Zivon let those lovely words sink into his mind as he sat before Hall’s desk, a balm on the wound he’d been trying to ignore. He didn’t ask what he’d been right about, he didn’t pump a fist in triumph at the mere statement, he didn’t even heave a sigh of relief. He just sat there, still and calm, and waited for the admiral to go on.

DID tapped a finger to something on his desk, though Zivon couldn’t see what it was from this angle, other than a photo of some sort. “These two are definitely grumbling about mutiny among the German soldiers. You may be on to something here, Marin.”

Sweet vindication sang through his veins, but he did nothing more than nod. “Which two, sir?” He’d said it as if Zivon should know.

He apparently should, Zivon saw, when Hall lifted the photo he’d tapped.

The photo that had been stuffed in Evgeni’s passport.

His mind whirled. Screamed.

The admiral didn’t seem to notice. “Lily helped us put it together. She had another shot of them in her archives, but from the first few months of the war, when they were but oberjägers, both of them. It seems they’ve advanced in the ranks through a series of battlefield promotions, but both are from humble origins. Not gentlemen, like most of the officers.”

“Their sympathies, then, are still with the common soldier.” Half of Zivon’s mind followed the information well enough. But the other half . . . Why would Evgeni have had a snapshot of those two? The very two who were of interest to Zivon? The two who were alluded to in the last message he’d decoded in Moscow, the one he had been wanting so desperately to recover? Had Zhenya, in fact, been an intelligence agent?

“We had their names on file, from that first photograph Lily dug up.” Hall set the photo down again and leaned back in his chair. For a long moment, he regarded Zivon without speaking. Then, quietly, he said, “You were right about this. And so, I’ve been giving some thought to what you insisted at the start. About the proper reaction from us. You weren’t born a gentleman either, were you?”

Zivon started a bit at the question, so out of the blue.

But not. Not out of the blue at all, from Hall’s perspective. All this potential trouble for the Germans was coming about because two common men had risen through the ranks. Two common men saw the plight of their true comrades and wanted it to end. Two common men were ready to start a rebellion among the soldiers to force their superiors to listen.