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 with unless in extreme urgency.
Besides, this man was obviously only one among many. A stranger in a beer hall. Ilya Simonov suspected that if he continued his wanderings about the town, he’d meet in the process of only one evening a score of persons who would talk the same way.
Besides,
