Liberation Movements

Gavra

The metro brought him to the First District militia station, to homicide. Unlike many buildings that had been torn down and reconstructed in the socialist mold, this station retained its form from before the war. Habsburg flourishes decorated the high, narrow window frames and, along the third floor, cracked maidens gazed protectively down at the street. The cracks continued inside, twisting along the buckling walls, painted over every few months in pale green.

Brano Sev had kept a desk there, on and off, for the past thirty years. As his apprentice, Gavra shared it. At the three other desks sat Katja and Imre, whom he greeted. The third desk was banally empty, and for an instant Gavra wondered if he’d be given Libarid’s desk. He was tired of pulling up a spare chair beside Brano.

The thought made him want to hit himself.

Katja and Imre-his feet propped on his desk as he spoke on the telephone-nodded back at him but didn’t say a word. There was a palpable gloom over the office. Brano didn’t look up at him, but that wasn’t unusual, because the old man came into this business at the end of the war, when state security agents learned how to let people hate them. He created distance with everyone, because he believed that it served him better this way.

Katja had never made a secret of hating Brano, and Imre, in his quiet way, felt the same. Even Chief Emil Brod, despite the obligations of his job and their long shared history, was never warm with Brano Sev, as he was with the rest of them. Brano Sev was a peculiar man.

Gavra paused at Katja’s desk. “How’s it coming so far?”

She tugged some blond hair behind her ear as her phone began to ring. “I’m going to check with the Hotel Metropol today. We only just got the names from the passenger manifest.”

She sounded tense, and she was squeezing a pen tightly. The phone continued to ring. “You going to answer that?”

She looked at the phone, then shook her head. “I know who it is.”

“What’s wrong?” he asked in a lowered voice.

“Nothing. Look, I wanted you to come along to the hotel, but the Com rade says you’re going to be occupied.”

“Take Imre,” he whispered.

Katja rolled her eyes. It was common knowledge that Imre Papp was a dunce. “Why can’t you come?”

“We’re interviewing a suspect.”

“Gavra,” said Brano, using a finger to call him over.

“What suspect?” asked Katja.

Imre, by the window, covered the telephone mouthpiece with his palm. “We’ve got a suspect?”

“It’s not for public discussion,” said Brano. “Gavra. Over here.”

As he moved to the old man’s desk, Katja said, “This is typical. Just the kind of lackluster help I’ve come to expect.”

Gavra pulled up a chair, and Brano leaned close. “I pointed out yesterday that it’s not common knowledge Wilhelm Adler is in this country. Let’s try to keep it that way.”

Just then the far door, marked CHIEF, opened, and Emil Brod stepped out. The small, graying man always had an air of confusion about him, and when he saw Gavra he looked for an instant as if he couldn’t remember who he was. “Gavra,” he said finally, coming forward and offering a hand. “Any news?”

“I only know what Brano’s told me.”

“Okay,” said Emil, rubbing fingers through his hair. “Keep me posted.”

The chief returned to his office as Brano grabbed his hat. “Come on, Gavra.”

In the car, Brano handed him a slip of paper with four names. “The hijackers arrived in the Capital on the twentieth, last Sunday, from Istanbul.”

Gavra read: Emin Kazanjian Sahag Manoogian Jirair Keshishian Zareh Petrossian

“They stayed two nights in the Hotel Metropol and then boarded Flight 54. They made no phone calls, and they had no visitors. As far as the Ministry can tell, they never left the hotel.”

“Why didn’t you tell Katja? She’s going to waste a day finding this same information.”

Brano paused, then said, “I don’t want that girl getting in the way.”

Gavra looked again at the paper. Two nights in the Metropol, no visitors, then direct to the airport. “How did they get the explosives?”

“It’s not hard,” said Brano as they passed an old woman selling homemade brooms. “Someone could visit the hotel restaurant at the same time as them and leave a package. If it was all arranged from Istanbul, there’s no way for us to track it down. But if Adler was involved…”

“Libarid would have had access to explosives,” said Gavra.

Brano chose not to answer.

After a grand escape from the Federal Republic of Germany in mid-1974, Wilhelm Adler spent three months in the German Democratic Republic, handing the Stasi all the information he had on the Red Army Faction’s present hierarchy and the security measures of the West German industrial elite. In return, they gave him an East German passport. He worked briefly at the Hotel Unter den Linden in East Berlin before meeting and falling in love with Buba Polinski, a tourist who, once the paperwork was settled, brought him back to the Capital with her. Since then he’d held a job at the Sachet Automotive Works, on the edge of the Tenth District, piecing together carburetors and sending them down the line.

When the supervisor pointed him out through the window of his office, they saw a slumped back, a small man, thin. Gavra was surprised by this. He’d read of Adler’s exploits with his RAF brethren: the bank robberies where they wore rubber Willy Brandt masks and distributed some of their withdrawals to the kidnapped customers; and the low-level politicians they photographed in captivity, then threw from fast-moving cars once they’d received their ransom. Gavra expected someone more erect.

The factory stank of grease, and the noise of the machinery was deafening, so Brano only tapped Adler on the shoulder. The German was neither unnerved nor taken aback by the sight of Brano’s Ministry card, nor did he hesitate when Brano nodded at the metal stairs leading up to the supervisor’s office. He followed Brano while Gavra walked behind them. Once inside, Brano said to the supervisor, “A moment alone, please?”

The supervisor, a big man, reddened and rushed out.

Adler sat at the desk. “What is it this time?”

“A couple of questions.” Brano sat across from him. Gavra remained standing, hands crossed over his groin, like a heavy in an American noir film.

Brano placed his hat in his lap. “Are you familiar with the Army of the Liberation of Armenia?”

Adler shrugged. “I’ve heard some things. I’m still in touch with my friends on the other side. My old comrades are putting up a good stand in Stockholm.”

“That’s already over,” said Brano.

Adler knotted his brows but didn’t speak.

Gavra said, “Last week, you made an international call to Norair Tigran in Istanbul. You told him about a particular Turkish Airlines flight, number 54, leaving from here, bound for there. You suggested he hijack it.”

Adler rooted in his ear with a finger. “Did he hijack it?”

“His colleagues hijacked it.”

“I hadn’t heard.”

“Because it hasn’t yet made our papers. Tonight’s edition.”

“I see.”

“Tigran is in prison.”

“That’s too bad.”

Gavra, despite himself, was impressed by this small, slumped man. He spoke as if the conversation were about lost dogs. Of course, Wilhelm Adler had been through a lot, and compared with the rest of his life, this interview was nothing.

“What about the four men?” Gavra asked.

He looked at Gavra. “What four men?”

“The ones who did the job. When did you give them the explosives?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Gavra looked at Brano, and Brano nodded. So Gavra squatted beside the chair. He smiled up at Adler. “Have you ever been interrogated before?”

Adler grinned. “Of course. The BND put me through it at Stammheim.”

He patted the German’s knee. “No. I mean an interrogation.”

Adler crossed his hands over his stomach. “That’s what I just said.”

Brano walked to the windows overlooking the factory and lowered the blinds.

Adler said, “I’m not a little boy, comrades. I fought for the workers’ state.”

“Did you?” said Brano.

“I’ve killed five leaders of imperial capitalism. Two politicians, a bank owner, a-”

He stopped because Gavra had punched the side of his head. He gritted his teeth, blinking.

Gavra’s knuckles tingled as he spoke. “I don’t care what you’ve done, comrade. I only care what you tell me now. Inside this little office anything can happen. To me, there’s no one in this whole factory except the three of us.”

“But I don’t know anything!”

Brano watched as Gavra clutched the German’s hair and threw his head on the desk. It bounced. Gavra squatted again. “Listen, comrade. Sixty-eight people are dead, and one of them was a colleague of mine. I was fond of him. You’re the one who dictated what flight would be blown up, and you’re the only one I have my hands on.”

“Blown up?” he said, confused. “They weren’t supposed to blow it up.” He wasn’t able to see very well.

“What were they supposed to do?” asked Brano.

“Money-just money. And to free some comrades.”

“How did you know Norair Tigran?”

“A few years ago. West Berlin. A Marxist discussion group.”

“Okay, then,” said Brano. “Why that plane? Why that day?”

“A phone call.”

Brano straightened.

“What phone call?” said Gavra.

“I get them sometimes, all right? My old comrades know where to find me. But this was from a local. I suppose it was one of your guys.”

“Our guys?”

“From the Ministry.”

Gavra hesitated. “What did this person say?”

He sniffed. “Just to call Norair. Tell him about the plane. That plane, that day. He knew they were trying to decide when to pull it off.”

“Did he say who he was?” asked Brano.

“Of course not.”

“So why,” said Brano, “did you listen to him?”

Adler seemed briefly confused; then a trace of contempt entered his voice. “Are you guys for real?”

Gavra put a fist into his stomach, doubling the German over. “Answer the question.”

Adler took a few breaths. “These kinds of calls, I don’t question them. Yalta Boulevard has its own agenda, doesn’t it? We help liberation movements all over the world.”

Gavra wasn’t sure what to believe. He leaned over the German. “These men. They arrived in town on Sunday. And you met them at the Metropol to give them the explosives. Didn’t you?”

“No,” he said.

Gavra grabbed his ears. He tried to pull away, but by then Gavra had put his knee into his face. His nose started to bleed, and his eyes were dripping as Gavra squatted again. “Tell me the truth.”

“But I am,” he whispered, then wiped his nose and examined the blood on his fingers. “I wasn’t even here. I was in Sarospatak, in a hotel on the Bodrog River. With my wife. We came back late Tuesday. Ask her.” He coughed. “I swear I didn’t speak to anyone again after my phone call.”

Brano shrugged and said, “Of course you were in the countryside. We have your hotel registration.”

Gavra looked up. “What?”

“Come on,” said Brano. Then, to Adler: “Remember, you’re being watched.”