Red Rabbit

appear in due course.

* * *

The bar was emptying out, and Hudson didn’t wish to be the last one in there. The bar bill was fifty forints, which he paid, not leaving a tip, because it wasn’t the local custom, and it wouldn’t do to be remembered. He motioned to Ryan and headed out but, on second thought, made his way to the loo. The thought struck Ryan as very practical, too.

Outside, Ryan asked what came next.

“We take a stroll up the street, Sir John,” Hudson answered, using the knightly title as an unfair barb. “Thirty-minute stroll to the hotel, I think, will be about right.” The exercise would also give them a chance to make sure they weren’t being followed. If the opposition were onto their operation, they’d be unable to resist the temptation to shadow the two intelligence officers, and, on mainly empty city streets, it wouldn’t be too difficult to “make” them along the way… unless the opposition consisted of KGB. They were cleverer than the locals by a sizable margin.

* * *

Zaitzev and his wife had the comfortable glow of three very stiff drinks each. Oddly, his wife showed little sign of approaching sleep, however. Too excited by the night’s fine entertainment, Oleg thought. Maybe it was for the better. Just that one more worry to go—except for how the CIA planned to get them out of Hungary. What would it be? A helicopter near the border, flying them under Hungarian radar coverage? That was what he would have chosen. Would CIA be able to hop them from inside Hungary to Austria? Just how clever were they? Would they let him know? Might it be something really clever and daring? And frightening? he wondered.

Would it succeed? If not… well, the consequences of failure did not bear much contemplation.

But neither would they go entirely away. Not for the first time, Oleg considered that his own death might result from this adventure, and prolonged misery for his wife and child. The Soviets would not kill them, but it would mark them forever as pariahs, doomed to a life of misery. And so they were hostages to his conscience as well. How many Soviets had stopped short of defection just on that basis? Treason, he reminded himself, was the blackest of crimes, and the penalties for it were equally forbidding.

Zaitzev poured out the remainder of the vodka and gunned it down, waiting the last half hour before the CIA arrived to save his life…

Or whatever they planned to do with him and his family. He kept checking his watch while his wife finally dozed off and back, smiling and humming the Bach concert with a head that lolled back and forth. At least he’d given her as fine a night as he’d ever managed to do…

* * *

There was a parking place just by the hotel’s side door. Small drove up to it and backed in neatly. Parallel parking is an art form in England that he still remembered how to perform. Then they sat, Small with a cigarette and Truelove with his favorite briar pipe, looking out at empty streets, just a few pedestrians in the distance, with Small keeping an eye on the rearview mirror for activity at the KGB residency. There were some lights on up on the second floor, but nothing moving that he could see. Probably some KGB chap had just forgotten to flip the switch on the way out.

* * *

There it was, Ryan saw, just three blocks, on the right-hand side of the street.

Showtime.

The remaining walk passed seemingly in an instant. Tom Trent, he saw, was by the corner of the building. People were coming out of the building, probably from the basement bar Hudson had shown him, about right for closing time, just in twos and threes, nobody leaving alone. Must be a saloon for the local singles crowd, Jack thought, setting up one-night stands for the terminally lonely. So, they had them in communist countries too, eh?

As they approached, Hudson flicked a finger across his nose. That was the sign for Trent to go inside and distract the desk clerk. How he did that, Ryan would never know, but minutes later when they walked in the door, the lobby was totally empty.

“Come on.” Hudson hurried over to the stairs, which wrapped around the elevator shaft. Getting to the third floor took less than a minute. And there was Room 307. Hudson turned the knob. The Rabbit had not locked it. Hudson opened it slowly.

Zaitzev saw the door open. Irina was mostly asleep now. He looked at her to be sure, then stood.

“Hello,” Hudson said in quiet greeting. He extended his hand.

“Hello,” Zaitzev said, in English. “You are travel agent?”

“Yes, we both are. This is Mr. Ryan.”

“Ryan?” Zaitzev asked. “There is KGB operation by that name.”

“Really?” Jack asked, surprised. He hadn’t heard about that one yet.

“We can discuss that later, Comrade Zaitzev. We must leave now.”

“Da.” He turned to shake his wife awake. She started violently when she saw the two unexpected men in her room.

“Irina Bogdanova,” Oleg said with a touch of sternness in his voice. “We are taking an unexpected trip. We are leaving right now. Get Svetlana ready.”

Her eyes came fully open in surprise. “Oleg, what is this? What are we doing?”

“We are leaving right now for a new destination. You must get moving now.”

Ryan didn’t understand the words, but the content was pretty clear. Then the woman surprised him by coming to her feet and moving like an automaton. The daughter was on a small children’s bed. Mother Rabbit lifted the sleeping child to semi-wakefulness and got her clothes organized.

“What are we doing exactly?” the Rabbit asked.

“We are taking you to England—tonight,” Hudson emphasized.

“Not America?”

“England first,” Ryan told him. “Then I will take you to America.”

“Ah.” He was in a very tense state, Ryan saw, but that was to be expected. This guy had laid his life on the craps table, and the dice were still in the air. It was Ryan’s job to make sure they didn’t come up snake eyes. “What do I bring?”

“Nothing,” Hudson said. “Not a bloody thing. Leave all your papers here. We have new ones for you.” He held up three passports with a lot of faked stamps on the inside pages. “For now I will hold these for you.”

“You are CIA?”

“No, I am British. Ryan here is CIA.”

“But—why?”

“It’s a long story, Mr. Zaitzev,” Ryan said. “But right now we must leave.”

The little girl was dressed now, but still sleepy, as Sally had been on that horrible night at Peregrine Cliff, Jack saw.

Hudson looked around, suddenly delighted to see the empty vodka bottle on the night table. Bloody good luck that was. Mother Rabbit was still confused, by the combination of three or four drinks and the post-midnight earthquake that had exploded around her. It had taken less than five minutes and everyone looked ready to leave. Then she saw her pantyhose bag, and moved toward it.

“Nyet,” Hudson said in Russian. “Leave them. There are many of those where we are taking you.”

“But—but—but…”

“Do what he says, Irina!” Oleg snarled, his equilibrium upset by the drink and the tension of the moment.

“Everyone ready?” Hudson asked. Next, Irina scooped her daughter up, her face a mass of utter confusion, and they all went to the door. Hudson looked out into the corridor, then waved for the others to follow. Ryan took the rear, closing the door, after making sure it was unlocked.

The lobby was still vacant. They didn’t know what Tom Trent had done, but whatever it was, it had worked. Hudson led the others out the side door and onto the street. There was the embassy car Trent had brought over, and Hudson had the spare set of keys. On the way, he waved at the truck for Small and Truelove. The car was a