The Budapest Protocol, page 32
His telephone rang. An American voice said: “Your call, buddy.”
Bandi replied: “Ten minutes.”
The American said: “Two. Or we shut this thing down.”
Bandi said: “Five.” He ran back into the building and sprinted down the stairs.
* * *
Klindern pointed the pistol at Alex. “It’s over. Come here.”
Alex’s heart pounded as he walked across the room, trying to remember the moves Ehud had taught him. He quickly looked around as he walked over to Klindern. No help, obviously, but would they intervene? Sanzlermann’s hand shook as he poured a large cognac. Hrkna looked unconcerned and lit a cigar. Krieghaufner and Schmidt observed him with amused interest, as though they were watching the premiere of a much acclaimed new play. Al-Ajnabi’s eyes glowed with hate.
Klindern ripped off the fake moustache. “Alex Farkas. Not so dead after all, it seems.” He held the moustache up to the light. “Did you really think that this,” he sneered, “would fool us?”
Alex shrugged, inching towards Klindern.
“Poor Attila. One Gypsy less, at least,” Klindern said, keeping the pistol trained on him.
“He died bravely,” said Alex, moving closer.
Klindern laughed cynically. “Dying bravely. The Hungarian national sport.” He flicked the fake moustache onto Hunkalffy’s body, watching it land in a pool of blood.
Alex grabbed the pistol.
He yanked it to the right and forced it upwards hard and fast. He twisted Klindern’s hand backward, pushing as high as he could.
The first bullet hit the chandelier, sending shards of crystal flying around the room. The guests dived onto the floor, Malinanescu barging Schmidt aside as he scrabbled under the table. The gun fired again and again, the bullets smashing into the chandelier and the ceiling. Glass and plaster dust rained down. Klindern fought hard for control, punching Alex repeatedly in his chest and stomach. A glancing blow caught Alex on the side of his head. The pain fuelled his fury. He wrenched the pistol sideways with all his strength.
Klindern’s fingers snapped.
He let go of the gun and staggered backwards. Alex slid forward and kicked him rapidly and repeatedly in the groin. Klindern threw up and collapsed, writhing on the floor in a puddle of his half-digested dinner. The reek of vomit and cordite fumes filled the room. Alex grabbed Klindern’s right arm. He turned it around, elbow facing down, and slammed it over his knee. It broke with a sound like a twig snapping. Klindern turned white and fainted.
Alex jumped up, covering the room with the pistol. Only Al-Ajnabi still sat at the table, drinking his whisky.
Vautker rolled his wheelchair towards Alex. “Finally, you fight.”
Alex pointed the gun at Vautker.
“Bitte, shoot,” said Vautker. “The magazine holds eight bullets. Three for Herr Hunkalffy, and five in the wall and ceiling. Of course, I may have miscounted.”
Alex pointed the gun at him and pulled the trigger. It clicked on an empty chamber.
* * *
The men looked up as Bandi walked into the cramped apartment, their faces full of anticipation. They laughingly called themselves ‘The Dirty Dozen’, although Bandi thought of them as twelve Trojan Horses. After sixteen hours of waiting the room stank of bodies and sweat. Its stale air was thick with cigarette smoke, the floor carpeted with junk food wrappers and crushed drink cans. A television flickered in the corner, a naked woman writhing on its screen. The flat was located on the third floor of an apartment block on Kossuth Lajos Street facing the Savoy. Its entrance was blocked off by the first line of security fences. The plan was for Bandi’s guys to break out and take down the two lines of fences, while the protestors, urged on by his men on the other side, smashed through the Gendarmes’ cordons. They would all then meet up in the middle.
Bandi walked over and pulled out the television plug. The screen went black.
He said: “Party time.”
* * *
Two security guards frogmarched Alex out of the dining room, his feet scraping along the floor, his wrists handcuffed together. He squirmed as one pressed the muzzle of a pistol into his spine. The lift travelled down into the hotel storage room. The revelry of the other waiters was clearly audible through an open door, just ten yards away. The security guard pressed the pistol barrel harder into his back. “Don’t even think about it,” he hissed.
They pushed him into a large windowless room and stood holding him. The door opened. Daintner pushed Vautker forward in his wheelchair.
Vautker pointed a Luger pistol at Alex. “This one is loaded.” He laughed, a dry cackling sound. “The only question was how long we would allow your pathetic charade to continue. How poignant. Just as he uncovers the dastardly conspiracy, the heroic reporter is tragically killed.”
He nodded at the security guards. One gripped Alex’s arms, his fingers digging into his wound. The other ripped Alex’s shirt open, sending the buttons flying.
“Take it off,” Vautker snapped, gesturing at Alex’s corset. The guards ripped it off leaving the false stomach sagging pathetically on its straps. Vautker wheeled himself up to Alex and slowly dug the barrel of the Luger into his wounded arm. “Who are you working for?” he asked softly.
“Me. There’s only me,” said Alex, wincing from the pressure of the pistol.
Vautker wheeled himself backwards and ripped the bandage from Alex’s arm. He grabbed his pistol by the barrel, and slammed the butt into the wound. It burst open and blood ran down Alex’s arm. The pain was excruciating.
Vautker smiled. “You will talk. Everyone does, in the end.”
“Fuck you,” said Alex, panting as he sagged against the guards.
Vautker clicked his fingers, and Daintner opened the door. Two more guards appeared, dragging in Istvan Nagy, his hands tied behind him, his eyes wide with fear.
“I don’t understand. I don’t want to die,” pleaded Nagy. “This is nothing to do with me.”
“I believe you. You are an innocent, caught up in events beyond your control.”
“Yes, yes,” gasped Nagy, his eyes full of hope.
“Release him,” snapped Vautker.
Nagy stood shakily in front of Vautker. Vautker shot him once in the head. The boom of the gun filled the room. Nagy’s skull burst. Blood, bone and brains flew across the room and he toppled backwards.
Alex fought down the bile rising inside him. “Why did you kill him? He was just a waiter.”
“I did not kill him.” Vautker said, smirking. “You did.”
* * *
Bandi and his men sprinted out of the apartment block and spread out along the pavement between the buildings and the first security fence. Each wore a gasmask, a kevlar helmet and vest, and carried several metal cylinders, the size of cola cans. Several carried thick crowbars, four foot long. They split into three squads, two of three and one of six.
The Gendarmes saw immediately what was happening, radioed for assistance, and began running towards Bandi’s men. The two groups of three raced left and right towards the Gendarmes. The squad of six jammed their crowbars under the fences and pulled down hard.
Bandi shouted: “Now!”
The two squads of three hurled their stun grenades at the Gendarmes, dropping to their knees and covering their ears with their hands. The fences slid upwards, metal arms shrieking against the sleeves. The stun grenades exploded with a deafening bang and flash. The journalists and camera crews began running through the empty intersection, towards the noise.
* * *
Vautker turned to the security guards. “Leave us now. Undo his handcuffs. Give him something for his arm. I don’t want him to bleed to death yet.” He kept his pistol trained on Alex as a guard handed him a napkin. “You have some courage and initiative. Like your grandfather.”
Alex wrapped the cloth around his arm. “My grandfather? What has he got to do with this?”
“Everything. If it were not for him, you would not be here. I knew your grandfather. Better than he realised. He used to serve me coffee here.”
Vautker tapped his left arm. “I left the original outside Kharkov. Your grandfather was always solicitous. A most resourceful man.” He sounded almost wistful. “I don’t know who he thought he was fooling with those papers. Those wastrels in the Arrow Cross, I suppose.”
Alex stared at Vautker. “You knew who he was. Why didn’t you send him to the camps?”
He shrugged. “What for? By then one more dead or alive did not matter. I always suspected he had discovered something at the dinner. Some papers went missing and were never found. But poor Miklos, who could he tell? The AVO? The KGB? What would he say? That the Fourth Reich would achieve what the Third failed to? They would lock him up and throw away the key. I found it amusing that he was safe behind the Iron Curtain with a dreadful secret that he could share with nobody. We were safe until 1989, and by then everything was in place.”
Vautker stared into space. “I was not in favour of killing your grandfather. He was a witness, one of the last left. A link to the past. He saw first hand how our dreams were born, and how they are now becoming reality. I am sorry that I ever mentioned his name. But those hotheads around Hunkalffy and Sanzlermann would not listen.”
Alex pressed the cloth against his arm. “The war ended in 1945. You lost. We won.”
Vautker laughed and waved the gun at Alex. “How naive you are. You did not win. Money won. Money always wins. We invaded Poland on Ford trucks. American punch cards helped us solve the Jewish problem. The war was a sideshow, nothing more. Even while our soldiers were killing each other we worked with British bankers in Switzerland, meeting our international financial obligations, paying our debts. The most important thing is to keep the money moving. How did we fund those payments? By looting the banks of the countries we captured. As the Swiss say, ‘Gold has no race.’ What a beautiful system. Kapital über Alles.”
Vautker sat up straight, his eyes shining. “As for now, could we launch the Poraymus project alone? Do you really believe that in their hearts, Europe’s leaders don’t support us? That they don’t approve? Pick up any newspaper. In Italy Gypsy girls drown on the beach and they carry on sunbathing and eating salami, a few metres from their corpses. The Czechs, the Slovaks, the Hungarians have been sterilising their Gypsies for years. The women have Caesarean sections. When they wake up they find the doctors took the baby out and everything else as well. The Poraymus Project is nothing new. It’s just more humane and efficient.”
Vautker smiled with pleasure, reciting as though reading from a book. “Let us imagine a continent at peace, freed of its barriers and obstacles, where history and geography are finally reconciled. Who said that?” he demanded.
“I don’t know,” said Alex. Vautker was, he estimated, about two metres away.
“Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, drafter of the EU’s constitution. Now try this... ‘It is not very intelligent to imagine that in such a cramped house like that of Europe, a community of peoples can maintain different legal systems and different concepts of law for long’.”
“I have no idea,” said Alex. He could leap onto the wheelchair and try to grab the gun. Vautker could not walk. But Daintner was fit and mobile. And how would he get out of the hotel? But anything was better than dying down here.
Vautker smiled. “Adolf Hitler. His dream: one continent, one government, one legal system, one unit of currency. And now it’s about to be realised.”
The door opened and Alex’s plan evaporated. A security guard walked in, carrying a slim young woman in an Afghan coat. She was unconscious, her hands tied behind her back.
* * *
The stun grenades burst open with a sharp crack. The Gendarmes fell back, temporarily blinded and deafened, staggering in confusion. Bandi gripped the fence as his men levered it up. It creaked, groaned, rose until the arms slipped out of their sleeves, and fell back with a crash. Bandi and his team raced through the gap. They now faced the second line of fences. They had, he reckoned, about thirty seconds to bring it down before the Gendarmes arrived.
The men moved seamlessly into formation. The squad of six sprinted up to the second line of fences and jammed their crowbars underneath, while two groups of three covered the spaces to the side, stun grenades at the ready. The Gendarmes gathered fifty yards away, wary now of the stun grenades. The fences rose, slid back, and rose again. The Gendarmes loaded their rubber bullet guns, knelt and took aim.
Aniko Kovacs and the cameraman ran towards Bandi. She thrust a microphone in his face. He saw out of the corner of his eye a Gendarme marksman kneel and take aim at him.
“Are we live?” he asked.
She was almost speechless with excitement. “Yes. Who are you?”
Bandi lifted the gas mask from his mouth to speak: “Patriots.”
The rubber bullet bounced off his helmet, knocking him sideways. Kovacs reeled back as a rubber bullet bounced off the ground and hit her shoulder. She recovered, stood her ground and continued broadcasting: “We are live here at the Savoy where an unknown group of men is trying to bring down the fences around the hotel. The crowd is advancing from four directions. The Gendarmes are firing tear gas and rubber bullets. The people are taking control of the streets.”
Bandi righted himself and looked over at the cordon. Rubber bullets bounced off the bars as it rose, slipped, rose again and toppled backwards into the empty space. The adrenalin pumped. The familiar rush kicked in. Bandi sprinted to the gap in the second fence, shouting “Forward, forward,” Kovacs doggedly running after him.
Bandi’s team followed him into the vast empty space at the crossroads of the four main roads. CNN and the BBC crews raced towards them, as rubber bullets pinged off the buildings. Bandi’s men quickly split into formation, as the six in the middle attacked the fence that blocked off Kossuth Lajos Street. The crowd on the other side stood transfixed and then surged forward. Bandi could see his guys weaving through the protestors to get to the fence. The protestors quickly grasped what was happening and began to lift the metal fence higher and higher.
Two squads of Gendarmes advanced. Bandi’s two teams of three hurled their stun grenades. The fence rose and toppled back towards the crowd. The line was breached but the Gendarmes stood their ground. They lifted their riot shields and deflected the stun grenades into the crowd. The flashes were blinding, the noise thunderous in the crowded space. Screams and shouts of fear and pain resounded. The protestors ran in all directions.
The first group of Gendarmes dropped to their knees, aimed and fired steady bursts of rubber bullets at Bandi’s men. The second launched salvo after salvo of tear gas into the crowd. Bandi’s men charged forward at the Gendarmes, weaving from side to side as the bullets bounced off their kevlar vests and helmets. The street resounded with the bang of the stun grenades, the crack of the rubber bullets and the shouts and screams of the crowd. A dense cloud of tear gas rolled down towards the Danube.
* * *
Vautker laughed and pointed his pistol at Natasha. She lay on the ground on her side, unconscious, breathing steadily. “Does she know about Azra? Azra Mehmedovic, taken to her death, right in front of your eyes, with your pockets full of dollars, and your UN press card. Yes, we know all about Azra, and your pathetic emails to her family, offering them money. She risked her life for you. All your promises to get her out, lies. More empty words in a life built on them. But they didn’t want your blood money, did they? Did you think of Azra, that night when you got your prize? I am sure you got a pay rise. Was it worth it? Is this worth it?” he asked, waving his foot at Nagy’s body.
Alex felt an old, familiar shame. “I did my job. I reported what I saw. Reporters cannot get involved,” he said, knowing how hollow the words sounded.
Vautker wheeled himself closer to Alex.
“You were just doing your job. Some of my friends tried that defence. It didn’t work then and doesn’t work now. What are you doing here, if you cannot get involved?” he sneered.
Daintner lit a cigarette. Vautker coughed as the smoke drifted over him. “Daintner, you know I cannot bear cigarette smoke. And this is hardly the time for cigars.”
“My sincere apologies, sir,” he said, crushing the cigarette out on the floor. Daintner handed him a folded linen napkin.
Vautker opened the napkin with one hand, wiped his mouth and continued. “Tell me who you are working for. Or I will kill her,” he said, pointing the gun at Natasha.
Alex stared at Vautker. “Nobody. I was working alone,” he panted.
“I warned you,” said Vautker. He pointed the Luger at Natasha.
* * *
Bandi rapidly processed the scene of chaos, his breath wheezing through his gas mask. The crowd was pouring down Kossuth Lajos Street through the gap in the fences and surging forward from the Elizabeth Bridge. But it was splitting into clusters, some fleeing from the violence towards the river, others retreating behind the colonnade on Kossuth Lajos Street. The Gendarmes were trying to close the gaps in the first two lines of fences. The air was thick with the stench of tear gas. The street filled with the sound of retching and coughing. The football fans smashed open a fire hydrant. Water erupted, and the protestors washed the tear gas from their faces as it cascaded down. The Gendarmes formed a line across the entrance of the hotel, arms linked, in front of the concrete barricades. Bandi watched a tall, heavily built priest with a wet cloth wrapped around his face pick up a can of tear-gas which had landed on the Sotto Voce float. He leaned back with an athlete’s poise and hurled it at the line of Gendarmes. It landed right in the middle, spinning tear gas in every direction and triggering loud cheers.
Bandi’s mobile telephone buzzed. Reinforcements were coming. And more.
* * *
The shot was thunderous in the small room. The bullet smashed into the wall by Natasha’s foot. Vautker shouted: “That was your last chance. Next time I won’t miss. Who is helping you? Who else knows about the Directorate? The Russians? The British? The Israelis?”
