Europe in Winter (The Fractured Europe Sequence)(47)

A few minutes later, the door opened again, and Szili stepped into the room, accompanied by yet another soldier. Szili had slept and breakfasted well. She had showered. She was wearing a fresh uniform and discreet makeup. She looked smug.

“Madam,” she said, “come with me, please.”

“You could stop calling me ‘madam,’” Carey said, going over to the bed and collecting her overcoat. “In some places this would count as an engagement.”

Szili smirked.

Outside was a grey, chilly morning. The border station had reopened and there were queues of cars and lorries and coaches. Carey turned up the collar of her coat. Some of the passengers in one of the nearest coaches looked down incuriously as Szili and the soldier accompanied her to a small grey van. The rear doors were open; Carey looked inside and saw wooden benches mounted on either side.

“Please, madam,” Szili said.

Carey climbed inside and sat on one of the benches. “It’s been a blast,” she said.

Szili smirked again and closed the doors.





THEY DROVE FOR an hour and three quarters; Carey timed it. Not long enough to reach Szolnok, not nearly long enough for Budapest. More often than not, these f*ckups ended with the authorities deporting the offending Coureur after varying periods of abuse and incarceration, and she entertained the possibility that she was being taken across the border, there to be either dumped at the side of the road or handed over to the Croatian authorities, who would have to let her go because she hadn’t done anything wrong on their territory. Neither of these outcomes, to be honest, would be so bad. She entertained herself for a while by examining the lock on the rear doors; it would have been reasonably straightforward to spring it with the blade of a penknife and simply step out at the next set of traffic lights and walk away. But the border guards had taken her penknife.

The van finally slowed, made several sharp turns, and bumped over something before pulling to a stop. The doors opened, revealing a man dressed like an undertaker standing outside. He was tall and severe and completely bald, and he wore an old-fashioned suit and a long black coat. He motioned her to get out.

The van was parked in a cobbled courtyard at the heart of a tall old building with many windows and balconies; she didn’t get a chance for a very good look, because the undertaker grasped her upper arm with a bony hand that felt like a bear trap and urged her, not terribly gently, across the cobbles, to a door.

The door led into an echoing stairwell, its walls painted lime green. The stairs were just wide enough for Carey and the undertaker to walk side by side, and he never relaxed his grip on her arm. They walked up seven flights, the undertaker led her through a door into a wood-floored corridor, and up to another door, where he knocked with his free hand. A voice inside said “Come,” in Hungarian. So, not Croatia, then.

The room was large but sparsely-furnished. The heavy curtains were drawn, and the only illumination came from a green-shaded lamp on a desk. Behind the desk sat a small, neat, middle-aged man in a suit which had seen better days. He looked at her, standing there still in the undertaker’s grasp, and he frowned.

“Oh, let her go,” he said tiredly. “We’re not savages.”

The undertaker released her.

“And I think Ms Tews and I can manage a reasonable conversation without a chaperone.”

Without a word, the undertaker turned and left the room. The door closed, but Carey didn’t hear it lock.

The man behind the desk gestured at a chair over by the wall. “Please,” he said, “bring that over here and sit down. You must be tired.”

Carey picked up the chair, put it in front of the desk, and sat. The little neat man was maybe in his early fifties. He had a kind, weary face and collar-length brown hair that was still only touched with grey.

He clasped his hands on the desktop and said, “You may call me Martón.”

Carey stared at him.

Martón sighed. “We have a problem, Ms Tews.”

“I want to speak with the Texan Embassy,” she said.

“I have been in touch with your Ambassador,” Martón told her. “She has chosen, in the first instance, to leave this matter in our hands.”

“Balless bitch.”

“It’s a matter of diplomacy,” Martón suggested. “All we are required to do is make your Ambassador aware of the situation; it’s up to her what she does with the information. Considering you are in Hungary on behalf of a non-state actor, she has chosen not to intervene at this point.”

“‘Non-state actor’?”

Martón reached down beside his chair, came up holding a cardboard folder. He put it on the desk in front of him, opened it, and took out four sheets of paper. In spite of the situation, Carey thought this was quaint. Paper. Seriously.

“The Hungarian government really does take a very dim view of Les Coureurs des Bois, Ms Tews,” said Martón.

“Who?”

Martón regarded her levelly. Then he put the sheets of paper back in the folder and closed the flap. “Very well,” he said. “Then perhaps you will do me the courtesy of listening to what I have to say.”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Of course you do.” Martón smiled. “You can listen to me, or you can be taken directly to a special court, where you will be tried on charges of espionage. You will not be granted representation, but you will be given an opportunity to state your case. In all likelihood, you will be given a mandatory sentence of ten years’ imprisonment.” He nodded to himself. “I think that would be a certainty, given the circumstances.”