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“I don’t know, and I’m not sure I even want to know”

“But it ht help you win the case”

“That doesn’t seem likely if Fisher’s involved”

“And I’ve only been away just over a week,” said Harry as the taxi drew up outside Giles’s home in Smith Square

When the front door bell rang, Giles quickly answered it, to find his closest friend holding on to his sister with one hand, and the railing with the other, to uards took an ar roouest bedroom on the first floor He didn’t reply when Giles said, “Sleep well, old chum,” and closed the door behind him

By the ti up his suit, she became painfully ahat the inside of a Russian prison cell must smell like, but he was already sound asleep by the time she pulled off his socks

She crept into the bed beside hih she knew he couldn’t hear her, she whispered firmly, “The farthest east I will allow you to travel in future will be Caht and continued to read Uncle Joe It was another hour before she finally discovered why the Russians had gone to such lengths to ot their hands on the book

Comrade Stalin’s seventieth birthday was celebrated across the Soviet empire, in a manner that would have impressed a Caesar No one who hoped to live talked of his retire men feared early preferment because it often heralded early retirement and, as Stalin seeestion of mortality meant your funeral, not his

While I sat at the back of the endless an to form my own plans for a tiny slice of iraphy But I would have to wait, possibly for years after Stalin’s death, for the right moment to present itself, before I approached a publisher, a brave publisher, ould be willing to consider taking on Uncle Joe

What I hadn’t anticipated was just how long Stalin would cling on, and he certainly had no intention of releasing the reins of power before the pallbearers had lowered hiround, and more than one or two of his enemies remained silent for several days after his death, just in case he rose again

A great deal has been written about Stalin’s death The official communiqué, which I translated for the international press, clai a stroke, and that was the accepted version forat his dacha, and after a drunken dinner with his inner circle, which included Lavrenti Beria, his deputy premier and fory Malenkov, he retired to bed, but not before all his guests had left the dacha

Beria, Malenkov, and Khrushchev all feared for their lives, because they knew Stalin planned to replace theer, more loyal lieutenants After all, that was exactly how each of theot his own job in the first place

The following day, Stalin still hadn’t risen by late afternoon and one of his guards, worried that he ht be ill, phoned Beria, who dismissed theoff a hangover Another hour passed before the guard called Beria again This time he summoned Khrushchev and Malenkov and they immediately drove over to the dacha

Beria gave the order to unlock the door of the rooht, and the three of the on the floor, unconscious but still breathing Khrushchev bent down to check his pulse, when suddenly a rabbed him by the arm Khrushchev fell on his knees, placed his hands around Stalin’s throat, and strangled hiled for a few minutes, while Beria and Malenkov held him down

Once they were convinced he was dead, they left the roo the door behind them Beria iuards—sixteen of them—were to be shot, so there could be no witnesses to what had happened No one was informed of Stalin’s death until the official announcement was made several hours later, the one I translated, which clai at his desk in the Kre in a pool of his own urine for several hours before his body was removed from the dacha