The Budapest Protocol (35 page)

Alex nodded. He punched the skinhead in the stomach fast and hard, sending him stumbling back. “Why don’t you shut up? Or are you only good for hitting women and children?”

The skinhead’s face contorted with anger as he struggled to get his balance. He lunged at Alex, his fist clenched. Alex tried to dodge the blow, but it caught him hard on the left shoulder. Pain shot down his wounded arm. He gasped and kicked the skinhead as hard as he could in the shins. The skinhead cried out in surprise as the tram lurched around a bend in the tracks. He lost his balance, hopping and stumbling towards the door.

The bald man jumped forward and neatly kicked him in the small of his back, sending him flying face first down the carriage steps. The skinhead tried to get up, swearing and flailing in his fury. The bald man smiled as he leant over him and grabbed the neck of his jacket. He slammed his face against the window. The tram stopped. The doors opened and he threw the skinhead out onto the pavement, his expression dazed as blood dripped from his nose. The bald man emptied his bag of potatoes over him, before getting back on the tram.

“Thanks,” Alex said, trying to catch his breath, and rubbing his shoulder. “This is for the potatoes,” he said, taking a banknote from his pocket.

“No, no, really. I couldn’t. It was worth every forint,” the bald man said, waving away the money, standing straight and smiling as they shook hands. The elderly woman glared at them from behind her copy of
Ébredjetek Magyarok!
and shook her head, muttering to herself. The Romany woman clapped her hands with delight.

“Wait,” the man said, “let me give you this.” He pulled out a crumpled sheet of paper from his jacket pocket and handed it to Alex.

“PUT AN END TO FEAR – JOIN THE MARCH FOR FREEDOM,” the handbill announced in large black letters. Alex read on:

We will no longer be afraid

We will no longer stay silent

We will no longer be terrorised

March with us on Sunday November 9, European Presidential election day.

Meet outside the National Museum at 6.00pm.

A small line of type leaflet said “Support the Hungarian Freedom Movement.”
www.szabadmagyarorszag.hu/
www. freehungary.hu/
www.freiungarn.hu/
.

Alex thanked him. Hungarian revolutions always started at the National Museum, or nearby. In 1848, the dashing poet and national hero Sandor Petofi had stood on its steps and read a manifesto calling for freedom from Austrian tyranny. In 1956, the uprising against the Russians had begun outside the National Radio headquarters, on neighbouring Brody Sandor Street. The walls were still pockmarked with bullet-holes from the street fighting. Both revolutions had ended in defeat. But what was the Hungarian Freedom Movement?

Alex pocketed the leaflet as the tram trundled towards Parliament, where Attila Hunkalffy was hosting Sanzlermann, Dusan Hrkna, Cornelius Malinanescu and Dragomir Zorvajk at the opening of the exhibition commemorating the region’s leaders during the Second World War. A giant green, red and white Hungarian flag hung from the Gothic crenulations of the Parliament roof, down to the very top of the entrance. The Magyar ensign was flanked by the Slovak, Romanian and Croatian flags. A long maroon carpet stretched down the steps from the Parliament entrance, between the brace of stone lions that guarded the ornate doors, into the stately grace of treelined Kossuth Square. Lajos Kossuth, leader of the brief 1848 Hungarian revolution against the Habsburgs, looked on silently from the marble plinth where he was immortalised in stone. Metal barricades and a line of Gendarmes kept the crowds back. Most held paper flags, miniature versions of those draped across the Parliament façade.

The blast wave hit the tram side-on.

The carriage’s windows blew in, hurling shards of glass across the passengers. The carriage wobbled once, tried to right itself, and slowly toppled over. The boom of the explosion echoed across Parliament Square. A second, perhaps two, of silence and then the screams and moans started.

Alex lurched backwards as the carriage fell on its side, lost his balance and tumbled onto the floor, glass raining down around him. Debris thumped onto the carriage, a staccato barrage of scraps of metal, lumps of brick and concrete. He slid across the floor and banged his head on a chair stanchion, stunning him for a few moments.

He opened his eyes to see the Romany woman hunched over her baby, looking from side to side, her eyes wide with terror. The elderly woman was still sitting in her chair, hat and fur stole now gone. She looked puzzled as she stared at the ground, now next to her head. A human hand fell through the smashed window and landed with a thwack on her copy of
Ébredjetek Magyarok!
, spattering crimson on its pages. She screamed and threw both down the carriage.

The rain was falling hard now, pouring through the broken windows. Pale rivulets of watery blood ran down on the carriage. The howls of ambulance sirens and the clatter of police helicopters sounded in the distance. A phalanx of Gendarmes charged onto the square from the nearby Ministry of Justice. “It is forbidden to move from where you are or to attempt to leave the area,” the leader announced through a loudhailer. “This is now a closed emergency zone. Stay where you are. Medical help is on the way.”

Alex struggled to his feet. A powerful smell of burning rubber and roasting meat filled the carriage. He saw the bald man was splayed out, face down, blood pouring from his head. He moved to help him, but something felt dislodged in his head, and there were two of everything. A cut above his head was bleeding, and his hair was full of glass splinters. He blinked and squeezed his eyes, grasping a handrail for support. The world slowly came back into focus. Panic and anguish surged as he climbed out of the shattered window. Where was she? He pulled out his mobile telephone, and punched out her number. Nothing. He looked at the screen: no network service available. He slid down the carriage wall and stumbled out onto the square.

Smoke was pouring out of the front of the Parliament. The flags draped over the entrance had been shredded by the blast, their meagre remnants still smouldering. Cars were burning, exploding one by one with a dull crump as the petrol tanks ignited. Only the feet remained of the lions guarding the entrance. Mangled remains of metal crash barriers were scattered across the square. A lunchbox lay open on the ground, next to an apple and a carefully-wrapped sandwich. The blast wave had stopped the clock by the Ethnographic Museum that faced Parliament at 2.52pm. He could see dead bodies splayed by the Parliament entrance. Fragments of body parts and severed limbs were scattered across the car park. A portly man screamed for help as he stared at the bloody stump of his knee.

Tourist buses from Romania and Slovakia had been blown across the square, slammed into lampposts, sagging as though they had been punched. A police car had been turned over by the blast. It slowly span on its roof, a dead policeman suspended upside down by his seatbelt. His radio screeched urgent instructions. Alex stumbled across the charred grass, trying in vain to get a signal on his mobile telephone.

Ambulances converged from all directions. He felt his hearing fade in and out. Sodden scraps of paper flags floated down the gutter. He almost walked into a young woman with short dark hair laying face down on the grass. “Natasha,” he cried as he turned her over. He sagged with relief and shame when he saw a round, pale face. He turned his face upwards to the rain and staggered across the grass towards the Parliament’s entrance. He swayed on his feet and his legs turned to rubber. The world wobbled and turned black.

* * *

Dieter Klindern leant back in his armchair in Sanzlermann’s suite and smoothed down the sleeve of his black silk Nehru jacket. The chairman of KZX Industries was a trim, handsome man in his early sixties, with close-cropped steel grey hair and pale blue eyes. He wore half-moon glasses above a long nose, thin, colourless lips and small, neat teeth. The room was dark, the curtains drawn against the cheerless winter dusk. A silver coffee pot and a tray of cakes sat untouched nearby. Hunkalffy and Sanzlermann sat in front of him, on two hard-back chairs, like errant schoolboys caught cheating in an examination. The two men glared at each other. Reinhard Daintner sat a few metres away, silently watching. Klindern could barely control his anger.

“A
bomb
. How imaginative,” he sneered.

Hunkalffy opened his mouth to speak. Klindern cut him off. “Please do not interrupt me, Prime Minister. I prefer to finish my sentences myself.” Hunkalffy lowered his head.

Klindern continued: “And do not misunderstand me. I am hardly concerned about the loss of life a few hours ago. If you wish to arrange the deaths of your own citizens that is your own affair. What does concern me is that your little freelance operation, which as you well know should have been cleared with the Directorate, may now place more than seventy years of work in jeopardy,” continued Klindern, his voice rising as he poured himself a cup of coffee from the jug and cups arranged on the table next to him.

Klindern let the silence stretch out, and banged the jug down hard on the table when he had finished pouring. Hunkalffy and Sanzlermann jumped as the cups and saucers rattled in protest. “And you couldn’t even get the timing right. Dragomir Zorvajk is in hospital, with a stomach full of shrapnel. A big child, too distracted by your ridiculous exhibition to leave in time. Unlikely to be with us for much longer, the doctors say.”

He walked over to Hunkalffy and Sanzlermann. “Because of your bungling, our whole southern flank is threatened.”

Hunkalffy sat silently. Klindern circled around him. “Do you have any idea what you have done? The destruction of Yugoslavia was one of the Directorate’s greatest achievements. It took decades of work, of careful planning. We spent millions, hundreds of millions, used up diplomatic favours and political capital from Washington to the Vatican to achieve a centuries-old dream: an independent Croatia, Christian, Catholic, cleansed of its Serbs. A permanently grateful client-state, with a coastline full of warm-water ports. Our launch pad into the Balkans, our
drang nach süd
to the Mediterranean, even Africa. At the helm, Dragomir Zorvajk, young, handsome, a sports hero, veteran of the homeland war. Untouchable, adored by all, a leader who could never be questioned. Thanks to you, now flat on his back in a Hungarian hospital, his stomach shredded, and unlikely to make it through the night.”

Klindern paused and stirred his coffee. He jabbed his finger at Hunkalffy. “You, of all people, should know that there are enough ways to manipulate an election. Almost as imaginative as setting Edith Leclerc’s stage on fire, and blaming it on an ‘arson attack’. And this ridiculous ‘Pannonia Brigade’. The whole world is laughing at your storm troopers, beaten back by Gypsy housewives.
Aaach
. Plus, this absurd campaign against the foreign press by your media lackeys. You merely make heroes out of these diletanttes. What were you thinking? Do you ever think? We made you, Hunkalffy...” said Klindern. He paused silently for several seconds. “There are already several within our organisation calling for
severe
sanctions to be taken against you.”

“But, I mean, the bomb was his idea as well,” Hunkalffy said, pointing at Sanzlermann. “A big bang outside Parliament, a few days before the election, would give us the perfect cover to ensure the right result. We have even arrested the ILA’s supposed leader in Budapest. There could be no better alibi for the biggest crackdown since the collapse of communism. Your own words, Frank,” said Hunkalffy, turning to Sanzlermann.

Sanzlermann turned to Hunkalffy indignantly. “You little shit.”

Klindern banged his fist on the table. “
Idiots!
You know nothing about the ILA.” The two men fell silent. Daintner walked over to the DVD player under a wide-screen television.

“Track one, please,” said Klindern. Daintner pressed the remote control.

The player whirred for a few seconds. The screen filled with a pin-sharp image. Moans and sighs echoed around the room. Sanzlermann was leaning back against the sink in the toilet cubicle of his executive jet, one hand pressing hard against the closed door. His eyes were closed in pleasure. A male steward knelt in front of him, his head rising and falling. Klindern watched the figures moving on the television screen with an expression of cultivated distaste, as though he had found a fly under one of his fingernails.

Sanzlermann paled and sat silently. Hunkalffy smirked.

“That is bad enough,” said Klindern. “But this is far worse. Track two, please.”

Daintner pressed another button on the remote control. The screen showed Sanzlermann engaged in energetic sexual congress with a full figured young woman of remarkable gymnastic ability in his bedroom at the hotel suite. They slid around the bed, switching positions, flipping each other over from side to side with practised ease. But it was clear that while her body was engaged, her mind was not. She was scanning the room even as she moaned and writhed under him. Klindern gestured to Daintner, and the screen froze.

“At least that one is a woman,” said Hunkalffy, grinning.

“
Shut up
!” snapped Klindern. “Do you know what a honeytrap is, Frank?”

“When one side uses a sexually attractive woman to ensnare a target, either for purposes of blackmail or to extract information,” he said miserably.

Klindern said: “You are positively dripping in the stuff.”

Alex opened his eyes, blinking repeatedly as his surroundings slowly came into focus. He was lying on his back between crisp white sheets in a narrow iron hospital bed. An air-conditioner hummed in the background. The room was dark, cool, and smelled of antiseptic. His left arm had been bathed and bandaged with a fresh dressing. He carefully moved his head from side to side. A jolt of pain shot through his face, as though a steel bar was implanted through the bridge of his nose. His skin felt like he had been thoroughly sandpapered and his left side ached, from his shoulders to his toes. A single window showed a nighttime pavement, and occasional glimpses of car tyres, ankles and shoes.