A minute later, Kirov dragged him onto level ground.

The first thing Pekkala saw was Grodek. He lay on his stomach, hands cuffed behind his back, the fingers curled like the claws of a dead bird. Blood soaked through the cloth of his shirt.

“You have to stop him,” gasped Grodek. “He says he’s going to kill me.”

Across the field, half buried in the tall grass, stood another car. Its windshield had been shattered by bullets. Steam billowed from the punctured radiator, and the shiny black sides showed silver scabs where bullets had gone through the metal.

Kirov set his foot on Grodek’s back and ground his heel into the bullet wound in his shoulder.

Grodek shrieked with pain.

Kirov ’s face showed no emotion.

“How did you find me?” asked Pekkala.

“As soon as your brother woke up,” replied Kirov, “he borrowed the doctor’s car and came to find me. He told me about Grodek. At first, neither of us knew where you had gone. Then I remembered the book. I deciphered the message. We came here as quickly as we could. When we got to the field, I tried to keep Grodek pinned down while Anton came around the side, but Grodek spotted him and opened fire. Anton was wounded. Grodek threw him into the pit.” Now Kirov hauled Grodek to his feet, lifting him by the cuffs. “And now it is time to settle the accounts.”

Grodek cried out as his arms were bent back.

“I hear you are afraid of heights,” said Kirov, as he hauled Grodek towards the mine shaft.

Kirov held him over the edge.

Grodek writhed and begged.

All Kirov had to do was let go.

He was about to cross a line from which there was no turning back. Already, Kirov seemed to be a different man from the Junior Commissar Pekkala had met in the forest, lifetimes ago. Pekkala felt helpless to prevent what was about to happen. Part of him wanted it, knowing that if Kirov did not cross that line today, the time would surely come when he would have no choice. But Pekkala realized that he could not stand by and let it happen. He called out to Kirov, ordering him to stop, knowing it might already be too late.

For a moment Kirov seemed confused, like a man snapping out of hypnosis. Then he leaned back, fist clenched around the handcuff chain, pulling Grodek away from the precipice.

Grodek dropped to his knees, sobbing.

Pekkala walked over to the vests. They lay in a heap, the white cotton looking stained and brittle in the daylight. He lifted one of them and held it up, feeling the weight drag at his arm. The rotten cloth tore open and a stream of diamonds poured out on the ground, sparkling like water in the sunlight.

He sat in a wood-paneled room whose tall windows, framed by crimson velvet curtains, looked out onto Red Square. An eighteenth-century Thomas Lister grandfather clock, which had once stood in the Catherine Palace, patiently marked time in the corner of the room.

The desk in front of him was bare except for an empty wooden pipe holder.

He did not know how long he had been waiting. Now and then he glanced at the large double doors. Outside, he heard soldiers marching in the square.

A dream he’d had the night before still echoed in his head. He was in Sverdlovsk, on that bicycle, flying downhill without brakes, heading straight for the duck pond again. Just as before, he had ended up in the water, soaked and covered in weeds. When he rose from the pond, he saw a person standing in the rushes on the other side. It was Anton. His heart jumped when he saw his brother. Pekkala tried to move but found that he could not. He called, but Anton did not seem to hear. Then Anton turned and walked away and the bulrushes closed up around him. Pekkala stood there for a long time-at least it seemed so in his dream-thinking of the day when he would cross that pond. Like Anton, he would stand on that far shore, looking back where he had come from, without pain or anger or sadness, and then he, too, would disappear into the world that lay beyond the water.

Suddenly a door opened in the wall behind the desk. It was shaped so much like one of the panels that Pekkala had not even noticed it was there.

The man who walked into the room wore a plain brownish-green wool suit, whose jacket had been fashioned in a military cut so that its short stand-up collar closed across his throat. His dark hair, streaked with gray above his ears and temples, had been combed straight back on his head and a thick mustache bunched under his nose. When he smiled, his eyes closed shut like those of a contented cat. “Pekkala,” he said.

Pekkala rose to his feet. “Comrade Stalin.”

Stalin sat down opposite him. “Sit,” he said.

Pekkala returned to his chair.

For a moment, the two men regarded each other in silence.

The ticking of the clock seemed to grow louder.

“I told you we would meet again, Pekkala.”

“The setting is more pleasant than before.”

Stalin sat back and looked around the room, as if he had never really noticed it before. “It’s all more pleasant now.”

“You asked to see me.”

Stalin nodded. “As you requested, credit for the return of the Tsar’s jewels to the Soviet people has been given to Lieutenant Kirov. Actually”-Stalin scratched at his chin-“it is Major Kirov now.”

“Thank you for letting me know,” said Pekkala.

“You are free to go now,” said Stalin, “unless, of course, you might consider staying on.”

“Stay on? No, I am bound for Paris. I have a meeting which is long overdue.”

“Ah,” he said. “Ilya, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” It made Pekkala nervous to hear him say her name.

“I have some information about her.” Stalin was watching him closely, as if they were playing cards. “Permit me to share it with you.”

“Information?” asked Pekkala. “What information?” He thought, Please don’t let her be hurt, or sick. Or worse. Anything but that.

Stalin opened a drawer on his side of the desk. The dry wood squeaked as he pulled. He withdrew a photograph. For a moment, he studied it, leaving Pekkala to stare at the back of the picture and wonder what on earth this was about.

“What is it?” demanded Pekkala. “Is she all right?”

“Oh, yes,” replied Stalin. He laid the picture down, placed a finger on top of it, and slid the photograph towards Pekkala.

Pekkala snatched it up. It was Ilya. He recognized her instantly. She was sitting at a small café table. Behind her, printed on the awning of the café, he saw the words Les Deux Magots. She was smiling. He could see her strong white teeth. Now, reluctantly, Pekkala’s gaze shifted to the man who was sitting beside her. He was thin, with dark hair combed straight back. He wore a jacket and tie and the stub of a cigarette was pinched between his thumb and second finger. He held the cigarette in the Russian manner, with the burning end balanced over his palm as if to catch the falling ash. Like Ilya, the man was also smiling. Both of them were watching something just to the left of the camera. On the other side of the table was an object which at first Pekkala almost failed to recognize, since it had been so long since he had seen one. It was a baby carriage, its hood pulled up to shelter the infant from the sun.

Pekkala realized he wasn’t breathing. He had to force himself to fill his lungs.

Stalin rested his fist against his lips. Quietly, he cleared his throat, as if to remind Pekkala that he was not alone in the room.

“How did you get this?” asked Pekkala, his voice gone suddenly hoarse.

“We know the whereabouts of every Russian émigré in Paris.”

“Is she in danger?”

“No,” Stalin assured him. “Nor will she be. I promise you that.”

Pekkala stared at the baby carriage. He wondered if the child had her eyes.