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“Looks like it The question is, how familiar is Bondaruk with Khotyn’s history? If the tunnels exist, does he know about them, and has he sealed them up?”

“Better still: Has he followed in Abdank’s footsteps and put them to use?”

Sam checked his watch “Well, we’ll know shortly”

They had a contact to meet

As it turned out, Sel of a one-stop shopping trip, giving theht sneak into Khotyn, but also, hopefully, a road o about it

The archive curator at Taras Shevchenko University, a man named Petro Bohuslav, hated his ith a passion and he desperately wanted to move to Trieste, Italy, and open a bookstore After soht price he illing to share a set of rare, as yet unarchived blueprints of Khotyn, as well as his personal knowledge of the grounds

They found hi the Balaclava ht had fully fallen by the time they arrived and the interior of the café was dimly lit by hurricane lamps on each table Soft kobza folkferns The air se and onions

As they entered, a man in a corner booth lifted his head and studied the seconds, then put his face back into his ht red shirt and white blouse approached them Sah the tables to the booth

“Mr Bohuslav?” Relish

Thewhite hair and a bulbous drinker’s nose He nodded “I am Bohuslav You are Mr and Mrs Jones?”

“That’s right”

“Sit, please” They did “So to eat? Drink?”

“No, thank you,” Remi said

“You want into Khotyn, yes?”

“We didn’t say that,” Sa a book on the Crimean War”