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Finally, the door behind the platform opened so the principal actors could make their entrance: three of the table on the center of the stage

The wohtly pinned up in a bun, could have been a retired headmistress Harry even wondered if this had once been her classroom She was clearly the most senior person present because everyone else in the roo in her direction She opened the file in front of her and began to read out loud Harry silently thanked his Russian tutor for the hours she’d spenthilish

“The prisoner”—Harry had to assuh she had not once acknowledged his presence “recently entered the Soviet Union illegally”—Harry would have liked to take notes, but he hadn’t been supplied with a pen or paper so he would have to rely on his iven the chance to defend hi the law” She turned to the jury and did not smile “You, comrades, have been selected to be the arbiters of whether the prisoner is guilty or not Witnesses will coement”

“Mr Kosanov,” she said, turning to face counsel, “you may now present the State’s case”

The older of the two men seated on the front bench rose slowly to his feet

“Cohtforward case that should not trouble the jury for any length of time The prisoner is a well-known enemy of the State, and this is not his first offense”

Harry couldn’t wait to hear what his first offense had been He soon found out

“The prisoner visited Moscow souest of our country and took cynical advantage of his privileged status He used the opening speech at an international conference to n for the release of a self-confessed criainst the State Anatoly Babakov will be well known to you, comrade commissioner, as the author of a book about our revered leader, Comra

de Chaired with seditious libel and sentenced to twenty years’ hard labor

“The prisoner repeated these libels despite the fact that it was pointed out to hi the law”—Harry couldn’t recall that, unless the scantily dressed young woman who’d visited hiht waswith the bottle of chane—“but for the sake of international relations, and to denanimity, we allowed him to return to the West, where this kind of libel and slander is part of everyday life We someti the last war and that our leader at the time was none other than Comrade Stalin

“Earlier this year, the prisoner traveled to the United States for the sole purpose ofcontact with Babakov’s wife, who defected to the West days before her husband was arrested It was the traitor, Yelena Babakov, who told the prisoner where she had hidden a copy of her husband’s seditious book Armed with this information, the prisoner returned to the Soviet Union to cole it back to the West, and have it published

“Youto involve himself in such a risky venture The answer is quite simple Greed He hoped tothese libels to whoever would publish theinning to end, and written by a man who’d only met our revered former leader on one occasion when he was a student

“But thanks to some brilliant detective work carried out by Colonel Marinkin, the prisoner was arrested while trying to escape fro In order that the court can fully understand the lengths to which this crio to undermine the State, I will call my first witness, Comrade Colonel Vitaly Marinkin”

38

EMMA THOUGHT her legs would give way as she walked the short distance to the witness box When the clerk of the court handed her a Bible, everyone could see her hands were shaking, and then she heard her voice