"What?"
She laughed. "Don't be so blank. It would be rather odd, wouldn't it, if two people were in love, and neither of them realized what had happened?"
"Two people in love," he said blankly, unbelievingly.
Leonid Shvernik and Paul Koslov were bent over a map of the U.S.S.R. The former pointed out the approximate location of the radio transmitters. "We're not going to use them until the last moment," he said. "Not until the fat is in the fire. Then they will all begin at once. The KGB and MVD won't have time to knock them out."
Paul said, "Things are moving fast. Faster than I had expected. We're putting it over, Leonid."
Shvernik said, "Only because the situation is ripe. It's the way revolutions work."
"How do you mean?" Paul said absently, studying the map.
"Individuals don't put over revolutions. The times do, the conditions apply. Did you know that six months before the Bolshevik revolution took place Lenin wrote that he never expected to live to see the Communist take over in Russia? The thing was that the conditions were there. The Bolsheviks, as few as they were, were practically thrown into power."
"However," Paul said dryly, "it was mighty helpful to have such men as Lenin and Trotsky handy."