The Hungarian

by Victoria Dougherty

  “And you don’t seem like a man who wants to die in agonizing pain.” Theron smiled. “But then, who does?”

  The Hungarian angled his pistol, directing it at the Greek’s genitals.

  “Daddy?” Lily’s voice came from behind the cubicle.

  “Your daddy’s unarmed, and I’m going to shoot his balls off if you don’t step out here right away,” Gulyas said. He saw the pointed toe of her shoe first before Lily slinked fully away from the relative safety of the marble wall.

  “You don’t have to get all cross,” she said. “We were just playing, weren’t we?” She allowed her dress to slip lightly off her shoulder, letting Gulyas know it was still unzipped.

  “I like it when you’re reasonable,” he told her. “Now be a good pet and come sit at my feet.”

  “But can’t we go inside?” she asked. “It’s so hot out here. And we could all get to know each other.” Inside wasn’t much better than outside, but it had some possibilities. Doors that led places, and the fact that it was one step closer to the street.

  “I told you to come sit at my feet, you mouthy whore!”

  Theron Tassos ignored both his daughter and the Hungarian’s outburst. “I came alone here, Mr. Gulyas, but I’m not one man—do you understand?”

  Beryx Gulyas did not. His index finger beckoned Lily, and she obeyed this time, taking short, careful steps until she reached his side.

  “I cover more ground than a certain member of the Romanian Politburo, for instance,” Theron explained. “In fact, I could have someone in Mr. Ceausescu’s house within the hour if I wanted to. Leaving a stubborn stain on that enormous Ottoman rug in his Great Room. Do you understand now?”

  The Hungarian pulled the gun close to his chest. He didn’t put it down, but he tipped the barrel toward the ground, slightly.

  “You’re a good listener, Mr. Gulyas,” Theron said. He glanced briefly at his daughter, who had seated herself at the Hungarian’s feet. “And I’m a good negotiator.”

  Lily’s heart sank as her father removed a curlicue of microfilm—Pasha’s microfilm, the Sputnik plans that Fedot had so deftly slipped into his pocket earlier in the day—and dangled it before Beryx Gulyas.

  “No, Daddy,” she said, but her father ignored her.

  “I know what the Americans would want for this,” Theron continued. “And the Soviets. But what, I wonder, would an ambitious Romanian like your boss be willing to pay for a trip to the moon?”

  Beryx Gulyas scratched his neck and looked Theron Tassos up and down.

  “Why wouldn’t I shoot you and take it and whatever else here belongs to me?” He caressed Lily’s hair with the barrel of his pistol. “You don’t even have a weapon.”

  Theron held the microfilm steadily between his thumb and middle finger.

  “I don’t need a weapon,” he said.

  Gulyas watched the man. He had become an expert at detecting a bluff over the years, and it was clear to him that in Lily he hadn’t stumbled upon just any rich, American girl. There was no doubt in his mind that if he didn’t relinquish Lily to her father and call Ceausescu with the opportunity to bid on the Sputnik plans, Theron Tassos would have him hunted to the far corners of the earth and killed in a way that would make Etor’s end peaceful in comparison.

  “Good, Mr. Gulyas,” Tassos said. “Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”

  The Hungarian looked down at Lily and then once more at her father. As he looked into the Greek’s eyes—their bottomlessness and certainty—he understood. He had taken things too far with Lily and managed to conjure hatred in a normally cold-blooded adversary. Tassos wanted Lily, he wanted a lucrative deal for the Sputnik plans, and he wanted Beryx Gulyas to suffer a protracted and pitiless end.

  Breathing in deeply through his nose and letting his belly protrude, Gulyas lifted his gun and shot Theron Tassos through the throat.

  Chapter 53

  Kurva!” the Hungarian howled as Lily sunk her teeth into his calf. Lily would remember the distinctive metallic flavor of Beryx Gulyas’s blood for the rest of her life. As an old woman, telling this story to her only living grandchild, she would swear that she could distinguish the flavor of his blood from any of her other enemies.

  Gulyas snarled, losing his grip on the gun. It fell with a muted clank on the cloth-covered marble tomb of a significant Imam descendent.

  Wheezing deeply, the Hungarian doubled over and gripped Lily’s ears. She clamped down harder, wrenching her head from side to side. Lily knew her only advantage was the Hungarian’s shock at being attacked so decisively during his cold execution of her father. Already he was adjusting to the pain of her bite, thinking clearer, and a mere second or two away from reclaiming his upper hand and breaking her neck.

  Ivanov. He came into Lily’s thoughts like an idea—suddenly and accompanied by a rush of adrenaline. She remembered what he’d whispered to her in her torture-induced daze at the baker’s apartment, when she was fully under the Hungarian’s control. It was of her ability to endure what he called the agony in merely one possible world among an infinite number of universes. It almost made her laugh. All at once, she felt someone else’s presence as well—a real presence, not a memory or a dream. Physically—right there. As she no longer believed in figments of her imagination, she knew what she felt in the cemetery was as real as the dense chunk of calf muscle that pulsed inside her mouth. As absolute as her father’s inert body—his flesh cooling and pale from the emptying of his jugular vein.

  In that same split second of realization, the Hungarian let go of her. Lily could feel his pointed stare, and slowly she released his leg from her jaws. Wiping his blood from her chin, Lily looked up into Beryx Gulyas’s face. His eyes were distended, and he was biting his bottom lip as if he had something unpleasant to tell her—something that pained him.

  “What do you want from me?” Lily grunted, barely recognizing her own voice.

  But the Hungarian remained silent. His gaze was broken only by Fedot, who emerged from behind him and clasped his elbow around his neck. Lily watched as Fedot pressed the knuckles of his right hand deep into Gulyas’s kidney, triggering shockwaves of agony. The Hungarian was strong, but the Russian was exceptional in his purpose and calm. As if he were merely opening a difficult jar of pickles.

  “Fedot!” Lily shouted. Her eyes had darted to the Imam descendant’s grave, where the killer had managed to hook his gun under his fingertips and drag it back into the grip of his palm.

  The Hungarian’s movements were jerky and erratic as he raised his arm; he was still gasping for breath. Gulyas pointed the barrel back at Fedot’s head, but Lily shot to her feet and grabbed his wrist as he fired. The bullet scraped Fedot, taking part of his ear and causing him to stumble backward. Lily thrust her knee into the Hungarian’s groin, and once again, he dropped his gun. This time Lily dove on top of it, but Beryx Gulyas made no attempt to retrieve the weapon. Instead, he leapt over her and ran to the cemetery wall. It wasn’t a very tall boundary, and he was able to scale it, although not without some difficulty. His sausage-shaped body rolled over the top just as Lily dug her hand under her belly and pulled his gun out. She shot at him, although it was a futile gesture. He had already fallen to the ground, and she could hear him get up and run.

  Chapter 54

  The Hungarian has written an end for his life, Miss Lily.”

  “Yes, Fedot,” she said, but her heart wasn’t in it.

  They were riding in the truck Gulyas had stolen with Fedot at the wheel, bleeding from his halved ear. Lily had torn the lining out of her dress and bandaged Fedot’s head with it. She stared out the window, first watching the Tehran neighborhoods flip by like pages, then following the hypnotic turns of the road winding up into the Alborz Mountain range.

  Lily could not fathom the death of her fathere. And she couldn’t allow herself to mourn him, either—not yet. Not with Pasha still out there and everything at stake.

  For now she would pretend that her fa
ther was merely gone—unavailable to her, but not dead. Not lying under a black shroud on an Imam’s grave and waiting for Lily to return and give him a proper burial. She wished it was Gulyas lying dead—his body bloating in the hot Persian sun. That image was her only pleasure.

  “Where do you suppose he’ll turn up?” she asked Fedot.

  He shook his head.

  Lily believed the Hungarian was very close. Beryx Gulyas couldn’t, after all, return to his master without the microfilm she had pulled from between her father’s fingers. The dangerous “piece of candy” that Pasha had risked his life for and that her father had been willing to sell to the highest bidder. Nor would the Hungarian go back to Romania without Lily. Or at least without her blood under his fingernails.

  “I wish Pasha was here,” she sighed as Fedot rolled in behind Mansoor Nassa’s mountain retreat, pulling up the emergency brake and hoping it still worked.

  “So do I, Miss Lily,” Fedot said. Lily adjusted the side mirror so that she could look at her face. She spit-cleaned her cheeks and applied a thick coat of lipstick before pulling her hair into a neat braid.

  They left the banged-up vehicle on the side of the road between Nassa’s house and another, giving the appearance that a service truck had broken down. Despite looking ruffled and fatigued, they walked the steep slope of Mansoor Nassa’s driveway without hurry—as if they were invited guests just in time for tea.

  The door to the house was hidden behind a vine-covered panel, and Lily stepped forward, banging a triangular knocker against its metal base. For several seconds, the house was still—as if no one was or ever would be there—but slowly it came to life, and the sound of footsteps echoed up from the first and second floors.

  “Good evening,” Lily said.

  The woman who opened the door was Iranian. She wore her hair in a tight bun, and her lips were even tighter.

  “Lilia Tassos is here for Ambassador Pearce,” Lily affirmed. Fedot stood at her side, his head turned away so the servant woman couldn’t see his crude, blood-soaked bandage.

  The woman, in perfect English with a distinctly British accent, asked them to remain where they were while she summoned the ambassador.

  “I’m Lilia Tassos, Theron Tassos’s daughter,” Lily said as Barnaby Pearce came up from the stairs and entered the foyer.

  “Yes, I know who you are,” the ambassador said. “May I help you?”

  “I’m terribly late, I know, but Mr. Nassa was sure you would see me.”

  “Mr. Nassa?”

  “Ambassador Pearce, may we please come in and talk to you?” Lily said. “It is of the utmost importance.”

  The ambassador blinked twice and nodded, showing them in. He seemed less than delighted to have them there but resigned to their presence nonetheless.

  “This is Fedot Titov.” Lily made the introduction as Fedot extended his hand. “Mr. Titov, as you may have already heard, is traveling with us. He came to Tehran with me and Pasha Tarkhan.”

  Ambassador Pearce dispatched his maid to fetch proper bandages for Fedot—casually, as if his wounded ear was little more than a stubbed toe. He extended the usual pleasantries, offering to lead them downstairs into the main cavity of the residence. There, he said, they could have a proper drink and discuss things in a civilized fashion.

  “Will your father be joining us later?” he asked.

  “No,” Lily said. “My father has nothing to do with this.”

  Pearce raised an eyebrow.

  “Whatever this may be,” he said.

  Mansoor Nassa’s mountain retreat was a deliberate antidote to his house in the city, eschewing antiques and unconcealed anglophilia for the modern chic of steel and glass. Built into the mountain and three stories high, it offered unparalleled views of Tehran, which would glimmer like a starlit sky once the sun fell. A plateau supported a descending garden at its side. Nassa couldn’t live without a garden.

  “You do have a poison, don’t you?” Ambassador Pearce asked. Theron Tassos never touched alcohol, but he and Lily differed in that way and always would. She asked for bourbon.

  “Never trust a teetotaler,” Pearce snickered as he led them down to the second floor and motioned for Lily and Fedot to take a seat.

  The Great Room on the second floor was a study in minimalism and furnished only with a lime-green, semi-circular couch and a table of petrified wood. There was no art on the white walls and no rug on the polished, marble floor. Anything else would have been a distraction from the glass wall that angled down onto Iran’s capital city. Flanking that wall of glass were two enormous mirrors that gave the illusion Tehran went on for eternity.

  Standing at one of those mirrors and turning toward Lily and Fedot as they sat down was a jowly man with round, heavily-framed glasses, his graying hair slicked back and parted in the middle.

  “Miss Tassos and Mr. Titov, this is Sandmore Chandler, the American ambassador to Iran,” Pearce offered.

  Lily extended her hand. “Mr. Nassa has told me a great deal about you, Mr. Ambassador. He says you’re quite a card player.”

  Sandmore Chandler nodded, looking from Lily to Pearce.

  Chandler—Sandy, as Pearce called him—joined Fedot and Lily on the couch, crossing one leg over the other and leaning back. Despite the effort, he didn’t at all look relaxed.

  “I’m sure you’ll both appreciate it if I get to the point,” Lily said.

  “Ah, we’re used to roundabout discussions,” Sandy Chandler said. He seemed like a genial enough man.

  “Then hopefully, I’ll be refreshing,” Lily told him.

  “My dear,” Pearce said. “You already are.”

  Ambassador Pearce opened a hidden door on the back wall and produced an excellent bottle of bourbon. He poured four crystal highball glasses, three fingers full, and brought them to the seating area.

  “Pasha Tarkhan has defected,” Lily said. Chandler and Pearce remained poker-faced. “Mr. Titov and I travelled from Moscow to Iran with him, but in the course of events, Mr. Tarkhan has been recaptured by the Soviets.”

  Chandler and Pearce exchanged looks again but remained patient—a study in the diplomatic arts.

  “Perhaps I should start from the beginning,” Lily said, receiving neither encouragement nor contradiction.

  She began her story where she felt her life had begun—or was reborn—with Tony Geiger’s death on Monemvasia. Lily continued with the Hungarian’s attack on Pasha in Moscow, the massacre at the Lavra and their escape to Tehran, omitting any mention of Sputnik, her kidnapping by Gulyas, and her father’s murder.

  “Miss Tassos,” Sandy Chandler began. “As far as we know, Mr. Tarkhan is still in Moscow.”

  “A high-level defection is hardly something the Soviets would want to advertise,” Lily said. “Especially to their enemies.” She hoped a big fish like Pasha would be enough to bring in the cavalry, so to speak. And instinct told her not to bring Sputnik into this—not yet.

  “Mr. Chandler, I—we—Mr. Titov and I, came to Iran with Pasha Tarkhan. I helped nurse him to health after he was injected with acid by an assassin and brought him to Mr. Nassa’s house in Tehran. From there, we intended to come here to see you, but as I explained, we ran into some difficulties.”

  With the Hungarian around, Lily was starting to feel worried for Mansoor Nassa. It didn’t appear he’d made it to the mountains yet, and judging by the reactions of Pearce and Chandler, he’d never been in touch to brief them about her arrival either. Her heart feared Beryx Gulyas could have somehow intercepted the poet, though she couldn’t imagine when he would have had time.

  “Miss Tassos,” Sandy Chandler said. He put his drink to his lips, then set it down on the petrified wood. “I’m not sure why you’ve come here, of all places, and not to the American Embassy where your rights as an American citizen are unequivocal.”

  Lily knew her explanation had to be careful and plausible. The truth about Ivanov and his spiritual directives was lunacy—at least to anyone who
’d never met the “Russian saint.”

  “Ambassador Chandler, Ambassador Pearce, we thought a private residence might be a less conspicuous place to meet than an embassy—especially one that is in all likelihood being watched by people looking for me and especially for Mr. Tarkhan. And we were so fortunate to have this house offered to us by its owner.”

  Pearce shook his head. “The British Embassy?”

  Lily smiled. “I’m sorry?”

  “This house is now owned by Her Majesty’s Foreign Service.”

  Lily sat back and took a long, deep swallow of her drink.

  “But Mr. Nassa . . . ”

  “Yes, of course, Manny,” Pearce said, clasping his hands. “It did used to belong to him, poor chap.”

  Lily bit her lip.

  “Good man, he was,” Pearce said.

  Chandler nodded in agreement. They both took another swig of their bourbons.

  “He left this house to the British Embassy. Always said he would, but, uh, didn’t expect it so soon,” Pearce clarified. “I don’t quite know what’ll come of his city place. Or his money. Don’t think he had any heirs.”

  Lily’s hand began to tremble. She balled it into a fist and placed it in her lap. She looked to Fedot, who continued to stare at the ambassadors.

  “Yes, poor man,” she said. “I never did get the details.”

  Pearce sighed heavily. Lily could see his affection for the poet.

  “A doroshkeh accident,” he said.