Chapter 1
Applause shot around the conference chamber like the cannonade of a victorious commander, reaching high into the rafters where cameras whirred and the cheers echoed. Down below, the man who had launched the barrage stood at the podium unmoved by the wave of devotion which threatened to engulf him. An ignorant observer might scratch their head and ponder how this man could inspire such praise; he was not after all what one would call a typical politician of the modern age.
His suit, though tastefully elegant, hung crumpled over slightly stooped shoulders, and his large, once powerful hands gripped the lectern as much for balance as to add dramatic pose to his oratory. He was an old man, closer to his eighties than he had ever thought he would be, and did not belong to the photogenic, rent-a-smile band of pseudo-celebrities that comprised today’s political elite. But this was Prague and this man was a hero.
More than a hero in fact; Herbert Biely was a legend. A legend of Prague’s glorious Spring of 1968, that beautiful time when Alexander Dubček captured the hearts of the Czechoslovak people with his policies of liberal reform. Herbert had stood side-by-side with Dubček then as a youthful and impetuous reformer.
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