Unmarked road, District X, 8.45 p.m.
Balthazar was dozing off in Goran’s car when it slowed suddenly, waking him. Goran had parked in a far corner of the parking field at the warehouse, then had got stuck behind a procession of SUVs leaving the fight. The spectators and their vehicles had been checked by Black George’s toughs at the exit as well. Balthazar and Goran were the last ones out. It had taken the two men more than forty minutes to leave. Balthazar stared through the windscreen, watched a car’s headlights flash on and off in the distance. They were driving down a narrow access road, little more than a muddy path, that led through the fields back from the warehouse and onto the road that would take them into downtown Budapest. The blackness was almost total, the only other lights the glow of houses a mile away and headlights on the distant highway. To the left stood a small copse of trees. The curl of tension in his guts started to tighten again. What was this?
A light rain had begun to fall and the windscreen wipers scraped back and forth leaving a greasy smear on the glass. Goran flicked his cigarette out of the window, then held the steering wheel with both hands, suddenly alert as the Lada carried on down the path. The lights came on again, brighter and more powerful now, full in their faces. Goran grimaced, flashed the Lada’s headlights back. The lights dropped down. Balthazar still peered ahead, his tension easing somewhat when he saw the two police cars pointing forward, parked in a V-shape across both lanes that blocked the road. They were brand-new Toyota SUVs, white and spotless, fancier and more powerful than the police’s usual Volkswagen Golfs or Opel saloons. A policeman stood by the side of each vehicle; one was tall and lanky, the other shorter and tubby.
Goran slowed down, pulled over to the left of the two police cars. The tall policeman walked up, wished Goran and Balthazar a good evening.
‘Good evening,’ said Goran. ‘What’s happening ahead?’
The policeman peered inside the vehicle, nodded at Balthazar and smiled, his manner easy and polite. He looked to be in his early thirties, pale, with dark-brown hair. ‘Nothing to worry about, sir. There’s been an accident. No through traffic until the road has been cleared. You might have to wait a little while. Probably best to turn your engine off. No need to waste petrol.’
‘How long?’ asked Goran, keeping the engine running.
‘As I said, sir,’ the policeman replied, his manner a degree less cordial, ‘as long as it takes. You can switch your engine off.’
Balthazar glanced at the short policeman. He was younger, in his late twenties, with small eyes and greasy black hair. He walked right up to the car, staring hard at Goran and Balthazar, then checking the number plates. His uniform was so new it was still stiff and shiny. Balthazar looked ahead, his unease growing. There was no sign of a roadblock, but the road began to curve leftwards about ten yards ahead and it was impossible to see further. He did not recognise either of these officers, but there were several thousand police officers in Budapest and he had not worked on many cases in District X. He checked the Velcro name pad that was attached to the tall policeman’s uniform: Janos Kovacs, John Smith, then looked over at the short policeman. Janos Kovacs, again. The name patch was crooked. Neither of the officers had asked for Goran’s driving licence or to see the car papers. That was automatic whenever a police officer engaged with a driver.
The short policeman pulled a handheld radio from his waistband. Standard police-issue radios were small and grey, clipped to the jacket uniform. This was green. The same model that the Gendarmes had, Balthazar knew, that used restricted military frequencies. Balthazar heard the radio crackle, but the short policeman turned away, speaking into a cupped hand. The two policemen, he saw, had black spe-cial-forces-issue knives in sheaths on the sides of their belts. Balthazar watched in the mirror, his back rigid, fully awake and alert now, the adrenalin starting to course through him. Four more headlights were heading towards them, two more police cars, he realised, one next to the other, blocking the road behind them. He glanced again at the knives. No policeman openly carried a bladed weapon.
Balthazar slapped Goran on the thigh, ‘Go!’
CIA safe house, Filler Street, Budapest, 8.45 p.m.
Five miles away, on the other side of the Danube, in a once-grandiose villa high in the Buda hills, Celeste Johnson waited until Reka Bardossy had finished talking. The British diplomat let the silence hang in the air for several seconds, then gave her a cool, appraising look. ‘Why would we agree to that?’ she asked, before glancing at the man sitting next to her.
He was in his early fifties, Reka guessed, with thinning grey hair, round shoulders, a pasty complexion, thin lips and watchful grey eyes. He wore a white shirt with a button-down collar that was stretched tight over a substantial paunch, crumpled cream chinos and dirt-streaked white leather trainers. Celeste had introduced him as ‘Brad, a colleague from the American embassy’. Brad – if that was his name – had apologised for not having a business card, but Reka thought it was pretty clear who he worked for. So far, Brad had not said a word. Next to Brad sat a tall, blonde Hungarian woman. She had showed Reka an ID from the state security service: Anastasia Ferenczy. These were two more people than Reka had planned on meeting, but it was rapidly becoming clear that she was not in control here.
‘Because I’ve done nothing wrong,’ said Reka, while mentally telling herself to stay calm, credible and persistent. ‘Pal Palkovics is the villain here, not me. I’ll give you everything I have on him. In exchange you guarantee my safety and freedom.’
Celeste reached inside her shoulder bag and took out two Hungarian passports. She laid them on the heavy oak table. ‘Really? Then how do you account for these? Passports issued by your ministry.’ Reka picked up the document, flicked it open to the photograph page, then the second and third. Zsolt Szabo, in whose name it had been issued, was very dark and lean like a Bedouin.
‘Or this?’ asked Brad, as he slid another passport across the table, open at the photograph page. Reka looked down at the name under the picture. Attila Hegedus had tight, black curly hair and light brown skin and looked like he was from Morocco or perhaps Algeria. ‘Zsolt Szabo, or whoever he is, is now being held at Yarl’s Wood Immigration detention centre,’ said Celeste. She glanced at Brad. ‘Mr Hegedus is helping us out not far from JFK airport, somewhere in New Jersey,’ he said, in his Midwestern twang, ‘while we find out who he really is.’
Celeste said, ‘You might have got away with it if they had stayed in the Schengen zone.’
Celeste was right, thought Reka, although she was not about to agree. It was still a source of amazement to her that it was possible to travel from the Flungarian border to the Atlantic coast overland without showing any identity documents. Even airport checks were cursory within the Schengen zone. Schengen fuelled the rapacious demand for Hungarian and all EU passports. Without it, she would only have been able to charge of a fraction of the price. Often the only people to open passports were airline staff at the gate, whose priority was to get the passengers on board, not to run security checks. Except when travelling to Britain, which was not part of Schengen, and which zealously guarded its borders. As far as she knew, the traffickers had been specifically ordered to tell their customers not to use the passports for entry to either Britain or the US. It was unfortunate that they had not listened.
Reka had called Celeste on a burner telephone, asking for an immediate meeting, even before she’d left the Four Seasons. Celeste had agreed. A second wave of police reinforcements had arrived a few minutes after the first. Attila Ungar had backed off, although barely able to control his anger. She could only imagine the level of his fury when he saw what had been done to his vehicles. She had made a very dangerous enemy. And this meeting was not going well.
Reka had wanted Celeste to come to her house. There Reka would have been on home territory and more in control. Celeste had declined, citing ‘security and confidentiality issues’. That was understandable. Celeste Johnson was instantly recognisable: there were not many tall, black women in Budapest, and certainly no others working for the British embassy. Nor did Reka want it known that she was meeting British and American officials. But she had to move quickly. She glanced involuntarily at the thin, white dress gloves on her hands that covered the scars, and shivered. Celeste had already stared curiously at them – Reka had told her she suffered from eczema, made worse by the heat, although this house was anything but warm.
The villa was enormous, two wings over three floors, divided by a central staircase. But even now, after two months of a powerfully hot summer, the place felt damp and musty, so Reka had no need to explain the silk scarf around her neck. They had entered through the back door, a small servants’ entrance, but it was clear that most of the rooms had not been entered for months, if not years. She had glanced inside the large reception room where white dust sheets were draped over the heavy, dark wooden furniture. They were sitting around a large wooden table in a kitchen that looked like it had last been used some time before the Second World War. A Hungarian nobleman with a long waxed moustache, seated on a horse, stared out of a murky oil painting, two Vizsla hunting dogs sitting nearby.
Brad asked, ‘How is it in our interest, in the interest of the United States and the United Kingdom, to allow you to get away with selling passports to people-traffickers that end up in the hands of Islamic militants?’
Reka replied, ‘As I said, Brad. It was a sting operation. That is what I agreed to. Pal Palkovics told me the aim was to draw out the traffickers and their networks. Once we had a clear picture, we would hand all the information over to you both. He is the prime minister. I had to take him at his word.’
Brad looked her up and down, considering her words. ‘You have that in writing? Some kind of evidence that Palkovics told you this was a sting operation?’
Reka shook her head. ‘No.’
Brad asked, ‘Emails? Recordings? Anything?’
‘Not about that.’
Celeste drummed her long, slim fingers on the heavy oak table. She wore a black Polo shirt and grey linen trousers. ‘Then why should we believe you? We could charge you in the UK with aiding and abetting terrorists, then request your extradition under a European arrest warrant. You are looking at a very long prison term indeed.’
‘Or we might do the same,’ said Brad. ‘Find you a nice, cosy cell in a super-max prison.’
Celeste continued talking. ‘It seems to me, Madame Minister, you are in no position at all to make any kind of deal. In fact, we expect that you might soon be facing a murder charge here.’
‘Meaning?’ she asked, although she already knew the answer.
Celeste took an iPhone from her pocket. The screen showed a video file. Celeste pressed play. The footage showed Reka on her back at the Castle, the would-be assassin sitting on her, her hand flying up to his neck, the man toppling sideways, Reka scrabbling to get to her feet. Celeste said, ‘Neat move, by the way. You could probably get away with self-defence if this comes out. You would even have public opinion on your side. I can see the headlines now, “The Stiletto Killer”. You might be able to walk free from court. But you might not. Either way, it would be the end of your political career. Which I am guessing you’re not planning yet.’
‘It was self-defence. And no, I don’t plan to retire from politics yet.’
Brad asked, ‘Then what use to us are you, Reka? What have you got? Because if it’s not good enough, there’s no deal. And you won’t be walking out of here.’
Unmarked road, District X, 8.50 p.m.
Goran yanked the steering wheel hard to the left as he slammed his foot down on the accelerator. The Lada bucked and jumped forward, clipping the tall policeman on his thigh as it screeched away. He shrieked in pain and collapsed on the road. The force threw Balthazar back in his seat as they bounced across the fields. He looked at Goran in wonder. The Serb was clearly enjoying himself. The Lada Niva was a trusty workhorse, could traverse the roughest terrain, manage potholes and steep banks, but was not known for its speed.
Goran turned to him, laughed out loud and slapped Balthazar’s leg. ‘Turbo-charged, brat. They don’t stand a chance. Who were they?’
‘Gendarmes, I think. They had the Gendarmerie radios. And no municipal cops have cars like that.’
‘Or knives.’
‘Those too.’
‘Then where did they get the uniforms?’
‘They can get anything.’
‘How did they know we were here?’
‘Black George, I guess. He wanted to go into partnership with Gaspar.’
‘You said—?’
‘No, of course.’
‘Picku materina, that motherfucker.’ He glanced in the driver’s mirror. ‘We have a problem, brat.’
Balthazar turned around to see the two Toyota SUVs careering across the fields. ‘I think so. They are catching up with us.’
Goran glanced in the mirror, then gestured at the glove compartment. ‘Open that and give them to me.’
Balthazar reached inside and took out a set of militarygrade night vision goggles. The equipment resembled a camera, with two eyepieces at the back and a long external lens in the front, with a headset attached. He passed the goggles to Goran. He yanked the gearstick, dropped down into second gear. ‘Steer.’
Balthazar leaned across the gearstick and took control of the steering wheel. Goran switched the goggles on, placed them on his head and adjusted the sights. Once the goggles were properly in place, he switched the car’s headlights off and took the steering back under control, heading towards the copse. Balthazar felt as though they were hurtling blindly through the darkness, and would soon crash into the trees, but Goran seemed serenely confident. He flicked a switch on the dashboard. ‘Brake lights off. We are almost invisible.’ Balthazar thought back to the fake police vehicles. ‘But they might have night vision goggles as well.’
Goran nodded. ‘I hope so.’ He lightly side-punched Balthazar’s arm. ‘Don’t worry, brat. We’ll be fine. But let’s have some fun on the way.’
Balthazar watched the trees rush towards them, a dark army marching out of the gloom. He winced, almost braced himself for impact, when the Lada lurched to the left, skidded and stopped ten yards from the side of the copse. Goran kept the engine running as the two Toyota SUVs roared towards the Lada, one on either side of the vehicle, facing in the same direction. Just as they approached, Goran switched the headlights back on and reversed at full speed between the moving vehicles. A loud crack sounded across the field and the Lada shuddered for a second.
Balthazar looked at the right side of the vehicle. Goran laughed, grabbed the shattered wing mirror, now hanging on by a sliver of plastic, yanked it hard and hurled it into the darkness. The Toyotas spun around and roared across the fields, catching the Lada in their headlights.
‘What now, brat?’ asked Balthazar.
Goran kept driving, now headed in a wide arc around the SUVs. ‘Firstly, now they know that we are here, we can put the music on.’
Balthazar knew what was coming. ‘Bohan?’
‘Who else?’ Goran pressed a button on the ramshackle CD player. The Boban Markovic Orchestra filled the car, a blast of brass instruments with a thumping rhythm. Goran glanced at Balthazar. ‘Feel at home now?’
Balthazar laughed. ‘Totally.’ The band was the best-known Gypsy orchestra in the world. For a moment he was back at home on Jozsef Street, a teenage boy listening to his older brother Melchior as he explained how during the Ottoman empire Gypsy musicians had marched into battle alongside the soldiers, which was why, even now, bands like Boban Markovic had a distinctly martial rhythm.
A set of headlights cut across the field, illuminating the car. ‘Now what?’ asked Balthazar. Fie trusted Goran. But he also needed to know that the Serb actually had a plan. Balthazar had no desire to end the evening in police custody, or even worse, with Attila Ungar or any of his underlings.
‘We have a couple of choices. Option A, which is somewhere down here,’ Goran said, as he kept one hand on the steering wheel and rummaged in the door side pocket, ‘where are you, mojo mala draga, my little darling? Aha, got you.’
Goran pulled out a Glock pistol. ‘Option A.’
‘No,’ said Balthazar. ‘Definitely not.’ Gunplay, even just a couple of shots in the air, would not end well.
‘Really?’
‘Really. No guns. What’s option B?’
Goran looked disappointed but put the gun back. He spun the steering wheel, cut behind one of the Toyotas and sped back towards the copse. He pulled in close to the trees and quickly took off the night vision goggles. He stretched across Balthazar and reached into the glove compartment again. He took out two grey metal cylinders, each six inches long and three inches wide. There was a ring pull on the top of each lid.
Goran passed one to Balthazar, kept one in his hand. ‘Get out of the car. When I say “now”, pull the ring, count to three, and throw it at the cars coming towards us. Shut your eyes and cover them, drop down behind the car and stay there until you hear the second bang when I throw mine. The light will blind them. It wrecks the sensors in the night vision goggles. It’s even worse if they aren’t wearing them.’
Balthazar got out and looked across the field. The cars were about fifty yards away and closing in fast. Goran shouted, ‘Now!’
Balthazar pulled the ring and threw the canister. He dropped down and covered his eyes, but his left leg gave way from under him. He landed badly and his right hand flew out to break his fall. His palm scraped along the rough ground, taking off the skin. A loud bang thundered across the field. The flash of light was so strong he could see the outline of his fingers against his eyelids. A second explosion sounded and then another flash. Two seconds later another loud bang sounded, deeper and longer, followed by the noise of crunching glass and metal. Balthazar stood up, steadied himself, and looked across the field. One Toyota had spun around and was now facing in the opposite direction. There was a massive dent in the right front side, the bonnet was open and bent almost in half, and steam poured from the engine. The other car was still pointing towards the Lada, its front crumpled and its windscreen shattered. The sounds of moaning and swearing carried across the field.
Balthazar ignored the pain in his hand and started to walk towards the vehicles. Goran placed his hand on his arm. ‘They will be fine. Those cars have airbags, crush-zones, everything. An ambulance will be here soon.’
‘I don’t care about that. We need their phones and their radios.’
‘No, Tazi,’ said Goran as he directed him back to the Lada. ‘We’re done. And we need to get out of here.’
CIA safe house, Filler Street, 8.55 p.m.
Reka reached inside her Prada handbag, extracted two sheets of paper and placed them on the table. They were bank statements for a numbered account in the Seychelles, and showed a steady stream of six-figure payments coming in, and nothing going out.
Celeste picked up the sheet, scanned the details and the figures. ‘Pal Palkovics’s offshore bank account. So what? We’ve known for a long time he’s been taking pay-offs from Gulf investors.’
She passed the sheets to Anastasia, who flicked through the papers and shrugged. ‘We already have this.’
Reka took out another document, several sheets of close type stapled together. ‘Maybe you do. But you don’t have this. And you don’t know what he secretly promised the Gulf investors in exchange for their money.’ She handed them to Celeste who read through the first few paragraphs. Reka could see that she was interested. ‘These are transcripts of what?’ she asked.
Reka said, ‘Palkovics’s pillow talk.’
‘With who?’
Reka said, ‘Do I really need to answer that?’
‘No,’ said Celeste. ‘You have the recordings?’
Reka flushed pink. ‘Of this, yes.’
Brad asked, ‘Where did you meet?’
‘At home. My home, obviously.’
‘He didn’t sweep the place?’
‘Yes. Thoroughly.’
‘So how did you make the recordings?’
Reka smiled. ‘His head of security is on my private payroll.’ Brad shot her a sideways glance, clearly more impressed than he let on.
Reka said, ‘Take a couple of minutes, please. Go through the transcripts.’ She laughed, a little nervously. ‘Don’t worry. There are only the parts that would interest you.’
Reka watched Celeste carry on reading. She had typed them up a few days ago. There was enough there to finish off Palkovics for good. She had recordings of him admitting that there was a secret annex to the Gulf investors’ deal: transit for Islamic radicals, recordings of him saying it was ‘not his or Hungary’s problem as long as they went west’, that a number of potential terrorists had already passed through Keleti and he had deliberately taken no action to stop them. That more were coming. A second copy of the transcripts and the bank account records were suspended in cyberspace. If Reka failed to log on to a specific website by midnight, the transcripts would be sent by email, first to Eniko Szalay, then, a day later, to every media outlet in Hungary and the foreign press corps, together with a recording of her telephone call with Celeste Johnson arranging this meeting. The nuclear option was no guarantee, but would doubtless trigger enough of a shake-up that she could negotiate something. But before the nuclear option, she had one final card to play.
Celeste, Brad and Anastasia left the room for several minutes. Reka stood up and walked around. The kitchen was like time travel, back to her own house, her childhood before the change of system. She ran a finger along the layer of dust on top of the dark wooden sideboard, bent down and opened the door. A Zsolnay dining set was stacked up inside. If she shut her eyes, she could almost see her grandmother sitting at the head of the table, calling the live-in servants to bring the soup for Sunday lunch.
The door opened and she turned to see the trio walk back inside. This was it, the moment of truth, in the biggest gamble of her life. She would either leave with a deal, her fate assured. Or she would be handed over to the Gendarmes or God knows who. Her heart was thumping, her hands sweaty inside her gloves. She stood still, pleased to see that they remained steady.
Brad said, ‘Sit down, please, Reka.’
She did as he asked. His voice was calm but his eyes were glinting. ‘So what we have here, is proof that you knew that your prime minister was allowing Islamic terrorists to transit through Hungary. You talked about it in bed. Isn’t that the case?’
Reka nodded, a sinking feeling spreading through her stomach. ‘Yes, but I...’
‘But nothing, Reka. You have facilitated travel for international terrorists. And you failed to notify the authorities.’
‘I am telling you now. I was running a sting operation.’
‘They move people, Reka, because you took bribes and helped them.’
‘But you caught them.’
Celeste leaned forward, her voice tight with anger. ‘We caught some of them. We don’t know who else has got through or where they are or might be. Thanks to you. Who knows where they are or what they are planning? You have blood on your hands, Reka.’
The sinking feeling in Reka’s stomach turned to nausea and fear. ‘I have nothing on my hands. What I do have are all the records and documentation to show that I and my colleagues used Pal Palkovics to run a well-planned sting operation to track and unravel an international jihadi network. And I have said that I can turn everything over to you.’
Celeste said, ‘You will do that, Madame Minister. As soon as we are done here. Because you are done. Your career is finished. And so is your time as a free woman.’ She glanced at Brad, then Anastasia. ‘How do you want to do this? We are in Hungary and she is a Hungarian citizen. You have first rights.’
Anastasia considered her answer before she spoke. ‘The best place to hold her for initial interrogations would be at the Gendarmerie headquarters on Andrassy Way. The Gendarmes have isolation cells there.’ She looked at Brad. ‘Like one of your super-maxes.’
Brad said, ‘Sounds good to me.’ He looked at Celeste, who nodded.
Reka tried to beat back her rising sense of panic. The isolation cells were grey concrete cubicles, barely larger than a child-sized bed, with a bucket for a toilet. The lights were left on twenty-four hours a day. Isolation prisoners were not allowed to mix with other inmates or take exercise, even in their own cells. She had several times asked Pal Palkovics about their function, pointed out that they were illegal under EU human rights laws. Palkovics had refused to answer her questions, but a couple of days later the Gendarmes’ interrogation manual had been left on her desk, with a sticky note pasted to the section on Grade One beatings. She stopped asking.
Reka closed her eyes, ignored the fear surging inside her. She had to stay in control. She would stay in control. For a second, she was back on the walkway at the castle, as the man sent to kill her advanced towards her, on her back as he tried to strangle her, saw him toppling over with the heel rammed into his neck. She opened her eyes, summoned every iota of her courage and began to speak. ‘Thanks to me, you know that the prime minister of Hungary is secretly taking bribes from some very questionable people in the Gulf. Thanks to me, you know that Gulf investors have set up a base here to move potential terrorists. Thanks to me, you will soon know how the networks operate, how the traffickers move people, how the dirty money flows. Thanks to me, a major terrorist route westwards can be closed down.’ She paused. ‘Thanks to me, we are all just a little bit safer tonight.’
Brad said, ‘Nice speech. But not nice enough.’ He turned to Celeste and Anastasia. ‘Shall we proceed?’
The two women nodded. Anastasia said, ‘Sure. I’ll make the call.’
Reka leaned forward. The last card would have to be played. ‘Wait. There’s something you need to know.’ The three turned to her. Reka continued talking. ‘You have CCTV on this house?’
Brad nodded. ‘The whole of the street is covered.’
‘Call it up. There is an Audi A4 parked three doors down.’ Brad took out his iPhone, tapped on the screen. He placed the handset on the table so that Celeste and Anastasia could see. The image showed Filler Street, a long, leafy avenue. There was no traffic and the pavements were empty. Brad zoomed in on the Audi. ‘I see it.’
Reka asked, ‘Can you see the driver?’
The image showed a broad-shouldered man with a shaven head and deep-set blue eyes.
Brad said, ‘Sure. Who is he?’
‘His name is Antal. He works for me.’
‘That’s nice,’ said Brad. ‘But you won’t be getting any visitors.’ He turned to Anastasia. ‘Now, let’s proceed with what we need to do.’
Reka sat back, forced herself to sound more confident than she felt. ‘The thing is, Brad, Antal has film on his phone of all three of you coming in here, and of me.’
The three intelligence officers glanced at each other. She had their full attention now. ‘We know all about your safe houses. It was easy to guess where you would want to meet.’ This part at least, was true. Reka continued talking. ‘If I don’t walk out of here by 11.00 p.m., that film will be posted to YouTube. You will be identified as the chief of station for the CIA, Celeste as the equivalent for MI6, and Anastasia as an operative for the ABS, all part of an operation to illegally detain a lawfully elected minister of the Hungarian government.’
This was a lie: there was no film. Antal refused to use a smartphone. He had an old Motorola flip-top without a camera. But there was no way the three intelligence agents would know that. Reka turned to Brad and Celeste. ‘You will be – what’s the term? – “burnt”, I believe. You will certainly be declared persona non grata. Your bosses will protest but they will pull you both out. Your careers won’t recover for a long time, if ever. That film will follow you around the internet. Forever.’
Reka then addressed Anastasia, her tone harsh now. ‘And you, kedves Anastasia, you will also have to leave the country, probably for a long time, especially once your personal details are all over hazifiu.hu. You certainly won’t ever work for our security service again.’
Brad asked, ‘Are you threatening us?’
Reka shrugged. ‘Of course not. How can I threaten you? I am just helping you understand the local operating environment.’
Brad picked up his phone and started to call a number. Reka said, ‘Before you call your security team, you should know that Antal has several webcams in the car, covering the street and the inside of the vehicle, all set up to live stream on Facebook if anyone approaches the vehicle. Plus we have another team in a nearby house watching him, also ready to film and live stream. So your operatives, whoever they are, can also book their tickets home.’
This was a complete fantasy. There were no webcams installed in the vehicle and nor did Reka have another team. The only part that was true was Antal was there, sitting in a car nearby. Would that be enough to convince the trio? Reka watched the three intelligence agents carefully. Brad sat back for a moment, exhaled slowly. The two women looked at each other. There was nothing spies hated more than the prospect of having their names and faces made public. Their bosses would be furious. Their operational careers would certainly be over for good. If nothing else, Reka had taken control of the encounter. She was not out of the woods yet, she knew, not by a long way, but the atmosphere in the room and the power balance, she sensed, was shifting in her favour. She still had the nuclear option -releasing the transcripts to the press – in reserve, but there was no going back from that. She wanted to negotiate, not leave a trail of wreckage.
Brad exhaled slowly, scratched his stomach, then gestured to Anastasia and Celeste. The two women stood up. He turned to Reka. ‘We’ll be back in a few minutes. Don’t leave the room.’
Reka smiled. ‘Why would I?’
The trio returned two minutes later and sat back down at the table. Reka made sure not to show her nervousness. The isolation cells were probably an empty threat, she had decided. Too many people would see her arrive and would know she was being held at 60 Andrassy Way. But she had no doubt at all that Brad and Celeste could, if they chose, make her disappear and guide the media to come up with a plausible reason for her sudden absence. Or even arrange an ‘accident’. This was a high-risk game she was playing. But she also knew that she had no choice.
Brad spoke. ‘If we accepted your explanation that you were running a sting operation – if – your documentation would be helpful. But it’s not enough. You have left out one of the most important players. Give us everything you have on him, and you’ll walk free.’
‘Who?’ asked Reka, for a moment genuinely puzzled. ‘Palk-ovics is the key person. I have given you everything I have on him. Really, everything.’
‘We know that, and we believe you,’ said Brad. ‘But there is someone else. Someone deeply involved in all of this. We need all the details of his role as well.’
Celeste spoke, her voice softer, more encouraging now. ‘Of course, we understand that is a difficult step for you to take. It will have a cost, a personal cost. But it will be worth it. We can help you, Reka, help you get the prize you have wanted for so long. And when you move into that lovely corner office, with the view over the Danube, we can help you stay there.’
Reka asked, ‘How?’
‘We are in the information business,’ said Brad. ‘We tell you things, you tell us. But it all starts with one man.’
Reka felt the relief coursing through her. They were offering a deal. She was safe. Kez kezet mos. Ten, even five years ago, they would not be negotiating with her. But now Budapest was back on the map, which meant they needed her. International crime gangs had set up their headquarters in the city, reaching east to Moscow and west to London, New York and Los Angeles. The banks were awash with dirty money pouring in from the former Soviet Union and the Middle East. Britain and the United States all had boosted their intelligence operations. The city was full of Russian spies. Budapest was a gateway to the west for everyone from the Triads in Hong Kong to corrupt American corporations – and now jihadists.
Reka had no qualms about sharing that kind of intelligence with London and Washington DC. In return they would supply information that could dispose of any opponent whenever she wanted. Reka was a Social Democrat. The party was in power and so had the most access to EU funds and controlled their disbursement. But every group in Parliament, from the minuscule, unreformed Communists to the ultra-nationalists, had their fingers in the till. The only question was how much they could extract. But the relief was mixed with puzzlement. Who were they talking about? And then the dread rushed through her as she realised they could only have one person in mind. Someone who, for all her betrayals, she had always tried to protect.
Reka asked, ‘Who?’
Brad said, ‘Your husband.’