The Paper Factory (Michael Berg Book 1) (9 page)

Chapter 28

  A sense of euphoria flowed through her. Everything will be all right. Always. They were ahead of her. Not far. Trailing through the long grass. Her mother and Gusztav, hand in hand, laughing at something Papa had said. They were like giants to her, Papa particularly. His broad shoulders and tall, formidable build offering security and protection she was lucky to have.

  Gusztav
let go of her mother’s hand and ran off into the trees. Chasing a bird. She called out for them to wait. They stopped. Playing a familiar game. They would stand like statues until she touched them.

 
She ran to her parents, jumping in between them, clutching both of their hands at the same time, looking up to see their statuesque faces coming to life. She tilted her head upwards. Her mother’s face shocking white, unsmiling, dead. In horror she turned towards her father for reassurance. One eye stared blankly back at her from the remains of his skull, face ripped apart. 
  The scream tore through her. At the end, always the scream. Seconds passed. It had come from her own lips. The thumping of her heart began to ebb. Tears streamed down her cheeks, the deep chasm between the happiness of her childhood and the reality of the last two years impossible to bear. She turned over. The pillow damp with perspiration.

  It was difficult to breathe. S
he couldn’t lift herself from the bed. Her thoughts were dark, dull, never let in the light. It could last for hours, days at a time. She had been so close. Missed her chance to kill him. Nowhere else to go. The trail was cold. She had given it her best. Nothing to be done.

  She flinched, the noise flipping her out of the dark funk that had swallowed her. It had taken her by surprise. Rarely did the phone ever ring.

Chapter 29

 
The caller was persistent. She’d let the phone ring out twice. Barely a moment later it rang again. In her current state of mind, she couldn’t face talking to anyone. Too much of an effort. She reached out to the bedside table on which the phone rested, picked it up and looked at the screen. Unidentified number. She let her hand drop to the bed while the call died. It rang again.
This is ridiculous. I’m a thirty-five-year-old woman, lying in bed at two in the afternoon and I can’t even answer a stupid telephone.
She lifted herself upright against the headboard, hit call accept and put the phone to her ear. Silence, and then …

  “My name’s Michael Berg. Y
ou left me a message. Took a while to figure it out.”

 
It was him. She had forgotten about the message. Why had he waited so long to call?
  “You took your time,” she said, instantly regretting the harshness in her voice. “Don’t tell me where you are. Call this number when you get here. I can help you.” She hung up.

 
A call could easily be traced. They knew where she lived, but she couldn’t put his life in any more danger than it already was. Not yet. She needed Michael Berg to help her to fit the last pieces of the puzzle together.

 
She dialed Pisti’s number.
  “He called me, he’s coming here,” she said when he answered.
  “Who called you?” her uncle replied. “Slow down, Tesz, I can’t keep up with you.”

  “
Michael Berg. He’ll call when he gets here.”

  “
You told him over the phone that he should come to Budapest?”

  “
No, no, Uncle, of course I didn’t. He called a Hungarian number. Where else would he think I am?”

  “
You’re right. Did you ask where he was calling from?”

  “
No, Uncle. Really, you must think I’m stupid.”

  “
You know that’s the last thing I think you are,” he replied, “but it’s important they don’t find him before us. What will you do when he gets here?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll need to meet him somewhere we can’t be seen
. Not in the city, somewhere outside where I can make sure we’re not followed. I need to think.”

  “
Meet him at Visegrad. You can see everything from there. There will be tourists. They won’t try anything out in the open.”

  “
I’ll let you know when he calls. Take care.”

  “And you, my dear
.”

  As Tereza slipped the phone into her pocket, she felt a tremendous debt to the old man. She had died four short months after Papa. Zsuzsa, her mother. A heart attack. It left Tereza devastated. Pisti had dragged her back from the edge.

Chapter 30

  The autumn had been kind. Many of the trees still clung to their leaves, albeit most now were yellowing. One more week or so and the landscape would accelerate towards the desolation of winter. Rivello took in the view, beyond the warmth of the room. He looked forward to his meeting with Kennedy. After all, who’d be crazy enough to place a bet on an outcome that they weren’t certain of in the first place. Particularly a one-billion-euro bet. His main concern now was Rykov.

  The man
was one of the best. At least he had been. Konstantin Rykov had been making too many mistakes recently and that was inexcusable. He needed to teach Rykov a lesson. He did not want to lose someone so talented from his team, but the man needed re-motivating. It would leave no doubt as to what any further screwups would mean.

 
The rhythmic tap of approaching footsteps reached him across the vaulted floor of the entrance hall. The footsteps halted, the door handle turned and the two men came towards him. He didn’t turn to greet them. Sat where he was. Motionless. Waiting. Gaze still directed towards the lake, he’d ceased to admire the view. How could these two cretins begin to pretend they’d spent even five minutes with Spetsnaz? They could cost him everything. Rivello didn’t move a muscle. The legs of the two chairs scraped across the floor.

  “So what the fuck happened?” his back to them still.

  “He blindsided us. He’s smart. We did everything we were trained to do, but he got away,” said Rykov.

  “Where the hell is he
? What does he know?”

  Anatoli slammed his fist onto the desktop.

  “Berg’s a dead man. He’s been lucky. There’s no problem. Calm down, Rivello.”

 
Rivello objected to being asked to calm down. Particularly by an incompetent moron. A burst of adrenalin rushed through him, senses sharpening, energy seeking a way out.

 
As Rivello pivoted in the chair, he stretched out his left arm, grabbing Anatoli round the back of his neck and pulled the man’s head towards him. Simultaneously he lifted his right hand, tightly gripped the amber hilted paper knife, and drove it with all his force through the man’s temple and into his brain. The blade sunk halfway in. He slid it out then rammed it back in up to the hilt, grinding it around and around the small bloody hole that he’d made in Anatoli’s head. The other man struggled. Then his body spasmed and went limp. Rivello allowed his left hand to slide from behind Anatoli. He pulled the knife. The man’s head thumped onto the desk like a lump of lead.
  No movement. Rivello turned to Rykov.

  “Should’
ve been you and you know it. Get rid of him. Then tell me how you’re going to fix this mess.”

Chapter 31

  “Yes?”

  “
I’m here. Where can I meet you?”

  “Call me back in twenty minutes.”

  Berg
would be irritated, but he had no idea who he was up against. She would enlighten him when they met. He might be a little less casual about things.

 
She sat down in front of her Apple Mac. Exactly twenty minutes later the phone rang.

  “
Yes?” 

  “
Look, I spent the last twelve hours on a bloody train from Krakow to meet you and all you can do is cut me off. What the hell’s going on?”

  “D
on’t get so angry. Go to the river, to the Pier at Vigado Square. Get on the twelve o’clock boat. After three hours, you’ll get off at Visegrad. I’ll be in the castle. Wear a red baseball cap. I need to be able to find you.”

 
She hung up, exhilarated to at last be doing something. Even something that may turn out to be completely futile.

  She dialed
Pisti. She told him.

  “
Be careful,” he said, “they could be following him. I know that’s what you want, but it could be dangerous if they’re close.”

  “
I like it that you’re worrying about me, but you don’t need to. I’ll make sure no one’s watching. As you said, it’s a great place to observe your surroundings.”

  “
Okay, call me and let me know that you’re safe.”

  “As soon as I can. B
ye.”

---

  Her father used the glasses for hunting deer and wild boar. He’d swear they were better after twenty years than they were when he’d bought them. She’d teased him that it had more to do with old age than with miracles.

 
She squeezed her eyes closed to the tears that started forming at the vividness of the memory. She forced herself to focus on the boat that was boarding two hundred meters below her, basking in the bright midday sunshine, at the pier off Vigado Square.

  She caught him. He approached across the tram tracks, past
the casino. He stopped. Glanced around. The red baseball did its job well. He didn’t look very comfortable wearing it. She smiled at the thought. The first smile that had crossed her lips in quite some time. He strolled down the gangplank.

 
Tereza tucked the eye glasses into her backpack. The engine burst into a low rumble. She held her breath as the acrid smoke from the bike’s exhaust drifted into her. 

Chapter 32

  Michael gasped as he reached the top of the steep, dusty path. He sat on the brow of the hill, breathing heavily. She must already be here. He got up, brushed down his jeans and trudged toward the castle entrance in the baking heat.

  He’d recogniz
e her when he saw her. There were few tourists. Not a big place. How long could it take? He walked around the grassy open square under the battlements. He entered the museum and a couple of tourist shops. No sign of her. He took the cracked stone steps to the higher levels. With the exception of a covered section, perched at the top, everything was open to the elements.

 
Michael cleared the second level, too impatient to even take in the castle’s surroundings. No sign of her. He climbed the steps to the top. In front of him stood a small square with a flagstone base, surrounded by a low wall. At the far side of the square, a few meters from where he was standing, was an ornately decorated building. Long past its best, but with its roof intact, miniature gargoyles fiercely guarded each corner. There was no door. Michael walked over and looked inside. The room was shrouded in darkness. He swept his eyes across it, saw nothing, decided he’d had enough.

  H
e turned to leave. Then froze.

  “Wait
.”

 
It was her. The echo in the empty room distorted her voice. It didn’t matter. It was her. Michael turned around. There was movement in the corner of the room. She was wearing dark jeans and a black leather jacket. The clothes, her dark hair rendered her near invisible.
  “Take a look outside. Make sure we’re alone,” she said.

 
At first he was so taken aback by her sudden appearance that the instruction didn’t penetrate. He crossed to the entrance, surveying the small square and the steps leading up to it. The only people visible were milling around down in the courtyard below the battlements and in and around the shops and museum.

 
He stepped back inside, stopping a few feet from her, looked her straight in the eye. She hadn’t moved and was standing with one hand in her jacket pocket, the other holding an antiquated pair of binoculars.
  “I can understand the need for caution, but you’ve been leading me a merry little dance since I first managed to decipher the note. Now I’m here, you owe me some answers.”

 
Her posture hardened. He’d heard that Hungarians had a reputation for being direct. He wasn’t disappointed.

  “
Michael, if I may call you Michael, this is not some kind of a game. This is not England where the worst thing that can happen to someone like you is a man breaks into your house or throws a few punches at you outside a bar. These people want you dead. In this part of the world, this can happen easily and cheaply. You may want to get yourself killed, but I don’t. I have my own battles to fight. If you want to know who stole your money, then do exactly as I say. Do you understand?”

  He had no choice.
All he needed was the information and then he was out of there.

  “Just tell me
who the hell I’m up against?”

  She
loosened up. The mid-afternoon sun fell across the doorway, illuminated her body. She was tall, and probably of slim build, difficult to tell while she was wearing the jacket. Why on earth would anyone wear a leather jacket on a day like this? Even now it must be thirty degrees or more.

  “
The man who’s after you killed my parents. He’s powerful and extremely dangerous. You’re lucky to be here. You should be dead.”

  It made sense,
confirmed his own thoughts about Katowice.

  “Why did he kill them
? How am I tied into it all?”

  “I don’
t want to go into these things. What I will tell you is his name. Jay Rivello.”

  “And
your name.”

  “
That’s not important.”

  “
It is to me. Don’t you think you’ve kept me in the dark for long enough?”

  She looked away. Made a decision.

  “Tereza. My name’s Tereza.”

 
The sun’s piercing light illuminated her face, reminded him of the electricity he’d felt between them in Katowice. Completely at odds with her blunt manner and unwillingness to be open with him now. She moved her head sideways to get the glare away from her eyes. He was seeing things. Two jagged holes punched into the wall where her head had been.

 
In the milliseconds that it took for him to realize that the sharp pain stinging his face was caused by wall fragments dislodged by the bullets, he felt a hand grab onto his. He was pulled into a darkened corner of the room and, barely maintaining his balance, through a narrow doorway. There was a heavy footfall somewhere behind him.

  “
Follow me,” Tereza whispered, “not a sound.”

 
She kept his hand in hers. Just as well, it was pitch black and he couldn’t see a thing. He was pulled to the ground, jarring his knees, a draught of cool air on his face. She let go of his hand and vanished.
  There was nowhere to go. The footsteps behind him had slowed, moving towards him.

  “
Follow me, I said,” her voice a distant echo.

 
He threw his arm out in the direction of the draft of cool air and pressed down with his hand. Emptiness. Where the floor should have been. Footsteps alongside him. He swung his legs over the gap in the floor, nothing beneath them. He grimaced; let his arms drag along the cool stone until the weight of his body dragged him over the edge.