Europe in Autumn (9 page)

Rudi looked at the card. It was still warm from the printer. It had his photograph embossed on the front, a row of gold contact spots along one of the short edges, and the name ‘Rocco Siffredi.’ He raised an eyebrow. “Thank you,” he said to Hazel.

“Good girl,” Fabio told her. “I always knew you’d come through for us. Didn’t I say Hazel would come through for us, Rocco?”

“You mentioned it, Herr Rausching,” said Rudi.

“Well.” Fabio picked up his case. “I owe you a favour, Hazel. Many thanks.”

“Not at all, Herr Rausching. Happy to help.”

“So. We’ll see you later. Rocco? Shall we? The sooner we get this done, the sooner you can go back to Diana.”

“Danuta,” Rudi said, catching a gleam of wickedness in Fabio’s eye.

“Danuta?” Fabio asked innocently. “I’m sorry; I could have sworn you said Diana.”

Rudi shook his head. “Danuta, Herr Rausching.”

“Rocco has a fiancée,” Fabio stage-whispered to Hazel.

“Lucky Rocco,” said Hazel. She smiled at Rudi.

“This way, Rocco,” Fabio said, indicating one of the staircases. He waved goodbye to Hazel.

Halfway up the stairs, Rudi moved up close to Fabio and said very very quietly, “Rocco Siffredi was a porn star.”

“Was he?” Fabio replied, just as quietly. “Oh well.”

A
T THE TOP
of the stairs a corridor ran entirely around the first storey of the house, lined on the outside with windows and on the inside with ranks of numbered doors. Fabio led him to a door marked 73, took out a key card, and put it in the slot, and opened it.

Inside was a cosy little office with a desk and some easy chairs and another of those unidentifiable pot plants. A set of shelves supported a number of photographs of Fabio with his arm round a dumpy, wistful-looking woman in various outdoor settings. In the Alps. On a boat somewhere warm. At what appeared to be a Formula One motor racing event.

“Frau Rausching?” Rudi asked.

“Hannelore,” agreed Fabio. “Bless her.”

“How long have you been working here?”

Fabio looked at him for a moment, but if the office was bugged and anyone was listening, it might just be considered a legitimate question. “About eighteen months, on and off.”

Rudi nodded. Well, that was interesting. At least it explained Fabio’s occasional absences from Kraków.

“Anyway,” said Fabio. “Make yourself comfortable here for a moment. I have to pop down the corridor and consult with one of my colleagues. I’ll be back shortly.” And he left the office.

Rudi stood looking at the closed door for a minute or so after Fabio’s departure. He was surprised to discover that, on his first live Situation, he felt like a child brought to his father’s workplace.

Fabio had spent almost a week last month barking aphorisms at him. One of these had been, ‘In hostile territory, always assume you’re under surveillance.’ In the spirit of this, Rudi decided to behave like Rocco. Bored, a little resentful at being dragged away from Danuta (who in Rudi’s imagination had short blonde hair and a magnificent bust, just in case anyone asked.) He walked around the office. He looked at the photos again. Fabio and... who? Mrs Fabio? A stringer posing for some pictures in return for what looked like a fairly eventful holiday around Europe? Hard to tell, but he doubted there was a Mrs Fabio. He doubted anyone could stand Fabio long enough to get to the altar.

He went and sat behind Fabio’s desk and tried the swivel chair. He waved a hand at Fabio’s monitor and it lit up with a screensaver of a scruffy-looking Persian cat. There was no point doing anything else. He didn’t know Fabio’s passwords. And even if he did, and if, in defiance of tradecraft, Fabio kept anything interesting on the Consulate’s system, it would be encrypted, and everything else would just be part of Herr Rausching’s legend. It would be worth looking at, to backfill his own legend, but the securityware would be watching, and would wonder why he was looking at it.

Rudi looked at his watch. Ten minutes since Fabio left. He got up and walked over to the easy chairs, grouped around another of those smoked-glass-topped coffee-tables. There was a scatter of Polish lifestyle magazines on the table, and he sat down and leafed through one of them, shaking his head at the recipes. He looked at his visitors’ pass, hanging round his neck on its lanyard. Rocco Siffredi. He shook his head again.

Another ten minutes passed. The door opened. Rudi looked up from the magazine he was reading, expecting to see Fabio, but instead two shaven-headed men wearing identical suits were standing in the doorway. They had the neckless look of career steroid abusers, and little wireless headsets plugged into one ear.

Rudi smiled uncertainly.

T
HEY WERE VERY
polite. They took his clothes. They put him in a cell that was a windowless concrete cube about four metres on a side, whose only features were a drain in the middle of the floor and an armoured glass bubble in the ceiling containing a light source that never went out.

Rudi sat for long periods of time on the floor. When it got too cold under his naked buttocks, he got up and paced around the cell. He lost track of time, but he didn’t worry. It was all a test.

He cursed himself for not realising straight away. It was patently ridiculous that Fabio would just march him across the border without any preparation at all. Therefore it was a test. It was patently ridiculous that someone like Fabio could talk his way past the border guards. Therefore the guards had been in on it. It was patently ridiculous that Fabio could wander around the Line’s Consulate unmolested. Therefore everyone had been in on it. Like the Situation with Max’s cousin, it had all just been a test of nerve and character. All he had to do was sit here and wait for the test to end and he could go back to Restauracja Max.

He was still thinking that, right up to the first time the Line’s security men waterboarded him.

A
T SOME POINT
, he was given an orange jumpsuit to wear, but he didn’t understand what it was and someone had to help him put it on. Then he was helped, not ungently, down a corridor to a little room containing a table and three chairs. A casually-dressed man of indeterminate middle-age was already sitting on one of the chairs. Rudi was invited to sit on the one facing him across the table. The third chair was taken by someone large and humourless.

Rudi and the middle-aged man looked at each other across the table for a long time. Rudi’s legs hurt and he couldn’t stop shaking and he kept feeling moments of weightlessness.

“My name is Kaunas,” the middle-aged man said eventually.

“That’s not a name,” Rudi said through a split lip. “That’s a place.”

Kaunas sat quiet again for a long time. He had a hard face and greying brown hair swept straight back from his forehead. Finally he said, “How are you being treated?”

“I’m being tortured,” said Rudi. “Just look at me.”

“Where is Fabio?” asked Kaunas.

“He went to consult with a colleague down the corridor,” said Rudi. “What day is it?”

Kaunas looked at Rudi again for a long time without speaking. Then he looked at a corner of the ceiling and said, “We’ll be making a formal diplomatic protest. He knows nothing.”

The corner of the ceiling did not answer, but the large humourless person in the third chair got up and lifted Rudi to his feet. “It’s a
place
,” Rudi told Kaunas as he was ushered firmly out of the room.

Instead of being taken back to his cell, or any of the other rooms he’d been in, he was walked up a set of stairs and suddenly found himself in the Consulate’s reception room. Hazel was still behind her desk. He smiled at her as he was walked past, but it made his lip bleed and Hazel looked away.

Outside, the sunshine hurt his eyes, but it was only for a few moments. He was helped into one of those cars with darkened windows and seats so comfortable they felt like leather clouds, and he fell asleep for a while.

He woke up as he was being helped out of the car. He was marched through a loud space, then up some steps, then down a corridor and into a room with a sliding door and a big window and seats facing each other against two of the walls. He was lifted onto one of the seats. The door slid closed. He looked out of the window, and his mind refused to process the scene when everything outside started to slide backwards. He fell asleep again.

Some time later, he woke up again and the view outside the window was different. There was a big sign right outside. It read,
Kraków
, which he thought meant something to him. Then the door slid open and someone came into the room and started to help him to his feet, but his legs hurt and they didn’t work properly and he threw up what little was in his stomach and then he went away for a while.

D
ARIUSZ CAME TO
see him in hospital. Not right away, but after a few days. After Max and the kitchen crew and some (not very many, Rudi was disappointed to discover and determined to revenge) of his acquaintances from other restaurants had visited. He arrived unannounced, outside visiting hours. Rudi, who had been dozing, opened his eyes, and there was the little mafioso, sitting beside the bed and looking as if he wanted a cigarette.

“You took your time,” said Rudi.

“You have our abject apologies,” said Dariusz without preamble.

“Oh,” said Rudi. “Abject apologies. Oh, good.”

Dariusz leaned forward fractionally. “You’re angry, but–”

“Yes,” said Rudi. “I am angry. I
told
you there was something wrong with Fabio, but you wouldn’t listen. ‘He’s a genius, Rudi.’ ‘We must be tolerant of our geniuses, Rudi.’ Fuck you, Dariusz.”

Dariusz paused. Then he said, “You’re angry, but I need to know what you told them.”

Rudi looked at him. “What?”

Dariusz reached out and touched his arm. “I need to know what you told them.”

“Fuck off, Dariusz.” Rudi turned away from him.

“It’s important,” Dariusz continued gently. “You don’t know much, but what you do know could compromise... certain things.”

Rudi turned back to look at him. “I kept your name out of it, if it’s any comfort. But I dropped Fabio in the shit as much as I possibly could.”

Dariusz sat back and nodded, as if hearing confirmation of something. “Something terrible has happened,” he said. “But it had nothing to do with the Coureurs. It was about as off-piste as it’s possible to be. You must understand that.”

“Must I?” Rudi struggled into a sitting position, punching the pillows down behind him. “Must I? You brought me a teacher and he almost got me killed. Must I understand that?”

“Fabio was operating outside orders,” said Dariusz. “He was running his own operation. What he did wasn’t sanctioned by Central. He took you into the Consulate as a patsy to gain time for his own dustoff.”

A patsy. “Well, great.”

Dariusz took his time asking his next question. He watched Rudi’s face. He looked around the room. He looked back at Rudi. He said, “Do you still want to be a Coureur?”

“I
beg
your pardon?” howled Rudi, loud enough to bring a brace of nurses running to see what all the fuss was about. By which time, of course, Dariusz was gone.

1.

“S
MALL NATIONS ARE
like small men,” said the cobbler. “Paranoid. Twitchy. Quick to anger.”

“Mm,” said Rudi.

“I wouldn’t call them
nations
anyway,” the cobbler went on. “Most of them break down after a year or so. Look at me. Don’t smile.” He pointed a little camera at Rudi, paused a moment to frame the shot, and took four pictures. The camera was cabled, along with a number of other little devices and anonymous boxes, into a battered-looking old Motorola phone. “Thank you. In my opinion they don’t have the right to call themselves nations until they’ve been about for a century or so.”

“Is this going to take long?” Rudi asked. “I have a train to catch.”

The cobbler looked at him. “Getting in and out of the Zone is child’s play,” he said soberly. “Residence visas and work permits are much more difficult.”

“I know,” said Rudi.

“My regular pianist wasn’t available; I had to hire someone out of my own pocket.”

“I’m sorry,” Rudi said, hoping the stand-in pianist was trustworthy.

The cobbler kept looking at him. “You’re very young.”

This seemed impossible to argue with. Rudi shrugged.

“Change the colour of your hair,” said the cobbler. “Grow a moustache.”

“I don’t have time to grow a moustache.”

“Well have your hair cut,” the cobbler said testily. “You have time to visit a barber? Alter your appearance somehow. No one ever looks exactly like their passport photograph; it makes immigration officers suspicious if they do.”

“Perhaps I could wear a hat,” said Rudi.

The cobbler looked at him for a few moments longer, then shook his head sadly. He went over to the phone and started to fiddle with its little roll-up tapboard. “And of course the Zone has these paper passports,” he said, looking intently at the phone’s screen. He shook his head at something, poked the tapboard several times. “Silicon is so much easier.”