She would remember climbing the stairs instead of taking the lift—not because of some strategic decision but mere animal instinct. She would remember she was a little out of breath by the time she reached the fourth-floor landing, almost nauseated. She would remember the door was ajar, and feeling irritated at Sasha for undoing her careful work in locking it. She would remember realizing, in the next instant, that something wasn’t right. The door wasn’t unlocked, after all—the lock itself was broken—the fresh, splintered wood lay on the floor beneath it.
Still she pushed the door open, because she had to. She couldn’t allow anyone else to discover what lay behind that door before she did. Where did she find this resolve? She would never understand. She heard a whimper just before she saw the bodies on the floor. It came from Sasha, sitting upright against the wall. He held a gun in his trembling hand.
Sprawled on the parquet floor were two men. The first one, in the foyer, she didn’t recognize.
The second, in the hallway—facedown in a pool of blood—was Philip Beauchamp.
Three
If I had the choice between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the courage to betray my country.
—E. M. Forster
Lyudmila
July 1952
Moscow
Lyudmila always arrives early at Moscow Centre, just as soon as she’s dropped off Marina at school. While the headquarters of the Soviet intelligence service is naturally busy at all hours, for some reason there’s a lull between seven and nine in the morning, as the night shift transitions to the day shift, and Lyudmila can pass through the doors and up the stairs （she always takes the stairs） and down the corridors to her office without the friction of other human beings. She can make herself some tea and work quietly, quietly, at her small ugly metal desk in her small ugly room the color of peas, where she can hear herself think.
Marina, of course, is now old enough to make her own way to school. She can take the bus, or she can take the subway. She’s always been one of those competent, independent children, probably because she has no father and no siblings, and also because that’s just her nature—to think for herself. Lyudmila’s grateful for this self-sufficiency, but it makes her uneasy. Sometimes it feels like a powerful bomb that might detonate at any minute, and then where would Lyudmila be?
So she and Marina make their way to school together. Lyudmila watches her daughter swing confidently—too confidently!—through the iron gates and then the doors themselves. Sometimes she hails a friend, which startles Lyudmila. These friends—who are they? How is it possible that Marina daily enters a world to which Lyudmila doesn’t belong? Naturally she’s seen all their parents’ files. She knows their histories intimately. But it’s not the same as friendship. How does Marina trust all these friends? How can she be so worldly and yet so innocent of human nature? It falls to Lyudmila to keep her safe. Lyudmila carries the burden of suspicion for both of them. Today Lyudmila stands a few extra seconds outside the school, even after Marina disappears inside. In a week, the term will end and Marina will go off to youth camp for the first time, and for some reason Lyudmila wants to hold on to this moment, to these last few days of Marina’s last school year before the state starts to pull her away from Lyudmila and turn her into a good Soviet citizen.
Then she turns and makes her way to the familiar concrete block that houses Moscow Centre. Ordinarily she spends this time reviewing the day ahead, sinking her mind into the vast complex machinery of her job, but today—today of all days!—she can’t seem to focus herself on the HAMPTON case, which has obsessed her so exclusively for the past month. Instead she thinks of the day she took Marina to nursery for the first time—the chasm that opened up in her chest at the sight of those round blue uncomprehending eyes watching her go. She remembers how she arrived at her desk that morning to discover the news, delivered in a few spare words on a slip of telegram, that Marina’s father had died of dysentery in the Siberian labor camp to which he had been sentenced, just three days before he was due to be furloughed out to the army in its last-ditch defense of Moscow against the Wehrmacht.
Now Lyudmila sits at her desk and gathers her papers. She’s set up a secure operations room in the basement, taking care to ensure that nobody else knows where it is except for a single secretary named Anna Dubrovskaya. She doesn’t exactly trust Dubrovskaya, either, but Dubrovskaya’s proved loyal on many occasions in the past—even under what you might call duress—so Lyudmila designates her as deputy while she’s out of her regular office. It will have to do.