“Torture?” She raises her eyebrows. “Don’t be dramatic. I don’t torture people for information. Goodness, no. It’s barbaric.”

“No, you’re exquisitely subtle, aren’t you? Bloodless.”

The woman cocks her head a few degrees. “You look as if you could use a little fresh air. Let’s take a walk, shall we?”

OUTSIDE, THE NIGHT IS cool and clear, a taste of salt. Sasha has no idea where they are. Some military facility, probably. He sees the shadow of barbed wire against the horizon. A ghost of a watchtower from which a bright light flares and disappears. A few squat buildings pass by, barracks by the look of them. Already dawn is approaching. A yellow, hazy glow like enemy bombardment illuminates the sky to the east. The KGB woman is tall and matches his long-legged pace. Their footsteps crunch along the gravel path. A few yards behind them, a guard follows discreetly.

Sometimes, when Sasha recalls the things he did during the war, the careless way he dodged Gestapo and slipped in and out of buildings in the night—when he recalls the things he did before and after the war, the thousand tiny acts of subterfuge required to photograph documents without anyone noticing, say, or slip papers into your briefcase at night, or glance at the documents on a colleague’s desk and memorize paragraphs in a few instants—the dead drops, the radio transmissions, the pass-offs, the hours crisscrossing cities to shake off surveillance, the endless ciphers, the hurried sex in cars and back hallways and safe houses—the memories seem to belong to another person. The old alertness returns to him now, walking between these silent buildings, but he can’t summon the old energy. The rush of purpose is gone. In his veins he feels only dread, so cold it numbs his nerves. His arms ache from the handcuffs behind his back. He wants another cigarette. He wants a drink.

They stop in front of a low-roofed, rectangular building with no windows. A guard stands outside, motionless. The KGB woman nods to him—he steps aside. She opens the heavy metal door and says, After you, please.

Sasha ducks through the doorway into a small guardroom. Three metal doors line the opposite wall, each with a tiny barred window.

Sasha stops and asks for a cigarette.

The woman turns back to the door and asks the guard if he’s got any cigarettes. The guard reluctantly hands her one from a battered pack, along with a cheap lighter. She lights the cigarette for him and sticks it in the corner of his mouth. Sasha smokes it for a moment, staring at the wall.

The KGB woman looks in one window, then another. She smiles fondly and puts a finger over her mouth. “Sleeping,” she whispers.