Oradea, in the westernmost point of Romania, was a three-hour drive from Sárospatak, and like a number of Eastern European cities, its beauty was a beneficiary of its postwar poverty. The magnificent nineteenth-century spas and Beaux Arts vistas had been preserved simply because there had been no resources available to tear them down and replace them with what Communist bloc modernity would have favored. To glimpse what the city missed out on, one had only to see the faceless, featureless industrialism of its airport, which could have been any one of a hundred just like it found throughout the Continent.

For the purposes at hand, though, it would do just fine.

There, at the fifth terminal, the man in the yellow and blue uniform tucked his clipboard toward his body, preventing the papers from flapping in the breeze. The DHL cargo plane—a repurposed Boeing 727—was preparing to make a direct flight to Dulles, and the inspector accompanied the pilot to the craft. The punch list was long: Were the oil caps properly tightened? Was the engine compartment as it should be, the intake vanes free of foreign materials? Were the cotter pins properly positioned on the landing-gear wheels, the tire pressure normal, the ailerons, flaps, and rudderhinge assemblies in good working order?

Finally, the cargo area was inspected. The other members of the ground crew returned to service a short-run propeller plane, used to ferry packages from the provinces to Oradea. As the pilot received clearance for takeoff, nobody noticed that the man in the yellow and blue uniform remained within the craft.

And only when the plane had reached cruising altitude did Janson remove his felt-and-nylon inspector’s jacket and settle in for the ride. The pilot, sitting next to him in the cockpit, switched on the automatic avionics and turned to his old friend. It had been two decades since Nick Milescu had served as a fighter pilot in the American Special Forces, but the circumstances in which he and Janson became acquainted had produced powerful and enduring bonds of loyalty. Janson had not offered to explain the need for this ruse, and Milescu had not asked. It was a privilege to do Janson a favor, any favor. It did not go far toward the repayment of a debt, but it was better than nothing at all.

Neither of them noticed—could have noticed—the broad-faced man in the food-services truck, idling under one of the loading ramps, whose hard, alert eyes did not quite match the bored and jaded air he affected. Nor could they have heard the man speak hurriedly into a cell phone, even as the cargo plane raised its wheels and angled into the sky. Visual identification: confirmed. Flight plans: filed and validated. Destination: verified.

“You want to bunk out, there’s a lounger right behind us,” Milescu told Janson. “When we fly with copilots, they use it sometimes. Oradea to Dulles is a ten-hour flight.”