—The Russian woman is a better detective than all of you. She knows something is going on. She can feel it in her gut. I agree with her. I need you to do your jobs!

He picked up the file they had on Raisa Demidova and her daughters. It contained nothing more than the official information provided by the Soviet authorities, statistics such weight and academic grades. He threw it down again.

An officer called out:

—The students are boarding the coach. Do you want to go with them?

Yates considered.

—Have our agents keep contact with that family. I want them watched every step of the way from the coach to the United Nations building. Don’t let them out of your sight, even for a moment.

As the agents busied themselves with the movement of the students to the coach, Yates paced the line of translators’ tables, frustrated that he couldn’t even approximate an answer to the question of why the Soviets were so keen to arrange for Jesse Austin to attend the concert. They’d sent this girl: they’d risked her slipping out of the hotel. Jesse Austin’s presence wouldn’t even make the news. He called out:

—I want to know if we’ve had any activity in Harlem recently.

A field agent approached.

—The team watching a suspected Soviet operative reported that he was in Harlem this morning. Normally he’s pretty good at giving us the slip on the subway. Not today, they followed him.

—Where did he go?

—West 145th Street.

—Who was he?

—His name is Osip Feinstein.

Manhattan

Global Travel Company - 926 Broadway

Same Day

In the storeroom behind his office, Osip Feinstein developed the photographs he’d taken of Jesse Austin towering over the Russian girl, the rumpled bed sheets in the background appearing to carry the fossilized impression of their sexual encounter. It would’ve been preferable for Jesse’s hand to be clasping her arm rather than the other way round. No matter, the sordid implications were striking. What couldn’t be seen in the photograph was Austin’s wife. She was out of shot. Nor would anyone know that the bed had been unmade before the girl had arrived. Those passing judgement were unlikely to spend time analysing it: the snap response would be outrage. The roles of the villain and victim were clear. Though the meeting had been entirely innocent, the photograph produced showed striking guilt and moral compromise – an exploited, fragile white girl pathetically bidding farewell after a squalid escapade with a lecherous old Negro.