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inches. Then he closed it and turned to Havelock. “I should tell you first that I’m not here on orders from Dzerzhinsky Square, or even with its blessings. To be frank, my aging superiors in the KGB believe I’m in Athens on an unrelated matter. You can either accept that or not.”
    “Give me a reason to or not. Someone must know. You
jedratele
don’t do anything solo.”
    “Specifically, two others. A close associate in Moscow and a dedicated man—a mole, to be sure—out of Washington.”
    “You mean Langley?”
    The Russian shook his head. He replied softly, “The White House.”
    “I’m impressed. So two ranking
kontrolyorya
of the KGB and a Soviet mole within walking distance of the Oval Office decide they want to talk to me, but they don’t want to take me. They can fly me into Sevastopol and from there to a room at the Lubyanka, where any talking we did would be far more productive—from their point of view—but they won’t do that. Instead, the spokesman for these three—a man I know only from photographs and by reputation—tells me there are risks associated with me that he can’t define but knows that they exist, and because of them I’m given the option of talking or not—about what I haven’t the vaguest idea. Is that a fair reading?”
    “You have the Slavic propensity for going right to the core of a subject.”
    “I don’t see any ancestral connection. It’s common sense. You spoke, I listened; that’s what you said—or what you’re about to say. Basic logic.”
    Rostov stepped away from the balcony doors, his expression pensive. “I’m afraid that’s the one factor that’s missing. The logic.”
    “Now we’re talking about something else.”
    “Yes, we are.”
    “what?”
    “You. The Costa Brava.”
    Havelock paused. The anger was in his eyes, but it was controlled. “Go on.”
    “The woman. She’s why you retired, isn’t she?”
    “This conversation is terminated,” said Havelock abruptly. “Get out of here.”
    “Please,” The Russian raised both hands, a gesture of truce, perhaps a plea. “I think you should listen to me.”
    “I don’t think so. There’s nothing you could say that would remotely interest me. The Voennaya is to be congratulated; it was a hell of a job. They won, she won. And then she lost. It’s finished, and there’s nothing further to say about it.”
    “There is.”
    “Not to me.”
    “The VKR are maniacs,” said the Russian quietly, urgently. “I don’t have to tell you that You and I are enemies, and neither would pretend otherwise, but we acknowledge certain rules between us. We’re not salivating dogs, we’re professionals. There’s a fundamental respect each has for the other, perhaps grounded in fear, although not necessarily. Grant me that,
priyatel.”
    Their eyes were level, penetrating. Havelock nodded. “I know you from the files, just as you know me. You weren’t part of it.”
    “Wasted death is still death, still a waste. Unnecessary and provocative death a very dangerous waste. It can be hurled back tenfold in fury at the instigator.”
    “Tell that to the Voennaya. There was no waste as far as they were concerned. Only necessity.”
    “Butchers!” snapped Rostov, his voice guttural. “Who can tell them anything? They’re descendants of the old OGPU slaughterhouses, inheritors of the mad assassin Yagoda. They’re also up to their throats in paranoid fantasies going back half a century when Yagoda gunned down the quieter, more reasonable men, hating their lack of fanaticism, equating that lack with treason against the revolution. Do you
know
the VKR?”
    “Enough so as to stand far back and hope to hell you can control it.”
    “I wish I could answer confidently in the affirmative. It’s as if a band of your screaming right-wing zealots had been given official status as a subdivision of the Central Intelligence Agency.”
    “We have checks and balances—sometimes. If such a subdivision came to