District VIII

by Adam LeBor

  By now some of the other migrants had noticed what was happening. It was unheard of in Muslim culture to harass another family’s child. A tall man in his early twenties, his face twisted in anger, started pushing Hejazi, ordering him to leave the girl alone.

  Maryam edged closer to Hejazi, advancing on him from behind, trying to keep out of his field of vision. Hejazi felled the man with a hammer punch, driving the air from his solar plexus. The man collapsed, retching, and his friends advanced on Hejazi, shouting angrily. Maryam was now standing right next to Hejazi. She leapt sideways, slashing at his throat with the knife. Hejazi saw the movement from the side of his vision. He parried the blow, caught Maryam’s arm, twisted her body around in front of him and the knife was at her throat.

  *

  The angry crowd muttered and swore at Hejazi but the space around him cleared. Balthazar walked through, holding his police ID, right up to Hejazi. Hejazi was pulling Maryam towards him, the blade glinting in the sunlight against her skin. Her eyes were wide with fear and fury.

  ‘Let her go,’ said Balthazar. ‘Take me.’

  ‘No. Take one more step and she will die.’ He slid the knife lightly across the side of Maryam’s neck. A thin crimson line appeared. Maryam grimaced in pain, said nothing. The men around Hejazi were growing steadily angrier, starting to step forward. Balthazar could see that in a few seconds they would charge Hejazi. The jihadi would not leave the square alive and neither would Maryam. Balthazar raised his arms, shouted, ‘Police, police, back off.’ The men moved away. Lives spent in one-party states and dictatorships had left a legacy of fear of the authorities.

  ‘What do you want?’ asked Balthazar.

  ‘The Gendarmes. They promised to take me to Austria.’

  ‘OK. We can talk about that. But let her go. You can take me instead as your hostage.’ Balthazar started to walk towards Hejazi.

  Hejazi shook his head. ‘Stop. I will let her go.’ He looked around. ‘In exchange for her,’ he said, pointing at the child wearing his baseball cap.

  The girl’s father shrank back. The child started crying. At that second Maryam’s right hand flew up. She slid her fingers around the blade and yanked down as hard as she could. She screamed with pain as the blade cut through her flesh almost to the bone, but kept pulling. As the knife moved away from her throat she stomped down on Hejazi’s right foot.

  For a second Hejazi lost his balance. Hejazi pushed Maryam away, dropped down and reached for the pistol in his ankle holster. A forest of hands reached for Maryam, dragging her away into the crowd as blood streamed from her fingers. Balthazar leaped forward.

  *

  Attila Ungar watched as the migrants backed away and the space around Balthazar and Hejazi widened. Balthazar landed on top of Hejazi and grabbed his hand, trying to take control of the gun. But the barrel of the tiny pistol was too small to hold. Hejazi brought his knee up and flipped Balthazar over onto his back, trying to punch him in the head with his left hand while his right hand attempted to steady the pistol.

  Balthazar deflected the blows with his left and grabbed Hejazi’s gun hand with his right hand, extending his elbow and locking it. The gun was now pointing at the sky. He slid his index behind the trigger guard and around the trigger, pulled hard again and again until the magazine was empty. The crack of the bullets tore the air. The migrants fled in every direction, shouting in fear. Balthazar raised his hips and slammed his right knee into the small of Hejazi’s back, so hard he felt the vertebrae shift. Hejazi cried out and flew forward over Balthazar’s face and chest. Hejazi’s grip on the pistol loosened. Balthazar flipped him over. The back of Hejazi’s head hit the road and his arms fell away to the side. Balthazar lifted Hejazi’s head and banged it hard against the road, then stood up.

  ‘Mahmoud Hejazi, I am arresting you for the murder of Simon Nazir,’ he said. He turned Hejazi over and handcuffed him. Balthazar stood with one foot on his back. Hejazi groaned, face down on the road, his eyes fluttering.

  A voice sounded in Balthazar’s ear. ‘Nice work, Tazi. Reinforcements on the way.’ Sirens wailed in the distance, getting louder by the second.

  A loud crack sounded across the square. For a second Balthazar lost his balance as Hejazi’s body jerked sideways.

  He stepped away and looked down. A pool of crimson was slowly leaking out from under Hejazi’s chest.

  *

  Twenty yards away, Attila Ungar nodded to himself. The gunshot was no surprise. Hejazi was a liability. The operation had turned into a major clusterfuck and needed to be shut down. And that was impressive work by Balthazar. His former partner still had it. Perhaps he could recruit him. Everyone had a price. The only question was how high it was, and how to persuade people to pay it.

  Ungar heard the voice in his ear. ‘Stand down. I repeat, all Gendarmes to stand down.’

  TWENTY-ONE

  Budapest police headquarters, Teve Street, 6.00 p.m.

  EXCLUSIVE TO 555.HU:

  MINISTER OF JUSTICE RAN ‘STING OPERATION’ TO CATCH PEOPLE-TRAFFICKERS AND ISLAMIST RADICALS

  By Eniko Szalay

  Sandor Takacs sat back and scrolled through Eniko’s story. He smiled as he read:

  Ms Bardossy is said to be fully cooperating with the relevant Hungarian and international authorities. ‘Her information is proving extremely useful and will help us close down a major route westwards for Islamic radicals and terrorists,’ said one western official.

  Reka had won, which did not surprise him at all. She was a superb operator, and she played for very high stakes. She had somehow outmanoeuvred Pal Palkovics. Takacs knew the line about a sting operation was nonsense, but he guessed she was giving ‘western officials’ enough inside information about the passport channel to remain useful. The only question was whether Eniko actually believed the spin, or if it was some kind of trade-off with her. But that was the reporter’s business. He could give her a much better story. Perhaps he would.

  The police’s money-laundering and organised crime department had been investigating the Bardossy family’s wealth for several months. The Gulf connection had raised multiple alarms. Takacs had opened enquiries with police forces in London, Paris and New York. He had not told Balthazar yet, nor that the Budapest police dealing with money-laundering had also been investigating the connection between Gaspar, Goran and Reka. If Reka had lost, Balthazar’s brother would be in a whole lot of trouble. But she had won. That case, he knew, would now be put aside, or at least ‘de-prioritised’, but the information would be preserved. Hungarian politics was a very volatile arena. Reka’s star was up now, but who knew where she would be in a month or a year?

  Takacs was halfway through Eniko’s second article, a dramatic first-person account of Balthazar’s arrest of Hejazi and the shooting, when his telephone rang. It was Gundel, the restaurant where he had booked Erzsi’s leaving party.

  ‘Yes, this is Sandor Takacs,’ he said. ‘Thanks for calling back. No, it’s not a cancellation. I still want the booking, thirty people in the private dining room. But it’s an anniversary party now, not a leaving one. Yes, we still want a cake, with Erzsi’s name on it. Look, why don’t I send you an email with all the details.’

  Ministers and prime ministers had fallen, and far more important to Takacs, Ilona, his unwanted new PA, had resigned. Erzsi had agreed to return to work immediately -doubly pleased when he told her she could keep her retirement package and start with a new contract. For now at least, Takacs knew he had a blank cheque. The Gendarmes had lost their roof. Reka would take the side of the police. But Attila Ungar was a wily and dangerous foe. The police had won this battle but the war would continue.

  Prime minister’s office, Hungarian Parliament, 6.15 p.m.

  Reka ran her right index finger across the rectangle of green leather in the centre of the desk. Part of the surface seemed shinier, more polished than its surrounds, but perhaps that was her imagination, or her memory playing tricks. She felt a pang, of regret perhaps, a slight
sense of wonder at her own ruthlessness, wonder that was soon replaced by pleasure. She smiled, sat back and looked around. The rug could stay but not the paintings. All these dark, gloomy portraits of old men in suits would have to go. Reka wrote a quick note to herself, to call the young female owner of the trendy art gallery she had found the other day, on Brody Sandor Street. That part of District VIII – what did they call it now? – the ‘Palace Quarter’, was getting really lively. She sat back and poured herself some more coffee from the blue and gold antique Zsolnay jug. For a moment she thought of the billboard she had seen on her way into Parliament, with the picture of Pal Palkovics and his ministers enmeshed in a spider’s web. Hers was the only female face. Kirugjuk a komcsikat!, Let’s kick out the commies! Her father’s face flashed through her mind, together with the instructions he gave her on his death-bed. So, no, not while she sat in this chair.

  Reka savoured the taste of the coffee and the moment as long as she could before she decided what to do about her husband. She had negotiated a breathing space – a whole week – with Celeste and Brad before she had to take her decision. A week was long time in politics, as a British politician had once said. A very long time, especially in Hungary at the moment. Pal Palkovics had already taken a short conference call with London and Washington D.C, in which the new political reality had been explained to him. He had been given Sunday evening to draft his resignation statement. Reka’s appointment would be announced tomorrow. The exit procedure was well honed: an enquiry would be announced into Palkovics’s Gulf connections. It would last for several years, enough time for the matter to be forgotten, then reveal nothing of any import. He would leave Hungarian domestic politics for good. In a couple of years’ time he would find generous donors for a new think tank, write his memoirs, perhaps, if he cooperated, even win a safe seat as a member of the European Parliament.

  The telephone on her desk buzzed. A female voice said, ‘You have a visitor.’

  ‘Send him in,’ she replied.

  The double door to her office opened. The Librarian walked in, ash drooping from a cigarette in his mouth, holding something in his right hand. She stood up and greeted him with the most respectful honorific, trying not to breathe the stale, musty smell that hung over him like a cloud. ‘Tiszteletem, I honour you.’

  ‘Hallo, Doshi,’ he said.

  He placed a small black memory stick on the table. ‘I brought you something. There’s a video file on this. I think you will enjoy watching it.’

  She knew what it was without asking. ‘I’ve seen it.’

  His voice hardened. ‘Then I suggest you see it again.’ His pale-blue eyes were fixed on hers. His psoriasis was worse than ever. White flakes of skin were peeling off around his eyebrows. ‘Call me when you have finished watching.’ He turned on his heel and walked out.

  Reka waited until the door had closed, sat back down in her chair and closed her eyes for several moments, controlling her breathing and calming herself. There was a USB port on her desk, connected to her computer. She slipped the memory stick in, opened the video file and clicked play. The screen showed her lying on her back, her would-be killer’s hands around her throat, her right hand flying up to his neck, the dead man toppling off her.

  She watched through to the end. Just as she expected. This footage also showed Akos Feher appearing, Antal’s arrival, the clean-up operation. This was a problem, certainly. But every problem had a solution. The Librarian wanted to control her, not bring her down before she had even taken office. She suddenly remembered a phrase from her history books: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes, Who guards the guardians? She buzzed through to her private office. Her chief of staff picked up immediately. Reka asked, ‘Akos, please call the number now, on the secure line.’

  She waited until the line began to ring. A female voice answered after the third ring. Reka said, ‘This is Reka Bardossy.’

  State Security headquarters, Falk Miksa Street, 6.20 p.m.

  Anastasia Ferenczy turned the blue-and-white SIM card over in her hands and glanced once more at the colour-coded spreadsheet of names and telephone numbers on her computer screen. The SIM’s network analysis had yielded a rich harvest of connections. She closed that window and opened another. A dense mesh of coloured lines appeared, tracing connections between people, companies, bank accounts and countries. A rich and troublesome harvest, mainly because of the frequency with which the name of Peter Bardossy, Reka’s husband, and his associates, appeared.

  She sat back in her chair and looked out of the narrow window in her office on the fifth floor of the ABS headquarters on Falk Miksa Street. It was a small, narrow space at the end of a long, gloomy corridor. The walls were off-white, the floor covered with grey linoleum. At times like this she felt the room was closing in on her. The window was long and narrow, but still offered a view of the street. She looked down to watch a gaggle of tourists staring into the antique shop on the other side of the road. A rotund, grey-haired lady strolled by, walking a spaniel on a lead. A boy and girl in their early teens were ambling home from the nearby park, perhaps.

  She watched the boy take the girl’s hand. She smiled shyly and did not remove it. Some tasks were indeed quite simple. Anastasia picked up her mobile phone and scrolled through the sent messages folder until she found the one she wanted: a photograph of Simon Nazir on the ground and the words ‘26 Republic Square’. Anastasia looked at the picture for some time, then pressed ‘delete’. She then called up What-sApp and opened one of the sent messages. The message’s contents were almost identical, but included the letter ‘B’. It too quickly vanished.

  A few moments later her mobile phone rang. The number calling was not displayed but she had a good idea who it was. Anastasia waited until the third ring, then answered.

  Freedom Square, 7.00 p.m.

  Balthazar sat on a park bench on Freedom Square, enjoying the warmth of the sun on his face. The day was still warm but cooled by a pleasant breeze. Freedom Square was a long oblong, with grass in the middle and landscaped garden areas on both sides, and two playgrounds at the far end. It was also a microcosm of Hungarian history: at one end, the grandiose Soviet war memorial, clad in white stone with a metal relief of fighting troops, marking the liberation of Budapest from the Nazis, stood a few yards from the grey metal fence and security posts around the American embassy. At the other stood a kitsch statue of an angel being menaced by an eagle. The angel represented an innocent Hungary, the eagle the Nazis. An impromptu Holocaust memorial of photographs, stones and mementoes had sprung up in front of it, protesting at the travesty of history in a country where the authorities had speedily handed over half a million citizens to be murdered.

  Two policemen walked by on patrol duty. One of them, a stocky man in his fifties with heavy jowls, saw Balthazar. They both walked over, shook his hand and congratulated him. He stood up and thanked them. The policeman walked on across the square. Then two more appeared. Balthazar took out his phone and quickly called Sandor Takacs.

  ‘Are you having me tailed?’

  ‘Protected, Tazi,’ said Takacs. ‘Protected. Just for a while. Enjoy your evening with your son. Sanyi bacsi is keeping an eye on you.’

  Balthazar smiled. ‘Thanks.’

  Shouts and laughter spilled over from the nearby playgrounds. He looked over at the children clambering on the wooden train and one boy in particular building an elaborate castle in the sandpit. He glanced at his watch: it was a few minutes after seven o’clock. Sarah was supposed to be here at seven. Normally she would never let Alex meet him so late on a Sunday. But even Sarah knew that this was not a normal day. That had been a close call with the gunman. A very close call and a tricky shot. He had a very good idea who it was. So, he thought, did Sandor Takacs.

  A black Toyota SUV with tinted windows pulled up on the corner of the square. For a moment his stomach flipped. Was this a Gendarmerie vehicle? The SUV pulled in to the pavement. He looked at the windscreen to see that Sarah was driving. She waved
at Balthazar. The door opened and Alex jumped out, running as fast as he could to his father. Balthazar swept him up in his arms, breathing in his very essence, his fresh, boyish smell, ignoring the pains shooting around his body from Friday’s beating, feeling his son’s skinny ribs close against his chest and the love and excitement that poured from him. He was holding Alex so tightly that his son started laughing, ‘Daddy, I can’t breathe!’

  Balthazar put him down as Sarah walked over. She wore a baggy white cotton top and light-blue trousers and carried Alex’s red-and-black school rucksack. Her frizzy brown hair was tied back and her face was pink from the sun. She was smiling with genuine warmth that lit up her brown eyes. For a moment he was back in the library at the Central European University, surreptitiously watching the new American student, until she said, loud enough for everyone to hear, ‘If you keep on staring, you had better buy me a coffee.’

  She looked at him, as though re-assessing the man to whom she had once been married, the father of her child. ‘That was quite something today. It’s all over the news. Are you OK?’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  Alex said, ‘Daddy, you saved that lady. Are you going to get a medal?’

  ‘I don’t think so. I don’t need a medal.’

  Alex frowned for a moment, thinking. ‘Are we still having PBF?’

  ‘Park, yes, burger, yes, but no film tonight.’

  His small face fell, ‘But Dad...’

  Sarah smiled, ‘School tomorrow. Right, Tazi?’

  ‘Right.’

  Sarah rested her hand on Balthazar’s arm. ‘Good. This is his bag. There’s a clean T-shirt, socks and underwear. His school stuff is inside. He can stay with you tonight.’

  A small ball of joy exploded inside Balthazar. ‘Thanks, Sarah. And I’ll sort out that trip to the women weavers next weekend.’

  Sarah smiled wryly. ‘Thanks. But he can stay with you anyway.’