Grimly, Coppersmith said, "I'm asking you."
"My mission was intelligence. I fulfilled it to the limit of staying alive. When I had to choose between shutting up and living, or talking and dying, I shut up. That was what I was told to do."
"Suppose you were given the most dangerous job in the world?"
Unexpectedly, the major laughed, "I've had it, sir."
Coppersmith joined in the laughter; Sarah heard a dubious note to it. Coppersmith said, "I need information, but I want — even more than that — for the enemy to know that I have the information."
"Who is the enemy, sir?" The strange major spoke with what sounded like innocent candor. Sarah wished she could see his smiling, unreadable face when he said it; and the general's expression, sure to be formidable, must have been odd, too.
Coppersmith must have kept a straight face because he answered very simply, "Russia. But I should have said potential enemy, Major."
"Yes, sir, you should have."
Again there was a long silence. Sarah turned a page in her notebook.
Coppersmith spoke again. "I'm going to have to trust you, Major Dugan, with the biggest secret in the world."