Victory Square

TWENTY-FOUR

Harold and Beth showed Gavra more smiles when they left, and Beth leaned her frail body down to kiss his cheeks. Even Michalec smiled as he followed them out and locked the door. Gavra was again alone.

Around ten in the evening, he noticed increased activity out in the corridor. His guard had been changed, and though the new one wasn’t as large as Balint, he was still a significant chunk of man. Gavra peered over his shoulder to see soldiers carrying electronic equipment in the direction of the classrooms. Microphones, video cameras, power cables. He wondered if all this was for him, for the single act of pointing a gun at an old couple and killing them.

Whether or not the Pankovs deserved it, Gavra was still unwilling to pull the trigger. But Michalec had been right-you give a man enough time, and he stops reacting instinctively to a proposition. He has hours to turn it over in his head, examine the pros and cons, and measure the repercussions of the threat to kill his best friend.

Gavra had met Karel Wollenchak in September of 1980, through one of his cases. Someone in Karel’s building who wanted Karel’s apartment had been meticulously fabricating evidence to suggest that he was in contact with spies from West Germany. Gavra was called in to examine the evidence and soon saw through the pitiful attempt. A year later, he had joined Karel in the apartment, which had once been owned by Karel’s grandmother.

Though he never introduced me to his friend, I could tell when I first saw them together at my apartment that they were very close. When men make close friendships over the years, and particularly when they live together, the bond can be similar to that of a romantic relationship. Your friend becomes your other half; you begin to share weaknesses and strengths; you suddenly can’t imagine your life without the other person.

That’s what Gavra felt as he considered the possibility that Karel would be murdered if he didn’t go through with the executions.

I go into all of this because it’s vital that people understand why Gavra Noukas did what he did. He was not serving the interests of Jerzy Michalec, Rosta Gorski, or the Galicia Revolutionary Committee. What he ended up doing, he did for his own reasons, and for the good of others.

But he still wasn’t convinced. Weighing the fate of his closest friend against the fate of the country was not enough to set his mind in any one direction. He needed to know more. He needed to see, hear, and feel more to decide what to do. Jerzy Michalec knew this.

That’s why, at midnight, as the racket in the corridor reached its peak and he heard the faint beat of helicopter blades outside, the new guard opened his door, and Michalec stepped in.

“Come on, Gavra.” He held out a hand, waving to lead him on. “There’s something I want you to see.”