“Last night? Only hours after Kosygin arrived in Hanoi? That’s no coincidence. Where?”

“A place called Pleiku. Eight Americans were killed and a hundred or so wounded. And they destroyed ten U.S. aircraft on the ground.”

“How many Vietcong casualties?”

“Only one body was left behind in the compound.”

Dimka shook his head in amazement. “You’ve got to give it to the Vietnamese, they’re terrific fighters.”

“The Vietcong are. The South Vietnamese army is hopeless. That’s why they need the Americans to fight for them.”

Dimka frowned. “Isn’t there some American big shot in South Vietnam right now?”

“McGeorge Bundy, national security adviser, one of the worst of the capitalist-imperialist warmongers.”

“He’ll be on the phone to President Johnson right now.”

“Yes,” said Natalya. “I wonder what he’s saying.”

She had her answer later the same day.

American planes from the aircraft carrier USS Ranger bombed an army camp called Dong Hoi on the coast of North Vietnam. It was the first time the Americans had bombed the north, and began a new phase in the conflict.

Dimka watched in despair as Kosygin’s position crumbled, bit by bit, during the course of the day.

After the bombing, American aggression was condemned by Communist and nonaligned countries around the world.

Third World leaders now expected Moscow to come to the aid of Vietnam, a Communist country being directly attacked by American imperialism.

Kosygin did not want to escalate the Vietnam War, and the Kremlin could not afford to give massive military aid to Ho Chi Minh, but that was exactly what they now did.

They had no choice. If they drew back the Chinese would step in, eager to supplant the USSR as the mighty friend of small Communist countries. The position of the Soviet Union as defender of world Communism was now at stake, and everyone knew it.

All talk of peaceful coexistence was forgotten.

Dimka and Natalya were thrown into gloom, as was the entire Soviet delegation. Their negotiating position with the Vietnamese was fatally undermined. Kosygin had no cards to play: he had to grant everything Ho Chi Minh asked for.

They remained in Hanoi three more days. Dimka and Natalya made love all night, but during the daytime all they did was make detailed notes of Pham An’s shopping list. Even before they left, a consignment of Soviet surface-to-air missiles was on its way.

Dimka and Natalya sat together on the plane home. Dimka dozed, delightfully recalling four humid nights of love under a lazy ceiling fan.

“What are you smiling about?” Natalya said.

He opened his eyes. “You know.”

She giggled. “Apart from that . . .”

“What?”

“When you review this trip in your mind, don’t you get a feeling . . . ?”

“That we were totally managed and exploited? Yes, from the first day.”

“In fact, that Ho Chi Minh deftly manipulated the two most powerful countries in the world, and ended up getting everything he wanted.”

“Yes,” said Dimka. “That’s exactly the feeling I get.”