Staring up at the disembarking students, he compared their reactions to the news footage of them as they boarded the outbound flight, bathed in sunlight, smiling, waving to the cameras, excited with the prospect of flying transatlantic in an airliner. They were tired and scared. He waited for the girls he was supposed to meet, girls he hadn’t seen since they were very young – Zoya and Elena.

Seeing them step down, Panin moved forward, his driver following so that the umbrella remained in position over his head as he intercepted the two girls.

—My name is Frol Panin. You don’t know me. I’m here to take you home. I am a friend of your father. I knew your mother only a little. I’m very sorry for your loss. She was a remarkable woman. This is a terrible tragedy. But come, hurry, let us get out of the rain. My car is nearby.

The two girls looked at him blankly. They were sick with grief. The younger girl, Elena, peered out across the runway, blinking away the rain, as Mikael Ivanov was led away to his car. He did not look back. Elena was pained. Panin was amazed that even now, after everything that had happened, she still loved him and still believed he must have loved her.

In the car Panin briefed the girls, outlining the reaction to events i New York and the way in which those events had been portrayed, accurately or not. The American version, printed in newspapers from New York to San Francisco, London to Tokyo, was easy to sell to the public, containing drama and sensation. The story depicted the beautiful Raisa Demidova having an affair with the womanizer Jesse Austin. The relationship dated from 1950. They’d met during one of Jesse’s tours. He’d visited her school and invited her to a concert performed in a factory warehouse. There was even film footage of the two together, Soviet propaganda film, with Raisa congratulating him at the end of the concert. She’d fallen in love and begged him to rescue her from the Soviet Union. They’d had a sexual encounter, incidental to him but life-changing for her. She was obsessed with him and had corresponded regularly, going so far as to organize a mass letter-writing session by the students in her school when she’d heard of his troubles with the American authorities. Elena interrupted at this point, exclaiming:

—It’s not true!