Trofimov stepped forward, showing Raisa to the door. The young guide was waiting outside, ready to escort her to the General Assembly Hall. Trofimov said goodbye. Evan Vass said goodbye. Raisa nodded, heading towards the elevator, perplexed by their response. They hadn’t interrogated her. They hadn’t imposed their authority. They’d behaved as if the concert that they’d spent so long seeking diplomatic permission for was of absolutely no concern.

She touched the arm of her guide, saying in English:

—Where is the bathroom?

He changed direction, taking her to the bathroom. She entered, checking that she was alone before leaning on the sink and looking at her reflection, regarding her ugly, unfashionable set of clothes, registering the tension in her shoulders. Leo’s instincts about this trip had been correct.

New Jersey

Bergen County - The Town of Teaneck

Same Day

FBI agent Jim Yates stood beside his sleeping wife, looking down at her as if she was a corpse and he was the first officer on the scene. She was wrapped up in a thick comforter in the height of summer, in a bedroom that was as hot as a sauna. Hypersensitive to noise, twirls of cotton wool spiralled out of her ears like wisps of campfire smoke. A thick black eye mask protected her in perpetual darkness, closing out the world, for she despised even this brilliant sunny morning. He leaned down, his lips hovering above her forehead and whispered:

—I love you.

She rolled onto her side, turning away from him, creasing up her face in irritation, shooing him awaywith the furrows of her brow. She didn’t lower her eye mask and didn’t reply. As he straightened up, the image flashed through his mind of taking off that mask, placing his fingertips on her eyelids, forcing them open and making her look at him – repeating, calmly, in a measured voice, not shouting, or losing his temper:

I. Love. You.

He’d keep repeating it, louder and louder until she said it back to him.

I. Love. You. Too.

He would say thank you. She would smile sweetly. And that was how a normal day should begin. A husband tells his wife he loves her, she should tell him she loves him back. It didn’t even have to be true but there was a formula to follow. That was how it worked in every other household, in every decent suburb, in every normal American family.