‘What if Hidas had still been there?’ Reynolds asked curiously. ‘He must have left only very shortly before you phoned.’
‘Nothing could have been better and easier.’ The Count gestured with an airy hand, then grabbed the wheel quickly as the truck slewed towards a ditch. ‘I’d just have ordered Hidas to bring you back immediately, and waylaid him en route. . . . When I was speaking to the commandant, I coughed and sneezed from time to time, and let my voice seem a little husky. I told the commandant I had a devil of a cold coming on. I had my reasons for that. Then I spoke on the table microphone to his outer office, and said that I wasn’t to be disturbed, on any account whatsoever, for the next three hours, not even if a minister wanted to speak to me. I left them in no doubt as to what would happen if my orders were disobeyed. I thought Furmint was going to have an apoplectic stroke. Then, still in Furmint’s voice, I rang up the transport pool, ordered a truck to be brought round for Major Howarth at once, and ordered four men to be standing by in readiness to accompany him — I didn’t want them, but I had to have them for local colour. Then I bundled Furmint into a cupboard, locked it, left his office, locked that too and took the key with me. Then we set off for Szarhaza. … I wonder what Furmint’s thoughts are at this very moment? Or Zsolt’s? Or if any of the AVO men I left in Godollo are still sober. And can’t you just see Hidas’ and the commandant’s face as the truth dawns on them?’ The Count smiled dreamily. ‘I could spend all day just thinking of these things.’
For the next few minutes they drove along in silence. The snow, although not yet blinding, was thickening steadily, and the Count had to give his exclusive attention to the road. Beside him Jansci and Reynolds, helped as much by the heat generated in the cab by the engine as by the second drink they had had from the Count’s, bottle, could feel the warmth gradually returning to their frozen bodies as the continuous shivering eased and gradually stopped and a thousand pins and needles jabbed their numbed legs and arms in the exquisite agony of returning circulation. They had listened to the Count’s story in an almost complete silence, and still sat in silence: Reynolds could think of no suitable comment on either this fantastic man or his story, and to know how even to begin to thank him was quite beyond his imagination. Besides, he had more than a shrewd suspicion that thanks would receive very short shrift indeed.
‘Did either of you see the car Hidas arrived in?’ the Count asked suddenly.
‘I saw it,’ Reynolds answered. ‘A black Russian Zis — big as a house.’
‘I know it. Solid steel body and bullet-proof windows.’ The Count was slowing down now, edging their truck close in to the shelter of some trees that crowded down on the roadside. ‘I think it unlikely that Hidas would fail to recognise one of his own trucks and pass by without comment. Let us see how the land lies.’
He stopped, jumped out into the swirling snow and the others followed him. Fifty yards took them to the junction of the main road, smooth and unbroken now under its fresh covering of snow.
‘Obviously nothing’s passed by here since the snow started falling,’ Jansci observed.
‘Exactly,’ the Count agreed. He glanced at his watch. ‘Three hours almost to the minute since Hidas left Szarhaza — and he said he would return within the three hours. He Shouldn’t be long.’
‘Couldn’t we just run the truck across the road and stop him?’ Reynolds suggested. ‘That would delay the alarm another couple of hours.’
The Count shook his head regretfully. ‘Impossible. I’d thought of it, but it’s no good. In the first place, the men we left behind in the woods should make it back to Szarhaza in an hour — an hour and a half at the most. Then you’d require a crowbar or a stick of dynamite to break into a car armoured like the Zis, but even that’s not the point: in this weather the driver almost certainly wouldn’t see the truck until it was too late — and that Zis weighs about three tons. It would wreck the truck — and if we are to survive at all, we want to keep that truck intact.’
‘He could have passed by in the first minutes after we left the road, before the snow started falling,’ Jansci put in.
‘It’s possible,” the Count conceded. ‘But I think we should give him a few minutes — ‘ He broke off suddenly, listened, and Reynolds heard it at the same time — the subdued hum of a powerful motor, closing rapidly.
They were off the road and into the shelter of a few trees just in time. The approaching car, Hidas’ black Zis without a doubt, swept by in the swirling snow with a hissing crunch of wide snow tyres, and was lost to sight and sound almost immediately. Reynolds caught a glimpse of a chauffeur in the front, and of Hidas in the back with what looked like another small figure huddled beside him, but it was impossible to be sure. And then they were racing back to the truck and the Count was swinging it out on the main road: the hunt would be up in minutes now, and time was running out. The Count had barely changed up to top gear when he changed down again and brought the truck to a halt by the side of a small wood through which telephone poles and wires were strung to cut off the approaching corner. Almost at once two men, half-frozen with the bitter cold and their clothes so matted with snow that they looked more like a couple of walking snowmen than human beings, came stumbling out of the wood and running towards the truck, each carrying a box under his arm. As they saw, through the windscreen, Jansci and Reynolds sitting in the cab, they waved their arms in delight md grinned broadly, and there was no mistaking them now: Sandor and the Cossack, and their expressions were those of men welcoming friends back from the dead. They piled into ;he back of the truck with as much speed as their frozen limbs would allow, and the Count was on his way again within fifteen seconds of coming to rest.
The inspection door behind the cab pushed open and Sandor and the Cossack plied them with excited questions and congratulations. After a minute or two, the Count passed back his brandy flask and Jansci took advantage of the sudden lull in talk to ask a question.
‘What boxes were they carrying?*
“The small one was a telephone linesman’s kit for tapping wires,’ the Count explained. ‘Every AVO truck carries one of these. On the way here I stopped at the inn in Petoli, gave it to Sandor and told him to follow us to near the Szarhaza, climb a telephone pole and tap the private line from the prison to Budapest. If the commandant was still suspicious and wanted confirmation, Sandor would have answered: I told him to talk through a handkerchief, as if Furmint’s cold, which I had already let the commandant know was developing, had become much worse.’
‘Good lord!’ Reynolds found it impossible to hide his admiration. ‘Is there anything you did not think of?’
‘Very little,* the Count admitted modestly. ‘Anyway, the precaution was not needed: the commandant, as you saw, had never a suspicion. The only thing I was really afraid of was that these dolts of AVO men I had with me might call me Major Howarth in front of the commandant, instead of Captain Zsolt as I had coached them to call me, for reasons, I said, which Furmint would personally explain to them if any of them blundered. . . . The other box contains your ordinary clothes, which Sandor also brought on from Petoli in the Opel. I’ll stop in a moment and you can nip into the back and change out of these uniforms. . . . Where did you leave the Opel, Sandor?’
‘Back there, deep in the wood. No one can see it.’
‘No loss.’ The Count dismissed the matter with a wave of his hand. ‘It wasn’t ours in the first place. Well, gentlemen, the hunt is up, or will be any moment now, and it will be up with a vengeance. Every escape route to the west, from trunk roads down to bicycle tracks, will be blocked as they have never been blocked before: with all due respects to yourself, Mr. Reynolds, General Illyurin is the biggest fish that has ever threatened to escape their net. We will do very well indeed to escape with our lives: I do not rate our chances very highly. So what now, I wonder.’