“I do, I’m afraid. This cottage of yours. I don’t suppose you’d be willing to let us move in earlier than planned?”

“I’d be delighted. How early did you have in mind?”

A muffled crash reached Iris, as of books tumbling from a shelf. “Just a moment,” she said to Philip and put the receiver to her chest. “Mrs. Betts! Everything all right?”

A few seconds passed. Mrs. Betts called back, “Quite all right, Mrs. D!”

Iris lifted the receiver back to her ear.

“I’m so sorry, Philip. Would tomorrow be too soon?”

Ruth

JUNE 1952

Rome, Italy

For a moment, I don’t understand why Sumner Fox should be standing there in Orlovsky’s studio, when he’s supposed to be back in New York.

Then I whip around and stab Orlovsky in the chest with my finger. “You bastard! I thought I could trust you!”

“You can trust him,” says Fox. “I paid him a visit last night and explained the scope of the situation.”

“The scope? The scope?”

“Miss Macallister, may I remind you that the operation to extract your sister from Moscow originated with me? That I may be privy to information I haven’t yet had the opportunity or inclination to discuss with you?”

“Bambina, let me pour some wine,” says Orlovsky.

“I don’t want your damned wine. I asked you to find somebody who could help me get into Moscow—”

“But I did! I found best man for job.”

“He found you, you mean.”

“What difference, so long as you have best chance of success? Just because he is big, strong man—man you can’t boss around so easily—”

“That’s ridiculous.”

Orlovsky looks away swiftly, but not before I notice the little smile at the corner of his mouth. I turn back to Fox.

“For all I know, you’re here to sabotage me.”

Fox swings around the side of the drafting table and props his big body against it. One leg crosses over the other. His hands curl around the thick wooden edge. He speaks slowly, as he always does, in that comforting tone of voice. “Miss Macallister, I have a confession to make, though I suspect you already know it. I’ve been handling the Digby case for some years. Before they defected, even. I happen to admire your sister a great deal. There is nothing I want more than to help her out of her present difficulty. So it seems to me that our purposes are not in the least opposed to each other.”

“Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you?”