Novak summoned the sommelier.

“I would like a bottle of red Bordeaux, something to remember for a lifetime. The price is irrelevant.”

The sommelier, well aware who was paying for this meal, glanced at Zhukovskaya. She gave a fractional nod of assent before he answered Novak’s request.

“In that case, mein herr, I would suggest the 1982 La Mission Haut-Brion. A magnificent vintage from one of the great châteaus. I think you will find it an almost spiritual experience.”

A tired smile played briefly over Novak’s face.

“Spiritual, eh? Then the Haut-Brion will be perfect.”

Zhukovskaya did not hurry him as he tasted the wine, signaled his approval, savored the intensity and complexity of its aroma, then took his first few sips. She understood as well as he did what was happening.

When he had finished his first glass, Novak began to talk. He described how he had been approached by Bagrat Baladze, who was trying to sell the list of missing bombs; how he had gone in turn to Vermulen, hoping to get the list to the Americans; how he had provided him with the location of the list and the means to obtain it.

When he had finished, Zhukovskaya reached across the table and gave his hand a gentle squeeze.

“Thank you,” she said with quiet sincerity. “Now enjoy the rest of your meal.”

Her smile was unexpectedly charming, so feminine, almost flirtatious as she added, “And your spiritual wine!”

Somehow, perhaps because the burden of his secret had been lifted, or simply because the Bordeaux was a magical elixir, Novak was able to enjoy his dinner. He and Zhukovskaya made the conversation of two middle-aged people who had shared similar experiences over many years and observed the same absurdities. He was a man with a gift for a funny anecdote; she was a woman who was happy to laugh at his humor.

At the end of the meal, Zhukovskaya was as civilized, as kulturny, to use the Russian phrase, as she had promised. With great politeness, she asked him to hand over his cell phone. She also told him that there was about to be a problem with the telephone lines running in and out of his apartment building. He could not, in other words, alert anyone to what he had just told her. She informed him that he would be given a lift back to his home, and his wife.

“Please,” she said, “make this easy for both of us.”

Fifteen minutes later, Pavel Novak let himself in through his front door, crossed the hall, and stepped into the elevator, an ornate metal cage that had run up through the middle of the building’s spiral staircase for the better part of a century. He stopped on the fifth floor and went into his apartment. His wife was asleep in their bedroom. He kissed her face and whispered, “I love you,” in her ear.

She gave a sleepy little murmur of reply.

Novak looked at her with the love that a man has for a woman who has shared his life for almost three decades, a love in which youthful passion has given way to a far deeper blend of affection, knowledge, and mutual forgiveness. He laid his hand briefly on her shoulder, then he left the room.

He walked up to the top of the building and out through the door that led to the roof. He walked to the edge, looked around him at the lights and rooftops of Vienna, took one last, deep breath, and stepped out into the void.

Last thing at night, Carver called Grantham in London.

“It’s going down tomorrow,” he said. “Sometime in the afternoon.”

“Do you have any idea yet what you’re after?”

“Not yet. All the client told me was he was hoping to retrieve some kind of document in a sealed envelope. He didn’t tell me what was in the document that was so valuable. He just said, and I quote, that it was ‘vital to the future peace of the world.’ ”

“He what…?”

Whatever Grantham was expecting, it wasn’t that.

“Yeah, I know,” said Carver. “I thought it sounded pretty crazy, too. And that wasn’t the half of it. He’s got this obsession that we’re like the Romans, just as the empire was collapsing, with barbarians at the gate. Only the barbarians aren’t Huns and Vandals; they’re Islamic terrorists, trying to take over the world.”

“You’re joking.” Grantham gave a short, irritable sigh.

“Well, you can argue that out with him. All I know is, I’ll be aiming to make the handover sometime in the early evening. The location is the Hotel du Cap, same as our lunch. I’ll give you the precise time tomorrow. Within fifteen minutes of that time, I aim to be walking out of the hotel with the woman and, if possible, the document. I told Vermulen I didn’t want any of his men there when the deal went down, but I can’t believe he’ll keep to that. He’ll want to protect his investment. So I’m going to need extraction-a car, maybe even a driver, someone good-and a safe house for the night.”

Grantham gave a snort of disbelief. “Would you like me to lay on a private jet as well? You seemed to like those, as I recall.”

“Or I could just give Vermulen’s goons the document in exchange for Alix…”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Even the powerful have bosses. And just as Olga Zhukovskaya could make her subordinates quake, so even she felt twinges of anxiety when calling her agency’s director in his bed to tell him bad news. She reported everything Novak had told her, stressing the urgency of the matter. In her view, the list of nuclear weapons and their precise whereabouts had to be recovered within twenty-four hours. After that, it could be lost forever.

“We know the whereabouts of a document that is of enormous military and political significance to the Motherland,” she concluded. “We should make immediate plans to seize it.”

The director had not survived a life of secrecy, infighting, and continual, often deadly regime changes by being rash or lacking in calculation. His immediate response was cautious.

“Can we be sure that this list really exists, or has the significance Novak claimed? The deployment of those weapons was under KGB control, their locations are still known to us alone, and I am not aware of any documents missing from our files. I suppose, theoretically, that Defense Ministry operatives might have found a way of copying or stealing our documentation…” He paused to contemplate the disturbing possibility that another agency might have outwitted his own, however temporarily. “In any case, Novak was a traitor who became a profiteer. All good reasons to disbelieve anything he says.”

“Quite so, Director. In any other circumstance I would agree with you on all counts. But I sat one meter from Novak when he was talking. I am certain that he was telling the truth.”

“Feminine intuition?” sneered the director.

“No, sir-twenty-five years of experience in the conduct of interrogations.”

“Very well, let us assume, hypothetically, that this list is as dangerous as you claim. Another problem arises. It is located in a foreign, sovereign nation and we do not wish to provoke a diplomatic incident by undertaking a violent action against armed criminals, who would have the advantage of a defensible position.”

Zhukovskaya countered that.

“But, Director, we undertake violent actions on foreign countries all the time-”

“So you proved-with regrettable lack of success-in Geneva recently,” her boss snapped. “Our coverup may have fooled local police and media, but do not suppose that our enemies were deceived. The operatives chosen were far too easily identifiable as our assets. In any case, we have a further difficulty. As you know, all government agencies are facing severe financial restrictions at the moment. We are no exception…”

“It is very sad, Director,” Zhukovskaya murmured, keen to get him off his hobbyhorse and back to the matter in hand. “But I do not see the relevance here-”