“Five thousand d-mark for this, eh?” Istvan asked.
“That is correct,” Hudson agreed.
“I should ask more, but I am not a greedy man.”
“You are a trusted comrade, my friend,” Hudson assured him, briefly wishing that he had a pistol in his belt.
The Volvo’s big diesel lit up with a rumbling roar and the truck jerked off, back to the main road, with Jani at the large, almost flat steering wheel.
It didn’t take long.
And that was a good thing for Ryan, crouching in the cardboard box in the back. He could only guess how the Russians felt, like unborn babies in a horrible womb, one with loaded guns outside it.
Ryan was afraid even to smoke a final cigarette, fearing someone might smell the smoke over the pungent diesel exhaust, which was altogether unlikely.
“So, Istvan,” Hudson asked in the cab, “what is the routine?”
“Watch. We usually travel at night. Is more—dramatic, you say? I know the Határ-rség here many years now. Captain Budai Laszlo is good man to do business with. He has wife and little daughter, always want present for daughter Zsoka. I have,” Kovacs promised, holding up a paper bag.
The border post was sufficiently well lighted that they could see it three kilometers off, and blessedly there was little traffic this time of night. Jani drove up normally, slowing and stopping there when the private of the border guards, the Határ-rség, waved for them to halt.
“Is Captain Budai here?” Kovacs asked at once. “I have something for him.” The private headed into the guardhouse and returned instantly with a more senior man.
“Laszlo! How are you this cold night?” Kovacs called in Magyar, then jumped down from the cab with the paper shopping bag.
“Istvan, what can I say, it is dull night,” the youngish captain replied.
“And your little Zsoka, she is well?”
“Her birthday is next week. She will be five.”
“Excellent!” the smuggler observed. He handed over the bag. “Give her these.”
“These” were a pair of candy-apple-red Reebok sneakers with Velcro closures.
“Lovely,” Captain Budai observed, with genuine pleasure. He took them out to look at them in the light. Any female child in the world loved the things, and Laszlo was as happy as his daughter would be in four days. “You are a good friend, Istvan. So, what do you transport tonight?”
“Nothing of value. I’m making a pickup this morning in Beograd, though. Anything you need?”
“My wife would love some tapes for the Walkman you got her last month.” The amazing thing about Budai was that he was not an overly greedy man. That was one of the reasons Kovacs liked to travel across the border on his watch.
“What groups?”
“The Bee Gees, I think she called them. For me, some show tunes, if you don’t mind.”
“Anything in particular? The music from American movies, like Star Wars, perhaps.”
“I have that one, but not the new one, the Empire Attacks Back, perhaps?”
“Done.” They shook hands. “How about some Western coffee?”
“What kind?”
“Austrian or American, maybe? There’s a place in Beograd that has American Folgers coffee. It is very tasty,” Kovacs assured him.
“I have never tried that.”
“I’ll get you some and you can try it—no charge.”
“You are a good man,” Budai observed. “Have a good night. Pass,” he concluded, waving to his corporal.
And it was just that easy. Kovacs walked back around and climbed into his truck. He wouldn’t have to part with the present he had for Sergeant Kerekes Mikaly, and that was good, too.
Hudson was surprised. “No paper check?”
“Laszlo just runs the name through the teletype to Budapest. Some people there are also on my payroll. They are more greedy than he is, but is not major expense. Jani, go,” he said to the driver, who started up and pulled across the line painted on the pavement. And just that easily, the truck left the Warsaw Pact.
In the back, Ryan had rarely felt so good to feel a vehicle start to move. It stopped again in a minute, but this was a different border.
And going into Yugoslavia, Jani handled it, just trading a few words with the guard, not even killing the engine, before being waved forward and into the semi-communist country. He drove three kilometers before being told to pull off onto a side road. There, after a few bumps, the Volvo stopped. Yugoslavian border security, Hudson saw, was sod-all.
Ryan was already out of his cardboard box and standing at the back when the canvas cover was flipped aside.
“We’re here, Jack,” Hudson said.
“Where is that exactly?”
“Yugoslavia, my lad. The nearest town is Légrád, and here we part company.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, I’m turning you over to Vic Lucas. He’s my counterpart in Belgrade. Vic?” Hudson beckoned.
The man who came into view might have been Hudson’s twin, except for the hair, which was black. He was also two or three inches taller, Jack decided on second inspection. He went forward to get the Rabbits out of the boxes. That happened in a hurry, and Ryan helped them down, hand ing the little girl—remarkably, still asleep—to her mother, who looked more confused than ever.
Hudson walked them to a car, a station wagon—”estate wagon” to the Brits—which would at least have ample room for everyone.
“Sir John—Jack, that is—well done, and thanks for all your help.”
“I didn’t do shit, Andy, but you handled this pretty damned well,” Ryan said, taking his hand. “Come see me in London for a pint sometime.”
“That I shall do,” Hudson promised.
The estate wagon was a British Ford. Ryan helped the Rabbits into their seats and then took the right-front again.
“Mr. Lucas, where do we go now?”
“To the airport. Our flight is waiting,” the Belgrade COS replied.
“Oh? Special flight?”
“No, the commercial aircraft is experiencing ‘technical difficulties’ at the moment. I rather expect they will be cleared up about the time we get aboard.”
“Good to know,” Ryan observed. Better this than a real broken airplane, then he realized that one more harrowing adventure lay ahead. His hatred of flying was suddenly back, now that they were in semi-free country.
“Right, let’s be off,” Lucas said, starting his engine and pulling off.
Whatever sort of spook Vic Lucas was, he must have thought himself Stirling Moss’s smarter brother. The car rocketed down the road into the Yugoslavian darkness.
“So, how has your night been, Jack?”
“Eventful,” Ryan answered, making sure his seat belt was properly fastened.
The countryside here was better lit and the road better engineered and maintained, or so it seemed, flashing by at what felt like seventy-five miles per hour, rather fast for a strange road in the dark. Robby Jackson drove like this, but Robby was a fighter pilot, and therefore invincible while at the controls of any transportation platform. This Vic Lucas must have felt the same way, calmly looking forward and turning the wheel in short, sharp increments. In the back, Oleg was still tense, and Irina still trying to come to terms with some new and incomprehensible reality, while their little daughter continued to sleep like a diminutive angel. Ryan was chain-smoking. It seemed to help somewhat, though if Cathy smelled it on his breath there would be hell to pay. Well, she’d just have to understand, Jack thought, watching telephone poles flash by the car like fence pickets. He was doing Uncle Sam’s business.
Then Ryan saw a police car sitting by the side of the road, its officers sipping coffee or sleeping through their watch.
“Not to worry,” Lucas said. “Diplomatic tags. I am the senior political counselor at Her Britannic Majesty’s Embassy. And you good people are my guests.”
“You say so, man. How much longer?”
“Half an hour, roughly. Traffic’s been very kind to us so far. Not much truck traffic. This road can be crowded, even late at night with cross-border trade. That Kovacs chap’s been working with us for years. I could make quite a good living in partnership with him. He often brings those Hungarian tape machines this way. They’re decent machines, and they’re giving the bloody things away, what with the labor costs in Hungary. Surprising they don’t try to sell them in the West, though I expect they’d have to pay the Japanese for the patent infringements. Not too scrupulous about such things on the other side of the line, you see.” Lucas took another high-speed turn.
“Jesus, guy, how fast do you go in daylight?”
“Not much faster than this. Good night vision, you see, but the suspension on this car slows me down. American design, you see. Too soft for proper handling.”
“So buy a Corvette. Friend of mine has one.”
“Lovely things, but made out of plastic.” Lucas shook his head and reached for a cigar. Probably a Cuban one, Ryan was sure. They loved the things in England.