All that mihail needed to do was go to the Hôtel d’Europe, present the letter and he would be allowed access to Iuda’s rooms. But that was what made it frightening. Would Iuda really be so remiss as to allow an intruder such easy access to his inner sanctum? And yet Iuda had been absent – a prisoner in distant Turkmenistan for more years than Mihail could guess. In that time things would have begun to slip out of his control. And even now he was still a prisoner, in the Peter and Paul Fortress. What could he do to endanger Mihail? But Mihail would be circumspect. The hotel occupied the entire west side of Mihailovskaya Street, stretching from Nevsky Prospekt all the way back to Italyanskaya Street. Mihail chose to wear his dress uniform. It would not make him stand out from the crowd – not in Petersburg – and it might lend him some air of authority if the letter wasn’t enough. It was late afternoon by the time he arrived. He’d spent the day in the Imperial Public Library, just a little further down the Prospekt, on the corner of Sadovaya Street.
