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his voice. “You got into Lubyanka? Did you see the new guy, Davidov?”
    “The chief of the Fifth Directorate received me, yes. He is interested in using my services in bringing some of the files to public view.”
    “Did he offer any hot stuff—moles, traitors, real news? The Second Man?”
    Ace shook his head. “So far all that’s on the table is stale historical files. The only surprise was the man himself. Never thought someone so high up in Russian security would be such a combination of intellectual and matinee idol.”
    “But a goniff at heart. You gave him the little zinger about the Feliks people?”
    “I did, in precisely the words you suggested. ‘If you run into any of Feliks’s people,’ I said, ‘I have a client who happens to be a great reporter.’ ”
    “And how did he react to that?”
    “No reaction. Stone face.”
    “Balls!” Irving got up and started pacing, smacking the walls in the space between famous clients’ pictures. “You used the word ‘asleep’?”
    “Yes, as you instructed. ‘This fellow is not asleep,’ I said about you. Again no reaction. Then again, ‘Never sleeps on the job.’ Frankly, it sounded a bit heavy-handed, saying it twice.”
    “And he didn’t rise to it? Not even a flicker?”
    “I don’t know if the Russians have a word for ‘poker face,’ but that was his expression.”
    Irving stopped abruptly as a thought began to form. “Absolutely no reaction is a reaction. If he knew nothing about the friends of Feliks, the KGB man would have said something like ‘sure’ or ‘maybe, one of these days.’ But if Davidov just went blank, then he’s hiding what he knows about them, and maybe about a sleeper.” He drew back his lips in a kind of smile. “Lousy poker player. Doesn’t belong in that job.”
    “Perhaps I could be of greater assistance, Irving, if you took me into your confidence. I am aware only that ‘Iron Feliks’ Dzerzhinsky was a presence that struck fear into Russians right up to our times. When freedom came to Moscow, his statue was ripped off the pedestal in the square in front of the former prison. You have not vouchsafed to me the significance of ‘Feliks’s friends,’ or of the need to impress the KGB with your lack of sleep.”
    “Ah, the old vouchsafecracker at work.” Irving put out of his mind Ace’s inability so far to get him a decent book contract. “Can’t tell you yet. But now I can go back to my sources—having put a probe right into that goddam yellow building—and gotten a panicked reaction from the smoothie who’s fronting for them.”
    “Director Davidov didn’t exactly panic. He just didn’t pick up on your phrase.”
    “He froze, the sumbitch froze. I can use that.” The reporter saw how he could exaggerate to his source the Davidov nonresponse, trading that for a next step into the story. “Lookit, I know we’ve got a big one here. Not ancient history about who stuck the ice pick into Trotsky, but stuff going on right now, heavy sleeping.”
    Ace blinked; Irving did not want to speculate further about sleeper agents in place, or whom they worked for, or what their mission was. He didn’t know much himself beyond the slender leads. But the reporter could feel the questions bubbling up, the sort of questions that created a vacuum into which answers rushed. Who planted the sleeper? Who has been controlling him, the new KGB or the old apparatchiks who make up part of the Feliks people? What triggered his activation? Does he have a network within the U.S. government? What is his assignment, and if it is to steal economic secrets, how successful has he been? How big are the bucks involved? Who are the sources of Irving’s tips, and what is their motive for getting him on the trail? Those were for starters.
    “I hope you have the big one at last. I’ll go on representing you for old times’ sake, Irving, but frankly, you’re becoming a stain on my firm’s escutcheon.”
    “Mark my words, Ace,