him. For you, Jozsef, he would do anything.”
“Then why does he beat me? If he loved me, he would not beat me.”
“I wish that were true. There'd be far less abuse in the world. But beatings or no, he fears for your life. He fears the illness inside you. That's why he's saving the antibiotic he has for you — and letting me die.”
The boy turned and looked at her piercingly.
“Where did you get that hypodermic?” Sophie asked.
“From the supply room, where he keeps the antibiotic.”
“Do you have the strength to take me there?”
He did not answer for fully fifteen seconds. Then he said: “Don't do this, lady. It will make him angry. Papa cannot control himself when he is angry.”
“I know,” she said.
He shook his head.
“You know nothing at all. I have seen him kill. I know what he can do.”
“Jozsef — do you want to see your mother?”
“More than God Himself,” the boy whispered.
“Then take me to the supplies.”
Anxiously, Bela Horvath scanned the pages of his notebook and then thrust it into the plain black knapsack he carried to the lab every day. It was nearly midnight. The meeting with Vie Marinelli in Varosliget Park was only eight hours away, but he was sweating with fear and nausea. The notebook was the embodiment of his betrayal, the embodiment of his faith. It must not come to harm.
He searched his untidy bedroom, eyes straining in the dark. A light at this hour would be a mistake. He had taken a risk even returning to the house. At the thought of Mian and what he would do if he knew of the notebook — if he knew of the meeting with Marinelli — Horvath's fingers twitched spasmodically. He dropped the knapsack.
He had wanted this meeting, had almost initiated it when the city went up like a torch that afternoon and the laboratory had closed. He had suspected the truth at last tonight, he had tested and retested it out of thoroughness and disbelief, until with a scientist's harsh honesty he understood. Someone had to stop it.
He had bicycled home along the usual streets, crowded with people shouting as they had not done since 1989, since 1956, but those had been questions of politics then — of something worth dying for. This was about money. The ugliness in people's faces depressed him, and he wove in and out among the stalled cars, knapsack tight as a leech against his back, wondering what he hoped to save.
The chalk mark was a red slash trailing haphazardly across a concrete pillar, and for an instant, he was uncertain whether he had actually seen it. He stopped the bike and thrust his glasses higher on his nose, staring at the scrawl on the Vigado concert hall. The signal was supposed to be done this way — but could it be a mistake? Something to do with the rioting? He was supposed to mark the opposite pillar himself, in blue chalk — he carried it always in a knapsack pocket — but the square, he noticed now, was blocked off by police. They were ranked shoulder to shoulder in front of Gerbeaud's, the coffeehouse. Trapped patrons glared through the broad plate-glass windows; others perused their papers, bored. Horvath felt a bubble of laughter shatter inside him: How like the police to protect their pastry!
He had backed away from the Vigado, turned out of Vorosmarty Ter, and pedaled home. When he called Mirjana's answering machine, the message from Michael awaited him. He prayed that by now, Mirjana had safely left town.
The sound of breaking glass from the front of the house brought his head up sharply. The back door — He crept out of the bedroom, turned left in the darkened hall, and saw the gloved hand snake through the shattered living-room window. They would have it open in seconds.
He sidestepped into the kitchen — and there, backlit in the alley streetlight, was the silent shape of a man. He was surrounded.
Horvath looked about wildly. He saw the too-obvious cupboards, the pathetic tray of cold supper his cleaning lady had prepared, the broom closet smelling sharply of vinegar and ammonia. He thrust the black knapsack behind a damp pail at the closet's rear just as Krucevic entered the kitchen. “Mhn,” Horvath said breathlessly, his back to the closet door.
“Did you have to break my window?”
Krucevic smiled.
“There are broken windows all over Budapest today. Besides, you didn't answer my knock.”
“I never heard it,” he said. That was certainly true; he had been lost in a fever of his own making. Horvath gestured toward the tray, the limp slices of meat and the tepid vegetables covered in plastic.
“I was just about to eat.”
“At midnight?”
“As you see. I... I was working late.”
“Poor Bela,” Krucevic said slowly. “Always the desperate grind. You should get away for a while. Take a break from all this.” He glanced at one of his men a malevolent-looking bruiser with a shaved head who stepped forward and took Horvath by the arm.
“You haven't said you're glad to see me, Bela.”
“I was just surprised, Mian, that's all. You're well?” The thug's hand was like an iron cuff above his elbow.
“Strange,” Krucevic mused. “I'd have said you weren't surprised at all. In fact, you looked like you were expecting me. Perhaps you'll tell me why while we drive.”
“Drive?”
“To your lab. I'm afraid, Bela, you took something that does not belong to you. And now I want it back.”
Part IV
Friday, November 12
One
Berlin, 2 a.m.
Anatoly Rubikov cared nothing for the lateness of the hour. Nor for the dull headache that throbbed in his temples, or the sourness in his mouth. He called his wife in Hamburg from the main Berlin train station and felt a shaft of joy at her sleepy hello. Then he told her he loved her and promised he would see her in the morning.
Next he dialed Wally Aronson's cellular phone. Wally answered on the second ring.
“Where are you?” the station chief asked.
“The Hauptbahnhof,” Anatoly replied. “I need to talk to you.”
“About Lajta?”
Anatoly nodded, as though the man might be able to see his face across the rat's maze of city streets.
“I'm scared to death,” he told him softly. “I've got to get out. You've got to get me out”
“You're still alive. Calm down, Anatoly.”
“He threatened my wife. My girls.”
“I understand.”
“Wally — ” The Russian safecracker hesitated, his pride still strong. “I have something for you. In exchange for my safety. I have it here, right now. I will give it to you.” His voice rose and broke, which was utterly unlike him.“But you must help me — ”
“Wait there,” the station chief interrupted curtly. “Buy your ticket to Hamburg and wait. I'll find you on the
