Assignment - Budapest

by Edward S. Aarons

  When the trucks were out of sight, Durell got up and sat behind Matyas. “What did he say to you?”

  “He wanted to know where we were going.” Matyas laughed softly. “I told him this was an express bus to Gyor. And that is not far from the truth, is it?”

  “You won’t be able to use that when we come to an AVO check point.”

  “I know where they usually put up their blockades. We can take some side roads to get around them into the countryside. But there will be more Russians up ahead, in tanks. I know them well, the dirty savages.”

  In twenty minutes they reached a second roadblock. Again it was manned by Russians, this time in armored cars, with the dark masses of T-54’s bulking in the shadows under a grove of trees flanking the road. The same routine was followed. Matyas was a consummate actor. He expressed indignation, impatience at his loss of time on the schedule he was supposed to follow, and just the right amount of respectful cooperation toward the Soviet military. They were passed through.

  “Now we will turn north,” Matyas said, grinning. “There are a number of secondary roads we can take.”

  “If we run into a check point on them, won’t it arouse suspicion because the bus belongs on the main highway?” Durell asked.

  “I can always say I was detoured at the last barricade. And I shall complain bitterly about it.”

  “If we have a straight run, how long will it take to reach the border?”

  Matyas shrugged. “Two, closer to three, hours. With luck.” He sighed. “But we do not have a straight run. We will go north of Gyor on this road I know, and then cut west again. It will be all right.”

  “Make it three hours, then,” Durell said.

  “If we are lucky, yes.”

  Durell went back in the rocking bus and sank wearily into the leather seat next to Ilona. She was smoking a cigarette, staring out through the wide windows at the dark, flickering countryside. They were well out of the city now, following a graveled road that twisted and turned like a snake through small hills and dense patches of woodland. Here and there a dim light flickered from some peasant’s farmhouse. The bus jounced wildly over ruts in the road, the springs squealing in protest as Matyas pushed down on the gas with abandon. Durell leaned across the girl to take her cigarette, and saw the silver streaks of tears on her face. “What is it?” he whispered. “Why are you crying, Ilona.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “There must be a reason.”

  “I’m a fool. I feel confused.”

  “What about?”

  “You. I think I’m in love with you, darling.”

  He said nothing and she turned, her dark hair glinting in the faint starshine that came through the bus windows. She smiled weakly and touched his hands. “I’m afraid I made a bad bargain with you, after all,” she said quietly. “You are disappointed in me now, aren’t you?”

  “No, but—”

  “You need not say anything about it. It’s all right. I know you don’t love me. And that is not the whole cause for the way I feel. I just don’t know if I’m doing the right thing, going back with all of you.”

  “You can’t stay in Hungary,” he said flatly.

  “But I want to. I feel—like a coward, running away.” “You’re not a coward. Don’t think about it.”

  She looked at him with solemn eyes. “Tell me, truly. Aren’t you afraid, sometimes, in the work you do, that you may be making a wrong decision, taking a step in the wrong direction?”

  “I try not to think about it.”

  “Very well. I’ll try not to think, too.”

  It was cold in the bus. The heating equipment did not operate satisfactorily, and the silent passengers sat huddled in their seats, uncomfortable and tense. Durell spoke to Dr. Tagy, then Maria, then went back to McFee. McFee had the Russian sub-machine gun in his lap.

  “We’ve been too lucky,” McFee said. “We’ll have trouble soon.”

  “The longer it’s postponed, the better, and the closer we get to the border.”

  “Do you honestly think we’re going to make it, Cajun?” Durell thought of the busload of people depending on him. The responsibility weighed on him with tangible pressure, like a load on his back. “We’ll make a good try at it.” “We can’t afford to be captured again, Sam.”

  “I know that.”

  “Some of these people will talk about us, if they’re taken, too.”

  “I know.”

  “We can’t let that happen, Sam.”

  Durell looked at the little man’s face in the shadows of the bus seat. McFee’s meaning was clear enough. They either won through to freedom for all of them, or they had to die. Everyone in the bus. There was no other choice possible.

  “Do you understand, Sam?”

  Durell looked at the automatic in McFee’s hands. McFee had taken up a position in the very last seat in the bus, where his gun covered the nodding heads of their passengers. He looked especially at Ilona.

  “Let’s not borrow trouble, Dick.”

  “I just wanted you to know what I’ll have to do, Sam. You can take care of Ilona, if you prefer.”

  “I couldn’t kill her,” Durell said. “That’s nonsense.” “You’ll have to, if we’re caught. Otherwise, I’ll do it.” McFee’s words were quiet, and terrible because of the calm riding behind his narrow face. “She’s in love with you, Sam.”

  “I know. She told me.”

  “How do you feel about it?”

  “I don’t feel anything about it. You’re still borrowing trouble. We’re halfway to the border already.”

  “Halfway isn’t good enough,” McFee said. “Go on back and hold her hand.”

  An hour went by. Most of the people in the bus sat unmoved, waiting for disaster. The boy, Janos, wanted to relieve Matyas at the wheel, but the big man pushed him aside. The road they followed with the ponderous vehicle was little more than a country lane, muddy, filled with ice and slippery when they went through the deep shadows of wooded territory. Once, Durell saw flares lifting in the horizon of the night sky, far to the south. Budapest was far behind, and if they had been on the main highway to the west, they would be close to the border by now. But the roadblocks on the main highway would have been death traps, each one of them, and it was better not to push their luck too far. He only hoped that Matyas was as good as his word and knew his way along these back roads. If they got lost and were forced to waste precious hours wandering around, the night would be gone, and in daylight escape would be impossible.

  Matyas called him forward finally, and Durell went down the aisle of the bus to sit directly behind the driver’s seat. Matyas spoke soberly. “This is as far as I can go, staying off the main roads. In about three more miles, we come out on a main highway going west. There is no other route we can take, you understand? There will be a roadbock in a short distance, once we reach the highway, and it will be manned by Hungarian AVO people. It will be the point of greatest danger for us.”

  “How far are we from the frontier now?”

  “When we reach the block, it will be about ten miles.” “How much speed can you get out of the bus?”

  “Fifty—maybe sixty miles an hour.”

  “We may have to break through and push for it,” Durell said. “Be ready, if it comes to that.”

  “Yes. There will be much shooting, if we do that, though. And the women will be in danger.”

  Durell looked back and saw McFee on the rear seat, with his gun. “We’ll all be in danger. The women take equal chances with the men in this.”

  “I don’t like to do that,” Matyas said. “Maria and I—”

  “You take your chances together.”

  “All right. Here we go.”

  The bus bounced and rocked on the rough unpaved road for another quarter mile, and then abruptly lifted with a jolt onto concrete paving. Matyas turned left. The highway was broad and smooth and ominously empty. Durell knew that the town of Gyor was behind them now, and no alert guard w
ould be fooled by the sudden appearance of a wandering bus from Budapest. He felt tension creep along his nerves and muscles as the bus headlights swept the concrete ribbon ahead.

  The barrier showed up quickly enough. A glow of light appeared, brightening steadily as Matyas headed for it without slackening speed. A red flare shot up into the sky, and other spotlights suddenly came on, flooding the area ahead with vivid brightness. There were several guard huts visible, flanking the highway, a wooden and steel barricade, the looming monstrous shapes of more Russian tanks, and then the figures of several men standing with rifles ready, waving them down.

  “Slow down and stop,” Durell ordered.

  Matyas thinned his mouth. “It is a temptation to crash through.”

  “It wouldn’t work. Stop and go through the same routine. Say you are lost, that you were detoured, as you planned to say before.”

  Matyas touched the brakes and the bus slowed its wild pace. The bright island of light around the roadblock came swimming up out of the dark pattern of the night, seeming to rush toward them out of black space. Matyas braked again. Air hissed and rubber squealed on the concrete. Durell heard a flat cracking sound, and he wondered if a warning shot had been fired at them, and then Matyas had the bus halted and a uniformed AVO man came walking angrily across the road as Matyas opened the doors.

  This time it was a captain, and he was backed up by half a dozen armed men near the guard huts, as well as the glinting muzzles of tank weapons in the shadows of the highway shoulders. Ahead, the highway swept in a long, gentle curve to the south and west, and the dark shape of more woodland loomed against the night. The AVO captain came aboard with a Mauser pistol in his hand. He looked angry and suspicious, barking swift questions at Matyas while his eyes raked the dim interior of the bus. He looked dangerous.

  “Who are you people? Stand up and get out of this bus. I want to look at you all.”

  The AVO captain was squat and powerfully built, with a pock-marked face and a swaggering stride. Matyas said something to him in a placating voice, but the man spit on the bus floor and walked down the aisle straight toward Ilona.

  “This one,” he said, looking down at her. “I think I know you, don’t I? Stand up, girl, and let’s have a good look.” He swung angrily. “The rest of you, get out of the bus! This is as far as you go. Get your papers ready and walk over to the hut, into the light.”

  This was it, Durell thought. There was no escape, no chance of bluffing. The man was already suspicious, arrogant, sensing something wrong about the bus wandering the highway in the night. Durell stood up and nodded slightly to Matyas, who sank back in his driver’s seat behind the wheel. The diesel engine was still running, idling throatily. Ahead were the steel and wood barricades, the dim shapes of tanks like primordial monsters sheltering in the darkness under the trees.

  “Leave the girl alone,” Durell said to the AVO man.

  “You give me a suggestion?” The squat man spun in the aisle, his gun up. But he made the mistake of looking back through the open door of the bus, where his men were waiting, smoking and talking. It was enough for Durell. Ilona dropped away as he struck at the man’s gun, knocking it down, catching the man’s arm and slamming it hard over the brass-trimmed edge of Ilona’s seat. The Mauser exploded with a shattering crash, punching a slug into the floor of the bus. At the same moment, Matyas clashed gears and tramped on the gas pedal. The bus lurched ahead with a sudden roar of the engine. Durell was prepared for the movement; the AVO captain was not. Durell struck hard again, the edge of his palm clipping the thick nape of the man’s neck. The AVO captain fell, lurching, and his head struck the back of Ilona’s seat. At the same moment, the bus slammed at rising speed into the barrier ahead. Wood splintered, steel screeched, glass shattered. Durell was thrown from his feet, caught a grip on the seat, and stumbled over the AVO man. The Mauser slid along the bus aisle and he caught it up, pulling himself to his feet.

  Everything was confusion. He heard the yells of alarm from the guards, and a machine gun on one of the tanks began to stutter and more glass flew in wicked, lethal shards as slugs came through the bus windows.

  “Down!” Durell yelled. “Everybody down, on the floor!” The motion of the bus was insane, rocking crazily but still going forward, dragging part of the barricade along with it, the lumber and steel screeching on the concrete. Someone fell on Durell and he pushed angrily, struggling up. They were still moving. Janos grabbed his arm and babbled something and he shook the boy free and staggered forward to Matyas. The big man still clung to the wheel. One half of the big windshield was shattered, and blood streamed down the man’s face from a deep gash across his forehead.

  “My eyes,” he gasped. “I can't see.”

  Durell braced himself against a steel hand pole and got out a handkerchief and dabbed at Matyas’ face, wiping the blood away. “Keep going.”

  “The tanks will follow.”

  “Can they catch us?”

  Matyas shook his head. “They can do forty. As long as they don’t blow our tires, we’re all right.”

  Durell looked back. A blinding, iridescent glare filled the rear windows of the rocking bus as a spotlight centered on them. They were already twenty, thirty yards away from the check point, leaving it fast. He saw men running, saw the angry spit of exhaust from tank engines as the T-54’s started up. There came a sound like a clap of thunder, a muzzle flare, and the screech of a shell going by. The tank men were using their 75’s, hoping to hit the bus. But the road curved, and although Matyas was having trouble controlling the vehicle, they were sliding around the long curve to the south and west, putting trees between them. The speedometer needle was creeping up, past fifty, sixty kilometers, wavering crazily.

  “You’ll have to go faster,” he shouted.

  Matyas nodded, and Durell gave him his handkerchief to wipe off the blood that ran into his eyes. Another machine gun began firing at them, and four or five slugs struck the back of the bus, screaming angrily, and more glass shattered. Someone screamed. A spotlight flickered past them, caught them, bathed the inside of the bus with eerie bright radiance. To Durell’s quick glance, it looked like a shambles. He sought out Ilona and saw her taking the gun from McFee and poking the muzzle through the shattered rear window. She fired rapidly, in quick bursts, and the spotlight abruptly went out.

  Durell worked his way back to her. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes. It was Mrs. Tagy who screamed.”

  Durell swung back and saw Dr. Tagy holding his grayhaired wife. Janos was tearing his shirt into strips for bandaging.

  “It was flying glass,” Dr. Tagy said. “She will be all right.”

  Durell stumbled over the AVO man, knelt, lifted the man's head and shoulders. He looked unconscious, possibly dead. One of the bullets had hit him high in the chest. He dropped the man, looking for Maria, didn’t see her, then went forward and found her crouching behind Matyas’ driver’s seat. She was trying to keep the blood from Matyas’ wound from interfering with the big man’s vision. Her smile was quick as she saw Durell.

  “No casualties?”

  “None yet.”

  “If we can keep them behind us for fifteen minutes . . ."

  Durell nodded and looked back. Headlights from the pursuing tanks were still visible on the road behind them, but thanks to the curve of the highway, the slight rise and dip of the gently rolling hills, the tanks hadn’t used their cannon after the first wild shots. He felt the bus tremble and a quick, rhythmic jolt set his teeth to chattering, and he knew that one of the dual rear tires had gone flat. It was not the tanks behind them that worried him now. He knew that the radio had already jumped ahead of them to the frontier, sounding the alarm, alerting machines and men and guns to stop them.

  He looked at his watch. Five minutes had gone by since they had crashed through the roadblock. It was enough to give them a safe lead from motorcycles, trucks or cars that might give chase. The danger from the rear was gone. What lay ahead loo
ked dark, a gamble against the biggest odds he had ever chosen. He could count somewhat on the enemy’s confusion. Ten minutes might not be enough time for them to organize an airtight blockade of the road. But it wasn’t good enough. He couldn’t depend on that. Turning, he worked his way down the bus aisle, grabbing handholds as the bus lurched crazily, his feet crunching on broken glass. He crouched beside Matyas at the wheel. Maria was still working on the wound on the man’s head.

  “How much farther?” Durell asked.

  “Five miles, maybe.”

  “What have they got up ahead?”

  Matyas shrugged. His face looked gray and bleak in the dim light from the instrument panel. “Too much, maybe.”

  “You don’t think we can crash through?”

  “They will be ready now. Guns, mines, tank traps. We can only try.”

  “You’d better slow down, then,” Durell said.

  “What?”

  “Look for a side road. Bear north.”

  “They will all be the same, friend. The border area is closed tight.”

  “But they’ll be looking for us on the highway. They won’t expect this bus to go anywhere else. Take any road, no matter how bad it is. Push ahead until we can’t go any farther.” “And then?”

  “We’ll try to walk out,” Durell said quietly.

  Their chance came sooner than he had hoped. A narrow cut appeared in the woods lining the highway up ahead, and Matyas slammed on the brakes, heaving at the clumsy bus wheel to make the turn. For a moment Durell thought they were going to turn over as the floor lifted under him. Branches crashed against the roof of the bus. The road was nothing but a frozen mud lane boring like a tunnel through the woods. The heavy wheels broke through the frozen surface and began to spin crazily, and the bus slid sidewise toward a parallel ditch. Matyas grunted and clung to the big wheel. Mrs. Tagy made a whimpering sound in the back of the bus. The wheels slid a few more feet, than gained traction and the bus lurched ahead, down the twisting, narrow lane away from the highway.