stepped out to perform his station duties. I climbed down to the platform, again gripping the pistol in my pocket, and under the arc lights watched people leaving. The air was mountainous, cold and clean; it woke me. Again, no Michalec. Perhaps he’d actually found a way out of the Sudbahnhof undetected and made his way to the embassy, but I still doubted it. Other people would have tried that, but Michalec wasn’t the type of man to panic and run through the streets of a city where anyone could be looking for him. He would have assumed that the Austrian police who came over to his bus just after he’d disembarked were waiting to arrest him. He was on the train. I was sure of it.
I climbed onto the steps and leaned out as we started moving again. Once we’d picked up speed, I came inside. The conductor was standing outside my cabin, asking the Americans where I was. When he saw me, his sour expression returned. “Please, Herr. Do not make trouble.”
“Of course not,” I said. Soon after, we stopped in Villach, but I was more confident now. I excused myself as I pushed between the Americans’knees and looked out the window. They gave me generous smiles and offered potato chips, which I declined. We were high up now, moving along dark mountainsides and whistling through tunnels. When we emerged, the moonlit clouds seemed close enough to touch. Sometimes snow blew against the window. The Americans cooed at all of it, and I wished I knew enough English to ask if this was their first trip to Europe. They were so full of joyful excitement.
At about eight in the evening, we stopped outside Tarvis, or, to the Italians, Tarvisio. Austrian guards walked leisurely down the corridor, coming upon us first because we were at the end of the train. The Americans grinned as a chubby guard stamped their passports, and I handed over my fresh Austrian one. He gripped the stamp in his fist and stared a moment at the passport. I didn’t know if it was real or not-Brano hadn’t told me either way-and when he closed it again without stamping it, I was sure it was a forgery, a lousy one. He gave me a brief, severe smile and nodded down the corridor. “Please, come with me.”
The Americans gazed in confusion as I got up and followed him out.
It was snowing here, the winds from the Julian Alps bearing down on us as we crossed the platform. I started to tell him that I was a police officer working on a case but realized there was no point. By the door to a quaint-looking office building, my guard whispered to the ranking officer, a fat man with a white mustache. This, I supposed, was the man who would end my journey. He looked me over a moment as I stared through heavy, wet snowflakes at the train-no, no one was getting off. He held up my passport and told me to come inside.
The office was overheated and stank of burned coffee-but real coffee. He looked through the mess on his desk and picked up a telegram.
He noticed me sniffing. “Get yourself a cup,” he told me. Then he picked up the telephone and dialed. I poured the coffee and drank it black-it was scalded, but I needed it. I almost unzipped my coat, then remembered the heavy pistol and decided against it.
After a moment, the officer said, “Hello? Yes, this is Major Karloff Brentswinger. Yes, Tarvis. I was told to call this number when an Emil Brod reached the border. Yes. Danke.”
He covered the mouthpiece as I sipped the dreadful coffee and said, “He’s not in the office. They’re transferring me.”
“Who?”
He seemed surprised I didn’t know this, but he was only too aware of the limitations of his job in this snowy outpost, so he didn’t answer. I drank my coffee quickly.
“Yes,” the major said into the phone. “Emil Brod.” He nodded at my passport. “Yes. Okay.” He held out the phone. “He wants to speak to you.”
I set down the empty cup and took the phone. Ludwig’s voice came through the line. “Brod? That you?”
“Yes.”
“You bastard! Do you know what you’ve done?”
“Yes,” I said, biting my lip before the word “comrade” made it out. “I have some idea.”
“An international fucking incident. That’s what you’ve done.”
There was noise on the line, movement, then Brano Sev came on, returning to my language. “Emil? Tell me the situation.”
“Look, Brano. I’m sorry.”
“Just tell me.”
So I did. As far as I knew, Michalec was on the train, headed to Italy. He might get off beforehand, but I suspected he would take it all the way to Trieste. I imagined he could find protection there. “I’m following him.”
“To kill him?” said Brano.
“I think so.”
“Are you sure about this?”
“Yes,” I said.
There was a long pause. “And money? Dijana gave you some.”
“Most of it’s gone.”
“Okay.” He didn’t say good-bye, just went silent; then I heard him speaking to Ludwig. I couldn’t make out the words. The Austrian was agitated, but Brano wasn’t. Ludwig came back on. He sounded disgusted. “Give me the major, Brod.”
It was, inexplicably, accomplished. After hanging up, Major Karloff Brentswinger took a stamp from his drawer, adjusted the date, inked it, and pressed it into one of the pages of my passport. I tried to read it when he handed it over, but it wasn’t in German. It was in Italian. Some kind of Italian visa. When I looked at him, he shook his head. “Don’t ask, okay?” Then he went through another drawer and handed me a slip of cardboard-a second- class ticket the rest of the way to Trieste.
He walked me back to the train. The conductor, farther up the platform, stared angrily when he saw I wasn’t being removed. The Americans, having seen me shake hands with the major on the snowy platform, offered another beer, which I declined with thanks.
When the Italian border guards saw the passport, they didn’t give me any trouble, so I suppose the stamp was official enough. They only peered at the shelves around me, looking for extra bottles of liquor, but I had nothing. The Americans told the guards all about their plans to see Venice, then Florence, then Rome, and the guards wished them a happy trip.
After a while, an Italian conductor came through, selling tickets. I handed him my new ticket. He punched a hole in it and handed it back with a smile.
I couldn’t understand my good fortune. Brano didn’t want me to kill Michalec-he’d made that clear. Was he just too soft, as I’d suspected before? Had he become too sentimental about his old friends and decided to give me my revenge because I needed it? Or was he being what he had always been-practical? His plan to arrest Michalec had gone disastrously wrong, and Ludwig’s journalist friend was at that moment writing a scathing article about the ineptitude of Austrian intelligence for Der Standard. Perhaps the only solution left to Brano was to let me get rid of Michalec. I still hadn’t had a chance to ask him.
By ten, we had descended from the mountains and were moving toward the Adriatic. I could smell the sea.
26 DECEMBER 1989
TUESDAY
THIRTY-SEVEN
After an hour in Trieste, I still hadn’t fired a shot. The Americans followed me out to the platform, muttering about what track their Venice train was leaving from. Then the girl grabbed my shoulder, which made me reach toward my gun. She smiled toothily. “Well, have a good trip, mister.”
“And you.” I smiled, then moved quickly away, rising to my toes to see over heads. It was difficult. These people had the height of the West, of protein-rich diets that had never been handicapped by rationing.
