‘Doubtless,’ Jansci said dryly. He drank deep of the brandy, his eyes flooded with tears, and he gasped for air. ‘Poison, sheer poison — but I have never tasted anything half as good!’
‘There are times when one’s critical judgements are better suspended,’ the Count admitted. He tilted the bottle to his mouth, swallowed as another man might swallow water, for all the apparent effect it had on him, and pushed the flask back in his pocket. ‘A most essential stop, but we must press on: time is not on our side.’
He engaged the clutch and the truck moved forward. Reynolds had to shout his protest over the high-pitched roar of its first gear.
‘But surely you are going to tell us — ‘
‘Try to stop me,’ the Count said. ‘But as we drive along, if you don’t mind. I will explain why later. However, to the happenings of today . . . First of all, I must tell you that I have resigned from the AVO. Reluctantly, of course.’
‘Of course,’ Jansci murmured. ‘Does anyone know yet?’
‘Furmint does, I should think.’ The Count’s eyes never left the road as he wrestled the skidding ‘truck along between the narrow banks. ‘I didn’t actually give notice in writing, but as I left him gagged and bound hand and foot in his own office, I don’t think he could have been in much doubt about my intentions.’
Neither Reynolds nor Jansci said anything, there seemed no remark to meet the occasion, and as the silence stretched out they could see the grin spreading over the Count’s thin lips.
‘Furmint!’ It was Jansci who broke the silence, his voice sounding strained. ‘Furmint! You mean your chief — ‘
‘Ex-chief,’ the Count corrected. ‘None other. But let me begin from the morning. You will remember that I had sent a message out with the Cossack — incidentally, did he and his Opel arrive intact?*
‘Both of them.’
‘A miracle. You should have seen his take off. As I say, I told him that I was being sent out to Godollo — some security check-up, a big one. I should have expected Hidas to handle it himself, but he told me he had some important business elsewhere in Gyor.
‘Well, we went to Godollo — eight men, myself and a Captain Kalman Zsolt — an able man with a rubber truncheon, but singularly ungifted otherwise. And as we went I was worried — in a mirror I had caught the Chief giving me a very curious look indeed just before I left the Andrassy Ut. Not, mind you, that there is anything remarkable about the Chief giving anybody curious looks, he doesn’t even trust his own wife, but it was curious coming from the man who had only last week complimented me on being the ablest AVO officer in Budapest.’
‘You are irreplaceable,’ Jansci murmured.
‘Thank you. . . . Then, just as we were arriving in Godollo, Zsolt dropped a bomb in my lap. He mentioned casually that he had been speaking to Hidas’ chauffeur that morning and that he understood that the colonel was going to the Szarhaza prison and wondered what the devil the colonel was going to that hell-hole for. He kept on rambling about something or other, I don’t know what, which was just as well as I’m sure my face at that moment must have been a very interesting sight for anyone Who cared to look at it.
‘Everything fell together in my mind with such loud clicks that it’s a wonder that Zsolt didn’t hear it. Shoving me out of the way to Godollo, the Chief’s strange look, the lie Hidas had told me, the ease with which I had found out that the professor was in Szarfaaza, the still greater ease with which I got the papers and stamps from Furmint’s office. My God, I could have kicked myself when I remembered that Furmint had actually gone out of his way, quite unnecessarily, to tell me that he was going to hold a meeting with some officers, thereby letting me know that his office would be empty for some time to come — it was during the dinner hour when there was no one in his outer office. . . . How they got on to me, I will never know. I’ll swear that only forty-eight hours ago I was the most trusted officer in Budapest. However, that is by the way.
‘I had to act, I had to act once for all, and I knew that my bridges were already burnt and that I had nothing to lose. I had to act on the assumption that only Furmint and Hidas knew about me. Obviously Zsolt knew nothing, but I wasn’t banking on that, he’s too stupid to be entrusted with anything, it’s just that both Furmint and Hidas are naturally so distrustful that they wouldn’t risk telling anyone.’ The Count smiled broadly. ‘After all, if their best man had defected, how were they to know how far the rot had spread?’
‘How indeed,’ Jansci said.
‘Precisely. Immediately we arrived in Godollo we went to the mayor’s office — not our local branch there, they were being investigated among others — threw the mayor out and took over. I left Zsolt there, went downstairs, collected the men, told them that their duty until five o’clock this evening was to consist of going round cafes and bars, posing as disaffected AVO men, to see what they could turn up in the way of seditious talk. A job after their own hearts, I provided them with plenty of money for local colour: they’ll be drinking 1 away steadily for hours yet.
‘Then 1 went dashing back to the mayor’s place in a state of great excitement, and told Zsolt that I had found something of utmost importance. He didn’t even stop to ask what it was.
He came tearing out of the office with me, dreams of promotion shining in his eyes.’ The Count coughed. ‘We will miss out the unpleasant part of it. Suffice to say that he is now incarcerated in an abandoned cellar not fifty yards from the mayor’s office. Not bound or hurt in any way, but it will take an oxy-acetylene torch to free him.’
The Count stopped speaking, braked the truck and got out to clear his windscreen. It had been snowing quite heavily now for two or three minutes, but neither of the other two had noticed it.
‘I took my unfortunate colleague’s identity papers.’ The Count was on his way again both with truck and story. ‘Forty-five minutes later, stopping only en route to buy a clothes rope, I was at the door of our H.Q., and a minute later I was in Furmint’s office — the very fact that I got as far as that showed that Furmint and Hidas had indeed been as close-mouthed about my defection as I had suspected they might be.
‘The whole thing was ridiculously simple throughout. I had nothing to lose, I was still officially in the clear, and nothing succeeds like effrontery, especially on a massive scale, Furmint was so staggered to see me that I had the barrel of my pistol between his teeth before his jaw had time to close again: he is surrounded by fancy knobs and bell-pushes all designed to save his life in an emergency, but they were not, you understand, designed to protect him against such as myself.
‘I gagged him, then informed him to write a letter, in his own hand, to my dictation. Furmint is a brave man and he was most reluctant, but nothing overcomes high moral principles like the muzzle of a pistol grinding into your ear. The letter was to the commandant of the Szarhaza prison, who knows Furmint’s writing as well as he knows his own, authorising him to release you two to myself, one Captain Zsolt. Then he signed it, covered it with practically every stamp we could find in his office, put it in an envelope and sealed it with his own private seal, a seal not known to a score of people in all Hungary: I, fortunately, was one of them, although Furmint didn’t know it.
‘I had twenty metres of clothes rope, and When I was finished Furmint was trussed like a fowl. All he could move were his eyes and his eyebrows, and he used these to great effect when I picked up the direct phone to the Szarhaza and spoke to the commandant in what I pride myself was a perfect imitation of Furmint’s voice. I think Furmint began to understand a great many things that had puzzled him over the last year or so. Anyway, I told the commandant that I was sending Captain Zsolt to pick up these prisoners, and that I was also sending a written authorisation, in my own personal writing with my own personal seal, with him. There were to be no slip ups.’