And then you return to earth, Orlov thought as he stepped from the number 44 bus on Nevsky Prospekt. The resolve and inspiration weaken as you're asked to do things in the name of country which you can't refuse. Russians don't refuse. Orlov's grandfather was a Czarist, yet he fought the White Russians during the Revolution. His father didn't refuse when he fought in the Second Ukrainian Front during the Second World War. It was for them, and not for Brezhnev, that he had trained a new generation of cosmonauts to spy on the United States and NATO forces from space as well as to work on new chemical poisons in zero gravity. He was trained to see the world not as the home of all humans but as a thing to be peeled and cut up and devoured in the name of a man called Lenin.

Then there are the parts coveted by men like Minister Dogin, he thought as he walked briskly along the boulevard. Though it was still early, workers were already arriving at the Hermitage to prepare it for the daily crush of tourists.

Though the Minister was affable enough, and seemed consumed by an almost narcotic contentedness when discussing Russian history, particularly the Stalin years, his worldview was out of step with the times. And when Dogin made his monthly trips to St. Petersburg, it seemed that the Minister's memories of the Soviet years became more and more idealized.

Then there were men like Rossky, who didn't appear to have any worldview. They simply enjoyed power and control. Orlov had been alarmed by Assistant Security Director Glinka's surreptitious call to the apartment. Glinka knew how to play both sides of the fence, but Orlov believed him when he said that Rossky's activities over the past twenty-four hours had been unusually secretive. It started when Rossky insisted on handling, himself, the trivial investigation of an intrusion alert the day before. It was followed by unlogged and coded computer communications to an operative in the field, not telling anyone where he was going, and mysterious dealings with a local coroner.

I've been ordered to work with Rossky, Orlov told himself, but I won't let him run rogue operations. Whether Rossky liked it or not, he would toe the line or he would be restricted to a desk job. As long as Rossky had Interior Minister Dogin's support, threatening him would be difficult. But Orlov had overcome difficulties before. He bore the scars to prove it, and was willing to bear more if need be. He had learned English so that he could travel as a goodwill ambassador when, in fact, he was busy acquiring and sneaking home books just so he could see what the rest of the world was thinking and reading.