Without the aid of binoculars, he had to squint to see the area surrounding the house clearly. For a while he saw only one man standing near the back door. But as he waited and stared and studied the area for movement, he saw another man off to the village side on the downslope of the hill. Then he saw a third man at the other end of the house, near the chicken coop, and a fourth man in back at the far end of the private plot. This man was only about two hundred meters away, and he could see his AKM with its skinny folding stock. The guard looked young. He was smoking, blowing the smoke at the ground to dissipate it. Lazlo recalled Mihaly speaking of the workers at the Chernobyl plant. “Too many cooks in the kitchen,” and “Overmanning.” Was the same true here?
Lazlo looked at his watch, almost four o’clock. In a few minutes, he had seen four men spaced about the house. In three or four hours, it would be dark and perhaps he could get closer. In less than six hours, Bela would try to get the women into the wine cellar. He could see the cover of the wine cellar, the red and white tablecloth on it, probably the same tattered oilcloth the girls had used last summer.
Lazlo looked at his watch again, exactly four o’clock. In eleven hours, Juli would leave for the west. He tried to imagine succeed-ing and going with her, but negative thoughts piled up against the dream like water against a dam. Beyond the house, where he could not see, he knew his mother and father were buried in the cemetery.
The most negative of thoughts was that soon he, and others, might be there.
Because of the sun’s heat and the long wait ahead, Lazlo worked his way back a hundred meters or so to a well he had passed. The well was near where the dog had attacked him, but the dog was apparently being kept inside. After drinking his fill from a battered tin pail dipped into the well using a long rope, he worked his way back to his original position. This time a striped cat crossed his path, raising its back and hissing. Lazlo responded by raising his own back and hissing. The cat reacted by slinking off into the weeds. Yes, now he was an animal.
Back at his position, where he had a clear view of the farmhouse, he lay on his back to wait. A jetliner passed overhead, its vapor trail dividing the sky. The jet headed southwest, to Budapest or Vienna, anywhere but here. He watched the jet until it disappeared beyond the horizon. Then he sat up to watch the house again and saw yet another man with an AKM walk around from front to back. In a little while, he would close his eyes until sunset, not to rest, but to prepare his night vision.
When Juli heard what sounded like a truck up on the road, she left the Skoda, locking it and taking her bag with her. She hid in a crevice at the far end of the ravine. She had been watching a jet pass overhead when the truck approached. Now, as she lay flat in the crevice, she could hear the voices of two men.
At first the men argued about the age of the car, one saying it only looked old because of the terrible paint job. After a few minutes of inspecting the car and arguing about its worth, the men lowered their voices, and Juli could hear only occasional words.
One said something about reporting it to the militia. The other apparently wanted to wait. As the two men walked away, they seemed to be discussing whether or not the car might belong to them if no one claimed it. One said he thought he might go back and take the windshield-wiper blades. The other said no, they might as well wait a few days when they could strip anything they wanted off the car because it was obviously abandoned. The first man mumbled something about it being strange that an abandoned car be locked, and wondered what might be hidden beneath the blanket they’d seen on the back seat. While the men were climbing out of the ravine, the last discussion Juli could hear was about the value of the car’s parts.
Then the truck started up and drove away.
When Juli went back to the car, the sun had made it quite warm inside. She sipped from a water bottle that had stayed cool beneath the blanket in the back seat. The wine Lazlo bought at the train station was also there, but she left it unopened. She lowered the windows and sat, as she had earlier, listening for sounds on the road and thinking about the future, but also about the past. She thought of her friend Aleksandra. Recalled the farm wife waiting at the hospital. Aleksandra and the farm wife possessed sincerity. It was in their eyes. Honest women trying to do the right thing in an insane world. Really, they were a lot like Lazlo.
Inside the hot car down in the ravine, Juli kept watch to be certain no one approached. As she waited, she drank water and ate the remaining food Lazlo had purchased in order to keep up her strength for whatever awaited her. There were still many hours to go, and she had not decided what she would do if three o’clock came and Lazlo had not returned.
31
It was a typical evening in the Ukrainian village of Kisbor south of Uzhgorod near the Czechoslovakian frontier. Ulyanov and Kalinin collective farm workers had returned from the fields. Market workers and workers at the local bell factory had closed shop for the night. By nine o’clock, dinner dishes were put away, and Kisbor’s citizens settled in favorite chairs or reclined in bed to watch a weekly variety show. Every television viewer in Kisbor awaited the same show on the same channel, not because they all preferred this particular show, but because there was only one television station available in Kisbor.
The male announcer’s voice coming from houses and apartments could be heard from one end of the main street to the other. The announcer said that before the variety show began, there would be an important news program about the Chernobyl accident. Many viewers increased the volumes on their television sets. The announcer’s voice echoed in the street, the time delay caused by the distancing of sets making the main street sound like an auditorium.
The announcer began with the obvious. Almost a month earlier, the unit four reactor at the Chernobyl generating facility exploded.
The official death toll now stood at seventeen, and ninety thousand people had been evacuated from a thirty-kilometer radius.
The announcer spoke of the bravery of firefighters, volunteers, and bus drivers. He said, although hundreds of thousands were being given iodine pills, this was merely a precaution. The vast majority of Soviet citizens, including those in the Ukraine, were in no danger whatsoever. The news program lasted only a few minutes. When it was over, a light orchestral arrangement signifying the beginning of the variety show began playing very loudly until one volume control after another was returned to a normal level.
The village of Kisbor settled in for the night. At the eight-room Kisbor Hotel, black Volgas recently parked out front were gone.
Neighbors of the hotel were relieved because men in overcoats driving black Volgas meant KGB, and the KGB this far from a main city could mean trouble for almost anyone.
Farther away from the village, the sound of the variety show faded. The village resembled a lighted miniature, especially from the side of a hill to the west. It was a clear, moonless night, stars visible to the horizon. Daytime heat radiated, and the temperature dropped.
It was quiet on the side of the hill until the music began. The music came from the lone farmhouse beyond the ridge of the hill. Since most citizens of Kisbor were of Hungarian descent, they would have immediately recognized the melody. But the house on the hill was too far away from the village for anyone there to hear it.
From the front of the house, it sounded as though a Gypsy orchestra was playing in the backyard. Although curious, Nikolai remained at his post at the front door. The music was instrumental, a solo violin piercing the night with the rest of the orchestra backing it up.
The violin sounded as if it were crying one minute and dancing the next. Several agents from the Volgas and the van parked out front got out and stood staring at the house.
When the front door of the house opened, the music boomed out until Captain Brovko closed the door behind him. Brovko stood shadowed in dim light from the front window. After a few seconds, he spoke, loud enough to be heard.
“What do you think of our major now?” asked Brovko.
“I don’t know what to thi
nk,” said Nikolai. “Is it the phonograph?”
“Yes. Major Komarov says if Detective Horvath is in the vicinity, the music will lure him. When I told him the noise would make it difficult for our men to hear anything, he opened the windows.
I’m puzzled how your routine examination of correspondence in the PK could have led to this. Why haven’t other investigative agencies been notified?”
After being reprimanded last night for asking what they should do about Major Komarov, Nikolai felt it would be best to remain silent.
Brovko looked back to the house. “I pity the family. Last night the questioning was relentless. Tonight he blows out their ear-drums. The women and children are in the bedroom with the door closed, but the walls are thin. I’ll tell the other men the music is not meant to drive them mad. They’ll need to be watchful in case Horvath does come, but I don’t want them shooting a villager who might wander up the hill. After I speak with the men, I’m going back to the hotel for a container of tea. I have a feeling it’s going to be a long night.”
While Brovko conferred with the other men, he shrugged his shoulders as if to say he had no idea what Komarov was doing. But Nikolai knew. It was similar to the afternoon in Visenka. There, amateurs were assigned so something other than a routine arrest would occur. Here, their sense of hearing was being obliterated. Perhaps Komarov wanted Horvath to kill another KGB officer. Or perhaps Komarov was simply insane. After Brovko conferred with the men standing at the vehicles, they fanned out, and he sped off in his Volga, heading down the hill to the village. Inside the house, the light went out, and only the flickering light of the television remained.
A new record dropped onto the turntable, the needle finding the initial groove and sending out explosive hisses before the music began.
This piece featured a chorus as well as an orchestra. Although a passage here and there resembled traditional classical music, it was soon ruined by a melodramatic violin solo followed by the screaming catcalls of women in a chorus.
The stack of recordings had been in an upper cabinet. When Komarov retrieved them, he noticed a shortwave radio hidden behind them and made a mental note to include this in his report. The phonograph was on the kitchen table, its speakers facing the open windows to the backyard. Komarov had moved the phonograph with Captain Brovko’s reluctant assistance. While moving the phonograph, the power cord snagged an icon hanging on the wall and it fell to the floor, shattering into pieces. He’d said something about religion being the ruination of the world, and Brovko had looked at him curiously. He was glad Brovko was gone. Brovko did not understand the need to outshine the tricks at the Hotel Dnieper.
The Gypsy Moth would come, lured by the glow of his music.
He would sneak up to the house under cover of darkness and noise.
An orderly and efficient capture would be impossible. There were several possibilities. One of the men would put a stream of bullets from his AKM into Horvath; Horvath would shoot another KGB
agent, thus confirming his guilt; or Horvath would make it into the house. If Horvath did make it into the house, Komarov was ready.
Komarov’s pistol was on the table beside the phonograph and the lights were out. The only light came from the television, which Bela Sandor sat watching with the sound off. Komarov sat behind the glowing television on the dark side of the room.
Bela Sandor had helped Komarov determine Horvath would come tonight. He had done so by acting more nervous tonight than last night, and by hurrying the women and children to the bedroom after dinner. Horvath had contacted his cousin. Perhaps the plan was to have Horvath come in through the bedroom window. No matter, because Komarov was in the shadows against a windowless wall. He had a clear view of both the front and back doors, of the windows, and of the bedroom door. He had ordered Bela to leave the room-divider curtain open and the television on.
Bela’s face in the mad flicker of the television made him into a clown. Every few minutes, when he looked nervously at the clock on the wall, his movement was strobed by the television, creating multiple images. After smoking several cigarettes in a row, Komarov watched as Bela coughed violently and went to the bedroom door.
Bela knocked, stuck his head inside, seemed to take a deep breath, then closed the door and scowled. Bela began coughing continu-ously, bending over as if he would vomit. He went to the kitchen sink and spit. He poured a glass of wine and took a sip, but this made him cough even more. Before Komarov could stop him or even pick up his pistol, Bela was out the back door.
“Stop!” Komarov ran to the open door. “Stop him!”
This was it. Horvath was out there! Bela was creating a diversion! Komarov went back to the table where it was darkest and watched the open back door and the closed bedroom door. Outside, above the sound of the music, he heard the sound of running feet.
Then Bela was shoved into the house by two of the men.
Bela kicked and screamed, and it took both men to pin him to the floor. The men struggled with Bela, looking as if they were dancing to the music. Komarov remained seated, aimed his pistol at the doorway, and waited. But the open doorway remained dark and empty.
When Bela finally calmed down, Komarov motioned that he be put back in his chair in front of the television. Above the din of music, Komarov shouted to one of the men to go back in the yard to resume his post and to the other to check the bedroom.
When the first man was gone, the second man took his Stechkin machine pistol from inside his coat. A small flashlight was taped to the pistol barrel. The man switched on the flashlight and went to the bedroom door. He opened it and quickly scanned the bedroom.
When the man backed slowly out of the bedroom, Komarov knew this could be it. Horvath could be there. But the man turned and motioned for Komarov to come.
The bedroom was empty. The window was open. Komarov had the man shout search orders out the window and close the bedroom door. While the man stood guard, Komarov slapped Bela’s face. But Bela simply smiled.
A few minutes later, a man with an AKM came in and announced that the women and children were nowhere to be found. Komarov told the man to keep watch for them but, more importantly, to watch for Detective Horvath and to shoot him on sight. When the man with the AKM went back outside, Komarov noticed the man with the machine pistol staring at the phonograph. He shouted at the man, ordering him to tie Bela to his chair with rope from the room-divider curtain.
Soon everything was back as it had been, the music playing, Komarov sitting in the dark watching the doors and smoking, Bela staring at the television. Except now the women and children were gone, and this could mean only one thing. Horvath would soon arrive.
The rope holding Bela to the chair was wrapped tightly, and his wrists were tied behind him. His nose bled, and he no longer smiled as he had when Komarov slapped him.
The violin of Lakatos cried its song of despair into the night, and for a moment Lazlo imagined he was back in his apartment in Kiev, lying in bed listening to Lakatos on his phonograph. None of what had brought him to Kisbor on a cool night in May had happened.
In a few seconds it all flashed before him again. Mihaly in the wine cellar; months later the confession of his affair on a snow-covered playground outside the apartment. Tamara with him when he heard about the explosion. The roadblocks and confusion. The news of Mihaly’s death from bureaucrats at the Ministry of Energy.
Juli arriving in his office at militia headquarters. Had the visit by Andrew Zukor and his wife at the farm had another purpose? Was it possible Zukor had somehow convinced Mihaly to …
No! Komarov had created a pretense of guilt out of Mihaly’s and Juli’s personal lives. Komarov had arranged the circumstances, causing Lazlo to do something he thought he would never do again. He’d killed an innocent man. He’d shot an innocent man and watched him die, resurrecting the image of the Gypsy on the Romanian border. Komarov was obviously trying to create counterrevolutionary scapegoats for what had happened at Chernobyl.
But to what end?
With the music playing, with the memories of what he’d seen in the dead agent’s eyes and the dead Gypsy’s eyes and in Komarov’s eyes, Lazlo knew there was more. Komarov needed to destroy him, destroy his family, destroy Juli.
The violin of Lakatos crying out over the plateau gave way to the faster czardas, the rest of the orchestra joining in. In the distance, looking like overbright fireflies in Lazlo’s night vision, flashlights danced about the house. Lazlo used the opportunity to circle the house. He stayed at the ridge of the hill and was able to count ten men wielding flashlights. While he ran, he thought of the story his father had told, the German troops coming up the hill, only their helmets visible as his father and mother climbed down into the wine cellar.
The faint light of the village was behind Lazlo as he pushed through the weeds approaching the gravel road going up the hill.
He held his watch up and saw it was almost ten o’clock. He was about a hundred meters from the house. A flashlight swept across the side of the house, pausing at the open bedroom window.
The open window, Bela’s signal telling him Nina and Mariska and the children had escaped into the wine cellar. The men with flashlights were searching for the women and children, searching in an ever-widening circle. It was time. Bela was expecting him at ten, and Lazlo knew Komarov must be in the house waiting for him.
Lazlo considered posing as a drunk walking along the road.
He’d stagger up the hill whistling to the music. The men would come, and he’d pretend to speak only Hungarian. But there were too many men. He’d never break free and be able to get to the house without being sprayed by AKM fire. Then he remembered what Bela had told him earlier in the day. A man was stationed on the south edge of the road at the ridge of the hill.
Lazlo crouched low and ran. If the man was at his post, he’d have to disarm him, get the AKM, and make a run on the house.
But more likely, the man had left his post and was part of the search.
Lazlo Horvath Thriller - 01 - Chernobyl Murders Page 38