District VIII

by Adam LeBor

  Reka continued talking, ‘But before that, I have a question for you. About how the media works. As I understand it, the time to frame a story, to shape how it is covered, is when it is first reported. Is that correct?’

  Eniko nodded. ‘Broadly, yes. The way it is projected stays in people’s memories. That is how they perceive it. But any story can go in different directions afterwards. Once it’s out, it’s impossible to control.’

  ‘Of course. But its initial impact, the first impression – that can be managed?’

  ‘To some extent, yes,’ said Eniko, now thoroughly intrigued as she started to understand the trajectory of the conversation. She put her notebook down. ‘Reka, why don’t you tell me what you want.’

  ‘I want to help you, Eniko, to report what is happening in the highest reaches of our government. But Bela Balogh is dead. I am lucky to be alive. So we have to be smart, and careful.’

  ‘Is that why you have brought a bodyguard?’ asked Eniko. A tall, broad-shouldered man with buzz-cut blond hair had accompanied Reka into the café. He now sat nursing a still mineral water two tables away, a Bluetooth earpiece in his right ear, and a noticeable bulge under his left armpit.

  Reka nodded in his direction. ‘Yes. Zsolt. Zsolt and his colleagues.’

  Eniko looked around. Now she noticed that another man of similar build and appearance was sitting by the door to the café. Another bodyguard stood outside, by an Audi 6 saloon parked at the hotel entrance. The Four Seasons took up a whole city block. A small private road ran in front of the building, crowded with hotel cars and taxis. Eniko recognised the government vehicle, low on the road, heavy with armour plating. The Audi pointed at the flow of traffic into Szechenyi Square, gauzy grey smoke drifting from its exhaust pipe. The windows were tinted black, but there was surely a driver inside, keeping the engine running.

  Eniko looked down at the table. ‘And that’s why our phones are in a signal blocking bag?’

  ‘Yes. But it’s very important, crucial, for our future cooperation that your report is accurate and’ – Reka paused, looked for the right word – ‘fair.’

  Eniko understood instantly what Reka was offering. Reka was a journalist’s dream: a high-level source, a cabinet minister privy to the innermost reaches of the government. But she wanted if not to control, then at least to shape her reporting. What was fair to a government official was not necessarily fair to a reporter. Even now, more than twenty-five years after the change of system, numerous government officials demanded to see the whole article in which they were mentioned before it went online. Eniko never agreed. Nine times out of ten, they still spoke to her afterwards. She smiled as she thought of the poster in the 555.hu newsroom and the quote from H. L. Mencken about journalists and politicians, dogs and lamp posts. That was all very well, but the real world was transactional. Lamp posts were not very good sources.

  Eniko sat up, her voice businesslike now. ‘I cannot give you copy approval. Nor can I show you the article before it’s published.’

  Reka tilted her head to one side, smiled. ‘Eniko, please. I’m not asking for that. I would like us to have a mutually productive working relationship. And that any article reflects my point of view and gives weight to my perspective. I trust you to do that. And that you check any direct quotes with me.’

  ‘I can do that. My next question is: did you know that passports issued by your ministry were ending up in the hands of traffickers?’

  ‘Yes, I knew that passports, issued by my ministry, were being sold. Some of them ended up in the wrong hands. British officials have arrested several Islamic radicals at airports, posing as Hungarians.’

  Eniko scribbled in her notebook. This story just got better and better. ‘How many? Where? Can you give me more details?’

  ‘We are agreed. Accurate and fair?’

  Eniko nodded. Whatever. She could negotiate the details later. Hunor the handsome waiter appeared, hovered near the table, looking questioningly at the two women. Reka smiled, said, ‘We’re fine, thanks.’

  Reka waited until he walked away, and leaned forward. ‘This is the key point, Eniko. It was a sting operation. The passports were bait to draw out the traffickers. Obviously it was all highly confidential. Only I and a couple of my most trusted officials knew about it. Now that we know who the traffickers are and how their networks operate, my officials are preparing a dossier to share with the British, European and American authorities.’ She sipped her drink, carried on talking. ‘You can use that. It’s all on the record. I can see the headline now: “Hungarian Officials Run Sting Operation to Catch People-Traffickers.” What do you think?’

  Eniko continued writing. Was that really the headline, that Hungarian officials had run a sting operation to catch traffickers? She would think about that later. This was part of the story, she thought, but not all of it. There was something else here, she was sure. Reka’s phone buzzed. She looked at the screen, mouthed ‘My husband’ to Eniko and took the call, turning away as she dropped her voice.

  Eniko sipped her gin and tonic while Reka spoke. It was delicious, certainly the best she had ever tasted, the ice cold spirit exploding on her tongue with tiny juniper taste bombs as the alcohol coursed into her bloodstream, mixing with the adrenalin. The synapses in her brain crackled and snapped. Dead ministers. People-traffickers. Passports for terrorists. Islamic radicals. Still, there was something else, something more here, she was sure of it. It could not be a coincidence that all this was happening as a massive influx of money was pouring in from Gulf investors. She remembered a report she had read in the Economist, about the shadowy figures in the Gulf who were secretly funding Isis in Iraq and Syria. There had already been questions in Parliament about the residence bonds, the ease with which Arab investors acquired them. When opposition MPs had raised the matter at a meeting of Parliament’s national security council, Palkovics’s allies had all walked out, thus preventing a quorum and any further discussion. What if the Gulf investment came at a much higher price? A price that only Pal Palkovics knew about. It seemed a wild idea, too wild to be feasible. But it also made perfect sense and explained why Simon Nazir had been killed.

  Eniko waited until Reka finished speaking and put her phone away. ‘Tell me what else the Arab investors get for their money?’

  ‘Oh, that’s easy,’ said Reka. ‘Transit. Transit for whoever they want.’

  Warehouse, District X, 7.35 p.m.

  Black George beckoned Balthazar to sit down. Four white plastic chairs had appeared a couple of yards in front of the cage. The Kosovar sat at the end of the row, Bettina next to him. Balthazar sat between her and Dorentina. He was the guest of honour, it seemed. There were no other seats. The rest of the audience stood, craning forward for the best views. The lights dimmed and a ripple of anticipation ran through the crowd.

  A tall man with long brown hair pulled back in a ponytail stepped forward and climbed up the short staircase that led to the cage. He wore a black tuxedo and trousers and a crimson bow tie over a white dress shirt, and held a cordless microphone in his hand as he stepped through the door. He walked into the centre of the stage and a single spotlight bore down on him. The talking stopped and the crowd fell silent, the air electric with anticipation.

  ‘Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,’ he announced in Hungarian, English, Russian and Albanian. ‘Tonight we have a fantastic show for you, with a special prize for the winner.’ He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a small burgundy booklet. ‘A passport.’ The crowd murmured its approval. The MC cupped his left hand to his ear. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t hear you.’ The crowd shouted louder. ‘That’s better. Because this is not just any old passport.’ He paused, opened the document and showed a blank page. ‘It’s a Hungarian passport. Ready and waiting for a name and a photograph. And if the winner has a family, they all get one as well.’

  The crowd roared, shouting, ‘Hajra Magyarorszag! Hajra Magyarorszag! Go Hungary! Go Hungary!’

  ‘ That’s
better. Because this is going to be an amazing evening. Eight fighters. Each bout will be a single round of three minutes. The four winners will go through to the semifinals, then the last two will fight in the final. Now, before we start, a quick recounting of the rules of the ring.’ He put the passport back in his jacket pocket, turned and looked across the warehouse, a long sweeping gaze that took in every corner of the room, a solemn expression on his face. He stood still for several seconds, before his face split into a wide grin. ‘ aren’t any!/’ The audience roared. The MC smiled. ‘Except these: no tearing, gouging or biting. We are not animals. Just good, clean, dirty fun. And please, dear fighters, try not to kill each other. Dead bodies are so inconvenient.’

  Balthazar half-watched as the MC ran through his routine, remembering what he knew about Black George. Even his nickname was a deliberate provocation. Karadjordje, the original Black George, was a nineteenth-century Serbian nationalist leader, regarded as the founder of modern Serbia. The Albanian Black George had returned to Budapest a few years after the Kosovo war. District IX, he decided, would be his base. The quarter had been run by Karcsi bacsi. Karcsi had been a distant cousin of Gaspar and Balthazar’s, an oldschool crime boss in his seventies, overweight and with a heart problem. He had run streetwalkers and pickpockets, and provided protection for local bars.

  There had been a comfortable modus vivendi between Karcsi, the locals and the police. Karcsi was preparing to hand over to his son, Karcsi junior, and retire. Despite being one of the poorer areas of the city, District IX was comparatively crime-free. The pickpockets operated downtown. The prostitutes used cheap hotel rooms, not back alleys or playgrounds after dark. There were no condoms or syringes on the pavement. The bars were protected. Until Black George had arrived. A spate of muggings had erupted, bars and cafés were smashed up or set on fire, prostitutes found beaten halfsenseless. The cheap hotel near Boraros Square that doubled as Karcsi’s brothel had been burned down.

  Soon afterwards, Karcsi junior had disappeared. So did six of Karcsi’s highest-earning prostitutes. Karcsi, Gaspar and Balthazar had used every contact they had to try and locate Karcsi junior and the prostitutes. All they could discover was that they had been bundled into vans and driven away. After three days, the call came. The prostitutes were found stripped naked, freezing, dehydrated and hungry in the warehouse where Balthazar was now talking to Black George. Karcsi junior was nearby, unconscious and barely alive. He had also been stripped naked, beaten severely, forced to stand against the wall while his hands were nailed into the brickwork. Such an assault was enough to trigger an all-out war. Gaspar and the bosses of Districts V, VI, VII and XIII had all pushed for a ferocious response, even hiring a hit man from the Balkans or Ukraine to take out the dangerous new interloper. But Karcsi seemed to lack the heart to take revenge. He had then received a series of photographs of his wife, sons, daughters and numerous grandchildren leaving their homes, playing in the park and going to school. He handed control over to Black George, and died soon afterwards of a heart attack.

  Did Black George know where the Gardener was? Almost certainly. His offer might even be genuine. But the partnership would soon turn into a takeover. Gaspar would lose his business and Black George increase his empire. In any case, Gaspar would never agree to go into business with Black George to help Balthazar solve a murder case. Balthazar watched the spotlight fade, then move to the back of the warehouse, where it stayed for a couple of minutes, before following the two fighters as they stepped forward.

  Gresham Palace Four Seasons Hotel, 7.40 p.m.

  ‘I think that’s enough for now. I’m fading,’ said Reka. ‘You have a murder, an attempted murder, a passport sting and a government providing transit facilities for Islamic radicals in exchange for foreign investment.’

  Eniko nodded. Reka was right. Her head was reeling and not from the gin and tonic. She needed to go home, type up her notes, make a pot of coffee and work out what to do next. Reka caught Hunor’s eye and made a scribbling motion with her hand. He nodded. The drinks would be charged to the ministry’s account. She left a thousand-forint note on the table, put her jacket on, and adjusted the silk scarf around her neck. Zsolt, her bodyguard, stood up and strode rapidly towards the table. ‘We have to leave, Madame Minister, and now.’

  Eniko glanced at Reka, then out of the window. Four black Gendarmerie vans were approaching the hotel. The Four Seasons had three entrances: one in front and two side entrances on Zrinyi and Merleg streets. A Gendarmerie van forced a path between the hotel taxis and tourist buses on the narrow road that ran in front of the building, stopping behind Reka’s Audi. A second reversed down the same road, stopping in front of the Audi, boxing the vehicle in. The other two vehicles blocked the entrances on Zrinyi and Merleg streets. Four squads of four Gendarmes spilled from each vehicle, advancing on the front entrance, barging the startled tourists out of the way.

  ‘We really do have to leave now, Madame Minister,’ said Zsolt.

  Reka said, ‘Give me a moment, Zsolt. And Eniko, you stay close.’ Reka turned to Zsolt. ‘She is with us, OK?’ Zsolt nodded. Reka reached for her iPhone. ‘I need to make a call.’ She quickly scrolled through her numbers until she found the one she was looking for, and pressed the dial button. The call was answered after three rings. ‘Sandor, it’s me. We have a problem.’

  Warehouse, District X, 7.40 p.m.

  Balthazar watched the spotlight track the first fighter as he walked across the warehouse into the cage. ‘Go West’, the 1980s hit by the Pet Shop Boys, suddenly boomed through the space. He was a giant of a man, at least six feet four inches tall, shaven-headed, with dark brown eyes, his heavy-set muscles oiled and gleaming. He wore a pair of shiny black nylon shorts and a blue lycra singlet. He stepped through the gate and the MC announced, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, Ahmed, better known as the Baghdad Brawler, and a former captain of the Iraqi Olympic wrestling team.’ The giant grabbed the chain-link fence, baring his teeth, roaring out loud and shaking it hard. The sound of rattling metal triggered another cheer from the crowd.

  The spotlight remained on him, while another light followed the second fighter as he emerged from the shadows. He was considerably smaller, about five feet eight, with rope-like muscles and a large lion tattooed on his back. He also wore nylon shorts and a singlet, had a boxer’s nose, badly straightened where it had been broken, and he bobbed up and down on his toes. Balthazar thought he looked fast and light on his feet. ‘And on the other side of the ring, ladies and gentlemen,’ said the MC, ‘Memet, better known as the Kurdistan Killer, for reasons we don’t need to discuss here.’

  The MC, who doubled as the referee, brought the two men together to shake hands. The giant tried to grab his opponent and pull him towards him. ‘Naughty, naughty,’ said the MC. ‘Wait until the bell.’ The giant released his opponent. The MC stepped back into the corner. The bell sounded and the crowd cheered.

  Both men circled each for several seconds, their hands up, looking for an opening. The giant moved first, rushing towards Memet, trying to use his weight and mass to force him into a corner of the cage. Memet seemed to allow himself to be swept forward. Once the two men were in the corner, the giant tried to grab Memet, who dodged sideways. Balthazar watched as his left leg flew out, sweeping hard behind the wrestler’s leg. He aimed for the back of his knee. The blow would have dropped the giant instantly but the giant crouched down as the kick connected. Memet’s foot hit his thigh then slid off.

  Even so, most men would still be floored by such a move. The giant laughed and remained immobile. Now Memet was off balance, grimacing with pain as the force of his failed leg-sweep ran back up his leg. The giant grabbed for him again and this time succeeded. He wrapped his arms around Memet and raised him up, trapping his arms, ready to throw him to the ground. The crowd cheered. Balthazar looked around. It wasn’t just blood lust that was running high. There were rhythmic movements in the shadows, gasps and moans as well as cheers.

  Memet drew his
head back then slammed his forehead forward into the giant’s nose. The crack was audible. Blood erupted from his face, pouring over the two men. The wrestler staggered back, then hurled Memet against the wall of the cage. Memet landed on his side just as the wrestler rushed at him. Memet scrabbled back up from the floor, instantly jumping forward with his left leg, scissor-kicking with his right into the giant’s groin. The giant’s face twisted in agony. He staggered back, tried to right himself, then collapsed sideways in a heap, blood still pouring over his torso from his broken nose.

  Memet walked over to him, looked down at his defeated, half-unconscious opponent. ‘Kill him, kill him,’ echoed around the warehouse. The MC walked over and held Memet’s hand high. ‘Bout one goes to the Killer from Kurdistan.’

  Black George turned to Balthazar. ‘Not bad. Less than a minute.’

  Balthazar nodded. The Baghdad Brawler was a wrestler. He knew how to grab and throw and lock down. But the Kurdistan Killer was a street fighter and the result had never been in doubt. There were another six bouts of this to go. He had no desire to watch the parade of desperate men fighting and injuring each other for the chance of a passport. He looked around the audience. Goran was huddled in a corner with a Croatian gangster who smuggled stolen cars out of Hungary into the Balkans, from where they were shipped to South America. The two men were deep in conversation, their body language friendly and animated. Balthazar smiled. In crime at least, the old Yugoslavia lived on. But what he wanted, more than anything, was to see his son. Or at least to speak to him. Goran had given Balthazar his car keys in case he wanted to use his phone. Balthazar turned to Black George. ‘I need to make a call. I’ll be back in a few minutes. Is that OK?’

  Black George said, ‘Bored already?’

  ‘Not at all. But I need to speak to someone.’

  ‘Your colleagues? You calling in a team to shut us down, arrest us?’