"Yes. Fuck yes."

"And you recognize that having obtained this material for us places you in a very difficult position?"

"No, I'll just tell them what really happened."

"And that it also places your mother in a very difficult position?"

"My mother?"

"Yes. How will the charges of treason and espionage against her son affect her standing within the American intelligence community?"

"She had nothing to do with this. You set me up."

"You cooperated with a foreign agency and obtained classified-"

"None of that's classified-"

"It's not considered to be secret, but tactical information concerning your Navy's logistical and materials-routing systems is always useful, perhaps in the resale market. And the fact that this stealth program remains resident in the Souda Base computer system is also an asset. It has other uses besides key counting and file copying. And it was placed there by you."

Morgan, pushed to the limit, found his steel at last.

"Look, I'm tired. What the hell do you want me to do? I'm not doing anything more to help you. I think you're KGB, and I'm not a traitor no matter how you try to make it look that way. I fucked up. I'll pay the fare. Put a bullet in me or let me loose. Up to you. Kill me, let me walk. I don't really give a fuck anymore."

The Gray Man sat back, sighed, reached into a breast pocket, brought out a small stainless-steel pistol, laid it on the table in front of him, turned to someone off camera and said something in an Eastern bloc language that contained "Melina."

At the name, Morgan jerked upright, opened his mouth, and closed it again. The room was filled with a taut silence, and nothing happened for a time. There was a commotion, the sound of a door being thrown back, and the man who had called himself "Brad" came into the room, dragging the young blond woman named Melina by the arm. She was crying, her hair matted, her clothes filthy, her face bruised and bloody. She knelt there, breathing heavily, looking at nothing. The Gray Man lifted the pistol, placed the muzzle against her temple, looked across the table at Morgan.

A moment passed, and then Morgan said, "Fuck her too. She's probably one of yours."

The girl called Melina lifted her head up, stared at Morgan.

"Morgan, please-"

The Gray Man squeezed the trigger. There was a sharp, cracking pop, a puff of smoke, a spattering of blood and brains on the wall beside her, and she dropped out of the camera frame. Morgan stared at her body on the floor, and then back across at the Gray Man again, his face slack, stunned. The Gray Man lifted the pistol, pointed it at Morgan's head, squeezed the trigger-and the screen went black.

The black screen held for a moment, and then light came back, a tight shot of the pistol on the table and the voice of the Gray Man speaking.

"Miss Keating, your son is still alive. We have not yet decided our next course of action concerning him. He can be exposed to your Office of Naval Intelligence as a spy and sent to Leavenworth, which may not destroy your career but will certainly limit it. Or, to use an American term of art, he may undergo 'rendition' to a third party, such as Al-Qaeda in Iraq, the Taliban, or the Iranian secret service, where he will be subjected to the most extreme forms of interrogation they can devise. He may eventually make an appearance in a terror video at some point, where he will be inexpertly beheaded on camera by some clumsy jihadist while he cries out for your help in his last terrible moments. All these things may happen or none of them. It is up to you. His fate is in your hands. Your organization is in possession of a collection of archived cable transmissions between certain Soviet station agents in Paris and their superiors in Moscow. This collection of paper documents was unearthed quite recently in Riga, Latvia, by a joint task force of American and NATO intelligence officers. These paper transcripts-let us call them the 'Riga Transcripts'-which are in code, have been delivered to your superiors at Fort Meade and are now being addressed by your particular department, a group of decryption experts known internally as the Glass Cutters. I am about to give you a date range. Please secure a pen, since this video will automatically erase itself. Have you a pen?"

Briony looked up at Jules, her eyes hunted, looking suddenly haggard and old. He held a pen out to her, along with the pad she kept by the fridge to write out shopping lists. She was reasonably certain that the little Sony digital camera she had set up to record a backup of the image on her screen had enough capacity to hold the entire video, but she wasn't going to leave anything to chance. She jerked it out of his hands and spread it out on the counter.

The Gray Man's voice rolled on. "I will assume you now have a pen. The date range we are concerned with is from the twentieth day of April 1973 to the nineteenth day of June 1973. Do you have that?"

The Gray Man repeated the dates another three times.

Then he went on to his final statement.

"I will assume you have the dates clear. Please make certain that you also write down the following instructions as well. We are aware that as the Senior Coordinator of the Glass Cutters, you are in a position to review progress and assign certain sections of these cables to specific subgroups for more efficient decryption operations.

"Here are our instructions. They are quite simple.

"In your Venona transcripts, you make frequent reference to 'x number groups unrecovered,' as in 'fifteen groups unrecovered' or 'forty groups unrecovered.' You will see to it, Miss Keating, that in the Riga Transcript that you have in your possession now, on a specific transcript you have docketed as 'Riga one five seven dash alpha hotel'"-Briony's pen was racing-"on that particular transcript, you will find that very very few number groups are recoverable. Very few, less than fifteen percent. Find whatever procedural excuses or justifications are persuasive. But you few number groups are recoverable. Very few, less than fifteen percent. Find whatever procedural excuses or justifications are persuasive. But you will will ensure that outcome. I will repeat this section again." ensure that outcome. I will repeat this section again."

He did, and then closed with: "Now, I know you are a patriot, Miss Keating, and this will run against all your instincts. I can tell you in complete honesty that we are dealing with ancient history here. There is nothing nothing in this cable that can have any effect on our modern world in any way. It is our desire to protect the reputation and legacy of one of in this cable that can have any effect on our modern world in any way. It is our desire to protect the reputation and legacy of one of your your most respected intelligence officers. His was not an act of betrayal but rather an inadvertent disclosure. But his exposure would have some peripheral consequences that would not be in the interests of most respected intelligence officers. His was not an act of betrayal but rather an inadvertent disclosure. But his exposure would have some peripheral consequences that would not be in the interests of either either of our countries. of our countries.

"Come, Miss Keating, do not be excessively fastidious. These accommodations are made between agencies all the time. They are called 'realpolitik.'

"This man is far from a threat to your country or ours. But the orders have come from my own superiors, and I must, as you must, obey orders.

"Our methods are forceful-perhaps too forceful. If I had been left to my own methods, I would have been far more subtle. Such is not the case. We are, to use an American phrase, 'under new management . .'

"I beg you, as a Christian man, to carry out this simple request, and I give you my word as an officer that you will do no damage to your nation in any way, and that by carrying out this mission you will also save the life and honor of your brave young son. Such a sordid game we find ourselves in, and for what? I cannot say. Perhaps one day, we will find ourselves in a better world, yes?

"Finally, I am directed to warn you that if you fail in this mission, events in the real world will play out in such a way that we will know that you have failed. At that point, your son's fate is out of my hands.

"Good-bye, Miss Keating. And may God bless our nations."

A snap to black, a flicker, and then a single bar line that read MESSAGE ERASED.

Briony closed the machine lid softly, sat in silence for a time with her head down, and then looked up at Duhamel, her expression unreadable.

"My God, Briony," he said, "what will you do?"

"Do?" she said, her voice faint but clear. "I will save my son."

"But your job . . . your obligations? And if you do this, they will own you. These . . . people . . . they will never let you go if you do this."

"I know."

"And if you are exposed, you will go to prison. You know that?"

"Yes, I know that."

"So you have only two roads in front of you: your son will suffer or you will become a traitor."

"That's right."

"Then what will you do? What can can you do?" you do?"

"Take the third road."

"The 'third road'? What is that?"

Briony looked up from the screen, unsmiling, her expression wary, slightly veiled.

"I think, Jules, you should leave in the morning."

Duhamel kept his expression mild, although inside him a dark thing was starting to uncoil.

"I would not want to leave you like this. In this trouble."

"You can't help me with this. And I can't do what I'm going to do with you around. You said it yourself. You're a foreign national. This is a National Security issue. You can't be anywhere near it. I wish it were different, but I can't make it so. You'll have to go."

"But you've already brought me into this, haven't you?"

She looked uncertain for a moment, but then she settled into certainty.

"What you know so far, it is not dangerous to know. Most people in my trade know the same things. Much of it is already in the public domain."

"I know your son is being held hostage by . . . Russians, I think."

"Yes. And if you love me, if you really want to help me save him, then you need to go. You can't be near this. You have a gallery in Saint Petersburg. You could go back there and wait. When this is over, I'll fly out and you can show me your world."

Don't tempt me, he thought but did not say.

It was clear that Briony had made up her mind on this. Duhamel, trying to remain professional, was about to make some final attempt at loving persuasion. But if it failed, then by the terms of his commission, in the Gray Man's own words, he was free to use "his own methods. methods." This arrogant woman on the far side of the counter was about to meet the real real world that Jules Duhamel lived in, the world Mildred Durant and others before her had seen. He felt the heat rising in his belly, his heart pounding in his chest, the coming release all the more sublime for being so long delayed. He set his glass aside, leaned forward with a look of counterfeit concern, and the telephone rang three times, a silence, and then three more times-rich, deep bell tones-reverberating through the house. world that Jules Duhamel lived in, the world Mildred Durant and others before her had seen. He felt the heat rising in his belly, his heart pounding in his chest, the coming release all the more sublime for being so long delayed. He set his glass aside, leaned forward with a look of counterfeit concern, and the telephone rang three times, a silence, and then three more times-rich, deep bell tones-reverberating through the house.

They exchanged puzzled glances, and then Briony got up and walked over to the wall phone next to the stove.

"Hello?"

"Briony, it's Hank."

Unaware of her movement, she had turned her body away from Duhamel slightly. She put her hand on the receiver, looked back at him.

"It's the office," she explained in a hoarse whisper.

She turned away to the phone again, pitching her voice low.

"Is there a problem?"

"Okay, I take it the little frog prince is right there?"

"That's true. So what's the problem?"

"I heard from my guy in the Sixth Fleet. Briony, you really want this now with the guy sitting right there?"

"You called, I'm listening."

"Okay. It's not good. Get ready. The reason you haven't heard from him is he's AWOL. Navy didn't want to let it out until they were sure. He's been off base for five weeks now. They knew he had a girl in the town. Figured he'd just taken an unofficial vacation. The MPs started looking for him in earnest three weeks ago. By now, they've torn Crete apart. He's not on the island. They have no idea where he is. Have you you heard from him?" heard from him?"

She tried to keep the lie out of her voice.

"No, not at all."

"Damn. I was hoping . . . Look, this isn't good. They find him now, he'll be in the brig for weeks. If you have any any idea where he is, anything at all-" idea where he is, anything at all-"

"I don't. None at all. That's why you you have the file." have the file."

Brocius said nothing for a time.

"I don't like this whole thing, Briony. Something's not right. I can feel it. Something's going on here."

"I see. What will you do?"

Another long silence.

Brocius had . . . antennae. She could feel his mind racing.

"Your guy there, I have to say, he's . . . bugging me. I don't know why. Something's . . . hinky."

She saw that he was on his cell.

Where was he calling from? Was he close? she wondered. she wondered.

"How close are you, Dianne? To getting this done?"

"Close? I'm on the Taconic. Don't talk about this to anyone anyone. You follow?"

"I follow."

"You'll hear from me . . . soon."

"That would be good."

"Yeah, real soon, Briony. You still got your fallback option?"

"Yes, I do."

"Good. Maybe you should use it right now."

"If you feel that strongly about it, then it's okay with me."

"I do."

The line went dead. She set the receiver back in the hook.

"What did they want?" asked Duhamel.

"They had a problem with the sorting thingy. A technical thing."

She was lying to him, she realized. she realized.

About Hank Brocius.

Why?

The lie hung in the air between them, and she felt Duhamel's dark eyes on her, a look in them that she had not seen before, a cold, remote appraisal.