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The bearded man asked a question in Bulgarian, then in German. Margo said nothing. The men laughed. She sidestepped toward the
hallway beyond the kitchen. The cooks looked at each other; then the younger moved into her path and put his hands on his hips. He stuck out his hand, palm upward.

She realized he wanted to see her pass. It occurred to her that he didn’t know she was a prisoner. Agatha had said that some African revolutionaries were trained in Bulgaria; they must think she was one of them.

So she smiled and shook her head, spreading her own hands wide, explaining in her passable French that she was in a hurry, late for a meeting, and hoped that either from some rudimentary understanding of the language, or from her smile and her posture, they would accept that she belonged. The older one said something that made the younger laugh lasciviously, and pointed not down the hallway but to a different door.

Margo gave him a look that she hoped would convey irritated disdain, then slipped through the doorway to which she had been directed. The room was small and airless. A woman in uniform sat at a desk. She barely looked up before nodding Margo toward a curtained arch, cluck-clucking to herself as the younger woman passed.

Beyond the arch was a sort of dressing room with bunks included, and there Margo found six or seven women fixing their makeup and adjusting their clothing. They looked dressed for a party. They fixed furious appraising eyes on the newcomer. One of them pointed to Margo’s disheveled clothing and made a comment that was plainly derisive. The others chuckled, then went back to their preening.

An hour or more passed. The women continued to ignore her. Eventually, a flabby man wearing a uniform stepped in, and the women leapt to their feet, Margo alongside. His froggy eyes lingered curiously on Margo before he pointed to another woman, a very tall redhead, who smoothed her gown and preceded him out the door. He pointed to another woman, who nodded and sat.

The other women shook their heads, picked up their purses, pulled on their coats, lit cigarettes.

Margo understood. The man had picked two, and the rest could leave.

She had no handbag, but she was still wearing her coat, and when the women filed out, she followed. A female guard materialized, led
them down a concrete stairway and down a dank basement hallway with dripping water pipes along the ceiling. They went up another stair, at the top of which the guard unlocked a steel door and swung it wide.

The street.

Freedom.

A couple of women headed for the tram stop; the others walked off down the street, perhaps to ply their trade elsewhere. Nobody paid Margo any attention. She studied the neighborhood, trying to get her bearings. She dared not ask directions or take a taxi. Across from the DS headquarters was a park, and beyond the park were low buildings she did not recognize. Above the rooflines, she saw the distant, misty domes of the Dormition of the Theotokos Cathedral, which she had visited last week. If she could get there, she was fairly certain that she could find her hotel.

Except she didn’t want the hotel.

If the ploy goes to pieces,
Niemeyer had warned her,
you don’t go back to your hotel. You march straight into the American consulate, nowhere else. Ask for a counselor named Ainsley. Mr. Ainsley is an associate of mine, and he’ll take care of you.

Right. Good plan. Margo would march straight into the consulate, and find this Ainsley. It was important that she not be caught—not only because she might face prison or worse, but because she was her father’s daughter and she had a mission to complete.

She knew precisely what was going on in Cuba. Colonel Fomin had told her.

She started off down the street.

She hurried along the wide boulevard named for Georgi Dimitrov, the revered Bulgarian Stalinist arrested by the Nazis for supposed complicity in the Reichstag fire, although the locals still called the street Maria Luiza, after the wife of the late beloved Tsar Ferdinand I. The sky was heavy with pre-dawn grayness. She realized that she had spent most of the night in custody. Traffic was light. There were few pedestrians at this hour. Margo kept the hood of her raincoat up and her head down, in the hope that the night would disguise her blackness—a clue that would otherwise lead the DS to her in minutes. The cold, freshening rain helped. Nobody was making eye contact. Everyone was hurrying, umbrellas or newspapers over their heads.

She walked fast, but not too fast, keeping the cathedral’s golden belfry ahead and to her right. She guessed the distance at about half a mile. From what she remembered, the consulate would be three blocks farther on. She had no idea whether it was staffed at this hour, but she had no other plan.

She wondered, in a vague way, why Agatha, the minder who scared well-trained intelligence officers, had left her to her fate rather than riding to her rescue. She wondered, too, whether Fomin realized how much he had told her by the questions he asked. Most of all, she wondered whether her father, if he knew, would be proud—

The sound of whispered conversation ahead made her lift her eyes.
Two policemen in dark ponchos were headed her way. Margo didn’t break stride, but felt their hard gazes lift to her as they passed.

Caught, she told herself; they could hardly have overlooked her color.

But the policemen kept walking. They weren’t particularly watchful. Routine, she told herself. They were just patrolling the street, and happened to be on the same sidewalk as she.

She passed a shuttered restaurant and a state commissary, crossed a pretty prewar bridge with an unpronounceable name, and there was the cathedral, diagonally across a well-tended park. As she entered the trees, someone whispered insinuatingly from the shadows, and she walked faster. She heard a footstep ahead of her and took a fork on the path. The trees closed up, and she could no longer see the cathedral: because of the rain there was no moon. Now, the same voice came from off to her right, the sort of nasty male challenge—half querulous, half threatening—that she needed no translation to understand.

She glanced over.

A drunk was pacing her, perhaps ten feet to the left, stumbling angrily through the trees. He was heavyset, and although beyond that Margo could see no details in the darkness, she could hear his angry growl.

When he called to her again, she broke into a near run. The drunk grunted in surprise, then took off after her.

The night had moved from tragedy to farce. Her arrest, her escape, and now being chased by a drunk. Full of hysterical energy, she found herself laughing. Then she burst from the trees, and was safe at last, finally on the grassland across from the cathedral. Through the misty air, the domes sparkled soft gold. She hurried forward, and the drunk brought her down in a tackle.

Margo cried out and kicked, then swung a hand as he tried to pin her. Either her aim was lucky or he was too drunk to react, but she made sharp, satisfying contact with his nose and saw blood spurt. She kicked again, struggled to her feet, and turned to run, only to find herself grabbed by one of the police officers she had passed just minutes before.

He spoke to her sharply, asking a question. His partner had the drunk cuffed.

“I’m sorry,” she said, carefully. “I don’t speak your language.” She stood straighter. “Thank you for helping me.”

The officer frowned. “Passport,” he said, beckoning with his fingers.

Margo hesitated. She could hardly tell him that it was in her handbag back at the DS headquarters.

“I lost it,” she said. “I’m an American. A tourist.”

The policemen had a quick, sharp conversation. One of them took her arm. “You will come,” he said.

She shook his hand off. “I lost my passport. I’m going to the consulate to get a new one.” She pointed down the road past the cathedral. She had no idea how much time she had before there was an alarm throughout the city. “Please. It’s just half a mile away.”

He grabbed her again, more tightly. “You will come,” he repeated, and it was evident that this was the extent of his English.

Then he let her go and snapped off an awkward salute. She followed his gaze and saw Colonel Fomin striding down the path. The trio held a swift conversation, after which the policemen left with the drunk, and Margo was alone with the Soviet intelligence officer.

“This was not the safest route,” he said. His hands were in the pockets of his raincoat, and he looked terribly unhappy. “I assumed you would have stayed on the main thoroughfare.”

She was busily catching her breath. “You were following me the whole time?”

“No. Your escape plan was clever. Your father would have been proud. That fool of a guard has admitted letting you leave with the other women, and I have no doubt that the Bulgarian savages will be punishing her severely. You have also done us a service. Ignatiev has suspected for some while that some of the senior officers are smuggling women into the building. Until tonight, he had no evidence. Now he does.”

Margo managed to stand straight. “How did you find me?”

“The policemen. You will recall that they passed you earlier, on the street. When they returned to their radio car, they heard the bulletin.
We figured out where you were heading and asked them to detain you.”

She felt scratchy, and angry, and ready to sleep for a thousand years.

“What happens now? Are we going back?”

“No. I have conferred with my superiors. Their judgment is that you should be released for lack of evidence, in order to avoid a diplomatic incident.” He smiled wanly. “I myself do not concur in this judgment. I still believe that you are a spy, that you want to know about what is going on in Cuba, and that you have been sent here by Niemeyer. Your escape, I believe, is evidence for my view. But it will not sway my superiors. You violated Bulgarian law by leaving custody, and you did damage to public property. I am advised, however, that you will not be charged. There is consequently no reason to take you back into custody.”

“You mean I’m free to go?”

“The People’s Republic has revoked your entry visa. You must leave the country within twenty-four hours.”

The unexpected reprieve left her relieved and heartsick at once; and puzzled. “I don’t understand.”

“You should not question your good fortune.” He seemed to expect her to write this down. “You will need this.”

He handed over her handbag. She checked. The passport was inside.

“My cash is missing.”

“Perhaps you would like to remain in the country and file a complaint? No?” He nodded toward the cathedral. “I assume your destination is the consulate. You should ask them to put you on the earliest possible flight. Between now and the time of your departure, I shall endeavor to change the minds of my superiors and have you rearrested.”

The rain had stopped, but the sky was still cloudy and moonless. Water dripped from leaves. Voices murmured just out of sight; she didn’t know whether they were Fomin’s people or someone else’s.

“Thank you for … for just now,” she said.

“Do not thank me too soon, Miss Jensen. The drunk was a hooligan, of the sort more common in the capitalist West than in the socialist countries. He will be treated according to the process of law. You, too, could have been arrested. I almost chose not to intervene. I
do not consider spies entitled to the protection of the law. And now I would suggest that you go at once to your consulate, to avoid any further difficulty.” He nodded toward a gap in the hedges. “That way. Don’t worry. You will be perfectly safe, as long as you remain on the path.”

“But—”

“Go, Miss Jensen. Now.”

She went.

There was hardly any traffic. Half a mile to the consulate. As she crossed the road, she noticed a shiny blue Ford parked in front of the cathedral, the motor idling. A man bounded out, lithe as a dancer despite his broad shoulders, boyish blond hair flopping about. Margo jumped back. She could not be rearrested, not so near her goal.

The stranger intercepted her, a bright smile on his youthful face. “Oh, wonderful!” he cried, as he might to a long-lost friend. “There you are. So good to see you.” A whisper: “Relax, you’re fine now.” Margo had not realized how hard she was trembling. He had an arm around her, moving her to the passenger side of the Ford. “I’m Ainsley. I’m with the consulate.”

Despite her flooding relief, she had the presence of mind to push free of him and ask for identification.

He pulled out his wallet, showed her. “Would you like to ask me who won the World Series?” he asked, teeth gleaming. “It’s not over yet, but the Yankees just won Game Five. Tom Tresh hit a three-run homer in the eighth inning. Okay?” He was leading her to the car. “Let’s get you out of here.”

“They said I have to leave the country,” she mumbled.

“That’s for later. All taken care of. Eleven a.m. flight to Vienna. Right now I’d guess you need some sleep.”

“How did you know where to find me?”

His smile was as brilliant as a politician’s. “A couple of us have been out looking for you. We heard you’d escaped. That’s rather impressive.”

“I think they let me go on purpose. It was too easy.”

“Wanting to avoid a diplomatic incident? You could be right. Fischer is a big deal, and there’s no reason to risk his wrath.”

“Fomin said—”

His hand shot out, arresting her words. “Time for that later. You rest.”

“I need to call my grandmother.” The car moved off. The sad morning sun was a smeary gray, as if dawn had been forbidden. “I need to call Tom.”

“You can call from the consulate, but remember, it’s the middle of the night back home. We’re seven hours ahead.”

“I want to go back to the hotel.”

“Out of the question,” he said with an apologetic smile. His peculiar eyes flashed gold in the morning sun. “We sent someone for your things, but the DS has been through the room, and it was rather a mess.”

For some reason, this violation seemed worse even than her treatment last night, and for a mad moment she found herself looking around for someone to hit. Ainsley drove smoothly, one hand on the wheel, the other gesturing as he laid out the rules.