“I don't think so. We still have your submarine and its contents, Mr. Doe. Our scientists will have a field day dissecting your top-secret equipment.”

“That's not going to happen, old pal.”

“I think it will. The Glomar Explorer isn't the only boat that can raise a submarine.” Petrov was referring to an earlier U.S. salvage of a Soviet submarine.

“I wouldn't get near that boat if I were you. It's heavily mined.”

“Now who's bluffing, Mr. Doe?”

“I'm dead serious, Ivan. The sub carried two hundred pounds of HBX explosives in case something like this happened.”

“Why would you care if I were killed?”

“Look, Ivan, the Cold War's not going to last forever. Someday we'll bump into each other in a bar and you'll buy me a Stolichnaya martini.” His voice lost its levity. “No joke. This thing will self-destruct in about twenty minutes. I set the timer myself.”

“You're lying.”

“People like us don't lie to each other, old pal.”

It was Ivan's turn to laugh. “You've seen too many episodes of Mission Impossible, old pal.”

He clicked off the radio. There was noway the crew could have been evacuated and set charges. He didn't know about Austin's expertise. He could have waited twenty minutes to see if Austin was telling the truth, but he seethed with anger. His rage overcame his good judgment. Petrov's ship carried a one-person minisub that could be launched quickly for reconnaissance, and Petrov ordered the sub readied for a dive.

Sitting in his office years after that day, he examined the grayish-red glow of cigar ashes. How impetuous and foolish he had been as a younger man. He had jammed the bomb-shaped sub almost straight down. Within minutes, his lights had outlined the black hulk on the bottom, and he saw the pod near the cable and landed near it. The minisub's retractable metal arm had the pod in its grip-when there was a blinding flash of light and a muffled roar. Petrov felt himself flying into space. Then he blacked out.

He awoke to the antiseptic smell of a Soviet hospital. His broken and mangled leg was in traction, and the right side of his face was heavily bandaged where jagged shards of plastic or metal had torn his skin as the minisub had been blown to the surface, where it had been retrieved with him inside it. He had had to wear a hearing aid until his damaged eardrums healed. He spent four weeks in the hospital before being released to the care of a nurse at his dacha, the country home he maintained outside of Moscow.

Petrov had been sitting in the sunroom reading Tolstoy when the nurse brought him a bouquet of red, white and blue carnations. Tucked in with the flowers was a small card.

Thinking back to that day, Petrov pulled an envelope from the dossier. The card he extracted had yellowed with age, but the large block letters in English were clearly visible.