The admiral’s gaze went unerringly to the walls, which boasted the Blackwell ladies’ artwork still. He’d half expected the captain to demand their return, but thus far he hadn’t spoken to Zivon again at all since the day after the air raid. Executing an about-face that allowed the admiral to take in the entire flat with that all-seeing gaze of his, Hall soon faced him again.

Much as Zivon wanted to ask his superior what he was doing here, he opted for holding his peace.

He didn’t have long to wait. Hall wasn’t one for wasting time. “Dilly told me what a help you were yesterday. We’ve been trying for a year to crack that code.”

Ah. He had expected Hall to mention his assistance at some point, yes. He just hadn’t thought it would warrant a house call. Zivon inclined his head. “It was my pleasure to assist, sir. We had, in Moscow, a codebook for that one.”

“Even so. You didn’t have to share your knowledge. And it is remarkable that you remember it.”

Zivon smiled. It was the code he had considered keeping to himself, so he could use it with the diplomats in Paris. But in light of the suspicions around him, he’d decided that withholding even the slightest information was not in his best interest. Was not honorable. “I admit it took me a while to piece it together again.”

The admiral’s blink looked amused. “Yes, an entire day. But that is not the only reason I’ve come.”

Zivon’s muscles stiffened. Was this it, then? Had he come to boot him to the curb? “Thanks for your help, old boy, but you’re too big a risk”?

Hall cleared his throat, turned, paced to look at the Eiffel Tower picture, as if this were just a social visit. “Mrs. Hall and I dined with the Blackwells last night. Lily—this is one of hers, correct?”

“It is, yes.” Zivon had spent countless hours over the last weeks staring at it. Studying it. Imagining Lily standing there at the base, in the same place Zivon had once stood, looking up in the way she loved best—through the eye of her camera. He imagined standing there with her in a year or two, when the war was over. Her hand in his. He imagined standing there in a decade, directing a child’s gaze upward and saying, “You know your mother’s photo of this? It was one of the first things she ever gave me.”

Sentimental fool, that’s what Evgeni would call him. But he’d say it with a smile and a teasing elbow in the ribs.