As they ran around one of the big fields, Pugh managed to get alongside Lockhart and speak to him without the others hearing.

“What would you have done if Maclaren had kept his hand up?” he puffed.

“Oh, that’s simple,” said Lockhart. “I’d have shot him.”

For a few moments, Pugh stopped running, and watched Lockhart. It didn’t take him long to realize that Lockhart would quite readily have shot any one of them.

“So do you think they will follow you?” Leni asked.

“What?”

“The men—do you think they will follow you?”

“Fifty-fifty,” said Lockhart. “Some are up for it, but there are one or two who might waver. But they’ve been training together for a long time now, so there is some cohesion. I doubt many of them would want to let the others down, even in combat.”

They were in Leni’s room that same afternoon, studying the blueprint. Lockhart had something else on his mind, something more engaging than the loyalty of the men or the layout of the factory. Leni had noticed that he was distracted.

“What is it?” she asked.

“What’s what?” Lockhart replied, slightly irritated.

“You seem angry or something, distant.”

“No, I’m fine.”

“Come on.”

There was never going to be a good time to tell her, Lockhart thought, and this time was as bad as any. He looked up from the blueprint and gazed into her inquiring face.

“What?” she said. “What do you want to tell me?”

Lockhart looked back down at the plan and pointed to hall number 4.

“You see this hall here?” he asked.

“It says ‘Prisoner accommodation.’” Leni shrugged. “What about it?”

“I’m very interested in hall number 4.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s where Anna is.”

NOVEMBER 1985

She had written once a year to the Russian Embassy, as the enigmatic Kirov had suggested, but she knew that the replies were as automatic as a photocopier. It was worth a try, though; you never knew, and Russia was where the files were. She had to keep trying, even if she always received the same bland response. It hadn’t changed in over twenty years:

Dear Miss Lockhart,

The Embassy of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics thanks you for your enquiry concerning your father. We regret…

And so on. The only thing that changed was the name of the functionary at the foot of the letter, but that was of no consequence. Never again were there to be any sympathetic and hurried phone calls, like the one from Kirov. What had happened to him? He was obviously a kind man, kind enough to put his job on the line for a strange Westerner in the middle of the Cuban Missile Crisis.