The Budapest Protocol (34 page)

“Welcome to
Nyolcker TV
,” Mike said, gesturing at the bank of television screens. “As you can see, we have prepared a real Gypsy welcome for you,” he continued, triggering laughter from the women. “We are broadcasting live over the internet. We have a dozen cameras covering the whole area.” Jamila vanished, replaced by pictures of the police across the street, now watching themselves on the screens. “You can watch it at nyolcker.com. We are also uploading to You Tube and Google Video. So whatever you do next, remember the whole world is watching.”

The Pannonia Brigade arrived and spread out along the Boulevard, past Jozsef Street and Rakoczi Square to Berkocsics Street, the men standing three or four deep, a few feet in front of the Romany women. The Pannonia Brigade commander huddled with the Gendarmes’ captain. The Gendarme shouted and gesticulated, telling him to send the Pannonia Brigade to break through the line of Romany women. The Pannonia Brigade commander pointed at the television screens. The screens switched back and forth between the two men arguing with each other. The Pannonia Brigade commander shook his head in disgust and walked away. The Brigade fell back, the men forming squads and marching back down the Boulevard. The Gypsy women laughed and jeered, banging their saucepans and frying pans as hard as they could.

The rusty device was mounted on a wooden plinth in a glass case. Alex read the label: “Cogwheel and tubing from a water pump used in the first Budapest municipal effluent treatment plant. Circa 1887.” Housed in a riverside warehouse, the city’s Museum of Water Treatment and Sewage was far from the tourist trail, on the fringes of the Ninth district, the rough working class area than ran along the Pest side of the Danube. Alex was the only visitor. He looked at his watch. Cassandra Orczy had told him to be here at 1.00pm. It was now 12.50pm.

Natasha had gone to have lunch with Kitty Kovacs. He smiled as he imagined their conversation, as she updated her on all the news. Not only about her love-life but how Mike and the
Nyolcker
women had seen off the Pannonia Brigade. David Jones had already put out a Reuters story, headlined “Romany women face down Hungarian Fascists”, with Edina’s pictures. The blogosphere was ablaze with follow-up reports and comments. He was meeting Natasha at Parliament that afternoon for the inauguration of the Volkstern Corporation exhibition. He felt warm and happy. He replayed the night in the cinema of his head, over and over again. His mind lingered on a picture of her moving against him, her back arched, her mouth open and her eyes locked onto his. He brought his fingers to his nose and inhaled. He could still smell her: delicate sweat, rich evening perfume and a metallic feminine tang.

He turned round as a clatter of high heels resounded through the empty room. “You look different,” said Cassandra, eyeing him up and down. “Like the cat who got the cream.”

They shook hands, and she unbuttoned her coat.

“I’m enjoying myself. This is a fascinating place,” said Alex dryly. “How is your father?”

“That’s why I like these museums. Obscure, out of the way but always interesting. My father is much better, thank you. He’s back at home. Ordering his wife around and generally terrorising everybody.”

“His wife?” asked Alex, looking quizzically at her.

“My mother was not his wife. She was someone else’s wife. It was all a long time ago.”

“Not that long ago,” he said.

She smiled. “You’re very charming. Let’s walk and talk. I’ve brought something for you. A token of good faith. I expect something in return.”

They stopped in front of a delicate medieval engraving of the course of the Danube, with all its tributaries, every one now vanished under the city.

She handed Alex a copy of the memo from the head of the Hungarian State Security Service, announcing that it was to be merged with the Gendarmerie.

Alex read it carefully. A major story. An internal coup, in effect.

“Can I keep this?” he asked.

“That piece of paper means that I am no longer employed. There is no point in me applying for a job with the Gendarmerie, not that I ever would.”

“What are you going to do now?”

“I, and several of my colleagues, have, let us say, gone freelance. Let’s go for a walk. What have you got for me?”

The river was running high, an oily scum swirling on the grey waters. A plastic bottle bobbed and twisted in the current. Alex said: “We know what KZX is doing. It’s called The Poraymus Project, named after the Romany Holocaust. It’s based on Czigex, the world’s first genetically engineered smart racial drug. For female Romany patients only. Take one capsule after meals, with water, and...”

“You will never have another child?” asked Cassandra.

“Exactly. And take a look at this.” He took his mobile and played the video clip he had received that morning.

Cassandra blanched. “
Jézus-Maria
. That’s hideous.” She sat down on a nearby bench, reached into her bag and took out two photographs. “Are these the Roma that you met in Novy Marek?”

He sat down next to her. ‘Yes. Why?”

“Alex, I have bad news. Teresa Sandori and her husband Virgil died in a fire two days ago. Their house burnt to the ground in five minutes. The Slovak authorities blamed it on ‘faulty wiring’, and a pirated electricity supply.”

Alex felt sick. The bench was cold and hard against his back. He saw baby Mario resting against Teresa’s shoulder, and the pride in Virgil’s eyes as he explained how he would stay with his ‘little dove’, even if they would have no more children. Had he had done this? Would they still be alive if he had not talked his way into their house, pried open their lives?

“Are you sure? How do you know it was them?” Alex asked.

“We received a report about a fire there. It included the photographs taken for Teresa and Virgil’s identity cards.”

“They had a baby,” said Alex.

Cassandra shook her head. “I’m so sorry.”

“Were they murdered? Was it arson?” asked Alex.

Cassandra nodded slowly, her voice grave. “We believe so, yes.”

“Teresa and Virgil are dead because they spoke to me,” said Alex, in a low monotone.

Cassandra said nothing for several moments. “No, Teresa and Virgil are dead because someone killed them. Not you. You can’t torture yourself over this Alex.”

Alex stared at the river. “Tell me about the Directorate.”

Orczy started with surprise. “How do you know about that?”

“So it does exist.”

Cassandra looked at the water rushing by. “Very much so. Unfortunately.” A police motorboat roared down the river towards the Chain Bridge, its blue lights flashing. She sat for several moments. “We think the Directorate was formed towards the end of the war, in Budapest. There was a meeting attended by high-level German industrialists, bankers and economic officials. It’s somehow tied into the European Union and the adoption of the euro.”

“The evening of November 9 1944, at the Hotel Savoy,” said Alex, as he pulled out a photocopy of Miklos’ hidden testimony.
“Our battlefields will be the corridors of banks and industries, our weapons not soldiers and guns, but balance sheets and currency markets... The Nazi party went underground, funded by German banks and industrialists. Massive amounts of capital, looted gold, works of art, stocks and shares stolen from the Nazis’ victims were exported through Swiss banks, or were held in their vaults as security against loans
, and so on. It’s all here. I think I know more about the Directorate than you.”

Cassandra turned in surprise. “Where did you get those papers?”

He handed the sheets to Cassandra. “It’s my grandfather’s secret testimony. Miklos was at the Savoy that night. He was a waiter. There was a drunken dinner. I think he was going to tell me everything. There was an actual document from 1944 setting out the whole plan and how the Directorate would work, but Miklos destroyed it. The Nazis loved paperwork, so there must be other copies. That’s why he was murdered. That’s why Vince Szatmari was killed, because he found out their plans. Set up a puppet government and take control of the economy. Then drastically devalue the forint, so Directorate front companies can buy every Hungarian asset for next to nothing. Siphon off the profits, close the companies down and absorb them into KZX and the Volkstern Corporation. Hungary is a trial run. Then they will do the same in Croatia, Slovakia and Romania. Sanzlermann is the front man. Hunkalffy, Dragomir Zorvajk, Dusan Hrkna and Cornelius Malinanescu are just stooges. And then the Czech Republic and Poland, and the Balkans.”

Orczy peered at the spidery writing. She read through the papers slowly, turning them over one by one, nodding to herself. “We think the Directorate is meeting again. Next Sunday, November 9, election day. A private dining room is booked at the Hotel Savoy. Volkstern security staff are already taking the walls, floors and light fittings apart.”

“But you could get someone inside,” said Alex immediately.

“Who?” she asked. She saw his expression and smiled wearily. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

Alex watches Azra pray, her lips moving quickly as the Bosnian Serb soldier drags her away, drunk and laughing. She sees him, parked on the other side of the checkpoint, safe on the Croatian side of the border. Azra turns towards him and mouths his name. An iron hand clamps his arm as he moves for the car door. “You can do
nothing
,” his interpreter hisses. “
Nothing
. They will kill you without thinking, just for fun, and claim it was Muslim terrorists.” The soldier and Azra vanish into the woods. He can no longer see them. A scream, an animal howl like nothing he had ever heard, and a single gunshot. He should have gone to her. He should have gone. He gets out of the car and throws up at the side of the road.

Azra, Miklos, Vince; Teresa, Virgil, Mario – the names resounded in Alex’s head. The list was getting longer and longer, he thought grimly. “I could be a waiter. You can get me in.”

Cassandra shook her head. “They will kill you.”

Alex moved closer to her. “Only if they find out who I am,” he said, his voice intense. “We both want the same thing: to expose the Directorate. You need someone on the inside. I need to get inside, to infiltrate the dinner. Then I can find out how the Directorate works, who are its members, what are its plans. I need to be there, to see it first-hand. It’s the last part of the story.”

She looked again through Miklos’ secret testimony. “The story. Still the reporter.”

Alex stared out at the river, seeing Azra’s anguished face. “Yes, I am. That’s what I do.”

“If,
if
, we did send someone in, why should it be you?”

“This started at the Savoy with Miklos in 1944. It ends there with me now.”

“And you would share everything you know with us? And whoever else wanted to know? You can write your article but you would also be working for us. Doesn’t that bother you?”

Alex rolled his teeth over his lip. “Yes, it does. But I wouldn’t have any choice, would I?”

Cassandra put the copy of Miklos’ testimony in her bag and looked hard at him. “No. You would not. And there’s no guarantee we could get you out to write anything.”

She smiled ruefully to herself, and searched in her handbag. A distant roll of thunder sounded and the sky turned dark. “Meanwhile, there’s something else you should have.”

“What?”

“This,” she said, handing him a photograph of a villa on the shores of Lake Balaton.

A cold winter rain fell on the window of the Number 2 tram as it trundled along the riverbank towards Parliament. Alex checked his watch. Just after 2.30pm. Less than half an hour and he would be with her again. The carriage was crowded with shoppers going home from the market at the Freedom Bridge. A short, stocky bald man with a determined expression rummaged through a bag of potatoes. He wore a thin denim jacket, acrylic jumper and brown polyester trousers, and held the potatoes between his thumb and forefinger, reciting the price of each.

His voice rose steadily in volume as he addressed the carriage, until he was shouting, “How can I feed my family? How can we live like this?”

He turned to an elderly woman wrapped in an expensive, black wool coat. She was reading
Ébredjetek Magyarok!
, a prim hat perched on her neat grey hair and a fur stole around her neck.

“Dear Madame, do you know I have worked for thirty years? I have three children and a wife and we have not eaten meat, even a piece of sausage, for two weeks,” he said.

“Look Madame, I work in a factory,” he continued, showing her his grubby palms and grimy nails. “Every day, for nine hours. But we eat potatoes. The Prime Minister rides in helicopters, while we eat potatoes. Can you explain to me why?”

The woman shook her head disapprovingly, tutted and turned away, burying her face in her newspaper. The bald man fell silent, and bent low over his shopping, holding his head in his hands. A plump Romany woman in an orange floral skirt, with a child on her knee, patted him on the back, and mumbled some words of comfort. The tram stopped in front of the Hotel Bristol. A skinhead strutted on board, dressed in a shiny black bomber jacket. He stood next to the Romany woman, wiping the surface of his black jacket with his hand and sniffing contemptuously.

“Dirty Gypsy. Filthy, filthy,” he said. He prodded the baby with a thick, stubby finger. The baby began to cry. “Breeding like animals. Everywhere you look, Gypsies, foreigners and Jews.”

The Romany woman tried to hunch into herself. She gathered her baby closer, but it kept crying.

“Shut your brat up, or I will do the job for good,” the skinhead said. He jabbed the baby again with his finger. It howled even louder. The carriage fell silent, and the wheels rattled, as the tram passed the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. A large banner over the entrance proclaimed that it had just been renamed the National Academy of Hungarian Intellects. Alex looked around the carriage as the skinhead contined abusing the Romany woman, the anger rising within him. A silver-haired man wearing glasses shrugged his shoulders, turned away and looked out of the window. Alex caught the eye of the bald man with the bag of potatoes. He tucked his shopping under the seat and stood up. He raised his eyebrows and looked at the skinhead.