And he disappeared back behind the secret door. Moments later, the door behind Luzhkov opened and Alexander Kurbsky entered, the GRU lieutenant hard on his heels.

AN HOUR EARLIER, Kurbsky had been delivered to the same rear door of the Kremlin by Military Police. Although he had been drinking when they picked him up at his hotel, he’d been enough in control to realize that when the Kremlin was mentioned, it meant serious business. He’d been led into a small anteroom next to the main office, with chairs and a TV in the corner.

He said, “All right, I bore easily, so what is this about?”

The lieutenant gave him the DVD. “Watch this. I’ll be back.” He opened the door and paused. “I’m a great fan.”

The door closed behind him. Kurbsky frowned, examining the DVD, then he went and inserted it, produced a pack of cigarettes, lit one, and sat down. The screen flickered. A voice quoted a lengthy number and then said, “Subject Tania Kurbsky, aged seventeen, born Moscow.” He straightened, stunned, as he saw Tania, his beloved sister, gaunt, hair close-cropped, with sunken cheeks. The voice droned on about a court case, five dead policemen in a riot, seven students charged and shot. Tania Kurbsky had been given a special dispensation obtained because of her father, Colonel Ivan Kurbsky of the KGB. Instead of execution, she’d been sentenced to life, irrevocable, to be served at Station Gorky in Siberia, about as far from civilization as it was possible to get. She was still living, aged thirty-six. There followed a picture that barely resembled her, a gaunt careworn woman old before her time. The screen went dark. Kurbsky got up slowly, ejected the DVD and stood looking at it, then turned, went to the door, and kicked it.

After a while, it was unlocked and the lieutenant appeared. One of the guards stood there, machine pistol ready. Kurbsky said, “Where do I go?”