Condley read the pages voraciously as the general continued to talk. “Skip Rogers, a political officer from our embassy in Moscow, bumped into this guy at a street market in an area called the Arabat. He was selling off some of his old Soviet military badges. I’ve met Rogers before. Not a bad guy. Was a Marine before he went over to the Agency. He’s a little like you, Condley, only a lot younger and more, shall we say, urbane. After he left the Corps he started smoking a pipe, reading a lot, and using big words. Bottom line is, I trust him. Anyway, Rogers was escorting some American businessmen who’d served in Viet Nam during the war and as a matter of conversation told Petrushinsky that they were veterans. Petrushinsky kind of puffed up and responded that he’d spent a lot of time in Viet Nam as well, but when they tried to engage him in a longer conversation he ran away. Rogers, ever dutiful, wrote a little summary of the encounter for the files. After I read his initial report I sent him a message asking if he could follow up on the guy. I mean, this is news, right? Nobody’s ever admitted there were Russian soldiers in Viet Nam during the war. And Rogers has worked up a pretty interesting profile, not the least of which is that Petrushinsky has at various times bragged to his fellow veterans that he served as a so-called ‘observer’ in the mountains near Da Nang. We can’t get to him, though. He won’t talk to us, and we can hardly make him. And the Russkies don’t like us very much these days, so there’s no chance of getting their government to cooperate with us. Not on this issue, anyway. What are they going to do, help us prove they’ve been lying about the level of their involvement in Viet Nam for thirty years?”

“Great stuff,” said Condley, finishing his perusal of the papers. “I like this Rogers, even if he’s joined the tweedy crowd. Skipper, can you sanitize these pages for me?” He held the papers out as if he were weighing them. “I’ve got a few ideas. But I need an unclassified version with the important information on it, in a way that I could use it and still not compromise our sources.”

“That’s easy to do,” said Duncan, taking the papers back and putting them inside the envelope. He relaxed now and suddenly winked, nodding toward the inside of his house. “That’s a fine-looking woman, Condley. Exotic, huh? A little wild, though. You married her?”

“Don’t pay any attention to that. It was more like a friendly date.”

“You’re losing me here.”

“Forget it.”

“Are you in love with her?”

“There’s only one woman I’ve ever really loved.”