The Last Frontier (18 page)

The day that followed, an interminable, wonderful Sunday with an azure, cloudless, windless sky and a dazzling white sun turning the undulating plains and heavy-laden pines into an impossibly lovely Christmas card, was never afterwards clear in Reynolds' mind. It was as if everything that day had been seen through a haze, or in a dimly remembered dream: it was almost as if it had been a day lived by someone else, so remote it was, so detached from all reality, whenever he later tried to recall it.
And it wasn't because of his health, the injuries he had received, that all this was so: the doctor had claimed no more than the truth for the effectiveness of his liniment, and though Reynolds' back was still stiff, the pain had gone: his mouth and jaw, too, were healing fast with only an occasional throb to remind him of where his teeth had been before he had ran foul of the giant Coco. He knew himself, and admitted to himself, that it all stemmed from the tearing anxiety in his mind, a savage restlessness that would not let him be still a moment but led him to pacing through the house and over the hard frozen snow outside the house until even the phlegmatic Sandor begged him to take a rest.
Once again, that morning, they had listened to the BBC 7 o'clock broadcast, and once again the message had failed to come through. Brian Jennings had failed to arrive in Sweden, and Reynolds knew that there could be little hope left: but he had been on missions before that had ended in failure, and the failure had never troubled him. What troubled him was Jansci, for he knew that that gentle man, having given his promise of help, meant to carry it out at all costs, even although he must have known, more clearly even than Reynolds himself, just what the cost of trying to rescue the most-heavily guarded man in Communist Hungary must almost inevitably be. And then, beyond that again, he knew that his worry wasn't solely on Jansci's behalf, deep as was his admiration and respect for the man, it wasn't even mainly on his behalf: it was on account of his daughter, who worshipped her father and would be broken-hearted and inconsolable at the loss of the last member of her family left alive. And worst still, she would regard him as the sole instrument of her father's death, the barrier between them would for ever remain, and Reynolds looking for the hundredth time at the smiling curve of the mouth and the grave, troubled eyes above that belied the smile, realised, with a slow wonder and a profound sense of shock, that was what he feared above all. They were together much of the day, and Reynolds came to love the slow smile and the outlandish way she pronounced his name, but once when she said 'Meechail' and smiled with her eyes as well as her lips, he had been brusque to her, even rude, and he had seen the uncomprehending hurt in her eyes as the smile faded and vanished and he himself had felt sick to his heart and more confused than he had been all day.... Reynolds could only feel profoundly thankful that Colonel Mackintosh could not see just then the man whom he regarded as the person most likely to succeed himself some day: but the colonel probably wouldn't have believed it anyway.
The interminable day wheeled slowly to its close, the sun setting over the distant hills to the west burnished the snow capped pine tops with a brush of flame and gold, and darkness fell swiftly over the land as the stars stood white in the frozen sky. The evening meal came and went almost in complete silence, then Jansci and Reynolds tried on, and altered with Julia's help, the contents of the parcel the Cossack had brought home the previous night -- a couple of AVO uniforms. There had been no question of the Count's gambling that these might prove useful when he had sent them, no matter where old Jennings was, they would be essential: they were the 'Open Sesame' to every door in Hungary. And they could only be for Jansci and Reynolds. No uniform Reynolds had ever seen could have stretched across Sandor's shoulders.
The Cossack departed on his motor-bicycle shortly after nine o'clock. He departed dressed in his usual flamboyant clothes, a cigarette over each ear and another unlit in the corner of his mouth, and in high good humour: he could not have failed to observe the strain between Reynolds and Julia during the course of the evening, and had reason for his cheerful smile.
He should have been back by eleven o'clock, by midnight at the latest. Midnight came and went, but there was no sign of the Cossack. One o'clock struck, half past one, anxiety had changed to tension and almost despair, when he made his appearance a few moments before two o'clock. He arrived not on his motor-bike, but at the wheel of a big, grey Opel Kapitan, braked, stopped the engine and climbed out with the unconcerned indifference of one who was accustomed to this sort of thing to the point of boredom. It was not until later that they discovered that this was the first time in his life that the Cossack had ever driven a car, a fact which wholly accounted for his delay in arrival.
The Cossack brought with him good news, bad news, papers and instructions. The good news was that the Count had discovered Jennings' whereabouts with almost ridiculous ease -- Furmint, the Chief of the AVO had told him personally, in the course of conversation. The bad news was two-fold: the place where the professor had been taken was the notorious Szarhaza prison about 100 kilometres south of Budapest, considered the most impregnable fortress in Hungary, and generally reserved for such enemies of the state as were destined never to be seen again; but the Count himself, unfortunately, could not help them: Colonel Hidas himself had personally put him in charge of a loyalty investigation in the town of Godollo where disaffected elements had been giving trouble for some time. Also on the debit account was the fact that Imre was still missing: the Count feared that his nerve had gone altogether and that he had run out on them.
The Count, the Cossack said, regretted that he could provide them with practically no detail at all of the Szarhaza, as he himself had never been there, his sphere of operations being limited to Budapest and north-west Hungary. The internal geography and routine of the prison, the Count had added, were unimportant anyway: only complete and brazen bluff could hope to serve their purposes. Hence the papers. The papers were for Jansci and Reynolds, and masterpieces of their kind. Complete AVO identity cards for both, and a document, on the Allam Vedelmi Hatosag's own headed, unreproduceable notepaper, signed by Fermint and countersigned by a cabinet minister, with the appropriate and correct stamps for each office, authorising the Commandant of the Szarhaza prison to hand over Professor Harold Jennings to the bearers of the document.
It was the Count's suggestion that, should the rescue of the professor still be on the cards, they stood a fair chance: no higher authority could be produced for the release of a prisoner than the document he had provided: and the idea of anyone willingly penetrating the walls of the dreaded Szarhaza was so fantastic as to be beyond sane contemplation.
It was the Count's further suggestion that the Cossack and Sandor should accompany them as far as the inn of Petoli, a small village about five miles north of the prison, and wait there by the telephone: that way all members of the organisation could keep in touch with each other. And, to complete a magnificent day's work, the Count had provided the essential transport. He had omitted to say where he had obtained it.
Reynolds shook his head in wonder.
'The man's a marvel! Heaven only knows how he managed to do all this in one day -- you'd think they'd given him a holiday just to concentrate on our business.' He gazed at Jansci, his face carefully empty of expression. 'What do you think?'
'We will go in,' Jansci said quietly. He was looking at Reynolds, but Reynolds knew he was talking to Julia. 'If there is any hope left of good news from Sweden, we will go in.
He is an old man, and it's inhuman that he should die so far from his wife and from his homeland. If we did not go in...' He broke off and smiled. 'You know what the good Lord -- or maybe I would only get the length of St. Peter -- do you know What St. Peter would say to me? He'd say, "Jansci, we have no place for you here. You cannot expect kindness and mercy from us -- what kindness and mercy had you in your heart for Harold Jennings?"'
Reynolds looked at him, and thought of the man he had revealed himself to be last night, a man to whom compassion in and for his fellow man, and a. belief in an all-embracing supernatural compassion, were the keystones of existence, and knew that he lied. He glanced at Julia, and saw the smile of understanding on her face, then he saw below the shadowing hand and knew that she, too, had not been deceived, for her eyes were dark and stricken and numb.
'... the conference in Paris ends this evening, When an official statement will be issued. It is expected that the Foreign Minister will fly home Tonight -- I beg your pardon, that should read tomorrow night -- and report to the Cabinet. It is not yet known...'
The announcer's voice trailed away into silence, and died away altogether as the radio switch clicked off and for a long moment no one looked at each other. It was Julia who finally broke the silence, her voice unnaturally calm and matter-of-fact.
'Well, that's it, isn't it? That's the password that's been so long in coming. "Tonight -- tomorrow night". The boy is free, he's safe in Sweden. You had better go at once.'
'Yes.' Reynolds rose to his feet. He felt none of the relief, none of the elation that he had expected now that the green light had been given them at last, just a numbness, such as he had seen in Julia's eyes that night, and a strange heaviness of heart. 'If we know, the Communists are bound to know by this time also; he may be leaving for Russia at any hour. We have no time to waste.'
'Indeed we haven't.' Jansci pulled on his greatcoat -- like Reynolds he was already dressed in his borrowed uniform -- and pulled his military gauntlets on. 'Please don't worry about us, my dear. Just be at our H.Q. twenty-four hours from now -- and don't go through Budapest.' He kissed her and went out into the dark, bitter morning. Reynolds hesitated, half-turned towards her, saw her avert her head and stare into the fire, and left without a word. As he climbed into the back seat of the Opel, he caught a glimpse of the Cossack's face, following him into the car: he was beaming from ear to ear.
Three hours later, under a dark and lowering sky heavy with its burden of unshed snow, Sandor and the Cossack were dropped at the roadside, not far from the Poteli Inn. The journey had been completely uneventful, and although they had been prepared for road-blocks there had been none. The Communists were very sure of themselves, they had no reason to be anything else.
Ten minutes later, the great, grey forbidding mass of the Szarhaza came into sight, an old, impregnably walled building surrounded now by three concentric rings of barbed wire with ploughed earth between, the wire no doubt electrified and the earth heavily sown with fragmentation mines. The inner and outer rings were dotted with manned machine-gun towers raised high on wooden stilts, and, gazing at it for the first time, Reynolds felt the first touch of fear, the realisation of the madness of what they were doing.
Jansci might well have divined his feelings, for he made no comment, increased speed over the last half-mile and skidded to a stop outside the great arched gateway. One of the guards came rushing forward, gun in hand, demanding to know their identity and see their papers, but stepped back respectfully as Jansci emerged in his AVO uniform, froze him with a single contemptuous glance and demanded to see the commandant. It spoke well for the terror inspired by that uniform, even among those who had no reasonable cause to fear it, that Jansci and Reynolds were inside the commandant's office in five minutes' time. The commandant was the last kind of person Reynolds would have expected to see in that position. He was a tall, slightly stooped man in a well-cut dark suit, with a high-domed, thin, intellectual face. He wore a pince-nez, had lean capable hands and looked to Reynolds more like an outstanding surgeon or scientist. In point of fact he was both, and reckoned the greatest expert on psychological and physiological breakdown procedures outside the Soviet Union.
He had no suspicions as to their genuineness, Reynolds could see. He offered them a drink, smiled when they refused it, gestured them to a seat and took the release paper that Jansci handed him.
'Hm! No doubt about the validity of this document, is there, gentlemen?' 'Gentlemen,' Reynolds noted. A man had to be very sure of himself before he used that word in place of the ubiquitous 'comrade.' 'I have been expecting this from my good friend Furmint, After all, the conference opens today, does it not? We cannot afford to have Professor Jennings absent. The brightest jewel in our crown, if one may use a somewhat -- ah -- outmoded expression. You have your own papers, gentlemen?'
'Naturally.' Jansci produced his, Reynolds did the same, and the commandant nodded, apparently satisfied. He looked at Jansci, then nodded at his phone.
'You know, of course, that I have a direct line into the Andrassy Ut. I can take no chances with a prisoner of Jennings' -- ah -- magnitude. You will not be offended if I phone for confirmation of this release -- and of your identity papers?'
Reynolds felt his heart miss a beat, felt the skin on his face tighten till it seemed like waxed paper. God, how could they possibly have overlooked so obvious a precaution? Their pistols -- there was only the one chance, their pistols, the commandant as hostage.... His hand was actually beginning to move when Jansci spoke, his voice magnificent in its assured confidence, his face unclouded by the slightest trace of worry.
'But of course, Commandant! A prisoner of Jennings' importance? We should have expected nothing else.'
'In that case there is no need.' The commandant smiled, pushing the papers across the desk, and Reynolds could feel every stiffened muscle in his body relax as relief poured over him, flooded him like a great wave. He was beginning to realise, just vaguely realise, what manner of man Jansci really was: in comparison, he himself had not yet started to learn.
The commandant reached for a sheet of paper, scribbled on it and stamped it with an official seal. He rang a bell, handed it to a warder and dismissed the man with a wave of his hand:
"Three minutes, gentlemen, no more. He is not far from here,'