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In the Soviet military any appointment has assigned to it a maximum, not a minimum rank, as in Western services, and an officer’s importance is judged not by his rank. but by the appointment he holds. During World War II, Helder knew, it had not been unheard of for a senior lieutenant to command an army division, while the regimental commanders beneath him might be majors or colonels. He saluted again.
     
    “Lieutenant Helder reporting, Comrade Colonel.”
     
    The admiral rose.
     
    “Well, I will leave you to it. Viktor,” he said to the colonel, and made his exit.
     
    The colonel waved a hand, but did not rise as the admiral left. When the admiral had gone, the colonel rose and walked toward Helder. The lieutenant chose the moment to steal a look at him. He looked to be in his early forties, quite tall. trim, fit-looking. He had a high forehead and a thick head of salt-and-pepper hair cut considerably better than was usual in the Soviet military. Helder thought he looked like a prosperous Western businessman in a Soviet uniform. The colonel stuck out his hand.
     
    “My name is Majorov; I am very pleased to meet you.
     
    Helder,” he said in perfectly accented British English.
     
    Helder was a little jarred. He had never before been greeted by a new commanding officer in this fashion, let alone in English. Rather cautiously, he shook the colonel’s hand.
     
    “Please sit down,” the colonel said. waving him to a chair.
     
    Everything instilled in Helder by thirteen years of Soviet military training and service resisted this suggestion, and he must have showed it, for the colonel chuckled.
     
    “Please,” he said, “You must begin to get used to our informal ways here.” He waved Helder toward the chair again.
     
    Helder sat down, but he could not immediately bring himself to lean against the back of the chair. “Would you like a drink?” the colonel asked.
     
    “A gin and tonic, perhaps? Please do have a drink.”
     
    “Thank you. Comrade Colonel.” The colonel went to a rosewood cabinet, mixed the drink, and handed it to him.
     
    Helder sipped the drink tentatively. His opinion of the colonel climbed as he noticed that it contained a wedge of bright, green lime. Who was this colonel that he could obtain a lime in Latvia?
     
    The colonel mixed himself a drink and sat down opposite Helder.
     
    “Now,” he said, smiling slightly, “tell me a little about yourself—your background and upbringing.
     
    Please continue to speak English.”
     
    This was something else Helder had never been asked to do before by a commanding officer. It surprised him even more, because there was a thick file on the coffee table between them which he knew must contain every detail of his life since birth. He realized that the colonel probably wanted to hear him speak English.
     
    “Comrade Colonel, my full name is Jan Helder, no middle name; I was born in Tallinn, on the Estonian coast; I am thirty-one years old. I attended, uh, primary and uh, secondary schools in Tallinn, then university in Moscow, where I studied both English and physics. I also speak Swedish, which is commonly spoken on the coast where I grew up. After graduation I requested and was assigned to the Naval College at Leningrad.
     
    Upon graduation I was assigned to the Northern Fleet at Murmansk. After two years of general duties I was accepted for submarine training and upon finishing was assigned to a series of Whiskey and Juliet class boats. I had one year at the Command Academy in Moscow, then returned to the fleet. I served as navigation and executive officer in Juliets, and for the past twenty months I have commanded Whiskey 184, conducting training exercises and reporting on NATO shipping movements in the North Atlantic.”
     
    The colonel nodded.
     
    “Very good, Helder, your American accent is excellent, though a bit stilted. But that will improve as we go along.” The colonel shifted in his seat and sipped his