She nodded and he went to the kitchen for the bottle. While he was gone, she looked around the room. There was nothing personal about it. No photos. No personal effects. On the walls were some modern paintings. No doubt expensive, but they said nothing to her about the man who’d purchased them. There were books on the shelves but they seemed to be for show only, decorative objects with fine leather covers, the titles embossed in gold leaf.

“I think we need to be frank,” Roth said when he returned.

She looked up at him. He had a gun in his hand.

“All right,” she said.

He came closer and she saw that the gun was her gun, the Browning Lance had given her years earlier in the hotel in Damascus. It will save your life one day, he’d said.

“Can I ask you a question?” Roth said.

She knew what he was going to ask. “Of course.”

“Why did you ask for Lance Spector?”

She suddenly felt embarrassed. She took a sip of her wine to buy herself a moment.

“I met him once,” she said.

“Now is not the time to be coy,” Roth said. “What happened between you?”

“What does it matter?”

“You mean, now that he’s dead?”

She looked at him. Those words were still a shock to her. She barely knew Lance Spector, but he’d been more important to her than he ever could have known. She’d met him on her very first real operation. He’d protected her when no one else would. He’d done something she didn’t think anyone had done for her since her mother’s death. He’d cared about her.

“Yes,” she said.

“You know,” Roth said, “I’m not in the habit of trusting Russian agents.”

“I came to you with the vial,” she said. “I didn’t have to do that.”

“You could have been sent.”

“I was almost killed by my own side when I tried to meet your agent.”

“I know,” Roth said. “Almost killed. By a speeding train, no less. And yet miraculously, here you are.”

“This isn’t a set up, Roth.”

Roth turned over the gun and showed it to her. “You see that marking?” he said.

She nodded. She’d looked at it a thousand times. She’d wondered about it. A star carved into the base of the gun.

“My father made that mark,” Roth said. “In Europe. During the war.”

“Your father?” Tatyana said, suddenly realizing what he was saying.

“He gave me this gun. It saved his life many times. He told me it would save my life too, one day.”

“And you gave it to Spector?” Tatyana said.

Roth nodded. “I have no sons,” he said.

She nodded.

“I don’t know what the two of you had together,” he said, “but I know Lance wouldn’t have given you this gun for no reason.”