Zivon cleared his throat. “I have a brother. Evgeni. He fled with me, but we were separated when our train derailed in France. We had set up a place to rendezvous in Paris, but he did not show up. Not yet.” Zivon hadn’t been able to wait there longer. With the loss of his bag, he’d had no money beyond the few bills in his pocket. And the French cryptography department had never responded. He’d had no choice but to continue to London, leaving a note for his brother at the bookshop they’d favored on their one European holiday when they were boys. It was the only place they’d known to set as a meeting spot. “He will find me when he is able. Of this I am certain.”

The captain braked to a gradual halt in front of Zivon’s building. “I will be praying your brother finds you soon. That he is well.”

Zivon curled his fingers tightly around the handle of his briefcase. Perhaps the captain’s prayers would have some effect his own hadn’t. “I thank you. And I will be but a few minutes. You are welcome to come up, of course, if you like.” He had nothing in his flat to allow for hospitality—no newspaper to offer him to read, no books collected with care, nothing to eat or drink aside from tap water and the few rations he’d been granted.

Blackwell’s smile looked unconcerned. “If it’s all the same, I think I’ll take a stroll down the street while you’re tidying up, old boy. I could use a stretch of my legs, and I certainly won’t get it once I’m home.”

With a bit of luck, his host wouldn’t see the relief in his nod.

Zivon hurried inside, up the stairs, and to the spartan flat Admiral Hall had provided him. He barely spared it a glance as he let himself in. There was none of him here, not yet. Just borrowed furniture. Borrowed curtains. A borrowed life.

He’d forge his own, as soon as he could. For now, though, it was a change into the closest thing he had to suitable dinner attire and a quick wash of his face, and he was positioning his spectacles on his nose again, pocketing his keys, and hurrying back down.

The captain was strolling his way when he emerged. They both climbed into the car and were soon talking of normal, unimportant things for the ten-minute ride. The weather. The rations. The news.