“He’s in the Ministry of War. Sandro. Sandro Khabarin.”

“What is he doing here?”

“I invited him.”

“Why did you invite him?”

“He wished to become one of us.”

“Why does he wish to become one of us?”

Maria looked at Ruzsky. Her eyes carried the most potent warning. Now they were bound together in danger and his heart swelled in gratitude. “We cannot wait any longer,” Ruzsky said. “Everyone must play their part.”

“We cannot wait any longer?” Borodin’s eyes flicked to the hallway and then back again. “Why can we wait no longer?”

“Things cannot go on as they are. Even the Tsar’s servants know it.”

“And you are a servant of the Tsar?”

“We all are.”

Borodin tilted his head fractionally, his scrutiny unbroken. He took his right hand from his pocket and slowly scratched his cheek. Ruzsky could see the bulge in his overcoat and was certain that he was armed. “What does the servant of the Tsar wish to do about it?”

“It is too late for anything but revolution.”

Borodin smiled. “But that has always been so.”

“Perhaps.”

“I question whether an official of the Tsar, with soft hands and a softer mind, is prepared to sacrifice himself for our cause. Why not join the liberals, with their many lunatic schemes?”

Ruzsky did not answer.

“Do you question that, Maria?”

“No.”

“No?” Borodin turned to face him again. “She is confident. We trust Maria, perhaps above all people. But should we trust you?” Borodin looked into his eyes. “Should we trust the man with soft hands? What would you do for the revolution, Khabarin?” He smiled. “Would you kill a man?”

“Of course.”

“Would you kill a friend at your Ministry of War, another enemy of the state?”

“Yes.”

Borodin turned to the others. “A man who will kill his own comrades?”

Ruzsky stared at him.

“But you wish to impress us. And not too much. I like that.” Borodin’s eyes searched Ruzsky’s own. “Very well. A friend of the ballerina is a friend to us all.”

Borodin turned back to the group. The man next to him was thin and, like the student at the gate, wore tiny round glasses. His teeth were poor and his hair dirty. The woman on the other side of him could have been his older sister; she, too, looked like she had seen neither soap nor water. Her lank hair hung down to her waist, a cloth cap in her hand. Once, she might have been almost pretty, but her face was lined and careworn, her teeth rotten. The pair were resentful, Ruzsky could see, not of him but of Maria and the way their leader instinctively responded to her.

There was a fifth member of the group and when he stepped forward into the light, Ruzsky could see that he was just a boy. Sixteen at most.

“As soon as Michael has finished speaking,” the older woman went on, “he will make the announcement. Then we will go.”

“Come,” Borodin said, with sudden urgency. He turned and marched away down the corridor, the torch above his head. They climbed another stone staircase and onto an iron gangway that ran the length of the factory. Borodin walked quickly, the torch splashing light onto the machines standing idle beneath them. Their footsteps echoed in the cavernous space.

Ruzsky was at the rear of the group, Maria just ahead of him.

Borodin led them into a room on the far side of the building. There was a clock on the wall and four desks, all facing tall windows with views across the factory floor. A shelf in front of them was laden with boxes of tools of every description: wrenches, hammers, spanners.

It was cold in here, too.

Borodin swung around to face him.

“Let’s talk about your friend a little more, Maria.”

“He looks like a police agent,” the older woman said, her mouth tight.

Ruzsky tried to keep his breathing even, his face calm.

“An official inside the Ministry of War? It was too good an opportunity to miss.” Maria smiled at him. “I-”

“What is his name again?”

“Khabarin. Alexander Khabarin.”

“How senior is he?”

Maria turned.

“Grade seven,” he responded.

“How did you meet him?”

“I was given his name and address by a friend in Moscow. I was told he was loyal and decent and”-she looked at him significantly-“I have not been disappointed.”

“Why have you not mentioned him before?”

“He needed to be convinced.”

“No revolutionary should need to be convinced.”

Maria did not flinch. “He can provide details of the movements of soldiers and other information that might prove useful. He’s strong and brave.”

This last remark was directed at Borodin, in apparent admonishment of some other members of the group. Ruzsky understood that she was using her own personal standing with the leader to appeal over the heads of the others.

Borodin took a step forward. His face was dark and unyielding and his every movement suggested a violence barely suppressed. “Why now?” Borodin asked.

“I told you already,” Ruzsky responded.

“Where were you educated?”

“My parents were teachers at the Kirochnaya.”

Borodin nodded, understanding the significance of the name. It was an officers’ school and explained his aristocratic bearing.

“He still looks like a police agent,” the woman said.

“I found him, Olga, not the other way around,” Maria’s voice was still controlled. If she shared his fear, the way in which she contained it was extraordinary.

Borodin turned to the others. “Maria is right. We cannot allow ourselves to be paralyzed by mistrust, isn’t that so, Andrei?”

The boy looked startled. “Of course.”

“But it would be naive to imagine they don’t try to infiltrate us, wouldn’t it?”

Andrei realized he was required to respond. “Yes, Michael.”

“Do you think they have succeeded?”

“I don’t know. I mean, no, they have not.”

“And yet I wonder. This man Maria has brought… It appears she sought him out. The ones we have to watch most carefully are those who have sought us, don’t you think?”

“Yes.”

“Factory workers could be unreliable, couldn’t they, those who approach us to be involved in our work?”

He hesitated. “Yes, they could be.”

“Or students.”

Borodin had returned his hands to his pockets, his black overcoat drawn back. He wore a smart suit beneath it, a silver watch chain strung across his waistcoat.

“Yes,” the boy said.

“Students worry me especially, Andrei.”

Ruzsky saw the boy’s Adam’s apple move violently as he swallowed.

“You’re a student, Andrei.”

Andrei didn’t answer.

“Tonight, for instance, we have plans. Plans that only people in this room know about. People in this room and, I’m told”-he looked Ruzsky straight in the eye-“the police.”

They were silent.

Olga glared at Maria. Ruzsky edged closer to her, but she betrayed no fear, her expression steady, her attention on Borodin. Andrei was farthest away from the torch and his breath was visible on the cold air.

“The police are expecting us.” Borodin took a step back toward the shelf full of tools. “Do you think it should stop us, Andrei?”

“No. I don’t know.”

“The Cossacks are waiting. Aren’t you frightened of them?”

Andrei did not answer, his face white in the half-light.

“Or are you more afraid of being discovered?”

The only sound was the rasp of the boy’s breathing.

“Just a few more days, Andrei.”

The boy swallowed violently.

“By Saturday, our task should be complete. Do you think they know about us?”

Andrei did not respond.

“Answer me!”

“I don’t know.” Andrei blinked rapidly.

“What about our friend the American? What about Ella? What about Borya? Who is killing them, Andrei?”

“I don’t know, Michael.” The boy was on the edge of tears.

“Did the police kill them? Are they picking us off one by one before we can reach our goal?”