From there he could see down the short pedestrian street to the next set of stairs leading down to Marc-Aurel- Stra?e. It was almost eight o’clock and had become cool. He buttoned his jacket and leaned against the railing, clearing his mind for the mental silence that made surveillance work bearable.
Through the window he saw a small crowd of familiars. Lutz’s translator sat with the short man from Ersek’s party, and Ersek was explaining something to Monika at the bar. Lutz was not around, but Brano did recognize the man with faint features who wobbled toward the front door and leaned against it, pushing through to the street.
He took two steps back, deeper into the darkness.
Jan Soroka came out, then paused by the Carp’s window, breathing heavily, talking to himself. “Yes, you know you can make it.”
Then Jan turned and wandered down the stairs leading to Marc-Aurel-Stra?e.
With his hands in his pockets, Brano stayed close to the opposite wall as he passed the Carp, then descended the steps. Jan was extremely drunk. He paused now and then, and once he put a hand against the wall, bowed his head, and rested before moving on.
They shared a tram southward, past the Stadtpark, Brano sitting in the back of the car while Jan slumped in the front. Occasionally he raised his head, shook it, and squinted out the dark window. He seemed to know where he was going.
They got off at Salesiandergasse, and during that last stretch along the sidewalk, Soroka spoke to himself again. Brano couldn’t make out all the words, but twice he heard “Li,” the second time louder than the first. Soroka stopped at number 6 Jauresgasse and began searching for his keys.
Brano closed the distance between them as quickly as possible, his left foot dragging across the wet sidewalk as he pulled out Josef Lochert’s pistol and pressed it against Soroka’s back.
“Hello, Jan.”
Soroka fell to the steps. His hands fluttered a moment, then settled. He squinted. “ Brano? Jesus, you know how to fucking scare a man.”
Brano switched the gun to his weak left hand and helped pull him up. “The keys?”
Soroka looked at the gun. “Sure. Here. It’s the big one.”
Brano used the long key on the front door and walked with him to a ground-floor apartment. Just outside the door, Soroka looked at the gun again.
“Brano, should I be scared?”
He opened the door. “No, Jan. I’m the one who’s scared.”
While Soroka collapsed on the sofa, Brano went to make coffee. He stuck his head out of the kitchen now and then to be sure Jan hadn’t left. By the time the coffee was poured, Brano had to shake him awake.
“Come on, Jan. Drink this. We need to talk.”
Soroka forced himself into an upright position and accepted the cup. “It’s a bad night for talking.”
“It’s the only night we’ve got.”
Soroka sipped, then pursed his lips. “This isn’t bad.”
“I make a good cup of coffee. Can you focus?”
“Just barely.”
“Then drink more.”
Brano waited until he’d finished the first cup, then poured him a second. Jan squinted at him. “Something wrong with your face?”
“I’m bald.”
“Yeah, yeah. But your mouth. It looks kind of funny.”
“It’s nothing.” Brano turned on a radio beside a few books on a shelf and found a station playing Austrian waltzes.
Jan smiled. “You like this stuff?”
“No, but it’s lively.”
He tilted his head, unsure if he agreed, and started on his second cup. He looked tired, but it was more than the fatigue of a drinking night.
“Why are you here, Jan?”
“In Vienna?”
Brano nodded.
“I thought you of all people would know. Everyone else does.”
“Lia?”
“Yeah. We got to Chicago, Illinois, and that’s when she told me she wanted a divorce. She didn’t want to be with me anymore.”
“Did she give you a reason?”
“She said she couldn’t trust me. I get her out of that hellhole, I bring her to the richest country on earth, and she can’t trust me?”
“Well, Jan, you did leave her behind at first.”
“That’s what she kept saying.” He looked into his cup, frowned, and put it on the coffee table. “So I think to myself, where do I go now? Do I stay there? My English is terrible, and Chicago is… well, it’s huge. Have you been?”
Brano shook his head.
“Don’t bother. It’s cold, too. My God, is it cold.”
“Then I won’t bother.”
“This was the only place I could think of. But I’ve been here a week, and now it’s coming back to me. Why I didn’t want to stay in the first place. I’ve got to get out of here.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know. Sometimes I think I should just go back to Bobrka. You ever think that?”
“Tell me. Tell me what you’ve heard since you’ve returned.”
“About you?” Jan grunted. “Ludwig was all over the place last week. You’ve really pissed him off. He says you killed a man and ran away.”
“Does he think you know where I am?”
He shook his head. “Not at all. He keeps asking about…”
“About what?”
“I don’t suppose it matters now, does it?”
“What doesn’t matter?”
Soroka settled his forearms across his knees. “What you always asked me-what did I sell the Americans?”
Brano sat down finally. “What did you sell them?”
“A story. Well, not the story, really, but my silence.”
“Explain.”
He took a breath. “You know where I was before I went to Vienna?”
“At a conference.”
“That’s right. On ‘the future of power in the socialist neighborhood.’ Sounds good, doesn’t it? It wasn’t much of a conference, though, just a lot of empty speeches, but Gyula was quite nice for a spa town. Remember I told you about my visit to see Mihai?”
“Of course. When you were sixteen.”
“Turned out that another of the Pioneers in that group, Gregor Samec, grew up to be a scientist. Working in nuclear energy. He was one of the speakers at the conference. So I got in touch with him, and we went out to a bar. You’ve been there, to Gyula?”
“It’s very nice.”
“It’s excellent. You take the baths, then go get drunk. Gregor, though, wasn’t enjoying it. He was nervous. It took a couple bottles, but I finally got it out of him: He thought he was being followed.”
Soroka blanked for a moment, as if he’d pass out, until Brano said, “Why did Gregor think he was being followed?”
He blinked. “Because he’d seen something he wasn’t supposed to see. He was helping set up a test reactor
