"Thank you."

Massey smiled. "Don't thank me,thank the Ambassador. Or maybe you should thank Romulka. Tomorrow you'll beflown to Germany. There you'll be filled in on the arrangements that are beingmade to help you. After that you'll be flown to the United States. Where to, Idon't know. That kind of detail isn't up to me.

For a long time Anna Khorev said nothing.She looked out at the cold lake. Finally she said, "Do you think I'll behappy in America?"

Massey saw the sudden fear in her face,as if it was only now she realized the enormity of what had happened and theuncertainty that lay ahead.

"It's a good country to make a freshstart in. You've been badly hurt and your emotions are in turmoil. You don'tknow what the future holds for you and your past is a painful memory. Right nowyou're living in a kind of twilight zone. You'll probably feel confused andlost for a long time. You'll be in a new country with no friends. But you'regoing to heal with time, I know you will. That's about it. Except for the badnews. And that is we'll probably never meet again. But I wish you happiness,Anna."

"You know something, Massey?"

"What?"

"If things were different, I wouldhave liked to have seen you again. Just to talk. To have been friends. I thinkyou're one of the nicest men I've ever met."

Massey smiled. "Thanks for thecompliment. But I guess u haven't known many men, Anna. I'm just an ordinaryguy, believe me."

"Will you come to say goodbye at theair-port?"

"Sure, if you like." He lookeddown at her and some instinct made him touch her shoulder gently. "You'llbe OK. I know you will. Time will heal your heart."

"I wish I could believe that."

Massey smiled. "Trust me."

There was a patina of snow on the groundas Massey and the two men walked with her to the aircraft. The FinnishConstellation was waiting on the apron and the passengers were alreadyboarding.

Massey hesitated at the foot of the metalsteps.

He offered her his hand and she kissedhim on the cheek.

"So long, Anna. Take care ofyourself."

"I hope I see you again,Massey."

She was looking at his face as sheboarded and he thought he saw tears at the corners of her eyes. He knew he hadbeen the first real emotional contact she had had in the last six months and heguessed he had made an impression. He knew it would have been the same withmost people who escaped over the Soviet border. Frightened and alone, theygrasped the first kind hand offered to them.

He also knew that no matter what hisintuition told him he could have been wrong about her and the Finnish SUPOofficer who doubted her story could have been right; Massey didn't believe hewas wrong but knew only time would tell.

It was five minutes later when he stoodin the Departures lounge and watched as the Constellation trundled down therunway before being finally sucked up into the Baltic twilight, its flashinglights sending an eerie glow out into the surrounding cloud.

Massey looked at the empty sky for a fewmoments before he said softly, "Do svidaniva."

As he pulled up his coat collar andwalked back toward the exit, he was too preoccupied to notice the dark-hairedyoung man lounging by the newspaper stand, watching the departing aircraft.

January 13th-27th 1953

Bavaria, Germany. January 13th, 11 Pm.

It was raining hard all over southernGermany that night, lightning flickering on the horizon, and no weather forflying.

The airfield barracks complex in theheart of the Bavarian lake district was shrouded in low cloud and mist. No morethan a runway and a collection of wooden huts that had once belonged to theLuftwaffe's crack Southern Air Command, it now housed the CIA's SovietOperations Division in Germany.

As Jake Massey came out of the Nissen hutthat served as the Operations Room he looked up at the filthy black sky, thenpulled up his collar and ran across to a covered army jeep waiting in thepouring rain. A fork of lightning streaked across the darkness and as he slidinto the jeep the man sitting in the driver's seat said, "A night for thebed, I'd say. With a good woman beside you and a bottle of Scotch."

Massey smiled as the jeep started along atarmac road. "You could do worse, Janne."

"So who have I got tonight?"

"A couple of former Ukrainian SS menbound for Moscow, via Kiev."

"Charming. You always did keep thebest of company, Jake."

"It's either work for us or theyface a war crimes trial. Nast@ types, both of them, part of an SS group whoexecuted a number of women and children in Riga, but beggars like us can't bechoosers."

"That's what I like about workingfor the CIA, you get to meet the most interesting people."

The man beside Massey wore a pilot'sleather flying jacket d a white silk scarf. He had a cheerful face and althoughhe was short and stocky his straw-blond hair was unmistakably Nordic.

At thirty-one, Janne Saarinen had alreadyseen more trouble than most men. Like some Finns after the Winter War withRussia in '40 who saw their country's allegiance with Hitler's Germany as achance to get even with Moscow, Saarinen had thrown in his lot with the Germansbut paid a price.

His right leg had been blown off belowthe knee by a Russian shrapnel burst that tore into the cockpit of hisLuftwaffe Messerschmitt at five thousand feet during a Baltic skirmish, and nowhe had to make do with a wooden contraption that passed for a leg. There wasstill a piece of the Russian metal somewhere in the ugly mass of scar tissuewhere the German surgeon had sewn the stump together, but at least Saarinen wasstill walking, even if with a pronounced limp.

The jeep drove down to a runway situatednear a rather large lake, a collection of hangars nearby, the doors of one ofthem open and arc lights blazing inside.

Massey climbed out of the jeep and ran inout of the rain, followed by Saarinen.

Two men were sitting in a corner by atable, parachutes beside them, smoking cigarettes as they waited near ablack-painted DC-3 aircraft with no markings which was parked just inside thehangar, a flight of metal steps leading up into the open cargo door in the sideof the fuselage.

One of the men was in his late twenties,tall and thin, a nervous look on his anxious face, which already looked brutaldespite his relative youth.

The second was older, a rough-lookingspecimen and heavily built, with red hair and a hard face that seemed hewn outof rock.

He had a look of insolence about him andhe stood up when he saw Massey enter the hangar, and as he walked across theman tossed away his cigarette.

He said to Massey in Russian, "Nonight for man or beast, let alone flying. Are we still going,Americanski?"

"I'm afraid so."

The man shrugged and quickly lit anothercigarette, his nerves obviously on edge, then looked back toward his whitefacedcompanion.

"Sergei here has a bad case of thefrights. From the look of him he thinks we're doomed. And on a night like thisI'm inclined to agree. If the Russian radar doesn't help put us in an earlygrave, the lousy weather probably will."

Massey smiled. "Oh, I wouldn't saythat. You're in good hands. Say hello to your pilot."

Massey introduced Saarinen but because ofregulations didn offer the Finn's name and the two men shook hands briefly.

"Charmed, I'm sure," said theUkrainian. He looked at him!

"seriously," a small nervousgrin flickering on his face. "A small point, but your pilot's got a falseleg. I just thought I'd mention it." Saarinen said, offended, "Youcould always try taking off without me if it bothers you. And you and yourfriend ov( there had better put out those damned cigarettes or none of us willbe going anywhere." He nodded over to the aircraft. "There are sixthousand pounds of highly inflammable fuel in those tanks. Do it, now!"