with a woman whom he discovers was Polyakov's devoted wife, Erika Beck. She is now married to Kosnov, so B.A. plants a listening device in their bedroom. After that, B.A. takes up with a local small-time thief and black market operator, though she finds herself terribly unhappy and wishes only to return home to her father. In the meantime, the Warlock integrates himself into the local community of intellectual homosexuals, starting an affair with a university professor. He then meets one of the professor's students who was Polyakov's former lover and who informs him that Polyakov had had a relationship with Vladimir Bresnavitch of the Soviet Central Committee. Bresnavitch turns out to have an adversarial relationship with Kosnov, whose activities Bresnavitch oversees on behalf of the Committee. According to Kosnov, the animosity between the two men went back many years to when Bresnavitch sought to oust Kosnov from his job, in favor of Sturdevant. Prior to that time, Kosnov and Sturdevant had been friendly, with each one trusting the other to allow his agents to operate in the other's territory. However, with the pressure from Bresnavitch, Kosnov decided he had to do "something spectacular" to keep his job, so he betrayed Sturdevant's trust and captured his agents, employing a great deal of brutality and earning the lasting enmity of Sturdevant himself. Upon deducing that Bresnavitch had used Polyakov to fence stolen art works in Paris, Ward decides to go there in search of any possible leads. On the day of his return, the group's mission is destroyed when Potkin returns to the Soviet Union and informs Bresnavitch about the operation. Janis, B.A. and Ward are apprehended, while The Warlock commits suicide just before capture and Rone narrowly escapes. Rone tries visiting the Kitai to arrange re-purchase of the letter, but the Kitai responds by trying to kill him and Rone determines that the Chinese have possession of the letter. Rone then turns to Erika, with whom he has been having an affair while posing as a Russian gigolo named Yorgi. He hopes to get her to inquire with her husband about the condition of those captured. She informs him that Kosnov participated in no such capture, and Rone realizes that Bresnavitch quietly orchestrated the raid without the knowledge of Soviet counter-intelligence, a clear indicator that he was Polyakov's traitorous high-level Soviet official contact. Rone's questions reveal to Erika his true