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you?”
    â€œYes, sir. Any chance of hiring more lady spies?”
    â€œThe Supreme Court hasn’t got around to telling us we have to have a quota.”
    â€œHow about some preemptive action?”
    â€œSow wild oats on your own time,” said the Director, looking at his watch. “In four minutes exactly, open the door for Serge. Rufus will arrive five minutes later. They’ll be cold. They’ve parked their cars at the inn, and they don’t know each other.”
    Ten minutes later the three men sat about the fire while Jerry mixed drinks in the kitchen, chatting to the security men, one of whom, wearing an apron, was starting the oven, while the other decanted two bottles of wine.
    â€œIt is very good to see you, Rufus,” the Director said, nodding to the portly man opposite, who had got a little balder, a little older, but whose eyes and demeanor were unchanged.
    â€œIt’s fine to see you, Allen. Though you do make it difficult to stay retired.”
    â€œAt sixty-two you’re too young to retire. I suppose one of these days somebody will discover you. Write a book about you. After that I promise I won’t call you. After that I can’t even promise to recognize you!” (Had he overdone it? He looked out of the side of his eye. Rufus’s smile was formal, but clearly he was unconcerned.)
    He turned to the third man, sitting opposite the fire. He wore boots, heavy woolen trousers, and a crew-neck sweater; but even so he rubbed his hands together, as though they would never grow warm. His hair was white, his skin jaundiced, his build stocky, tough.
    â€œYou will always be cold, eh Serge?”
    The reply was in a heavily accented English. “I will always be cold.”
    â€œRufus, I am aware that you and Serge haven’t met. Haven’t even heard about each other, as far as I know. On what we are calling Plan 717—July 1, 1957 is the beginning of the International Geophysical Year—you will, I hope, agree to work together.”
    Jerry brought in the drinks, and then went back to the kitchen.
    The Director addressed the Russian. “This is Rufus. All I need to tell you about him is: He’s the best we have.”
    Then he turned to Rufus. “Three years ago, Serge defected. Two of our top people—you know them both—spent the better part of a year with him. He has given us invaluable stuff. We’re still living off a lot of it. At our end we promised him security—and to leave him alone. He owes us nothing. But we’ve gone over and over the 717 project, and I concluded”—now he turned again to Serge—“that you are the key to its success. If it will work, it will be because of you.”
    Neither man commented. Rufus held his drink in his hand without even pretending to sip it. Serge attacked his in half-glass bouts and in the ensuing hour the Director twice refilled the glass.
    Now the Director assumed his professional stance, standing, leaning against the stone of the chimney, puffing on his pipe.
    â€œThe Communists”—he was careful, in Serge’s presence, not to say “the Russians”—“are feverishly at work on a satellite. First, they want a rocket and experience in atmospheric flight. Accurate intercontinental missiles is the payload of the whole enterprise. Second, the Hungary business hurt them. They’re pretty stoical about psychological setbacks, in the noble tradition of the Stalin-Hitler Pact; but they don’t enjoy it.”
    It occurred to Rufus that when engaged in exposition the Director treated anyone present like a beginning student. Rufus had been present on the occasion when the Director, addressing Eisenhower’s general staff the day before D-Day, actually instructed them on the size of a German division. He was now lecturing a Russian on Communist psychology.
    â€œTheir organs and the satellite press have been grinding away about the