The Last Frontier (14 page)

'I never opened my mouth,' Reynolds protested. 'As to the question, you guessed the answer. Anybody could. Women and my kind of life are mutually exclusive. Surely you can see that.'
'I know it,' she murmured. 'I also know that two or three times this evening you have turned me away from -- from unpleasant subjects. Inhuman monsters just don't bother about that kind of thing. I'm sorry I called you that, but I'm glad I did, for I found out I was wrong before Jansci and the Count did. You don't know what it's like for me -- these two -- they're always right, and I'm always wrong. But this time I'm right before them.'
'I've no doubt you know what you're talking about...' Reynolds began politely.
'And can't you just see their expressions when I tell them that I sat for ten minutes Tonight with Mr. Reynolds' arm around me.' The voice was demure, with bubbling undertones of laughter. 'You put it round me when you thought I was crying -- and so I was crying,' she admitted. 'Your wolf's clothing is getting a little threadbare, Mr. Reynolds.'
'Good lord!' Reynolds was genuinely astonished. For the first time he realised that his arm lay along her shoulders, he could just feel the touch of her hair on the back of his almost numbed hand. He muttered some discomfited apology, and was just starting to lift his arm when he froze into perfect stillness. Then his arm fell back slowly and tightened round her shoulder as he put his lips to her ear.
'We have company, Julia,' he murmured.
He looked out of the corner of his eye, and his eye confirmed what his abnormally keen ear had already told him. The snow had stopped, and he could clearly see three people advancing softly towards them. He would have seen them a hundred feet away if his vigilance hadn't slipped. For the second time that night Julia had been wrong about the policemen, and this time there was no escaping them. That soft-footed advance was her lips lightly across his cheek and hurried away into the darkness. For a full minute Reynolds stood looking after her, long seconds after she had vanished, thoughtfully rubbing his cheek: then he swore softly to himself, and made off in the opposite direction, head bent forward and hat-brim pulled far down against the snow in his eyes.
When Reynolds reached his room in the hotel, unobserved and by way of the fire-escape, it was twenty minutes to ten and he was very cold and very hungry. He switched on the central heating, satisfied himself that no one had been in the room during his absence, then called the manager on the phone. There had been no message for him, no callers. Yes, he would be delighted to provide dinner even at this late hour: the chef was just going to bed, but would consider it an honour to show Mr. Rakosi just what he could do in the way of an impromptu meal. Reynolds rather ungraciously said that speed was of the essence and that the culinary masterpieces could wait till another day.
He finished an excellent meal and the best part of a bottle of Soproni just after eleven o'clock and prepared to depart. Almost an hour, yet, to his appointment, but what had taken only six or seven minutes in the Count's Mercedes would take far longer by foot, the more so as his route would be wandering and devious. He changed a damp shirt, tie and socks and folded them neatly away, for he did not then know that he was never to see either that room or its contents again, jammed the key in the door, dressed against the winter night and left once more by the fire-escape. As he reached the street, he could hear a telephone ringing faintly, insistently, but he ignored it, the sound could have come from a hundred rooms other than his own.
By the time he had arrived at the street of Jansci's house it was a few minutes after twelve. Despite the brisk pace he had kept up throughout he was half-frozen, but satisfied enough for all that, he was certain that he had neither been followed nor observed since he had left the hotel. Now, if only the Count still had some of that barack left...
The street was deserted and the garage door, when he came to it was, as by arrangement, open. He turned into the darkness of its interior without breaking step, angled confidently across to the corridor door at the other end, and had taken perhaps four paces when the garage was flooded with light at the touch of a switch and the iron doors clanged shut behind him.
Reynolds stood perfectly still, keeping both hands well clear of his clothes, then looked slowly around him. In each corner of the garage, a submachine-gun cradled under his arm, stood a watchful, smiling AVO man, each in his high peaked cap and long, sweeping belted trench-coat. There was no mistaking these men, Reynolds thought dully, there was no mistaking the real thing when you saw it, the coarsened brutality, the leering, expectant sadism of the lowermost dregs of society Which automatically find their ways into the Secret Police of Communist countries the world over.
But it was the fifth man, the little man by the corridor door with the dark, thin, intelligent Jew's face that caught and held his attention. Even as Reynolds looked at him, he put away and buttoned up his pistol, took two steps forward, smiled and bowed ironically.
'Captain Michael Reynolds of the British Secret Service, I believe. You are very punctual, and we sincerely appreciate it. We of the AVO do not like to be kept waiting.'

CHAPTER SIX

Without moving, without speaking, Reynolds stood in the middle of the floor. He stood there, it seemed to him, for an eternity of time, while his mind first of all absorbed the shock, then the bitter realisation, then hunted frantically for the reason for this, for the presence of the AVO and the absence of his friends. But it was no eternity, it was probably no more than fifteen seconds altogether, and even as the seconds passed Reynolds let his jaw fall lower and lower in shock while his eyes slowly widened in fear.
'Reynolds,' he whispered, the word coming awkwardly, with difficulty as they would to a Hungarian. 'Michael Reynolds? I -- -I do not know what you mean, comrade. What -- what is wrong? Why are these guns -- ? I swear I have done nothing, comrade, nothing! I swear it!' His hands were clasped together now, wringing each other till the knuckles stood White, and the tremor in his voice was the quaver of fear.
The two guards that Reynolds could see wrinkled their heavy brows and stared at each other in slow, puzzled wonder, but not even a shadow of doubt touched the dark, amused eyes of the little Jew.
'Amnesia,' he said kindly. 'The shock, my friend, that is why you forget your own name. A remarkable effort, none the less, and had I not known your identity beyond any doubt, I too -- like my men here who do not yet know who you are -- would have been more than halfway towards belief. The British Espionage Service do us a great compliment, they send us only their best. But, then, I would have expected nothing else but the best where the -- ah -- recovery, shall we say -- of Professor Harold Jennings is concerned.'
Reynolds could feel the sickness deep down in his stomach, the bitter taste of despair in his mouth. God, this was even worse than he had feared, if they knew this, they knew everything, it was the end of everything. But the stupid, fearful expression remained on his face: it might have been pinned there. Then he shook himself, a person throwing off the dark terror of a nightmare, and looked wildly around him.
'Let me go, let me go!' His voice was high-pitched now, almost a scream. 'I've done nothing, I tell you, nothing, nothing! I am a good Communist, I am a member of the party.' His mouth was working uncontrollably in a strained face. 'I am a citizen of Budapest, comrade, I have my papers, my membership cards! I will show you, I will show you!' His hand was reaching up to go inside his coat, when he froze at a single word from the AVO officer, a soft-pitched word, but cold and dry and cutting like the lash of a whip.
'Stop!' Reynolds arrested his hand just at the lapels of his coat, then let it fail slowly to his side. The little Jew smiled.
'A pity you will not live to retire from your country's secret service, Captain Reynolds. A pity, indeed, that you ever joined it -- I feel convinced that a notable Thespian has been thereby lost to the boards and the silver screen.' He looked over Reynolds' shoulder at a man standing by the garage door. 'Coco, Captain Reynolds was about to produce a pistol or some such offensive weapon. Relieve him of the temptation.'
Reynolds heard the tread of heavy boots on the concrete floor behind him, then grunted in agony as a rifle butt smashed into the small of his back, just above the kidney. He swayed dizzily on his feet, and through the red haze of pain he could feel trained hands searching his clothes, could hear the little Jew's apologetic murmur.
'You must excuse Coco, Captain Reynolds. A singularly direct fellow in his approach to these matters, always the same. However, experience has taught him that a sample of what misbehaviour will inevitably bring, when he is searching a prisoner, is much more effective than even the direst threats.' His voice changed subtly. 'Ah, Exhibit A, and most interesting. A Belgian 6.35 automatic -- and a silencer -- neither of which is obtainable in this country. No doubt you found them lying in the streets.... And does anyone recognise this?'
Reynolds focused his eyes with difficulty. The AVO officer was tossing in his hand the blackjack Reynolds had taken from his assailant earlier in the evening.
'I think so, I think I do, Colonel Hidas.' The AVO man whom his superior called Coco moved into Reynolds' line of sight -- a mountain of a man, Reynolds could now see, six foot four if an inch, and built accordingly, with a broken-nosed, seamed and brutalised face -- and took the blackjack, almost engulfing it in his huge, black-haired paw. 'This is Herped's, Colonel. Without a doubt. See, it has his initials on the base. My friend Herped. Where did you get this?' he snarled at Reynolds.
'I found it along with the gun,' Reynolds said sullenly. 'In a parcel, at the corner of Brody Sador Street and -- '
He saw the blackjack whipping across, but too late to duck. It smashed him back against the wall, and he slipped down to the floor and pushed himself groggily to his feet. In the silence he could hear the blood from his smashed lips dripping on the floor, could feel teeth loose in the front of his mouth.
'Now, now, Coco.' Hidas spoke soothingly, reprovingly. 'Give that back to me, Coco. Thank you. Captain Reynolds, you have only yourself to blame -- we do not know yet whether Herped is Coco's friend or was Coco's friend: he was at death's door when he was found in that tram shelter where you left him.' He reached up and patted the shoulder of the scowling giant by his side. 'Do not misjudge our friend here, Mr. Reynolds. He is not always thus, as you can judge from his name -- not his own, but that of a famous clown and comic of whom you have doubtless heard. Coco can be most amusing, I assure you, and I have seen him convulsing his colleagues down in the Stalin Street cellars with the interesting variations in his -- ah -- techniques.'
Reynolds said nothing. The reference to the AVO torture-chambers, the free hand Colonel Hidas was allowing this sadistic brute were neither unconnected nor accidental. Hidas was feeling his way, shrewdly assessing Reynolds' reaction and resistance to this line of approach. Hidas was interested only in certain results, to be achieved by the swiftest means, and if he became convinced that brutality and violence were a waste of time with a man like Reynolds, he would desist and seek out more subtle methods. Hidas looked a dangerous man, cunning and embittered, but there was no sadism that Reynolds could see in the dark, thin features. Hidas beckoned to one of his men.
'Go to the bottom of the street -- there's a telephone there. Have a van come round here right away. They know where we are.' He smiled at Reynolds. 'We could not, unfortunately, park it outside the front door. Might have aroused your suspicions, eh, Captain Reynolds?' He glanced at his watch. 'The van should be here in ten minutes, no more, but that ten minutes can be passed profitably. Captain Reynolds might be interested in writing -- and signing -- an account of his recent activities. Non-fiction, of course. Bring him inside.'
They brought him inside and stood him facing the desk while Hidas sat behind it and adjusted the lamp so that it shone strongly into Reynolds' face from a distance of less than two feet.
'We will sing, Captain Reynolds, then we will record the words of the song for a grateful posterity, or, at least, for the People's Court. A fair trial awaits you. Equivocation, outright lies or even delay will serve you nothing. A speedy confirmation of what we already know may yet spare your life -- we would prefer to dispense with what would inevitably become an international incident. And we know everything, Captain Reynolds, everything.' He shook his head, a man remembering and wondering. 'Who would have thought that your friend' -- he snapped his fingers -- 'I forget his name, the squat fellow with the shoulders like a barn door -- would have had such a beautiful singing voice?' He pulled a paper out from a drawer in front of him, and Reynolds could see that it was covered with writing. 'A somewhat unsteady hand, understandable perhaps in the circumstances, but it will serve: I think the judge will have little difficulty in deciphering it.'
In spite of the deep-seated, tearing pain in his side and puffing agony of his smashed mouth, Reynolds felt a wave of elation wash over him and spat blood on the floor to conceal the expression on his face. He knew, now, that no one had talked, because the AVO had caught none of them. The nearest they had come to Jansci and his men, probably, was a glimpse some informer had had of Sandor working about the garage.... There were far too many things wrong with what Hidas had said. •
Sandor, Reynolds was sure, did not know enough to tell Hidas everything he wanted to know. They wouldn't have started on Sandor anyway, not with the girl and Imre around. Nor was Hidas the man to forget the name of any person, especially a name that he had only that evening learned. Besides, the whole idea of Sandor talking under physical torture -- there had been time for nothing else -- was incomprehensible. Hidas, Reynolds reflected grimly, had never been crushed in Sandor's grip and gazed into those gentle, implacable eyes from a range of six inches. Reynolds stared at the document on the table, then looked slowly around him. If they had tried to torture Sandor in that room, he doubted very much whether even the walls would be still standing.
'Suppose you begin by telling us how you entered the country,' Hidas suggested. 'Were the canals frozen, Mr. Reynolds?'
'Entered t)he country? Canals?' Reynolds' voice came thick and blurred through his swollen lips, and he shook his head slowly. 'I'm afraid I don't know -- '
He broke off, jumped sideways and twisted round in one convulsive movement, a movement that sliced fresh agony through his side and back: even in the relative gloom where Hidas was sitting, he had caught the sudden shift of eyes, the tiny nod to Coco, and it was not until afterwards that Reynolds realised that he had probably been meant to catch both. Coco's downward clubbing fist missed him almost completely, the burred edge of a signet ring burning a thin line from temple to jaw, but Reynolds, with the giant guard completely off balance, made no mistake.
Hidas was on his feet now, his pistol showing. His eyes over the tableau: the other two guards moving in with carbines ready, Reynolds leaning heavily on one foot -- the other felt as if it were broken -- and Coco rolling about the floor, writhing in a silent -agony; then he smiled, thinly.
'You condemn yourself, Captain Reynolds. A harmless citizen of Budapest would have been where the unfortunate Coco now lies: the savate is not taught in the schools hereabouts.' Reynolds realised, with a chill wonder, that Hidas had deliberately provoked the incident, indifferent to the consequences to his subordinate. 'I know all I want -- and I do you the compliment of realising that breaking your bones is just a waste of time. Stalin Street for us, Captain Reynolds, and some gentler forms of persuasion.'
Three minutes later they were all inside the; lorry that had just drawn up outside the garage. The giant Coco, grey-faced and still breathing stertorously, was stretched his length on one fore-and-aft bench seat, while Colonel Hidas and two of the guards sat on the opposite bench, with Reynolds sitting on the floor between with his back to the cab: the fourth AVO man was in the cab with the driver.
The smash, the grinding crash that flung all the men in the back of the lorry off their seats and catapulted one of the guards on top of Reynolds, came within twenty seconds of starting off, just as they were rounding the first corner. There was no warning, not even a split second in which to prepare themselves, just a squealing of brakes and tearing of metal as the truck's tyres slithered across the hard-packed snow of the street and bumped softly into the opposite kerb.
They were still sprawled anyhow across the floor of the truck, still recovering their wits to make the first move, when the doors at the back of the truck were flung open, the light switched off and the suddenly darkened interior illuminated a moment afterwards by the white, blinding light from a pair of powerful torches. The long, slender snouts of two gun-barrels, gleaming evilly, slid forward into the narrow arcs of the torch beams, and a deep, hoarse-sounding voice ordered them to clasp their hands above their heads. Then, at some low murmur from the road outside, the two torches and guns moved farther apart and a man -- Reynolds recognised him as the fourth AVO man -- came stumbling into the pool of light, followed almost at once by an unconscious form that was bundled unceremoniously on the floor. Then the doors slammed shut, the truck engine revved furiously in reverse, there came a thin, screeching sound as if the truck were freeing itself from some metal obstruction and a moment later they were on their way again. The whole operation hadn't taken twenty seconds from first to last, and Reynolds mentally saluted the high-speed, smoothly functioning efficiency of a group of experts.
The identity of the experts he did not for a moment doubt, but even so it was not until he had caught a momentary glimpse of the hand that held one of the guns -- a gnarled, scarred hand with a curious bluish-purple mark in the middle, a hand that no sooner appeared than it was snatched back again- -- that the relief of certainty swept over him like a warm and releasing wave: only then, and not till then, could he appreciate how tense and how keyed-up he had been, how steeled his every nerve and thought against the nameless horrors that awaited all the luckless beings Who were ever interrogated in the cellars of Stalin Street.
The agony of his side and mouth was back again, redoubled in its acuteness now that the dread of the future was removed and he could think again of the present. Waves of nausea swept over him, he could feel the blood pounding in his dizzily swimming head, and he knew that it required only the slightest deliberate relaxation of his will for the grateful oblivion of unconsciousness to sweep over him. But there would come a time for that, later.
Grey-faced with the pain, setting his teeth against the groan that came to his mouth, he pushed away the guard who was leaning against and on top of him, bent over and took his carbine away: this he placed on the bench by his left and sent sliding down to the rear where an unseen hand drew it into the darkness. Another two carbines went the same way, followed by Hidas' pistol: his own gun Reynolds retrieved from Hidas' tunic, thrust under his coat, and sat up on the bench opposite Coco.
After a few minutes they heard the truck engine changing down and felt the truck itself braking to a stop. The guns at the back of the truck poked forward a few suggestive inches, and a hoarse voice warned them to keep absolute silence. Reynolds took out his automatic, screwed on the silencer and pressed the barrel none too softly into the base of Hidas' neck: the faint, appreciative murmur from the rear reached him just as the truck ground to a halt.