Leonid stamped his booted feet. Where was the d.a.m.ned car? It was almost time to sound the a.s.sembly, and here he was, walking up and down on the outskirts of this faceless city. I must take things into my own hands, he thought; I must find a way to stand my ground. Either I travel to Moscow and try to bring about a reconciliation with Anna, or I inform Galina that she can't count on me unless we relocate to the capital. Did I break my back trying to get a right of abode in Moscow for nothing? Did I make sacrifices for Anna so I could rot out here? A captain in exile isn't any better off than an ordinary soldier.

Leonid turned around. He'd walked some distance, and now an army vehicle was parked in front of building number 119 with the motor running. The driver wasn't looking out past the hood of his engine; instead, he was taking advantage of the officer's absence to have a smoke.

"Hey, soldier!" Leonid shouted, so loudly that an echo ran up and down the street. The driver clenched the cigarette between his lips and drove toward the captain.

Maybe, if we both make an effort, going on with Anna isn't hopeless, Leonid thought, but at the same time, he felt the impossibility of doing without Galina's warmth, her humor, her l.u.s.tiness. He remembered the tension and gloom that had characterized the days he'd spent on leave in Moscow. Things can't remain as they are, he thought. He climbed into the vehicle and looked disapprovingly at the driver. I can't go back, and I don't know where I'm going if I go on.

"Go on," he growled to the corporal.

The latter kept his eyes ahead of him and steered around a wall of ice that the snow plow had shoved to one side of the road.

THIRTY-ONE.

It was only as a private citizen that A. I. Kamarovsky found himself inside the Lenin Library. He'd changed from his winter-weight dark green suit to a dark green suit made of lighter material, but with spring windstorms in mind, he was also wearing his long scarf. A few yards away from him sat a young woman who had, he kept telling himself, his eyes. In addition, she wore steel-rimmed eyegla.s.ses, just as he did. To avoid the fuss of borrowing a book from the reference shelves, Kamarovsky had brought one with him. He sat at one of the long tables. Rows of fluorescent tubes bathed the reading room in a sallow light that made him tired and offered no possibility of hiding in shadow should the student happen to turn her head in his direction.

The book was an advance copy of a volume of poetry, sent to Kamarovsky at his request. It was a slim volume, and the cover showed a flock of red birds flying out of a black sun. Why hadn't they put a hard cover on the first edition? Kamarovsky wondered; this floppy little book couldn't be displayed upright. Even though it was outside his authority, he resolved to make a telephone call to the state printing office. Why use half measures when it was a matter of lifting a writer out of obscurity?

Before opening the book, Kamarovsky cast a fleeting glance three tables ahead. How pretty she is, he thought, and he was unable to suppress the joy he felt at the idea that he deserved a lot of credit for that, too. If I were a young man, I'd find it a pleasing prospect to woo this attractive young woman. Even though he regretted that his only possibility of seeing her was to spy on her, there was something thrilling about it. The student had three giant tomes open on the table in front of her. Her pencil flew over her notepad; as she wrote, her gla.s.ses would slip down her nose, and with a swift gesture she'd push them back up. She's inherited my narrow nose, Kamarovsky thought, and so her gla.s.ses won't stay in place. When his daughter grew immersed in a pa.s.sage in one of her texts, he opened his volume of poetry.

Viktor Ipalyevich Tsazukhin's legacy comprises thirty years of Soviet lyric poetry and is the expression of an epoch rich in hard-won victories as well as painful losses. Tsazukhin is a man produced by the Revolution ...

The Colonel snorted impatiently and flipped the pages to the end of the foreword.

"Where Does Russia Begin?" was the t.i.tle of the first poem. Kamarovsky was immediately taken with the bright tone, with its direct, emotional appeal. Even though his a.s.sessment of the poem was rather blurred, he flattered himself that such verse had been published through his intervention.

What was she working on? He would have been all too happy to take a look at her books. Her decision to major in architecture filled the Colonel with pride. She's inherited more from me than she's willing to admit, he thought. My child. My child is growing up. Maybe she'll marry that fellow from Okhotsk she's been living with for a year. And even if she doesn't go back with him to his hometown, her profession will take her away from Moscow. They need good architects out in the provinces. If she's smart-and it goes without saying that she is-she'll go to one of the newly founded cities in the Tuvan SSR or Kazakhstan. The Colonel's eyes skimmed Viktor Ipalyevich's poem without apprehending its content. So far, there's nothing out there but a main road, electricity, gas, and water connections, and the CC's official mandate to build a city. What that city will look like will be up to the architect-namely my daughter. Now, that's going to require her to be away from Moscow for years, maybe decades. It could even mean that I'll never see her again in this life. Calm down, he said to himself, shaking his head, she's barely begun her studies, and you're already sending her out to raise up cities from the earth. In spite of this insight, he felt a sudden urge to stand up and walk over to her and present himself, a sick, gaunt person, a wearer of eyegla.s.ses, the owner of some not very good teeth, a nervous man in the sixth decade of his life. If nothing in his appearance betrayed the office he discharged, how could she reject him? Didn't everyone want to have a father? How lovely it would be to discuss architectural topics with her. He was interested to know how she conceived of the building art, what architect or school of architecture most impressed her. Without a doubt, it's Le Corbusier; she must find his long, generous line simply compelling. The Colonel smiled, realizing that even in his thoughts, he tended to impose things on his daughter. Force of habit, Kamarovsky said to himself, habit of force.

He lowered his head with the idea of plunging into the world of Tsazukhin's poetry, but a brief, colorful vision made him look up again. It was a patterned blue dress, nothing unusual, but the Colonel thought that shade of blue was familiar. The pattern showed interlocking squares on a dark blue background. A light dress, worn with boots. Apparently, Rosa Khleb had been working in the reading room and was now leaving. She walked without haste, a notepad under her arm, her purse hanging from her shoulder. As far as the Colonel was concerned, her presence in the library aroused no suspicious speculations; the Moscow Times didn't have an archive of its own. He wanted to read another poem; at the same time, he wanted to observe his daughter; and he did neither. To someone who'd spent his whole life gathering and processing information, an inadvertent stakeout like this presented an opportunity it was impossible to pa.s.s up. Kamarovsky watched himself as he closed the book and slipped it into his pocket in a single movement, noiselessly rose to his feet, turned his head so that his daughter wouldn't recognize him, and stepped out. Rosa chose the way to the main exit, which in that ma.s.sive building entailed a considerable walk. Kamarovsky stayed close to the wall, pausing in doorways, happy to find that he was still good at the old surveillance game, even though he'd long since delegated such tasks to others. He became so inconspicuous that n.o.body coming his way so much as looked at him; he was something on the fringes, someone who could observe undisturbed. Rosa entered a wide corridor that was in semidarkness because the electric lights had been switched off at the beginning of spring, and the daylight had yet to reach its full strength. There were many people in the corridor-small groups of students with serious faces, jovial professors, and someone who, in Kamarovsky's judgment, didn't belong there. The man wasn't in the habit of visiting a library; he had no book bag, no writing equipment; he was simply coming that way. Even if his aimlessness hadn't struck Kamarovsky, there were two other reasons for the Colonel to consider him attentively. For one thing, it looked as though he and Rosa were moving toward each other, and for another, Kamarovsky knew the man. He, too, was practiced in wearing a mask of inconspicuousness; his gait and body language were those of someone who understood how to remain in the shadows. Kamarovsky had a dossier on this man. Many years before, he'd embarked on a career as an opera singer, worn himself out in the provinces, taken to drink, been found guilty of a.s.sault in some jealous altercation, and done time for his offense. After his release, he'd been unable to find a job until, surprisingly enough, the Deputy Minister for Research Planning had taken him on as his driver. When Kamarovsky investigated this matter at the time, he'd found that Bulyagkov's chauffeur was a native Ukrainian distantly related to his employer. Since there was nothing unusual about giving support to a fellow countryman, Bulyagkov had been allowed to have his way and Anton to remain in his service.

Now Anton was nearing Rosa, taking smaller, slower steps as he approached. While maintaining her loping gait, Khleb took the bag from her shoulder, opened it, pulled out something that looked like a brown envelope, and held it at her side. Now she was even with Anton, and now already past him. She hadn't altered the rhythm of her steps for a second. Rosa walked on; her light dress swayed around her legs. But it hadn't escaped Kamarovsky that the brown envelope had changed hands. For a fleeting second, the Colonel had seen the object in Anton's hand, and then the thing had disappeared into his jacket pocket.

Despite the long decades during which A. I. Kamarovsky had had to do with many different forms of treachery, what he'd just seen briefly took his breath away. In security work, nothing was feared more than the double agent, the person whom you allow to look into your arrangements and who then misuses the knowledge thus gained. Persons of this sort were superior to the average spy and at the same time the most morally reprehensible members of society. Kamarovsky turned his head away as Anton went by but immediately fastened his eyes on him again. Bulyagkov's driver consulted the signs posted at the next intersection of corridors, but where the man wanted to go was unimportant; in any case, he wanted to go where Bulyagkov was. Kamarovsky was equally uninterested in Rosa's destination; she'd already done the decisive deed. Oddly, the Colonel didn't immediately start to ponder his next moves. Instead he mused about his daughter. Incongruous as their worlds might have been, there was at least one good thing about his: He could be close to her from time to time. And this time, Kamarovsky's unconsummated striving for contact with his daughter had led him to make an interesting discovery, a revelation that threw new light on the Minister for Research Planning's unexplained illness. The news that Bulyagkov was going to fill in for his boss on the Stockholm trip had set off nothing more than a faint signal, but now all the Colonel's sirens were wailing. At this moment, Alexey Bulyagkov was probably on his way to the airport with the freshly stamped divorce certificate in his pocket. Somewhere along the way, there would be a meeting with Anton, who would turn over the brown envelope. Shortly thereafter, the Deputy Minister would climb into the airplane and fly out of Moscow, heading northwest.

While Kamarovsky was making deductions, while his every conclusion was laying open the next question, he reached the exit and went down the grandiose outer staircase. Whether it was because he'd been walking so fast, or because inexplicable little wheels that had hitherto spun independently in his mind had suddenly meshed and made sense and he'd become overexcited-for whatever reason, as he went down the stairs of the Lenin Library, Kamarovsky's head suddenly sank, his jaw dropped, his muscles failed at their tasks. He still had the presence of mind to reach into the pocket where he'd put the tablets, but at that same moment, he felt his hand go limp and knew it would remain powerless, stuck inside his jacket pocket. In a last effort to retain his composure, the Colonel turned in the direction of his office, which was only a few streets away. If he could only reach that address, the people there would know what to do. A grand mal seizure had surprised him at work more than once. His colleagues would carry him into the quiet room normally used as an intimidation cell. He'd lie there, mute and motionless; often he'd start to regain consciousness after a few minutes, but there had also been a few times when he hadn't come to for as long as ten hours. Waking up in that oppressively small room had always rea.s.sured him; in the small s.p.a.ce contained within its four walls, the panic of losing himself and the shock of feeling strength and control suddenly flow out of him became bearable and, before long, subsided. In such cases, he'd swallow a tablet while still on his back, wait a little while for it to take effect, and then go back to work.

In the moments when the weakness was spreading through all his limbs, while his convulsing muscles were still trying to jolt themselves into action, Kamarovsky felt something strike against his hip: Viktor Ipalyevich's book of poems. Even though his reason was already fleeing away and his thoughts becoming silhouettes, the Colonel retained the idea that the operation he most urgently needed to undertake would necessarily involve the Tsazukhin family. His knees buckled, and since he was incapable of extracting his hand, which was like a wedge inside his pocket, he couldn't break his fall and landed directly on his shoulder. He was aware of a hollow thud, and his head snapped backward. Good thing I have my hat on, the Colonel thought from out of nowhere, and then he saw himself rolling down several steps; what a joke, what a joke, ah, what a joke.

People didn't notice the accident until the older man was fully horizontal, his fall having come to a stop in the middle of the stairs. He lay with one arm flung out and the other hand in his pocket; his hat had slipped down and was hiding his face. Someone observing him from above might have thought he was in the cla.s.sic orator's pose, except that he was delivering the oration while lying down. The circle of people around him grew tighter. A policeman reached the spot and waved to colleagues in an official car. Behind the policemen, an attractive woman in a blue dress appeared. Her face showed concern and skepticism and the pang of thoughts in turmoil. She didn't partic.i.p.ate in the discussion about the cause of the accident or wait for medical help to arrive; she took the measure of the man in the dark green suit one last time, as though she were charged with ordering his coffin, and then she quickly left the square in front of the Lenin Library.

THIRTY-TWO.

Anna had told Petya that on a day like this, you had to go to a park, and she'd chosen the Arkhangelskoye Estate. It was no surprise to discover that thousands of other people had conceived the same idea. As she and her boy turned off the street and walked down to the lower-lying gardens, they discovered a sea of colors-bright hats, vivid shirts, checkered blankets, and baby carriages. People hungry for sunshine had flocked to the park; they were lying about on its lawns or strolling along its paths or laughing, eating, and sleeping in boats afloat on the lake. It was only when Anna, on her way to the children's play area, reached the triple-spiral staircase with the cafe that she grasped the real reason why she was there. She'd returned to the place where she'd received the first, decisive information about how everything fit together.

In spite of the enchanted evening in the Peking Hotel, Anna had returned home uneasy, even ill-humored. True, she'd bidden Alexey a tender farewell and enjoyed their last embrace at his door, and yet during those very minutes, it was as if she'd looked into a mirror that had become immediately transparent, exposing many rooms on the other side. Later, in bed, Anna had reproached herself for the long time she'd spent seeing only the obvious in that mirror, namely herself, the Deputy Minister, and the pleasant world he'd opened up for her. Even when she'd become aware that Bulyagkov and Kamarovsky were working her like a puppet, Anna had considered it as part of the male power game. She hadn't yet been ready to see the secret that lay behind all that. The night had pa.s.sed in restless dreams, and the morning had brought a stupid quarrel with Viktor Ipalyevich; in the end, she'd collected Petya and fled the closeness of the apartment for the park.

He dashed over the gra.s.s and along the water and came back with a hundred things to tell his mother about. A family of peac.o.c.ks near the cafe drew Petya's attention; Anna allowed him to go closer to them, but cautiously.

Naturally, all the tables were occupied, but there, there of all places, at the table where Anna and Kamarovsky had sat, a couple stood up, left a tip, and walked off into the park. A woman with a camera hung around her neck hurried over, but Anna beat her to the table and ordered cakes and lemonade for two.

How long had it been since that August day when Kamarovsky had made her his peremptory offer? Alexey Maximovich is in the public eye, he'd explained, after shedding the mask of the innocent park visitor. Special security precautions are taken for him. But the decisive sentence, which Anna had-until today-overlooked because it was a matter of course, had been this: Alexey Maximovich Bulyagkov is a bearer of the Soviet Union's state secrets. Therefore, it matters with whom he speaks, whom he meets, with whom he sleeps. At the time, she'd a.s.sumed Kamarovsky was talking about her; the guilt she felt at having walked into the KGB's clutches as an adulteress had prevented her from drawing any further conclusions. Her face turned toward the sun, it occurred to Anna that Kamarovsky might not have correctly evaluated what he'd learned from his range of contact persons. He'd guessed many things and foreseen others, but he'd disregarded the essential. His biggest mistake was that he misconstrued Alexey's driving force. To Kamarovsky's way of thinking, and possibly to that of everyone in the state apparatus, all ambition was necessarily directed toward the next rung on the ladder of rank, the better position, the higher office: in Bulyagkov's case, therefore, the office of Minister of Research Planning. The competent organs had interpreted Alexey's dissatisfaction with his work as frustration at being the number two man. His infelicity, however, ran deeper than that. When he was a young man, the political apparatus of the time had forced him to give up studying for a degree in science, to leave his Ukrainian homeland, and to go into hiding. After his family's rehabilitation, it had been impossible for Alexey to take up his studies again, either because it was too late or for some other reason. In Moscow he'd met Medea, and through her and her family's influence, a door into the stronghold of power had opened for him. Once in the Ministry, however, he'd soon learned that all scientific research was subordinate to the apparatus and not the other way around. He hated serving only the regime; his pa.s.sion was for science itself. Had my life run in a different course, nothing could have prevented me from becoming a scientist, he'd confessed to Anna. He'd revealed everything to her, piece by piece, hadn't he? But she hadn't been able to put them together.

She saw Petya throw some handfuls of gra.s.s at the peac.o.c.ks, who were not impressed, and shifted to a thought that should have entered her mind a long time ago: Under cover of his official position, Alexey Bulyagkov was about to depart on a journey from which he would never return. What else could be the reason for Medea's sudden separation from her husband, if not her own protection? What about the physicist Lyushin and his double game, letting a scientific success be reframed as a failure, with Alexey's encouragement? Why was Alexey traveling to a scientific meeting in the West? In the West, Anna repeated inwardly, he's going over to the West! Was this intention belated revenge for the humiliation of his family? Was the Ukrainian paying the Russians back for having killed his father? At the same time, Anna found it incomprehensible that Bulyagkov, the weary wolf, a man she thought she knew, would be about to turn defector. He must have been planning it for months; therefore, he must have been lying to her for months, too. It seemed even more mind-boggling to think that Alexey must have devised and executed his plans under Kamarovsky's nose, and that he'd taken advantage of her only because he wanted her to report the obvious-but not the truth-to the Colonel. When she called up her mental image of her lover, his spongy face, his unkempt hair, it was hard for her to believe him capable of such calculation, of the circ.u.mspection and patience to carry out such a long-range plan. The very length of the plan, the preparation such a thing would entail, made Anna doubt her conclusions. Even if he felt so jaded, so frustrated by his lack of prospects and the treadmill of the governmental apparatus that he indulged in fantasies of departure, surely his sense of justice, his loyalty, and his patriotic feeling for the fatherland would regain the upper hand after a while.

But not if his fatherland isn't Russia, Anna thought. Not if the Central Committee doesn't represent the instrument of his political convictions and the Ministry of Research fails to come up to his standards of scientific advancement. Maybe enticements reached him from over there, offers that have given him hope of resurrecting, at this late date, his buried life's dream. Anna was certain that the people over there welcomed only those who brought something with them. Even though Anna had only an inexact notion of how Lyushin's work fit into the overall structure, she nevertheless understood that her own trip to Dubna had been part of the plan. She was supposed to deceive Kamarovsky about Lyushin's results.

She used one hand to fan her burning face, her eyes were red, and on this spring day she was feeling unseasonably hot. Only now did she discover that two plates of cakes and two gla.s.ses of lemonade were standing in front of her; she drank half the contents of one of them. Loud shrieking made her look up; the biggest of the peac.o.c.ks clapped his tail together and made a run at Petya. Still clutching a handful of gra.s.s, the boy turned away and took off for the terrace. Close to his goal, he tripped on a sill and fell to the ground, fully expecting the bird to attack him from behind. But the peac.o.c.k remained at a safe distance from the humans, ascertained that his mission was accomplished, and sauntered back to his peahens. Anna made her way between tables and reached Petya, who was so frightened he didn't even cry.

"That's what you get," she scolded him. "Come on, now, nothing happened. We've got cakes waiting for us. Want some?"

He let her lead him to the table, where the waiter stood ready with the check fluttering in his hand. Anna paid the check, sat down, and watched Petya as he ate.

Whom should she inform? Who was capable of soberly a.s.sessing her suspicions-for despite her certainty, that was all they were-and taking steps? Certainly not Kamarovsky; confiding in the Colonel was tantamount to throwing Alexey defenseless to the lions. It was too late for her to speak to Alexey himself; he and the delegation were meeting the press at that moment, and after the meeting, they'd go straight to the airport. Petya sat beside Anna, eating happily, his soul at peace. What was she supposed to do with him? She needed freedom of action.

"I have to make a phone call. Take the last piece with you."

"More juice," Petya mumbled, his mouth full.

"Later. You'll get some juice at home." Anna took his hand and drew him away from the cafe terrace. She spotted a pay phone on the other side of the ornamental stream and hastened toward it without paying much attention to whether Petya could keep up with her or not.

"What's the matter?" he whined.

"This won't take long." Anna kept her eyes straight ahead, ran over the little bridge, dodged two bicyclists, saw someone a little distance away also heading for the telephone booth, s.n.a.t.c.hed Petya off his feet, and ran. Panting, she burst into the booth with Petya in her arms, closed the door, turned her back to the oncoming person, and put the first coin in the slot. She dialed Rosa Khleb's number. While Anna listened to the ring tone repeat itself unanswered, she admitted to herself that out of all the possibilities, she'd chosen the one that would thwart Alexey's intentions. If her suspicion were confirmed, he was planning to do something wrong, and it was Anna's duty to avert damage. Outside, the man who also wanted to use the telephone was only a few steps away. She was about to step out of the booth when she recognized Anton. Petya started to push the door open, but she took him by the hand. Anton looked at them through the gla.s.s panes.

"I have to talk to you," he said. "Not here. Let's go to the car." He pointed at the spiral staircase that led up to the street. Anna stepped out with Petya.

The boy dragged his feet, unwilling to go farther. "We'll be home soon," she said to encourage him. When they reached the street, Anna looked around for the black ZIL.

Anton indicated the automobile in front of them. "We're taking this one." He opened the pa.s.senger door of a Zhiguli and pulled the seat forward.

Stressed as she was, and unable to understand the situation, Anna laid her head back and laughed. The sun shone on her face. "What is this?" she cried, as if it weren't obvious that Anton was driving his own vehicle instead of the official limousine.

"It's as good as new. One point two liters, sixty horsepower, with a radio and genuine synthetic fur." He reached in and stroked the back of the seat.

Anna shoved Petya into the back and climbed into the pa.s.senger's seat next to Anton; they were sitting side by side for the first time.

"Would you like this?" He handed Petya an opened package of chocolates.

After a questioning look at his mother and a shy one at the stranger, Petya accepted the gift.

"How long did you save up for this car?" Anna asked.

"Six years."

"How did you track me down?"

"I went to your home, Comrade. Your father told me where I could find you."

"I'm surprised. He doesn't know you."

As though declaring that there was no time for such chitter-chatter, Anton leaned toward her. "But you and I, we've known each other for a good while, Anna Viktorovna. We've driven down many roads together. Something's happened."

"To Alexey? What? What is it?"

"He'll be taking off soon."

"So?"

"I did something for the Deputy Minister. Apparently, I was observed when I did it."

"Did what?"

"I took delivery of certain doc.u.ments for Alexey Maximovich." Anton ran his hand over his forehead and through his oiled hair. "Someone saw me do that."

"Who?"

"Star-Eyes."

At first, the name and the man who'd spoken it didn't fit together. So Anton was in on it, too? Was everyone she knew involved in this affair? "What does that mean?" she asked in a whisper.

"The Colonel probably had a suspicion he couldn't substantiate-until today." Anton cleared his throat. "Now things look different."

Anna saw her line of thought confirmed in Anton's words. "Alexey wants to defect," she said grimly. "He wants to betray his country."

"He only wants to start a new life."

"But that's not possible. You have only one life, and you have to face up to it. You can't change it like a coat."

Petya stared in amazement at his impa.s.sioned mother. She rubbed his head and tried out a rea.s.suring smile. "We're talking, we're just talking," she said.

"There's still time," said Anton, coming to his real point. "Alexey Maximovich must be warned."

"Why? Isn't he about to take off for his new country? He'll be in Stockholm in a few hours."

"You're mistaken. The delegation has a twenty-four-hour layover in Riga. It has something to do with an old invitation from the Latvian Central Committee. Bulyagkov's supposed to give a presentation there."

"So why are you coming to me with all this?"

"I thought ..." He lowered his voice. "It seemed to me that the right person to warn the Deputy Minister would be someone he'd listen to, not just someone he trusts, but someone he has feelings for," Anton said, in a serious, businesslike tone.

"And that's supposed to be me? Why?"

"Because I don't know anyone else Alexey Maximovich really loves."

For a moment, there was silence in the little car.

"Who's Alexey Maximovich?" Petya asked.

"An old friend."

"If he's a friend of yours, why don't I know him?"

"He's ... he's not here anymore." Anna looked out the window.

Anton opened the door. With a glance at the child, he signaled her to step outside.

"We're already outside," she said, getting out of the car.

They talked over the Zhiguli's roof. "We can be in Riga in thirteen hours," Anton said, as matter-of-factly as if he were proposing an outing to the Kremlin.

"We?" Anna made an effort to grasp the lunacy of the proposal. "And what do we do there?"

"You talk to him."

"If Kamarovsky knows what's going on, he sent his people there a long time ago."

"He hasn't done that, Comrade."

"Why not?"

"The current state of his health doesn't allow it."

"Have you done something to him?"

Anton smiled at her dramatic imagination. "The Colonel is an epileptic." He saw surprise, almost shock, on her face. "You didn't know?"

"How could I? Our meetings ..." She fell silent.

"We have to make use of this grace period."

"It's not just Kamarovsky. He's certainly smuggled a couple of his people into the delegation, and they can draw similar conclusions."

"I don't think so. There's a particular, crucial point that the Committee for State Security has remained unaware of until today." Anton gave the boy in the car a friendly look.