It was the first time they had faced each other in thirty years. The farmer was an old man now, Mac realized, stout and still strong, but old. Human. He forced himself to recall the flash of the lights on the border, the cry in Russian, the burning pain of the bullet in his gut.

“But I have one hell of a quarrel with you,” he said, his teeth clenched. “I nearly got killed saving Andrew Balaton from the Russians and his own people thirty years ago. I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you compromise him now.”

“Ahh.” Wakefield seemed almost amused. “So you believe I’m KGB.”

“That’s right.”

“So with someone at least my strategy has worked.” He lifted his shoulders slightly in a shrug. “Unfortunately, it has not worked with Balaton.”

Mac’s grip on the gun was steady, despite the pelting rain. “What do you mean?” he asked sharply, painfully aware he shouldn’t, couldn’t, believe a word this man said.

“You are right: I was prepared to exchange the Balaton jewels for technological secrets. But not to sell to the KGB. No, I merely wanted to flush out Balaton. And I have. But now the stakes are much greater—for me, personally. As always, Balaton is ready with a counterstrike.”

Mac shook his head, denying everything the farmer claimed, everything he had been for the past thirty years. “You were KGB in ‘56; you’re KGB now.”

“No, that’s not true.” His accent was more American now than thirty years ago, his tone faintly superior, as if he were gently chastising a small child for a ridiculous assumption. “I did not betray you that night on the border, MacGregor Stevens.”

“Then who did?” Mac sneered. “Judith Land? Lillian Parker? Balaton? They all could have been killed. You were the one who backed out at the last minute, the one who planned the whole fiasco. Don’t tell me I’m wrong. I’ve relived that night thousands of times in the past thirty years. I know what happened.”

The stout man in black sighed patiently, but there was despair in his warm brown eyes. “You are a good man, MacGregor Stevens, but you are very, very wrong. You don’t see the truth, do you?”

“Oh, yes, my friend, I do see the truth. I’d like to shoot you here and now for what you did, but those would be your tactics. I’m taking you in. We’ll let a court of law decide what and who you are.” He steadied the gun. “But give me an excuse to shoot you, and I won’t hesitate.”

“Achh. Listen to me, while there is still time. Balaton is here—moving this way. He will stop at nothing now, do you understand? He betrayed you on the border.”

“No.”

“Yes! Because you could identify him as Major József, a trusted member of the Hungarian state secret police.”

“He was working for us.”

“He was working for himself.” There was despair now in the voice of the mad monk. “He turned to the United States because his mission within the ÁVH was being thwarted at every turn by orült szerzetes and he was desperate lest his comrades somehow think he was disloyal—not the victim of the ‘mad monk’ but a collaborator. A man like that cannot tolerate being afraid.”