“Our senior intelligence officer has arrived!” said Lutz. “Come, come.”
Ersek turned in his chair with some effort, sticking out a hand. Brano patted his back and sat down. “I’m not feeling particularly intelligent today.”
“Just today?” asked Ersek. He was brushing dry his upper lip, where the beginning of a mustache was forming. “You’re doing better than the rest of us. Turns out one of the principal shareholders in Nanz Editions just died of a heart attack. Now his executors want to sell his piece to pay off his debts. You want to invest in publishing?”
“With what? Ask Filip.”
Lutz opened his hands. “I already own thirty percent.”
Brano scratched his sore forehead to mimic serious thought. “I suppose I could get someone to sell my Trabant back home.”
That received a few seconds of obligatory laughter.
“How’s your girl?” asked Lutz.
Nanz straightened. “Yeah, you don’t bring her out, do you?”
“Why didn’t you tell me you knew her?”
Both men fell silent, until Lutz said, “We don’t know her that well.”
“Not from what she says.”
Ersek leaned forward. “How does she say it?”
“She says you two and Bertrand Richter were all very close.”
“That’s how it is among expats,” said Lutz. “We form close friendships for a while, then we stop.”
“You stopped when Bertrand was killed.”
Ersek found a cigarette and popped it into his mouth. “You have to admit, Brano, that puts a strange tone on a friendship, when your friend’s dead.”
“Even more so when he’s killed,” said Lutz.
“Do the police know who killed him?”
“The Austrian police couldn’t find a hooker in the Canal District with a handful of koronas. But he was a good guy.”
“A bore, though,” said Ersek. “You have to admit.”
“Sure,” said Lutz.
“I don’t know about Lutzi,” Ersek continued, “but to tell the truth, I was nice to him because he had a pretty girlfriend. I think a lot of people were the same way. And now-now I’ve got a reason to be nice to you!”
Lutz rapped the table. “Let’s change the subject, okay? It’s no good for my indigestion.”
The change of subject seemed an excuse for Lutz to regale them with the details of his latest date with the interpreter, with whom, this time, he had finally achieved success.
“You’re a bastard,” said Ersek. “A lucky bastard.”
Lutz squeezed out from behind the table. “That I am.” He patted Nanz’s shoulder, excused himself, and lumbered off to the bathroom.
“What do you think of Dijana?” asked Brano. “Honestly.”
Ersek considered him. “I liked her. A little baffling, but you probably know that. All those Balkan chicks are. And she gets around, if you know what I mean.”
“No. I don’t know what you mean.”
“You asked, right? But she’s perceptive as hell, that one, and great to look at.”
“And Richter? Was their relationship good?”
“Who ever knows these things? He was crazy about her, that’s for sure. He was paranoid someone would take her away. He accused each of us at one point or another. Me, Lutz, even that cold fish from the embassy, Josef Lochert-you know him?”
Brano hesitated. “No. No, I don’t.”
“Well, Lutzi brought him to the Carp one night for a good time.”
The air seemed to dry up. “This Josef Lochert is a friend of Filip’s?”
“Sure,” said Ersek. “They’ve known each other years. Longer than I’ve known Filip. But if you meet Lochert, you’ll understand why Bertrand got upset. He has a way of staring that’s entirely impolite, and he gave it to Dijana. Bertrand went off the handle completely and tried to take him outside for a fight.”
“They fought?”
Ersek shook his head. “Nah. I wanted to see Bertrand get kicked, but Lutz stepped in and made peace. What did he say? Yes. If we fight one another, then there’ll be no fight left when we need it. Or something like that. Very poetic.”
When Brano realized he was tapping the table like a nervous old man, he placed his hands in his lap.
After a couple of drinks, Brano feigned fatigue, which the men immediately associated with his sex life. They laughed as he reddened and gave him masculine slaps on the back, whistling as he walked away. His sunburned shadow followed him south, in the tram, all the way to Web-Gasse.
In his bathroom, he prepared the note that demanded an 11:30 appointment the next day, just before his scheduled meeting with Ludwig, and wrapped it around the nail. He stuck it in his pocket, grabbed his book, and left again. The light was failing, but he didn’t care. He walked up Liniengasse to Gumpendorfer, then found his bench at Eszterhazy Park. He stared at the open book.
Brano remembered a time, which seemed very long ago, when he could move slowly in the street and etch out a painstaking portrait of a dull, daily life, all for the benefit of the socially infirm men who followed him. But as he closed the book far too soon, the urgency came in the form of his mother’s voice. Brani, do you think this is the family I always hoped for?
He pressed his hands to the bench to help himself up, wandered to the third tree, and unzipped his pants. He had to concentrate to get anything out of himself, and when he transferred the nail to his right pocket, dropped it through his pant leg and stomped, it was into earth that was dry and unyielding.
The sunburned man standing at the base of the flak tower watched him curiously.
Dijana stayed at Web-Gasse that night, and they cooked together, stopping once to make love on the kitchen counter. “Dragi!” she said, as if anything could surprise her. Then they half-watched late-night television and split a bottle of wine that they soon brought to his bed. She told him she wouldn’t stand for masculine untidiness and would clean his apartment the next day. He smiled and rolled her over, into the pillow, so she could not see the zbrka all over his face.
16 APRIL 1967, SUNDAY
Brano waited until the door to the Liebengaste bathroom was shut before reaching to turn on the light. White walls glimmered around him, and Lochert looked upset. He was sweating.
“What’s going on?” asked Brano.
“I was going to ask you the same thing. You have your orders. There’s no reason for us to meet.”
“We’re going to talk.”
“What on earth do you need? You’ve met the guy I don’t know how many times, you know what to do.”
“You’ve been lying to me,” said Brano. “You never mentioned you were an old friend of Lutz’s.”
“It’s a small city.”
“Not that small. And you never told me that Bertrand Richter was holding meetings with the Russians. He was using Dijana’s apartment for his sessions.”
“Did she tell you that?” Lochert raised an eyebrow. “You’re a sucker, Brano Sev.”
Brano ignored that. “Richter believed that Lutz would kill him if he found out he was meeting the Russians. Lutz! He couldn’t kill a man if he tried.”
“And?”
“And then we find the major players all together, in the Carp. Richter, Lutz, and you.”
“Don’t forget your girlfriend,” said Lochert.
“How could I?” Brano stepped closer. “Bertrand Richter tried to start a fight with you over her. What made him so nervous?”
“I like to look at pretty girls. What’s wrong with that?”
“Bertrand was sitting with Lutz, whom he feared,” said Brano, “and Lutz had brought along a man with experience in killing. You. Richter feared that he had been uncovered.”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
“Richter never was GAVRILO.” Brano paused, the words making last night’s insomniac suspicions real. “He was leaking information, that’s true. But to the Russians, not the Austrians. And he wasn’t giving awa
y our networks. He was exposing next month’s insurrection.”
Locher’s mouth worked the air.
“When we-or when you-killed Richter, we weren’t working for Yalta. We were working for Lutz.”
Lochert rubbed his face, but when he brought his hand away, he was smiling. “Come on, Brano. You’ve gotten paranoid in your old age. We had the evidence that Richter was selling information to the Austrians, and if he was also selling to the Russians, that’s no surprise.”
“I never saw those trucks being checked on the Austrian border,” said Brano. “You’re the one who reported it back to me. No.” He pointed. “You were probably the informer. You, or Lutz, were GAVRILO.”
Lochert, against the wall, waited a moment before answering. “So you’re thinking that I killed Richter in order to protect myself?”
“I’m not sure.” Brano stepped back. “But you and Lutz were working together, and both of you wanted Richter dead. Now, though, you want me to kill Lutz. Why?”
Lochert found some confidence. “I don’t have to tell you anything, Brano. I’m your rezident.”
“Fine, then I’ll walk over to the embassy and tell them everything I know. And I have some idea what the Lieutenant General will do to you.”
Lochert, to Brano’s surprise, laughed quietly. “You know, this is what happens when you give people half-information.” He sighed. “Maybe it’s my fault. I’m secretive. It’s my nature.” He looked away for a moment, into the mirror over the sink, then rested his hands on his hips. “I’ll be in trouble if this gets out, you know. We’ve had our problems in the past, but I don’t want to think you’d reveal what I’m going to tell you.”
“Tell me,” said Brano.
“Okay.” Lochert placed his hands behind himself, on the small of his back. “I’ve told you about Lutz’s operation to start a revolution back home. That’s the absolute truth. And it’s true we don’t have many details. Sometime in May, that’s about it.”
“It’s the fourteenth of May,” said Brano. “That’s what Richter said to me on the phone, back in August. You were with me when he let that slip.”
Lochert raised his eyebrows. “Very good, Brano. Quite a memory. But Richter-he was selling out Lutz’s plan to the Russians, yes. That’s how we first learned of it. The Russians told us, and we told them we’d take care of it ourselves. We didn’t want the KGB doing our work for us. But he was also central to the conspiracy itself. That’s why I framed him in August.”
“But why didn’t we capture Richter?” asked Brano. “It would have been simple. He could have told us what we needed to know. That was stupid.”
“No it wasn’t,” said Lochert. He paused, considering something, then brought his hands out from behind his back. In his right fist he held a pistol. Hungarian made, a Femaru Walam 1948, 9 mm.
Brano looked into Lochtert’s eyes. “It wasn’t stupid, because you’re working with Lutz, and both of you needed to get rid of your leak.”
Lochert shrugged. “It takes you a while, but in the end you do get to the truth, don’t you?”
“And why do you want Lutz killed?”
“I think we’ll have to end this conversation now.”
“You’re going to shoot me?”
“We live by our orders.”
Brano’s knees were weak, but when he dropped it was of his own volition. He crumpled to the tiles and kicked, catching Lochert’s legs. Lochert tumbled, and an explosion filled the bathroom. Despite the buzzing in his ears, Brano caught Lochert’s hand and twisted the pistol until it turned back and went off again, quieter this time, because it was buried in the soft flesh of Lochert’s stomach.
Lochert’s face tightened, reddening, his exposed teeth clenched. Then he coughed. Brano’s knees ached as he stood up and stared at the dying man. Lochert coughed again, red spittle appearing on the white tiles. He seemed to want to speak but was unable.
Day 28. The Subject was seen entering the Liebengaste restaurant on Neubaugasse at 11:25. As it was a bright morning, the view into the restaurant was less than perfect visibility, but it appeared that the Subject sat at a table alone. He spoke with the waitress (who later said he simply ordered a coffee), then rose and went into the back of the restaurant, presumably to the toilet.
At 11:41, a gunshot was heard. Approximately thirty seconds later there was another, muted. This agent immediately entered the restaurant, weapon drawn, and proceeded to the rear. The door to the bathroom was open, and inside a man (later identified, via fingerprinting, as Josef Lochert, aka Karl Bertelsmann, known rezident-see File 45-LOC) was found shot in the stomach. He was still conscious but did not speak.
The restaurant staff claimed that, after the gunshots, an older man (presumably the Subject) ran out of the bathroom and into the kitchen, where he left by the rear door.
This agent followed his path into the alley behind the Liebengaste, but after fifteen minutes of searching was unable to find the Subject again.
Returning to the restaurant did not bring more facts to light, because Josef Lochert was dead.
PART THREE: THE INNER PARTS
18 APRIL 1967, TUESDAY
“ Hallo? ”
The sharp pain lay buried at the point where his skull met his spine. As if an ice pick had been shoved in, and occasionally someone tapped it, sparking white flashes in the darkness.
“ Hallo? ”
He was wet-through the pain he knew this. His lower half was freezing and rigid. And when he tried to open his eye-one, because only one would respond-he saw only blurred vertical lines.
“ Ja, ja. Offnen Sie die Augen.”
Beside the pain, and almost as intensely, he felt the deja vu of a moment repeated. As if this day had been before, or this day was all of his days, and every day of his life he woke cold and wet, in excruciating pain, with a gravelly voice shouting inside his head.
Or outside his head. For he could now see, through the vertical lines, which were reeds, that the voice belonged to an old man with rubber boots squatting in the shallow water. The man leaned closer, licking his cleanshaven lips.
“ Sprechen Sie deutsch? ”
He tried to whisper, “ Ja,” but his tongue wouldn’t move. So he blinked.
“ Konnen Sie sich bewegen? ” Can you move?
He didn’t know.
The old man reached out. “Here. Give me your hand.”
He had to focus, but after a moment he could raise his right hand, and when the old man caught it the ice pick slid out a moment, then punched back inside to find a new spot in his brain. He gasped. The old man heaved and pulled him up like a sack of… something. His head spun, and he did his best not to scream.
“You all right? Not dying on me?”
The old man pulled his arm over his shoulder and helped him move forward, half-dragging him toward a rusting Volkswagen just beyond the water. Their progress was slow, but the old man’s steadfastness kept them moving, and once they reached the car he used his free hand to pop open the passenger door. Then he slid his find into the seat.
The old man let out a rasping breath. “You could’ve died.”
“Where am I?” he tried to say, but his voice came out of the side of his mouth, garbled. He repeated it, focusing on each word.
“You’re by the Neusiedl Lake.”
He looked down at his body soaking the seat. His right arm and leg trembled, but he couldn’t feel his left side. “I am numb,” he enunciated carefully.
“Water’s cold,” said the old man. “Hypothermia, ja. That could kill you. Let’s get going.”
He closed the door and walked around the driver’s side. He sat behind the wheel and lit a cigarette, then, after a few tries, started the car and began driving down a dirt road.
Each bump, and there were many, was agony, and he tried not to be sick. The road became paved, and a town appeared up ahead, but they turned off onto another dirt road that ended in a low, simple house with flower boxes in the windows.
The old man helped him to the front door and opened it without a key. He turned on a ceiling lamp and spread his hands to the mess around them. “Wasn’t expecting guests.”
“A bathroom?”
The old man pointed at a door. “The aspirin’s behind the mirror.”
He hobbled to the door, holding on to a chair and a table along the way.
“Say,” said the old man. “You have a name, don’t you?”
“Of course,” he said, then pushed into the bathroom, turned on the light, and pulled the latch.
After washing his hands and swallowing three aspirins, he stared at his wide, round face in the mirror, then touched the moles on his cheek. He had noticed the stiffness in his jacket pockets since the boat but hadn’t touched them. Now he reached in his inner pocket, coming up with a passport-his face, his name-SEV, BRANO OLEKSY. The face in the mirror was different, though, the left half sagging weakly. There were Austrian schillings in his pants pocket. He counted them with his good hand before, almost reluctantly, reaching into his left jacket pocket, the one he’d waited for with dread. He took out the pistol. He knew its make, its year, and that it was Hungarian, but he could not remember how he’d come across it. In his other pocket he found a stiff card with an account number from the Raiffeisenbank; on the opposite side was a handwritten telephone number.
The deja vu held back the fear. His loss of memory was not new-he knew this. Nor was the presence of a firearm. And the sense that he was a man in an immense amount of trouble-that was not new, either. He just didn’t know what the trouble was.
It took some painful minutes of searching, but finally he found that the rusting lid to the drain in the middle of the floor was loose, held down by only one screw. He turned on the water to cover his movements and inserted a fingernail beneath the lid. He slid it to the side. There was just enough space to fit the pistol into the drain and close the lid.
He took off his wet clothes, which was difficult with only one hand, then washed his body in the tub with that same hand. The water jumped unpredictably between scalding and cold, and the soap seemed to be made out of sandpaper, but after a while he was, relatively, clean. He toweled himself off and found, beside a small electric washing machine, a robe.
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