“Stop complaining,” said Scheuer, glancing anxiously up the stairs at the landing above, where he believed Erich Stellmacher’s apartment was located.

I found the set of keys given to me by the landlord and slid one into the strong Dom lock. The key turned and I pushed at the heavy gray door. A strong smell of floor polish greeted our nostrils as we entered our apartment. I waited in the largish hallway until the last of the Amis was inside and then closed the door. Then I locked it, carefully.

What the fuck?” Agent Hamer’s voice contained a tremor.

Agent Scheuer turned back to the locked door and was felled by a blow from a Makarova pistol to the back of the head.

Agent Frei was already in handcuffs. His face was pale and worried-looking.

There were six of them waiting for us in the apartment. They wore cheap gray suits and dark shirts and ties. All of them were armed with pistols—Soviet automatics with cheap plastic handles, but no less deadly for that. Their faces were impassive, as if they, too, were made of cheap Russian plastic, manufactured in quantity by some factory stolen from Germany and then reassembled on an eastern shore of the Volga. Just as cold as that river were their gray-blue eyes, and for a moment I saw myself in them: policemen doing their duty, taking no pleasure in these arrests but handling them quickly and with the efficiency of well-trained professionals.

The three Americans might have said something, but their mouths were already stuffed with cloth and taped tight so that I only had their watery eyes to reproach me, although these were no less bitter for that.