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name, Smit. I am Lebedev.” With a polite inclination of his hand, Lebedev, a short, thick-set man in a bulky overcoat, led the way. They paused at the entrance to a long gallery for a quick inspection by the Russian, then sauntered in, passing an aged custodian, who after one brief glance resumed his contemplation of the infinite.
    “I often wonder what they think about, day after day. There is remarkably little interest in early Islamic pottery.” He stopped beside a glass case, through which they had a commanding view of the empty gallery.
    “First,” Lebedev spoke softly, “it has been agreed that you tell me of the F-4, then I give you the — er — lowdown on our Ilyushin, yes? One moment — ” He fumbled in an inside pocket. “My recorder … ” His tone changed. “Case ICARUS” — he smiled slightly at Arcasso’s expression — “Statement by U.S. official Smit.” He raised an eloquent eyebrow.
    As Arcasso talked, the Russian’s mouth hardened. The account completed, he moved slowly to another display, hands deep in his overcoat pockets, thinking.
    “You permit one or two questions, Mr. Smit?” His chief interest lay in the time relation of the disappearance and reappearance on radar and radio contact. Other questions about the fuel state and the fatal stall revealed he had a considerable knowledge of the F-4. Switching off his recorder, he confirmed Arcasso’s hunch. “I have not, of course, anything like your experience, Mr. Smit, but I have some hours in a F-4. It is a fine machine: I feel your pilot must have been, how you say, out of his mind.”
    “I told you the inquiry found the accident due to his error,” said Frank shortly.
    “I do not mean to be offensive,” replied Lebedev soothingly. “Your aviators are superbly trained, the plane handles well and this man had combat experience, and yet — ” He shrugged. “One wonders if he was injured.”
    “As I said, he reported only a compass failure. I don’t think he was injured — he was scared, confused. The bodies were too badly mutilated to reveal anything.”
    “Yes.” They moved on; the gallery was still empty. “Now if you are ready, I talk.”
    The aircraft, he said, an old feeder-line machine hauling freight, had been lost in March, 1976. It returned in mid-January, 1977, suddenly appearing over the Arctic Ocean west of Novaya Zemla, height three thousand meters heading east. Intercepting fighters escorted it to Vorkuta, where it landed safely. Here Lebedev gave his view of the difference in pilot reaction. Because of the higher latitude at appearance — and roughly at the same time of day on the same base course — the Soviet pilot did not; have the traumatic experience of the sun’s relocation. And he was not alone on the flight deck; he had a copilot, could see and touch another human. The American flyer had faced a much more urgent situation, alone in his cockpit, his observer only a voice.
    He resumed his narrative. The crew was promptly detained by the KGB for interrogation — he made no bones about that; they were still in custody. Although both had been questioned repeatedly, nothing of substance had been discovered. The pilot’s only contribution of possible significance concerned the quality of light: he had had an “impression” that for a fraction of a second, about two hours into the flight, the sky had seemed to darken. Until questioned he had given it no thought, for within seconds he had realized the plane was ten degrees off course, and about five hundred meters above the current flight level. Startled, he had immediately cut out the auto, assumed manual control, and corrected course and level. It didn’t make much sense, but he could only conclude he had dozed off and there had been a malfunction in the autopilot — what else?
    The second pilot had nothing to offer, admitting he had had his eyes shut at the vital moment. Neither had observed anything remarkable outside the plane: unbroken cloud