Dimka returned to his own office in a reflective mood. Gorbachev had surprised him twice: first by being unexpectedly hostile to Németh’s reforms, and second by offering no real resistance to them.

Would the Hungarians abandon the fence? It was an essential part of the Iron Curtain. If suddenly people were allowed to walk over the border and into the West, that could be a change even more momentous than free elections.

But Filipov and the conservatives had not yet surrendered. They were on the alert for the least sign of weakness in Gorbachev. Dimka did not doubt that they had contingency plans for a coup.

He was looking thoughtfully at the large revolutionary picture on his office wall when Natalya called. “You know what a Lance missile is, don’t you?” she said without preamble.

“A short-range surface-to-surface tactical nuclear weapon,” he replied. “The Americans have about seven hundred in Germany. Fortunately their range is only about seventy-five miles.”

“Not any longer,” she said. “President Bush wants to upgrade them. The new ones will fly two hundred eighty miles.”

“Hell.” This was what Dimka feared and Filipov had predicted. “But this is illogical. It’s not that long ago that Reagan and Gorbachev withdrew intermediate-range ballistic missiles.”

“Bush thinks Reagan went too far with disarmament.”

“How definite is this plan?”

“Bush has surrounded himself with Cold War hawks, according to the KGB station in Washington. Defense Secretary Cheney is gung ho. So is Scowcroft.” Brent Scowcroft was the national security adviser. “And there’s a woman called Condoleezza Rice who is just as bad.”

Dimka despaired. “Filipov is going to say: ‘I told you so.’”

“Filipov and others. It’s a dangerous development for Gorbachev.”

“What’s the Americans’ timetable?”

“They’re going to put pressure on the West Europeans at the NATO meeting in May.”

“Shit,” said Dimka. “Now we’re in trouble.”

• • •

Rebecca Held was at her apartment in Hamburg, late in the evening, working, with papers spread over the round table in the kitchen. On the counter were a dirty coffee cup and a plate with the crumbs of the ham sandwich she had eaten for supper. She had taken off her smart working clothes, removed her makeup, showered, and put on baggy old underwear and an ancient silk wrap.

She was preparing for her first visit to the United States. She was going with her boss, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, who was vice chancellor of Germany, foreign minister, and head of the Free Democratic Party, to which she belonged. Their mission was to explain to the Americans why they did not want any more nuclear weapons. The Soviet Union was becoming less threatening under Gorbachev. Upgraded nukes were not merely unnecessary: they might actually be counterproductive, undermining Gorbachev’s peace moves and strengthening the hand of hawks in Moscow.

She was reading a German intelligence appraisal of the power struggle in the Kremlin when the doorbell rang.

She looked at her watch. It was half past nine. She was not expecting a visitor and she certainly was not dressed to receive one. However, it was probably a neighbor in the same building on some trivial errand, needing to borrow a carton of milk.