“As soon as we can. Valery may be there at this very minute. If we can find him, we may find ‘the Beekeeper.’ ”
“How about tomorrow?” Jack asked.
“Tomorrow is good.”
As a sports writer, Jack had the perfect cover. He could travel at will almost anywhere and not draw attention. He was simply a journalist writing or researching a story, and I was his nephew. After leaving Opari, Sheela, and Sailor at the
“What about getting in and out?” I asked. “Hungary is a Communist country.”
“It is for now,” Jack replied. “Hungary is in transition. Nobody knows what’s going to happen, but right now it’s a volatile place. The AVH should be avoided.”
“AVH?” Sailor asked.
“State Security Police. Very nasty.” Jack was wearing a St. Louis Cardinals baseball cap. He tilted it back on his head with his thumb and forefinger. “But I can get you in, Z. In fact, this just might be a good time to interview the Hungarian soccer team about the ‘Miracle in Bern.’ ”
“Jack,” Sailor said, “I would like to go along. Do you think two of us would arouse the suspicion of this organization — the AVH?”
“No problem, Sailor. It might even be a better cover, more like a working vacation for me and my nephews, who both love soccer and think the Hungarian players are heroes.”
“Good,” Sailor said with a half smile, then added, “I shall learn all their names.”
After clearing everything through the Hungarian Embassy in Geneva, we arrived by train in Budapest on the morning of October 23. There was already a November chill in the air, and I pulled my jacket collar up around my neck. Jack had the name of our contact memorized. Her name was Piroska Czibor. She was in her mid-thirties and was a professor at the Technical University. She was one of what Cardinal referred to as his “chaperones.” They were various people throughout Eastern Europe whom he trusted implicitly but only used occasionally as agents. Every one had been recruited by Cardinal himself. Piroska Czibor had been approached because her father was Hungarian and her mother had been American. Cardinal thought it might make a difference in Piroska’s decision. It did. She was hired just after the end of World War II, and Cardinal called on her at least once a year until 1951. That year, her husband was killed in an automobile accident and Piroska decided to end her work with Cardinal. He understood and wished her well. But she also possessed a rare ability, which she used to spot and verify her sighting of Valery — a photographic memory with total recall. Even though she had not seen a description of Valery since 1949, she recognized him the moment she saw him walking into a laboratory at the Technical University. Piroska debated a moment with herself, then contacted Cardinal immediately and asked if Valery was “still a person of interest.” Cardinal told her “absolutely” and asked if she would assist us on our assignment, although she was under no obligation. After a few days Piroska made her decision and now we were looking for her outside the train station, where she was supposed to be waiting for us. Cardinal had said she would be wearing a large red and blue scarf around her neck.
“There she is,” Jack said, nodding at a woman walking toward us. She was tall with dark hair, which she was trying to keep out of her face, and she was smiling. In a whisper, Jack added, “Cardinal never said she was beautiful.”
Extending her hand, Piroska introduced herself to Jack. She was gracious and graceful, and Jack was right — she was beautiful. She only had a trace of an accent and her mother must have been from somewhere in the South because Piroska spoke English with a slight Southern drawl. She seemed a little surprised that Jack was with two boys, but she didn’t ask why. Cardinal had trained her, and she knew when and where not to ask questions. Jack never mentioned it or explained our presence, calling us his “orphans of the month.”
Piroska led us to her car, a tiny, ten-year-old Russian sedan, and we drove through the city to her apartment near the Technical University. The apartment was on the third floor and only had four rooms, but the ceilings were high and the windows wide and the long curve of the Danube was visible in the distance. Piroska brewed a pot of coffee, and Jack asked her to tell him about seeing Valery. Sailor and I sat on a bench by the kitchen window, playing cards and pretending not to listen. She glanced over at us and hesitated. Jack told her to ignore us and tell him everything.
Piroska said she had seen Valery entering the same building on three separate occasions, the last being just two days ago.
“What was the building?” Jack asked.
“The building contains the laboratory of Miklos Pazmany, the mathematician and physicist.”
“What is Pazmany’s claim to fame?”
“He has the only mainframe computer in Eastern Europe.”
Jack was puzzled. “Was Valery alone?”
“Not the first time,” Piroska replied. “The first time he was with someone, a much shorter man who wore an expensive Russian sable hat and a long muffler wrapped around his neck and half his face, covering his nose and mouth.”
Sailor and I exchanged a quick glance and shared the same thought — the “Beekeeper.”
Jack continued to ask Piroska questions, not only about Valery, but about Pazmany, about his computer, and about the building itself — how many entrances and exits, was there security in the building, and if so, how much and how many? Piroska answered every question and asked Jack a few in return. Jack answered as best he could. Of course, he couldn’t tell her the real reason we were looking for Valery. Their conversation went on for most of the afternoon. Meanwhile, and unknown to us, there were students and demonstrators gathering by the thousands in the streets of Budapest to protest against the government and its Stalinist regime. Speeches were given and proclamations read at the Bem statue, where the crowd chanted the forbidden National Song with the refrain, “We vow, we vow, we will no longer remain slaves.” Later, they crossed the Danube and joined with other protesters outside the Parliament Building. By early evening, the crowd had enlarged to 200,000 people. The Hungarian Revolution had begun.
The next day Soviet tanks moved into Budapest, parking in front of the Parliament Building while Soviet troops guarded important bridges and crossroads. Armed revolutionaries fought the tanks with Molotov cocktails; the Hungarian resistance finally forced a cease-fire on October 28, and a new but fragile government was in place. By October 30 the tanks had withdrawn from Budapest to Soviet garrisons in the countryside. Many people in the streets believed the Soviets had left Hungary for good. Jack knew better and said he doubted they would ever do that.
During the first week of the revolution, fighting in the narrow streets made it virtually impossible for any of us to watch for Valery at the University. It wasn’t until November 1 that Piroska could show us where she had seen Valery enter Pazmany’s laboratory. There were two entrances at opposite ends of the building. Sailor and I set up a sort of stakeout at one of them, while Jack and Piroska took the other. For three days we saw nothing but students, teachers, and workers coming and going. Finally, early on the morning of November 4, I caught a glimpse of a tall man in Italian shoes and a tailored wool coat walking briskly across the street toward the laboratory. He looked once over his shoulder and hesitated.
Then we heard the tank fire followed by sporadic gunfire. It came without warning, and it sounded as if it
