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She stepped past him into the foyer, which was large but low-ceilinged, and decorated with indifferent seascapes collected by a previous owner. She remembered her only previous visit to the house, early in September, when Niemeyer threw the annual party for his students. She had been one of two hundred young people crowding the lawn and spilling onto the porch and into the cottage proper, although a makeshift barrier of twinned chairs arrested the progress of the guests at the hallway leading deeper into the house. Now Vale led her down that very corridor to a cozy book-lined study, where, late as it was, a small fire burned in the grate. A book of chess games was open on a side table, where a position had been set up on a board.

“Please, wait here, Miss Jensen,” the butler said.

“Thank you.”

Vale pulled the double doors closed behind him. Alone again, Margo squeezed her hands together to try to control the shakes. Vale had seemed so calm; but, then, from what she understood, it was not unusual for undergraduates to visit the house at all hours.

Female undergraduates: or so the rumor mill had it.

Unable to sit still, Margo moved to the window. Niemeyer’s cottage backed on the woods. The night had gone overcast, but there was wind, and now and then the skittering clouds cleared for a moment, allowing silver shafts of moonlight to brush the trees. She wondered who was out there watching, for she had come to believe somebody always was. Harrington had told her to resume her normal life, but she wasn’t sure Harrington would know a normal life if it sat down for dinner. Margo nibbled her lip. A part of her mind still was not entirely sure that she wasn’t still in the dream. The borderline between this world and that was harder to find in the dark, and had been ever since—

The double doors opened, slowly but loudly, and even as Margo turned, she realized that Niemeyer wanted her to hear the sound so that she would not be startled when he entered the room. A dream Niemeyer, she decided, would not be nearly so considerate.

“Good evening, my dear,” he said. “This is indeed a delight.”

He was wearing pajamas and a robe and floppy slippers. His hair was disordered, and the bad hand was in his pocket, and it was plain that she had roused him from his sleep. His eyes were guarded. The
bonhomie seemed forced. She could not at first put a name to what she read in his tired face. Then it occurred to her that he might be nearly as frightened as she.

“Good evening, Professor,” she said. Her voice still shook. “I’m sorry to disturb you.”

His smile was tentative but wry. “There was a time when visits by comely young women such as yourself to my humble abode were a more common occurrence. But nowadays, I’m afraid I need my rest.”

She didn’t trust her voice this time, so she only nodded.

“You would appear to be in need of a drink, Miss Jensen.” He crossed to the sideboard, uncapped a decanter, sniffed. “Sherry, you know, doesn’t have an actual vintage the way other wines do, but this is a good one.” Another sniff, followed by a frown. “Fairly good, anyway.”

He poured two glasses, offered her one. She hesitated. “I insist,” he said.

“No, um, thank you, no.” Margo found herself babbling. “The drinking age for women—”

“There is a medicinal exception, Miss Jensen.” The humor was forced, the grin a ghastly imitation of the pompous smile that accompanied the worst of his jokes. “You need this. It will calm you down. Good. Now sit.”

She did as bidden. She had been doing as she was bidden quite a bit lately, but, in this stuffy library, began to feel somewhere deep down the banked fires of a rebellion.

“Better. One more sip. Good. Now, my dear. It’s the middle of the night, and you arrived here terribly upset. Now that you’re relatively calm, why don’t you tell me what you’re doing here?”

“I didn’t know where else to go. Who else to talk to.” He waited. Her mind was galloping ahead of her mouth, or perhaps stumbling behind. Finally, she was able to form the words. “I think Dr. Harrington is working with Soviet Intelligence.”

Now it was Niemeyer’s turn to go mute. He had told them in class that the key to a successful interrogation was for the interrogator never to seem surprised. He did not seem surprised now, just thoughtful. He returned to the sideboard and unstopped the crystal decanter once
more, taking his time, then topped up her glass and his own. He sat again, this time beside her on the sofa. He crossed those plump legs and sipped, watching her.

And Margo responded. She had not realized until tonight how badly she needed to tell the story. The story of her experiences. The reasons for her suspicions of Harrington came tumbling out: That she was being followed on campus even before Stilwell and Borkland visited. That Fomin seemed to know she was coming, to be waiting for her. That he already had a thick file on her. That he had a copy of the forged application the State Department had prepared. That he’d had her arrested and then, when he caught up with her after her escape, released her. It had to be a test, Margo said: a test to see whether she would be capable of carrying secret messages. But there was no way Fomin could have heard of her unless Harrington had been in touch with him …

And she wound down.

“I didn’t know where else to go,” she repeated, not liking the weariness in her tone.

“Not a dream, I suppose,” he said after a moment. “And not a scheme to winkle yourself into my bed, hoping for a better grade, one supposes. Pity, that.” But the humor failed to rouse the slightest fury. Niemeyer took a longer drink. “This meeting with Fomin really happened, then.”

“Yes, sir.” The “sir” sounded odd in light of the occasion, but the habits of the classroom die hard. “But about Dr. Harrington—”

“First things first, Miss Jensen.”

“I thought it might be you,” Margo went on, eyes downcast, missing the point. “Who was in league with Fomin, I mean. But that didn’t jibe with the access to the State Department files, or with the detailed knowledge of my mission.”

“Unless I’m working with Dr. Harrington.” She looked up sharply. “Or maybe there’s another mole. It needn’t be me. It needn’t be Dr. Harrington. It needn’t be anybody. I wonder whether you’re allowing your imagination to run away with you, Miss Jensen. When you’re in the field, everything that goes wrong looks like conspiracy.”

“That’s what Agatha said.”

“And who’s Agatha when she’s at home? I don’t believe we’ve had an Agatha in the story.”

“My minder. She got hurt the night I got arrested. Nobody will tell me where she is, or even how she’s doing.”

“I can check, if you like.” He was topping off her glass, using his good hand. “Now, listen to me, Miss Jensen. There will be plenty of time to go mole hunting once the crisis is successfully resolved. For the moment, why don’t we stick to the facts and put the speculations to one side?”

“I—yes. Okay.”

“The basic information is this. In Bulgaria, you were interrogated by a man identifying himself as Fomin, who claimed to be a colonel in the KGB. Tonight you saw him again, he confirmed the presence of missiles in Cuba, and he asked you to serve as his conduit to the President of the United States. Fair summary?”

“Not his conduit. Khrushchev’s conduit.”

“Indeed.” A sip. “Granting that emendation, Miss Jensen, why precisely do you come to me?”

She was, for a moment, wordstruck. Wasn’t it obvious? “You’re the only one I know who can help. You know people in Washington. I assumed you’d know what I should do next.”

“I see.” He swirled his glass, studying the liquid, but Margo knew it was the quality of her story, not the quality of the sherry, that was under scrutiny. “Would it trouble you terribly were I to ask a few pertinent questions? By way of clarification, let us say?”

“You mean, to figure out whether I’m lying.”

He didn’t smile, or bother to respond.

“You came here straight from wherever this was?”

“Stewart Park. There was another man there, too. Also, Fomin said somebody was following me, and—”

Niemeyer raised a hand and actually covered her mouth. “An old trick. He says somebody’s watching you, and, just like that, you’re on the same side against the mysterious watcher.”

“He was lying?”

“No idea. Makes no difference. Now, listen carefully, Miss Jensen. I don’t want those details. Not yet. First, we establish the provenance of the information. Then we hear the story.”

His face had gone serious, and Margo knew this was his element, the real Lorenz Niemeyer beneath the flannel: she was face-to-face
with the ice-cold spymaster he was reputed to have been, and some said still was.

“I came straight here,” she said.

“How?”

“I guess I walked.”

“You guess?”

The hard truth: “I don’t remember all the details. I was sort of in a fog.”

“Call your boyfriend? That Jellinek fellow?”

“No.”

“Your drug-addled roommate? Your friend Annalise? Littlejohn, or the other silly fools from your study group? Anybody?”

She registered no surprise that he knew her life as well as she did. “Nobody.”

“Anybody see you on the way here?”

“I don’t know. I walked all the way from Stewart Park.”

“That’s over a mile, mostly uphill. Cars must have passed you.”

“Probably. I don’t remember.”

“Did you change your clothes? Buy a soda?”

“No.”

“Wait here.” He stood up and walked toward the door. Vale opened it at once from the outside. Margo wondered how the butler knew his master wanted him; and, for that matter, how he had known her name when she rang the bell. In the hall, the two men had a whispered conversation. Vale vanished, and Niemeyer resumed his place.

“Did he give you any warnings? Not to talk about this—that kind of thing?”

“He said not to tell anybody but the President.”

Niemeyer’s face hardened. “So it’s been less than an hour, and you’re already breaking the rules.”

“I didn’t know what else to do. I tried to explain to Fomin. I can’t just walk up to the White House and knock on the door and ask for an appointment.”

“And what did Fomin say to that?”

She found herself reciting Fomin’s theory with a certain pride. “He said that any girl resourceful enough to escape custody at the DS headquarters could surely talk her way into the White House.”

The great man thought this over. His frown deepened. The misshapen hand toyed with what remained of his hair. “Suppose you were able to reach the White House and persuade them to accept you as the conduit to Khrushchev. Did Fomin tell you what to do next?”

“He said I’d be contacted.”

“Did he say through whom?”

“No.”

“Did he say when?”

“No.”

“Did he say how you’d know the contact was authentic? Did he give you a word code, anything like that?”

“No.”

“Sometimes, after an experience like you had in Varna, people make things up. Trying to get attention. You wouldn’t be doing that, would you, Miss Jensen?”

“No.” The rhythm Niemeyer had established left her little choice but to keep giving the same answer.

“Exaggerating at all?”

“No.”

“Are you omitting any details?”

“No.”

“Fomin. What was he wearing?”

She shut her eyes, saw him in the darkness, heard the squeal of the unoiled swings. “A turtleneck sweater. A sports coat. Some kind of dark pants.”

“Was he smoking?”

“Yes,” she said, very surprised.

“What brand?”

“I didn’t see the pack. They smelled terrible. I never looked at the pack.”

A knock on the door. Vale stepped inside, crossed the room on silent feet, whispered in his master’s ear. The great man nodded. The butler went out.

Niemeyer resumed as if the interruption had never occurred.

“You’re sure Fomin said missiles—plural.”

“Yes.”

“Did he say how many?”

“No.”

“He told you the types.”

“Yes.”

“But he did say that the official negotiations wouldn’t go anywhere?”

“He said Khrushchev couldn’t afford to lose face.”

Niemeyer nodded. “We model the Kremlin as a zero-sum game. There’s only so much authority to go around. Whatever flows out of one set of hands flows into another. The General Secretary never holds all the power. Not even Stalin could act entirely unilaterally, although he had more freedom than the poor bastards who’ve held the office since.” He was talking to fill the void while he thought. “We saw this coming, you know—the missiles. We told Eisenhower. We told Kennedy. Nobody would listen. We have our water borders, we’ve never been successfully invaded—if you don’t count that small unpleasantness in 1812, when the Brits burned the White House—and, come to think of it, that particular unpleasantness is celebrating its sesquicentennial this year, isn’t it?”

Automatically, her mind recorded the six-syllable word with the accent on the fourth syllable, but tonight she derived no pleasure from adding to her list.

“And that tale has an instructive provenance.” Niemeyer was still racing out ahead of her. “Consider, Miss Jensen. Have you ever wondered
why
precisely the Brits were able to burn the White House? Because we saw the troops coming up through Maryland and thought they were headed to Baltimore. Because the President’s military advisers were sure that any attack on Washington would come from the west or the southwest. Nobody had them coming from the southeast, and there wasn’t enough army to defend every approach. They chose our soft underbelly while we looked the wrong way, Miss Jensen, and they’re doing it again. We have early-warning radars in Alaska and all across Canada, we have listening stations in Greenland, England, Europe, Japan, the Philippines, Guam, and none of it—none of it—would be of the slightest utility should the attack come from Cuba. It’s the oldest story of warfare, and it’s been true all through history. Nobody ever defeated the enemy by building walls to keep him out. When you retreat behind your walls, you’ve already lost. Ask Athens. Ask Carthage. Ask France, twice in this century alone. Ask
anybody.” He nodded his heavy head, the way he did in class when confirming his own analysis. “You go after your enemy in his lair. If you sit back and wait for him to come, the war’s as good as over.”