Page 341 of Edge of Eternity (The Century 3)

"Yes."

"Tonight?"

"Soon."

"What are you scared of?"

"I'm not frightened for myself," she said. "I don't care what he does to me." Dimka winced, remembering her split lip. "It's you I'm worried about," she went on. "Remember the tape recorder man."

Dimka remembered. The black market trader who had cheated Natalya had been so badly beaten that he ended up in hospital. Natalya's implication was that the same might happen to Dimka if she asked Nik for a divorce.

Dimka did not believe this. "I'm not some lowlife criminal, I'm right-hand man to the premier. Nik can't touch me." He was 99 percent sure of this.

"I don't know," Natalya said unhappily. "Nik has high-up contacts too."

Dimka spoke more quietly. "Do you still have sex with him?"

"Not often. He has other girls."

"Do you enjoy it?"

"No!"

"Does he?"

"Not much."

"Then what's the problem?"

"His pride. He'll be angry to think I could prefer another man."

"I'm not afraid of his anger."

"I am. But I will talk to him. I promise."

"Thank you." Dimka lowered his voice to a whisper. "I love you."

"I love you, too."

Dimka returned to his office and summarized the aides' meeting for his boss, Alexei Kosygin.

"I don't believe the KGB, either," Kosygin said. "Andropov wants to suppress Dubcek's reforms, and he's fabricating evidence to support that move." Yuri Andropov was the new head of the KGB, and a fanatical hard-liner. Kosygin went on: "But I need reliable intelligence from Czechoslovakia. If the KGB is untrustworthy, who can I turn to?"

"Send my sister there," said Dimka. "She's a reporter for TASS. In the Cuban missile crisis she sent Khrushchev superb intelligence from Havana via the Red Army telegraph. She can do the same for you from Prague.

"Good idea," said Kosygin. "Organize it, will you?"

*

Dimka did not see Natalya the next day, but the day after that she phoned just as he was leaving the office at seven.

"Did you talk to Nik?" he asked her.

"Not yet." Before Dimka could express his disappointment she went on: "But something else happened. Filipov came to see him."

"Filipov?" Dimka was astonished. "What does a Defense Ministry official want with your husband?"

"Mischief. I think he told Nik about you and me."

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