archangel Gabriel mounted atop a thirty-six-meter-high column. When he’d picked this spot as a possible rendezvous, he’d been thinking too much like a policeman and not enough like a conspirator. Mentally he was still on the other side of the surveillance camera.
He was on the edge of rising to go when a young, powerfully built man with blond hair sat down next to him. Without looking up, he opened a lunch pail and laid something on the bench between them. “I think you dropped this, Colonel.”
Hradetsky glanced down. It was the manila envelope he’d given Kusin’s wife. He picked it up. “Yes, I did.”
“Good.” The young man smiled thinly and offered him an apple. “Then let us begin.”
Hradetsky took a bite and listened intently as his nameless companion started asking a series of difficult questions. What were his attitudes toward the various regimes that had ruled Hungary? What had he done in past assignments? What did his current job entail? And most important of all, why did he want to see Vladimir Kusin?
To anyone passing by, they were just two friends sharing a rare treat of fruit on a delightful spring day. The police colonel knew differently. He was being vetted — checked — by the opposition before they let him get close to Kusin.
Hradetsky had conducted enough interrogations to know what the man was looking for, and why he wanted it. His questioner was intelligent and suspicious. The only way to deal with him was to answer every question as quickly and plainly as possible.
Although interrogators often revealed much about themselves by the kinds of questions they asked, these were so limited, or so straightforward, that Hradetsky learned little about the man or his group. From his build, his haircut, and some of the expressions he used, the colonel suspected the younger man might be an ex-army officer.
Abruptly the man closed his lunch pail, stood up, and said, “That’s enough for now. I must report to my superiors.”
Hradetsky stood also and they strolled casually toward the nearest Metro stop, mingling with the other workers streaming back to their offices. He had questions of his own, but he knew this man would not answer them. Still, he volunteered, “Please tell Kus — ”
The other man gave him a sharp look, and shushed him sharply.
Hradetsky corrected himself. “Please tell your superiors that there is not much time.”
The younger man smiled grimly. “We have been trying to tell you and your kind that for a long time.” Then he seemed to loosen up a little. “If you are what you claim to be, you can be a great help to us, Colonel. Still, a man can say anything and sound sincere. Actions always speak louder than words.”
He handed Hradetsky a piece of paper with a single name written on it. “Obtain the police file on this person and then come to the Central Etterem Cafeteria in two days’ time. At noon again. Is that sufficient?”
Momentarily nonplussed, Hradetsky muttered an affirmative.
“Good.” The man stood still for a moment, watching the crowds pouring down the stairs to the underground subway line. Then he glanced back at Hradetsky. “And be more careful in the future. I followed you all the way from your ministry as easily as a wolf tracking a wounded deer. Next time it might not be someone so friendly.” He showed his teeth at his own small joke.
Hradetsky flushed but nodded. However obnoxious the younger man’s manner, his warning was valid. He would have to learn the caution so necessary to those living outside the law.
Two days later, he sat at a table in the packed Central Etterem Cafeteria sipping a cup of strong black espresso. His elbow rested on the same manila envelope, this time containing the police file his contact had requested.
Hradetsky frowned. Copying the confidential file had proved almost ludicrously easy. An overworked staff and sloppy office procedures saw to that. After all, any ranking police official had routine access to that kind of information. The trick had been to do it without attracting attention or leaving a paper trail.
Now that he had the file, he had the time to wonder why exactly Kusin’s people wanted it. From what he’d seen, the man they were interested in was a democratic activist — a longtime opponent of both the old communist regime and the current military government. Perhaps they needed to know how closely the police were watching the fellow. Or maybe the opposition already had a copy of this particular file and only wanted to see if he brought them the right one.
Whatever else it was, this job was certainly a test of his loyalty and resourcefulness. Until he delivered the information they’d asked him for, Kusin and his allies would view him as little more than a big talker. If he delivered the wrong information, they’d write him off as a police plant. And if he’d been caught while trying to get it, they’d have known he wasn’t cut out for covert work.
Hradetsky stirred restlessly. He felt soiled somehow. He’d spent his life enforcing the law and keeping the peace. Now it seemed almost too easy to break both, even in a good cause.
Then he shook his head. His own feelings were unimportant in this case. And his first loyalty had to be to Hungary — not to any particular ruling clique. Especially not to a group of generals in French and German pay. Freeing the nation from their incompetent grasp was not a task for the fainthearted. It was time to act.
The same blond-haired man he’d first met slid into the empty chair across from him. “Good afternoon, Colonel. Do you have what I asked for?”
Hradetsky shoved the envelope across the table and waited while the man glanced inside it briefly and handed it back. He seemed satisfied.
“Follow me.”
Without saying anything more, the younger man got up and left the cafeteria. With Hradetsky in tow, he took a circuitous route through Budapest’s crowded streets — a route that ended at a small apartment building in one of the more fashionable districts.
They went in through a back entrance, climbed two flights of stairs, and halted in front of an unmarked door. The blond-haired man turned for one last look down the stairs and then knocked three times. When the door opened, he motioned the police colonel through ahead of him.
Two men were waiting for them in a tastefully furnished living room. One of them, markedly older than the other, stood up and said quietly, “I am Vladimir Kusin.”
The man in front of Hradetsky was pale and thin, almost anemic. His clothes were shabby, although this appeared to be more from long use than lack of care. Although he was only in his fifties, his hair was snow-white, and a deeply lined face added ten years to his apparent age. A winter spent in prison had clearly been hard on him.
During Hungary’s brief post-communist flirtation with democratic rule, Kusin had been the elected leader of one of Budapest’s district councils. When the military-dominated Government of National Salvation took power, he’d been jailed for unspecified acts of “agitation.” What that meant, the colonel knew, was that he’d complained too vehemently and too vocally about the new regime’s emergency decrees.
And even though Kusin was articulate enough to have acquired some following in the Western media, that hadn’t protected him from a trumped-up charge and six months in prison. The generals had only released him when they were sure he was a spent force — a weak and ailing reed unable to challenge their hold on power.
They had miscalculated.
Even illness and imprisonment hadn’t stopped him. Kusin’s ability to smuggle out statements on human rights, French and German economic and political influence, and other forbidden topics was one of the reasons Hradetsky had sought him out.
In the month since Hungary had joined the European Confederation, Kusin had become even more vocal. Pamphlets and underground newspaper articles bearing his signature called for an end to military rule and immediate withdrawal from the Confederation. He was the closest thing to a national leader that Hungary’s growing opposition had.
Kusin turned toward Hradetsky’s escort. “Any problems?”
The blond man shook his head. “No, sir. I saw no warning signals, and my boys are still in place.”
Kusin saw Hradetsky’s puzzled look and explained. “This is Oskar Kiraly, Colonel. He and a few of his friends watch over me.”
So that was it. The police colonel studied his escort with greater interest. For all practical purposes, Kiraly
