Shakh made me talk about your departure, about the months preceding it, about the colleagues we saw at that time. I told him how we had been besieged in that revolving restaurant in the middle of a blazing city, and, going back in time, about the weeks spent in London, and, still further back, about the disappearance of the couple who were supposed to replace us, Yuri and Yulia. Your remorse at not having been able to protect them.

"What was he like, this Yuri?" Shakh suddenly interrupted me.

"Fair-haired, quite hefty, an engaging smile."

"That I know. I've seen the photos. Have you heard him speak English?"

"Er-no, why?"

Shakh did not reply, stared hard at me, then rubbed his brow.

"What's almost sure is that she spent a certain amount of time in America. I have the address, the contacts. But after that there was this great upheaval at the Center and a good deal of disruption in the departments and it's from that moment on it's difficult to keep track of her. We can talk about it at the end of the month, if you like. I guess I'll have a clearer picture by then."

Shakh had come to our meeting with a suitcase that still had baggage labels on it. As he set this bag down beside our table it reminded me vividly of the nomadic life you and I had led, a life this man was still leading, in an endless round of cities and hotels, of winter mornings in empty cafés where the coffee machine hisses and a customer, leaning on the counter, talks to the barman who nods his head without listening. And that suitcase. He caught my eye and announced with a smile, "The most precious item is not in the suitcase but here." He gave a little pat to a leather briefcase that lay on the bench. "Two million dollars. That's the price they want for this pile of papers. The complete technical documentation for a combat helicopter. A marvel. I wonder how the engineers, who haven't been paid for months, can go on making machines of this quality. Beside it, the American Apaches are flying tin cans. But Russia remains true to herself. The engineers get nothing and the mafiosi who organize the leakage buy themselves villas in the Bahamas. This briefcase will return to Moscow tomorrow, but, you know, the craziest thing is that I don't know if the people at the Center will be really pleased to have it back. It's quite likely that the very person there who takes delivery of it was actually hoping to be paid a commission for selling it."

Guessing what his work was now, I thought again of the trapeze artist without his safety net. I knew from experience that in extreme cases this total lack of protection could become a great advantage. Doubtless Shakh was playing it that way. The void that was all that lay between him and death freed him. He no longer had to take account of death, nor to master fear, nor to check parapets or fire exits in advance. He met people taking briefcases out of Russia crammed with secrets for sale, he passed himself off as an intermediary for an American arms manufacturer, negotiated, asked for time for an expert opinion. The sellers, he knew, were no longer agents of the old school, with their well-honed tactics and refinements like lethal umbrellas. These people thought little and killed quickly and often. It was his indifference to death that confounded them, they took this indifference as a guarantee of his all-American respectability. And he was successful because he surpassed all the degrees of risk imaginable.

I remarked to him, ineptly and in absurdly moralizing tones, that this could not last. At that moment the waiter set down our cups and inadvertently stubbed his toe against the suitcase placed under the table. Shakh smiled and murmured at the man's retreating back, "He should have been more careful. This case is mildly radioactive. Yes, I've actually been transporting the components of a portable atomic bomb in it. I'm not joking. You can't imagine what they manage to smuggle out of Russia now. I sometimes tell myself they'll end up by dismantling the whole country, or what's left of it, and shipping it to the West. But this bomb is a delightful toy. Total weight sixty-four pounds, length twenty-seven inches. A dream for a petty dictator who wants to command a bit of respect."

He took a drink, then continued in more somber tones, "You're right, one can't play the way I'm playing now for long. It can only work nine times out of ten. But, you see, if I still thought we could win I don't think it would even work once. Maybe the real game begins when you know you're going to lose. And we've lost already. This helicopter in my briefcase, it's still going to land in America, by another channel, a little bit later, and they'll have it all the same. Just as they'll have all the talented research scientists who are starving in Moscow. As one day they'll have the whole planet under their thumb. With Europe it's a done deal. Those are not separate nations anymore, they're hired help. If the Americans decide to bomb some transgressor nation tomorrow, with one voice all those lackeys will respond 'yes sir, no sir, three bags full, sir.' Of course they'll be allowed to keep their national folklore. You know, the way each girl in a brothel has her speciality. The French, true to tradition, will write essays about the war and lend their palaces for negotiations. The English will assume an air of dignity; the brothel madam always has one girl with a bit of class. And the Germans will be the zealous whore, trying to ensure her past errors are forgotten. The rest of Europe is a negligible quantity."

"And Russia?"

I asked with no ulterior motive and certainly with no desire to cut him off, but that was how Shakh must have taken it. He fell silent, then continued with an apologetic air, "Forgive me, I'm rambling. I've played the role of the American tycoon shopping for secrets so many times that I've ended up loathing him. A basic and visceral anti-Americanism, as the Parisian intellectuals would say. No, one shouldn't be a bad loser. You know I once told… our friend about Sorge's death. I expect she thought I was giving her a patriotic propaganda lesson, maybe I went about it the wrong way. But I quite simply wanted to say that in that last moment on the scaffold he, the loser, with the noose around his neck, achieved victory. Yes, by shouting out words people would find laughable today: 'Long live the Communist International!' Who can tell what'll carry more weight in the balance between good and evil: all the victories in the world or the raised fist of that agent everyone had betrayed."

"And Russia?"

I repeated it in a neutral voice, intentionally abstracted, leaving him the possibility of not replying. But his reply amazed me by its confessional tone.

"Several times I've had the same dream: I'm crossing the Russian frontier by train. It's winter, white fields as far as the eye can see, and I know there will be nothing but these infinite snows right up to the end. It's twenty-two years now since I went back there. The last person I knew there, who's still alive, is our friend: you'll find her again in the end. The other Russians I have all known abroad. As for those who come here to sell me helicopters on paper, they're a new breed already. The ones who are going to run the show down here after us."

He looked at his watch, leaned forward to pull out his suitcase, and, already poised to leave, remarked with a wink, "Since you're burning with curiosity to know what's in this case, I'll tell you the scenario. This evening two fine specimens of the new breed are coming to stay at the same hotel as me. They'll wait until it's night and break into my room. Not finding me there, they'll attack the suitcase. The vigilant French police will already have been alerted. The specimens will be deported to Moscow and met at Sheremetyevo airport. And there will be an attempt to plug the breach through which these combat helicopters and other toys dreamed up by our hungry engineers keep flying away."