She told him about her years in Povenets B, growing up in Leningrad, and everything in her life that had been taken away from her, including her son. She talked about the old dream of her and Ledjo floating in a small boat on a calm lake, which she hoped would return every night when she fell asleep, but still hadn’t. And about the single physical memento she had—Ledjo’s small backpack—that had been lost when she’d been snatched from Stockholm. Her work was the only thing she had left.

It took a few weeks of phone calls, but Dixon managed to find the backpack. It had been given to the Swedish security service by the Hotel Reisen and filed away in evidence storage. They had no use for it now Valera was a long way from their jurisdiction and were more than happy to send it on. It was a small gesture, but Dixon was glad to see Valera produce a thin, brief smile when he returned it to her.

Now, she was about to unveil her latest world-changing piece of technology and Dixon was, as ever, behind in his work and chasing an elusive breakthrough. Half of him wanted to be back in his lab, but the other half didn’t want to miss out on what was about to happen.

So, he stood at the back of the room, waiting for Murphy to show up, and watching Valera move anxiously from panel to panel, surrounded by a cadre of assistants, checking every readout and making adjustment after adjustment to be sure everything would work perfectly when the big moment arrived.

Dixon hoped she felt some pride about everything she’d achieved since she’d come to America. But she didn’t.

Valera had felt something like relief when she reached Washington and wasn’t immediately arrested, but she had quickly realised that the United States wasn’t so different from the Soviet Union. She was still watched, still suspected, and still controlled. She was in the so-called land of the free, but she wasn’t. She’d been put to work at Langley straight away and even now she was called in for questioning whenever the CIA wanted to go over her life story again or check some new piece of intelligence about somewhere or something in Russia she’d never heard of.

At least most of the people she worked with respected her and tended to leave her alone. But there were still stares whenever she walked into a canteen or was seen outside the NASA compound. And some of her supposed colleagues were less than thankful when she was called in to solve an impossible problem that had stumped them for months.