Cauldron

CHAPTER 15 Death Warrant

After the usual, quick-paced recitation of the day’s major events, NewsHour cut to its Washington-based co-anchor. “Now we turn to our top story for this Friday: First Flowers of a Budapest Spring. Paul Hamilton of Britain’s Independent Television News narrates this report smuggled out past Hungarian censors.”

The camera view shifted — moving in the blink of an eye from the program’s Washington, D.C., studio to scenes videotaped in Budapest much earlier that same day. The images were a far cry from earlier amateur videos hurriedly shipped across the Czech border and beamed by satellite around the world. These pictures were steady, focused, and professionally edited. Hungary’s blossoming opposition movement clearly had allies in the state-run television network.

Against a dramatic backdrop formed by the soaring, neo-Gothic spires, arches, and the great dome of the Parliament building, thousands of people packed a vast cobblestoned square. Hundreds of red, white, and green Hungarian flags fluttered above the crowd. Deep-voiced, angry chants rippled through the square, echoing back and forth and growing ever louder.

“Hungary’s political opposition emerged from hiding today — taking to the capital city’s streets in numbers not seen since the elections in 1990 swept the old communist regime from power. In a move that clearly took the military government by surprise, more than twenty thousand demonstrators converged on Kossuth Lajos Square for a Labor Day rally demanding an end to martial law and a return to democratic rule.”

The camera zoomed in for a close-up of the thin, white-haired man speaking from the Parliament building’s broad stone steps. Commandeered police sound trucks amplified his voice.

“In a stirring, twenty-minute-long address, Vladimir Kusin, leader of the outlawed Democratic Forum, called for the immediate restoration of civil rights, free and fair elections, and for an end to Hungary’s membership in the French- and German-dominated European Confederation.” The camera panned outward again, sweeping across a sea of shouting, cheering faces.

Another crowd shot — this time profoundly moving — showed thousands of men and women swaying from side to side as they sang their nation’s proud, melodic anthem.

“Although the entire hour-long rally took place in defiance of martial law regulations, the government’s security forces remained strangely passive. No officers tried to make any arrests.” The camera cut to small groups of policemen stationed at intervals around the growing crowd. Most looked uneasy or frightened. A few even seemed ashamed of their own uniforms. “Some went further than that.” The pictures showed many police officers joining the crowd in singing the anthem — some with tears streaming down their cheeks.

“Where Hungary’s rejuvenated political opposition goes from here is uncertain. But one thing does seem certain: its campaign to bring democracy back to this country is just beginning…”

They were meeting in Kusin’s third new apartment in three weeks. This one was small and cramped and smelled as though its tenants were often forced to dine on rotting fish.

Colonel Zoltan Hradetsky missed their previous host — an industrialist run out of business by a German chemicals firm. The man had actually had a separate conference room and a well-equipped office in his house.

Now they were back in a working-class flat in one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods. A single bedroom, a tiny kitchen, and a small, sparsely furnished sitting room made up the whole place. The bathroom — shared by all tenants on the same floor — was down the hall. With living and working space at a premium, the couple that had loaned Kusin the apartment were away, staying with friends and family members.

Despite the inconvenience, the frequent moves were necessary. Staying mobile and staying inconspicuous were the opposition’s best defenses against Rehling’s EurCon agents and the Hungarian officials they’d corrupted.

Hradetsky stared at the shut bedroom door in unconcealed impatience. It was nearly dark outside. He’d arrived at the flat nearly an hour ago, only to find Kusin closeted with unnamed men he didn’t know. His police identity card would get him past any curfew checkpoints on the way back home, but he didn’t like the idea of making his movements so easy to trace. “So just how much longer is this ‘vital meeting’ going to take?”

Oskar Kiraly, Kusin’s security chief, smiled, a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “It will last however long it lasts, Colonel. Kusin has his reasons.”

He didn’t volunteer any more information about the men meeting in the bedroom. Nor did Hradetsky really expect more. Rebels and outlaws who wanted to survive soon learned the value of compartmentalization. What he didn’t know couldn’t be torn out of him if Rehling or General Dozsa got their hands on him.

Kiraly offered him some coffee, strong and bitter, and they sat together at the kitchen table with two other members of the opposition’s inner circle. Kusin’s secretary perched on a nearby chair, tapping away on a humming laptop computer.

It was a familiar scene to Hradetsky, almost comforting. Certainly the comradeship he’d found with these men and women was something he’d missed since his abrupt demotion and transfer to Budapest. Since losing his command at Sopron, he’d also missed having a sense of purpose — something he now possessed in abundance.

He found the work invigorating. The chance to influence events on a national level acted like a tonic on him, washing away all the fatigue and frustration he’d felt piling up over the winter. He had always had a policeman’s contempt for politicians, but he was beginning to admit that this was a time when the only thing that really mattered was politics.

Kiraly looked at him over the edge of his coffee cup. “You know, Colonel, you’re still making problems for us.” He said it with mock seriousness.

“How so?”

“We’ve got twice as many new recruits as we can handle. And more are approaching us all the time.”

Hradetsky nodded. The first major rally he’d helped organize had been remarkably successful. More so than he had ever dared hope. The news of their defiance of the government’s edicts had spread like wildfire, passed by word of mouth, underground papers, and broadcasts over clandestine radio and TV networks based in the Polish, Czech, and Slovak republics. Since then spontaneous, unplanned protests had flared in Gyor, Debrecen, Pecs, and half a dozen other cities and towns. And in almost every case, the local police authorities had carefully looked the other way. The generals must know that their hold on power was shakier than it had ever been.

The bedroom door opened. Finally.

Hradetsky and the others rose to their feet as Kusin ushered his anonymous guests out. There were four of them. All of them were middle-aged, and all were trim and physically fit. The colonel’s eyes narrowed. Whoever these men were, they looked as uncomfortable and out of place in civilian clothes as he did. He suspected that when they walked they had a tendency to fall into step. They had to be soldiers.

After they were gone, Kusin returned to the kitchen. His eyes flashed with excitement, and years seemed to have dropped from his lined face. “My friends, the time has come for us to act, and to act decisively!”

Kiraly and Hradetsky exchanged puzzled glances. The security chief spoke for them all. “Sir?”

“The momentum lies with us. We must make use of it!” Kusin straightened to his full height. “The winter was a time of despair — a time when the generals had the edge. Our people were hungry. They were cold. They were afraid. They wanted food and security — whatever the price. But now it is spring. And in the spring our countrymen’s thoughts turn toward freedom!”

He looked at their stunned faces and smiled. “Don’t worry, my friends. I haven’t lost my mind. There is method in my madness.” His manner changed as he became businesslike, transforming himself from prophet to practical politician. “We must march again, in even larger numbers this time. In numbers that no one can ignore. And I want this city paralyzed by a general strike before we begin. This must be a march of those who have work as well as those who have none.”

Hradetsky shook his head. “We were lucky the last time. But organizing a mass strike and an even larger demonstration? It can’t be done.” He frowned. “Not covertly.”

“Exactly!” Kusin smiled at him. “Our plans should be public. The time. The place. Everything. I want maximum coverage by our friends in the world press.”

Kiraly nodded sagely, then added grimly, “Easy enough to arrange. But it will also be easy for EurCon and government security forces to provide their own form of full coverage.”

“Yes. This will be a test of strength,” Kusin agreed. “A gauntlet thrown down before the generals and their French and German masters.”

Hradetsky felt his fingers flex as though they were curling around the hilt of a saber. He fought to keep a cool head. The images conjured up by Kusin’s confident words were pleasing, but were they realistic? “Are we ready to throw down such a gauntlet?”

“I believe we are.” Kusin sounded certain. “The people are with us. The press is with us. And this government is weaker than we first imagined.” He smiled grimly. “Perhaps even weaker than it knows.”

“You’re sure about this?” Nicolas Desaix tapped the red-tagged Most Secret report in front of him. “This isn’t just a case of panic brought on by the sight of a few bearded fools with painted signs?”

“No, Minister.” Although Jacques Morin now headed both the French DGSE and the Confederation’s Interior Secretariat, he never forgot his place or his patron. “I believe the information is accurate.”

Desaix grimaced. The rising tide of Hungarian resistance to their own military government and to French and German influence there had taken him by surprise. His attention had been focused almost exclusively on the growing dispute with Poland, the Czech and Slovak republics, Britain, and the United States. A few petty protests in one small country had seemed utterly insignificant when compared to the larger, more serious game being played out in the North Sea and along Germany’s eastern border. He was starting to regret not paying heed to Hungary sooner. The trouble there should have been nipped in the bud — not allowed to spread virtually unchecked.

Of course, he thought, this is all part of the same struggle. The Poles and their neighbors are stirring up trouble for us in Hungary to hit back for the energy embargo. It was something like a flea trying to bite an elephant, but even a fleabite could be annoying if left untended.

Like this. Desaix paged through the report, glancing briefly at its headings and conclusions. Hungary’s police force was falling apart. Although no police units had yet openly sided with the opposition, illegal demonstrations were allowed to go untamed. And raids launched against reported “safe houses” or outlawed printing presses netted little. Opposition sympathizers inside the force saw to that.

Even worse, there were persistent rumors of growing dissatisfaction in the army — especially among junior officers and in the ranks. Hungary’s rulers were becoming increasingly nervy. He frowned as one particular piece of information caught his eye. Some of the generals were moving their money out of Budapest banks and into Swiss safe havens. The cowards! And the fools! If he could find that out, so could the rebels. Knowing that some of the junta were already preparing for possible flight would only make this Kusin and his fellows that much bolder.

Desaix flipped the report shut and pushed it away. “So now these hotheaded scum are planning an even bigger demonstration?”

Morin nodded. Worry lines furrowed his high pale forehead. “Kusin and their other leaders have called for a general strike, a protest march through Budapest, and another mass rally — all starting on the sixteenth.”

“A shrewd maneuver,” Desaix conceded. By openly declaring its intentions, the opposition was challenging the military regime to a fight the generals could easily lose. Allowing the threatened strike and rally to go ahead would only encourage more trouble. But using unreliable Hungarian police units in an attempt to crush the protest might be disastrous — especially if it failed.

He swiveled his chair to look out across Paris. Army helicopters clattered low over rooftops and monuments, flying slowly over the city on patrol. Despite months of relative calm, the capital was still under limited martial law.

French troops guarded every major intersection, and a dusk-to-dawn curfew kept all but essential people off the streets. The City of Lights was a dark, frightening place at night. In the daytime sullen groups of unemployed, some French and some foreign, clashed, or demonstrated, or raided some luckless shop owner for food. Most citizens had enough to eat, barely, and a job, but unemployment was far too high and growing. More and more angry people were being added to the near-explosive idle population.

What the economy needed could not be provided. Tariffs and other restrictions had crippled the trade and commerce Europe depended on for prosperity. The French and German economies, the strongest in Europe, had shrunk last year, and would shrink even faster this year. And now the Eastern Europeans and their U.S. and British backers were thwarting the French- and German-led effort to build a unified, self-sufficient continental market.

Desaix scowled. He and his colleagues on the French Republic’s Emergency Committee still found it easier to govern their unruly countrymen with the aid of the army’s “big stick.” Seeing the patrolling helicopters was an unwelcome reminder of just how tenuous all his recent achievements really were.

France held the dominant position in this new European Confederation, but the Confederation itself was still a relatively weak and fragile instrument. For all their governments’ promises that joining EurCon would bring them peace and prosperity, few people in the smaller member states were reconciled to their loss of sovereignty. If Hungary’s pro-Confederation regime collapsed, it could easily drag other friendly governments down with it.

Desaix shook his head angrily. He would not risk that. He spun away from the window. “Very well, Morin, listen closely. If the Hungarians cannot put an end to this nonsense on their own, then we must help them. Clear?”

“Yes, Minister.” Morin nodded again. “Do you want Special Commissioner Rehling to handle the matter?”

“No.” Desaix slapped his hand down on the desk. “Not the Germans. They’re too soft. Too prissy about following proper procedure. Rehling has had his chance and he’s muffed it.”

He rapped the desktop. “I want someone tougher — more ruthless. Someone willing to take risks to get results. Somebody who won’t shirk from a little ‘wet’ work, if that proves necessary. You understand?”

“Perhaps Major Duroc…?”

Desaix smiled slowly and unpleasantly. “Yes. Paul Duroc. He would be the perfect choice.”

The door to Bela Silvanus’ office was half-open when Hradetsky knocked on it. The short, pudgy bureaucrat looked up irritably from his work, then smiled wearily when he recognized his caller. He motioned the colonel inside.

Hradetsky shut the door behind him. “I got your note. What’s up?”

“Nothing good.” Silvanus lit a cigarette, inhaled deeply, and nodded toward the chair in front of his desk. “Take a seat.”

Curious, Hradetsky sat down. Although the other man had never asked him where all the documents he’d been feeding him were going, Silvanus had to know he had contacts in the resistance. Discretion had always been one of the administrator’s most prized traits.

Silvanus spoke quietly, earnestly. “There’s trouble brewing, my friend. Trouble I think you need to know about.”

“What kind — personal or professional?” Hradetsky grinned tightly. Were Dozsa and his toadies finally catching on to him?

“The EurCon kind. Connected to this upcoming demonstration I keep hearing about.”

Hradetsky sat back in his chair. He’d been wondering when Rehling would step in to play a more active part in the ministry’s somewhat disjointed preparations for the May 16 rally. General Dozsa and the other high-ranking officials were in a dither, moving riot control troops in from outlying cities almost as fast as they could find transport for them. But the colonel found the attitudes of those below the upper echelons extremely interesting. Heartened by the reappearance of a viable political opposition, fellow officers who had once seemed prepared to go alone with EurCon were increasingly willing to show their true feelings. And men who had once shunned him in the corridors now went out of their way to shake his hand.

He spread his hands. “So what have you got?”

Silvanus shrugged. “Bits and pieces, and none of them reassuring, I fear.” He stubbed his cigarette out in an overflowing ashtray and rubbed his eyes. “I’ve been kept busy running errands the last few days — playing travel agent for our lords and masters.”

Hradetsky waited patiently for him to come to the point. Silvanus had a pleasant voice, but sometimes he liked to listen to himself talk just a bit too much.

“Most of my work has come in making arrangements for several groups of special visitors to our fair city. Airport pickups, rental cars, and hotel reservations. That sort of thing. Curious thing about these men, though: they’re all young and they’re all flying direct from Paris. I’ve also been ordered to issue them special identity cards and weapons permits. Interesting, eh?”

“How many?”

“Around fifty.”

Hradetsky pondered that. Fifty Frenchmen, even fifty security agents, didn’t sound like much of an invasion. Still, they could cause a lot of trouble by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He frowned. “Who commands; them? The German?”

Silvanus shook his head. “Rehling isn’t in charge. This Interior Secretariat of theirs is flying in someone special. A Frenchman. A man named Duroc. You know him, I think?”

Hradetsky nodded grimly. “I know him.” Hie felt cold. First Sopron, now here in Budapest. And everywhere this Duroc went he seemed to bring death with him. Maybe EurCon was getting ready to take the gloves off. If so, he would have to warn Kusin and the others — tonight, if possible.

He rose to go. “My thanks, Bela. You’ve done me a great service. I’m only sorry I have no way to repay you.”

Silvanus waved a hand. “Never mind. I am owed enough favors.”

Hradetsky frowned. “Still, giving me this information is dangerous…”

“I’ve already decided to take an ‘early retirement,’ my friend. The Germans have been sniffing around too much, and I’m getting tired of being Rehling’s stooge.” Silvanus grinned. “So I’m going to strike my own blow for Hungarian independence by letting them try to run this place without me!”

Hradetsky had to smile at that. “When do you leave?”

“My letter will be on the generals’ desks tomorrow morning, and by dawn my wife and I will be halfway to a little place we have northeast of here — up in the Matra Mountains. No television, no telephone. Just a little fishing and a little reading. You see, that’s the other reason I wanted to see you. We just held my going-away party.” The administrator’s grin faded. “I have a feeling that Budapest could become a very unhealthy place to live in the near future.”

The colonel nodded. “You’re probably right.” He shook the other man’s outstretched hand and turned away.

“Oh, Zoltan?”

Hradetsky paused with his hand on the door.

Silvanus reached into one of his desk drawers and tossed him an armband — one dyed in Hungary’s red, white, and green national colors. “Tell your friends to be a bit more careful when handing these out. After all, some of the people in this building still work for the generals.”

Hradetsky nodded somberly and stuffed the armband in a coat pocket. “I will remind them of that.”

Evidently Kusin and the others were casting their nets further and faster than he had imagined.

They were lucky in the weather. May was usually one of the wettest months in Hungary’s capital, but this day dawned clear and sunny with the promise of moderate temperatures later on.

Hradetsky stood with Kusin and Kiraly, watching his countrymen streaming in from every direction — tens of thousands of them, maybe more. The general strike they’d called was holding. Most businesses and factories were shut down, either voluntarily by patriotic owners or because all their employees were on their way here. The only parts of the public transit system still operating were the buses and Metro subway trains ferrying people to the march. As they arrived, opposition workers assigned as parade marshals shepherded the men, women, and children into places along the wide, tree-lined avenue. Others circulated through the crowds, handing out flags and placards.

Hradetsky idly fingered the armband around his blue uniform jacket. Appearing like this, in full uniform and at the head of the march, had been Kusin’s suggestion. It was one way to show the people they were not alone — that some of the government’s own officials were turning against it. Of course, if the military regime stood firm against the combination of this march and the general strike, showing up among the demonstrators would make him a hunted man.

He shrugged. So be it. He was tired of playing a double game.

The colonel ran his eyes over the swelling crowd. At least he would have plenty of company on the run. There were several other policemen and even a few army officers scattered in the front ranks — all of them in uniform. Most of them looked very nervous. Well, that was understandable. He’d had more time to come to terms with betraying an oath for the love of his country.

They weren’t the only uniformed men present. Small groups of patrolmen were stationed at nearby intersections, hanging well back. From time to time, demonstrators walked right up to them, trying to talk them into joining the march. Sometimes it worked. Hradetsky could see several police squads already wearing the tricolored armbands that showed they were siding with the opposition.

There were still no signs of the government’s riot control troops or Duroc’s French security men, though. They had to be further ahead — hidden somewhere among the buildings lining the avenue. Waiting for a signal. But waiting for a signal to do what?

He turned to Kusin. “I’ll say it again, sir. If you must march, at least march further back in the column. Let Oskar and me and more of his men go first.”

Kiraly nodded. “The colonel is right, Vladimir. This insistence on staying so close to the front is not sound. It’s too…”

“Dangerous?” Kusin finished for him. “Perhaps it is.” He nodded toward the milling crowds behind them. “But it is dangerous for all of us. And the people have a right to see those who would lead them taking the biggest risks.”

He saw their frustrated looks and laughed gently. “Come, my friends. You cannot protect me from myself or others forever. Besides, I’ve already agreed to carry more than my fair weight today, eh?” He patted his shirtfront.

At Kiraly’s insistence, Kusin was wearing a bulletproof vest under his suit. With luck it might stop a shot fired by a sniper or other assassin. But that was the only compromise Hradetsky and the security chief had been able to persuade him to make. When they’d pressed him on the need to play it safer, he’d only smiled and clapped them both on the shoulder. “When you match your strength against a foe, gentlemen, you can’t afford a show of weakness. We go forward, not back.”

To Hradetsky, this march was taking on a whole new aspect. It was changing rapidly from a “test of strength” to the kind of crazy game called Chicken he’d seen played out in American movies. The kind of game where two automobiles raced straight toward each other — with each driver betting the other would flinch first.

Kusin looked at his watch, took a deep breath, and looked up with a confident smile on his careworn face. “It’s time, gentlemen. Oskar? Will you do the honors?”

Kiraly nodded. He started relaying orders to the marshals scattered up and down the still-growing crowd, using a handheld portable phone. The phones and dedicated cellular circuits were the gift of opposition sympathizers inside the city’s telephone center.

Slowly, with several fits and starts, their march got under way — picking up speed and support as they tramped down the avenue. Within minutes, more than 100,000 Hungarians were heading for the Danube and the government offices around the Parliament building. Thousands of colorful banners and flags waved above the crowd, streaming proudly in a light, westerly breeze.

They were led by a thin line of Kiraly’s toughest men, all army or National Police veterans, holding large Hungarian flags spread out on poles between them. Kusin, Kiraly, Hradetsky, and other opposition leaders followed right behind. Many sought actively by the security services wore placards that said simply, “Outlawed — For Loving Hungary.”

Rank after rank of Budapest’s citizens came after them, sometimes organized and sometimes not organized at all. Men in business suits mingled with laborers in hard hats and dungarees. Policemen, some wearing opposition armbands, paced them. Mothers pushing infants in strollers walked side by side with their next-door neighbors or with people they’d never seen before. Bands deployed at regular intervals played a mix of stirring marching songs that set a brisk, purposeful pace and lifted people’s hearts.

Striding along beside Kusin, Hradetsky carefully scanned the faces of his fellows. He saw determination, fierce joy, and very little uncontrolled anger. They were off to a good start.

Another watcher saw the same crowd, but with a very different set of emotions.

Major Paul Duroc leaned forward, almost touching the glass window in a third-floor office overlooking the Radial Avenue. He’d “borrowed” the office from the aging, homesick manager of a French-owned firm. Now it served as his command post.

The command post was small, just himself, a radioman, and one assistant to answer the phones and run any errands. That was enough, though, to manage the platoons of Hungarian riot police and French security agents under his immediate control. And if he needed more men, he could get them with a single phone call. The head of the DGSE had made it clear that the Hungarian government itself would answer to Duroc’s orders if he wished it. Dismayed by their own inability to control events, the generals were ready to grasp at straws.

He would have preferred making a preemptive strike by arresting Kusin and the other opposition leaders before they could organize this protest march. Unfortunately the Hungarian regime’s incompetence and sloth had made that impossible. You couldn’t capture people you couldn’t find.

Duroc sneered at the sight of the massive, ragtag mob coming down the street. Numbers meant nothing. He had sufficient strength in hand to crush this demonstration, and more important, the minds behind it. Any fool could use force to break up a rally. The key was to move so quickly and so violently that those you hit were left stunned, unable to defend themselves or strike back. But he had bigger plans. His orders from Paris were clear: His superiors wanted him to do more than just temporarily restore order to Budapest’s streets. They wanted him to smash Hungary’s political opposition once and for all.

Well, he thought, that should be simple enough. Kusin and the others on his list were positioned close to the front — out in the open and out of hiding at last. That was brave, but foolish. They would be easy pickings.

Still, years of experience had taught him to plan for the unexpected. That was why he’d stationed Michel Woerner and five men armed with automatic weapons in the building’s central stairwell. They would provide security against any unwelcome intruders if things went wrong.

He leaned closer to the window to get a better view.

The first rows of marching morons were almost in the noose he’d fashioned. Kusin and his followers were just moving into Kodaly Circle — a major intersection surrounded by ornately decorated buildings whose façades curved to follow the circle. The other streets feeding into the circle were a maze of businesses, small hotels, and apartment blocks.

Small knots of tough-looking men loitered near the intersection. They weren’t hiding, but they kept to the corners and to the early morning shadows. Although they were dressed in plain, workingmen’s clothes, no one could possibly mistake them for civilians. They were too quiet, too disciplined.

Beyond them, out of sight, were trucks and armored cars full of riot police. Once his men had the king and other important pieces in hand, the Hungarians could clear the board of the pawns. With their leaders gone, the mob out there would run like sheep — not roar like lions.

Duroc watched the approaching crowd draw nearer, noting the individuals in it but not really seeing them as people. They were simply obstacles he had to overcome to complete this mission. Three stories below, the line of Hungarian flags crossed into the circle. Now. He turned to his radioman. “Proceed with Phase One.”

Hradetsky swore suddenly as the men he’d been watching suspiciously sprang into action. Long-handled nightsticks and blackjacks came out from under windbreakers and long coats as thirty to forty of them formed into three squad-sized wedges and charged. Others hung back, apparently armed with short-barreled grenade launchers. Without waiting for further orders, they aimed and fired.

He whirled to shout a warning. Too late.

Tear gas grenades whirred overhead and exploded in the crowds further back — bursting in puffs of white, choking smoke. Panic spread backward along the avenue as the CS gas drifted east on the wind. Marchers stumbled and fell, overcome by acrid fumes that left them retching on the ground or crawling away with tears streaming down their faces. In seconds, Hradetsky, Kusin, Kiraly, and several hundred others at the front of the march were isolated — cut off from their supporters by a rising wall of tear gas.

Nightsticks rose and fell as the first wave of plainclothes security agents smashed into the flag bearers at the front. Men spun away from the melee, clutching bloodied faces, fractured ribs, and broken arms and legs. Torn Hungarian flags fluttered to the pavement. Shouts, curses, and guttural snarls echoed above the fray — some in Hungarian, others in French.

The first Frenchmen broke past, breathing hard as they sprinted toward Kusin. Two of Kiraly’s marshals tried to tackle them and went down — clubbed brutally to the ground. Bastards!

Hradetsky moved to intercept Duroc’s men, sensing others running with him.

One of the Frenchmen saw him coming. Hradetsky dodged a quick, flickering jab from a nightstick, grabbed the agent’s outstretched arm, and whirled, pulling the man off his feet. As the Frenchman’s head slammed into the pavement, the colonel kicked him hard in the ribs and turned away, looking for a new opponent.

Kodaly Circle had turned into a battlefield. Bodies sprawled on the street, some moving and others unmoving. Blunt-nosed Csepel lorries appeared at the far end of the intersection, crammed with helmeted riot police.

Hradetsky caught a glimpse of Kusin’s white hair through a tangle of struggling, swearing men and headed that way. He could see Kiraly pulling the older man back, trying to shield him from blows raining down on all sides.

A taller, heavier Frenchman blocked his path, teeth bared in sharp defiance and blood-slick stick at the ready.

The colonel ducked under the man’s first vicious swing, struck at his exposed stomach, missed, and backed away. They circled, each looking for an opening.

Duroc looked sourly at the melee developing below him. He’d underestimated the ability of the Hungarians to defend themselves, and now he was running out of time. Bands of enraged protesters were already streaming back down the avenue to the intersection, braving the tear gas to close with his struggling plainclothesmen.

Damn it, where were Kusin and his top lieutenants? With the opposition’s leaders in custody, his men could pull back, clearing the field for the riot squads already deploying in several of the surrounding streets. Without them, he had nothing.

“Major! Captain Miklos wants permission to advance!”

Duroc spun away from the window, his face dark with anger. “No! Tell him to wait!”

He remembered Miklos. The young, black-haired captain was one of the Hungarian police officers under his command for this operation. He was also a man the French security agent viewed with some suspicion — one with several black marks in his dossier for allegedly criticizing both the government and the new Confederation. Confronted by Vladimir Kusin’s unexpected ability to mobilize the people, the generals were being forced to rely on even their most unreliable officers.

Duroc scowled. He had the uncomfortable sensation that events were sliding beyond his control.

Down in the street, Hradetsky blocked a wild swing with his left forearm and got inside the tall Frenchman’s reach. Ignoring the pain rocketing all the way up to his shoulder, he rabbit-punched the security agent in the throat. The big man dropped to his knees, choking on a broken larynx.

Now what? He looked wildly around, trying to spot Kusin or Kiraly. He doubted it would do any good to shout for them. Not in a confused mess like this. More and more protesters were flooding into Kodaly Circle, intent on getting to grips with the men who had turned a peaceful march into a bloody free-for-all. With their comrades locked in a confused melee, the Frenchmen armed with tear gas launchers had stopped firing and joined the fight.

“Colonel!”

Hradetsky half turned toward the yell, just in time to see Oskar Kiraly knocked off his feet by several club-wielding men. My God. He took a step in that direction and felt the back of his head explode.

The agony drove him down to his hands and knees as the security agent who had hit him from behind struck again, this time slamming the nightstick into his side. His awareness danced away toward a world of darkness and shrieking pain. Dimly, through half-closed eyes, he saw his attacker tackled by one of Kiraly’s marshals. Five or six protesters crowded in, jostling each other as they kicked and pummeled the Frenchman senseless. Some of them were policemen wearing opposition armbands.

Still groggy, Hradetsky pushed himself up off the pavement, fighting to stop the world spinning around him. Each breath stabbed his side as sharp as any dagger. A broken rib, or maybe just badly bruised, he thought clinically — amazed at the mind’s ability to stay detached under stress.

“They have Kusin!” The panicked, sorrowing cry tore through both his pain and his adrenaline-enforced calm. He opened his eyes wide.

Those few Frenchmen still able to walk or ran were falling back. But they weren’t alone. They had a small number of captives with them. Most were opposition leaders who had been wearing the placards proclaiming their status as wanted men. Two plainclothes agents were dragging the lean, white-haired opposition leader between them. Kusin’s head lolled, rolling from side to side, as his captors hurried away, staggering under their burden. He was either dead or unconscious.

Hradetsky’s long-suppressed rage exploded, burning white-hot. He stood up straight, balancing precariously on wobbly legs for a moment. First one breath and then another cleaned the worst of the pain out of his lungs. He started running toward the retreating French. Others followed him.

As they shoved and clubbed their way toward safety, Duroc’s men were forced to fight through an ever-thickening crowd. More and more Hungarians were swinging wide around the tiny phalanx of security agents to block their path and slow them down. The colonel saw his countrymen surrounding the Frenchmen linking arms, trying to form a barrier to movement. Wherever the two groups came in contact, they fought tooth and nail — clawing and tearing at each other in a mindless fury.

Hradetsky was only meters away now, dodging through the ring surrounding Duroc’s men. Several of the Frenchmen raised their arms, frantically beckoning for help from the riot police waiting barely a block away. The Hungarian colonel could sense their growing desperation. Although their goal was in sight, they were now too weak and too few in number to reach it.

One of Kiraly’s biggest men, a burly, bearlike ex-army sergeant, bulled his way deep into the French phalanx. He backhanded one of the men holding Kusin and reached for the other, shouting aloud in triumph.

Hradetsky, just a few steps behind, saw everything that followed as though it happened in slow motion.

Instead of backing away from his attacker or dropping Kusin, the Frenchman’s hand darted inside his windbreaker and reappeared holding a weapon. As the barrel cleared his jacket, he fired twice, pumping two rounds into the ex-sergeant’s chest. The big man flew backward, punched off his feet in a spray of blood.

“Down! Down! Everybody down!” Hradetsky clawed for the pistol holstered at his side.

Other Frenchmen, also sensing defeat, were pulling their own weapons. The colonel recognized them as German-made MP5K submachine guns — special, shortened variants designed to be carried concealed under clothing.

Without warning they opened fire, carefully aiming into the crowd in front of them. They weren’t shooting to frighten. They were shooting to kill, deliberately clearing a path with bullets. People went down in droves under the hail of gunfire — either ripped open by 9mm rounds or throwing themselves prone behind the dead and dying to escape the slaughter.

Hradetsky dropped to one knee, with his service automatic extended in his right hand and braced by his left. He aimed quickly at the security agent who had fired first, and squeezed off two shots. The first caught the Frenchman in the shoulder and spun him around. The second blew a red-rimmed hole in his forehead.

The colonel searched rapidly for another target, cursing under his breath as panicked demonstrators stumbled into his line of fire. He swiveled back and forth, still holding his pistol braced. A clear space opened up in front of him. He had only a split second to decide. Should he fire at one of the men dragging Kusin toward the riot police? Or take out a Frenchman murdering his compatriots?

One of Duroc’s men leveled his submachine gun and fired a series of walking bursts into the screaming men and women ahead of him. More people crumpled, cut down by bullets fired at point-blank range.

Hradetsky squeezed off another shot. Blood spurted from the gunman’s back as he staggered and fell facedown onto the street.

The dead man’s comrades were already on the move, stepping over bodies while they fired at anyone still standing ahead of them. Two turned and began shooting at the crowds pouring into Kodaly Circle from the Radial Avenue to hold them back.

Bullets whipcracked through the air over Hradetsky’s head. He threw himself flat, taking cover behind one of the Frenchmen he had killed. High-pitched screams and low, muffled groans rose from the people behind him.

He raised his head, risking a quick glance ahead. Duroc’s agents were close to safety — a line of helmeted riot troops, most of them ashen at the butchery they were seeing, and rows of trucks and armored cars waiting to carry them away. The Frenchmen were too far away for him to risk another shot. At this range, he could easily hit Kusin or one of the policemen by accident.

Hradetsky wanted to roar in anger and frustration. They’d been beaten.

In that instant, the universe turned upside down.

Captain Ferenc Miklos watched in stunned disbelief as the Frenchmen approached with their handful of battered and bruised prisoners. Did they really think he would shelter them after what he had seen? After watching them massacre his own people?

He bit his lip hard enough to draw blood. Kodaly Circle looked like a slaughterhouse. The dead and wounded lay heaped where bullets or clubs had thrown them. He could hear a baby wailing inside a stroller lying on its side next to a young woman who stared up at the sky with open, unmoving eyes.

The captain could also hear the outraged murmurs rising from the formed ranks of his own men. None of them had signed on for something like this. Nor had he. As a young police cadet, he’d sworn to uphold law and order, but whose law and which order? Those of Hungary? Or those of France and Germany? The laws that made a simple protest march illegal? Or those that made outright murder a crime?

The French agents came closer, dragging or shoving their captives along at gunpoint. One of those in the lead, a tall, hard-faced man, arrogantly waved Miklos and his men out of the way with his snub-nosed submachine gun.

Something snapped inside the short, black-haired police officer. He had to do something — even if that meant taking Kusin and the other opposition prisoners into his own custody. He stepped into the French security agent’s path. “Halt!”

Miklos saw the taller man’s arrogance change to fear. He had only a second to feel satisfied by that before the Frenchman stuck the submachine gun in his stomach and pulled the trigger.

The young Hungarian captain died a martyr without ever really deciding whose side he was on.

Hradetsky scrambled to his feet before the echoes of the latest shots faded. Had Duroc’s men gone mad?

Fifty meters ahead of him, the policemen stared from the group of French agents to their captain’s sprawled corpse and back again. Then they charged. More submachine guns stuttered, spreading chaos and carnage. Uniformed Hungarians went down, torn in half by concentrated bursts. But Frenchmen were falling, too, beaten to the ground by flailing nightsticks and Plexiglas shields.

As Hradetsky sprinted toward the battle he could see other police units moving into the circle, closing in on the French. They were ignoring the demonstrators.

The surviving agents were retreating, hobbling away from the trucks that were supposed to ferry them to safety. Instead, they were falling back toward a small, three-story stone office building overlooking Kodaly Circle. Still carrying Kusin, they disappeared inside.

Several helmeted riot troopers followed them all the way to the door and then crumpled suddenly, mowed down by automatic weapons fire from inside. Other policemen close by scattered for cover behind the armored cars and trucks parked next to the building. Protesters raced to join them.

Bent low to stay out of the line of fire, Hradetsky worked his way through the crouching men, looking for the highest-ranking officer he could find. He came face-to face with a major kneeling beside a badly wounded police corporal. “Are these your men?”

The man looked up, staring at him with shocked and wild eyes. “Yes, they are, damn you!” Then he saw Hradetsky’s shoulder boards. “Sir.”

“Will you obey my orders, Major?”

The man’s eyes focused and slid down to the red, white, and green band over Hradetsky’s uniform jacket. He stiffened instinctively, then glanced down at the injured man gasping for air by his side. When the major looked up again, his expression had changed. It was harder and more determined. “Yes, Colonel, I will. And so will my men.”

“Good.”

“Colonel?”

Hradetsky turned to see Oskar Kiraly limping toward him. The big, blond-haired man looked dazed and in tremendous pain. Blood streaked the side of his face, dripping from an open gash over one cheekbone.

“Where is Kusin?”

Hradetsky nodded toward the office building. “In there. The French have him.”

“No! Oh, God.” Kiraly slammed his fist against the steel side of a truck. Tears mingled with the blood running down his face. “I failed him. I couldn’t stop them!”

The colonel grabbed his wrist before he could pound the truck again. When Hradetsky spoke, he kept his voice low. “None of us could stop them. But this isn’t over. Not yet. Fall apart later, when it doesn’t matter. Right now we need you. So pull yourself together, man.” He released Kiraly’s wrist and turned away to give the big man time to recover his composure.

Thousands of protesters were still flooding into the circle. Some were ministering to the wounded or staring in horror at the carnage. Most were streaming past on their way toward the city center and the government buildings there. They were angry now, ready for revenge against those responsible for the nightmarish scenes all around them.

Members of Kiraly’s security team stood watchfully around small bands of riot police — shielding them from the mob. Others moved among the policemen handing out opposition armbands. What had been planned as a protest was rapidly becoming a full-scale rebellion. Hradetsky stood silent for a few moments, weighing the odds in their favor. Then he shrugged. There were times when you could control events, and there were others where events controlled you. The people were taking matters into their own hands. His job now was to make that as swift and sure and peaceful as possible.

He glanced at the officer still waiting by his side. “I want you to get on your radio, Major. Get in touch with all major police and military commands throughout this city and tell them what’s happened here. Everything that has happened here! Understand?”

The major nodded vigorously, obviously relieved to have orders he could follow with a clear conscience. He hurried away, heading for his command car.

The colonel turned back to Kiraly. Though still somewhat dazed, the man looked calmer and more in control of his emotions. Good. “Oskar, I want you to take command here. Organize a force and surround those bastards in there.” He jerked a thumb toward the office building and ducked involuntarily as gunfire rattled somewhere not far off.

“Should I attack them?”

Hradetsky shook his head. “Not without more weapons. They’re too heavily armed.” As though to emphasize his point, more automatic weapons fire from inside hammered the sidewalk next to the building’s entrance. Several policemen and protesters who had been readying themselves for another charge dropped back into cover.

“And what about you, Colonel? What will you be doing?”

“I’m going on to the Parliament,” Hradetsky growled. “While you keep these swine penned here, I want the cowardly scum behind this butchery brought to justice. Our justice.”

Kiraly nodded grimly. Hungary’s military rulers were about to pay a blood price for selling their nation to foreign powers.

Major Paul Duroc glowered at his closest subordinates. He and his surviving agents had been trapped in this godforsaken building for more than an hour — trapped while Budapest crumbled into riot and ruin.

Shots rang out in the stairwell. Woerner and his men must be dealing with another attempt by the mob to break in.

“Major! We’ve lost contact with the Interior Ministry! And with the Houses of Parliament! All the phone lines are dead.”

Duroc sighed, staring out across the Budapest skyline. He could see smoke rising from near the city center — both the white wisps of tear gas and dense black columns spiraling upward from burning buildings. On the street below, police riot vehicles roared by, crowded with helmeted troops and protesters waving clenched fists. Each armored car now had a Hungarian flag flying from its radio antenna. He had lost — betrayed by his own agents’ cowardice and incompetence, and by the treacherous Hungarian police.

One of the office windows blew inward in a torrent of flying glass, shattered by gunfire from across the street. The rebels were growing bolder. It was time to leave. He turned to his radioman. “Signal the ambassador. Tell him I advise immediate evacuation.”

As the frightened young man keyed his microphone, Duroc added one more order. “Then contact Captain Gille. I want those helicopters now!”

With the bitter taste of defeat in his mouth, Oskar Kiraly watched the second of two overloaded Puma helicopters climb heavily away from the office building and fly southeast — toward the airport and safe passage out of the country. Matching his hastily gathered force against a group of trained commandos had proved futile. Police-issue pistols, shotguns, and a few hunting rifles were no match for high-powered assault rifles in the hands of men who knew how to use them. There were plenty of dead policemen and protesters heaped on the street and inside the building to show that.

Now Duroc and his men were making their escape. And Vladimir Kusin was going with them — taken captive to France.

Hradetsky leaned over a map of the city, marking key positions with one hand while cradling a phone against his ear with the other. “That’s right, Captain. I want you to push patrols out along the M1 Highway. If they spot anything — a convoy of tanks and troop carriers, or even just a single army truck — I want to know about it immediately. Is that clear? It is? Excellent. Good luck, then.”

He hung up and jotted another quick note on the map. The M1 ran west out of Budapest toward Gyor, Sopron, and the Austrian border. It also ran through Tata, a small city just seventy kilometers away. And Tata was the headquarters for the Hungarian Army’s most powerful armored corps. If the army decided to crush this rebellion, its tanks and guns were sure to come trundling down that highway.

He hoped that would not happen. For the last several hours, Hungary’s Budapest-based television networks had been airing footage shot during the French attack — including pictures showing the EurCon security agents killing uniformed policemen without provocation. Surely no one who saw those images could fail to understand why the capital’s citizenry had taken both the law and the reins of government into their own hands.

The colonel finished his map work and looked around the crowded room. Other police officers worked side by side with civilians in business suits and blue jeans, trying hard to restore order. All of them wore armbands in the national colors and all of them were exhausted.

Hradetsky’s eyes watered. He could still smell traces of tear gas and smoke lingering in the air — evidence of the brief battles that had raged earlier in the day. Backed by his hastily organized police and opposition forces, the mobs had overrun the Parliament building and government ministries with relative ease. Most of the very few police and security troops who had stayed loyal to the generals were either dead or in hiding. Most of their masters, panicked by the first reports of the disaster at Kodaly Circle, had fled along with EurCon’s special commissioner, the French and German ambassadors, and a host of lesser functionaries.

Of course, not all of them had escaped the deluge. A few terrified prisoners waited in the hallway under armed guard. They included a middling-tall man whose once immaculate police uniform was now rumpled and torn. To the colonel’s immense, if unspoken, satisfaction, Brigadier General Imre Dozsa was one of those who had been captured while trying to flee.

Hradetsky crossed the room to where Kiraly sat alone, silent and dejected. His reckoning with Dozsa would have to wait. He had far more important and immediate problems to sort out. “Oskar, I must ask you and your men to do one thing more for me tonight.”

Kiraly looked up, wincing as a gash on his forehead tore open again. “Of course, Colonel. But what?”

“Find every leader in our organization who is still alive and still free. Bring them here as quickly as you can.”

“Why?”

“Why?” Hradetsky pointed out the window. Whole sections of Budapest were pitch-black — knocked off the electric grid by the fires or by confusion in the capital’s power plants. Against the darkness the sky glowed red, lit by dozens of fires burning out of control across the city. “Because when Hungary wakes up tomorrow morning, she must have a new government.”