“You don’t have visas. What makes you think they’ll let you off the plane?” Arkady asked.

Stas said, “You think any reporter here has a proper visa? Irina and I have American passports. We’ll see what happens when we get there. This is the biggest story of our lives. How could we pass it up?”

“Coup or no coup, you’re on a list of state criminals. So is she. You could be arrested.”

“You’re going,” Stas said.

“I’m Russian.”

Though Irina’s voice was soft, it possessed finality. “We want to go.”

Germany stretched below, not the straight roads and quilted farms of the West, but narrower, more winding lanes and shabbier fields the farther east they flew.

Irina rested on Arkady’s shoulder. The feel of her hair cushioned against his cheek was so normal it was overpowering, as if he were briefly traveling through an alternative life he had missed. He never wanted to come down.

Stas talked nervously, like a radio at low volume. “Historically, revolutions kill the people at the top. And usually Russians overdo it. The Bolsheviks killed the ruling class and then Stalin killed the original Bolsheviks. But this time the only difference between Gorby’s government and the coup is that Gorby isn’t in it. Did you hear the complete statement of the Emergency Committee? They’re seizing power to protect the people from, among other things, ‘sex, violence and glaring immorality.’ Meanwhile, troops keep moving into Moscow and people are erecting barricades to protect the White House.”

The White House was the Russian Parliament building on the river at the Red Presnya embankment. Presnya was an ancient neighborhood given the honorific “Red” for building barricades against the czar.

Stas said, “That won’t stop tanks. What happened in Vilnius and Tbilisi were rehearsals. They’ll wait until night. First they’ll send in Internal troops with nerve gas and water cannons to disperse the crowd, and then KGB troops will storm the building. The Moscow commandant has printed three hundred thousand arrest forms, but the Committee doesn’t want to use them. They expect people to see the tanks and slink away.”

Irina asked, “What if Pavlov rang a bell and his dogs ignored him? They’d change history.”

“I’ll tell you what else is strange,” Stas said. “This is the longest I’ve ever seen so many journalists stay sober.”

Poland spread as dark as an ocean floor.

Food carts blocked the aisles. Cigarette smoke circulated along with theories. The army was moving already, to offer the world a fait accompli. The army would wait until dark to carry out its attack so that there would be fewer photographs. The Committee had the generals. The democrats had the Afghan vets. No one knew which way the young officers just back from Germany would lean.