“Of course. Why not? Everybody knows they weren’t guilty.” The Czech snorted deprecation. “At least not guilty of what they were charged with. They were in Stalin’s way and he liquidated them.” The Czech thought about it for a while. “I wonder if he was already insane, that far back.”
Had he taken up his mug of beer and dashed it into Simonov’s face, he couldn’t have surprised the Russian more.
Ilya Simonov had to take control of himself. His first instinct was to show his credentials, arrest the man and have him hauled up before the local agency of Simonov’s ministry.
But obviously that was out of the question. He was in Czechoslovakia and, although Moscow still dominated the Soviet Complex, there was local autonomy and the Czech police just didn’t enjoy their affairs being meddled wit
