'They're cutting it fine.' The West German delegates were due in Warsaw on the 23rd. Today was the 6th.

'I'd put it a different way. They're completing their preparations.'

'You said it was «known». So what chance have they got?'

On the defensive again he said quickly — 'It's one thing for the authorities to know of widespread dissension, and another thing to stop it exploding in their face. They've withdrawn the lenient measures designed to keep people calm while the talks are on — they're trying the other tack now. Stronger discipline, heavy sentences, suppressive control of private life.' In the clear eyes behind the glasses burned the zeal of the convert. 'And that won't work either.'

I got up and looked at the Queen's rather Mona Lisa smile as a change from looking at Merrick's face shining with its second-hand ideals. Correction: they weren't second-hand, no. They were superimposed on someone else's. If the Poles ever got free, something was going to get free inside Merrick.

'If it doesn't work,' I told him over my shoulder, 'then Moscow will find something that will. Didn't you say you were in Prague, for God's sake?'

'This is different' I heard him get up and start wandering about. 'There are the talks, this time. Moscow wants them to succeed. I expect you've read — '

'It doesn't matter what I've read.'

I could hear him pumping the damned thing again. Then he swallowed and said: 'Well, that's why there's a brink. The Action's been planned for three days before the opening of the talks, and if Moscow orders tanks into the city there won't be any talks. Russia's been trying to make the world forget Prague ever since it happened, and she'll remind us in a big way if she does it again; but if she doesn't resort to armed force this time it'll mean a new government, overnight. Whichever way she moves, she'll lose.'