“The Soviet Union has a contingency plan to invade Western Europe with a force called the Second Strategic Echelon. Most of the Red Army tanks and personnel carriers headed for West Germany, France, Holland, and Belgium will pass through Poland on their way. The United States will use nuclear bombs to try to destroy those forces before they reach the West—that is, while they are still crossing Poland. We estimate that four hundred to six hundred nuclear weapons will be exploded in our country. There will be nothing left but a nuclear wasteland. Poland will have disappeared. If we cooperate in the planning of this event, how can we not be traitors?”

Tanya shuddered. It was a nightmare scenario—but terrifyingly logical.

“America is not the enemy of the Polish people,” said Staz. “If the USSR and the USA go to war in Europe, we should side with the Americans, and liberate ourselves from the tyranny of Moscow.”

Was he just blowing off steam, or something more? Tanya said carefully: “Is it just you who thinks like this, Staz?”

“Certainly not. Most officers my age feel the same. They pay lip service to Communism, but if you talk to them when they’re drunk you’ll hear another story.”

“In that case, you have a problem,” she said. “By the time the war begins, it will be too late for you to win the trust of the Americans.”

“This is our dilemma.”

“The solution is obvious. You have to open a channel of communication now.”

He gave her a cool look. The thought crossed her mind that he might be an agent provocateur, assigned to provoke her into subversive remarks so that she could be arrested. But she could not imagine that a faker would be such a good lover.

Staz said: “Are we just talking, now, or are we having a serious discussion?”

Tanya took a breath. “I’m as serious as life and death,” she said.

“Do you really think it could be done?”

“I know it,” she said emphatically. She had been engaging in clandestine subversion for two decades. “It’s the easiest thing in the world—but keeping it secret, and getting away with it, is more difficult. You would have to exercise the most extreme caution.”

“Do you think I should do it?”

“Yes!” she said passionately. “I don’t want another generation of Soviet children—or Polish children—to grow up under this stifling tyranny.”

He nodded. “I can tell that you really mean it.”

“I do.”

“Will you help me?”

“Of course I will.”

• • •

Cameron Dewar was not sure he would make a good spy. The undercover stuff he had done for President Nixon had been amateurish, and he was lucky not to have gone to jail with his boss, John Ehrlichman. When he joined the CIA he had been trained in the tradecraft of dead drops and brush passes, but he had never actually used such tricks. After six years at CIA headquarters in Langley he had at last been posted to a foreign capital, but he still had not done clandestine work.