one ever wrote me into one. Letting Newsweek write that load of PR rubbish about the Hargraves case was a mistake, but no one asked me, of course. None of the old Agency spooks who wrote novels even knew who I was, and that's the way I preferred it."

"And what did you know about them?"

"Most of the time I only knew them by their cover names. It helped me stay objective when it came time to evaluate their reports. I briefed a few of them, of course, on paper anyway. Supplied them with all kinds of useful items, which they promptly forgot the moment they were in the field, in favor of their so-called instinct. It's like when a crop scientist tests the soil to come up with the perfect formula for what to plant and how to tend it, only to have a bunch of stupid plowboys in heavy boots trample everything to mush, thinking they know better. Of course later, when they're growing apples where they should have planted peaches, they bitch and moan when everything fails and ask why no one ever warned them. That's what it was like being in research."

She sipped her wine and smoothed her skirt, glaring at me as if I were another blinkered fool who would ignore her advice.

"So what have you been able to learn?" she asked. "What have you discovered?"

Whoa, now. Who was supposed to be getting information from this session, my handler or me? Was this going to turn into a face-to-face version of a dead drop, with Humphries reporting my latest findings?

"I'm the one who's here for information."

"Of course. But I need a reference point. For a researcher, context is everything. I'm not asking you to divulge operational detail, just fill me in on the big picture. And let me warn you now that I plan to be very tight when it comes to divulging actual names. Happy to give them when relevant, but there's no sense in being fast and loose unless it's warranted. The rules exist for a reason. Now, where do you stand?"

"Okay. Well ..." I paused, collecting my thoughts. "I seem to be tracking an informational trail for some sort of courier network set up by Ed Lemaster back in the sixties, when he was an operative, on behalf of a source code-named Dewey, who may or may not have been known to, or even used by, the KGB. Its transit points were in Vienna, Prague, maybe also Budapest."

She nodded, seeming to approve.

"What's important is that you're familiar with the name Dewey. That's the key to the whole thing."

"And what, exactly, do you mean by 'the whole thing'?"

"Lemaster's betrayal, of course. His spying for the other side. Not that anyone who counted ever believed in it. I practically drew them a map at one point, X marks the spot, but no one ever picked up a shovel to dig for treasure. Maybe they were afraid of what they'd find. And for a change it wasn't just the field men who were playing the fool."

"Angleton, you mean?" I was guessing, of course.

"Yes, Angleton. Poor dead Jim. If he'd only listened to me and a few others, well ..."

I couldn't help but recall that moment as a boy, when I'd encountered him on my bicycle as he tidied up in the wake of a murder. "Go home, son." That's probably what he'd be saying now. This time I wouldn't scare so easily.

"Is he at the middle of this?"

"Him and his people. And the two Russians, of course. Angleton's old pal Golitsyn, and his nemesis Nosenko. You know about that bloody mess, don't you?"

"Only what I've read in books."

"Books!" she scoffed. "They don't know the half of it!"

Historians had nonetheless written plenty about Golitsyn and Nosenko, especially with regard to their role in Angleton's ill-fated mole hunt.

"Golitsyn defected in what, the early sixties?"

"December of sixty-one," she answered. "The fifteenth. We didn't have much use for him at first, so he went over to help our cousins in London for a while. He returned in the summer of sixty-three, right after we'd moved into our new headquarters in Langley.

"Of course, you never would have known Jim Angleton's office was brand spanking new. Every square foot of space was already piled with paper. File folders were part of the decor, along with a whole row of safes. Kept his blinds shut, with a single lamp on his desk that left everyone but him in the dark. He'd hunch there like a miser with his coins, counting all the facts to make sure they added up."

"Was he already so paranoid?"

"Wrong word. The enemy was out to get us, and Jim knew it better than anybody. Once that bastard Philby burned him, he never recovered. Do you have any idea what it's like to work for someone who's so mistrustful, yet so brilliant? No matter what you said or did, Jim analyzed it to the last detail. As chief of research I was his main fact checker, but that didn't mean I was above suspicion. Order the wrong damn thing for lunch at La Nicoise and he'd question you for ten minutes about your motives."

"But he trusted Golitsyn."

"Trusted him absolutely. Mostly because Golitsyn was just as suspicious of the Russians as he was. They both thought the Soviets were the world's reigning supermen when it came to deception."

"And then Nosenko defected?"

"Fourth of February, 1964. Golitsyn immediately pegged him as a plant, which was all Jim needed to hear. I believed it, too. Everyone in Jim's shop did. So Nosenko basically went into a hole in the ground out at the Farm."

"They kept him there awhile, didn't they?"

"Nearly four years. But it was never airtight. The hounds in the Soviet division managed to get their people in to see him. They were quite enchanted by Nosenko's stories, and when Jim heard they were feeding his tips to their field men, he was more convinced than ever that the Soviets were playing us for fools. The biggest problem was that Nosenko was directly contradicting Golitsyn, at least on some things. It was a threat to our worldview in Counterintelligence, so Jim mobilized for war. That's when he hired his three agents, the ones nobody was supposed to know about. They didn't even appear as a line item in our budget."

"And one of them was Lemaster."

"Code name Headlight. That was all I knew then, their code names. Headlight, Blinker, Taillight."

A lineup, it occurred to me, that could easily have been incorporated into a title for a John Le Carre novel-Blinker, Taillight, Soldier, Spy-with only Lemaster's code name missing from the formula.

"Why 'Headlight'?"

"Jim rather liked the completeness of the set. Bumper to bumper, he had every signal covered, with himself at the wheel. It made things quite handy once the demolition derby of his Great Mole Hunt got under way. Because it was their job-their sole job-to verify Golitsyn and tear down Nosenko. Jim's very own truth squad. And it was my job, of course, to dot their i's and cross their t's, fact by fact. I was a busy woman."

She paused for a tiny sip of wine. Noticing my glass was empty, she refilled it. I had a feeling that even if we were to continue for hours she'd never empty hers. When information was being dispensed and discussed, she wanted to remain totally in control.

"So how did it go?" I asked. "Did the agents deliver?"

"For four months, nothing. Zilch. Jim was after me day and night. 'Find a lead for them!' Twirling his arms like some madman football coach on the sidelines. 'You've been tracking these Moscow hoods for years, can't you find them a single goddamn lead?' And those poor boys were working like dogs, of course, filing reports two and three times a week. But even I could see it was all garbage. Things we already knew, or from such dubious sourcing that it was completely unreliable.

"Then, in early sixty-five, Headlight struck gold. A man he met in Budapest. On a tram car, of all places, right as he was rolling across the Danube on the Margit Bridge. Source Nijinsky."

I was struck by the eerie symmetry of her story to Lemaster's version of how he'd come up with Richard Folly in Budapest in '67. Two characters, two strokes of fortune, both originating on the same tram line, three years apart. Maybe both were fiction.

"Nijinsky?"

"Like the dancer. Because he was so nimble. He had traveling papers for practically the whole East Bloc, the West as well. Headlight met him all over Europe. Everything he came up with made Jim smile. Finally, we had the confirmation we'd been looking for that Nosenko was a fraud, a plant, a cancer."

"What about Blinker and Taillight?"