The Warsaw Pact leaders met in a large room with flag-draped tables arranged in a rectangle. As always, aides such as Dimka and Natalya sat around the edges of the room. Honecker was the driving force, but Ceausescu led the charge. He stood up from his seat next to Gorbachev and began to attack the reformist policies of the Hungarian government. He was a small, bent man with bushy eyebrows and wild eyes. Although he was talking to a few dozen people in a conference room, he shouted and gesticulated as if addressing thousands in a stadium. His twisted lips spat as he ranted. He made no bones about what he wanted: a repeat of 1956. He called for a Warsaw Pact invasion of Hungary to oust Miklós Németh and return the country to orthodox Communist Party rule.

Dimka looked around the room. Honecker was nodding. Czech hard man Miloš Jakeš wore an expression of approval. Bulgaria’s Todor Zhivkov clearly agreed. Only Poland’s leader, General Jaruzelski, sat unmoving and expressionless, perhaps humbled by his election defeat.

All these men were brutal tyrants, torturers, and mass murderers. Stalin had not been exceptional, he had been typical of Communist leaders. Any political system that allowed such people to rule was evil, Dimka reflected. Why did it take us all so long to figure that out?

But Dimka, like most of the people in the room, was watching Gorbachev.

The rhetoric no longer mattered. It was of no consequence who was right and who was wrong. No one in the room had the power to do anything without the consent of the man with the port-wine stain on his bald head.

Dimka thought he knew what Gorbachev was going to do. But he could never be sure. Gorbachev was divided, like the empire he ruled, between conservative and reformist tendencies. No speeches were likely to change his mind. Most of the time he just looked bored.

Ceausescu’s voice rose almost to a scream. At that moment Gorbachev caught the eye of Miklós Németh. The Russian gave the Hungarian a slight smile as Ceausescu sputtered saliva and vituperation.

Then, to Dimka’s utter astonishment, Gorbachev winked.

Gorbachev held the smile a second longer, then looked away and resumed his bored expression.

• • •

Maria managed to avoid Jasper Murray almost until the end of President Bush’s European visit.

She had never met Jasper. She knew what he looked like: she had seen him on television, as everyone had. He was taller in real life, that was all. Over the years she had been the secret source of some of his best stories, but he did not know that. He only met George Jakes, the intermediary. They were careful. It was why they had never been found out.

She knew the whole story of Jasper’s being fired from This Day. The White House had put pressure on Frank Lindeman, the owner of the network. That was how a star reporter came to be exiled. Although with the turmoil in Eastern Europe, plus Jasper’s nose for a good story, the assignment had turned out to be a hot one.