times make the men. Your own American Revolutionis probably better known to you. Look at the men those times produced.Jefferson, Paine, Madison, Hamilton, Franklin, Adams. And once again, ifyou had told any of those men, a year before the Declaration ofIndependence, that a complete revolution was the only solution to theproblems that confronted them, they would probably have thought youinsane."
It was a new line of thought for Paul Koslov. "Then what does cause arevolution?"
"The need for it. It's not just our few tens of thousands of members ofthe underground who see the need for overthrowing the Sovietbureaucracy. It's millions of average Russians in every walk of life andevery strata, from top to bottom. What does the scientist think whensome bureaucrat knowing nothing of his speciality comes into thelaboratory and directs his work? What does the engineer in an automobileplant think when some silly politician decides that since cars incapitalist countries have four wheels, that Russia should surpass themby producing a car with five? What does your scholar think when he istold what to study, how to interpret it, and then what to write? Whatdoes your worker think when he sees the bureaucrat living in luxurywhile his wage is a comparatively meager one? What do your young peoplethink in their continual striving for a greater degree of freedom thanwas possessed by their parents? What does your painter think? Your poet?Your philosopher?"
Shvernik shook his head. "When a nation is ready for revolution, it'sthe _people_ who put it over. Often, the so-called leaders are hard putto run fast enough to say out in front."
* * * * *
Paul said, "After it's all over, we'll go back to the States. I know atown up in the Sierras called Grass Valley. Hunting, fishing, mountains,clean air, but still available to cities such as San Francisco where youcan go for shopping and for restaurants and entertainment."
She kissed him again.
Paul said, "You know, I've done this sort of work--never on this scalebefore, of course--ever since I was nineteen. Nineteen, mind you! Andthis is the first time I've realized I'm tired of it. Fed up to here.I'm nearly thirty-five, Ana, and for the first time I want what a man isexpected to want out of life. A woman, a home, children. You've neverseen America. You'll love it. You'll like Americans too, especially thekind that live in places like Grass Valley."
Ana laughed softly. "But we're Russians, Paul."
"Eh?"
"Our home and our life should be here. In Russia. The New Russia thatwe'll have shortly."
He scoffed at her. "Live here when there's California? Ana, Ana, youdon't know what living is. Why--"
"But, Paul, I'm a Russian. If the United States is a more pleasant placeto live than Russia will be, when we have ended the police state, thenit is part of my duty to improve Russia."
It suddenly came to him that she meant it. "But I was thinking, allalong, that after this was over we'd be married. I'd be able to show you_my_ country."
"And, I don't know why, I was thinking we both expected to be making alife for ourselves here."
They were silent for a long time in mutual misery.
Paul said finally, "This is no time to make detailed plans. We love eachother, that should be enough. When it's all over, we'll have the chanceto look over each other's way of life. You can visit the States withme."
"And I'll take you on a visit to Armenia. I know a little town in themountains there which is the most beautiful in the world. We'll spend aweek there. A month! Perhaps one day we can build a summer dacha there."She laughed happily. "Why practically everyone lives to be a hundredyears old in Armenia."
"Yeah, we'll have to go there sometime," Paul said quietly.
* * * * *
He'd been scheduled to see Leonid that night but at the last moment theother sent Ana to report that an important meeting was to take place. Ameeting of underground delegates from all over the country. They weremaking basic decisions on when to move--but Paul's presence wasn'tneeded.
He had no feeling of being excluded from something that concerned him.Long ago it had been decided that the less details known by the averageman in the movement about Paul's activities, the better it would be.There is always betrayal and there are always counter-revolutionaryagents within the ranks of an organization such as this. What was theold Russian proverb? When four men sit down to discuss revolution, threeare police spies and the third a fool.
Actually, this had been astonishingly well handled. He had operated forover a year with no signs that the KGB was aware of his activities.Leonid and his fellows were efficient. They had to be. The Commies hadbeen slaughtering anyone who opposed them for forty years now. Tosurvive as a Russian underground you had to be good.
No, it wasn't a feeling of exclusion. Paul Koslov was stretched out onthe bed of his king-size Astoria Hotel room, his hands behind his headand staring up at the ceiling. He recapitulated the events of the pastmonths from the time he'd entered the Chief's office in Washington untillast night at the dacha with Leonid and Ana.
The whole thing.
And over and over again.
There was a line of worry on his forehead.
He swung his feet to the floor and approached the closet. He selectedhis most poorly pressed pair of pants, and a coat that mismatched it. Hechecked the charge in his .38 Noiseless, and replaced the weapon underhis left arm. He removed his partial bridge, remembering as he did sohow he had lost the teeth in a street fight with some Commie unionorganizers in Panama, and replaced the porcelain bridge with a typicallyRussian gleaming steel one. He stuffed a cap into his back pocket, apair of steel rimmed glasses into an inner pocket, and left the room.
He hurried through the lobby, past the Intourist desk, thankful that itwas a slow time of day for tourist activity.
Outside, he walked several blocks to 25th of October Avenue and made apoint of losing himself in the crowd. When he was sure that there couldbe no one behind him, he entered a _pivnaya_, had a glass of beer, andthen disappeared into the toilet. There he took off the coat, wrinkledit a bit more, put it back on and also donned the cap and glasses. Heremoved his tie and thrust it into a side pocket.
He left, in appearance a more or less average workingman of Leningrad,walked to the bus station on Nashimson Volodarski and waited for thenext bus to Petrodvorets. He would have preferred the subway, but theline didn't run that far as yet.
The bus took him to within a mile and a half of the dacha, and he walkedfrom there.
By this time Paul was familiar with the security measures taken byLeonid Shvernik and the others. None at all when the dacha wasn't in usefor a conference or to hide someone on the lam from the KGB. But at atime like this, there would be three sentries, carefully spotted.
This was Paul's field now. Since the age of nineteen, he told himselfwryly. He wondered if there was anyone in the world who could go througha line of sentries as efficiently as he could.
He approached the dacha at the point where the line of pine trees camenearest to it. On his belly he watched for ten minutes before making thefinal move to the side of the house. He lay up against it, under a bush.
From an inner pocket he brought the spy device he had acquired fromDerek Steven's Rube Goldberg department. It looked and was supposed tolook considerably like a doctor's stethoscope. He placed it to his ears,pressed the other end to the wall of the house.
Leonid Shvernik was saying, "Becoming killers isn't a pleasant prospectbut it was the Soviet who taught us that the end justifies the means.And so ruthless a dictatorship have they established that there isliterally no alternative. The only way to remove them is by violence.Happily, so we believe, the violence need extend to only a small numberof the very highest of the hierarchy. Once they are eliminated and ourtransmitters proclaim the new revolution, there should be little furtheropposition."
Someone sighed deeply--Paul was able to pick up even that.
"Why discuss it further?" somebody whose voice Paul didn't recognize,asked. "Let's get onto other things. These broad
casts of ours have to bethe ultimate in the presentation of our program. The assassination ofNumber One and his immediate supporters is going to react unfavorably atfirst. We're going to have to present unanswerable arguments if ourmovement is to sweep the nation as we plan."
A new voice injected, "We've put the best writers in the Soviet Union towork on the scripts. For all practical purposes they are completed."
"We haven't yet decided what to say about the H-Bomb, the missiles, allthe endless equipment of war that has accumulated under the Soviets, notto speak of the armies, the ships, the aircraft and all the personnelwho man them."
Someone else, it sounded like Nikolai Kirichenko, from Moscow, said."I'm chairman of