And it wasn’t because of his fruitless vigil in the botanical garden the night before. It still had to be more, much more, than a 50 percent chance that Natalia had delivered the newspaper signal, in the way only he’d recognize, to their special dead-letter drop. But the alternative, the fear that Natalia’s coercion had brutally forced from her their meeting code, remained. And if that had happened, he’d swallowed the FSB bait by going to Moscow’s original herb garden. But why hadn’t they sprung that trap and seized him the day before? The hope that Natalia hadn’t been broken was no more than the merest wisp of straw-clutching reassurance but still something for which he could snatch out to hold. Could he safely interpret the Pravda sign that it was safe to go anywhere near Natalia’s Pecatnikov Pereulok apartment, outside of which Monsford’s photographer had pictured her and Sasha just six days ago? Not yet. Not until he was surer the gardens were safe: that it was Natalia’s intended indicator.
