Tatyana flew back to Moscow on a Challenger 605 that was cleared to land at Khodynka Aerodrome. The airport was closed and the land sold to property developers, but the GRU still made use of the concrete, 1400-meter-long runway because air traffic control was too scared to order them not to. Located seven kilometers from Red Square, and literally steps from GRU headquarters, it was too convenient not to use.

Tatyana was the only passenger on the flight. She stepped out of the plane into the frigid cold of a Moscow morning and searched for the car.

The Military Intelligence Directorate screwed up a lot of things. It got its agents killed at an alarming rate. It practically forced western governments to issue wave after wave of sanctions on the beleaguered Russian economy. It spent more resources trying to hack the World Anti-Doping Agency than it did protecting domestic financial systems.

But there was always a car. Always black. Always with blacked out windows. And despite everything that might happen between the two nations politically, always German.

Today it was a BMW.

The GRU headquarters, a massive edifice that contained as much concrete as four olympic stadiums, was referred to by its occupants as the aquarium.

Tatyana was dropped outside despite her request to be taken home first, and began the arduous process of passing through the layers of security, getting into the rickety elevator, and making her way to the office of her boss, Igor Aralov.

Igor’s office was located on the northwest corner of the eighth floor, and overlooked the field in Khodynka where, on the Thirtieth of May 1896, the last Emperor of Russia, Nicholas II, had been crowned. On that day, half a million people gathered for the festivities. When word spread that free gifts were being handed out, the crowd got out of control. The resulting stampede led to 1,389 people being crushed to death. The gift that caused the stampede was one bread roll, one piece of sausage, one pretzel, and one gingerbread cookie per person. Despite the tragedy, the bodies were cleared, the festivities continued, and the Tsar and his wife appeared before a jubilant crowd at the central pavilion as planned. The night of the coronation, after learning the full extent of the tragedy, the royal couple attended a celebratory ball at the French embassy. The feelings of the French ambassador trumped those of the Russian people.

It was impossible to get to Igor’s office without passing an enormous oil painting of the event. It hung in the anteroom, which was also decorated with a red carpet and an imposing, antique desk.

At the desk sat Igor’s secretary, Agniya Bunina.

There were many things to be scared of at GRU headquarters, and for Tatyana, this woman was among the foremost. In her late sixties, she had snow white hair, a mole shaped like a fly above her mouth, and eye-glasses Tatyana was sure were made of real ivory.