Finding it was one thing. Finding somewhere to park was something else again. When he finally did, he had almost a ten-minute walk back. A fence made of black steel spears, each taller than a man, protected the grounds. Bushes beginning to flower grew in front of it.

But the gate was open. Jerry paused, took a deep breath, and walked in. A bronze plaque by the entrance said EMBASSY OF THE UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS and, below that, the same thing in Russian. A red flag with a gold hammer and sickle in the top left corner flew from a pole mounted on the roof.

Jerry went up the stairs and into the embassy. An attractive young woman sat behind a reception desk. On the wall in back of her hung a big portrait of Leonid Brezhnev, all jowls and scowl and bushy eyebrows. The portrait had to be meant to flatter, but it still made the Soviet boss look like one tough bruiser.

The receptionist, by contrast, was good-looking enough for Jerry to notice no matter how nervous he was. “Yes, sir? What can I do for you?” she asked. She had a slight Slavic accent. Being pretty didn’t mean she wasn’t with the KGB. Probably the opposite, in fact.

Another deep breath. “I’d like to speak with Ambassador Dobrynin for a few minutes, please.” He’d learned the ambassador’s name the same way he’d learned the embassy’s address.

The receptionist frowned. “What about?”

“I can’t tell you that. But it’s important. It’s very important,” Jerry said. Then he repeated it in Russian.

One of her eyebrows lifted. In the same language, she answered, “I can’t send up any stranger off the street, you know.”

“Da,” he said sadly. Falling back into English, he went on, “Let me have a piece of paper, please.” She tore a sheet off a scratch pad and slid it across the desk. He printed Azorian on it, then Midlothian below it, and, after a moment’s hesitation, Humpty Dumpty below that. “Take this to him, please. If he doesn’t want to see me after he gets it, I’ll leave quietly, promise.” What’ll I do in that case? Cut my throat, I guess.

She considered. Then she waved him to a chair. “Sit there and wait.” She didn’t take the paper upstairs herself. A young man in a black suit that would have been the height of style in 1963 did. Jerry sat and waited and worried.

Fifteen minutes later, the man in the black suit came back. He spoke to the receptionist, too quietly for Jerry to make out what he said. The surprise with which she eyed him afterward, though, was unmistakable.