He lifted his pen, thoughts swirling like a barynya. Round and round, faster and faster. He could almost hear the music that accompanied the dance. Only, instead of notes plucked from a string, they were words. Possibilities. Plans. Patterns.

He scribbled down a few options. He could try to re-create the message itself and send it. . . . But no, how would he send it as if it were from the Germans? That would be difficult. He could take a different tack, though. He could present the same basic information but from a different perspective.

His gaze drifted to the newspaper article. A French perspective, perhaps. As if from a French officer who had heard the rumors of mutiny among the Germans and feared his own troops might soon do the same. That if one group or another caught wind of such unrest among their counterparts on the other side, everyone would simply lay down their weapons and refuse to fight.

Yes, that could work. He scratched out his first lines of notes and jotted those down instead, in French. If only he’d thought of this sooner, while still in France. He could have encrypted it and sent it himself.

Now it was a bit trickier. It had to originate in France—the codebreakers would know if it didn’t. But perhaps those embassy connections could be convinced to help. He could send it first to Maklakov from the embassy here, in a code that he knew for a fact Room 40 hadn’t cracked yet. And request that he then send it back in a code they could break.

It may take some effort to convince Nabokov to trust him to that degree, especially as Ivan Filiminov. But it was his best option, unless he could somehow get his hands on their wireless himself.

The alarm clock he’d set on the table trilled. Zivon reached to turn it off, sighing at the half-finished state of his work. He would finish the encryption tomorrow. Heaven knew he’d have plenty of time between when the nightmares woke him and it was time to report to the OB. Perhaps he’d have time enough to visit the embassy again.

He stood and shuffled his papers back together. The newspaper could stay out, but the others would go under the floorboard with the fake passports. After that was secured, he had just enough time to tidy up before Clarke was due.

His new friend knocked exactly when he’d said he would. Zivon opened the door with a smile. “Hello. Come in. I need only one moment more.”

Clarke stepped inside with a grin that turned into lifted brows. “I say, old boy. Rather stark place you’ve got here, isn’t it?”

Zivon hurried to the window and jammed it closed. “The admiral let it for me, with what furnishings you see. I have not yet had the opportunity to make it my own.”