“Could you call at five?” Arkady asked. “I will keep that time clear to speak to you. The best line to reach me on is 55 56 020.” He was reading the number of the phone booth.

“What was the name of the representative of TransKom?”

“Boris Benz.”

There was a pause. “I’ll look into it.”

“The consulate appreciates your interest.”

“Herr Federov, my interest is in the good name of Bayern-Franconia. I will call at five exactly.”

Arkady hung up. He assumed the banker would verify the call by immediately phoning the listed number of the consulate to ask for an Artur Federov, who should be safely bearing bouquets to the airport. He hoped the banker wouldn’t be inquisitive enough to ask for anyone else at the consulate.

As he stepped out of the booth, he felt something change—a foot withdraw into a doorway or a shopper suddenly transfixed by a window display. He considered slipping back into the department store until he caught sight of himself reflected in the window. Was that him? This pale apparition in a shrinking jacket? In Moscow, he could pass as one scarecrow among many; among the robust sausage-eaters of Munich, he was frighteningly unique. He could no more lose himself among shoppers and tourists in the Marienplatz than a skeleton could hide by wearing a hat.

Arkady turned to the garage and walked up a ramp under a yellow-and-black sign that said AUSGANG! A BMW roaring down the chute squealed and rocked on its shocks while he pressed himself against the wall. The driver’s beefy head swiveled and shouted, “Kein Eingang! Kein Eingang!”

On the first level, cars cruised among parked rows and concrete pillars in search of an empty slot. Arkady counted on an exit to the opposite street, but all the signs pointed to a central elevator with steel doors and a line of Germans dressed well enough to go to heaven. He found emergency stairs to the next floor, which was a similar scene of cars reverberating to the throaty urgency of gas engines and the deliberate ticking of diesels.

Fewer cars reached the next level. Arkady saw a number of parking places and a red door at the other end of the floor. He was halfway to it when a Mercedes rose from the ramp and coasted between open slots. The car was an older model, a white chassis crazed like old ivory, with the tinny resonance of a punctured muffler. It stopped in the dark under a missing light. Arkady walked with his hand on his pocket, in the manner of a man reaching for keys. As soon as he cleared the last car, he started to trot. He should have studied German more, he thought. The sign on the red door said KEIN ZUTRITT; “No admittance,” he translated, too late. The jamb had a built-in digital lock that he fumbled with for a second before giving up and looking back for the Mercedes.