From his jacket pocket he took out a glass vial filled with small, uneven-shaped dirty white crystals—pure methamphetamines, a narcotic much favored by the Nazis. He’d been introduced to it while fighting on the eastern front as his country’s army had pushed the invaders back, absorbing prisoners of war and also some of their habits. There had been operations where Leo couldn’t afford to rest. This was one of them. Now prescribed to him by the MGB doctors, he’d used it repeatedly since the war, whenever a mission needed to run all night. Its usefulness couldn’t be underestimated. But its price
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