The Budapest Protocol (42 page)

* * *

Alex watched Vautker’s thumb move towards the plunger. “Wait.
Wait
. I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you everything,” he said, his voice frantic. Vautker’s finger hovered over the needle.

* * *

The bulldozer roared forward. The Gendarmes ran in every direction. The bulldozer’s giant blade slammed into the fences, pushing them aside and crushing them. It reversed, changed its angle of attack and roared forward again.

Bandi ran into the centre of Kossuth Lajos Street, urging the crowd on.

“
Forward, forward
!” he cried, as first dozens, then hundreds followed in his wake, pouring through the space between the two lines of fences. The driver revved his engine again, and the protestors cleared a path as he faced the last line of Gendarmes at the Savoy’s entrance.

The Gendarmes aimed their guns at the protestors. One raised his weapon and fired repeatedly into the air. The crowd fell silent as the gunfire echoed across the streets.

The commander raised a bullhorn to his mouth. “These are live rounds, not rubber bullets. You have ten seconds to disperse, or we will open fire.”

* * *

Vautker turned purple and made a sound like a blocked pipe being cleared. He waved his hands, clutched his throat, and slumped forward in his wheelchair.

* * *

The sound of motor exhausts echoed from four directions. Police buses smashed a path through the fences and stopped in front of the Savoy. Dozens of policemen in full body armour, carrying machine pistols and stun grenades, spilled out and formed a line in front of the Gendarmes.

The helicopter circling overhead flew in lower, the powerful under draft sending caps and hats flying across the street. Police commandos abseiled down ropes, landing in front of the Gendarmes, guns at the ready.

The Gendarmes looked at their commander. He touched his radio earpiece and listened for several seconds. He shook his head. They lowered their guns.

The crowd roared and cheered.

The Gendarmes stood aside.

The bulldozer tooted its horn and lurched forward, smashing its way through the concrete barriers at the Savoy’s entrance. The crowd poured through, shouting and laughing.

* * *

Daintner walked over to Natasha. Alex jumped to protect her, but Daintner waved him away. He checked her breathing, undid the bindings on her wrists and walked back to Vautker. He opened one of Vautker’s eyes. It looked out, unseeing. Alex stared as Daintner checked his watch.

Daintner said: “Don’t touch the handkerchief. The solution is supposed to work in two minutes, but it appears between three and four is more accurate.”

Daintner picked up the syringe and stuck the needle in Vautker’s arm. He pressed it down steadily until the syringe was empty. Vautker twitched several times and lay still.

“Who
are
you?” asked Alex.

“Let us say....” Daintner paused. “That I am a concerned voter.”

“But how did you... who are you working for?”

“Goodbye, Alex,” said Daintner as he walked out.

* * *

Natasha stirred. She sat up unsteadily, blinking and looking around in confusion.

“Jozsef?” she asked, leaning back against the wall, trying to get her balance.

Alex took off his glasses, walked towards her and crouched down. “No. It’s me.”

Natasha stared hard at him. “
Alex?
How? Am I dead?’ She looked at her hands. “I can’t be, because my wrists really hurt.”

He shook his head. “No, you are definitely not dead.”

Natasha slowly processed her surroundings, flexing her fingers. “Are you dead?”

“No,” he said, smiling widely as he moved nearer to her.

She slapped him hard around the face. “Then what was I doing at your funeral?” she shouted, her eyes blazing. “
Bastard! Liar!
I cried for you. How could you do that to me?” She raised her hand again. “No.
No.
Stay away from me.”

Alex caught her wrist, and pulled her towards him as she pummelled him. He held her tightly, breathing in the smell of her, his hands in her hair. The blows slowed, then stopped.

“I’m sorry,” he said, after they broke apart. “I had to do it like this.”

Natasha wiped her eyes, trying not to smile. “You owe me. You really owe me.”

“I know.”

“A joint by-line.”

He nodded.

“With my name first.”

Alex grinned ruefully and helped her up. They walked to the door where a large envelope was rolled into the handle. He reached for it, but Natasha knocked his hand out of the way. She grabbed the envelope and carefully took out a dozen sheets of aged, grey paper.

“What is it? Tell me,” Alex demanded, reaching for the papers.

Natasha stepped back triumphantly, holding the documents out of reach. She showed him the top page. The title said: “The Budapest Protocol.”

Police seek ‘Directorate’ leadership
as take-over plot exposed

By Natasha Hatvani and Alex Farkas

Police forces across Europe are searching for Dieter Klindern, head of KZX Industries, and Sylvie Krieghaufner, president of the Volkstern Corporation, following the discovery of the bodies of Frank Sanzlermann and Attila Hunkalffy on the banks of the Danube.

Interpol has issued a warrant for their arrest on charges of murder. Budapest police said that Sanzlermann, front-running candidate for President of Europe, and Hungarian Prime Minister Hunkalffy both appeared to have been killed by multiple pistols shots. The politicians’ deaths follow the aborted first round of voting for Europe’s President on Sunday night. It is not clear if or when the European Presidential election will now take place. A spokesman for the European Union said: “We are considering all our options but remain firmly committed to the principles of European unity and integration.”

These have been some of the most tumultuous days in modern European history. Sanzlermann, the right-winger tipped to be Europe’s first President, was the front-man for a shadowy cabal of German and Austrian industrialists, backed by Swiss banks, the
Budapest News
can reveal. The decades old plan to take over Europe was recorded in a document known as the ‘Budapest Protocol’, drawn up at the Hotel Savoy in November 1944 in the last days of the Second World War, and reprinted in this newspaper.

The document, hidden for more than sixty years, details the secret plans of the Nazi leadership to go underground and prepare for the Fourth Reich – an economic, rather than a military empire. The Directorate set up an international network of front companies funded by looted Nazi assets. As the German and Austrian economies were rebuilt after 1945, the Nazi funds were steadily repatriated and used to buy up other companies and banks. The Directorate soon controlled large sectors of the European economy, concentrating on manufacturing, media, pharmaceuticals and industry. Since the collapse of communism in 1989, the Directorate has focused on the post-communist countries, where weak institutions and widespread corruption have eased its covert takeover.

The introduction of the euro and the abolition of national political and economic sovereignty allowed the Directorate to manipulate governments and economies across the continent. The election of Frank Sanzlermann as European President would have been the culmination of the Directorate’s plan. The post was given wide powers over economic and foreign policy, with a veto over new legislation after intense lobbying from Germany and Austria against strong British opposition.

“This was a sinister plot with decades-old roots, that would have allowed the Directorate to hijack the whole process of European integration,” said Istvan Kiraly, former communications director for Sanzlermann, who is now working on a book about the campaign. Kiraly’s revelations of how the Directorate operated are to be exclusively serialised in the
Budapest News
.

The Directorate controlled the extreme nationalist governments in Croatia, Hungary, Slovakia and Romania. Its takeover of eastern Europe was to have been sealed at a dinner at the Hotel Savoy in Budapest. The dinner was also attended by Hungarian Prime Minister Attila Hunkalffy, Slovak President Dusan Hrkna, and his Romanian counterpart Cornelius Malinanescu, together with senior German and Austrian industrialists and Swiss bankers. Hunkalffy’s last weeks in office were marked by an authoritarian clampdown and repeated human rights’ abuses.

The
Budapest News
can also reveal that the Directorate planned to wipe out Europe’s Romany population through ‘Czigex’ a genetically engineered ‘smart drug’ that induces infertility among Romany women. Czigex, which has already been used in eastern Slovakia, is based on the notorious experiments conducted by Nazi doctors in the concentration camps.

The astonishing revelations have sent shock-waves across the world. French President Jean-Luc De Rouen said: “We did not fight the Nazis only to discover that they had secretly won the Second World War. We are reconsidering our future in the European Union.” The future of the euro may be in doubt after its value plunged by thirty per cent overnight against the dollar, and over forty per cent against the pound sterling.

High ranking members of the Directorate are believed to hold senior positions in key committees in Brussels and Strasbourg. Its head was Gerhard Vautker, an eighty-eight year old former SS officer, known as ‘the Colonel’, who was found dead in Budapest on Sunday night. His son, Heinrich Vautker, last night resigned as President of the Federal Monetary Authority, citing ‘personal reasons’. Presidents Hrkna and Malinanescu were both arrested on their return home. Budapest police also announced that George Smith, regional editor in chief of the Volkstern Corporation’s media arm, had been arrested in connection with the murder of Vince Szatmari.

Hundreds of thousands demonstrated on Sunday night in downtown Budapest in a protest organised by the Hungarian Freedom Movement (HFM) against the Hunkalffy government and Frank Sanzlermann in a display of ‘People Power’ not seen since the toppling of Slobodan Miloševič in October 2000. Police commanders refused to arrest the demonstrators after an armed stand-off with the Gendarmerie. “When Hunkalffy called for help, the response mechanism was blocked,” Hungarian intelligence sources said. The leadership of the HFM is unknown. A statement delivered to news agencies announced its dissolution, but warned, ‘Our work is completed for now, but we remain vigilant.’

Inside the Directorate: sixty decades of covert empire-building, and the ‘Budapest Protocol’ page 2,3,4,5,6,7

The Poraymus Project: The Plan for a new Gypsy Holocaust, page 8,9,10

Editorial: The Shadow of 1944, page 12

Business: Euro expansion plans now in question, page 14

Property: Directorate collapse set to trigger price boom, page 16

Media: How Alex and Natasha got the story, page 18

Society: Former Farkas family Balaton villa to be “Miklos Farkas Summer Home for Underprivileged Children”, page 24

This book is a work of fiction but was inspired by a genuine U.S. intelligence document, known as the “Red House Report,” (Appendix Three). Dated London, November 27, 1944, the report was compiled by the G-2 section of SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force) that dealt with economic warfare, and was sent to Cordell Hull, the U.S. secretary of state. It details the “plans of German industrialists for post-war operation,” specifically: patents, financial reserves, the export of capital, and the strategic placing of technical personnel.

The source was an agent of the French Deuxième Bureau, or military intelligence, who had worked for the French on German issues since 1916 and was in close contact with German industrialists. On August 10, 1944, he attended a meeting at the Maison Rouge hotel in Strasbourg, France, where numerous senior German industrialists and Nazi officials discussed their plans for underground activity after Germany’s coming defeat. Among those reportedly attending were representatives of Krupp, Volkswagen, Messerschmitt, and Rheinmetall. The meeting was presided over by SS Obergruppenfuhrer Dr. Scheid, who declared that the war could not be won and German industry should take steps in preparation for a “post-war commercial campaign.” Each industrialist was instructed to make quiet contacts with foreign firms “without attracting any suspicion” and prepare the ground for borrowing “considerable sums from foreign countries after the war.” Such talk was high treason, and any ordinary Germans who expressed such sentiments would likely find themselves very quickly inside a Gestapo cell. But as businessmen, the Nazi leaders at the Maison Rouge were nothing if not practical.

A smaller meeting followed, where even more sensitive matters were discussed. The report recounts: “At this second meeting it was stated that the Nazi Party had informed the industrialists that the war was practically lost, but would continue until a guarantee of the unity of German could be obtained.” The industrialists were instructed to prepare themselves to finance the Nazi Party, which would be “forced to go underground.” At the same time the German government would allocate “large sums” to industrialists to establish a “secure post-war foundation in foreign countries,” while “existing financial reserves in foreign countries must be placed at the disposal of the [Nazi] Party so that a strong German empire can be created after the defeat.”

The instructions to export as much capital as possible ran directly counter to Nazi policy and laws, but by the summer of 1944 Germany’s realists were already planning far ahead. The exported funds were to be channeled through two banks in Zurich, or via agencies in Switzerland that bought property in Switzerland for German concerns using a Swiss cloak, for a 5 percent commission. The report notes: “Previously exports of capital by German industrialists to neutral countries had to be accomplished rather surreptitiously and by means of special influence. Now the Nazi party stands behind the industrialists and urges them to save themselves by getting funds outside Germany and at the same time advance the party’s plans for its post-war operations.”