Eli examined the contents of the rucksack. It contained basic provisions: water, bread and cured meats. There was a change of clothes, dark in colour, a thick wool blanket, several boxes of matches, medical supplies, a sharp hunting knife and a steel cup – standard outdoor fare and of little interest. Eli tipped the rucksack upside down. Nothing else fell out. He felt the lining, running his finger along the stitches, convinced it held further evidence. He was right. There was a lump in the material, a secret pocket. Cutting through the material, ripping off the patch, he discovered the pocket contained several thin gold coins, bound in plastic, proof that this was a serious attempt at defection. Extensive preparations had been made – gold was nearly impossible to obtain for an ordinary citizen, the inference was that a foreign country was involved and the man was a professional spy.

The secret compartment contained more than gold. Romm found two photographs. Expecting them to be classified he was surprised that they appeared to be worthless from an intelligence point of view, photographs of two women in their late twenties, taken on their wedding day. There were also a series of papers. He opened them, his puzzlement growing as he discovered that they were a mass of carefully pressed, faded Soviet newspaper clippings detailing the shooting of a man called Jesse Austin, a once popular Communist singer, murdered in New York by his lover, a woman called Raisa Demidova. The murder had taken place some years ago, the articles dated back to 1965. There were extensive handwritten notes on the articles, in small neat writing, thoughts on the case, with a list of names, people the man wanted to speak to. Evidently from these notes the ambition was to reach New York, the United States – the main adversary. The apparent motivation was so peculiar that Eli wondered if the papers were in some sort of code. He would have to report the matter directly to Moscow, to the highest authorities.

The prisoner was in a cell downstairs – shot but not killed by a soldier on guard patrol. After firing from long range with a sniper rifle, the guard had pursued but failed to find the wounded man. Somehow the man had struggled on through the snow. The guard had returned to base, bringing out reinforcements to search the area. Eventually, surrounded by dogs, the man was lucky to be apprehended alive. His injury, a single bullet wound, was not life-threatening and he had received rudimentary treatment at the barracks. The man’s tenacity, the fashion in which he’d evaded capture for several hours against overwhelming odds, and the organized, disciplined contents of his bag suggested a military background. He’d refused to speak to the guards or to give his name.