Jansci and Sandor were talking now, in low, friendly tones, and as he listened Reynolds realised that he had misjudged the relationship between these two men. There was nothing of the master and the man, the employer and the employed about it, the atmosphere was too easy, too informal for that, and Jansci listened as carefully and considerately to what Sandor had to say as Sandor did to him. There was a bond between them, Reynolds realised, unseen but no less powerful for that, the bond of a devotion to a common ideal, a devotion which, on Sandor’s side, made no distinction between the ideal and the man who was the inspiration of it: Jansci, Reynolds was slowly beginning to discover, had the unconscious gift of inspiring a loyalty which barely stopped this side of idolatry, and even Reynolds himself, uncompromising individualist that nature and training had inescapably made him, could feel the magnetism of its subtle pull.
It was exactly eleven o’clock when the door was flung open and the Cossack strode in, bringing with him a snow-laden flurry of freezing air, dropped a large paper parcel in one corner and clapped his gauntlets vigorously together. His face and hands were blue with cold, but he affected to be unaware of it, not even seeking the warmth of the fire. Instead, he sat at the table, lit a cigarette, rolled it into the corner of his mouth and let it stay there. Reynolds noted with amusement that though the smoke laced upward and brought tears to one eye, the Cossack made no attempt to remove it: there he had placed it and there it would stay.
His report was brief and to the point. He had met the Count as arranged. Jennings was no longer in his hotel, and already a precautionary rumour was circulating to the effect that he was unwell. The Count did not know where he was — he certainly had not been removed to the AVO H.Q. or any of their known centres in Budapest: he had either been taken directly back to Russia, the Count thought, or to some place of safety outside the city, he would try to find out where, but he had little hope. The Count, the Cossack said, was almost certain that they would not be taking him directly home: he was much too important a figure at the conference: they were probably hiding him in a place of absolute security until they heard from Stettin, and if Brian was still there the Russians would still let him participate in the conference — after letting him hear his son on the phone. But if Jennings’ son had escaped, then Jennings himself would almost certainly be immediately removed to Russia. Budapest was too near the frontier, and the Russians couldn’t afford the incalculable prestige loss of having him escape. . . . And there was one other extremely disquieting bit of information. Imre had disappeared, and the Count could not find him anywhere.
The day that followed, an interminable, wonderful Sunday with an azure, cloudless, windless sky and a dazzling white sun turning the undulating plains and heavy-laden pines into an impossibly lovely Christmas card, was never afterwards clear in Reynolds’ mind. It was as if everything that day had been seen through a haze, or in a dimly remembered dream: it was almost as if it had been a day lived by someone else, so remote it was, so detached from all reality, whenever he later tried to recall it.
And it wasn’t because of his health, the injuries he had received, that all this was so: the doctor had claimed no more than the truth for the effectiveness of his liniment, and though Reynolds’ back was still stiff, the pain had gone: his mouth and jaw, too, were healing fast with only an occasional throb to remind him of where his teeth had been before he had ran foul of the giant Coco. He knew himself, and admitted to himself, that it all stemmed from the tearing anxiety in his mind, a savage restlessness that would not let him be still a moment but led him to pacing through the house and over the hard frozen snow outside the house until even the phlegmatic Sandor begged him to take a rest.
Once again, that morning, they had listened to the BBC 7 o’clock broadcast, and once again the message had failed to come through. Brian Jennings had failed to arrive in Sweden, and Reynolds knew that there could be little hope left: but he had been on missions before that had ended in failure, and the failure had never troubled him. What troubled him was Jansci, for he knew that that gentle man, having given his promise of help, meant to carry it out at all costs, even although he must have known, more clearly even than Reynolds himself, just what the cost of trying to rescue the most-heavily guarded man in Communist Hungary must almost inevitably be. And then, beyond that again, he knew that his worry wasn’t solely on Jansci’s behalf, deep as was his admiration and respect for the man, it wasn’t even mainly on his behalf: it was on account of his daughter, who worshipped her father and would be broken-hearted and inconsolable at the loss of the last member of her family left alive. And worst still, she would regard him as the sole instrument of her father’s death, the barrier between them would for ever remain, and Reynolds looking for the hundredth time at the smiling curve of the mouth and the grave, troubled eyes above that belied the smile, realised, with a slow wonder and a profound sense of shock, that was what he feared above all. They were together much of the day, and Reynolds came to love the slow smile and the outlandish way she pronounced his name, but once when she said ‘Meechail’ and smiled with her eyes as well as her lips, he had been brusque to her, even rude, and he had seen the uncomprehending hurt in her eyes as the smile faded and vanished and he himself had felt sick to his heart and more confused than he had been all day. . . . Reynolds could only feel profoundly thankful that Colonel Mackintosh could not see just then the man whom he regarded as the person most likely to succeed himself some day: but the colonel probably wouldn’t have believed it anyway.
The interminable day wheeled slowly to its close, the sun setting over the distant hills to the west burnished the snow capped pine tops with a brush of flame and gold, and darkness fell swiftly over the land as the stars stood white in the frozen sky. The evening meal came and went almost in complete silence, then Jansci and Reynolds tried on, and altered with Julia’s help, the contents of the parcel the Cossack had brought home the previous night — a couple of AVO uniforms. There had been no question of the Count’s gambling that these might prove useful when he had sent them, no matter where old Jennings was, they would be essential: they were the ‘Open Sesame’ to every door in Hungary. And they could only be for Jansci and Reynolds. No uniform Reynolds had ever seen could have stretched across Sandor’s shoulders.
The Cossack departed on his motor-bicycle shortly after nine o’clock. He departed dressed in his usual flamboyant clothes, a cigarette over each ear and another unlit in the corner of his mouth, and in high good humour: he could not have failed to observe the strain between Reynolds and Julia during the course of the evening, and had reason for his cheerful smile.
He should have been back by eleven o’clock, by midnight at the latest. Midnight came and went, but there was no sign of the Cossack. One o’clock struck, half past one, anxiety had changed to tension and almost despair, when he made his appearance a few moments before two o’clock. He arrived not on his motor-bike, but at the wheel of a big, grey Opel Kapitan, braked, stopped the engine and climbed out with the unconcerned indifference of one who was accustomed to this sort of thing to the point of boredom. It was not until later that they discovered that this was the first time in his life that the Cossack had ever driven a car, a fact which wholly accounted for his delay in arrival.
The Cossack brought with him good news, bad news, papers and instructions. The good news was that the Count had discovered Jennings’ whereabouts with almost ridiculous ease — Furmint, the Chief of the AVO had told him personally, in the course of conversation. The bad news was two-fold: the place where the professor had been taken was the notorious Szarhaza prison about 100 kilometres south of Budapest, considered the most impregnable fortress in Hungary, and generally reserved for such enemies of the state as were destined never to be seen again; but the Count himself, unfortunately, could not help them: Colonel Hidas himself had personally put him in charge of a loyalty investigation in the town of Godollo where disaffected elements had been giving trouble for some time. Also on the debit account was the fact that Imre was still missing: the Count feared that his nerve had gone altogether and that he had run out on them.