Page 63 of The Other Woman

“Why did you take the risk?”

“I couldn’t resist. Files like that are the sacred texts of our service. The Torah,” he added for Gabriel’s benefit. “Even a man like me, a man whose mother worked for Andropov, is rarely allowed to see such documents.”

“And when you opened the file? What did you see?”

“A name.”

“Hisname?”

“No,” answered Sergei Morosov. “The name was Otto. It was the code name of an NKVD operative. The file concerned a meeting Otto conducted in Regent’s Park in London.”

“When?”

“In June,” said Sergei Morosov. “June 1934.”

Otto, Regent’s Park, June 1934... It was perhaps the most famous and fateful meeting in the history of espionage.

“You saw theactualfile?” asked Gabriel.

“It was like reading the original copy of the Ten Commandments. I could barely see the page, I was so blinded by excitement.”

“Were there other files?”

Yes, said Sergei Morosov, there were many others, including several written in laborious Russian by Sasha’s legendary helper, the man who was Russian in his sympathies but English to his core. One concerned a woman he had known in Beirut, where he had worked for several years as a journalist beginning in 1956.

“Who was she?”

“A journalist, too. More important, she was a committed communist.”

“What was the nature of their relationship?”

“It wasn’t professional, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“She was his lover?”

“One of many,” said Sergei Morosov. “But she was different.”

“How so?”

“There was a child.”

The rapid pace of Gabriel’s questions stirred Mikhail from his reverie.

“What was the woman’s name?” asked Gabriel.

“The file didn’t say.”

“Nationality?”

“No.”

“What about the child? Was it a boy or a girl?”

“Please, Allon, I’ve had enough for one night. Let me get some sleep, and we’ll start over in the morning.”

But it was morning already, late morning in fact, and there was no time for sleep. Gabriel squeezed harder, and Sergei Morosov, drunk with fatigue, described the contents of the last file he had dared to open that night before the great Sasha returned to the dacha.

“It was a private assessment written by the Englishman in the early 1970s predicting the collapse of communism.”