The Last Frontier (9 page)

'You've already done more than enough,' Reynolds assured him. 'I'm alive, aren't I? And I won't leave this room till I hear from you?'
'Not a step. Well, a little sleep, then on with the uniform and my daily stint of terrorising all and sundry.' The Count smiled wryly. 'You cannot imagine, Mr. Reynolds, what it feels like to be universally beloved. Au revoir.'
Reynolds wasted no time after the Count had gone. He felt desperately tired. He locked his room door, securing the key so that it could not be pushed clear from the outside, placed a chair-back under the handle as additional security, locked his room and bathroom windows, placed an assortment of glasses and other breakable articles on the window-sills -- a most efficient burglar alarm, he had found from past experience -- slipped his automatic under his pillow, undressed and climbed thankfully into bed.
For a minute or two only his thoughts wandered over the past few hours. He thought of the patient and gentle Jansci, a Jansci whose appearance and philosophies were at such wild variance with the almost incredible violence of his past, of the equally enigmatic Count, of Jansci's daughter, so far only a pair of blue eyes and golden hair without any personality to go with them, of Sandor, as gentle in his own way as his master, and of Imre with the nervous shifting eyes.
He tried, too, to think of tomorrow -- today, it was now -- of his chances of meeting the old professor, of the best method of handling the interview, but he was far too tired really, his thoughts were no more than a kaleidoscope pattern without either form or coherence, and even that pattern blurred and faded swiftly into nothingness as he sank into the sleep of exhaustion.
The harsh jangling of the alarm clock roused him only four hours later. He woke with that dry, stale feeling of one who is only half-slept, but none the less he woke instantly, cutting off the alarm before it had rung for more than a couple of seconds. He rang down for coffee, put on his dressing-gown, lit a cigarette, collected the coffee pot at the door, locked it again and clamped the radio's headphones to his ears.
The password announcing Brian's safe arrival in Sweden was to consist of a planned mistake on the announcer's part: it had been agreed that he would say, '... Tonight -- I beg your pardon, that should read "tomorrow" night.' But the BBC's short-wave European news transmission that morning was innocent of any such deliberate slip, and Reynolds took off the headphones without any feeling of disappointment. He hadn't really expected it as early as this, but even so remote a chance was not to be neglected. He finished the rest of the coffee and was asleep again within minutes.
When he woke again he did so naturally, feeling completely rested and refreshed. It was just after one o'clock. He washed, shaved, rang down for lunch, dressed and then pulled apart his window curtains. It was so cold outside that his windows were still heavily frosted, and he had to open them to see what the weather was like. The wind was light, but it struck through his thin shirt like a knife, and it had all the makings, he thought grimly, of an ideal night for a secret agent at large -- provided, that was, that the secret agent didn't freeze to death. The snowflakes, big, lazy, feathery snowflakes, were swirling down gently out of a dark and leaden sky. Reynolds shivered and hastily closed the window, just as the knock came on the door.
He unlocked the door and the manager carried in a tray with Reynolds' lunch under covers. If the manager resented what he must have regarded as menial work, he showed no signs of it: on the contrary, he was obsequiousness itself, and the presence on the tray of a bottle of Imperial Aszu, a mellow and golden Tokay with, Reynolds rightly judged, the scarcity value of gold itself, was proof enough of the manager's almost fanatical desire to please the AVO in every conceivable way. Reynolds refrained from thanking him -- the AVO, he fancied, were not given to such little courtesies -- and waved a hand in dismissal. But the manager dug into his pocket and brought out an envelope, blank on both sides. 'I was told to deliver this to you, Mr. Rakosi.'
'To me?' Reynolds' voice was sharp, but not with anxiety.
Only the Count and his friends knew his new assumed name. 'When did it arrive?'
'Only five minutes ago.'
'Five minutes ago!' Reynolds stared coldly at the manager and his voice dropped a theatrical octave: melodramatic tones and gestures that would have led only to ridicule back home. were, he was beginning to discover, all too readily accepted as genuine in this terror-ridden country. 'Then why wasn't it brought to me five minutes ago?'
'I'm sorry, comrade.' The quaver was back in the voice once more. 'Your -- your lunch was almost ready, and 1 thought -- 9
'You're not required to think. Next time a message arrives for me deliver it immediately. Who brought this?'
'A girl -- a young woman.'
'Describe her.'
'It is difficult. I am not good at this.' He hesitated. 'You see she wore a belted raincoat, with a big hood attached. She wasn't tall, short almost, but well built. Her boots -- '
'Her face, idiot! Her hair.'
'The hood covered her hair. She had blue eyes, very blue eyes....' The manager seized eagerly on this point, but then his voice trailed away. 'I'm afraid, comrade -- ' Reynolds cut him off and dismissed him. He had heard enough and the description tallied sufficiently well with Jansci's daughter. His first reaction, surprising even to himself, was a faint stirring of anger that she could be risked in this fashion, but on the heels of the thought came the awareness of its injustice: it would have been highly dangerous for Jansci himself, with a face that must have been known to hundreds, to move abroad in the streets, and Sandor and Imre, conspicuous figures as they must have been in the October Rising, would be remembered by many: but a young girl would rouse neither suspicion nor comment, and even if inquiries were made later, the manager's description would have fitted a thousand others.
He slit open the envelope. The message was brief, printed in block capitals: 'Do not come to the house Tonight. Meet me in the White Angel Cafe between eight and nine.' It was signed 'J.' Julia of course, not Jansci -- if Jansci wouldn't take the chance of walking through the streets, he certainly wouldn't go near a crowded cafe. The reason for the change in plan -- he had been supposed to report to Jansci's house after his meeting with Jennings -- he couldn't guess. Police or informer surveillance, probably, but there could be half a dozen other reasons. Typically, Reynolds wasted no time in worrying about it: guessing would get nowhere, and he would find out from the girl in due time. He burnt letter and envelope in the bathroom washbasin, flushed away the ashes and sat down to an excellent dinner.
The hours came and went. Two o'clock, three o'clock, four o'clock and still no word from the Count. Either he was having difficulty in getting the information or, more likely, he could find no opportunity of passing it on. Reynolds, interrupting his pacing of the room only for an occasional glance through the window at the snow sifting down soundlessly, more heavily than ever, on the houses and streets of the darkening city, was beginning to grow anxious: if he was to find out where the professor was staying, interview him, persuade him to make the break for the Austrian frontier and himself be at the White Angel Cafe -- he had found its address in the directory -- by nine o'clock, time was growing very short indeed.
Five o'clock came and passed. Half-past. Then, at twenty minutes to six, the telephone bell jangled shrilly in the silence of the room. Reynolds reached the phone in two strides and picked up the receiver.
'Mr. Buhl? Mr. Johann Buhl?' The Count's voice was low and hurried, but it was unmistakably the Count's voice.
'Buhl speaking.'
'Good. Excellent news for you, Mr. Buhl. I've been to the Ministry this afternoon, and they're very interested in your firm's offer, especially in the rolled aluminium. They'd like to discuss it with you right away -- provided you're willing to accept their top price -- ninety-five.'
'I think my firm would find that acceptable.'
'Then they will do business. We can talk over dinner. Six-thirty too early for you?'
'Not at all. I'll be there. Third floor, isn't it?"
'Second. Until six-thirty, then. Good-bye.' The receiver clicked, and Reynolds replaced his own phone. The Count had sounded pushed for time and in danger of being overheard, but he had got all the information through. B for Buhl -- that was indeed the Three Crowns Hotel, the one exclusively staffed by the AVO and its creatures. A pity, it made everything trebly dangerous, but at least he would know where he stood there -- every man's hand would be against him. Room 59, second floor and the professor dined at six-thirty, when -his room would be, presumably, empty. Reynolds looked at his watch and wasted no more time. He belted on his trench-coat, pulled his trilby well down, screwed the special silencer on to his Belgian automatic, and stuck the gun in his right-hand pocket, a rubberised torch in the other and two spare clips for the gun in an inside jacket pocket. Then he rang the switchboard, told the manager that he was on no account to be disturbed by visitors, telephone calls, messages or meals during the next four hours, secured the key in the lock, left the light burning to mislead any person inquisitive enough to peep through the keyhole, unlocked the bathroom window and left by the fire-escape.
The night was bitterly cold, the thick, soft snow more than ankle deep and before he had covered two hundred yards Reynolds' coat and hat were as white, almost, as the ground beneath his feet. But he was grateful for both the cold and the snow: the cold would discourage even the most conscientious of the police and secret police from prowling the streets with their usual vigilance, and the snow, apart from shrouding him in the protective anonymity of its white cocoon, also muffled every noise, reducing even the sound of his footfalls to the merest whisper. A night for a hunter, Reynolds thought grimly.
He arrived at the Three Crowns in less than ten minutes -- even in the snow-filled gloom he had found his way there as unerringly as if he had lived in Budapest all his days -- and made his first circumspect inspection of the place, keeping to the far side of the street.
It was a big hotel, occupying a city block to itself. The entrance, the big double glass doors open to the night with a revolving door behind the vestibule, was bathed in a harsh fluorescent light. Two uniformed doormen, occasionally stamping their feet and beating their arms against the cold, guarded the entrance: both men, Reynolds could see, were armed with revolvers in buttoned-down holsters, and carried a baton or night-stick apiece. They were no more doormen than he was himself, Reynolds guessed, but almost certainly regular members of the AVO. One thing was certain: no matter how he was going to effect an entry, it wasn't going to be through that front door. All this Reynolds saw out of the corner of his eyes as he hurried along the other side of the street, head bent against the snow, to all appearances a man homeward bound with all speed to the comforts of his own fireside. As soon as he was out of their sight, he doubled in his tracks and made a quick examination of the sides of the Three Crowns. There was no more hope here than there had been at the front: all the ground-floor windows were heavily barred and the windows of the story above might as well have been on the moon as far as accessibility was concerned. That left only the back.
The trade and staff entrance to the hotel lay through a deep archway in the middle of the wall, wide enough and high enough to take a big delivery truck. Through the archway Reynolds caught a glimpse of the snow-covered courtyard beyond -- the hotel was built in the form of a hollow square -- an entrance door at the far side, opposite the main doors, and one or two parked cars. Above the entrance door to the main block, a hooded electric lantern burned brightly and light shone from several of the ground and first-floor windows. The total illumination was not much, but enough to let him see the angular shapes of three fire-escapes zig-zagging upwards before being lost in the snow and the darkness.
Reynolds walked to the corner, glanced quickly round him, crossed the street at a fast walk and made his way back towards the entrance, hugging the hotel wall as closely as he could. • Approaching the opening of the archway, he slowed down, stopped, pulled the brim of his hat farther over his eyes, and peered cautiously round the corner.
For the first moment he could see nothing, for his eyes, so long accustomed and adjusted to the darkness, were momentarily dazzled, blinded by the beam from a powerful torch, and in that sickening instant he was certain he had been discovered. His hand was just coming out of his pocket, the butt of the automatic cradled in his hand, when the beam left him and went round the inside of the courtyard.
The pupils of his eyes slowly widening again, Reynolds could see now what had happened. A man, a soldier armed with a shoulder-slung carbine, was making his rounds of the perimeter of the courtyard, and the carelessly swinging torch light had illuminated Reynolds' face for an instant, but the guard, his eyes obviously not following the beam, had missed it.
Reynolds turned into the archway, took three silent paces forward and stopped again. The guard was going away from him now, approaching the main block, and Reynolds could clearly see what he was doing. He was making a round of the fire-escapes shining his light on the bottom, snow-covered flight of steps of each. Reynolds wondered ironically whether he was guarding against the possibility of outsiders going in -- or insiders going out. Probably the latter -- from what the Count had told him, he knew that quite a few of the guests at this forthcoming conference would willingly have passed it up in exchange for an exit visa to the west. A rather stupid precaution, Reynolds thought, especially when it was made so obvious: any reasonably fit person, forewarned by the probing torch, could go up or down the first flight of a fire-escape without his feet making any telltale tracks on the steps.
Now, Reynolds decided, now's my chance. The guard, passing under the electric storm lantern at the far entrance, was at his maximum distance, and there was no point in waiting until he had made another circuit. Soundlessly, a shadowy ghost in the white gloom of the night, Reynolds flitted across the cobble stones of the archway, barely checked an exclamation, halted abruptly in mid-step and shrank into the wall beside him, legs, body, arms and widespread, stiff-fingered hands pressing hard against the cold, clammy stone of the wall behind, the brim of his hat crushed flat between the side of his head and the archway. His heart was thumping slowly, painfully in his chest.