“I am a scientist, as I have said. My own specialism is molecular biology and biophysics. It was the area that Nikita needed the most help with. He was aware of my work, so he recruited me. I say he ‘recruited’ me—what I mean to say is that he recommended me, and, the next day, two KGB agents visited my university and told me that I had to go with them. I didn’t see my family for six months. Nikita and I started to work together. Our program was installed on an island in the Aral Sea, where bioweapons were tested. It lies between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Do you know the area? Do you know what it’s like?”

“No,” Beatrix said, although she had been there and she did know.

“It is cold and bleak and barren. The island is called Vozrozhdeniya. They tested anthrax there. They tied horses and donkeys to concrete posts and then released the spores to see what would happen. It was not a pleasant place to work.”

He took a moment. Beatrix waited for him to go on.

“I became close to Nikita. I persuaded him that we should take our research to the Americans. I was greedy—I make no excuses for myself. The chaos caused by the Wall coming down meant Moscow was distracted. It made it easier for us to leave. We contacted the CIA and they took us to America. I expect you know what happened next? They gave us money and facilities and let us carry on with our work.”

“This was Daedalus?”

“Yes,” Koralev said. “A front for the work we were doing. A distraction.” He drank again. “We made significant progress,” he said. “We had more money than before. An excellent team to help us. World-class facilities. We were able to develop a somatic treatment that produced permanent genetic changes in the subjects. The difficulty was in keeping the subjects alive. They developed cancer and died. The Americans did not give up. They gave us more and more money. And, eventually, we found our success.”

“So why did you leave?”