Assignment - Budapest (21 page)

“He has spirit, that one.”

“It will be broken soon enough,” Durell snapped. He swung to Matyas. “Bring him along. Carry him, if you have to.”

They went back up the stone stairway to the main floor of the prison. Laughter came from the common room used by the resting guards near the front entrance, and Durell turned aside, walking with an impatient stride to the small chamber where he had left Ilona guarding Bela Korvuth and the lieutenant. There was no sign of alarm, and everything looked all right when he entered. Ilona had her gun pointed at Bela Korvuth, who sat slumped against the wall, his eyes open and fixed viciously on the girl.

Ilona raised her brown eyes to Durell, warm with relief.

“I gave him his choice. Shout and die, or sit quietly and live.”

“You will regret it, all of you,” Korvuth whispered. “You are insane if you believe you can escape. Perhaps you exult because you have gotten this far. But your joy will change to screams of pain before it is all finished.”

“Shut up, you,” Matyas growled. He back-handed Korvuth with a swipe of his thick forearm, and Korvuth fell over sidewise, blood gushing from his broken lips. Durell took a handkerchief and tossed it to him.

“Get on your feet. Cover your mouth with that. We’re going out of here.”

“And him?” Matyas asked, pointing to the ratty-faced lieutenant.

The uniformed man was still unconscious. “Leave him,” Durell said.

Matyas jerked Korvuth to his feet. “I don’t like it,” he grunted. “You don’t know this breed. He makes twenty thousand forints a month, and my brother, a refinery worker in Csepel, makes eight hundred. But he is paid so well because they know he is a fanatic, ready to die. It is better if I break his neck.”

Durell looked at the chunky AVO man. “We’re going to Dr. Tagy. We’re taking him out of the country, and we’ll take you part of the way with us. If you yell or raise an alarm now, you will be killed. Matyas will do it gladly. It will mean our deaths, too, but then you will never know what happened to Dr. Tagy. This way, if you have confidence in your abilities, you may find a chance to turn the tables on us, after all, once we join the Tagy family. I offer you this hope, because I know your pride and I know your mind. You will come with us on the chance that you can win the whole of the table stakes.”

Korvuth nodded, holding the handkerchief to his bloody mouth. His eyes were bright with vicious hatred. “Yes. Of course I will go with you. Dr. Tagy is a prize I want to win.” 

“Then your only chance for him is if we get out of here.” 

“I understand. You are a fool, you know.”

Durell smiled tightly. “We’ll see.”

It was done easily, after all. Matyas’ uniform and Korvuth’s presence lending authority to their progress, opened the gates of Rezd Prison to the night. McFee had recovered well enough to walk slowly between Durell and Ilona. Matyas brought up the rear, behind Korvuth. Nobody stopped them. There were no questions. It was easier to get out, Durell reflected, than to get in. Their car was where they had left it, outside the gate in the barbed-wire fence. Korvuth got in the back with Matyas. Durell helped McFee in, and the little man slumped on the seat between himself and Ilona.

The truck full of soldiers was gone. The two tanks were still on guard duty.

Durell started the car. “Dick, can you hear me?”

McFee made a groaning noise.

“Relax,” Durell said. “You’re all right now. Understand? You’re all right.”

“Dreaming . . ." McFee whispered.

Ilona’s teeth were chattering. “Please. Let us go. I think I’m going to be sick. I tried hard not to be afraid, but I think if we stay here another moment—”

“All right,” Durell said. He was worried about McFee's condition. “We’ll go back to town now. We’ve got a long night ahead of us.”

It was an hour later. Durell sat wearily in Maria’s kitchen, a cup of coffee before him, Ilona at his side. Ilona bent forward and kissed him lightly, smiling. “It will be all right, darling. We’re all right so far. All that is left is to get out of the city.”

There was the sound of sirens in the distance. For the past twenty minutes, Durell knew, every police agency in Budapest had been alerted to look for him. His rescue of McFee from the Rezd Prison had become known, and there _ had been no chance to get out of the city before the roads were blocked. Not with McFee the way he was. Whatever drugs had been used on him still had a lingering, stupefying effect, and expect for that brief moment of life in the prison when Durell first saw him, McFee had been dull and listless, scarcely able to walk.

Durell looked around the crowded apartment now, wondering what he could do with all these people. Dr. Tagy and his wife, the boy Janos, Maria and Ilona, McFee, Matyas —all their lives were forfeit. How long would it be before the dragnet being cast in every direction by the AVO happened to fall on this place? He couldn’t guess how much time he had left. The old Zis sedan was hidden in the alley behind the apartment house, but it could well be suicide to try to use it.

“Sam,” Ilona said. “Try to talk to McFee again. We need his help.”

“All right.”

He got up, conscious of his own physical weariness, the drag on his mind. Maria and the boy, Janos, were guarding Bela Korvuth in the main room of the apartment. Mrs. Tagy and Dr. Tagy were in the bedroom with McFee. Matyas stood outside on the street below as a lookout.

McFee looked bad. His breathing was ragged, his color was gray, and Mrs. Tagy shook her head in answer to Durell’s silent inquiry.

“Has the brandy helped?” he asked.

“I could not get him to take any,” the woman said. “He thinks it is poison.”

“He talked to you?”

“Only that. Nothing else.”

“Go out and join the others,” Durell said. “Leave the brandy here. I want to talk to him alone, please.”

The woman hesitated. “How much longer are we to stay here?”

“I don’t know,” Durell said. “I had hoped to get you out of the city tonight. But I don’t know, now.”

“Is this man important to you?”

He nodded. “Very important.”

“You will not take us unless he can come, too?”

“We’ll see,” he said. “Please leave us alone for a few minutes.”

He closed the door after them and walked back to the bed, staring down at Dickinson McFee’s sprawled, thin figure, trying to remember what he knew of the truth serums and will-destroying drugs, and then picked up the brandy and sat down on the bed beside the small man. McFee’s eyes remained closed. His breathing was ragged.

“Dick,” he said quietly. “General, listen to me. You can hear me, I know. This is Durell. Sam Durell. The Cajun. You’re out of the prison and you’re safe. Do you understand? I came over to Budapest to get you out, and now you’re out of that cell and you’re safe, here with me. This is Durell talking to you. I got you away from the AVO. Think about that. You can believe it. Open your eyes and look at me. Take a nip of this brandy. It’s not bad stuff. Of course, my old grandpappy down in Bayou Peche Rouge could distil a batch of the smoothest white corn you ever tasted—I’m sure I gave you some last month when we were in Washington—but this brandy isn’t too bad, either. Look at me, Dick. It’s Durell. Try some of the brandy. You’re safe now.” McFee’s eyes opened suddenly, gray, murky, uncertain. “What is your—grandfather’s name?”

“Jonathan. Grandpappy Jonathan.”

“Name of—his boat?”

“The Three Belles, Dick. You can believe me. You can hear me. It’s Sam Durell. Come on, look at me. Try some of the brandy.”

The little man’s eyes were still cloudy, but his hand came up to touch the bottle, and Durell held it for him until he took a small sip, and then another, and then sighed and shuddered.

“It's a trick.”

“You didn’t look at me. I had to dye my hair, General. It was black, as it should be, until a couple of hours ago. I had to make it blond. That’s the trouble, you’re just not used to it. Look again.”

McFee’s eyes focused with an effort on Durell’s face. Then his glance went around the room, touching the homey, feminine, pitifully meager appointments Maria Stryzyk had used to decorate it. A look of wonder slowly dawned in his haggard face. “Sam?”

“That’s right. Try some more brandy, General. Then try to sit up. I’m going to walk you around. You’ve had a needle, right? You remember it? You were in prison, but I got you out, and now I need you on your feet to help us get all the way out, free and clear of this mess. Come on, sit up. Stand up. Let’s walk a bit.”

It was slow, exhausting work, coaxing the man’s numbed mind and body back to reality. The brandy helped, and Durell was patient, walking him back and forth in the small bedroom. Time was like a giant clamp, squeezing him with impatience, bringing nearer with every minute the threat of ultimate destruction. Yet he could not hurry his work with McFee. He took it slowly, gently, teasing the man’s mind with phrases and memories.

“What happened to your guide Tibor?” he asked once. “Shot. Dead in a ditch.”

“They didn’t find him?”

“Don’t think so.”

“But they got you, eh?”

“The son of a bitch,” McFee muttered.

“Who?”

“Who you think? Our own boy. Ratted on us. Tipped them I was coming in.”

“Wyman? Roger Wyman?”

“Oh, you met him? Bastard. Dirty, treasonous bastard.” “We’ll get him, General. As soon as you can walk, we’ll start out. I’ve got Dr. Tagy and his family with me. I’ve even got Korvuth—”

It had been quiet in the other room until this moment, with only an occasional murmur of conversation from the others. Now Durell suddenly paused, as something suddenly crashed in there, as if a piece of furniture had been knocked over. Ilona’s scream was stifled. There was another crash, and a scuffling of struggling feet, and Durell spun to McFee. “Stay here.”

He slammed open the bedroom door and jumped into the other room. It was Bela Korvuth. Somehow he had managed to get Ilona to drop her guard. He had jumped her, upsetting a round pie-crust table, and grabbed the pistol she had been covering him with. He was turning now, his grin tight, his round face suddenly looking drawn and vicious as he spun toward Durell. The Tagys stood in frightened paralysis. Ilona was sprawled on the floor, struggling to rise. A trickle of blood ran down from her newly dyed black hair. And then Durell heard Maria Stryzyk laugh.

“Bela? Look at me, Bela.”

She had a kitchen knife in her hand. Her narrow, fanatical face was pale with taut rage.

“You killed my brother. You had no right to kill him, no need to bother Endre. He was out of it, he had quit for good—”

Bela Korvuth made the mistake of changing his target from Durell to the dark-haired woman. Maria moved too fast for Durell to interfere. The knife flashed, the blade flickering in the dim light of the crowded room. Durell heard the chunking sound it made as she drove it home. A look of utter amazement came across Bela Korvuth’s face. The assassin whose business it was to kill, to provide death for those he was ordered to kill, looked stunned. The knife was still in Maria’s hand. She screamed something and struck again, and then the blade caught in bone and she was unable to keep her grip on the hilt as Korvuth’s fall wrenched it free. Maria began cursing and kicking at the body, and Durell caught her thin form and flung her aside and then bent to help Ilona.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes, he tried . . . I’m sorry, I was careless, I looked at Dr. Tagy for a moment instead of keeping my eyes on him.”

“Maria?”

The woman said breathlessly: “I’m not sorry. I’d do it again. I wish I could. I wish I could kill him over and over again . . .” Her voice spiralled upward, nearing hysterics, shrill and loud in the narrow room. Durell slapped her, hard. Her head rocked back and a strangled sound moved in her throat, and then she swallowed and leaned back against the wall and then sank slowly to a sitting position on the floor, as if her legs could no longer support her. She began to laugh softly and rock back and forth, hugging herself, never taking her eyes off the dead man.

“No one will weep for that man,” Ilona whispered.

Durell turned and looked at McFee in the bedroom doorway. McFee’s eyes were clear and bright.

Durell caught Janos Tagy’s shoulder and pushed the boy toward the front door of the apartment. “Go down and get Matyas. We’ll need him. We’ve got to pull out of here. Somebody must have heard Maria scream.”

The boy nodded and ran out of the room. Durell went and got the brandy bottle and forced a drink between Maria’s clenched teeth. The woman coughed and sputtered, then laughed softly. “It was for Endre . . ."

“I know. We should thank you. He could have ruined us all.”

“I didn’t do it for you. I did it for Endre.”

Durell turned away from her and looked at Dr. Tagy. “Do you think you can travel now, Doctor?”

“If I must, I can. It will be better if we leave now.” Then Janos came back into the room. His face was white. “Matyas isn’t downstairs on guard any more. He’s gone.” Janos swallowed. “And so is the car.”

The street was dark and cold. Only a few lights shone in the tall windows of the old stone houses that had been converted to apartments, and there was a bright street light at the corner down the hill, where the trolley line came up from the center of Buda. Durell had checked the back alley to make sure that Matyas hadn’t simply moved the car a little farther away from the house. It wasn’t in sight. The others were waiting for him in the dark courtyard behind the apartments. There was no sign of anything suspicious. Perhaps Matyas had simply changed his mind and decided to stay in Budapest; but Durell could not accept that, after the man’s help in the Rezd Prison. Matyas, as well as he, was a marked man.

He heard the sound of a motor grinding up the hill, and paused to watch and wait. The motor was too heavy and strong for a passenger car, yet it did not seem like that of a truck, either. Headlights swung around the corner, and in the glare of the street lamp over the trolley stop, Durell saw it was an old yellow bus. The body of the bus was dark, and it did not seem to be carrying any fares. It came up the hill slowly, the motor straining, and for a moment the headlights caught Durell in the doorway where he watched. The lights blinked off for a moment, then came on again. Durell suddenly stepped forward, recognizing inspiration. He waved his arm, and the bus came to a halt, and Matyas leaned down from the high window of the driver’s seat. The man’s broad, dark face was grinning, his teeth agleam in the dim light.