Janson stifled a yawn. “Forgive me,” he murmured. “The flight from Kuala Lumpur is a long one, however comfortable one is made.” In fact, the seven-hour ride from Milan to Eger in the bone-rattling confines of a truck trailer loaded with cured meats had been both uncomfortable and nerve-racking. Even as he dined with the arms merchant, Jessie Kincaid would be using a false passport and credit card to rent another automobile for tomorrow’s trip and carefully working out the itinerary in advance. He hoped she would be able to get some rest before long. “But travel is my life,” Janson added grandly.

“I can imagine,” Lakatos said, his eyes bright.

The waiter, in black tie, appeared with the local red wine; it came in a ribboned bottle without a paper label, the name of the vineyard etched directly on the glass. The wine was dark, rich, seemingly opaque as it splashed into their crystal goblets. Lakatos took a healthy swallow, sluiced it around his mouth, and pronounced it superb.

“As a region for viticulture, Eger is nothing if not robust.” He held up his wineglass. “You may not be able to see through it,” he added, “but, I assure you, Mr. Kurzweil, you always get value for your money. You made an excellent choice.”

“I am pleased to hear you say so,” Janson replied. “Another tribute to Magyar opacity.”

Just then, a man in a sky blue suit but no tie came over to the table—obviously an American tourist, and obviously drunk. Janson looked up at him, and alarm bells began ringing in his head.

“It’s been a while,” the man said, slurring his words slightly. He placed a hairy, beringed hand on the white linen tablecloth near the bread basket. “Thought it was you. Paul Janson, big as life.” He snorted loudly before he turned and walked away. “Told you it was him,” he was saying to a woman who sat at his table across the room.

Dammit! What had happened was always a theoretical possibility in covert operations, but so far Janson had been fortunate. There had been an occasion once in Uzbekistan when he was meeting with a deputy to the nation’s oil minister, posing as a go-between to a major petrochemical corporation. An American happened to breeze through the office—a civilian, a Chevron oil buyer, who knew him under another name, and in another context, one involving the Apsheron gas and oil fields of Azerbaijan. Their gazes met, the man nodded, but said nothing. For distinctly different reasons, he felt as chagrined at being spotted by Janson as Janson had at being spotted by him. No words were exchanged, and Janson knew he would make no inquiries. But what had happened here was a worst-case scenario, the sort of cross-context intrusion that any field agent hoped he would never encounter.