me about the scars on your hands, these would have given me instant identification.'
'And how then did you hope to contact me?'
'1 had the address of a cafe.' Reynolds named it. 'The haunt, Colonel Mackintosh said, of disaffected elements. I was to be there every night, same seat, same table, till I was picked up.'
'No identification?' Szendro's query lay more in the lift of an eyebrow than the inflection of the voice.
'Naturally. My tie.'
Colonel Szendro looked at the vivid magenta of the tie lying on the table, winced, nodded and looked away without speaking. Reynolds felt the first faint stirrings of anger.
'Why ask if you already know?' The edged voice betrayed the irritation in his mind.
'No offence.' Jansci answered for Szendro. 'Endless suspicion, Mr. Reynolds, is our sole guarantee of survival. We suspect everyone. Everyone who lives, everyone who moves -- we suspect them every minute of every hour. But, as you see, we survive. We had been asked to contact you in that cafe -- Imre has practically lived there for the past three days -- but the request had come from an anonymous source in Vienna. There was no mention of Colonel Mackintosh -- he is an old fox, that one.... And when you had been met in the cafe?'
'I was told that I would be led to you -- or to one of two others: Hridas and the White Mouse.'
'This has been a happy short-cut,' Jansci murmured. 'But I am afraid you would have found neither Hridas nor the White Mouse.'
'They are no longer in Budapest?'
'The White Mouse is in Siberia. We shall never see him again. Hridas died three weeks ago, not two kilometres from here, in the torture chambers of the AVO. They were careless for a moment, and he snatched a gun. He put it in his mouth. He was glad to die.'
'How -- but how do you know these things?'
'Colonel Szendro -- the man you know as Colonel Szendro -- was there. He saw him die. It was Szendro's gun he took.'
Reynolds carefully crushed his cigarette stub in an ashtray. He looked up at Jansci, across to Szendro and back at Jansci again: his face was empty of all expression.
'Szendro has been a member of the AVO for eighteen months," Jansci said quietly. 'One of their most efficient and respected officers, and when things mysteriously go wrong and wanted men escape at the last moment, there is no one more terrible in his anger than Szendro, no one Who drives his men so cruelly till they literally collapse with exhaustion. The speeches he makes to newly indoctrinated recruits and cadets to the AVO have already been compiled in book form. He is known as The Scourge. His chief, Furmint, is at a loss to understand Szendro's pathological hatred for his own countrymen, but declares he is the only indispensable member of the Political Police in Budapest.... A hundred, two hundred Hungarians alive today, still here or in the west, owe their lives to Colonel Szendro.'
1 Reynolds stared at Szendro, examining every line of that face as if he were seeing it for the first time, wondering what manner of man might pass his life in such incredibly difficult and dangerous circumstances, never knowing whether he was being watched or suspected or betrayed, never knowing whether or not the next shoulder for the tap of the executioner might be his own, and all at once, without at all knowing why, Reynolds knew that this was indeed such a man as Jansci claimed. All other considerations apart, he had to be or he, Reynolds, might even then have been screaming on the torture racks, deep down below the basement of Stalin Street....
'It must indeed be as you say, General Illyurin,' Reynolds murmured. 'He runs incredible risks.'
'Jansci, if you please. Always Jansci. Major-General Illyurin is dead.'
'I'm sorry.... And Tonight, how about Tonight?!
'Your -- ah -- arrest by our friend here?'
'Yes.'
'It is simple. He has access to all but a few secret master files. Also he is privy to all proposed plans and operations in Budapest and Western Hungary. He knew of the
'And how then did you hope to contact me?'
'1 had the address of a cafe.' Reynolds named it. 'The haunt, Colonel Mackintosh said, of disaffected elements. I was to be there every night, same seat, same table, till I was picked up.'
'No identification?' Szendro's query lay more in the lift of an eyebrow than the inflection of the voice.
'Naturally. My tie.'
Colonel Szendro looked at the vivid magenta of the tie lying on the table, winced, nodded and looked away without speaking. Reynolds felt the first faint stirrings of anger.
'Why ask if you already know?' The edged voice betrayed the irritation in his mind.
'No offence.' Jansci answered for Szendro. 'Endless suspicion, Mr. Reynolds, is our sole guarantee of survival. We suspect everyone. Everyone who lives, everyone who moves -- we suspect them every minute of every hour. But, as you see, we survive. We had been asked to contact you in that cafe -- Imre has practically lived there for the past three days -- but the request had come from an anonymous source in Vienna. There was no mention of Colonel Mackintosh -- he is an old fox, that one.... And when you had been met in the cafe?'
'I was told that I would be led to you -- or to one of two others: Hridas and the White Mouse.'
'This has been a happy short-cut,' Jansci murmured. 'But I am afraid you would have found neither Hridas nor the White Mouse.'
'They are no longer in Budapest?'
'The White Mouse is in Siberia. We shall never see him again. Hridas died three weeks ago, not two kilometres from here, in the torture chambers of the AVO. They were careless for a moment, and he snatched a gun. He put it in his mouth. He was glad to die.'
'How -- but how do you know these things?'
'Colonel Szendro -- the man you know as Colonel Szendro -- was there. He saw him die. It was Szendro's gun he took.'
Reynolds carefully crushed his cigarette stub in an ashtray. He looked up at Jansci, across to Szendro and back at Jansci again: his face was empty of all expression.
'Szendro has been a member of the AVO for eighteen months," Jansci said quietly. 'One of their most efficient and respected officers, and when things mysteriously go wrong and wanted men escape at the last moment, there is no one more terrible in his anger than Szendro, no one Who drives his men so cruelly till they literally collapse with exhaustion. The speeches he makes to newly indoctrinated recruits and cadets to the AVO have already been compiled in book form. He is known as The Scourge. His chief, Furmint, is at a loss to understand Szendro's pathological hatred for his own countrymen, but declares he is the only indispensable member of the Political Police in Budapest.... A hundred, two hundred Hungarians alive today, still here or in the west, owe their lives to Colonel Szendro.'
1 Reynolds stared at Szendro, examining every line of that face as if he were seeing it for the first time, wondering what manner of man might pass his life in such incredibly difficult and dangerous circumstances, never knowing whether he was being watched or suspected or betrayed, never knowing whether or not the next shoulder for the tap of the executioner might be his own, and all at once, without at all knowing why, Reynolds knew that this was indeed such a man as Jansci claimed. All other considerations apart, he had to be or he, Reynolds, might even then have been screaming on the torture racks, deep down below the basement of Stalin Street....
'It must indeed be as you say, General Illyurin,' Reynolds murmured. 'He runs incredible risks.'
'Jansci, if you please. Always Jansci. Major-General Illyurin is dead.'
'I'm sorry.... And Tonight, how about Tonight?!
'Your -- ah -- arrest by our friend here?'
'Yes.'
'It is simple. He has access to all but a few secret master files. Also he is privy to all proposed plans and operations in Budapest and Western Hungary. He knew of the
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