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then mumbled something.
    “What?”
    “I said, you
know
who gave it to me.”
    “Pretend I don’t.”
    This seemed to confuse the man. He opened his mouth, closed it, then said, “Who
are
you?”
    Gavra showed him the pistol again. “Right now, you talk. Afterward, I’ll speak. Okay?”
    “The Americans,” said Lubov. “CIA.”
    “They gave you this house?”
    “And the name.”
    “Why?”
    “It was part of the deal. I answer their questions; they give me a new life. How did you
find
me?”
    “From the beginning,” said Gavra, pulling up a chair. “Your real name.”
    “Lebed Putonski.”
    “That’s a good start. Where did you make the deal with the Americans?
    “Stockholm.”
    “Why were you in Stockholm?”
    “You really don’t know, do you?”
    “I want your version of the story. Why were you in Stockholm?”
    Lebed Putonski pressed his fingertips together, as if praying. “This was almost a decade ago. I was there to oversee things.”
    “You were the Stockholm resident?”
    Putonski shrugged. “Of course. There’s a reason the Ministry keeps watch on its own residents. We start to enjoy life. We start thinking maybe we’d have a better time somewhere else. And then we do.”
    “Why not just stay in Stockholm?”
    “I was recalled. I guess the Ministry wasn’t happy with my work, or maybe they suspected what I was thinking. Fair enough.” He shrugged again. “I was a desk man, been one all my life. Can’t say I really understood half of what I was doing. So …” He squinted at the pistol. “So I contacted the Americans, spent some weeks at Lang-ley, and then I moved here. Now, eight years later, you’re pointing a gun at me. Why?”
    Gavra didn’t understand it either. This was just another old man who’d gotten tired of the intrigues and breadlines. He wasn’t an ideological turncoat, and the information he, after prodding, admitted to giving the Americans was hardly explosive: the Central Committee’s position on its fraternal relations with Sweden, in-country troop sizes and distribution, and some real gross domestic product numbers. All Putonski had wanted was an easier life, and here he’d gotten it.
    The telephone rang.
    “You expecting someone?”
    Putonski shook his head. “Maybe it’s my girlfriend.”
    “Girlfriend?”
    “Maureen.” He paused. “Everyone gets lonely.”
    “She’ll expect you at home, yes?”
    Another shrug, then a nod. “Detention was almost finished.”
    “Okay. Come on.”
    He walked Putonski back up the stairs to the kitchen and took the telephone on the seventh ring, holding it to Putonski’s ear and keeping his head close so he could hear as well.
    “Mr. Shevchenko?” said a man’s voice. American.
    “Yes?” said Putonski.
    “Mr. Shevchenko, there’s a matter I’d like to discuss with you. Your friends from the west need some information.”
    Putonski’s eyes went wide, and Gavra nodded at him to continue. “What’s this about?”
    “Let’s talk in person. You’ll stay at home?”
    Putonski interpreted Gavra’s second nod. “Yes.”
    “I’ll be there in an hour,” said the man. “We should be alone, understand?”
    “Of course,” said Putonski, then the line went dead. “I’ll bet it’s about you,” he told Gavra. “You better get out of here.”
    “Who was it?”
    “Who do you think? CIA. I haven’t heard from them in five years, then you show up, and suddenly they want to discuss something.”
    “You don’t know this man?”
    “Five years is a long time. They change personnel.”
    Gavra stared at Putonski a moment, thinking this through. His real purpose here, as he understood it, was to protect this math teacher. Yuri Kolev wouldn’t have spent the money and effort to send him to the other side of the world if the threat to Putonski weren’t real. Now an unidentified voice wanted to meet Putonski alone.
    “Come on,” said Gavra. “We’re leaving.”

FOUR
     
    •
     
    While Agota
told Magda