Cauldron

CHAPTER 12 Threat Warning

The first unmistakable signs of the new European order were already reaching Germany’s armed forces — right on the heels of a fast-moving rainstorm.

A cool, damp breeze ruffled Lieutenant Colonel Willi von Seelow’s uniform coat as he stood waiting near the headquarters helipad. The brigade staff, a little knot of officers and senior noncoms, stood at ease around him, chatting softly as though worried that they might be overheard by their august visitor even before his arrival.

He shifted his weight, frowning slightly as he felt the ground give under his feet.

The brigade’s parade ground stretched for several hundred meters to either side, still a little muddy from yesterday’s rains. More mud-filled ruts had been “plowed” by the 191st Panzergrenadier Battalion’s tracked armored vehicles. Forty-two Marder APCs were lined up by companies and platoons, with two command tracks out front. Self-propelled 120mm mortars, trucks, and other “soft-skinned” vehicles were drawn up in neat rows behind them. Bundled against the cold and fitted with full combat gear, the battalion’s five hundred men and officers milled around their vehicles, waiting like the brigade staff.

Von Seelow was especially proud of the 191st. He’d served with the battalion as a company commander for several months after transferring over from the defunct East German Army. His old comrades had done well during the winter troubles. Despite being underpaid, outnumbered, and loathed by many of their fellow countrymen, they had kept the peace all winter long. Of course, several months spent enforcing the government’s martial law decrees had eroded their “conventional” combat skills, but at least these men were now battle-hardened. They had seen a few of their comrades die and many others injured. They were veterans.

He glanced at the officer standing beside him.

“You wait and see, Willi. A Frenchman commanding German troops. It will be a disaster.” Lieutenant Colonel Otto Yorck shook his head. Only a little shorter than von Seelow, his bleached blond hair and faded blue eyes made him look more like a ski instructor than an army officer.

Von Seelow smiled. As CO of the 191st, Yorck had a reputation for straight talk, even when it might be more politic to keep silent. He had also been a ready friend in the brigade’s hierarchy, one of the few fellow officers who didn’t seem to care about Willi’s eastern birth.

Privately, of course, he shared Yorck’s feelings. Under the newly signed Articles of the European Confederation, the French and German armed forces were being joined at the hip, blended together to form a new multinational army. This new EurCon II Corps, for instance, would include not only the German 7th Panzer and 2nd Panzergrenadier divisions but also the French 5th Armored.

Close military cooperation between the two former NATO allies was nothing new. In just one example, German and French airborne divisions had worked together during annual Colibri, or Hummingbird, exercises since 1963. One combined Franco-German army corps already existed. Formed during the early 1990s, it had symbolized a “European” approach to security issues. As a military unit, though, the corps had never been much more than an experimental unit.

What was happening now, though, was a very different and vastly more complex process. The two nations were trying to merge their military command, communications, intelligence, and logistics functions into a single seamless whole. And all in a matter of months. The language barrier alone was formidable, but there were also significant differences in operating procedures, even basic organizations. For example, at full wartime strength, the 7th Panzer Division could field more than three hundred Leopard 2 tanks, nearly two hundred Marder APCs, and seventeen thousand fighting men. Its closest French counterpart, the 5th Armored, was only a little over half that size.

But this new drive for unity was going forward, even at breakneck speed. Moreover, it was a curious merging. Most of the corps and higher joint commands were being given to French officers, some newly promoted for their billets. Even the new II Corps, with its two German divisions, now had a French commander.

There’d been a lot of grumbling against Schraeder and the rest of the German leadership. Many of the more conservative officers were complaining about being sold out by their own leadership. The idea of allying with the French, recent partners but longtime enemies, made Willi uneasy as well. The French certainly seemed to be well in charge.

Willi winced inside. His father, Colonel Hans von Seelow, and his grandfather, the old general, were certainly spinning in their graves.

The radio on his belt crackled. “Private Neumann to brigade. Helicopters in sight.” Even as he looked for Colonel Bremer and nodded, shouts rang out across the parade ground, “Stand auf!”

The once-quiet compound burst into activity. Equipment rattled and boots thudded into the soft, rain-soaked ground as the panzergrenadiers shook themselves into close formation.

Von Seelow acknowledged the transmission, then took his own place in line. Silence settled over the compound. Some men were shivering. The late winter wind had a sharper bite when you couldn’t move to stay warm.

Their wait was mercifully short. Only moments after the brigade staff and the battalion took their places, a dark dot appeared just over the skyline, quickly growing into a clattering gray-green helicopter. It flew low overhead and then circled, sliding downward toward the marked landing area.

Even though the brigade staff stood a discreet distance away, Willi had to brace himself against the Puma’s rotor blast.

The troop carrier settled heavily onto the helipad, kicking up a fine, cold gray mist. A descending whine matched the slowing rotor blades. When they stopped turning, the Puma’s door slid to one side, and Général de Corps d’Armée Etienne Montagne alighted.

As Montagne’s foot touched the ground, shouts of “Achtung!” echoed across the parade ground. Out of the corner of his eye, von Seelow watched the 191st snap to attention.

He studied the new corps commander. Montagne was tall, so tall that he had to crouch to get out of the helicopter. Once on the ground, he carried himself carefully erect, ramrod-straight. In his late fifties, his hair was almost completely gray, with just a few streaks of brown poking out from under his service kepi.

Seeing the general’s distinctive headgear sent a strange feeling through von Seelow. The French kepi was an almost perfect flat-topped cylinder, about six inches high, with a small straight visor. In Montagne’s case it was dark blue, generously decorated with two gold rings of oak leaves, his four-star rank in a wreath on the front, and a red stripe around the crown. In various forms, it had been worn by the Army of France for a hundred years. Nothing else was so distinctly French.

Another officer stepped down, not as tall and much darker. Willi recognized General Alfred Wismar, a German and another tanker. Assigned as deputy commander for the new II Corps, Wismar did not look particularly happy with his new assignment. General Karl Leibnitz, commanding officer of the 7th Panzer Division, trailed along behind his two superiors.

Colonel Bremer braced and saluted the group. The two German generals hung back while Montagne cheerfully returned Bremer’s salute.

The two chatted briefly, in passable German, Willi noted, before Bremer guided the tall Frenchman down the line of brigade staff officers. Greeting each one warmly, the corps commander seemed careful to pronounce each man’s name properly.

It was his turn. The Frenchman had a firm handshake and his dark brown eyes seemed as friendly as his manner. Von Seelow let himself feel a little more optimistic. Maybe this won’t be such a disaster, after all, he thought.

With the senior officers following and a burly-looking German sergeant taking notes, Montagne moved on to conduct a quick, perfunctory inspection of the 191st. The general strode confidently, almost arrogantly, past the assembled battalion, stopping only occasionally to exchange a few words with one of the officers or for a closer look at the soldiers or their gear.

Von Seelow’s first favorable impression faded slightly as he watched the French general examine a panzergrenadier’s weapon. The G3A3 assault rifle was older, longer, and heavier than the ultramodern MAS rifle used by French forces. Everyone in the Bundeswehr knew it was outdated, but budget cuts in the early 1990s had slowed production of the army’s high-tech replacement, the Heckler & Koch G11. Even so, the G3 was still a ragged, reliable firearm, perfectly capable in the hands of a well-trained soldier. So there seemed little justification for Montagne’s contemptuous glance when he tossed the rifle back to the blank-faced grenadier. Or for a later comment that some of their Marder personnel carriers seemed “a little long in the tooth.” Considering that the comparable French APC, the AMX-10P, was almost as old, the remark seemed unnecessarily snide.

His inspection apparently over, Montagne marched back to a small raised platform and microphone near his grounded helicopter — trailed by a frowning group of German officers.

“Soldiers of the 19th Panzergrenadier Brigade, I greet you! Today marks an historic moment, a moment of glory for all Europe! For France! And for Germany!”

Von Seelow stirred uneasily. The general’s words were spoken in accented German, but the underlying posturing seemed all too French. With old customs and forms tainted by Nazism’s absurd melodrama, the Bundeswehr cultivated a deliberately low-key professionalism.

“I look forward with great eagerness to the coming years.

You and the other men of this division show great promise. And I am sure that, with hard training and constant devotion to duty, you will all become fine troops — soldiers for the future.”

From his position behind the Frenchman, Willi could see the carefully concealed resentment rippling through the ranks. He felt it himself. Who did this general think he was dealing with? These men were seasoned volunteers, not callow conscripts.

“In the coming months, my staff and I will institute a series of refinements to your tactical doctrines. New thinking is always hard, but I promise you that the advantages of these reforms will be readily apparent to each and every one of you — even to the lowliest private! And with these new tactics will come greatly increased fighting efficiency and combat power.”

No wonder Wismar looks unhappy, Willi thought. We are schoolmasters being taken to task by the students. As if the French could teach Germans anything about armor doctrine… My God, Rommel himself had once commanded the 7th Panzer!

Von Seelow’s unspoken concerns crystallized into certain dismay while Montagne thundered on about the bright future waiting for the combined Franco-German armed forces. Otto Yorck was right. This man was a disaster. The kicker came when the French general spoke about what he termed “simple administrative matters.” His language, so falsely dramatic before, suddenly turned vague and bureaucratic.

“Naturally, new force structures and new defense commitments require new dispositions. Accordingly, the Confederation’s Council of Nations has approved the redeployment of certain units. Including this one. When our II Corps becomes fully operational early next month, it will begin assuming key defense responsibilities for the region around Cottbus.

“To prepare for that, the 7th Panzer Division will send advance parties to that area next week. Your division’s leading elements will transfer during the last half of this month. I expect this entire corps to be at its new posts within six months.”

Willi was thunderstruck. Redeploy three divisions all the way to the other side of Germany in six months? Certainly it was possible to march units further in just a fraction of that time, but this was a permanent move. Ammo dumps, fuel depots, and spare-parts stockpiles would all have to be packed up, shipped, and then unloaded by the corps’s supply troops. Several thousand armored vehicles would need special maintenance support. And nearly fifty thousand soldiers and their families would have to find barracks and housing in and around the eastern German town. Better than most, he remembered what those old Soviet-built facilities were like. Bad when they were built, they must be almost unlivable now. The men were going to need careful handling. Who was…

Von Seelow suddenly noticed that both Leibnitz and Bremer looked as stunned as he did. Was this a total surprise to everyone? He studied Wismar’s face. Montagne must have told his deputy, but the German general looked even unhappier.

And why move them in the first place? The Bundeswehr only had three corps in its entire army. Stretched thinly, I Corps, the 7th Panzer’s present parent organization, was responsible for maintaining order over much of central and western Germany. Now, less than a week after this new European Confederation took shape, its leaders were apparently planning to cram almost the same firepower into a single narrow sector on the Polish border.

Von Seelow had seen the news reports of rising unrest inside Poland as oil supplies ran short. But that hardly seemed a justification for this massive troop transfer. The Poles weren’t a military threat. Nor were there any signs that the Russians were emerging from their self-imposed cycle of martial law and military purges.

He shook his head slowly. Whatever was going on, it didn’t look good.

First Lieutenant Tadeusz Wojcik noticed the change as soon as he walked inside out of the damp, chilly morning. An air of quiet concern and steady purpose filled the regimental operations building.

The long concrete building was the nerve center for the 11th’s three fighter squadrons. Not only were the regiment’s administrative offices here, but downstairs in the specially hardened basement, radio and radar operators managed a slice of Polish airspace stretching from the Czech Republic in the south to the border with Germany in the west. The camouflaged headquarters bunkers and buildings housing the 3rd National Air Defense Corps were right across the airfield. Responsible for all of southwestern Poland, the 3rd’s staff officers and senior commanders controlled the 11th Fighter Regiment, several other aircraft units, and a mixed bag of missile units — some using American-made anti-aircraft missiles, others still equipped with old Soviet-manufactured SA-2 and SA-3 missiles.

Normally the ops center was a cheerful, busy place. Today everyone’s expression was grim. Tad stopped the first pilot he saw, Lieutenant Stanislaw Gawlik. The thin, hawk-nosed pilot looked worried.

“Stan, what’s wrong? Somebody have an incident?” Nobody used the word “crash,” as if avoiding the word could avoid the actual event.

Gawlik shook his head. “No. Take a look at the intel board. More Confederation units are moving into eastern Germany. Ground forces, aircraft, the works. The French and Germans claim it’s just part of a routine ‘redeployment.’”

Wojcik half grinned. “Yeah, right. That’s so absurd it’s insulting. It’s all pressure to get us to knuckle under.”

The other lieutenant shook his head decisively. “Never. Look at what they’ve done to Hungary and Romania and the others. Economic colonies, with their people working in foreign-owned factories for pitiful wages. Puppet governments, secret police. We were under the Soviet boot too long to want someone else’s foot on our necks.” There was a grim light in his eyes when he spoke about the Russians.

Gawlik’s worried look returned as he continued. “First this damned oil embargo and now these troop movements. It’s like we’re being hemmed in on all sides. The government’s already protested, and the President and Prime Minister are both going to speak on television tonight. But I don’t see what else we can do. Any chance we’re getting more aid from the Americans? Or from Britain? Have you heard anything?”

Everyone assumed that Tad’s American birth somehow gave him an inside track on developments in the West.

He shrugged. “Nothing new. Not that I’ve heard about anyway.”

Tad wasn’t really sure what more Poland’s two faraway allies could do. Protected by USN and Royal Navy warships, their tankers were already pumping oil and gas ashore as fast as they could. Beyond that, several dozen weapons experts and training teams were already busy helping his country’s armed forces make the difficult transition away from old-style Soviet equipment and tactics. Short of actually stationing U.S. troops on Polish soil, there weren’t many other options open.

Gawlik seemed briefly disappointed, but he rallied fast. “Better check the board. You’re flying today. In fact, most of us are.”

The older man glanced at his watch. “I’ll be up in an hour. Good luck.” The lieutenant put real meaning into the trite expression.

The assignments board told the story. Pairs of F-15 Eagles were flying along the border on a twenty-four hour basis. A map showed the new patrol zones. The 11th’s area of responsibility was a two-hundred-kilometer section of the frontier, running from Kostryzn south to the southwest corner of Poland.

Tad noticed with interest that the border patrol track ran right next to the frontier, not back a few dozen kilometers as standard tactics and peacetime procedures might suggest. Any turn west would put them in German territory. The lack of maneuvering room meant this was a “fence” exercise, intended to tell these German and French bastards that the Polish Air Force was ready to block any movement into its territory.

Wojcik smiled at his own eagerness to climb inside the cockpit. With money and aviation fuel so tight, he’d only been able to fly once every two or three days. Now he’d fly at least daily, and with the German border right in his face. In an odd sort of way, things were looking up at the same time they were looking down.

Tad hooked up with his wingman, Lieutenant Sylwester Zawadzki after lunch. After a routine physical check, they both collected their maps and charts and then walked briskly down the hall to the regiment’s ready room.

Pilots and a full complement of staff officers packed the ready room — sitting in battered wooden chairs facing a map-filled wall or standing along the other walls. The regiment’s operations, intelligence, and meteorology officers sat off to one side, each waiting his turn to give a quick briefing. Even the 11th’s short, cherub-faced commander was there, standing with a knot of pilots just back from a mission.

Colonel Kadlubowski spotted them in the doorway and motioned them over. He looked tired, and Zawadzki whispered that the colonel had already flown two missions that morning himself.

“You boys are up next?”

“Yes, sir.”

The colonel clapped Tad on the shoulder and nodded toward Zawadzki. “Be careful up there, gentlemen. There’s a lot of activity on the western side of the border. Don’t start a war, but,” and his voice grew hard, “don’t give them an inch of our airspace.”

“Yes, sir.”

As the colonel turned away, the 11th’s operations officer took his place, flanked by two strangers. The two Eagle pilots introduced themselves to a major and captain who were the pilot and copilot of a “special electronics” An-26. Wojcik noticed that their flight suits did not have name tags, or any unit insignia. The two men were friendly enough, but their monosyllabic answers soon got the message across: “Don’t ask questions, because we won’t answer them.”

The nameless major was their mission commander, and would fly his aircraft as required. The two Eagles were going along to make sure he wasn’t bothered.

The operations officer gave them the correct radio frequencies, call signs, and other routine information. Their CAP station was Yellow Station, and they were Yellow Five and Six. They were set to relieve Yellow Seven and Eight. If they needed to communicate with the Curl, it was “Black flight.”

All the intelligence officer would say was that there had been sightings of German aircraft very close to the border. “Expect them to pay attention to you.”

He also emphasized the correct setting for their IFF equipment. Polish-manned Patriot and Hawk SAM batteries were now deploying along the nation’s frontiers almost as fast as they could be unloaded, and surface-to-air missiles travel too fast to allow time for explanations.

Tad and Zawadzki left the ops building with the major and his copilot and walked to the flight line, just a short distance away. The Curl was parked close by, so the two Eagle drivers stopped for a moment to look over the elderly “bus.”

Painted in drab green and brown colors, the twin-engine, turboprop transport plane had long, straight wings and a tall tail. It normally carried forty paratroops or a six-ton cargo load, but the cargo compartment on this one was filled with electronic equipment and seats for operators. Odd-shaped dielectric patches covered its surface. A long metal “canoe” ran half the length of the plane’s belly, and even its nose looked subtly different. Some of the gray insulation patches looked recent, and Tad suspected that some of America’s latest military aid shipments had included Western electronics upgrades for these “ferret” aircraft.

Their two companions headed for the top-secret plane without saying another word. Tad and his wingman exchanged a quick grin at that. Habits of perpetual silence must be hard to break. The two Eagle drivers trotted over to their F-15s.

They taxied to the end of the thousand-meter concrete strip, the Curl leading.

It was a cold, gusty day, with scattered low clouds a few thousand meters high. Drenched by the remnants of an overnight storm, the runway was still wet in spots. A hexagonal pattern stood out clearly on the damp concrete, showing the joints between the massive blocks making up the Russian-style runway. They were laid so that if the surface was cratered by enemy air attacks, any damaged sections could be quickly lifted out and replaced by spares. Of course, all those joints made for a rough ride on takeoff and landing.

The An-26 turned onto the runway and stopped, its brakes set. Its engines increased their pitch, shaking the wings at full power. After a few moments, even the fuselage started to vibrate, and the Curl’s pilot released his brakes. Rolling forward, the big turboprop thundered down the long concrete strip, quickly gathering speed. It soared aloft with half the runway left.

Even fully loaded with fuel and missiles, the two Eagles used less runway than their larger, slower companion. Tad’s airspeed rose quickly once contact with the earth was broken.

There beneath him was the An-26, its brown and green camouflage blending with the drab gray-brown landscape below. The lumbering plane cruised at half the normal speed of its two nimbler companions, no more than 240 knots or so. Chopping his throttle almost to idle, Tad extended his Eagle’s flaps and tried to think slow thoughts.

The flight from Wroclaw to the border took about twenty minutes, with Wojcik and Zawadzki scissoring and circling over the ferret plane, trying to keep it and each other in sight.

Tad tried to sort out the mass of information blanketing his cockpit display. Right now his RWR was tuned to receive only fire control and weapons radars, immediate threats to an Eagle in flight. Even so, there were so many signals showing that he was sure some of them must be coming from other airborne friendlies. No such luck. All the bearings and identifications flickering across his scope matched hostile radars.

Christ, he thought, there were so many sets sweeping the sky through this sector, you could almost get out and walk on the radio waves. Great. The Germans had to know right where he and Zawadzki were.

He broke radio silence. “Yellow patrol, this is Yellow Five.”

“Roger, we hold you at fifty kilometers one two five.” Tad recognized Lieutenant Gawlik’s voice. The two Eagles now on patrol were thirty miles off to the northwest.

It was time to turn on his own radar. Turning to face the other F-15s, he hit the radar mode button, changing it from standby to air. Instantly the screen lit up, showing two small dots, both with symbols showing them to have friendly IFF. As the APG-70 locked onto the nearest friendly, his HUD displayed a small lit box showing its position in the sky in front of him, even though the Polish plane was still too far away to see. A straight line ending in the box gave Tad the correct intercept course, while figures glowing on his radar screen showed him the other F-15’s course, speed, altitude, and closing velocity. Normally used to help close on and kill enemy aircraft, the data also made rendezvous and CAP relief almost child’s play.

Glancing down at the radar screen also let him check the RWR display again. There were even more radars showing now. So far, though, they were limited to radars tracking him. None were locked onto him, and the ominous launch warning light was still dark.

Climbing, Tad burst through fragments of low clouds and emerged into a pale blue, sunlit sky. “Yellow Seven, closing on your position.”

The range dropped to six kilometers before he spotted a gray dot in the center of the cueing box on his HUD. The F-15 was a large plane. A smaller fighter like a Fulcrum might not be seen until it was even closer. Even so, Tad had needed the box to know where to look. At first glance he wasn’t even sure it was real, so he continued his regular scan: instruments, HUD, far left, craning his neck to look behind him, and then carefully working his way around to far right.

On his next glance the dot was a distinctive twin-tailed shape. “Tally.” Contact in sight.

Yellow Seven, Lieutenant Gawlik’s plane, was heading north, away from him, loafing along at 250 knots. Yellow Eight, Gawlik’s wingman, flew a little to the right and below him.

Moving the stick gently, Wojcik eased the Eagle’s nose down just as he came level with the two patrolling F-15s. “Yellow Five is in position.”

The pair of Eagles in front quickly turned, changing in appearance from rear to side views for half a second before they flashed by to the right, diving and heading east.

The An-26 following in Tad’s wake still hadn’t made a transmission, but it didn’t need to. It simply took up position at the highest altitude comfortable for its turboprop engines, about eight thousand meters. As they flew parallel to the border, the Curl would stay near the center of the Eagles’ crisscrossing racetrack pattern, at a slightly lower altitude.

The plane was there to listen to radar, radio, and even microwave relay signals. By analyzing them, the Curl’s intelligence specialists could identify radar types, locations, and capabilities. A good operator could even tell when a radar set had received new parts. And radio and microwave relay intercepts could help pinpoint the new Confederation ground and air units shifting closer to the border.

At this altitude, the Neisse River seemed to be directly below him, but as long as he checked the nav display frequently, he could stay on his own side of the line.

The landscape on either side of the river was identical. Through the scattered gray clouds below him, he could see isolated patches of woods dotting smooth, flat terrain. This was farming country. From this high up, only major highways and cities were easily visible in the fuzzy patchwork of browns, yellows, and greens.

It took about forty-five minutes to make a complete circuit on the racetrack and return to their starting point. After only twenty minutes, Tad knew that the major and his crew were very busy people. His radar warning receiver was still alive with symbols, appearing and disappearing almost at random. If there was a pattern there, he couldn’t see it.

They turned the corner, heading south. The Curl, slower, was still northbound, about two thousand meters below them and thirty kilometers to the south.

The major’s voice interrupted Tad’s scan of the horizon. “Yellow flight! We have a fire control radar, strength eight, and getting stronger! Bearing two eight zero.”

Tad looked down at his radar scope. In his blind spot, damn it!

“Syl, swing wide, now!” He turned his own plane’s nose to the west. The radar scanner could only train sixty degrees to either side of dead ahead. Luckily he could see the radar on his warning receiver, labeled “UNK” next to it. That meant the signal’s characteristics did not match anything in the receiver’s library of known transmitters.

This close to the border, Tad had very little maneuvering room to the west. He was really counting on Zawadzki, who was heading east to get some elbowroom, to back him up. Tad’s low speed gave him a fairly tight turning radius, so he planned to make a tight circle, lock up the bogey, and classify it as a threat or benign. By that time his wingman should be in position, far enough back, if they had to shoot.

His hands moved rapidly, dropping the range scale on the radar. This fellow had popped up suddenly, with enough signal strength to make him real close. His F-15’s nose was turning, swinging right. Why hadn’t they spotted the bogey on their northbound leg?

There. The signal should be within his radar scanner’s arc. He checked the screen but saw nothing. He waited two more sweeps, and the screen was still blank. All right, Tad thought. He changed the range scale. Still nothing. As if to confirm that whatever the problem was, it wasn’t just his radar, Zawadzki radioed, “Negative lock, Seven.”

Tad clicked twice in acknowledgment, almost absentmindedly.

“Yellow flight. Signal strength is nine. Signal has shifted to high PRF.” The major’s voice sounded calmer, but his initial surprise had been replaced by clear concern. The hostile radar had changed to ranging mode, which could be a precursor to launching an air-to-air missile.

“Turning east.” The major was taking his ELINT plane deeper into Polish territory, probably diving and firewalling his throttles, too. But the Curl was too big and slow for agile maneuvering. It would be some time before they were out of danger.

Tad still had nothing. Shit. He needed help from the An-26. “Black, Yellow Seven. Interrogative elevation.”

“Target is slightly down, Seven, steady azimuth, two seven five.”

Rolling his aircraft inverted, Tad yanked back hard on the stick. Throttling back even more, he popped his speed brakes as well. The energy-wasting maneuvers went against his grain, but he didn’t need speed, he just wanted to dump some altitude.

Tad watch his altimeter unwind, at the same time keeping an eye on the horizon and the warning receiver and its mysterious signal. He knew exactly where to look. Almost due west. Eight thousand meters, seven, six…

A small gray dot rose from the landscape, silhouetted as it crossed the horizon line. The bogey was now slightly higher than his F-15, and easier to spot against the lighter sky. In a heartbeat it swelled from a dot to a shape, and then into a jet fighter, suddenly turning from a head-on to a side view as it banked sharply to the south, paralleling his course.

“Tallyho your signal, Black. Source is a fighter.” Tad fought a near-overwhelming urge to break hard left into the bogey. Instincts ingrained by long, hard air combat training ran deep.

“Roger, Seven, confirm lock.”

Tad clicked his microphone switch twice, all the time watching the bogey. He couldn’t type it. The other plane was still at least five or six kilometers away.

What he could see was a raked vertical fin and what appeared to be a delta wing, without any horizontal tail surfaces. It looked like a French Mirage of some sort, but he just could not make a precise identification.

Holding the stick with his right hand, he reached down with his left and opened a compartment containing a pair of light 7 × 35 binoculars. They were useless in a dogfight, but against aircraft flying straight and level, they gave him a set of long-range eyes.

Tad checked his course and position one more time before raising the binoculars to scan the narrow sector holding the stranger. He caught a glimpse of its nose, overcompensated back, and then steadied his view on the strange plane.

Obligingly the other pilot kept his craft straight and level, pacing Tad’s Eagle. The bogey’s nose was sharply pointed, and he could see a set of small fins, called canards, high on the fuselage, just behind and under the canopy. Instead of side-mounted intakes like a French Mirage, its intakes were smaller, and half under the fuselage.

There was only one fighter with that configuration: the Rafale. Tad whistled softly to himself. None of the intelligence briefings had warned him about this.

Every fighter pilot knew about the Rafale, although few had seen one. Now here he was flying side by side with one painted in shades of gray and carrying what looked like live missiles under its wings. That was a tricolor roundel on its fuselage, not the Maltese cross, so it was a French aircraft. Tad was a little disappointed. He would rather face a German opponent.

The Rafale shadowing him was brand-new, which made it sexy, and in foreign hands, which made it dangerous. The plane also had a reduced radar cross section, which explained how it had popped up so unexpectedly and unnervingly. Reports said it could engage several targets simultaneously with launch-and-leave air-to-air missiles. The French-made warplane was also supposed to be very maneuverable, more than a match for either the Eagle or the Fulcrum. Again, Tad fought the urge to yank his stick over, to maneuver and pit his machine against this potential enemy.

He beat back the urge and then thought again. By roaring right up to the frontier and radar-pinging the hell out of the An-26, this bastard had already shown that he wanted to screw around. Why not indulge him?

Tad pressed his mike switch. “Yellow Eight, this is Seven. Cover Black flight. I am maneuvering.”

“Let’s see what this bastard is made of,” Tad muttered to himself. He stowed the binoculars, then settled himself in his seat, tightening his harness.

As quickly as he could, he chopped the throttles to idle and popped his speed brake. He waited a beat for his plane to slow. As soon as he saw the Rafale start to slide ahead, he yo-yoed the F-15’s nose up and down sharply, killing even more speed. At the same time, he slewed one of the Sidewinder seekers to the right as far as it would go.

Turning to the west as far as he could dare, he kept one eye on the nav display while waiting for a tone from the Sidewinder’s infrared seeker. Letting the Rafale pull ahead allowed his missile to see its tailpipe, setting up a missile launch. Tad grinned. He wouldn’t fire, of course, but the other pilot would know that he had been set up.

He watched the Rafale as it came into view through his HUD. The Frenchman was reacting now, pulling his nose up. Too late. The enemy fighter was at his Eagle’s one o’clock, well within its missile arc. So where was the tone? Nothing, just a hissing noise in his headphones.

Wojcik swung the F-15’s nose a bit more to the right, still waiting for the familiar sound. A bad missile? Quickly he selected another Sidewinder. Still nothing. Son-of-a-bitch. The Rafale’s engines must be shielded, reducing its IR signature.

His nav display showed him crowding the border a little too closely. Damn. This was getting tricky. He turned back east a bit, opening the distance between the two planes.

The Rafale’s nose was climbing smoothly. Tad expected a loop, but instead of gaining altitude, the French fighter flew forward straight and level while its nose rose past the vertical and actually tipped backward.

It was the “cobra” maneuver, invented by the Russians, and it was the first time Tad had ever seen a plane do it in a maneuvering situation. It did look odd, but it was effective. The Rafale was dumping speed in a hurry.

Tad saw his opponent quickly slide back, first even with his Eagle, then behind him. When the other fighter reached his five o’clock, its nose tipped forward as smoothly as if the Rafale were mounted on a pivot. Now its own nose turned slightly toward him.

The other pilot was setting up his own heat-seeking missile shot. And the Eagle’s engines weren’t IR-suppressed like the Rafale’s. If he didn’t get out of this, he’d be the grape who got peeled, not the Frenchman. Yanking back hard on the stick, Tad pulled his Eagle into a smooth loop. The horizon disappeared, instantly replaced by an elevation ladder on the HUD showing his attitude and pitch angle.

Tad concentrated on keeping the F-15’s nose parallel with the imaginary border. With so many hostile eyes and radars watching, crossing over into German airspace, even accidentally, was unthinkable. His superiors would be interested in his report about the Rafale and its capabilities, but only if he didn’t screw up and create an international incident.

He neared the top of the loop, a thousand meters higher than when he started, pointed north. Now where was that Frenchman?

He scanned the landscape below and to the west, forcing himself to ignore the upside-down world and the fact that he was hanging in his seat. There was no sign of motion, no wing flashes below him. He widened his search, looking above the horizon.

There. The bastard was abreast of him now, also inverted and heading north. The other pilot must have waited a second and then followed him into a parallel loop on his side of the border. Good stick, Tad thought.

At least he’d broken the Rafale’s missile lock. Flying side by side like this meant neither of them would be in position to get a shot off when this maneuver ended.

Both planes were now on the downward leg of the loop. Tad was planning his next move, all the while monitoring his own plane’s status and his opponent’s position. Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he spotted the Rafale’s nose moving, not changing in pitch, but swinging sharply over in his direction!

It turned a full forty-five degrees off its original heading, pointing straight at his F-15. Was this guy crazy? He’d be over the border in seconds at these speeds. Wojcik braced himself, certain that the Frenchman now intended to enter Polish airspace, which meant what? A personal grudge? A test of the border defenses? War?

He jammed the throttles forward, pulling out of the loop early. G-forces pushed him down in his seat. For an instant the corners of the cockpit grayed out as his HUD’s g-meter showed over five gravities of acceleration.

He glanced to the right, over at the bogey, ready to break into him with a quick Sidewinder or cannon shot, but the Rafale’s position was all wrong. Instead of coming closer, the French fighter was still distant, still moving south, and still on its own side of the border. Even worse, the enemy jet still had its nose pointed at him! Those canard fins really worked!

Tad knew when he was licked. Any plane that could fly in one direction while keeping its nose pointed in another was going to take some careful thought and planning to beat.

Turning south, he ignored the hostile fighter and concentrated on restoring his CAP racetrack position. The Rafale wasn’t out to get him. If the Frenchman had wanted to nail him, he could have done it when he first popped up, or twice since then.

Unsure of how well he could actually protect the An-26, he called the major and recommended a new position well inside Polish airspace. That would significantly reduce the ferret plane’s effectiveness but it was the only sure way to keep it safe.

Wojcik knew the Frenchman was laughing his ass off. He could feel a burning lump in his chest. No fighter pilot likes to lose, even in a mock dogfight. That clown would be bragging for a week about the Eagle driver he foxed, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.

He tried to concentrate on flying his fighter and watching the radar screen, futile though that might now be. He had a lot to think about, but most of it would have to wait until he landed and debriefed. Two questions wouldn’t leave him alone, though: how did you beat a Rafale, and how many of the damn things did EurCon have?

Reading the newspaper was like hearing about the death of a friend.

“Hungary Joins the European Confederation!” it trumpeted in a bold, banner headline. Sick at heart, Colonel Zoltan Hradetsky read the state-controlled paper thoroughly, forcing himself to learn all he could.

Articles on page after page were filled with glowing praise for the new political, economic, and military union. According to official opinion, the only kind permitted, joining the Confederation would bring abundance, employment, and no loss of Hungarian sovereignty or liberties. It was the best of both worlds, close cooperation between neighbors toward a brighter future…

Hradetsky threw the paper down in disgust. He’d already seen the results of close cooperation with the French and Germans. It was strictly a one-way street. Those idiots in the National Salvation Government had to know what they were doing. But did they have any real choice? In the carefully structured agreements already in force, Hungary’s debt to France and Germany was growing. Like miners in a company store, his country could never seem to get clear.

An office messenger came by, scowling as he dropped off a memo on Hradetsky’s desk. The young police corporal sniffed contemptuously at him and left without a word. Evidently, disgraced colonels were considered fair game by the rank and file. One more sign of my own weakness, he thought wearily. In the not-so-distant past, that self-important young pup wouldn’t have left his office with either his stripes or an unbroken nose.

More out of boredom than interest, he skimmed through the memo.

It was signed by the National Police commander, Brigadier General Dozsa. An attached sheet showed a new organizational diagram. Rehling and Dozsa occupied identical boxes at the top of the page. Every other line on the chart ran upward toward these two, joined, then split into two lines. One said “local” and led to Dozsa. The second line was labeled “all others” and went to Rehling.

Hradetsky stared down at the memo in shock. This was worse than before! Instead of simply interfering in Hungarian affairs, the French and Germans were installing a duplicate chain of command. More ominous still, this Rehling wasn’t even a real policeman. The BfV was Germany’s state security service.

His country had been conquered, sold for bread and jobs.

Rehling’s arrival had done nothing to soothe Hradetsky’s growing fears. If anything, it brought them closer to the surface.

The Hungarian frowned, remembering his first glimpse of the new EurCon “liaison” at a special ceremony three days earlier. The German was a colorless man, with close-cropped gray hair and a bland, round face. He seemed unimpressed by everything and everyone around him, including Dozsa and the other ministry officials there to welcome him. Their tide of effusive speeches had washed right over the German security service officer and left him unmoved and unsmiling.

Hradetsky’s stomach tightened when he thought back over the scene. Despite Rehling’s cold, contemptuous manner, Dozsa and the rest had still crowded around him. Like all good lackeys, they were ready to lick any master’s boots in the hope that he might toss a few crumbs their way. He grimaced. Their opportunity was his purgatory.

He’d had to spend the rest of that morning down at the police pistol range, squeezing rounds into anonymous targets just to regain a semblance of control.

Today, still torn by what he was seeing, he’d wandered upstairs from his windowless cubbyhole for a short visit with Bela Silvanus, one of his few remaining friends inside the ministry.

An unashamed bureaucrat, Silvanus smoked incessantly and looked older than his years. The two men had gone through the police academy together, but their different temperaments had led one to the streets, the other to a desk.

With their careers running on different, though parallel courses, they had bumped into each other from time to time, but never frequently — at least not until recently. Although they had never been particularly close, at least the bureaucrat wasn’t afraid to talk to him. Hradetsky occasionally tried to get the administrator out from behind his desk and into the gym or the pistol range, but right now he just wanted to blow off some pent-up steam.

Silvanus had an office on the ministry’s top floor — one that was well appointed, especially for austere times like these. It wasn’t luxurious, because luxury bred resentment. The administrator believed in making friends, not enemies. Instead, the room was neat, with freshly painted walls and a good carpet. His office equipment was new, including a very impressive-looking computer. Prints and photos on each wall and rich wood furniture gave the room the look of a private, comfortable den. Visitors invariably came away with an impression of efficiency and quiet, unobtrusive personal power. In fact, the office had only one flaw — the constant, acrid reek of cigarette smoke.

Silvanus was hunched over a computer keyboard, a cigarette dangling from his mouth, swearing, when Hradetsky knocked on the doorjamb. The small, pudgy man turned, his scowl changing to a smile when he saw who his visitor was. “Zoltan! Come in and have a seat. It’s good to see someone I can complain to.”

Smiling almost against his will, Hradetsky eased himself into a well-upholstered leather chair. “Everything screwed up as usual, Bela?”

The little bureaucrat threw his hands up in the air, almost knocking over an ashtray in the process. “No, not like usual, ten times the usual!” He leaned forward, looking Hradetsky in the eye. “Today, my friend, I wish I was on the streets, chasing thugs and robbers and all the other wonderful people a policeman meets.”

Suddenly all the anger seemed to flow out of him, like air leaving a balloon. His expression softened to one of sadness. “I like my job, Zoltan. I’m good at it. I made the system work, first under the communists, then under this National Salvation Government. I know where the bodies are buried, which wheels turn and which ones just spin, and I’ve done well for myself.”

Curious, Hradetsky waited. Silvanus was a cheerfully contentious individual, an able and powerful administrator. He had excelled in making connections, storing up favors. He’d survived three separate changes of governments and won promotion each time. He was well liked, by those who hadn’t tried to cross him anyway. So what could be bothering him?

“I can talk to you about this, Zoltan, no one else. Everyone else around here is wearing a happy mask, afraid of losing their ration book.” The bureaucrat paused and sighed. “I am, too.” He motioned toward the door. Hradetsky quietly pushed it closed.

Once the latch snicked shut, Silvanus took a deep drag on his cigarette before going on. “This German, Rehling, is starting to give orders. Troubling orders.

“Not only are all cases involving foreigners being routed to his office, he’s also making major personnel shifts. Our police and plainclothes detectives are being pulled from other cases to protect French or German executives and businesses. Here in Budapest, for example, almost half our people are being assigned to look for what are being called ’subversive elements’ in the work force.”

“My God!” Hradetsky didn’t hide his surprise. Shut away down in the training command, he hadn’t heard about any of this. “That’s crazy!”

“It gets worse. The budget is being altered, too.” Silvanus screwed up his face and adopted a mock German accent. “Never mind the regulations! Never mind efficiency! Take money away from enforcement and operations! Push it into little holes labeled ‘Intelligence’ and ‘Security.’” Nodding toward his friend, he said, “Even the training allocations are being cut back. Pretty soon you’ll have fewer cadets to count.”

“How much of a cut?” Hradetsky asked.

Silvanus waved his hand in the air. “Ah, what does it matter how much? What matters is that more criminals will go free because some German industrialist wants to know how many of our people hate him.”

Hradetsky frowned. “But none of this makes any sense. Why put so much extra effort into looking for so-called subversives? Since the Sopron raid there’s been no major terrorist action against foreign interests. Is some new group targeting them?”

Silvanus shook his head. “I haven’t heard anything.” A small smile crept onto his face. “And you can bet, my friend, that if I haven’t heard about it, it hasn’t happened.”

He continued, “One more thing, Zoltan.” He leaned forward conspiratorially. “There are going to be some personnel cutbacks. A real shake-up.”

“How do you know?” Hradetsky felt suddenly cold. He was the deadest of deadwood. And where could an out-of-work police colonel get a job?

“Because the printshop just got a rush order for a batch of end-of-service forms. We had a year’s supply.”

“And I suppose you already know who they’re going to dismiss.”

Silvanus nodded calmly and handed him several sheets off his desk. “I have a list. Don’t ask me where it came from. Don’t worry. Your name isn’t on it.”

That was strange. His face must have shown his mixed relief and confusion, because the other man shrugged. “Don’t ask me why. Maybe they still want you where they can keep track of you, eh?”

Hradetsky snorted. If they were afraid of him, Dozsa and the other ministry monkey masters certainly didn’t show any sign of it. Probably they’d simply forgotten he’d ever existed.

He took the list and paged through it. Names he knew kept popping out at him. Emil Kornai, in homicide. Imre Zarek, in fraud. Was there a pattern? Not that he could see, but he knew that many of these men were damned fine policemen. If he wasn’t on this hit list, what the hell were they using as a criterion?

Silvanus saw the question on his face. “I don’t know how those names were picked, either, except that the order will be signed by Rehling, not Dozsa, and that there are a lot of good people on that list.” A touch of anger crept into his voice.

There were two raps on the door, and it opened. A thin, blond man with an angular face leaned in, saw Hradetsky in the office with Silvanus, and said in accented Hungarian, “Excuse me, please. I will come back later.”

The door closed behind him.

Hradetsky raised an eyebrow. He nodded toward the door. “A German?”

Silvanus nodded. “One of Rehling’s people, one of his spies. But he won’t be back. He probably just wanted to see who I was talking to.”

“I’m getting you in trouble, Bela. I’d better leave.”

Silvanus waved his hand airily. “Don’t worry about it. The special commissioner and I have already crossed swords. He can’t touch me. Not yet anyway. He knows he needs me to keep this place running.”

But Hradetsky could hear the uncertainty in the other man’s voice. He didn’t know which worried him more: the sudden, radical changes the EurCon appointee was making or the fact that even Silvanus — Silvanus the Survivor, people called him — was growing fearful.

Something had to be done. And fast. This new Confederation was like a cancer cell growing inside Hungary. The time to deal with it was now — before it spread too far for simple treatment and required radical surgery.

Hradetsky made a decision. One of the options he’d been exploring seemed worth pursuing further. Perhaps reform could still come from within the system. He lowered his voice. “Look, Bela, I need proof of what you’re telling me. Documentation on these cutbacks and firings. And on anything else you think is strange. Something I can show people.”

Silvanus sat forward. “Why?”

“Because I think I may know a way to get Rehling’s orders retracted.”

The church domes and spires dotting Budapest’s graceful skyline gleamed in the pale, cool sunlight. That same sunlight sparkled off the Danube and cast long shadows down Pest’s broad nineteenth-century avenues and Buda’s narrow, hilly medieval streets. Green leaves were budding on trees that had escaped being cut down for firewood. Hungary’s capital was coming alive again after a long, bitter winter.

Its people were out in force, too. Some were the unemployed, moving from district to district in search of work. Others were shopping, hunting from store to store for the food, clothing, and other necessities their government promised them. Soldiers and policemen were visible on every street corner. The military government wanted to be sure its citizens knew they were being watched.

Hradetsky moved through the crowds with ease. Even years spent working in provincial cities and towns couldn’t erase the skills he’d learned as a young boy growing up in the twin cities. But he couldn’t help noticing the hard looks and angry stares turned his way by some he passed. Clearly many of his fellow Hungarians again regarded the blue and gray police uniform as a visible sign of tyranny.

Normally he enjoyed walking the city streets for exercise. Today was different. Today he was taking the morning off to run an errand. A dangerous errand.

His errand was at the Prosecutor General’s Office, a few blocks away from the Ministry of the Interior.

Several years ago, he had worked with someone in the Prosecutor General’s Office. Anthal Bartha had impressed him as competent, energetic, and dedicated. If he, too, had favorable memories of Hradetsky, he might be able to give him an entry to someone higher up — maybe someone with access to the prosecutor general himself.

Unlike the Justice Department in the United States, the prosecutor general and his subordinates controlled all criminal prosecutions in Hungary. Under the constitution, they were also responsible for reviewing the legality of all government actions. He was hoping that would give them enough power to stop Rehling before EurCon’s special commissioner rode roughshod over the whole police force.

The Prosecutor General’s building stood out like a sore thumb among its more graceful, elegant neighbors. It was a drab, featureless concrete structure originally erected by Russian engineers hastily repairing bomb damage after World War II. Hradetsky suspected Hungary’s old communist puppet government had housed its lawyers in such a place to foster the notion of grim, faceless state authority. Bureaucratic inertia kept them there even after the communists fell from power.

Still, the foyer was bustling — crowded with attorneys and legal clerks coming and going on court business. Feeling out of place and conspicuous in his uniform, he brushed past them to an information desk where a lone, harried clerk reluctantly provided a building directory for his use.

Finding Bartha’s office number, he rode the creaking, manually operated elevator up to the right floor, got off, and walked down a hall painted a fading tan. To save electricity, every other light fixture was empty, creating pockets of shadow. The dingy gloom made Hradetsky faintly uneasy, almost as though he were committing a treasonous act in coming here. He squared his shoulders, rejecting the notion. Certainly he was going outside the normal channels of communication, but the idea of appealing to that drone Dozsa was ludicrous.

He stopped in front of an old-fashioned frosted-glass door. Black lettering told him the office belonged to “Anthal Bartha, Assistant to Budapest Prosecutor.” He knocked, waited a moment, and then went in.

The room’s only occupant sat at a desk facing the door, surrounded by piles of folders and bound documents. More paper filled the bookshelves on either side. The impression was not one of disorder, but of a tremendous work load.

The man at the desk was younger than Hradetsky by several years, but his black hair was already more than half gray. He was taller, too, but Hradetsky was used to that. He had a narrow face that looked up at his visitor in mixed puzzlement and expectation. “Yes? What can I do for you” — keen dark eyes took in the three silver stars on his shoulder boards — ”Colonel?”

“Solicitor Bartha, I’m Zoltan Hradetsky. We worked together a few years ago in Sopron — on the Andorka case.”

“That’s right.” Recognition and pleasure replaced Bartha’s previous expression.

Hradetsky nodded toward the only other chair in the room. “May I?”

“Please.” The lawyer waited for him to get settled. “So what brings you here today? I assume you have more on your mind than pleasant reminiscences.”

Hradetsky cleared his throat. This was where things got tricky. “I must ask you a question before I tell you my business, Solicitor.”

“Certainly.”

“Will you swear to keep this meeting private, until I say otherwise?” Even in Hradetsky’s ears that sounded melodramatic. Nevertheless, he couldn’t see any other way to proceed. With eyes-only documents that could be traced back to Silvanus in his attaché case, his wasn’t the only career at stake.

“Of course,” Bartha answered, his curiosity evidently piqued. “I am quite used to sensitive matters.”

“Not like this, I am afraid.” Hradetsky shook his head. “I’m here to ask your help. I have information, some documents, that I must get into the right hands. I believe this new EurCon liaison, Rehling, has plans to turn my service into another secret police force, another AVO!”

Bartha’s eyes opened wide at his mention of the hated Stalinist-era security service. Used to smash all dissent during the first years of communist rule, AVO troops had even fired on their own people in the 1956 revolution.

“Brigadier General Dozsa is doing nothing to stop him, and my own situation inside the ministry is so tenuous that I cannot take any action myself.”

“What? But you’re full colonel. A man with years of honored service. How can this be?”

Hradetsky sketched in the details of his clash with the French in Sopron and his subsequent exile to the ministry’s bureaucratic depths. Reliving the humiliating events of the past few months ate away at his self-control. By the time he finished, his voice was tight with anger.

“So now this Rehling appears and suddenly rules us by fiat. If he has his way, real criminals will wander unchecked while we become just guards protecting French and German businesses! Just another group of thugs hunting down our own people who object to all of this!” The memory of Sopron leapt into his mind again.

His face full of concern, Bartha nodded his understanding. “You mentioned some documentation of these charges?”

Hradetsky passed him the printouts he’d been given and waited in silence while the lawyer perused them, carefully scanning each page.

When he’d finished, Bartha handed them back, shaking his head unhappily. “Is this all you have? There is nothing else you can show me?”

“Isn’t this enough?”

“Not for my superiors or me to take action.” Seeing Hradetsky’s puzzled look, he hastened to explain. “Yes, a few regulations have undoubtedly been broken, but these are all internal police organizational matters. They aren’t even misdemeanors.”

“I wasn’t looking for an indictment,” said Hradetsky. “I just wanted to show these to someone who could cancel them, or stand up to this German. Dozsa certainly won’t.”

“Nor will anyone in this building. I can tell you right now that my superiors would throw you out of their offices.” Bartha jerked a thumb toward the ceiling. “Your commander isn’t the only one who’s running scared of our new ‘allies.’”

Hradetsky spread his hands. “I have nothing to lose.”

Bartha’s tone hardened. “Yes, you do. Your freedom.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “We have our own problems here in the Prosecutor General’s Office. The government has been quietly issuing new decrees for the past several weeks. They allow the arrest of anyone labeled a subversive — on very shaky legal grounds. As a lawyer, I would challenge these laws if I were ever asked to enforce them.”

His shoulders slumped. “But in this day and age I don’t think our Supreme Court will ever get to hear such a case.”

“So we are losing the last vestige of our rights.”

“Perhaps. In any case, it would be well to lie low for a while and see how things develop. Getting yourself in trouble won’t help anything.” Bartha suddenly stood up, ending the interview. He went to the door, opened it, and looked left and right down the hall.

We’ve become prisoners in our own country, Hradetsky thought sadly. Even our best officials are afraid.

He took his leave quickly and left the building. Silvanus’ documents were still in his briefcase. Walking back to his own office gave him time to think. He didn’t even feel the cold wind still blowing off the Danube.

Things were as bad at the Prosecutor General’s Office as they were inside the Interior Ministry. Maybe even worse. Watching existing laws flouted or ignored under emergency military rule had been troubling enough. But he’d be damned if he’d enforce a whole new set of laws designed to make Hungary’s serfdom a permanent condition.

So nobody in higher authority would talk to him. Very well. He grimaced. Bartha’s advice to “lay low” left a bad taste in his mouth. He’d laid low long enough.

Changing direction, Hradetsky lengthened his stride. He had a long way to go, but he needed the time to plan. He knew someone who would look at the evidence he carried. Someone who might be able to do something about it.