District VIII

by Adam LeBor

  The door opened and she turned to see the trio walk back inside. This was it, the moment of truth, in the biggest gamble of her life. She would either leave with a deal, her fate assured. Or she would be handed over to the Gendarmes or God knows who. Her heart was thumping, her hands sweaty inside her gloves. She stood still, pleased to see that they remained steady.

  Brad said, ‘Sit down, please, Reka.’

  She did as he asked. His voice was calm but his eyes were glinting. ‘So what we have here, is proof that you knew that your prime minister was allowing Islamic terrorists to transit through Hungary. You talked about it in bed. Isn’t that the case?’

  Reka nodded, a sinking feeling spreading through her stomach. ‘Yes, but I...’

  ‘But nothing, Reka. You have facilitated travel for international terrorists. And you failed to notify the authorities.’

  ‘I am telling you now. I was running a sting operation.’

  ‘They move people, Reka, because you took bribes and helped them.’

  ‘But you caught them.’

  Celeste leaned forward, her voice tight with anger. ‘We caught some of them. We don’t know who else has got through or where they are or might be. Thanks to you. Who knows where they are or what they are planning? You have blood on your hands, Reka.’

  The sinking feeling in Reka’s stomach turned to nausea and fear. ‘I have nothing on my hands. What I do have are all the records and documentation to show that I and my colleagues used Pal Palkovics to run a well-planned sting operation to track and unravel an international jihadi network. And I have said that I can turn everything over to you.’

  Celeste said, ‘You will do that, Madame Minister. As soon as we are done here. Because you are done. Your career is finished. And so is your time as a free woman.’ She glanced at Brad, then Anastasia. ‘How do you want to do this? We are in Hungary and she is a Hungarian citizen. You have first rights.’

  Anastasia considered her answer before she spoke. ‘The best place to hold her for initial interrogations would be at the Gendarmerie headquarters on Andrassy Way. The Gendarmes have isolation cells there.’ She looked at Brad. ‘Like one of your super-maxes.’

  Brad said, ‘Sounds good to me.’ He looked at Celeste, who nodded.

  Reka tried to beat back her rising sense of panic. The isolation cells were grey concrete cubicles, barely larger than a child-sized bed, with a bucket for a toilet. The lights were left on twenty-four hours a day. Isolation prisoners were not allowed to mix with other inmates or take exercise, even in their own cells. She had several times asked Pal Palkovics about their function, pointed out that they were illegal under EU human rights laws. Palkovics had refused to answer her questions, but a couple of days later the Gendarmes’ interrogation manual had been left on her desk, with a sticky note pasted to the section on Grade One beatings. She stopped asking.

  Reka closed her eyes, ignored the fear surging inside her. She had to stay in control. She would stay in control. For a second, she was back on the walkway at the castle, as the man sent to kill her advanced towards her, on her back as he tried to strangle her, saw him toppling over with the heel rammed into his neck. She opened her eyes, summoned every iota of her courage and began to speak. ‘Thanks to me, you know that the prime minister of Hungary is secretly taking bribes from some very questionable people in the Gulf. Thanks to me, you know that Gulf investors have set up a base here to move potential terrorists. Thanks to me, you will soon know how the networks operate, how the traffickers move people, how the dirty money flows. Thanks to me, a major terrorist route westwards can be closed down.’ She paused. ‘Thanks to me, we are all just a little bit safer tonight.’

  Brad said, ‘Nice speech. But not nice enough.’ He turned to Celeste and Anastasia. ‘Shall we proceed?’

  The two women nodded. Anastasia said, ‘Sure. I’ll make the call.’

  Reka leaned forward. The last card would have to be played. ‘Wait. There’s something you need to know.’ The three turned to her. Reka continued talking. ‘You have CCTV on this house?’

  Brad nodded. ‘The whole of the street is covered.’

  ‘Call it up. There is an Audi A4 parked three doors down.’ Brad took out his iPhone, tapped on the screen. He placed the handset on the table so that Celeste and Anastasia could see. The image showed Filler Street, a long, leafy avenue. There was no traffic and the pavements were empty. Brad zoomed in on the Audi. ‘I see it.’

  Reka asked, ‘Can you see the driver?’

  The image showed a broad-shouldered man with a shaven head and deep-set blue eyes.

  Brad said, ‘Sure. Who is he?’

  ‘His name is Antal. He works for me.’

  ‘That’s nice,’ said Brad. ‘But you won’t be getting any visitors.’ He turned to Anastasia. ‘Now, let’s proceed with what we need to do.’

  Reka sat back, forced herself to sound more confident than she felt. ‘The thing is, Brad, Antal has film on his phone of all three of you coming in here, and of me.’

  The three intelligence officers glanced at each other. She had their full attention now. ‘We know all about your safe houses. It was easy to guess where you would want to meet.’ This part at least, was true. Reka continued talking. ‘If I don’t walk out of here by 11.00 p.m., that film will be posted to YouTube. You will be identified as the chief of station for the CIA, Celeste as the equivalent for MI6, and Anastasia as an operative for the ABS, all part of an operation to illegally detain a lawfully elected minister of the Hungarian government.’

  This was a lie: there was no film. Antal refused to use a smartphone. He had an old Motorola flip-top without a camera. But there was no way the three intelligence agents would know that. Reka turned to Brad and Celeste. ‘You will be – what’s the term? – “burnt”, I believe. You will certainly be declared persona non grata. Your bosses will protest but they will pull you both out. Your careers won’t recover for a long time, if ever. That film will follow you around the internet. Forever.’

  Reka then addressed Anastasia, her tone harsh now. ‘And you, kedves Anastasia, you will also have to leave the country, probably for a long time, especially once your personal details are all over hazifiu.hu. You certainly won’t ever work for our security service again.’

  Brad asked, ‘Are you threatening us?’

  Reka shrugged. ‘Of course not. How can I threaten you? I am just helping you understand the local operating environment.’

  Brad picked up his phone and started to call a number. Reka said, ‘Before you call your security team, you should know that Antal has several webcams in the car, covering the street and the inside of the vehicle, all set up to live stream on Facebook if anyone approaches the vehicle. Plus we have another team in a nearby house watching him, also ready to film and live stream. So your operatives, whoever they are, can also book their tickets home.’

  This was a complete fantasy. There were no webcams installed in the vehicle and nor did Reka have another team. The only part that was true was Antal was there, sitting in a car nearby. Would that be enough to convince the trio? Reka watched the three intelligence agents carefully. Brad sat back for a moment, exhaled slowly. The two women looked at each other. There was nothing spies hated more than the prospect of having their names and faces made public. Their bosses would be furious. Their operational careers would certainly be over for good. If nothing else, Reka had taken control of the encounter. She was not out of the woods yet, she knew, not by a long way, but the atmosphere in the room and the power balance, she sensed, was shifting in her favour. She still had the nuclear option -releasing the transcripts to the press – in reserve, but there was no going back from that. She wanted to negotiate, not leave a trail of wreckage.

  Brad exhaled slowly, scratched his stomach, then gestured to Anastasia and Celeste. The two women stood up. He turned to Reka. ‘We’ll be back in a few minutes. Don’t leave the room.’

  Reka smiled. ‘Why would I?’

  The trio returne
d two minutes later and sat back down at the table. Reka made sure not to show her nervousness. The isolation cells were probably an empty threat, she had decided. Too many people would see her arrive and would know she was being held at 60 Andrassy Way. But she had no doubt at all that Brad and Celeste could, if they chose, make her disappear and guide the media to come up with a plausible reason for her sudden absence. Or even arrange an ‘accident’. This was a high-risk game she was playing. But she also knew that she had no choice.

  Brad spoke. ‘If we accepted your explanation that you were running a sting operation – if – your documentation would be helpful. But it’s not enough. You have left out one of the most important players. Give us everything you have on him, and you’ll walk free.’

  ‘Who?’ asked Reka, for a moment genuinely puzzled. ‘Palk-ovics is the key person. I have given you everything I have on him. Really, everything.’

  ‘We know that, and we believe you,’ said Brad. ‘But there is someone else. Someone deeply involved in all of this. We need all the details of his role as well.’

  Celeste spoke, her voice softer, more encouraging now. ‘Of course, we understand that is a difficult step for you to take. It will have a cost, a personal cost. But it will be worth it. We can help you, Reka, help you get the prize you have wanted for so long. And when you move into that lovely corner office, with the view over the Danube, we can help you stay there.’

  Reka asked, ‘How?’

  ‘We are in the information business,’ said Brad. ‘We tell you things, you tell us. But it all starts with one man.’

  Reka felt the relief coursing through her. They were offering a deal. She was safe. Kez kezet mos. Ten, even five years ago, they would not be negotiating with her. But now Budapest was back on the map, which meant they needed her. International crime gangs had set up their headquarters in the city, reaching east to Moscow and west to London, New York and Los Angeles. The banks were awash with dirty money pouring in from the former Soviet Union and the Middle East. Britain and the United States all had boosted their intelligence operations. The city was full of Russian spies. Budapest was a gateway to the west for everyone from the Triads in Hong Kong to corrupt American corporations – and now jihadists.

  Reka had no qualms about sharing that kind of intelligence with London and Washington DC. In return they would supply information that could dispose of any opponent whenever she wanted. Reka was a Social Democrat. The party was in power and so had the most access to EU funds and controlled their disbursement. But every group in Parliament, from the minuscule, unreformed Communists to the ultra-nationalists, had their fingers in the till. The only question was how much they could extract. But the relief was mixed with puzzlement. Who were they talking about? And then the dread rushed through her as she realised they could only have one person in mind. Someone who, for all her betrayals, she had always tried to protect.

  Reka asked, ‘Who?’

  Brad said, ‘Your husband.’

  EIGHTEEN

  Dob Street, 10.05 p.m.

  The unmarked police vehicle, a black Toyota saloon, dropped Balthazar off right in front of his building. Just as Sandor Takacs had promised, there was a regular police car parked right outside the front door, a Volkswagen Golf in the white-and-blue livery of the Budapest police, with two officers inside. He raised his hand to them in greeting and they nodded in return. A second Volkswagen was parked on the corner of Klauzal Square, just behind the rack of green Bubi bikes, also with two policemen inside. A third vehicle was positioned ten yards further up Dob Street, near the corner of the Grand Boulevard. All three were fitted with a roof-mounted CCTV unit slowly sweeping back and forth. It would be impossible to approach the building without being noticed. The CCTV feed, Balthazar knew, would go straight back to the Budapest police headquarters. Any threat, or even a hint of one, would trigger a fresh armada of vehicles and probably a helicopter.

  Usually, at this time on a Saturday night, this corner of District VII was still jammed. But there were no crowds of revellers strolling past, making a raucous path from ruin pub to ruin pub. There were no teenagers drinking and smoking in the Klauzal Square park and definitely no smell of marijuana wafting over the fence. The Irish pub was quiet and shuttered. A row of empty green beer bottles and tiny clear palinka bottles was lined up on the window sill of Csaba’s ABC but the drinkers had long gone. If nothing else, Sandor Takacs’s display of force had brought the residents a rare night of quiet.

  Balthazar watched the black saloon slowly drive off. The vehicle would circle the area for three hours, before another took its place. He had called Sandor Takacs on his way back from District X. His boss had heard on the police grapevine about an incident near the cage fight. The details were very hazy but the crashed cars in the field had been found by chance by a local police patrol. Takacs already knew that the vehicles were not police cars. The two Gendarmes had been taken to hospital, where they would soon be charged with impersonating police officers. Even so, Takacs still tore a strip off Balthazar, reminded him of his instruction to stay under the radar. He then despatched two carloads of regular riot police to pick up Balthazar and Goran. The Serb had been escorted back to one of his many apartments. Balthazar had been taken to the police headquarters on Teve Street, to wait in safety while Takacs despatched the local police in District VII to check out his flat and the surrounds.

  Once they gave the all-clear, Balthazar was allowed home. Takacs had also arranged for regular foot patrols from the local stations from Districts VI and VIII to Dob Street. The Gendarmerie would back off, for now, Balthazar thought, especially after the incident at the Gresham Palace Hotel, which was all over the news and the internet. The new force might have state-of-the-art vehicles, weapons, equipment and legal carte blanche but they were barely three hundred strong and far outnumbered by the regular police – and numbers counted, especially as the struggle between the two was turning ever nastier.

  Yet for how long? Attila Ungar was a thug, to be sure. But a thug with highly developed political antennae. Balthazar walked up to the door of his building, his mind running back over his conversation with Anastasia Ferenczy earlier that day. The involvement of the western intelligence services was a game-changer. Hungary was a small country, of just ten million people, fewer than the population of London and its surrounds. If America, Britain and Germany wanted to crash the economy, wreck the forint, release compromising material on Pal Palkovics, they could. They might not even need to act to bring down his government. Palkovics had created a praetorian guard. But praetorian guards had a habit of turning on their creators. A more interesting question was how long would Ungar stay loyal to Palkovics?

  The door buzzed open before Balthazar had the chance to key in his entry code. The kitchen of Eva’s ground-floor flat looked out onto Dob Street. She had been waiting for him to come home, he guessed. He walked up the stairs, holding onto the metal banister for support, his legs feeling as though they were about to give way. Eva was standing in the entrance foyer by the open door to the her flat. She beckoned Balthazar to her, staring at him for several long seconds. ‘You look terrible.’ She looked down at his right hand. ‘More fighting? You need a doctor?’

  He shook his head. ‘No, I slipped. It’s nothing. Just a graze. I don’t need a doctor. I just want to go to sleep.’

  ‘You can sleep. But not yet. We have company.’

  Balthazar stiffened, a sense of dread rushing through him. Were the Gendarmes here already, inside the building? Had he put Eva neni in danger?

  She sensed his unease, laid her hand on his arm. ‘Come, Tazikam. There’s nothing to worry about.’ They stepped into her kitchen. The small room was familiar and curiously comforting. Eva neni invited him down for a meal once or twice a month, sometimes with Alex. The orange wall units, spotless gas cooker and formica-topped table dated back to the 1970s. Framed pictures of Eva neni’s family, sepia-tinted formal photographs of her parents, sister, colour snaps of her daughter an
d grandchildren stood on the window sill. Eniko sat by the table, hunched over her laptop. She looked up at Balthazar as he walked in. Her eyes were red-rimmed. ‘I’m sorry, Tazi. I can’t go home. I didn’t know where else to go.’

  Eva neni shook her head in mock exasperation. She had met Eniko several times while she and Balthazar were together. Eva had made it clear that one, Balthazar needed to get married again and have more children, and two, Eniko would be a good choice. ‘She’s all yours. She wouldn’t eat anything, would barely have a cup of tea, and spent all her time looking at her watch or her computer, waiting for you to get home.’ She smiled mischievously. ‘And you can be sure there was no word from that actor. Now can you two lovebirds leave an old lady to get her beauty sleep, please? And by the way, where is Alex?’

  Balthazar smiled. ‘At his mum’s. He’s coming next weekend.’

  ‘OK. You get pancakes tomorrow anyway. But not too early.’ She reached for a small green plastic bottle on one of the shelves and handed it to Balthazar. She turned to Eniko. ‘You’ll look after him?’ It was a statement more than a request. Eniko nodded. She picked up her laptop, thanked Eva neni, kissed her on both cheeks and followed Balthazar into his apartment.

  ‘Shall I make us some tea?’ asked Eniko. Balthazar nodded, almost too tired to speak. He put the Betadine down on the coffee table. While Eniko was in the kitchen, he walked through to the small room. The bed was made up with clean sheets and pillowcases, waiting for Alex. It would do for Eniko. But why was she here?

  He stepped back into the lounge, flopped down on the sofa, his hand throbbing, the fatigue washing through him in waves, dozed off for a minute or two. Eniko brought two mugs of tea on a plastic tray, which she placed on the coffee table before sitting down next to him. She looked at Balthazar uncertainly. ‘Strawberry. It’s all I could find.’ She picked up her mug. ‘So here I am again,’ she said, smiling brightly.