“I heard. You are a liar, like all the rest of them.”
“Put down that gun,” Durell said. “I’m a friend.”
“That’s what the Russians said, before they turned their tanks on us and crushed us under the treads. Do you know something? I, myself, blew up two of their tanks. When they came up Castle Hill, we lured them into a dead-end street and we filled the hollows of the street with gasoline and when the tanks splashed through we gave them a grenade or two. That finished them. That’s how I got this gun. I took it off a Russian I killed. A man like you.”
Durell wanted the boy to keep talking, but the mother murmured something and he broke off abruptly, his pale eyes suddenly uncertain. Maria said something in Hungarian that Durell did not understand. He felt a cool sweat on his face and he knew he was afraid of this boy who had killed Russian tanks. There was a wildness in Janos Tagy that was beyond any reason. Only his mother’s voice kept his finger quiet on the trigger.
“I believe him, Janos,” Mrs. Tagy whispered. “Even if he lies, it must come to this end. If he tells the truth, then we must decide now, once and for all, what to do about your father.”
“Is he here?” Durell asked.
The woman looked at him with round, dead eyes. “Yes.”
“Alive?”
“He almost died. He was sick and wounded. He was wounded by a border guard when he came through. And then he became feverish and the wound was infected and we hid him here. It was only by the grace of God that he found strength to make his way to this house. He came in the night, and nobody saw him, and we have been hiding him here ever since.”
“Take me to him,” Durell said. “Janos?”
The boy still hesitated, but the muzzle of his gun was lowered now. His mouth shook uncertainly as he looked from his mother to Durell. Then he shrugged his thin shoulders. His eyes were still wild.
“I will take him, if you say so, mother. But I will kill him if he touches you again.”
“It was not his fault,” the woman said wearily. “Come, we will all go. He must have heard my screaming. He will be worried.”
Durell moved ahead at a gesture from the boy’s gun. To his surprise, they did not go upstairs, where the boy had come from. They returned to the kitchen, where the woman opened a cellar door and Durell was forced to lead the way down. The cellar felt warmer than the upper floors of the house. The walls were of massive stone, the floor of earth, and a huge coal furnace stood silent and black in one corner. Durell felt Maria touch his arm in what was meant to be reassurance, but he saw that her face was drawn tight, the skin shiny over her prominent cheekbones, her mouth set in an uncompromising line. The thought flashed through his mind that she may well have led him here to his death. Yet he did not seriously doubt her. He felt the boy, Janos, prod him again with the muzzle of the Russian gun.
“Go ahead. Into the furnace.”
“The furnace?”
“There is a trap door inside. A long time ago, a hundred years ago, we Hungarians rebelled against tyranny, too.” The boy’s voice was thin and proud. “Those were the days of Petoefi, and General Bems. There were heroes in the land then, and there will be more heroes again.” He paused. “In those days there was fighting here, too. They built tunnels to get from one house to another, and most of them are forgotten today. But I found this one, years ago, and we fixed it up with the furnace to hide the entrance.”
“Then you have no heat in the house?” Durell asked. “We can build a fire quickly on the steel plate inside, if we have to. It is the same plate that acts as the trap door. Go ahead, climb inside. And be careful, I will be directly behind you. I don’t care if I have to die, too.”
Durell believed him. There was a brave, wild immaturity in Janos Tagy, but there was also a grim sense of responsibility beyond his years. Durell opened the wide furnace door. There was easily enough room for him to climb inside, and he saw the steel plate clearly on the floor of the furnace, with a ring-bolt set in it that lifted easily when he pulled it up. A dark opening and the top rungs of a wooden ladder were revealed. He squeezed inside and climbed down.
Light flickered downward over him, and he looked back and saw that Janos had taken a flashlight to guide the way. There were more than a dozen rungs to the ladder, and then he had to drop three feet to a brick floor. The tunnel stretched in both directions, brick-walled, with a vaulted ceiling. Water dripped somewhere, but it was not as cold as the outer air.
“To your right,” the boy whispered. “And do not make a sound for fifty paces. We will be going under the neighbors’ cellars, and they do not know about this passage. But they might hear. So be careful.”
Durell led the way. He heard Maria climb down after him, and then Mrs. Tagy, and he wondered suddenly what would happen to them all if Roger Wyman’s tip to the AVO should lead the secret police to this place now. The thought gave him a renewed sense of urgency, of time slipping by that could never be regained. He went ahead, a sense of excitement and anxiety mixed in him that he always felt when he was near a goal in his mission. The light flickered erratically, then focused on a wide area of the tunnel ahead. He saw a cot, a heap of blankets, a small table and an oil lamp, and quickened his stride to look down at the man who lay with his face to the damp, brick tunnel walls.
It was Dr. Tagy.
Chapter Fifteen
How long has he been like this?” Durell asked. He spoke to Janos Tagy. “He looks as if he’s under drugs.”
“Yes. To make him sleep. He should wake up soon.” “Can he walk?”
“Yes, a little. But he is not strong enough yet to try to cross the frontier with us.”
“You planned to leave with him?”
“He came back for us,” the boy said proudly. “He could not take Mama and me the first time. But when all the fighting began, he came back to rescue us.” The thin shoulders slumped in despair. “But he was wounded and sick. We had to hide him down here. Every now and then the police come and look through the house. So far, they have not taken Mama or me to the cellar prisons. They search, and find nothing, and go away.”
“When was the last time they were here?”
“Two days ago.”
“Do you expect them soon?”
The boy shrugged again. “One never knows with those animals. They show up at any time, at any hour.”
“And you kept your father down here all this time?” “Yes. All this time. Mama and I nursed him. He’s much better, actually. We thought perhaps we could try for the frontier in another week or so.”
“You had no friends who could help you before this?” “There is no one to trust,” Janos said simply.
“And now your time has run out,” Durell said. “Until now, the AVO had no real reason to believe your father was back in Budapest. But they know now. In an hour, perhaps sooner, they will come back and this time they will get the truth from you, Janos.”
“Not from me,” the boy said tightly. His smile was grim. “They may kill me, but they will not make me talk.”
“And your mother?” Durell asked. His voice was quiet.
- “Would you be silent if you were forced to watch them torture your mother?”
Janos’s gaze faltered. He bit his lip. The gun he carried sagged, and he looked uncertainly at the small, white-haired woman, at Maria, and then at the sleeping man on the cot. His mouth shook.
“I don’t know,” he whispered. “Perhaps not—I couldn’t stand—”
“Then you have to trust me,” Durell said flatly. “There isn’t time for you to think about it. All of you will have to come with me.”
“Now?” Mrs. Tagy asked faintly.
“At once. Maria, will you take the risk of hiding these people in your apartment until tonight?”
The dark-haired girl nodded. “If we can get them there.” “Janos, is there another way out of this tunnel?” Durell asked.
“Yes, but I left so many things in the house—”
“Leave them there and
forget them. It will be better if it looks to the police as if you just walked out and expect to return any moment. Come on, help me get your father awake.”
There were several precious minutes lost while the wife and son shook and talked to the sick man. Dr. Tagy had a round face like his wife’s, but there were deep lines etched at the mouth and an unhealthy color to his cheeks. He was unshaven, and his beard glinted silvery-gray in the light of the lantern. Durell walked carefully back down the tunnel to the trap in the coal furnace by which they had entered. Listening for a moment, he heard no sound, and then climbed the ladder and returned to the cellar above. He ^checked the back door, went out into the glare of sunlight in the garden to lock the gate; then he returned, closing the cellar door, climbed back through the huge furnace door and carefully drew the steel plate shut over his head.
He wondered how much time he really had. He did not know, actually, if McFee had let anything slip to Roger Wyman in Vienna, but a report from Wyman to AVO headquarters here, yielding his own identity, would set the wheels in motion, connecting him to Bela Korvuth’s mission, and in turn, bringing Dr. Tagy’s name into it. He did not underestimate the enemy. The top echelons of the secret police were fanatic, intelligent, dedicated men. On the surface, his hope for success was too small even to consider. Yet he had to try. He had come this far, somehow, with luck and Ilona’s help, and he had found willing hands to carry on, in Maria and the Tagy family. Yet when he thought of Roger Wyman and of Dickinson McFee in some prison, being questioned and tortured, he felt the nerves tense in the back of his neck and he paused until the wave of anger passed and he felt calm again.
Dr. Tagy was on his feet when he returned. The man was short; even Maria stood taller than he. He looked haggard and confused, but his eyes sharpened as Durell approached down the tunnel.
“You are the American?”
“Yes. How do you feel?”
“Well enough to go, with a man’s help. I have been a fool. All this time lost because I was unlucky enough to catch a bullet in my leg at the frontier, and then fell sick, like a weakling.”
“You could have told our security people how you felt about your family,” Durell said. “Some arrangements could have been made to help get them out to you.”
Dr. Tagy groped for his glasses on the bunk and put them on. His wife supported his weight as he limped and stumbled. “I am a man of science, and perhaps not very practical when it comes to simple human relations. I simply wanted to make sure for myself that my wife and son were safe. Instead, I bungled everything. I risked my own life and put them in gravest danger. Now, of course, you have come to help and everything will be all right.”
Durell did not want to tell him he was being overopti-mistic. They were a long way from being safe. And when he saw that Dr. Tagy could make only slow and painful progress on his feet, his concern was doubled. His son supported him now, indicating that they should proceed down the tunnel away from the direction they had come.
Dr. Tagy spoke again, pausing for breath after they had gone only a short distance. “I am grateful to you, sir, but I begin to think that what you are trying to do is impossible. Perhaps I had better stay here for a few weeks more, until my strength has returned.”
“No, Papa,” Janos said. “You come with us.”
“I can bring only disaster to you, this way.” Dr. Tagy halted, swaying. “Perhaps you, sir, will take my wife and son to the frontier.” He looked at Durell in resignation. “At least, then, I will know they are safe.”
“I am afraid we consider you more important than anyone else.”
“But you see how I am. It is a long way, and dangerous, to the frontier. I will only cause you all to be caught. Leave me here, sir, I beg you. Take my wife and Janos.”
“We all get out, or none of us,” Durell said. “There is no time to argue. Janos, where does this tunnel take us?”
“We can climb out in an empty house the Russians shelled. There were snipers there, and the tanks fired point-blank at the building. No one will see us.”
“Do you think you can possibly find a car?”
The boy nodded. “We hid one during the fighting. I think it belonged to some AVO men. It is behind a wall in the rubble, near the tunnel exit.”
“Go ahead then, and get it. Bring it around so we get your father into it.”
The boy shifted the gun in his hand and looked uncertain. His father nodded. “Go, Janos.”
“I don’t like to leave you, Papa.”
“I will be all right with the American.”
The exit from the tunnel required less contortions than the entrance in the Tagy cellar. There was a sharp tunnel in the brick-lined walls and then a glimpse of pale white sunlight. Janos pushed aside some heavy planking and then stepped free, onto a vast pile of shattered brick, stone and timbers. Durell saw that they stood inside the shell of a shattered building, one wall of which had completely collapsed, the others being only skeletal fragments standing precariously in the bright sunshine. Nobody else was in sight. He helped Dr. Tagy climb free, and then Eva Tagy and Maria. Janos silently handed his Russian gun to Durell, and then went scrambling out of sight among the rubble. Durell looked at his watch. It was almost eleven o’clock. The sun stood high in the morning sky. A small sparrow landed with a flutter of gray wings and perched on a splintered timber and cocked its small head at him, eyes bright and inquiring. Durell sat down, aware of a new, pulsing ache in his wounded shoulder; he wished for a cigarette, but he knew it was impossible, and he contented himself with drawing in deep breaths of the cold, fresh air. Maria started to say something and he beckoned her to silence. There was no telling who might be passing by on the other side of the ruined walls.
They waited five minutes. And then ten.
Durell moved to a gaunt window opening and risked a glimpse of the street beyond. It was narrow, slanted and twisting, like all the old streets in this hilly part of Buda. Two men stood talking and smoking at the far corner, near the splintered remains of a tree. He saw trolley tracks and wires at the intersection, but while he watched there were no trolleys that passed, and only one truck and one car. The car was moving fast, and it turned out of sight at the corner, going downhill, and he could not see who was in it except for the impression that it was crowded with men.
Durell looked back at the trio sitting on the rubble, waiting with him. The two women were whispering, Maria’s dark face thin and intense. Dr. Tagy sat with his hands dangling limply between his knees. He looked broken and defeated. Durell turned his head as the sound of a car came grinding up the cobblestone street from the bottom of the hill. The two men talking on the corner were gone. There were no other signs of life in the street. When he saw the car, his hopes sagged for a moment. It was an old Zis sedan, Russian-made, battered and bullet-scarred. It would be too conspicuous on the streets. Yet there was no other choice. Dr. Tagy was too weak and feeble to hope to walk to Maria Stryzyk’s apartment, and public transportation was out of the question. They would have to risk it.
Janos looked flushed and jubilant as he rejoined them. “I have been thinking about everything. We will take Papa and Mama to Maria’s right now, and I will return the car to its hiding place. Then, tonight, we will use it to get to the frontier. We are armed, there are enough of us to help each other. It is best that we get out of the city quickly.”
Durell had no intention of leaving until he found out from Ilona what had happened to Dickinson McFee; but he did not mention this. There were two or three long, tight minutes when they had to leave the shelter of the ruined house and cross the paving to the parked sedan. If anyone saw them, there was no immediate alarm. Janos ran around to the driver’s side and slid happily behind the wheel. The boy seemed different, excited by the action after all the weeks of hiding and struggling to keep his father’s presence a secret from prying neighbors. Yet he drove competently, not too fast to attract attention, and not too slow to waste time.
There was another hurdle to
be passed in getting them all up to Maria’s apartment. It was decided that they would go one or two at a time. Maria and Eva Tagy got out of the car first, around the corner, and walked into the building while Janos circled the block in the car and doubled back. ^ Then Durell helped Dr. Tagy, supporting him as inconspicuously as possible until they crossed the sidewalk into the building. Janos drove the car away and promised to be back in twenty minutes, after hiding it again.
Inside the apartment, Dr. Tagy was made to rest in Maria’s bedroom. Maria made more coffee and set out bread and cheese for their lunch. Mrs. Tagy sat beside her husband on the bed.
Durell checked the apartment doors again, studied the view from the window, and settled down to wait. At eleven-thirty Maria came toward him, smiling, and suggested he bathe and shave, and he was glad of the chance. By noon he was watching from the window again, waiting for Ilona.
Janos did not come back.
Neither did Ilona.
Durell drank coffee and ate a sandwich and went in to look at Dr. Tagy. The little physicist was asleep. He seemed slightly feverish. His wife regarded Durell with anxious eyes. “Didn’t Janos say he would be back at once?”
“He’ll be all right. He’s a fine boy, Mrs. Tagy. We can count on him to take care of himself.”
“But it is the hate in him that makes me worry. His hatred makes him do reckless things. He does not stop and think or count the cost. He should have been back by now.” “He’ll be back,” Durell said gently.
At one o’clock there was no sign of either Ilona Andrassy or the boy.
It was nothing to jump the rails about, Durell thought. In this business there were times of waiting and times of action, and it was necessary to be able to do one as well as the other. You can’t afford to think or dwell on what might be happening to those you were waiting for. Either they showed up or they didn’t. You gave them a reasonable time, and then a little extra time, and then if it was necessary to change your plans, you did so.
He had waited like this many times before, and it was never easy. Sometimes your patience was rewarded. At other times, you had to accept the grim evidence before you and retreat, abandon the ones you hoped to see again, and go on. You always had to go on, one way or another, and not look back and wonder if this could have been done, or if that course might have worked better, or if this one would be alive today if you had acted, somehow, in a different manner. You planned and you carried out the plan, and if some of it didn’t work, you tried something else.
Assignment - Budapest Page 14