by Adam LeBor
Horvath was still for a moment, a wistful look on his face, then he put his phone away. He sat up straight, his demeanour businesslike now. ‘So, Eniko. I’d like a memo from you, outlining what you know about the Roma connection to the people-smuggling operation, how we can cover it and where the story might go. We need to make the running on this. We need to move on from Keleti and take the story forward.’
‘ОК. When?’
Horvath thought for a moment. ‘Tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow is Saturday,’ replied Eniko, aware how feeble she sounded.
Horvath raised his eyebrows. ‘It is. But if you want a nine-to-five job, there are some openings in the administrative department.’ He paused. ‘Monday morning. First thing. I expect something clear and detailed.’
Eniko nodded. ‘I’m on it.’
‘Good. Because we have something else to talk about.’ He sipped his drink. ‘An exciting potential opportunity for you.’
Eniko’s internal radar started pinging rapidly. She knew her editor well enough to know that what he considered exciting was likely to be less appealing to her. ‘I’m listening.’
‘Mr Kaplan is increasing his investment. We are going to expand. We will be hiring new recruits, covering new areas. And you can be a key part of that. In a new executive role.’
The news, not completely unexpected, triggered mixed emotions. Eniko loved being on the trail of a story, digging deep for the key nuggets of information, persuading contacts to talk, putting it all together. It was still a thrill to see her work on the website with her name underneath the headline. But as 555.hu’s most experienced reporter, she had also watched many of her junior colleagues make novice mistakes: approaching a story from an obscure angle, speaking to the wrong people, or asking the wrong questions when they found the right people. Increasingly, they asked Eniko for help and guidance, rather than Kriszta, the news editor. There was even talk of a reporters’ delegation making an official approach to management to replace Kriszta with Eniko. Eniko knew she could contribute more as news editor, guiding her colleagues, than as a reporter. She had even considered opening a conversation with Roland about taking on a wider role in the newsroom. But the refugee crisis was the biggest news story she had ever worked on, so she wanted to stay on the beat for at least a while. Now, however, it seemed management had realised of its own accord that she was editor material.
Eniko swirled the remnants of a melting ice cube in her mineral water, then looked at Horvath. ‘Thanks, Roland. I think Kriszta can still bring a lot to 555, but you are right, her skill set isn’t quite right for the newsroom. I am definitely interested, but could we hold off, at least until the migrant crisis has eased?’
Horvath frowned. ‘I am not sure what you are talking about, Eniko. Kriszta will remain as news editor. In fact she will have increased day-to-day responsibilities, overseeing the news diary and the reporters’ assignments.’
A weight appeared in Eniko’s stomach. ‘She’s staying?’
‘Absolutely. In fact, we are bringing in her deputy from the state news agency as well. There will be much tighter management of the whole newsroom operation. I will be overseeing both of them, of course,’ Horvath added quickly.
The weight turned heavier. This was a disaster. ‘Then what would I be doing?’
‘It’s a new challenge for you and a great opportunity. But I am absolutely confident that you can rise to the occasion.’ Horvath took out his wallet and fished inside. It was sleek black leather, with a white-gold clasp, Eniko saw, its three compartments filled with 5,000-, 10,000- and 20,000-forint notes. As far as she knew, he earned around 300,000 forints a month, had a mortgage and was expected to contribute to Wanda’s fees at the American school. Where did all that money come from? ‘The drinks are on me,’ Horvath said.
‘Can you please tell me what?’ asked Eniko, barely able to keep the exasperation from her voice.
‘Sandor Kaplan has purchased Szilky.hu. The site will keep its name but will be absorbed into the 555 brand. Mr Kaplan thinks – and Kriszta and I agree – that Szilky needs a new editor.’ He turned to her, raised his glass. ‘Congratulations.’
Royal salon, Buda Castle, 9.00 p.m.
The Qatari businessman stared down at Reka Bardossy’s breasts as he asked, ‘And who do you work for, my dear?’
They work for me, because they are attached to me, Reka felt like replying. Instead, she smiled sweetly, glanced again at the name tag on the pocket of his dark-blue Brioni suit: Abdullah al-Nuri, business development director and executive vice-president, before she answered. ‘I work for the prime minister, Mr Al-Nuri.’
So far, this had proved easy but dull. Al-Nuri was in his early sixties, short, paunchy and balding with straggly black hair that was too dark to be natural. He had talked about himself for five minutes without a break before asking this, his first question. She had merely smiled and nodded every now and then, which seemed to be all he expected. She wore a black, long-sleeved Donna Karan cocktail dress, a grey silk-and-cashmere pash-mina over her shoulders for modesty’s sake, and white Christian Louboutins with hundred-millimetre heels. Her outfit, elegant but restrained, had turned the head of every male in the room, and drawn barbed looks from many of the women present. So far everything had gone to plan, apart from the growing ache in her calf muscles and balls of her feet. The hundred-millimetre heels, she realised, would be OK for a dinner or a theatre outing, but were a mistake for a standing reception.
Al-Nuri, one of the most important guests at the Hungarian government reception, was to be humoured and entertained, she had been instructed. She was to laugh at his jokes, flirt if necessary, make him feel as though he was the centre of her world. That was all, thankfully. Anything more would be supplied by the city’s most upmarket madame who had been paid to keep all her oromlanyok, joy girls, free for the evening and ready to work at a moment’s notice, once the reception was over.
The business development director was in charge of a planned ten-billion-dollar investment. If the development went ahead, Hungary would be catapulted out of its post-Communist torpor. New cities would be built in the impoverished east. Cracked and pitted two-lane roads would be turned into smooth motorways. A high-speed rail link would reach to Vienna, and on to Frankfurt. The country would be blanketed in super-fast broadband. A state-of-the-art medical centre would be built in Budapest to attract patients from across the Arab world. And while the government and state media railed against the migrants and refugees at Keleti, other, richer immigrants were more welcome. An investment of €500,000 in Hungarian government bonds would bring immediate permanent residence for the bondholder, his parents and children, with a fast, smooth path promised to citizenship and a Hungarian passport, which meant the right to live anywhere in the European Union. Mr Al-Nuri, and several of his colleagues, had already been offered such benefits as a ‘goodwill gesture’, without having to invest a single euro.
Reka glanced across the room. Pal Palkovics was in the corner, nodding enthusiastically as the Qatari ambassador spoke to him. The reception was taking place in the grandest salon of the Buda Castle. Palkovics had recently spent hundreds of millions of forints refurbishing a palatial suite of offices overlooking the city. The building work on the outside was still going on. The rooms had barely been used. After a couple of weeks overlooking the Danube, Palkovics tired of the view and realised that he preferred to be at the epicentre of political intrigue, rather than overlooking it.
The government protocol department had gone all-out. Attractive young male and female waiters circulated with silver trays of mineral water, fruit juices, several types of colas, and canapés. There was no pork or alcohol served. The parquet floor had been polished so that it shone, the walls were lined with specially selected masterpieces of Hungarian art – none with any human forms, out of deference to their Muslim guests – and the view over the Danube and the city was spectacular.
Al-Nuri smiled, drawing back two purple, fleshy lips over
some expensive cosmetic dentistry. ‘How nice. Are you one of his secretaries or personal assistants?’
Reka smiled sweetly, took a sip of her mineral water. ‘No. I am his minister of justice.’
Al-Nuri flushed a satisfying shade of red and looked at her chest again, but higher up this time, where her name badge was pinned. ‘Ah. Ms Bardossy. Of course. You are related to Peter Bardossy?’
‘My husband.’
Al-Nuri sipped his orange juice. ‘I saw Peter last week in Dubai. Such a charming, clever man. Peter is doing a wonderful job, for his country and for our two countries’ growing friendship.’
Peter Bardossy was one of the richest men in the country, and ran an opaque business empire through a web of local and offshore companies. He was an old friend of Pal Palkovics. Like Palkovics, he was a scion of a former Communist dynasty. His father, several uncles and a grandfather had all served as ministers under the old regime, including during the worst times of Stalinist repression. The two men had shared a room while they were history students at Budapest University. During the 1990s Peter Bardossy had worked in the Ministry of Finance, overseeing tenders for privatisation of state-owned factories, land and holiday resorts, while Pal Palkovics served as minister of finance in several coalition governments. A large number of these tenders had been won by companies ultimately owned or controlled by allies or relatives of Pal Palkovics. Several had then been passed back to Bardossy through a complicated web of offshore holding companies. Reka and Peter had not discussed the passport operation. He operated at a much higher level, diverting EU subsidies and foreign investment to companies favourable to government – and Palkovics. Lately, he had been spending more and more time in the Gulf on business, working on the massive investment plan.
Reka was about to reply, when her mobile phone trilled twice in her Prada bag. It was the sound made when a new Snapchat; message arrived. Snapchat was a messenger service that automatically deleted messages once they had been viewed. Reka only used Snapchat to communicate with one other person: Pal Palkovics, to arrange their assignations.
She gave the Qatari her sweetest smile. ‘Would you mind terribly, Mr Al-Nuri? I really have to take this.’
He shook his head, jowls wobbling, more than happy to have a reason to escape. ‘Please, I leave you to it,’ he said, scuttling off.
Reka walked over to a corner of the room. She took out her iPhone and stared at the screen. A document was attached to the message. The document showed two columns: the first was a list of two letters and seven numbers. Some of the letter combinations were random, but the top half-dozen all started with ‘HM’. The second column showed a list of numbers, usually between 30,000 and 40,000. She realised immediately what she had been sent and took a screenshot of the message before it disappeared. Who had sent this? Whoever it was, it was not Pal Palkovics. She thought rapidly. There was only other person who had this information. He was supposed to have been taken care of, neutralised.
But it seemed he was still at large. What did he want? She left the room without saying goodbye and headed to the ladies’ toilets. On the way there, her phone trilled again. The message showed a photograph: the old castle wall, a corner spot at the far end. A shiver of fear rippled through her. She was being blackmailed and lured somewhere remote, at night. On the other hand, she was not afraid of Akos Feher.
She stepped away from the toilets and walked outside, along the side of the castle wall. The medieval ramparts were just higher than her shoulder, blocks of large grey stone a couple of yards wide, with two-foot gaps between them. Each had an indent for bowmen to fire down on besieging troops. Several now housed powerful lamps, which shone on the side of the building, bathing the edge of the castle complex in a reassuring yellow light. The path was several yards wide, made of small grey cobblestones. The side nearest the castle wall was still filled with construction equipment, piles of old stones and debris. She peered down between two of the ramparts. The wall fell sharply away, an almost-verti-cal dark slope of greenery that reached a hundred feet or so down onto the Buda embankment where the number 19 tram snaked along the waterfront.
Reka had grown up a few blocks from here, in an eight-room villa with an attached servants’ flat, an only child of privilege under Communism. Her father, who had served as minister of justice during the old regime, had purchased the family home after the change of system for perhaps ten per cent of its value. He had died in 2002 and bequeathed the house to Reka in his will. It was a beautiful property, now worth more than a million euros. Reka had added a gym and steam room, private cinema and a covered swimming pool in the garden. She tried not to think about the metal box filled with Hebrew prayer books, wrapped in a silk prayer shawl, and women’s jewellery, that she had found there while playing as a child, and had kept hidden in secret for years.
Reka took a step away from the rampart, but her right leg could not move. She glanced down and around, her adrenalin levels rising, her eyes wider in the gloom. There was no one else around, at least that she could see. She pulled her right leg again. It still did not move. She turned her right foot left and right. A tearing noise sounded. She looked down. Her heel had caught in the gap between two cobblestones. She really had chosen the most impractical footwear – but then she had not anticipated a night-time walk on a medieval cobbled street. She stepped out of her shoes, knelt down and pulled the stuck heel out of the road. It was still in place, but definitely looser. Now what? Barefoot or Louboutins? No contest. She was not going to this... encounter... whatever it was, at a psychological disadvantage. She put her shoes back on, carried on walking to the end of the path, making sure not to place all her weight on her right foot.
Reka walked under a low arch topped by a small gatehouse, and on to the end of the path. Her unease grew. Here too there were small lights set in the archers’ recess. But none worked. The view was as beautiful as ever: the river shimmered black and silver, the Pest side shimmering, reflecting the five-star hotels along the riverbank. The Chain Bridge spilled golden light onto the water. A mile downriver, the Elizabeth Bridge, a graceful four-lane arch, swept traffic back and forth between Buda and Pest. A cool breeze blew in across the river. She watched a flotilla of tourist cruise boats slide by, faint noises of revelry carrying over the water. Part of her – a small but significant part – wished she was on one of the boats, gliding downriver towards the border, into Serbia, Romania and the Black Sea. She was, she knew, in way too deep for that. The Louboutins had come at a price, and she had chosen to pay it. And she would fight as hard as she could to keep what she had. Reka looked around until she saw what she wanted. She bent down and gathered a handful of the stones.
‘Madame Minister, Ms Bardossy, over here,’ called a male voice, and not one she recognised.
TEN
Rakoczi Way, 9.00 p.m.
Balthazar sat back in the front passenger seat of Gaspar’s black 7-series BMW, clipped the seatbelt buckle in place, and firmly grasped the armrest as Fat Vik took the wheel. He knew what was coming. The car had a long, curved dashboard with a console that displayed more lights, buttons and controls than a small aeroplane. Fat Vik fiddled with one until he found the music that he wanted: Gangsta Zoli, Hungarian rap. He opened the windows all the way down, turned up the volume, tugged on Balthazar’s seatbelt and released it, laughing as it slapped against his chest, then pressed the ignition button with childish glee. The engine fired up. He revved the accelerator and took the wheel in his right hand, his left tapping on the window ledge in time with the music. His own seatbelt remained coiled in its holder.
The car screeched backwards down a one-way street, turned onto Rakoczi Way, roared down the bus lane, speeding past the dense night-time traffic as it headed towards Blaha Lujza Square and Elizabeth Bridge. A blue handicapped driver’s pass was prominently displayed on top of the BMW’s dashboard. Even with that, it was illegal to drive in the bus lane. The road was monitored by cameras, which recorded car number plates. Those caught faced a s
ubstantial fine but Balthazar knew that Fat Vik had nothing to worry about, as long a helpful clerk in the municipal bureaucracy received one of Gaspar’s envelopes each month.
The handicapped driver’s pass, however, was new. Balthazar pointed at it. ‘How did you get that?’
Fat Vik smiled, prodded his chest, wheezed unconvincingly. ‘Heart condition, brother. Same as Gaspar.’ He glanced at Balthazar, smiled. ‘It probably runs in the family. Want one? You wouldn’t even need a medical. You only need to pay the processing fee.’
‘How much is that?’
‘Fifty thousand and ten forints.’
‘Ten?’
‘Envelope.’
‘That’s tax-deductible, though,’ said Balthazar. Both men laughed, the movement sending waves of discomfort through his back and shoulders. Balthazar sat back against the plush leather seat, very glad of the ride, but unable to get settled. Despite the merriment, he felt completely exhausted. His fruitless talk with Gaspar had used up the very last of his reserves. His brother, like so many Hungarians, indeed every nationality that had grown up under Communism, was too focused on the short term. Decades under an intrusive one-party regime had fostered a strong folk memory of seizing not just the day, but the moment, for potential profit and advantage. Playing the system was everything. As far as Gaspar was concerned, there was excellent money to be made smuggling migrants across the border and no reason to stop, as long the opportunity was there.
Balthazar had at least learned more about how the smuggling operation worked. There were two channels. The VIP channel provided customers with actual Hungarian passports. Gaspar said he was not involved in that. Balthazar believed him, especially when Gaspar said who was running that operation – one of the most violent and dangerous organised crime bosses not just in Budapest, but the whole region. Gaspar’s operation took the refugees across the border to Vienna dressed as Gypsies, as Eniko had reported. Gaspar even provided the clothes. He worked with Goran Draganovic, a Serbian people-smuggler who had set up shop in Budapest, operating out of the Tito Grill, a Balkan restaurant on Rakoczi Square. Gaspar’s roof was Reka Bardossy, who took twenty per cent. With Bardossy covering them there was nothing to worry about, Gaspar had explained, waving away Balthazar’s concern. Bardossy was a rising star. She and Pal Palkovics were lovers. The operation was rock solid. Everything was covered, Gaspar insisted.
