Kossuth Square

by Adam LeBor

  The fear coursed through him again. His heart started pumping, jumping, missing a beat. It was the after-effect of the tasers, he assumed. Would he die here? For a moment he saw Alex’s face again. Maybe he would, but if this was the end he would not go passively. He sat back against the wall, pulled hard on the right chain at the wall bracket. It did not move. He turned and pulled on the left. Was there a tiny shift? He pulled harder and felt the wall bracket give a little more. He looked closer. The brickwork was damp and crumbling, untouched for decades, the manacle housing pockmarked with rust. He extended his right arm to his left, breathed in as deep as he could, ignored the starbursts of pain around his upper body, grabbed his wrist above the manacle, exhaled suddenly and pulled as hard as he could. He sat back for a moment with his eyes closed as the pain juddered away, then pulled again, slower and more steadily on the manacle bracket. It was definitely looser. He raised his arm again, pulled the chain taut, trying to widen the gap, when the door opened.

  Balthazar’s flat

  Sarah, Alex and Eva stood in the middle of the lounge, looking around, deeply puzzled. The flat was empty. The bed in the spare room – Alex’s room – was unslept-in. The large, open-plan lounge was moderately untidy – a couple of rumpled cushions, two teacups on the coffee table, a half-eaten cheese sandwich on a plate. There was no sign that anyone had been here, searching for something or wanting to leave a message. Nothing was damaged, everything seemed to be in its usual place, only a faint smell of shampoo and perfume, the residual scent of a woman.

  Sarah looked around the room with interest, taking in the bookshelves, the rows of historical works about the Poraymus, some classics of Hungarian literature, several airport thrillers, copies of The Economist and Newsweek on the table. So this was where her ex-husband lived. It was a bachelor pad, to be sure. The walls needed repainting, the parquet a sanding and a thorough polish. But it had potential. The light streamed in from the large windows overlooking Klauzal Square. She walked out onto the balcony, looked over the square. For a second she imagined herself and Balthazar having a glass of wine here, discussing their days. What was she thinking? She banished that vision from her head. In any case there were more urgent matters, like where was Balthazar?

  Sarah walked back inside and turned to Alex, asked him to ask Eva neni again when Eniko left. Alex did as she requested, and translated Eva’s reply. ‘She told you. Around midnight. But Eniko would surely have closed the door. So why was it open?’

  Sarah shrugged, watching Alex look around the room, his face creased in concentration. His gaze stopped on the bookshelf. ‘That’s weird – why would they want that?’

  ‘What?’ asked Sarah. ‘Is something missing?’

  ‘The photo of Virag, Dad’s cousin. It’s gone.’

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Apostol Street, Mokkry haz

  Balthazar dropped his arm and sat very still, watching as Pal Dezeffy walked into the cellar, Attila Ungar at his side. Pal was casually dressed in jeans and a black polo top, a brown leather messenger bag over his shoulder, while Attila was wearing his Gendarmerie uniform, without the stab vest and body armour. A Glock 17 pistol and a yellow taser were holstered on his belt.

  Pal walked around Balthazar as he spoke. ‘Detective Kovacs, what are we going to do with you? I admire your persistence.’ He shook his head, sighing loudly. ‘But you keep getting in the way.’

  ‘In the way of what?’ asked Balthazar.

  ‘Our plans.’

  ‘The only plans you should be making are how you will spend the rest of your life inside a maximum-security prison cell.’

  Pal laughed. ‘I don’t think so.’

  Balthazar asked, ‘Where is Anastasia Ferenczy?’

  Pal said, ‘Oh, don’t worry, she’s perfectly safe.’ He paused, tilted his head to one side and looked Balthazar up and down. ‘Safer than you, perhaps. The disappearance of an officer in the state security service would cause a lot of… ripples. We will need the ABS once all this is over. But a police officer, the brother of a troublesome pimp, going missing? Who knew what he was really mixed up in? We’ll leak the footage of your coke-tasting session with Black George. There will be a media furore for a day or two. It’s true you are this week’s hero for taking down Mahmoud Hejazi. But what with everything else that’s going on, it will fade away very soon. Then a sparsely attended memorial ceremony in a month or so. A plaque on the wall at headquarters. And after that…’ Pal brushed his palms against each other, as though washing them. ‘Meanwhile, I have something for you. At least you won’t die ignorant. Or alone.’

  Pal opened his messenger bag and took out a large photograph in a silver frame. He pulled out the back support and placed the frame on the floor, just out of Balthazar’s reach. ‘Poor Virag. I never knew you were related. She was your…?’

  ‘Cousin. You’ve burgled my flat.’

  ‘Your cousin.’ Pal smiled. ‘If you say so. If that makes you feel better. We know all sorts of things about you, Detective Kovacs. And your guilty mentor, Sandor Takacs. And yes, we borrowed the photograph. I thought it might be a comfort to you.’

  ‘Did you kill her?’

  ‘Not directly, no. There was no murder.’

  ‘But you let her die.’

  Pal looked Balthazar up and down. ‘You might as well know. It won’t make any difference now. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. She panicked, ran out of the house, fell in the pool and drowned. She couldn’t swim. But I think you know that.’

  ‘I do. But I don’t know what happened before, why she ran?’

  Pal smiled regretfully. ‘Why would a young woman run from a man?’

  Balthazar felt the anger stir inside him. ‘Because she was frightened.’

  ‘Yes, she was scared of me. But she didn’t need to be. The room was prepared, clean sheets, perfumes, soft music. I would have been gentle. She was beautiful, exotic. A voice like an angel. Even Reka said so.’

  ‘Reka Bardossy? She was there, at the party?’ Pal had just confirmed what Eniko had overheard outside Reka’s office, Balthazar realised.

  ‘Of course she was. We were the masters of the universe. Our fathers had handed us a whole country to play with. It was 1995. I had just been appointed chairman of the Social Democratic Party. I was barely in my early twenties. Reka was nineteen. But we were the future. We could do whatever we want.’ He stopped talking for a moment, lost in memories. ‘There was nothing wild about wild capitalism, nothing at all. It was all perfectly thought out, years in advance. We all knew that the system would collapse. And when it did, we were there to help ourselves to what was left. And there was plenty: houses, businesses, factories, holiday homes on Lake Balaton. It worked more smoothly than any Socialist five-year plan.’

  ‘You can swim. Why didn’t you rescue her? She was a young girl. It would have been easy.’

  For a moment regret flickered on Pal’s face. ‘I wanted to. In fact I stripped off and was about to dive in. Then Reka stopped me.’

  ‘Reka? Why?’

  ‘There would have been a scandal. Virag would have made all sorts of wild accusations. Some of the mud would have stuck. There was too much at stake…’

  ‘For a Gypsy girl to mess up your plans,’ said Balthazar.

  ‘Yes. Exactly. If she died, it would be a tragic accident. There are lots of Gypsy girls. Nobody would make a fuss about her. There are worse ways to die than drowning. You just slip away. And the family, your family, were richly compensated.’

  ‘How?’ asked Balthazar, suddenly feeling sick to his stomach. He already knew the answer, realised that he had known it for years.

  ‘The house. Your brother’s brothel. That’s the house where Virag died. The pool has been filled in. Some of it has been remodelled. But it’s the same place. That was the deal. The villa for your family’s silence. The place is worth two or three million dollars now, I would guess.’ He looked around. ‘Still, we’re not short of houses. The Budapest property market is booming. I
think it’s time, once all this is over, to renovate this one.’

  Pal bent down and lifted up the chain attached to the manacle on Balthazar’s left arm. ‘So you see, you picked the wrong side, Detective Kovacs. Not only did Reka Bardossy persuade me not to save Virag, she will also be out of power in’ – he looked at his watch – ‘it’s almost nine o’clock now, so in about three hours.’

  Balthazar felt the anger turn to a cold fury, a wave rising through him, a surge of energy that started in his stomach and spread up through his chest. He knew this feeling. It also brought a wild strength, the kind he had seen at family weddings and celebrations when overweight, middle-aged men danced for hours, spinning and turning on long-vanished reserves of energy, fuelled by the love of life itself. A strength that had a dark side too, bringing a power to absorb blows and punches and keep striking back long after most men would have been felled. It was that strength he felt now, that if he pulled hard enough on the left chain, he could finally yank it from the wall, and wrap it around Pal’s neck, pulling and turning it until the flesh tore and his throat cracked. But that would not work, not with Attila standing there, and the other men that he presumed Pal had brought with him. ‘And Kinga Torok, and Abdullah al-Nuri? They did not pick any side. But you killed them all the same.’

  Pal shrugged. ‘Collateral damage. It happens.’

  ‘Kinga was twenty-two years old. She had her whole life ahead of her. A hit-and-run. From behind. A coward’s way to kill someone.’

  Pal smirked. ‘I understand that was her favoured position. And al-Nuri’s.’

  Pal was in control. The best way to break his composure was to provoke him, and then he might let something slip, thought Balthazar. ‘And what was yours, with Reka? Is that what this is all about? Because you are a loser and she dumped you?’

  For a second a cloud passed across Pal’s face. He walked across to Balthazar and back-handed him across the face. It was an amateur’s blow and Balthazar rolled with it, although it still sent shockwaves of pain around his skull. ‘On my desk,’ said Pal. ‘In the prime minister’s office. That was her favourite position. When she wasn’t on her knees.’

  ‘Where you will be, once all this is over. Kocsog,’ said Balthazar. He braced himself as Pal raised his hand again, then dropped it, shaking his head. He walked away, as though he realised Balthazar’s plan.

  Balthazar closed his eyes for a moment, tried to put aside the pain in his head and the rage he felt about Virag and focused on what Pal had revealed. There was something planned for later in the day. Something that would destroy Reka Bardossy’s government, such as it was. It must be connected to the two Arab men, the butchers of Halabja. Could it be some kind of chemical attack? And if so, where and how would it be delivered? For a moment he heard Anastasia’s voice: Adnan Bashari is a chemical weapons expert. His precise area of expertise is non-weapons based unorthodox distribution systems. Was Pal was planning some kind of chemical attack? And if he was, where? At the airport, or a train station? Perhaps at a shopping mall. Any of those would further shred what was left of Reka’s authority, deal a probably fatal blow to her position as prime minister. But terrorism was about spectacle, about inspiring fear, destroying trust in institutions, in governments’ ability to keep people safe. If he was Pal, where would he try and deliver the coup de grace to Reka and her tottering administration? At the epicentre of the political crisis, the site of Parliament, the symbolic heart of the country, he realised. At Kossuth Square. But how? For a moment Balthazar was back in the car with Sandor Takacs, driving into the car park under Kossuth Square, watching the clouds of fine mist roll across the open space, enveloping the crowds of laughing tourists. That had to be it. Pal was planning to launch a gas attack on the square, through the mister system.

  Balthazar looked at Attila for a moment. His former colleague was a brute and a traitor. He may even have tried to have Balthazar killed the previous weekend when two Gendarmes, posing as policemen, attempted to arrest him and Goran Draganovic. But was Attila really prepared to sanction mass murder? He needed to get Attila alone.

  Balthazar asked, ‘And how many people are you planning to kill this afternoon?’

  Pal held his hand up, his voice conciliatory, ‘None, of course. I am not a mass murderer.’

  ‘But you are a murderer.’

  ‘That’s enough,’ said Attila, stepping forward. ‘Shut it.’ He tapped the taser. ‘Unless you want another dose.’

  Balthazar fell silent. He watched Pal walking around the room, peering at the graffiti in Russian and Hungarian. One part of him was trying to work out how he might get out alive, another marvelled at Pal’s cool, entitled arrogance. Every society had a ruling elite, he supposed. It was Hungary’s misfortune to have one like Pal and his allies. Pal started reading out the names chiselled and scratched into the wall, ‘Vladimir from Vladivostok, 1972. Csaba from Pecs, 1969. Ivan from Moscow, 1964. Z.U. from Csepel Island, 1984. Poor Z.U. I wonder what his name was. Zoltan, probably. He must have done something really bad to end up here in the 1980s. My uncle Kende used to run this place then. He told me the mokkry hazak weren’t used much after the 1970s.’

  Pal looked down at Balthazar. ‘Shall we add a B.K., District VIII, 2015? Everyone deserves some kind of memorial.’

  Balthazar ignored the barb. He had watched both men as Pal spoke. At the mention of the names, Attila seemed to stiffen for a second or two. Pal, absorbed in the sound of his own voice and dreams of coming power, did not notice. Z.U., Balthazar realised, could also stand for Zeno Ungar, father of Attila, who had raised his family on Csepel Island. Who, Attila had once confided over a few beers, had once been arrested, taken away for six months and had never really recovered. Could it be him? The dates fitted. Balthazar looked at Attila, held his gaze, flicked his eyes to the wall where the letters Z.U. were scratched into the brickwork. Attila said nothing, but a distant look fell across his face as though he was somewhere else for a moment. Had Pal’s uncle imprisoned and tortured Attila’s father?

  Attila blinked, looked at Balthazar, seemed to nod his head, a microscopic movement that most people would never notice. The two men had served two years on the backstreets of District VIII together, had learned to read each other’s body language, anticipate the other’s moves. Would Attila understand what he wanted? At least listen? There was one way to find out. Balthazar turned to Pal. ‘Could I at least have some water, please?’

  Pal shrugged. ‘Sure. We are not sadists. You won’t die of thirst.’ He turned to Attila. ‘Attila, could you please? There’s a kitchen somewhere upstairs. I asked Kende bacsi the other day. He’s still alive, by the way, comes here every now and then to check up. He told me that the water’s still switched on. You never know when you might need the place again, he said.’ Pal looked down at Balthazar. ‘How right he was.’

  ‘Water? Please?’ said Balthazar.

  Attila looked hard at Balthazar, at Pal, then back at Balthazar. ‘I think I should stay here, sir. Keep an eye on him. We know he’s dangerous, even manacled. And you know your way around better than me. Don’t you think? If you wouldn’t mind. It would be much quicker, sir.’

  Pal nodded. ‘Perhaps you are right. Soon it won’t matter anyway,’ he said as he walked out of the room.

  Balthazar spoke quickly. ‘Z.U. from Csepel Island. It wasn’t a Zoltan. That was your father, wasn’t it? Zeno. Zeno Ungar.’ Zeno was an unusual name, and Balthazar remembered.

  Attila nodded, his face suddenly taut with emotion. ‘He was a broken man. Never recovered, never worked again. I saw him in the bath once, after he came home. His back was covered with dozens of tiny round scars. I asked my mother what they were. She said insect bites. But I knew they were cigarette burns. Six months later he died, then soon after that my mother had her… sudden accident.’

  The phrase, they both knew, was often a euphemism for suicide. ‘Doesn’t Pal know?’ asked Balthazar.

  Attila shrugged. ‘No. Why would he? He’s never
asked me anything about myself or my family. I’m just the hired muscle. You’ve got another minute, I guess, so make it quick. And convincing.’

  Balthazar spoke rapidly, outlining what he knew about Omar Aswan and Adnan Bashari, their role in the Halabja massacres, their specialist expertise, and his belief that Pal was planning to use them to deliver a chemical or biological weapons attack on Kossuth Square. To Balthazar’s surprise, Attila listened without interrupting or arguing. He stood still for several seconds, thinking, before saying, ‘I know. I was there. Under Kossuth Square where the misting equipment is. The Arabs said it would just cause nausea and vomiting. Nobody would be seriously hurt.’

  ‘And you believe that?’

  ‘Maybe. Maybe not.’

  ‘You’re many things Attila, but you are not a mass murderer.’

  ‘Who’s talking about mass murder? A bit of green smoke, some puking tourists, that’s all.’

  ‘Which is more likely to bring down Reka Bardossy? A few people feeling a bit queasy? Or a lot of dead ones littering Kossuth Square?’

  Attila said nothing, tapped his right foot.

  Balthazar said, ‘Decision time, Attila.’

  Corner of Verhalom Street and Apostol Street, 8.50 a.m.

  Fifty yards away, just out of sight of the mokkry haz, Szilard Szabo was sitting in the passenger seat of a parked white Ford Transit van. Gaspar had driven, while Fat Vik sat next to Szilard. All three were armed, Szilard with a Glock 17, Gaspar and Fat Vik with FAG pistols that Gaspar and his relatives had, over the years, paid several police officers to ‘lose’.