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“We’re all friends here,” Serov said. “Isn’t that so, James?”

“How about drinking buddies?” Cronley said.

“I would be pleased if you could find your way to call Sergei and myself by our Christian names,” Serov said.

The waiter appeared.

“Bring us a bottle of whatever they’re drinking, and put it on my tab,” Serov ordered.

“Beware of Russians bearing booze,” Cronley said.

“Consider the booze to be a small token of my gratitude,” Serov said.

“For what?”

“For my tour of that castle.”

“Oh.”

“What?” Winters asked. “What castle?”

“I gather Thomas is not in the castle loop?”

“Only because he just got here, and I haven’t had time to tell him.”

“And I wanted to wait until I had your permission before I told Sergei about it.”

Oh, bullshit!

“What are you going to tell the NKGB about it?”

“Actually, I’m still thinking about that.”

“And if I give you permission to tell Sergei what you probably have already told him, what is he going to tell the NKGB?”

I am pissing in the wind. He told Sergei about the castle as soon as he could after we got back. And by now that report is being read in that building on Lubyanka Square in Moscow.

“Nothing until I tell him to, and then only what I tell him to,” Serov said. “You really should learn to trust me, Jim.”

“I do.”

About as far as half the distance I could throw Tiny Dunwiddie.

“When I saw you, I thought perhaps you would be kind enough to have dinner with Sergei and myself, and we could both bring him into the loop. I think it’s important that he hear everything, and I suggest that’s also true for Thomas.”

“And what would we chat about over dinner?”

“I agree that the tale of the castle would ruin my appetite for anything but spirits, so why don’t we drink our dinner?”

“Why not?” Cronley said.

IX

[ONE]

Farber Palast

Stein, near Nuremberg