“I do not make policy. I carry out policy made by the general secretary and the Politburo. I have sent my government a report on the news you brought, and on my conversation with the American secretary of state,” Dobrynin said. “I have informed them of how important and how urgent I think this is. I hope a peaceful solution will be possible.”

“You … hope?” Jerry realized his mind’s ear and eye had known what they were imagining. He wondered if he would go down in history as the guy who started World War III. He didn’t think it was likely. If World War III started, nobody’d be left afterward to write history.

“That is correct. We will not let ourselves be surpassed. We are content with a share of whatever may be learned from the Midlothian object. America deserves credit for finding and raising it. But your view of things is the correct one, Mister Stieglitz. The Midlothian object is too important to be the sole property of one nation.”

Would you say the same thing if Russia had it? Jerry wondered. He doubted it. In that case, Dobrynin would be playing the Henry Kissinger role, with Kissinger doing his impression of the Soviet envoy. People were people.

People were people, yeah. They were all pretty similar, no matter where they came from. That was why whatever came from Humpty Dumpty deserved to belong to everybody, not just to the USA.

“Oh. Henry did agree to one thing,” Anatoly Dobrynin said. “He promised me the CIA would not retaliate against you for what you have done.”

“Do you believe him?”

“I do—because I made it very plain how important this was to me,” Dobrynin replied. “You have done all mankind a service. The Soviet Union does not forget.”

“Thank you, sir,” Jerry said. He had the feeling the diplomat meant the USSR when he said all mankind. Right this minute, that was okay with him.

“If you do not trust the secretary of state’s assurances, you may stay here at the embassy. No one can reach you here,” Dobrynin said. “I would suggest you stay here for some little while anyhow, to make sure all the people in the Agency learn what Henry has agreed to.”

“That’s … probably a real good idea. I’ll take you up on it, and thanks one more time,” Jerry said.

“The least I can do. Now we hope all turns out well. I am not a praying man. If you are, this is a good time to do it.”

“I’m not, either, Ambassador. From the way you talk, I kinda wish I were.”

Major Bronstein took Jerry back to the room with Leonid Brezhnev’s collected works. As he had before, Jerry tried to read some. And, as he had before, he bogged down. He noticed the beautifully printed books were dusty. No, nobody else cared about them, either.