by Adam LeBor
All around her, hundreds of people were gathering their possessions and streaming across the forecourt, heading across the road onto Thokoly Way, blocking the traffic. For a moment, she felt as though she was back in Syria, watching the long columns of wretched humanity fleeing the fighting with everything they could carry, or in the refugee camp in Turkey. At least here nobody was shooting at them. She touched the pocket of her jeans, where the Swiss army knife bulged.
Tents, once the most precious possession, stood abandoned across the forecourt. Empty water bottles, sandwich packets and nappy wrappings littered the ground. Even blankets and bedrolls had been left behind. There seemed to be no leaders and nobody was giving instructions or orders. The police were making no effort to stop the migrants leaving, and were even holding up the traffic to let the migrants cross Thokoly Way in safety. Volunteers mixed among the crowd, wearing light-blue baseball caps, handing out bottles of water and packets of biscuits. For a moment she glimpsed a man in his thirties, handsome, dark-skinned, with striking green eyes. He stood on the edge of the crowd, watching, then he disappeared into the mass of people. He wore a T-shirt and jeans, carried a small rucksack on his back. At first glance he might have been an Arab, or from Afghanistan, but his body language was very confident and he did not seem at all agitated or excited, like the other migrants and refugees.
The man stepped away, into the throng of people. Simon’s absence hit her like a punch in the guts. This was the moment they had been waiting for. The moment when they would leave together. Except he was not here. Would never be here. A stream of people was coming up from the Transit Zone and the entrance to the underground station. A middle-aged woman in a white headscarf appeared with her daughter, perhaps ten years old, both blinking in the bright afternoon sunlight.
‘What is happening?’ asked the woman in Arabic. She had a round, intelligent face and clear brown eyes.
Maryam recognised her Damascene accent and replied in the same language.
‘I don’t know exactly. People are going to the Austrian border.’
‘How? On foot?’
Maryam looked across the road. The column of people now filled one side of Thokoly Way down to Baross Square and was heading down Rakoczi Way towards the Elizabeth Bridge and the Danube. ‘I think so, yes.’
‘How far is it?’
‘About a hundred miles, I think. Three days, maybe four.’
‘But where will we get food? Where will we sleep?’
She took her decision. This is what Simon would have wanted. There was no going back to Syria. Maryam smiled. ‘I don’t know. God will provide.’
A cry went up in English, ‘Freedom, freedom, Ger-man-y, Ger-man-y.’ Maryam felt the tears well up and wiped her eyes.
‘Why are you crying?’ asked the woman.
‘My husband is dead.’
‘So is mine, her father,’ the woman said, gesturing at the girl.
Maryam introduced herself to the woman. ‘My name is Nur,’ said the woman, ‘and she is Raina.’ Maryam said hallo to Raina. She looked at her shyly, but did not answer. ‘She does not speak any more,’ said Nur.
She reached for Maryam’s hand. ‘Come. We will walk together.’
Kenyermezo Street, 3.10 p.m.
Mahmoud Hejazi stood by the side of the window in the squalid apartment and watched the column gather in front of Keleti Station before walking down Thokoly Way. There, leading the procession, was a one-legged man in a wheelchair, being pushed by a rota of people walking alongside. Hejazi’s instructions were to stay about fifty yards behind him, keep his baseball hat and sunglasses on, his head down, and to wait for further instructions. The baseball cap covered the burn marks above his left ear. Personally, he had never favoured this plan. He had wanted to take his chances at the green border or with the smugglers. That had brought him this far.
But the Gendarme commander had insisted: the borders were on full alert and Hejazi was on an international watch list. Hiding in plain sight was the best option. After a few hours, once the column reached the outskirts of the city, the Hungarian authorities would lay on a fleet of buses. Then they would open their side of the border and simply dump the migrants a few yards from the Austrians. The Austrians, good-natured and naïve, would be overwhelmed and take in everyone. There would no identity checks and he would be in the west. And Hejazi had to admit the organisation was impressive: first a few dozen, then a couple of hundred and now several thousand people were walking towards the river, watched warily by the police. The Gendarme commander had promised him that their plan would work. They had planted agents and agitators at Keleti for days, spreading rumours, ramping up the tension. Perhaps it could work. He opened the window and the shouts carried up on the wind: ‘Freedom, freedom.’
TWENTY
Keleti Station concourse, 3.10 p.m.
Balthazar waited at the top of the staircase that opened onto the forecourt of Keleti Station, ignoring the persistent urge to touch the tiny earpiece he was wearing. Before he had left his flat, Balthazar had outlined to Anastasia and Eniko what Dorentina, Black George’s bodyguard, had told him on Saturday night, when the two of them had stepped outside the cage fight. Hejazi was staying near Keleti, in an apartment owned by the Gendarmes. She did not know the address, just that it was somewhere nearby. Gendarmes and other operatives, posing as refugees at Keleti, were spreading rumours that the Hungarians were going to open the Austrian border.
The plan was to trigger a mass exodus of thousands of people who would start walking to Austria. Hejazi would slip into the crowd. There would be thousands of dark-skinned Arab-looking men on the move. It would be impossible to find him. Even if the security services were looking for him, he would be hiding in plain sight. Anastasia had suggested that she contact Sandor Takacs and that the ABS and the police set up a proper operation. Takacs had immediately agreed. It was now very clear that capturing Hejazi was not something that Balthazar could achieve on his own, working under the radar.
Balthazar’s gaze wandered over to the station’s entrance. Keleti was part of the city’s backdrop, a place to pass through, en route to somewhere else. He had never really looked at the building before. But the yellow walls were full of grandeur, a throwback to an age when the station was at the epicentre of one of the world’s most powerful empires. Sunlight streamed through the glass roof inside. Four pillars at the entrance propped up an ornate balcony, where statues on pedestals overlooked the forecourt. The entrance doors were made of glass and green ironwork that flowed in intricate floral patterns. And somewhere nearby, among thousands of Middle Eastern men, was Mahmoud Hejazi.
The earpiece crackled and he heard Sandor Takacs’s voice. ‘Anything?’
‘Nothing,’ murmured Balthazar. ‘At your end?’
‘Nothing. There are hundreds of them. It’s almost impossible to... er...’ Takacs’s voice tailed off.
‘Tell one from another?’ said Balthazar helpfully.
‘Something like that. Keep looking, Tazi.’
Takacs was in the operations room at the Budapest police headquarters, watching the CCTV feeds. Keleti was covered, as was Baross Square, but there was no more coverage on Rakoczi Way until Blaha Lujza. There the road was under surveillance all the way down and onto Elizabeth Bridge. There had been some discussion as to how to proceed. Once the CCTV network was brought into play, some of Takacs’s colleagues had to be informed what was happening. His deputy, a veteran of thirty years’ service called Tamas Meszaros, had argued that there should be a city-wide alert out on Hejazi and that his photograph should be circulated to all officers. That was what the rule book said, and Meszaros was always a stickler for the rules.
But Balthazar had argued against this and Takacs had agreed. As soon as they went wide with the information that they were hunting Hejazi, the Gendarmes would hear. And they would certainly have a Plan B and probably a Plan C as well. Plus Hejazi was a highly experienced operative. He would quickly realise that the squads of poli
ce all over the city looking for someone were almost certainly looking for him and he would go back into hiding. Meszaros had settled for increased security at the border and Hejazi’s photograph being circulated there. The CCTV team was kept as small as possible and informed that they were not to discuss anything about the operation.
Balthazar’s eye alighted on two Arab women with a young girl. One of the women wore a green headscarf. The other was notably beautiful, with sensuous Levantine features and black curly hair that flowed freely over her shoulders. She looked extremely sad. Balthazar glanced again, tried not to stare. For a moment he was back in his apartment with Eniko after she had played the recording of Maryam talking.
‘Very beautiful. Long black curly hair halfway down her back. She’s a Christian so she doesn’t wear a headscarf.’
It was her, he knew. Balthazar had got nowhere on Friday when he had tried to interview Maryam at the moneychangers’ on Rakoczi Way. He could take her aside now and ask some questions, he supposed, but his instinct told him not to. She would certainly become emotional, draw attention to herself and Balthazar. He knew who he was looking for. And what he needed now was to blend in. But he would definitely keep an eye out for her.
Kenyermezo Street, 3.20 p.m.
Mahmoud Hejazi waited inside the door of the apartment building as the column of migrants and refugees headed down Rakoczi Way. The blue baseball caps worn by volunteers wove in and out of the crowd as they handed out water bottles and bananas. The one-legged man in the wheelchair was at the front. The whole of Keleti’s Transit Zone looked like it was on the move: a father wearing a singlet and flipflops carried a toddler on his shoulders; a plump mother with a blue hijab ushered three children in front of her while, behind her, half a dozen men in their twenties wearing jeans and T-shirts laughed and joked as they headed towards the Danube.
He waited until they had passed, then stepped out onto the pavement, a small nylon rucksack on his back, the tiny pistol strapped to the holster on his right ankle. The only downside was the large number of reporters, interviewing, filming and excitedly talking on their mobile phones. Whoever had planned this operation had not factored in that it would send dozens of international journalists, all thoroughly bored with spending hot, listless days at Keleti, into frenzies of excitement. But there was no turning back now. He pulled his blue baseball cap down lower over his sunglasses and walked into the throng.
Sixth floor, 2 Jozsef Boulevard, 3.20 p.m.
A hundred yards away, Goran Draganovic stared down the telescopic sight of the Dragunov sniper rifle, the wooden stock resting against his shoulder. The weapon felt comfortable in his hands. The Dragunov was a familiar workhorse, the standard sniper rifle used by all sides in the Yugoslav wars before the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, with a range of almost nine hundred yards. The trigger rested against his right index finger, sprung and ready, the barrel on a small, collapsible bipod. From his eyrie in the onion dome on the top of the roof he could see all the way to Keleti Station, well within range, and down Rakoczi Way to Elizabeth Bridge. To the right, he had the Grand Boulevard covered until Oktogon, where it met Andrassy Way, and to the left, way past Rakoczi Square almost to the Petofi Bridge. There was no better eyrie in the city. He glanced at the photograph of the target lying on the floor next to him, but the man’s features were seared into his memory.
The instructions were to shoot to kill, on sight. As usual, there was no fee, just a promise that his travel agency would continue to work unimpeded. He had no ethical problems about the target. And this time, he had a personal stake in the man’s demise. The difficulties were technical, not moral. It would be a tricky shot, as the target would likely be moving and surrounded by innocent bystanders. But one shot should be enough. He glanced at the small pouch of ammunition next to the gun. The 7NI bullets were produced especially for the Dragunov. They had a steel core and a hollow spot in the nose with a lead knocker. The bullet was unstable on impact, spun around inside the body and caused massive internal damage. Even a shot to the shoulder would be fatal.
The only disadvantage was that a few yards below was a room full of some of the best reporters in the city. That, and the thick dust which covered the space. He suppressed another sneeze. But the onion dome on the top of the roof was almost inaccessible, and could only be reached by a small metal spiral staircase. There was no reason for anyone to come up here and, in any case, he had locked the door on the inside.
Goran keep his breathing steady, adjusted the telescopic sight, zoomed in on the column as it marched down Rakoczi Way. The scope filled with the faces of the marchers: grimy, exhausted, hungry but with their faces set and determined. A small girl, perhaps five or six years old, was being carried by her father, half-asleep on his shoulder. She had a bob of black hair and wore a pink top. For a second, she seemed to wake up and stare right into the telescopic sight, before she fell back to sleep.
Goran swallowed hard, closed his eyes for a moment and let his finger slide away from the trigger. He opened his eyes, forced himself to focus, and resumed his search.
Third floor, 2 Jozsef Boulevard, 3.15 p.m.
Eniko stood on the balcony, watching the column walk across Blaha Lujza Square and head south towards Elizabeth Bridge. She felt a powerful mix of excitement and frustration. Excitement because the biggest story in the world at that moment was unfolding a few yards in front of her. And she had the inside scoop, information that no other reporter had. Frustration because she could not yet report what she knew. Balthazar had made it clear that if she stayed in the room while he told Anastasia what he knew about Mahmoud Hejazi – that he was hiding in Budapest, was connected to Pal Palkovics and would join the exodus – she could not write anything about it until the day had played out and Hejazi was caught. And even then she would have to liaise about what she could reveal. Or, she could leave the room. She stayed, of course, now overflowing with information that she could not use.
Then, amid the crowd, she spotted a young woman with long, black curly hair. Was it her? Yes, it was Maryam, about twenty yards away, heading towards Blaha Lujza. About ten yards behind Maryam she thought she saw Balthazar. Then he disappeared into the crowd. Either way, she could not stand here watching any longer. She picked up her notebook, walked briskly through the newsroom, down the stairs, and stepped out onto Rakoczi Way, when she saw Attila Ungar.
Rakoczi Way, 3.15 p.m.
Mahmoud Hejazi kept a steady pace. Nobody showed any particular interest in him and nobody asked any questions. There was no réason why they should. He was just one of thousands of desperate people heading for Austria. He kept his head down, his sunglasses and baseball cap on. The man in front of him was carrying a small girl on his shoulder, half-asleep. She had short black hair and wore a pink top. All around him people were carrying their children, or helping the elderly and infirm. The cry went up again, ‘Ger-man-y, Ger-man-y, free-dom, free-dom.’
*
Attila Ungar instantly recognised Eniko and quickly walked further into the crowd to move away from her. The Gendarmes had Hejazi in a box: Ungar had a team of eight plain-clothes officers tracking him: two in front, two behind and two on either side. So far, Hejazi was following his instructions: to blend in and keep a low profile. Ungar allowed some of the tension to drain out. There was a carnival atmosphere, a great wave of relief and celebration that finally, the thousands of people marooned at Keleti were on the move. The chants of ‘Germany’ and ‘Freedom’ grew louder, so much so that they woke the little girl in the pink top. Ungar watched for a moment, yawning, then saw Hejazi. He smiled at her. She reached out, grabbed the baseball cap from his head, and started to wave it like a flag. Ungar immediately muttered into his earpiece, alerting his team that they had a problem.
*
Twenty yards behind Hejazi, Maryam and her companions were walking steadily when Maryam noticed a disturbance ahead. A man was talking to a young girl in a pink top. The girl was holding tight onto a blue baseball cap. She he
ard his voice asking for the cap back, looked at his face and her stomach turned to ice.
Maryam checked the Swiss army knife in her pocket and turned to Nur. ‘I think I know him, from Aleppo. I’ll be back in a couple of minutes.’
‘OK. But be careful.’
Maryam eased her way through the crowd, staring at the man. He was still trying to persuade the young girl to give him his baseball cap back. His ear was scarred and mangled. The child placed the baseball cap on her own head and started laughing. The girl’s father intervened. ‘It’s very hot, she’s a child. Can’t you just leave it with her?’ he asked. The man reached for the baseball cap. The girl’s father caught his hand, pushed it away. ‘Leave us.’ He gestured at the crowd where several dozen volunteers wearing the same headgear were walking around, giving out bottles of water, snacks and bananas. ‘Ask one of them. I am sure they have many.’
‘Please,’ said the man. ‘I need it. I already had heatstroke yesterday.’
Maryam reached into the back pocket of her jeans, took out the Swiss army knife, and carefully opened the largest blade, concealing it in her hand so the other people around her would not see.
The man reached for the baseball cap again, trying to take it from the child’s head. She thought it was a great game and grabbed his sunglasses. Maryam stared, felt the rage and hatred well up inside her. The Gardener. The man who had tortured her husband then led him to his death. His hair was shorter and greyer. But it was him.