Jasper had to stop himself saying Jesus Christ!

He was on a roll, and it was time for the big one. “Might the Soviets intervene to stop these changes, as they did in 1956?”

Németh gave him the look for the third time. “Gorbachev has taken the lid off a boiling pot,” he said, slowly and distinctly. Then he added: “The steam may be painful, but change is irreversible.”

And Jasper knew he had his first great story from Europe.

• • •

A few days later he watched a videotape of his report as it had appeared on American television. Rebecca sat beside him, a poised, confident woman in her fifties, friendly but with an air of authority. “Yes, I think Németh means every word,” she said in answer to Jasper’s question.

Jasper had ended the report speaking to camera in front of the parliament building, with snowflakes landing in his hair. “The ground is frozen hard here in this Eastern European country,” he said on the screen. “But, as always, the seeds of spring are stirring underground. Clearly the Hungarian people want change. But will their Moscow overlords permit it? Miklós Németh believes there is a new mood of tolerance in the Kremlin. Only time will tell whether he is right.”

That had been Jasper’s sign-off, but now to his surprise he saw that another clip had been added to his piece. A spokesman for James Baker, secretary of state to newly inaugurated President George H. W. Bush, spoke to an invisible interviewer. “Signs of softening in Communist attitudes are not to be trusted,” the spokesman said. “The Soviets are attempting to lull the United States into a false sense of security. There is no reason to doubt the Kremlin’s willingness to intervene in Eastern Europe the minute they feel threatened. The urgent necessity now is to underscore the credibility of NATO’s nuclear deterrent.”

“Good God,” said Rebecca. “What planet are they on?”

• • •

Tanya Dvorkin returned to Warsaw in February 1989.

She was sorry to leave Vasili on his own in Moscow, mainly because she would miss him, but also because she still nursed a faint anxiety that he would fill the apartment with nubile teenagers. She did not really believe it would happen. Those days were over. All the same the worry nagged at her a little.

However, Warsaw was a great assignment. Poland was in a ferment. Solidarity had somehow risen from its grave. Amazingly, General Jaruzelski—the dictator who had cracked down on freedom only seven years previously, breaking every promise and stamping on the independent trade union—had in desperation agreed to round-table talks with opposition groups.

In Tanya’s opinion, Jaruzelski had not changed—the Kremlin had. Jaruzelski was the same old tyrant, but he was no longer confident of Soviet support. According to Dimka, Jaruzelski had been told that Poland must solve its own problems, without help from Moscow. When Mikhail Gorbachev first said this, Jaruzelski had not believed it. None of the East European leaders had. But that had been three years ago, and at last the message was beginning to sink in.