was the West Berlin rezidenft Again, this was a man who had since been brought back home, so he answered. And what did Brano do there? He followed orders.
Ludwig closed the circuit.
“More specific, Brano.”
He told them of various operations he’d taken part in over that year, none of which concerned Austria. He’d helped manage three informers, had once run a disinformation campaign against British intelligence, had arranged the practical details of two incoming operatives, and had killed one man.
“Name?”
He admitted that as well, because by now he could no longer distinguish what was important from what was not. All questions had answers.
“What about Bertrand Richter?”
“He was giving you information.”
“What made you think that?”
“I gave him false information, and he delivered it to you. He told you a West German truck would carry guns into Hungary. He had to be eliminated.”
“By whom?”
“By Erich Tobler,” he lied.
The sound of paper shuffling. “That’s the informer who lives on Hauptstra?e.”
“Yes,” said Brano. “He’s the one.”
“We assumed it was you. You did leave Austria the same evening the body was discovered.”
“It wouldn’t make sense for me to do it myself-I was the rezident. There are people trained for that.”
“Okay,” said Ludwig. Papers again. “Tell me why you’re in Austria.”
“I’ve told you a hundred times.”
“You’ve lied to me a hundred times.”
“It’s the truth.”
“Try again, Brano.”
“What do you want from me?”
Movement. Then a hand removed the burlap bag. He blinked, the light stinging his eyes, and looked down at the metal teeth digging into his nipples, the bruises around them, and the blood. He could no longer feel his chest.
Ludwig was on the sofa, and between them the coffee table was covered with scribbled pages ripped out of a notebook. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “I don’t know why you’re being so unreasonable. We all know you’re not here because of a drunk peasant. You’re here for another reason. And this reason has a name: Dijana Frankovic.”
Brano stared at him, unable to answer. After all the secrets spilled and networks made useless, Ludwig was asking about a matter of personal desire. Perhaps they thought she was part of his network, he didn’t know. But bringing her up provoked that one thing Brano had been able to sidestep for three weeks. It was one of Cerny’s dictums: Never hate your enemy. Hatred means you underestimate; your hatred makes you blind.
“Dijana Frankovic is connected to nothing. I can’t explain it.” He inhaled, trying not to weep, his stomach knotting. “Dijana Frankovic is an innocent. She just stumbled into the wrong man. She fell in love.”
Ludwig smiled doubtfully, the same smile Colonel Cerny gave him when he told Brano she was obviously a spy. “Tell me, Brano. You were sent to follow Jan Soroka, to track his path. Why, then, once you knew you’d be picked up by us, didn’t you arrest the Sorokas, or simply turn back?”
Brano was asking himself the same question. He took a deep breath, and the tight flesh on his rising chest began to ache. He’d had orders, but he could have interpreted them however he liked. “Perhaps you’re right,” he said.
“About what?”
“It wasn’t just her in love with me.”
“I knew it!” Ludwig slapped his knee and turned to Karl. “Didn’t I tell you? All idealists are, beneath the surface, just romantics. Didn’t I say that?”
Karl nodded.
Brano exhaled and closed his eyes. Then he opened them, blinking, but couldn’t quite get the living room into focus. He felt very old.
19 MARCH 1967, SUNDAY
He’d spent the last week sore and sleepless, fearing each night that when Ludwig came the next day, it would be with Dijana Frankovic in tow, and he’d give way to the hatred that tugged at him. But when Ludwig arrived each morning, it was with a notebook and pen, and the questions continued. Until Sunday, when he brought a cardboard box. Brano shifted uncomfortably on the sofa. Ludwig set the box on the coffee table. “Go ahead, Brano. Something for you.” Brano reached forward and opened it.
Inside was a suit, slate gray jacket and pants, and beneath, a pressed white shirt.
“Try it on. I guessed your measurements yesterday. Let’s see how well I did.”
Ludwig had guessed perfectly. Despite the soreness in his nipples when he buttoned the shirt, each piece of clothing fit as if it had been measured for him, and the material was strong and very fine. Ludwig put his hand on his chin.
“Like new, Brano. Very good.”
“What now?”
“Now, we take you to your new home.”
They used the burlap bag again, and when it was removed they were making their way through farmland toward Vienna. It was the same car that had brought him in from the Ferto Lake, the gray Renault. Karl sat in the backseat with him while the tall guard drove. Ludwig, in the passenger seat, gazed ahead as the road widened and rose, the familiar cityscape coming into view.
“Where’s my new home?”
Ludwig twisted back and winked. “A surprise.”
They entered Vienna from the southeast, through the Simmering and Landstra?e districts, then along the Ringstra?e that circled the inner city, past the Stadtpark and the immense buildings of the Museum Quarter. Along Mariahilfer Stra?e, storefronts loomed, the sidewalks packed. A left just before the Westbahnhof, a few more streets, then they parked.
“Not a bad area,” said Ludwig. “You can do your shopping just up the road.”
“So I’m allowed to leave?”
“Leave?”
“My new home. You’re not taking me to prison.”
Though he’d often smiled, this was the first time Ludwig laughed in Brano’s presence, a choked sound from a red face. “Christ, Brano. You’ve got an imagination.”
His new home was a quaint apartment building at number 25 Web-Gasse. White Secessionist women’s faces looked down from a high floor.
“How long?”
“What?”
“How long are you going to let me stay here?”
“As long as you want, Brano. Just check in with us weekly-each meeting we’ll renew your visa-and sometimes we can talk. Why should we treat you the way you treat people?”
“How do I treat people?”
“Just read the newspaper, Brano. Everyone knows what you guys do.”
Brano almost replied, but the week-old soreness beneath his shirt convinced him otherwise. His impulse was to give a list of agents who had been lost in Vienna over the last three years. Ignac Janke had turned up in a landfill outside town with burn marks covering his chest and two fingers missing. Alfonz Schmidt drowned, but from motor
