With regards to the Soviet government, Leo had been unable to obtain any guarantees except for one – if he returned, the punitive measures against his daughters would stop. He had requested that within twenty-four hours of his plane touching down he would be permitted to see them, but he was in no position to insist upon anything. His guilt was not in question. He’d shared sensitive information with the main adversary and was to be tried for treason, a trial whose verdict had already been decided.

As the plane descended, Leo tried to imagine the events of the past eight years, the things that had happened since he was last in Moscow – eight years in which he’d been missing from the lives of his daughters and their husbands. As he thought upon the letters he’d received, it suddenly struck him that he wasn’t anxious about returning to a city filled with memories of Raisa. Something had changed. He was excited. This was the place where he’d fallen in love. He would be closer to his wife here than at any point during his investigation into her death. As the wheels touched down, he closed his eyes. He was home.

Moscow

Butyrka Prison - Pre-Trial Detention Centre

45 Novoslobodskaya Street - One Week Later

Arms and legs cuffed together, secured so tightly that he was forcedto stoop even when standing, Leo had been waiting for several hours in an ancient interrogation room within a prison notorious almost from its inception one hundred years ago. He’d supervised this arrangement countless times: the humiliating restraints, the atmosphere of intimidation and psychological pressures of surveillance, watched by guards in all corners of the room. No threats of violence had been made. Instead, a torture far more astute than physical pain had been applied.