Europe in Winter (The Fractured Europe Sequence)(50)

“This is all quite fascinating,” said Mr Viktor, “but it doesn’t get my merchandise back, does it.”

“I can’t help you,” Carey said again, but this time her voice sounded tired.

“Oh, of course you can,” Mr Viktor said happily. “You just need a little time to work out how.” He stood up and placed his huge hands on her shoulders. “I have a place near here,” he told her, beaming. “Why don’t you go there, have a shower, have a proper sleep, a decent meal, and think about the situation. We can talk tomorrow and you can tell me what your plan is.”

Carey looked at the three men again. Like her dancing days, her brawling days were long behind her; she wasn’t going to be able to fight her way out of this. She needed help, and for that she needed some way of contacting the outside world. She was on her own for the moment. And to be honest, the prospect of a shower was very tempting.

“Okay,” she said. It was not remotely okay, but she was aware that it was the closest she was going to get for the moment.





THE EVENING STREETS of Esztergom were bustling with people who all looked prosperous and well-dressed and well-fed and well-rested, and Carey felt out of place and weary. She considered making a run for it, losing herself in the crowds; there was a callbox routine she had memorised for emergencies which would theoretically summon some kind of support, but she was just too tired.

Benedek walked beside her, not too close, not too far away, with an almost balletic grace that under other circumstances she might have found quite attractive. Right now, she just wanted to rabbit-punch him.

They were standing at a pedestrian crossing, waiting for the light to turn green with a crowd of shoppers and office workers on their way home, when Benedek fell over. One moment he was standing there, hands at his side, looking alert and capable, the next Carey was aware of an absence at her side and when she looked down he was lying in a heap on the pavement, twitching. Some of the people around him moved away. The light changed and the crowd in front of her began to surge across the street.

While she was trying to work out what had happened, someone put their arm around her waist and urged her forward. “Walk,” a woman’s voice said quietly in English, close to her side. “Walk. Don’t run, don’t look back.”

Utterly confused, for a moment she resisted. Then she let herself be guided across the road. Behind her, she heard raised voices. Then she was across the road and walking at quite a smart pace, the woman beside her.

“Don’t look back,” the woman said again. “Just keep going.”

Carey turned her head and found herself looking at a brunette woman in her mid-thirties, well-dressed and with a pretty, intelligent face. “Who are you?”

“My name’s Laura. I’m here to help.”

“Who sent you?”

“I’m local. There’s been an utter f*ck-up, okay?”

“You’re telling me there’s been an utter f*ck-up. Do you know what happened?”

“No talking now,” said Laura, letting go of Carey’s waist. “Walk. We’ll talk in a minute.”

They walked on with the crowds for a few minutes. It was chilly now, and Carey imagined she could smell the Danube, just a few streets away, the border between Hungary and Slovakia. Years of experience seemed to be calving off her like icebergs; everything was confusing, nothing made sense. Every face in the crowd seemed to be turned accusingly towards her, every car that passed was an unmarked police vehicle. She fought to regain some kind of composure and professionalism, was only partly successful.

Abruptly, Laura made a left turn through an archway between two shops, taking Carey with her. She stopped and turned just inside the archway.

“Right,” she said calmly but urgently. “Here’s what I know. Your Situation was compromised; the mechanic you used to plant the Package in your car didn’t remove the car’s locator tag and the authorities hacked into it.”

“I’d figured that out,” said Carey, but Laura raised a hand to silence her.

“Just listen, please. I don’t know who gave you up to the authorities – it might have been the mechanic, it might not, I can’t find him to ask because he’s gone, his business is closed. The man you were with earlier is a mid-level thug; I’ve never had dealings with him but he doesn’t have a very good reputation and you need to stay out of his way as much as you need to stay out of the way of the authorities.” She took a phone from her pocket and held it out. “There’s a local ID and five grand Swiss on here,” she said. “I’m sorry it’s not more but it was all I could lay my hands on in a hurry.”

Carey looked at the phone. “How did you know about this?”

“An interpreter at the Ministry of Justice sat in on a call to the Texan Embassy yesterday morning and contacted me. I got out to Kaposvár in time to see you driving off with that bastard Balász and I knew he was bringing you here; Viktor’s an Esztergom boy and he loves doing his business in that f*cking shop.”

Somehow, all of this made as much sense as anything else that had happened to Carey. Still she didn’t take the phone.

“I’m only a stringer,” Laura told her. “I don’t have the resources to find you a safe house or new papers or get you across the river; you’ll have to make a crash call and sort all that out for yourself.”