The Company_ A Novel Of The CIA Part 25

"From Was.h.i.+ngton, it probably looked like a cakewalk," Jack-now second-in-command at Berlin Base-remarked when he'd read through the Action Immediate. "One of our people's fallen into the hands of the AVH in Budapest. We're going to hold the KGB's feet to the flame if anything happens to him. So far, so good. But Jesus H. Christ, how does Dulles expect us to get in touch with the KGB rezident at Karlshorst on such short notice-I mean, it's not as if you could pick up the phone and dial his number and invite him over to West Berlin for tea and sympathy."

"Knew you'd come up with a creative idea," Torriti said. He dragged the telephone across the desk, then laced the fingers of both hands through his thinning hair to make himself presentable for the phone conversation he hoped to engage in. From the pocket of his rumpled trousers he produced a small key attached to the end of a long chain anch.o.r.ed to his belt. Squinting, he inserted the key in the lock of the upper right-hand desk drawer, tugged it open and rummaged among the boxes of ammunition until he found the small notebook German children used to keep track of cla.s.s schedules, which he used as an address book. "Does Karlshorst begin with C or K?" he asked Jack.

"K, Harvey."

"Here it is. Karlshorst rezidentura." The Sorcerer fitted his trigger finger in the slots on the phone and dialed the number. Jack could hear the phone pealing on the other end. A woman babbling in Russian answered.

Torriti spoke into the phone cautiously, articulating every syllable. 'Get me some-one who speaks A-mer-i-can Eng-lish." He repeated the words "American English" several times. After a long while someone else came on the line. "Listen up, friend," Torriti said as patiently as he could. "I want you to go and tell Oskar Ugor-Zhilov that Harvey Torriti wants to speak to him." Pleats of skin formed on the Sorcerers brow as he spelled his name. "T-O-R-R-I-T-I." There was another long wait. Then: "So, Oskar, how the f.u.c.k are you? This is Harvey Torriti. Yeah, the Harvey Torriti. I think we need to talk. No, not on the phone. Face to face. Man to man. I got a message from my summit that I want you to deliver to your summit. The sooner, the better." Torriti held the phone away from his ear and grimaced. Jack could make out the tinny sound of someone with a thick Russian accent struggling to put a coherent sentence together in English. "You have to be making a joke," Torriti barked into the phone. "No way am I going to put a foot into East Berlin. I got another idea. Know the playground in the Spandau Forest in the British Sector? There's an open-air ice-skating rink that sits smack on the border. I'll meet you in the middle of the rink at midnight." The KGB rezident grunted something. Torriti said, "You can bring as many of your thugs as you like long as you come out onto the ice alone. Oh, yeah, and bring two gla.s.ses. I'll supply the whiskey," he added with a t.i.tter.

The Sorcerer dropped the phone back onto the receiver. Jack asked, "So how do you figure on playing it, Harvey?"

Torriti, cold sober and thinking fast, eyed Jack. "Not for laughs," he said The full moon flitting between the clouds had transformed the ice on the skating rink into Argentine marble. At the stroke of midnight two phantoms emerged from the woods on either side and started across the ice in short, cautious flat-footed steps. Oskar Ugor-Zhilov, a wiry man in his middle fifties, wearing baggy trousers tucked into rubber galoshes and a fur shapka with the earflaps raised and jutting, carried two wine gla.s.ses in one hand and a bulky Russian walkie-talkie in the other. The Sorcerer, bareheaded, held his ankle-length green overcoat closed with both hands (two b.u.t.tons were missing) and clutched a bottle of PX booze under an armpit. As the two men warily circled each other in the center of the rink, a giant US Air Force transport plane roared over the tree tops on its way to Tegel Airport in the Free Sector of Berlin.

"We're right under the air corridor," Torriti shouted to his Russia counterpart.

Ugor-Zhilov raised the walkie-talkie to his mouth and muttered something into it. There was an ear-splitting squeal by way of an answer. The Sorcerer waved the bottle. Nodding, the Russian held out the two gla.s.ses and Torriti filled them with whiskey. He grabbed one of the gla.s.ses by its stem and, saluting the KGB rezident, drank it off as if it were no more potent than apple juice. Not to be outdone by an American, Ugor-Zhilov threw back his head and gulped down the contents of his gla.s.s.

"You got a family?" Torriti inquired, skating from one side of the Russian to the other and back again on the b.a.l.l.s of his shoes. He was mesmerized by the small tuft of curly hair growing under Ugor-Zhilov's lower lip.

Torriti's question amused the Russia. "You meet me at midnight in the middle of nowhere to find out if I have family?"

"I like to get to know the people I'm up against."

"I am married man," the Russian said. "I have two sons, both living in Moscow. One is senior engineer in the aeronautics industry, the other is journalist for Pravda. Or you, Gospodin Harvey Torriti-you have family?"

"Had a wife once," the Sorcerer said wistfully. "Don't have one any more. She didn't appreciate the line of work I was in. She didn't appreciate my drinking neither. Say, Oskar-you don't mind me calling you Oskar, right?-you wouldn't want to defect, would you?" When the Sorcerer spotted the scowl on the Russian's face, he laughed out loud. "Hold your water, sport, I was only pulling your leg. You know, kidding, teasing. Hey, you Russians need to loosen up. You need to be able to let your hair down. Take a joke." Suddenly Torriti turned serious. "The reason I ask about your family, Oskar, baby," he said, his head angled to one side as if he were sizing the Russian up for a coffin, "is..."

Torriti offered Ugor-Zhilov a refill but was waved off with an emphatic shake of the head. He refilled his own gla.s.s and carefully set the bottle down on the ice. "Suppose you were to kick the bucket, Oskar-that's American for cash in your chips, bite the dust, push up the daisies, buy the farm, die- would your family get a pension?"

"If you are threatening me, I inform you that two sharpshooters have your head in telescopic sights even as we talk."

Torriti's lips twisted into a lewd smirk. "If I don't make it off the ice, sport, you can bet you won't make it off the ice neither. Listen up, Oskar, I ain't threatening you. I was talking hypothetically. I'm concerned about what would happen to your family if we were to start killing each other off. We being the KGB and the CIA. I mean, we're not vulgar Mafia clans, right? We are civilized organizations on two sides of a divide who don't see eye to on things like what makes a free election free and due process due, stuff like that. But we are careful not to-"

The throaty growl of a small propeller plane pa.s.sing low over Spandau drowned out the Sorcerer.

"Yeah, like I was saying, we are careful, you and me, your KGB and my CIA, not to start hurting each other's people."

Ugor-Zhilov looked puzzled. "As far as I know we are not hurting any CIA people."

"You don't know very far," the Sorcerer retorted icily. "Fact is, you have one of our people in custody-"

"I know of no-

"It's in Budapest, sport. The person in question disappeared from the radar screen twenty-four hours ago."

The Russian actually seemed relieved. "Ah, Hungary. That complicates the problem. The Hungarian AVH are completely autonomous-"

"Autonomous, my a.s.s! Don't hand me that c.r.a.p, Oskar. The KGB runs the AVH same as it runs every other intelligence service in East Europe. You take a c.r.a.p, they flush the toilet." Over the Russian's shoulder, a flashlight came on near the edge of the woods and described a circle and then flicked off. Torriti skated closer to Ugor-Zhilov. "What would happen right now if I reached under my jacket and lugged out a handgun and stuck it into your gut?"

The Russian's eyes narrowed; he was clearly a man who didn't scare easily. "You would be doing a big mistake, Torriti," he said softly. "Such a gesture would be a form of suicide."

Nodding, the Sorcerer finished the whiskey in his wine gla.s.s and noisily licked his lips and set the gla.s.s down on the ice. Then, moving very deliberately, he slid his right hand inside his overcoat and came out with the pearl-handled revolver. The Russian froze. The long barrel glistened in the moonlight as Torriti raised the revolver over his head so that anybody watching from either side of the rink could see it. Ugor-Zhilov held his breath, waiting for the crack of the rifle to echo across the rink. Smiling sourly the Sorcerer thumbed back the hammer and jammed the business end of the barrel into the Russian's stomach. "Looks like the turkeys backing you up have gone to sleep on the job," he remarked. Then he pulled the trigger.

The hammer fell onto the firing pin with a hollow click. "G.o.dd.a.m.n," Torriti said. "I must've forgotten to load the f.u.c.ker." Cursing Torriti in a stream of guttural Russian, Ugor-Zhilov started backing toward his side of the rink.

"If anything happens to our guy in Budapest," Torriti called after him "I'll load the pistol and come after you. There won't be anyplace in Germany for you to hide. You reading me, Oskar? Like my friend the Rabbi says, our man loses a tooth, you lose a tooth. Our man goes blind, you go blind. Our man stops breathing, your wife starts collecting your KGB pension."

Torriti retrieved the wine gla.s.s and the bottle from the ice and poured himself a refill. Ambling in flat-footed steps back toward the woods, humming under his breath, he treated himself to a well-earned shot of booze.

"So how many of the f.u.c.kers were there?" the Sorcerer asked Jack. They were squeezed into the back seat of a station wagon filled with agents from Berlin Base. Sweet Jesus was driving. A second station wagon trailed behind them.

"Six. Two with sniper rifles, two with submachine guns, one with binoculars, one with a walkie-talkie."

"Did they put up much of a fight?"

Jack smirked. "They were all very reasonable types, you could see it in their eyes when they spotted our artillery," Jack said. He produced a small pair of Zeiss binoculars from the pocket of his duffle coat and offered them to the Sorcerer. "Thought you might like a trophy."

Torriti, suddenly weary, let his lids close over his eyes of their own accord. "You keep them, Jack. You earned them."

"I'll keep them, Harvey. But we both know who earned them."

5.

BUDAPEST, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 1956.

HANGING FROM A MEAT HOOK EMBEDDED IN THE WALL OF THE refrigerator room, his limbs numb from the cold, Ebby sank into a sleep so shallow he found himself drifting into or out of it with the twitch of an eye. When the lockset on the outside of the door was cranked open, he was wide awake and straining to make out the footfalls of his jailers before they entered the room. He was glad they were finally coming for him; between beatings, he would at least be thawed out by the spotlights in the interrogation chamber. One of the guards grabbed him around the waist and lifted his body while the other, standing on a crate, detached his jacket and s.h.i.+rt from the hook. With his bare feet planted on the icy floor tiles, Ebby raised his elbows so they could grasp him under the armpits and drag him off for another round of questioning. Curiously, the two guards who held him erect did so with unaccustomed gentleness, and Ebby understood that something had changed. The guards steered him, at a pace he set, out of the frigid room and down the corridor to an elevator, which sped him to an upper floor. There he was taken along a carpeted corridor to a heated room with a wooden bed with sheets and a pillow and blankets. Even more astonis.h.i.+ngly, the room was equipped with a shaded table lamp that could presumably be switched off at night. There was a flush toilet and a small bathtub at one end, and a window with a slatted shutter on the outside through which Ebby could make out the sounds of traffic.

The honking of a horn in the street below seemed like music to his ears. A short matronly woman with coa.r.s.e gray hair and a stethoscope dangling from her neck rapped her knuckles against the open door and walked in. Smiling impersonally at Ebby, she began examining him. She listened to his heart and wedged a thermometer under his tongue and (obviously accustomed to dealing with prisoners being questioned by the AVH) checked to see if any of his bruised ribs were broken. Then she set about ma.s.saging his limbs to restore circulation to them. Before she departed, she disinfected the welts on his chest and spread a salve on his swollen lid and set out on the table a gla.s.s of water and two pills, telling him in sign language that he was to take them before going to sleep. Another woman appeared with clean clothing and a tray of food-there was a bowl of clear broth, a slice of bread, a plate of goulash, even a piece of candy wrapped in cellophane. Ebby drank off the broth, which soothed his raw throat, and managed to get down a little of the goulash. Before stretching out on the bed, he hobbled over to the window and stared at the street through the slats. Judging from the fading light he reckoned it was the end of the afternoon. There weren't many automobiles, but the street was packed with young people calling back and forth to each other as they hurried along in one direction. An open truck filled with students shouting what sounded like slogans and holding aloft large Hungarian flags sped past in the same direction.

Steadying himself on the back of a chair piled high with the clean clothing, switching off the light as he pa.s.sed the table, Ebby made his way back to the bed. Stripping to the skin, dropping his filthy clothes onto the floor, he slid under the sheets and slowly stretched out his aching limbs as he concentrated, once again, on composing pertinent questions.

Why had the AVH started treating him with kid gloves?

He could a.s.sume the State Department people at the Gellert had alerted the emba.s.sy when he didn't return to the hotel; that the Company chief of station at the emba.s.sy had set off alarm bells in Was.h.i.+ngton. Would the Company have dared to broach the subject of its missing agent with the KGB? He knew there was an unspoken compact between the two intelligence services; there were exceptions, of course, but normally neither side went around shooting the other's people. Had the AVH-an organization with a reputation for brutality-been operating behind the back of the KGB to root out local troublemakers? Had the KGB read the riot act to the AVH? Was he being fattened up for the kill or would he eventually be traded for one of the KGB's officers who had fallen into American hands? ) And what about the mob of youngsters flowing through the street under his window? Were they hurrying to a soccer match or a Communist rally?

If it was a communist rally, how could he explain the bewildering detail that had hit his eye: the Communist coat-of-arms-the hammer and the sheath of wheat at the center of the white-green-and-red Hungarian flag-had been from the banners held aloft by the students riding in the truck.

In the early hours of the next morning there was a soft knock on Jack's door. A moment later the table lamp flickered on. Ebby struggled into a sitting position and pulled the blanket up to his unshaven chin. A dwarf-like man-Ebby guessed he couldn't be more than five feet tall- who wore a goatee and mustache and dark rimmed eyegla.s.ses on his round face, sc.r.a.ped over a chair. When he sat down his feet barely reached the floor. He snapped open a tin case and offered Ebby a cigarette. When he declined, the visitor selected one for himself, tapped the tobacco down, and thrust it between extraordinarily thick lips. He lit the cigarette and sucked in a lungful of smoke and turned his head away and exhaled. "For purposes of this conversation," he said, turning back, speaking English with what Ebby took to be a Russian accent, "you may call me Vasily. Let me begin by expressing my regret at the-what shall I call it?-the zeal with which some of my Hungarian colleagues questioned you. Still, one has to see their side. Insurrection is brewing in Budapest and across the country. It is understandable that my very nervous Hungarian colleagues would want to quickly learn what instructions you brought to the revolutionist A. Zeik, if only to better antic.i.p.ate the direction he would be likely to lead the ma.s.ses. You handled yourself with distinction, Mr. Ebbitt. Although we are adversaries, you and I, I offer you-for what it is worth-my esteem." The Russian cleared his throat in embarra.s.sment. "The English national who was taken into custody the same night as you was not able to withstand the persuasive interrogation techniques of the AVH. So we now know the contents of the message you delivered to A. Zeik."

"I saw the persuasive techniques of the AVH through a window," Ebby noted caustically.

Mr. Ebbitt, your clients-your Germans, as opposed to ours-have used similar or even harsher interrogation techniques to persuade captured agents to divulge their small secrets. You are an experienced intelligence officer. Surely we can agree not to quibble over methods of interrogation."

"Is the woman still alive?"

The Russian sucked pensively on his cigarette. "She is alive and continues to be interrogated," he said finally. "My Hungarian colleagues are hoping with her help, to be able to put their hands on A. Zeik before-"

From somewhere in the city came the crackle of rifle fire; it sounded like firecrackers popping on the Chinese New Year. The Russian laughed benignly. "Before the situation deteriorates into outright conflict, though it appears we are too late. I can tell you that there is unrest in the city. A. Zeik is reported to have read out revolutionary poems to a crowd of students a.s.sembled the statue of the Hungarian poet Petofi earlier in the day. Perhaps you heard the rabble of students heading in the direction of the Erzsebet Bridge; the Petofi statue-"

There was a burst of automatic weapon fire from a nearby intersection. Under Ebby's window a car with a loudspeaker on its roof broadcast the national anthem as it sped through the streets. And it suddenly dawned on Ebby why the hammer and sheath of wheat had been cut out from the center of the national flag: the students were in open revolt against Communist rule in Hungary!

"That's not what I'd call unrest, Vasily. There's a revolution under way out there."

A young Hungarian wearing a wrinkled AVH uniform appeared at door and breathlessly reported something in a kind of pidgin Russia. Grinding out the cigarette under his heel, Vasily went over to the wind and, standing on his toes, looked down between the slats of the shutter. He clearly didn't like what he saw.

"Dress quickly, if you please," he ordered. "A mob of students is preparing to a.s.sault the building. We will leave by a back entrance."

Ebby threw on clean clothing and, moving stiffly, followed the Russia down four flights of steel steps to a sub-bas.e.m.e.nt garage. The Hungarian who had alerted Vasily moments before, a bony young man with a nervous tic to his eyelids, was hunched behind the wheel of a s.h.i.+ny black Zil limousine, its motor purring. A second Hungarian, a beefy AVH officer with the bars of a captain on his shoulder boards and a machine pistol slung under one arm, slid into the pa.s.senger seat. Vasily motioned Ebby into the back of the car and scrambled in beside him. Throwing the car into gear, the driver inched the Zil up a ramp toward the metal door slowly sliding back overhead. When the opening was clear, the driver came down hard on the gas pedal and the Zil leapt out of the garage onto a darkened and deserted side street. At the first intersection he spun the wheel to the right, skidding the Zil on two wheels around the corner. The headlights fell on a mob young people marching toward them with raised banners and placards. Vasily barked an order. The driver jammed on the brakes, then threw the Zil into reverse and started backing up. In the headlights, a young man armed with a rifle could be seen sprinting forward. He dropped to one knee and fired. The right front tire burst and the Zil, pitching wildly from the bullet, slammed back into a lamppost. The AVH officer in the pa.s.senger seat flung open his door and, crouching behind it, fired off a clip at the rioters racing toward them. Several figures crumpled to the ground. There was a howl of outrage from the students as they engulfed the Zil. The AVH officer tried desperately to cram another clip into the machine pistol but was downed by two quick rifle shots. The doors of the car were wrenched open and dozens of hands pulled the occupants into the street. The driver, Vasily nd Ebby were dragged across the gutter to a brick wall and thrown against it. Behind him, Ebby could hear rifle bolts driving bullets home. Raising his hands in front of his eyes to s.h.i.+eld them from the bullets, he cried into the night, "I am an American. I was their prisoner."

A voice yelled something in Hungarian. In the faint light coming from the street lamps that hadn't been shot out, Ebby could make out the mob parting to let someone through.

And then Arpad Zeik appeared out of the darkness. He was wearing a black leather jacket and a black beret and black leggings, and carried a rifle in his hand. He recognized Ebby and shouted an order. A young man holding a wine bottle with a cloth wick sticking from its throat darted forward and pulled Ebby away from the two Russians. Behind him, the young AVH driver sank onto his knees and started pleading in disjointed phrases for his life. The dwarf-like Vasily, smiling ironically, calmly pulled the cigarette case from the pocket of his jacket and snapped a cigarette between his lips. He struck a match and held the flame to the end of the cigarette but didn't live long enough to light it.

A line of students, formed into an impromptu firing squad, cut down the two men with a ragged volley of rifle fire.

Arpad came up to Ebby. "Elizabet-do you know where she is?" he asked breathlessly. The question came across as half plea, half prayer.

Ebby said he had caught a glimpse of her in prison. He explained that there was an entrance to the sub-bas.e.m.e.nt garage under the prison on a nearby side street. Brandis.h.i.+ng the rifle over his head, Arpad shouted for the students to follow him and, gripping Ebby under an arm, headed for the AVH prison. As they approached the garage, they could hear the demonstrators ma.s.sed around the corner in front of the main entrance chanting slogans as they tried to break through a steel fence. The student who had relieved the machine pistol from the dead AVH officer in the car stepped forward and shot out the lock on the garage door. Eager hands tugged at the metal door and pushed it open overhead. From inside the garage a pistol shot rang out. A girl with long dark hair plaited with strands of colorful ribbon turned to stare with lifeless eyes at Ebby and then collapsed at his feet. The students spilled down the ramp into pitch darkness. Ebby tried to keep up with Arpad but lost him in the melee. Shots reverberated through garage. A Molotov c.o.c.ktail detonated under a car and the gas tank caught fire and exploded. Flames licked at the concrete ceiling. In the s.h.i.+mmering light, Ebby saw some students herding half a dozen men in disheveled AVH uniforms against a wall. The students stepped back and formed a rough line and Arpad shouted an order. The whine of rifle shots echoed through the garage. The AVH men cowering against each other melted into a heap on the floor.

With Arpad leading the way and Ebby at his heels, the students flooded up the steel staircase and spread out through the building, cutting down any AVH men they discovered, opening cells and liberating prisoners. In a bas.e.m.e.nt toilet, the insurrectionists discovered three AVH women, including the one who looked like a sumo wrestler, hiding in stalls; they pulled them out and forced them into urinals and finished them off with pistol shots through the necks. Ebby pulled Arpad through a heavy double door that separated the administrative offices from the cells. Finding himself in a corridor that seemed familiar, he started throwing bolts and hauling open doors. Behind one door he recognized his own cell with the plank bed and the window high in the wall. At another room he spun a chrome wheel to retract the lockset and swung open a thick door and felt the chill from the refrigerated chamber.

Against one wall, Elizabet was dangling from a meat hook spiked through the collar of a torn s.h.i.+rt, her bare legs twitching in a macabre dance step. Her mouth opened and her lips formed words but the rasps that emerged from the back of her throat were not human. Arpad and Ebby lifted her free of the meat hook and carried her from the room and laid her on the floor. Arpad found a filthy blanket in a corner and drew it over her to hide her nakedness.

Two young men-one Ebby recognized as Matyas, the angry student who had been at the meeting in the Buda safe house-appeared at the ene of the hall, prodding ahead of them the woman doctor with coa.r.s.e grey hair and an older man with the gold bars of a colonel general on the shoulder boards of his AVH uniform. One of his arms hung limply fr0m his shoulder and he was bleeding from the nose. Ebby told Arpad, "She is a doctor."

Jumping to his feet, Arpad gestured for the woman to attend to Elizabet. Only too glad to be spared the fate of the other AVH people in the build, she dropped to her knees and began to feel for a pulse. Arpad pulled a pistol from his waistband and motioned for Matyas to bring the prisoner to them. The AVH officer stared at Ebby and said, in English, "For the love of G.o.d, stop him." A gold tooth in his lower jaw glistened with saliva. "I have information that could be of great value to your Central Intelligence Agency."

Ebby recognized the voice-it was the one that had emerged from the darkness of the interrogation chamber to ask him, 'Be so kind as to state your full name."

"His name is Szablako," Arpad informed Ebby, the pupils of his eyes reduced to pinp.r.i.c.ks of hate. "He is the commandant of this prison, and well-known to those of us who have been arrested by the AVH."

Ebby stepped closer to the AVH colonel general. "How did you know I was CIA? How did you know I work for Wisner? How did you know I worked in Frankfurt?"

Szablako clutched at the straw that could save his life. "Take me into your custody. Save me from them and I will tell you everything."

Ebby turned to Arpad. "Let me have him-his information can be of great importance to us."

Arpad, wavering, looked from Elizabet on the floor to Szablako, and then at Matyas, who was angrily shaking his head no. "Give him to me," Ebby whispered, but the muscles around the poet's eyes slowly contorted, disfiguring his face, transforming it into a mask of loathing. Suddenly Arpad jerked his head in the direction of the refrigerator room. Matyas understood instantly. Ebby tried to step in front of the colonel general but Arpad, rabid, roughly shoved him to one side. Szablako, seeing what was in store for him, began to tremble violently. "It was the Centre that told us," he cried as Arpad and Matyas dragged him into the cold room. A shriek of terror resounded through the bas.e.m.e.nt corridor, followed by the mournful whimpering a coyote would make if one of its paws had been caught in the steel teeth of a bear trap. The whimpering continued until Arpad and Matyas emerged from the refrigerator room and swung the heavy door shut. They spun the chrome wheel, driving home the spikes on the lockset.

Once outside the room, Arpad cast a quick look at Elizabet, stretched out on the floor. For a fleeting moment he seemed to be torn between staying with her and das.h.i.+ng off to lead the revolution. The revolution won; grabbing his rifle, Arpad strode away with Matyas. The prison doctor busied herself disinfecting Elizabet's wounds and, with Ebby's help, dressed her in a man's flannel s.h.i.+rt and trousers that were tugged up high and tied around her waist with a length of cord. Elizabet's eyes flicked open and stared dumbly into Ebby's face, unable at first to place him. Her tone measured the gap in a chipped front tooth. Then her right hand clutched her left breast through the fabric of the s.h.i.+rt and her stiff lips p.r.o.nounced his name.

"Elliott?"

"Welcome back to the world, Elizabet," Ebby whispered.

"They hurt me..."

Ebby could only nod.

"The room was so cold-"

"You're safe now."

"I think I told them who you were-"

"It doesn't matter." Ebby noticed a filthy sink with a single faucet at the far end of the hall way. He tore off a square of cloth from the tail of his s.h.i.+rt and wet it and sponged her lips, which were caked with dried blood.

"What has happened?" she asked weakly.

"The insurrection is underway," Ebby said.

"Where is Arpad?"

Ebby managed a bone-weary grin. "He's trying to catch up with the revolution so he can lead it."

As streaks of gray tinted the sky in the east, rumors spread through the city that Russian tanks from the 2nd and the 17th Mechanized Divisions had already reached the outskirts of the capitol. Ebby spotted the first T-34 tank, with the number 527 painted in white on its turret, lumbering into position at an intersection when he and Elizabet were being taken in a bread delivery van to the Corvin Cinema on the corner of Ulloi and Jozsef Avenues. A skinny girl named Margit, with veins of rust bleached into her long blonde hair, was behind the wheel of the van. Ebby sat next to her, Elizabet lay curled up on a mat in the back. On Kalvin Square, five tanks with Russian markings stenciled on the turrets had formed a circle with their guns pointing outward and their commanders surveying the surrounding streets through binoculars from their hatches. Ebby noticed that three of the tanks had small Hungarian flags attached to their whip antennas; the Russians clearly weren't looking for a clash with the students, many of whom were armed with Molotov c.o.c.ktails.

Ebby scribbled down an address on Prater Street that he had memorized back in Was.h.i.+ngton-it was the apartment of the Hungarian cutout with a radio and ciphers-and Margit managed to make it there by only side streets and alleyways, avoiding the intersections controlled by Russian tanks. The cutout turned out to be a happy-go-lucky young man named Zoltan with sickle-shaped sideburns that slashed across his pox-scarred cheeks and two steel teeth that flashed when he smiled. Ebby had no difficulty convincing Zoltan to come along with him; the Gypsy didn't have anything against Communism but he was aching to get into a fight with the Russians who occupied his country. He brought along backpack with a transceiver in it, a long curved knife that his father's father had used in skirmishes against the Turks and a violin in a homemade canvas case.

"I understand about the radio and the knife," Ebby told him as they squeezed into the front seat of the van. "But why the violin?"

"Not possible to make war without a violin," Zoltan explained seriously. "Gypsy violinists led Magyars into battle against G.o.dd.a.m.n Mongols, okay, so it d.a.m.n good thing if gypsy violinist, yours truly, leads Hungarians into battle against G.o.dd.a.m.n Russians." He crossed himself and repeated the same thing to Margit in Hungarian, which made her laugh so hard it brought tears to her eyes.

On Rakoczi Street the van was suddenly surrounded by students who had thrown up a roadblock of overturned yellow trolley cars placed in such a way that an automobile had to zigzag through the gaps between them. Overhead, electric cables dangled from their poles. The students wore armbands with the Hungarian colors and brandished large naval pistols, antiquated World War I German rifles and, in one case, a cavalry sword. They must have recognized Margit because they waved the van through. From the sidewalk, an old woman raised her cane in salute. "Eljen!" she cried. "Long life!" On the next corner, more students were carrying out armloads of suits from a big clothing emporium and piling them on the sidewalk. A young woman wearing the gray uniform of a tram conductor, her leather ticket pouch bulging with hand grenades, shouted to a group of pa.s.sing students that anyone joining them would be given a suit and five Molotov c.o.c.ktails. Half a dozen students took her up on the offer.

The Corvin Cinema, a round blockhouse-like structure set back from the wide avenue, had been transformed into a fortress and command post for the five hastily organized companies of the so-called Corvin Battalion. A poster in the lobby advertised a film ent.i.tled Irene, Please Go Home; someone had crossed out "Irene" and subst.i.tuted "Russki." In the bas.e.m.e.nt girls manufactured Molotov c.o.c.ktails by the hundreds, using petrol from a nearby gas station. The movie theater itself, on the ground floor of a four story block of flats, had been turned into a freewheeling a.s.sembly line patterned after the popular "Soviets" that had sprung up in Petrograd during the Bolshevik Revolution. Delegates from schools and factories and Hungarian Army units came and went, and raised their hands to vote while they were there. At any given moment a speaker could be heard arguing pa.s.sionately that the object of the uprising was to put an end to the Soviet occupation of Hungary and rid the country of Communism; merely reforming the existing Communist government and system would not satisfy the people who flocked to Corvin.