This novel is based on a story related in the course of an interview conducted for a national Irish radio (RTE) programme in 1984 with the putative leader of the Estonian Resistance during World War II. The man interviewed died about two years later, leaving me a manuscript purporting to be the complete story. Further research, however, opened up quite a different perspective from which a former lieutenant began to emerge as the main protagonist. If his story could be verified, which seemed impossible, it would connect him with one of the great thefts of ancient art perpetrated during World War II. It would also connect him with an international incident that severely strained relations between the Russian authorities and Germany in 1993 when a number of these stolen items were displayed in Moscow's Pushkin Museum.