He stuck his head outside, and was not astonished to find Major Bronstein standing in the hallway. If RAND didn’t let unescorted strangers wander its corridors, the Soviet embassy wouldn’t. Sheepishly, Jerry said, “Can you take me to the men’s room, please?”

Bronstein smiled. “Of course. Come with me.” Jerry did what he needed to do. When he came out, the assistant military attaché escorted him back. Bronstein didn’t ask any questions. Jerry would have liked it better if he had. The Russians were playing it cool. If Henry Kissinger convinced Dobrynin that Jerry was spouting nonsense, they’d throw him out on his ear and forget about him. If the secretary of state couldn’t do that …

After a while, Jerry looked at his watch. Three hours had gone by. It only seemed like seventeen years. Time flew when you were having fun.

He wondered if the chair was comfortable enough to sleep in. When all this ended, he wanted to sleep for a year. Of course, he’d sleep forever if it ended badly.

Then Major Bronstein walked in. “The ambassador wishes to speak with you,” he said.

Jerry got up. “Okay.” And either it was or it wasn’t.

Bronstein led him back to Anatoly Dobrynin’s office and stood aside to let him go in first. Even as Jerry was wondering what that meant, Dobrynin looked up at him and said, “Henry does not like you very much.”

“No? I mean, he doesn’t?”

“Sit. Sit,” the ambassador said quickly, and Jerry sank into the chair he’d used before—sure enough, his legs didn’t want to hold him up. Dobrynin waited till he’d settled himself, then went on, “No, he does not. He thought that, in spite of the damaging stories from Jack Anderson and Seymour Hersh, his people had succeeded in keeping the Midlothian object a secret.”

“Seymour Hersh?” Jerry echoed.

“His piece ran in The Washington Post the morning after Anderson spoke on the radio.”

“Oh. I didn’t know about it. Sorry. That was the morning I hit the road.”

“He admits, because he cannot very well deny any longer, that the United States has this alien spaceship, this Midlothian object, this Humpty Dumpty,” Dobrynin said. “He says he is sorry for concealing it. I say he is sorry the way a robber is sorry for getting caught. I told him so. He laughed. To him, it was funny.”

“But we’re going to share what we learn from Humpty Dumpty with you? We’re going to let you help investigate?” Jerry wanted the movie to have a happy ending.