That was exactly what Cam thought, but he denied it. “It has nothing to do with Staz. I’m not willing to give her up for no reason.”

“I may have to fire you.”

“I still won’t give her up. In fact—” Cam hesitated. The words that came into his mind were not what he had planned. But he said them anyway. “In fact, I’m hoping to marry her.”

Keith changed his tone. “Cam,” he said, “she may not be an agent of the SB, but she could still have an ulterior motive for sleeping with you.”

Cam bristled. “If it’s nothing to do with intelligence, it’s nothing to do with you.”

Keith persisted, speaking gently, as if trying not to hurt Cam’s feelings. “A lot of Polish girls would like to go to America, you know that.”

Cam did know that. The thought had occurred to him long ago. He felt embarrassed and humiliated that Keith should say it. He kept his face wooden. “I know,” he said.

“Forgive me for saying it, but she could be deceiving you for that reason,” Keith said. “Have you considered that possibility?”

“Yes, I’ve considered it,” said Cam. “And I don’t care.”

• • •

In Moscow, the big question was whether to invade Poland.

The day before the Politburo debate, Dimka and Natalya clashed with Yevgeny Filipov at a preparatory meeting in the Nina Onilova Room. Filipov said: “Our Polish comrades require military assistance urgently, to resist the attacks of traitors in the employ of the capitalist-imperialist powers.”

Natalya said: “You want an invasion, as in Czechoslovakia in 1968 and Hungary in 1956.”

Filipov did not deny it. “The Soviet Union has the right to invade any country when the interests of Communism are under threat. That’s the Brezhnev Doctrine.”

Dimka said: “I’m against military action.”

“There’s a surprise,” said Filipov sarcastically.

Dimka ignored that. “In both Hungary and Czechoslovakia, the counterrevolution was led by revisionist elements within the Communist Party ruling cadres,” he said. “It was therefore possible to remove them, like chopping the head off a chicken. They had little popular support.”

“Why should this crisis be different?”

“Because in Poland the counterrevolutionaries are working-class leaders with working-class backing. Lech Wałesa is an electrician. Anna Walentynowicz is a crane driver. And hundreds of factories are on strike. We’re dealing with a mass movement.”

“We have to crush it all the same. Are you seriously suggesting that we abandon Polish Communism?”

“There’s another problem,” Natalya put in. “Money. Back in 1968 the Soviet bloc did not owe billions of dollars in foreign debt. Today we are totally dependent on loans from the West. You heard what President Carter said in Warsaw. Credit from the West is linked to human rights.”

“So . . . ?”

“If we send the tanks into Poland, they will withdraw our line of credit. So, Comrade Filipov, your invasion will ruin the economy of the entire Soviet bloc.”

There was a silence in the room.

Dimka said: “Does anyone have any other suggestions?”