Cauldron

by Larry Bond

  Still groggy, Hradetsky pushed himself up off the pavement, fighting to stop the world spinning around him. Each breath stabbed his side as sharp as any dagger. A broken rib, or maybe just badly bruised, he thought clinically — amazed at the mind’s ability to stay detached under stress.

  “They have Kusin!” The panicked, sorrowing cry tore through both his pain and his adrenaline-enforced calm. He opened his eyes wide.

  Those few Frenchmen still able to walk or ran were falling back. But they weren’t alone. They had a small number of captives with them. Most were opposition leaders who had been wearing the placards proclaiming their status as wanted men. Two plainclothes agents were dragging the lean, white-haired opposition leader between them. Kusin’s head lolled, rolling from side to side, as his captors hurried away, staggering under their burden. He was either dead or unconscious.

  Hradetsky’s long-suppressed rage exploded, burning white-hot. He stood up straight, balancing precariously on wobbly legs for a moment. First one breath and then another cleaned the worst of the pain out of his lungs. He started running toward the retreating French. Others followed him.

  As they shoved and clubbed their way toward safety, Duroc’s men were forced to fight through an ever-thickening crowd. More and more Hungarians were swinging wide around the tiny phalanx of security agents to block their path and slow them down. The colonel saw his countrymen surrounding the Frenchmen linking arms, trying to form a barrier to movement. Wherever the two groups came in contact, they fought tooth and nail — clawing and tearing at each other in a mindless fury.

  Hradetsky was only meters away now, dodging through the ring surrounding Duroc’s men. Several of the Frenchmen raised their arms, frantically beckoning for help from the riot police waiting barely a block away. The Hungarian colonel could sense their growing desperation. Although their goal was in sight, they were now too weak and too few in number to reach it.

  One of Kiraly’s biggest men, a burly, bearlike ex-army sergeant, bulled his way deep into the French phalanx. He backhanded one of the men holding Kusin and reached for the other, shouting aloud in triumph.

  Hradetsky, just a few steps behind, saw everything that followed as though it happened in slow motion.

  Instead of backing away from his attacker or dropping Kusin, the Frenchman’s hand darted inside his windbreaker and reappeared holding a weapon. As the barrel cleared his jacket, he fired twice, pumping two rounds into the ex-sergeant’s chest. The big man flew backward, punched off his feet in a spray of blood.

  “Down! Down! Everybody down!” Hradetsky clawed for the pistol holstered at his side.

  Other Frenchmen, also sensing defeat, were pulling their own weapons. The colonel recognized them as German-made MP5K submachine guns — special, shortened variants designed to be carried concealed under clothing.

  Without warning they opened fire, carefully aiming into the crowd in front of them. They weren’t shooting to frighten. They were shooting to kill, deliberately clearing a path with bullets. People went down in droves under the hail of gunfire — either ripped open by 9mm rounds or throwing themselves prone behind the dead and dying to escape the slaughter.

  Hradetsky dropped to one knee, with his service automatic extended in his right hand and braced by his left. He aimed quickly at the security agent who had fired first, and squeezed off two shots. The first caught the Frenchman in the shoulder and spun him around. The second blew a red-rimmed hole in his forehead.

  The colonel searched rapidly for another target, cursing under his breath as panicked demonstrators stumbled into his line of fire. He swiveled back and forth, still holding his pistol braced. A clear space opened up in front of him. He had only a split second to decide. Should he fire at one of the men dragging Kusin toward the riot police? Or take out a Frenchman murdering his compatriots?

  One of Duroc’s men leveled his submachine gun and fired a series of walking bursts into the screaming men and women ahead of him. More people crumpled, cut down by bullets fired at point-blank range.

  Hradetsky squeezed off another shot. Blood spurted from the gunman’s back as he staggered and fell facedown onto the street.

  The dead man’s comrades were already on the move, stepping over bodies while they fired at anyone still standing ahead of them. Two turned and began shooting at the crowds pouring into Kodaly Circle from the Radial Avenue to hold them back.

  Bullets whipcracked through the air over Hradetsky’s head. He threw himself flat, taking cover behind one of the Frenchmen he had killed. High-pitched screams and low, muffled groans rose from the people behind him.

  He raised his head, risking a quick glance ahead. Duroc’s agents were close to safety — a line of helmeted riot troops, most of them ashen at the butchery they were seeing, and rows of trucks and armored cars waiting to carry them away. The Frenchmen were too far away for him to risk another shot. At this range, he could easily hit Kusin or one of the policemen by accident.

  Hradetsky wanted to roar in anger and frustration. They’d been beaten.

  In that instant, the universe turned upside down.

  * * *

  Captain Ferenc Miklos watched in stunned disbelief as the Frenchmen approached with their handful of battered and bruised prisoners. Did they really think he would shelter them after what he had seen? After watching them massacre his own people?

  He bit his lip hard enough to draw blood. Kodaly Circle looked like a slaughterhouse. The dead and wounded lay heaped where bullets or clubs had thrown them. He could hear a baby wailing inside a stroller lying on its side next to a young woman who stared up at the sky with open, unmoving eyes.

  The captain could also hear the outraged murmurs rising from the formed ranks of his own men. None of them had signed on for something like this. Nor had he. As a young police cadet, he’d sworn to uphold law and order, but whose law and which order? Those of Hungary? Or those of France and Germany? The laws that made a simple protest march illegal? Or those that made outright murder a crime?

  The French agents came closer, dragging or shoving their captives along at gunpoint. One of those in the lead, a tall, hard-faced man, arrogantly waved Miklos and his men out of the way with his snub-nosed submachine gun.

  Something snapped inside the short, black-haired police officer. He had to do something — even if that meant taking Kusin and the other opposition prisoners into his own custody. He stepped into the French security agent’s path. “Halt!”

  Miklos saw the taller man’s arrogance change to fear. He had only a second to feel satisfied by that before the Frenchman stuck the submachine gun in his stomach and pulled the trigger.

  The young Hungarian captain died a martyr without ever really deciding whose side he was on.

  Hradetsky scrambled to his feet before the echoes of the latest shots faded. Had Duroc’s men gone mad?

  Fifty meters ahead of him, the policemen stared from the group of French agents to their captain’s sprawled corpse and back again. Then they charged. More submachine guns stuttered, spreading chaos and carnage. Uniformed Hungarians went down, torn in half by concentrated bursts. But Frenchmen were falling, too, beaten to the ground by flailing nightsticks and Plexiglas shields.

  As Hradetsky sprinted toward the battle he could see other police units moving into the circle, closing in on the French. They were ignoring the demonstrators.

  The surviving agents were retreating, hobbling away from the trucks that were supposed to ferry them to safety. Instead, they were falling back toward a small, three-story stone office building overlooking Kodaly Circle. Still carrying Kusin, they disappeared inside.

  Several helmeted riot troopers followed them all the way to the door and then crumpled suddenly, mowed down by automatic weapons fire from inside. Other policemen close by scattered for cover behind the armored cars and trucks parked next to the building. Protesters raced to join them.

  Bent low to stay out of the line of fire, Hradetsky worked his way through the crouching me
n, looking for the highest-ranking officer he could find. He came face-to face with a major kneeling beside a badly wounded police corporal. “Are these your men?”

  The man looked up, staring at him with shocked and wild eyes. “Yes, they are, damn you!” Then he saw Hradetsky’s shoulder boards. “Sir.”

  “Will you obey my orders, Major?”

  The man’s eyes focused and slid down to the red, white, and green band over Hradetsky’s uniform jacket. He stiffened instinctively, then glanced down at the injured man gasping for air by his side. When the major looked up again, his expression had changed. It was harder and more determined. “Yes, Colonel, I will. And so will my men.”

  “Good.”

  “Colonel?”

  Hradetsky turned to see Oskar Kiraly limping toward him. The big, blond-haired man looked dazed and in tremendous pain. Blood streaked the side of his face, dripping from an open gash over one cheekbone.

  “Where is Kusin?”

  Hradetsky nodded toward the office building. “In there. The French have him.”

  “No! Oh, God.” Kiraly slammed his fist against the steel side of a truck. Tears mingled with the blood running down his face. “I failed him. I couldn’t stop them!”

  The colonel grabbed his wrist before he could pound the truck again. When Hradetsky spoke, he kept his voice low. “None of us could stop them. But this isn’t over. Not yet. Fall apart later, when it doesn’t matter. Right now we need you. So pull yourself together, man.” He released Kiraly’s wrist and turned away to give the big man time to recover his composure.

  Thousands of protesters were still flooding into the circle. Some were ministering to the wounded or staring in horror at the carnage. Most were streaming past on their way toward the city center and the government buildings there. They were angry now, ready for revenge against those responsible for the nightmarish scenes all around them.

  Members of Kiraly’s security team stood watchfully around small bands of riot police — shielding them from the mob. Others moved among the policemen handing out opposition armbands. What had been planned as a protest was rapidly becoming a full-scale rebellion. Hradetsky stood silent for a few moments, weighing the odds in their favor. Then he shrugged. There were times when you could control events, and there were others where events controlled you. The people were taking matters into their own hands. His job now was to make that as swift and sure and peaceful as possible.

  He glanced at the officer still waiting by his side. “I want you to get on your radio, Major. Get in touch with all major police and military commands throughout this city and tell them what’s happened here. Everything that has happened here! Understand?”

  The major nodded vigorously, obviously relieved to have orders he could follow with a clear conscience. He hurried away, heading for his command car.

  The colonel turned back to Kiraly. Though still somewhat dazed, the man looked calmer and more in control of his emotions. Good. “Oskar, I want you to take command here. Organize a force and surround those bastards in there.” He jerked a thumb toward the office building and ducked involuntarily as gunfire rattled somewhere not far off.

  “Should I attack them?”

  Hradetsky shook his head. “Not without more weapons. They’re too heavily armed.” As though to emphasize his point, more automatic weapons fire from inside hammered the sidewalk next to the building’s entrance. Several policemen and protesters who had been readying themselves for another charge dropped back into cover.

  “And what about you, Colonel? What will you be doing?”

  “I’m going on to the Parliament,” Hradetsky growled. “While you keep these swine penned here, I want the cowardly scum behind this butchery brought to justice. Our justice.”

  Kiraly nodded grimly. Hungary’s military rulers were about to pay a blood price for selling their nation to foreign powers.

  SPECIAL OPERATIONS COMMAND POST

  Major Paul Duroc glowered at his closest subordinates. He and his surviving agents had been trapped in this godforsaken building for more than an hour — trapped while Budapest crumbled into riot and ruin.

  Shots rang out in the stairwell. Woerner and his men must be dealing with another attempt by the mob to break in.

  “Major! We’ve lost contact with the Interior Ministry! And with the Houses of Parliament! All the phone lines are dead.”

  Duroc sighed, staring out across the Budapest skyline. He could see smoke rising from near the city center — both the white wisps of tear gas and dense black columns spiraling upward from burning buildings. On the street below, police riot vehicles roared by, crowded with helmeted troops and protesters waving clenched fists. Each armored car now had a Hungarian flag flying from its radio antenna. He had lost — betrayed by his own agents’ cowardice and incompetence, and by the treacherous Hungarian police.

  One of the office windows blew inward in a torrent of flying glass, shattered by gunfire from across the street. The rebels were growing bolder. It was time to leave. He turned to his radioman. “Signal the ambassador. Tell him I advise immediate evacuation.”

  As the frightened young man keyed his microphone, Duroc added one more order. “Then contact Captain Gille. I want those helicopters now!”

  KODALY CIRCLE

  With the bitter taste of defeat in his mouth, Oskar Kiraly watched the second of two overloaded Puma helicopters climb heavily away from the office building and fly southeast — toward the airport and safe passage out of the country. Matching his hastily gathered force against a group of trained commandos had proved futile. Police-issue pistols, shotguns, and a few hunting rifles were no match for high-powered assault rifles in the hands of men who knew how to use them. There were plenty of dead policemen and protesters heaped on the street and inside the building to show that.

  Now Duroc and his men were making their escape. And Vladimir Kusin was going with them — taken captive to France.

  PRIME MINISTER’S OFFICE, HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT

  Hradetsky leaned over a map of the city, marking key positions with one hand while cradling a phone against his ear with the other. “That’s right, Captain. I want you to push patrols out along the M1 Highway. If they spot anything — a convoy of tanks and troop carriers, or even just a single army truck — I want to know about it immediately. Is that clear? It is? Excellent. Good luck, then.”

  He hung up and jotted another quick note on the map. The M1 ran west out of Budapest toward Gyor, Sopron, and the Austrian border. It also ran through Tata, a small city just seventy kilometers away. And Tata was the headquarters for the Hungarian Army’s most powerful armored corps. If the army decided to crush this rebellion, its tanks and guns were sure to come trundling down that highway.

  He hoped that would not happen. For the last several hours, Hungary’s Budapest-based television networks had been airing footage shot during the French attack — including pictures showing the EurCon security agents killing uniformed policemen without provocation. Surely no one who saw those images could fail to understand why the capital’s citizenry had taken both the law and the reins of government into their own hands.

  The colonel finished his map work and looked around the crowded room. Other police officers worked side by side with civilians in business suits and blue jeans, trying hard to restore order. All of them wore armbands in the national colors and all of them were exhausted.

  Hradetsky’s eyes watered. He could still smell traces of tear gas and smoke lingering in the air — evidence of the brief battles that had raged earlier in the day. Backed by his hastily organized police and opposition forces, the mobs had overrun the Parliament building and government ministries with relative ease. Most of the very few police and security troops who had stayed loyal to the generals were either dead or in hiding. Most of their masters, panicked by the first reports of the disaster at Kodaly Circle, had fled along with EurCon’s special commissioner, the French and German ambassadors, and a host of lesser functionaries.


  Of course, not all of them had escaped the deluge. A few terrified prisoners waited in the hallway under armed guard. They included a middling-tall man whose once immaculate police uniform was now rumpled and torn. To the colonel’s immense, if unspoken, satisfaction, Brigadier General Imre Dozsa was one of those who had been captured while trying to flee.

  Hradetsky crossed the room to where Kiraly sat alone, silent and dejected. His reckoning with Dozsa would have to wait. He had far more important and immediate problems to sort out. “Oskar, I must ask you and your men to do one thing more for me tonight.”

  Kiraly looked up, wincing as a gash on his forehead tore open again. “Of course, Colonel. But what?”

  “Find every leader in our organization who is still alive and still free. Bring them here as quickly as you can.”

  “Why?”

  “Why?” Hradetsky pointed out the window. Whole sections of Budapest were pitch-black — knocked off the electric grid by the fires or by confusion in the capital’s power plants. Against the darkness the sky glowed red, lit by dozens of fires burning out of control across the city. “Because when Hungary wakes up tomorrow morning, she must have a new government.”

  CHAPTER 16

  Collision Course

  MAY 18 — PARIS

  Nicolas Desaix watched with unconcealed contempt as the Hungarian generals filed into his private office. Aides ushered them into chairs in front of his desk. He didn’t bother getting up to greet them. Beggars and incompetents weren’t entitled to anything — even the normal courtesies. By fleeing their capital after only a token resistance, they had betrayed his trust and saddled the European Confederation with a crisis it should not have to face.