He closed his eyes, closed his brother’s passport. Was he an agent of some kind? It was possible. Evgeni had the charm of a good field agent—and its subsequent ability to sidestep rules. He was exactly the sort whom Intelligence would have recruited to work for them in the field. He’d never seen his brother’s name on any reports, but then, Zivon was Imperial Navy. Evgeni was army. That could account for it.

He spread his fingers over the cover, felt the embossing. Were he and his brother after the same information, not realizing the other was too? Trying to restore order? If so, they would laugh over it someday. When they were reunited. When the Bolsheviks had been shown justice. When Russia was theirs again.

Well, not theirs. Not his. Zivon surged back to his feet and slipped Zhenya’s papers back into their hiding place. He had sacrificed his right to return to Russia when he came here as he’d done. He would stay here, knowing his people wouldn’t understand his decisions, knowing he would be branded a traitor, a turncoat.

He would accept that. He would accept it for them.

But he wouldn’t accept that he’d lost his brother. Or his chance to help end this war. He slipped Batya’s watch into his pocket, along with his key, and strode back out into the morning.

He’d telephoned the Russian embassy last Wednesday afternoon, near closing time, when all but the last straggler would have been gone for the day. Claiming employment that kept him busy during normal hours—true enough—he requested an early audience with Konstantin Nabokov and had been granted one today.

Nabokov had been in India and then reassigned here to London during the entirety of Zivon’s career, so he’d never met the man, which was the only reason he dared to come with his false papers. There was a chance the ambassador would recognize his real name and wonder what he was about, suspect his motives, but he wouldn’t recognize him by face, anyway.

A passel of schoolchildren were knotted up on the corner ahead, laughing, two of the girls singing and swinging their hands, clapping, snapping, palm to palm. His nostrils flared, faint Russian words filling his ears. How many times had Alyona crouched down beside her little sisters and taught another song with its silly claps and swings? Too many to count.

But never again. Her sisters and brothers would have no one to teach them such lighthearted songs now.