“Mrs. Petrovski, my name is John Smith,” Cabrillo said in Russian. “I believe a Mr. Kamsin told you to expect me.”

Arkin Kamsin had been Petrovski’s boss with the newly formed Bureau of Reclamation of the Aral Sea. Eric Stone had traced the widow through the agency he headed. As she had no telephone of her own, negotiating this meeting had taken some doing.

A man appeared over her shoulder, older than her, with dark, intense eyes and a tobacco-stained mustache. He wore the uniform of a government functionary in this part of the world, black slacks made of some indestructible poly blend and a short-sleeved white shirt so heavily stained at the collar and under the arms that even a bleach bath couldn’t clean it.

“Mr. Kamsin?” Cabrillo asked.

“Yes, I am Kamsin. Mina asked me here today.”

“I want to thank you both for taking the time to speak with me,” Juan said with a warm smile. Kamsin’s presence was a wild card. As a man who could have made a comfortable living playing poker, Cabrillo hated anything that shifted the odds.

“Please,” Mina Petrovski said in a timid voice, “won’t you come in. I am sorry about the house . . .”

“My associate explained you are moving home soon,” Juan said to cover her embarrassment at a parlor stuffed with packing boxes and furniture covered in protective plastic wrap. If anything, it was hotter in the room than it was standing under the blazing sun.

“Let me first say how sorry I am for your loss.”

“Thank you,” Mina said perfunctorily.

Just then, two little girls entered the room from someplace farther back. One was about eight, the other six. It was clear by the amount of wear and fading of her clothes that the youngest was forced to wear the elder’s hand-me-downs. They gaped, wide-eyed and openmouthed, at the bald stranger.

“Sira, Nila, go back into the kitchen,” Mina Petrovski said sharply.

The girls dawdled for a few seconds, giving Cabrillo an opening. He reached into his shoulder bag and removed two semimelted Hershey bars, in their distinctive brown-and-silver wrappers. The power of American advertising had even reached this remote outpost, and both girls’ eyes widened to impossible dimensions when they recognized the candy.

“May I?” Juan asked, and knew immediately that Eric Stone’s in-depth research that showed Karl Petrovski had two children had paid off.

The saddened widow gave a smile that showed she hadn’t exercised those particular muscles in months. “Of course. Thank you.”

He presented one bar to each of the little girls and received an over-the-shoulder thanks as they scampered out of view. Melted or not, every last molecule of chocolate, he suspected, would vanish in moments. If there was such a thing as a chocolate atom—chocosium, perhaps—the very last one would likely be licked clean from the inner wrapper.

“Please, sit,” Mina invited. “May I get you some tea?”