“What is this? Are we in Prague?”

“No.”

“Then why have we stopped?”

The railway policeman walked directly toward us. If the window had been open I would have gone through it. But there was no place to go, nothing to do. I thought of the days I had spent pretending to be a tourist. Wasted, all of them. I might as well have flown directly to Prague. For that matter, I might as well have shot myself in New York and saved myself a trip.

“Your passports. Both of you.”

I turned. His thick face was utterly expressionless. The Frenchman demanded that I explain what was going on.

“He wants your passport,” I said.

“The idiot saw it ten minutes ago.”

“I can’t help it,” I said. I reached into my jacket pocket and wished that it contained a gun instead of a passport. I handed my passport to the policeman and wondered if there was any way on earth I could bluff my way clear.

It seemed unlikely.

“And yours,” the policeman said to my companion. For once I didn’t have to translate. The meaning was obvious, even to the Frenchman. He produced his passport and the policeman took it from him. The two men in green uniform moved up and flanked the railway policeman.

He studied the passports, selected mine, shook it vehemently in the faces of the men on either side of him. “This is the man,” he announced sternly. “Evan Michael Tanner, American. This is the agent.”

And, incredibly, his hand fastened on the Frenchman’s shoulder. “Take him away,” he told the men in green. “This is the man you want. Take him off at once. We’re nearly an hour late as it is.”

The Frenchman didn’t understand. They asked him to stand and he had no idea what they wanted. “You have to go with them,” I said.

“But why?”

Because Providence has supplied me with the stupidest policeman on earth, I thought. But in rapid French I said, “They believe you are an opium smuggler. They intend to torture you until you turn in your accomplices.”