“Reporters. At the OB.” Zivon drifted to a halt the moment they came within sight of the parade grounds. It wasn’t unusual for men from the press to be there, but not in a crowd like that. And not outside. Usually, when more than a few gathered, it was because DID was holding a press conference.

These, though, were not the orderly collection of fellows here for promised news. These were rather a roiling, shouting group best defined by the word mob.

His chest constricted. He’d had enough of those to last him a lifetime. “We had probably better go the long way round and come in at the back.”

“No argument from me.”

They fell in with a few others in the naval reserve uniform who had apparently come to the same conclusion. When they reached the back door—the one through which Lily habitually came and went—De Wilde stood there with a newspaper in hand and a serious look on her face.

Her gaze caught his the moment he came into view, and she lifted the paper. “Have you read the news this morning?”

Zivon shook his head. Most mornings he still tried to do so before he came to work, but he’d run an extra mile today and hadn’t had the time.

She thrust the newsprint at him. “DID wants to see you straightaway. Look on page three. I’d suggest still walking while you look, though.”

Everything in him went cold, even before he opened the paper. This wasn’t about the search for those two German officers, it wasn’t about his suggestions on how to meet a mutiny if it came, it wasn’t about the czar’s execution.

No. This would rather be linked to whoever had been breaking into his apartment, searching for he knew not what. This would be about him. The shoe he’d been waiting for months to drop.

His enemies catching him up.

He waited until they were through the door before unfolding the paper and flipping to the third page, his eyes adjusting to the interior light as he walked. He skimmed over the first headings, which didn’t seem to be anything of relevance. Then caught his breath when he spotted the one halfway down the page. BOLSHEVIK SPY INFILTRATES BRITISH MILITARY.

Impossible. How? Who? He would know another Russian if one were here—even if their English were perfect, this was his life’s work. He would recognize nuance in language, in intonation, in behavior. The patterns that would be wrong, the idioms.

His gaze ate up the words. Not another Russian at all. Him. This article was all about him, the Russian linguist hired by the Admiralty. Except the article made it sound as though he’d had the French and English bidding for his “linguistics” services and had gone wherever they offered him the most money.