Cold Warriors (12 page)

The professor peered at the book for a moment before reaching one of his blue-veined hands to take it. There was a second while they both had hold of it, Morgan suddenly reluctant to let the thing out of his grasp. Then he relinquished it to Raphael.

"So this is the book he spoke of." Raphael riffled slowly through the pages. "It's not as I imagined."

Morgan leaned forward eagerly. "But can you translate it?"

"Hmm." Raphael's head cocked to one side, birdlike. "It is not any currently spoken language, I can tell you that. Not Roman script, either, though it bears similarities."

"Are you saying you can't help?"

"No, no, let us not be hasty. It isn't a modern language, but I believe it has its roots in one. Tell me, what do you know about Hungarian?"

"That I can't speak it?"

Raphael smiled very slightly. "Unsurprising. It is one of Europe's most mysterious tongues, famously without roots in any nearby language."

"So this is a form of Hungarian?"

"A very ancient one, I think, yes - written in a long-forgotten runic alphabet."

"And there's, what, a dictionary for it somewhere?"

Raphael nodded. "With any luck, we should have the relevant texts in the library downstairs. I can take you there, if you'd like. It isn't normally open to non-students, but for a friend of Mr Karamov's I believe we can make an exception." He rose shakily to his feet, leaning a hand on the desk to steady himself.

"Did you know," he said, as Morgan held the door open for him, "there is an ancient Jewish legend which purports to explain the origin of Hungarian? It claims it was the language of Lilith, the demonic first wife of Adam. When God drove her from Eden to make room for Eve, he told her to take her tainted language with her. But to spite the Creator, who had first chosen her and then discarded her, Lilith went to secret corners of the earth, and whispered the language to Adam's children. And some of them, at least, have never forgotten it. It is an amusing story, is it not?"

Morgan smiled politely as he followed the professor down the gloomy corridor.

Margaret Island lay ahead of them, over a bridge that spanned the Danube in a series of squat arcs. It was their best guess for where Karamov was heading - and if they arrived ahead of him, there was less chance he'd notice the tail. Tomas would still have to keep out of sight, but Anya at least could stay in the open.

She mentally cursed the British operative for the thousandth time since she'd heard about his little stunt in the restaurant. Anger came so easily to her these days. She remembered a time when it hadn't been her first response to everything, but she couldn't seem to recapture it.

The bridge was long, the river broad and sluggish at this point, and the walk gave Anya too much time to think. She'd been sickening of the work for a while now, afraid it was changing her in ways she couldn't change back. She could even pinpoint the time when the transformation began, that trip to Japan chasing down a lead who turned out to be a phantom. It had been a trap, though she'd managed to escape it. But she'd come back a different woman - less trusting, and less happy. How would
this
mission change her? How long before she ceased to know herself at all?

"Which way?" Tomas asked when they stood on the shore, the island stretching out verdant in front of them, an oasis in the urban sprawl which lay on both sides of the river.

"No real way of knowing till he gets here," Belle said.

Anya frowned, thinking. "This is Karamov's first trip to Budapest."

"OK," Tomas said. "And..?"

"Do you have a tourist guide to the city?"

He shook his head, but Belle handed over a dog-eared copy of the
Rough Guide
, and Anya flicked through to the section on Margaret Island.

"I hardly think he's come here sightseeing," Tomas said.

Anya sighed, still looking down at the book. "But we think he's here to meet someone, maybe someone local. Karamov has probably never been to the island before. They'll have to pick a rendezvous point that's easy for a visitor to find."

The grim lines of Tomas's face relaxed. "You're right. So what are the options?"

"The Alfred Hajos swimming pool," Anya said, reading from the book.

Tomas and Belle shook their heads simultaneously. "Too busy," he said.

"There are some ruins at one end, an old Franciscan Priory."

Tomas took the book from her and peered at the photo, a small maze of low stone walls. "Maybe. But where exactly would they meet?" Then he spotted something on the facing page. "The water tower. That's in the park, isn't it?"

Anya read the description of the tall octagonal building that lay near the centre of the island. "Yes," she said. "That has to be it."

"But what if we're wrong?" Belle asked. "We could lose Karamov entirely."

Tomas smiled wryly. "What's life without a little risk?"

"Exactly the attitude," Anya said sourly, "which got us in this mess in the first place."

The library seemed to be buried deep in the bowels of the faculty building. Raphael walked more quickly than Morgan would have expected, leading him confidently through the maze of corridors, down four flights of stairs, across two large vaulted rooms and then into another dark warren until he had absolutely no idea where he was.

"It's a confusing place," he said as Raphael took them into another stairwell, dimly lit and dripping with rank-smelling water.

Raphael raised an eyebrow at him. "In a hurry? Don't worry - we've arrived." He unlocked the steel door in front of him with a rusty key, then swung it open onto blackness, stepping aside to beckon Morgan through.

"In there?" Morgan asked dubiously.

Raphael smiled, wrinkling his face into a thousand shallow crevices. "We are very security conscious here - some of our books are worth a great deal of money. After you, Morgan."

It was only when he heard the door slam shut behind him that Morgan remembered he'd never told the professor his name.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The life of the park went on around her: women walking children, men walking dogs, a group of students tossing a Frisbee, languid in the humid heat now that the rain had passed. Anya kept her gaze on them and not on Karamov as the big Russian walked towards her.

Was he - yes, he was going to sit on the bench right beside her, the one she'd deliberately picked because it was nearest to the water tower.

Both Tom and Belle were elsewhere, out of sight of Karamov and the protection he'd brought with him. The bodyguards were keeping their distance - probably part of the agreement with whoever Karamov was meeting - but Anya was crawlingly aware of their presence. The slightest hint that she wasn't just an innocent tourist, and they'd come swarming. Damn Tomas anyway, for landing her in this on her own!

Beside her, she felt Karamov shift then shift again, probably unable to get his bulk comfortable on the wooden bench. Or maybe he was nervous. He'd been sweating like a pig as he approached, dark patches of moisture in the armpits of his ugly blue-and-yellow shirt and in the crotch of his cotton trousers, and a sour cloud of body odour had engulfed her as he sat down. Anya eased herself away from him, so that his flabby, moist thigh was no longer resting against hers.

He shot her an irritated look. She pretended she hadn't seen it, that she was engrossed in the tinny music blaring out of her iPod headphones. It was a nice little device, a recent invention. The music fed
out
, audible only to those around her. It was amazing how easy people found it to ignore someone with a personal stereo, as if they were inhabiting a slightly different world. The headphones' real input, meanwhile, came from the directional mic in one of her blouse's buttons. If Karamov stayed within her sightline, she should be able to hear what he said.

He shifted again, glanced at her one last time, then settled back with a sigh. It looked like he hadn't rumbled her. Typical of his kind of Russian, she'd found. It never occurred to them that a woman might be anything more threatening than arm candy.

Who was he here to meet, though? She leaned back casually and glanced around her.

Coming up the path to the left was a very tall man leading a tiny, fluffy dog with a big blue bow in its tail. He looked absurd, and from his face she could see that he knew it. Probably not him.

Further out, sitting on the grass, a group of three young people sunbathed. One of them was reading, book held over her eyes to shield them from the newly emerged sun. Definitely not them.

From the right this time, a small, pinch-faced young woman approached. She was pretty but pale, and her eyes squinted as if she wasn't used to daylight. Anya looked away - not her either.

Except then she felt a shadow fall across her, and when she allowed herself to glance upwards she saw that the girl had stopped right in front of Karamov.

"Hello, Mr Karamov," she said. Her Russian was heavily accented. Anya's own wasn't good enough to know its origin, but she guessed somewhere rural and remote.

Karamov's eyebrows rose in amused recognition. "Natasha!"

She nodded sharply. "If you like."

Karamov leered, stretching his fleshy jowls wide. "It's lovely to see you, darling, but I really am very busy. Maybe we can have some more fun together later."

"You're busy meeting me," Natasha said. "
I
summoned you here."

Anya could hear in the woman's voice that she liked saying
summoned,
that she enjoyed its suggestion of control.

Karamov seemed too shocked by her words to protest them. "
You
?"

"Me. You've fucked up, Karamov." Natasha's voice was acrid with hatred. Could he hear how much this woman despised him?

"Not here," he hissed. "Walk with me." He levered himself out of the bench, leaving a sweat stain on the wood. Then he grabbed Natasha's arm and pulled her towards the water tower.

Now the voices were only coming to Anya through the headphones. "So our mutual friend has been watching me a while, eh?" Karamov said. "I guess I should have expected it. But this is his fuck-up, not mine. He was the one who arranged the transfer point."

Natasha shrugged, a twitch of her bony shoulders towards her ears. "And it was your bodyguards who were supposed to secure the venue."

"It's gone, that's what matters. We both need to get it back. Does this mean you've got no more idea who's taken it than I have?"

Natasha rocked back on her heels. "Ah, so you don't know. That changes things, of course."

"You thought
I
had something to do with it?"

"Even you wouldn't be stupid enough to double-cross us. But we thought you might know who was responsible. Perhaps some enemy of yours."

"I don't have enemies. No living ones, anyway."

Natasha laughed. It was a horrible sound, a gloating gurgle, and even Karamov seemed to sense the danger in it. Anya saw him take a step back, releasing the woman's arm.

"You've got some enemies
now
," she said. "You know too much, and you're worth too little."

While he was still gathering himself to respond, she lifted something to her lips - and a piercing, unbearably high-pitched whistle screeched through Anya's headphones.

Over by the water tower, the woman smiled around the whistle as the note died. "And by the way," she said. "My name is Valeria, not Natasha."

There was a moment's silence, then another sound took the whistle's place - a high, inhuman howl. Anya couldn't find its source until she saw the man she'd noticed earlier, the tall man with the little dog. The animal was pulling so hard at its leash it actually dragged the man a pace or two. Its mouth was open, spittle hanging off its small white fangs, and suddenly it didn't look so funny.

As Anya watched, the little dog gave one final tug and its leash flew out of the man's hands. The moment it was free, the animal flew over the grass towards Karamov.

And behind it, from every corner of the park, a hundred other dogs raced after.

There was a moment of darkness, and then a dull clank as the lights came on, neon strips in the ceiling. It was Raphael who'd thrown the switch, a metal lever on the wall of the large, white-tiled room. The old man was smiling, still looking absent-mindedly amiable. But the hand holding the semi-automatic pointed at Morgan was absolutely steady.

Morgan spun round, knowing the door was right behind him.

So was another gun. A round-faced, thick-lipped young man waved it at him, the universal gesture for "take a step back".

Morgan stumbled a little as he complied, and saw the young man's finger twitch on the trigger, a sheen of nervous sweat glittering on his forehead.

"Easy, Vadim," Raphael snapped. "Morgan isn't going to do anything unwise, are you?"

Morgan shook his head as he backed away, all the while calculating distances and strategies. He was ten feet from Raphael, fifteen from Vadim. The old man was the obvious target, but Morgan knew that he was the real threat. The boy was unsure of himself. He was the one who could be tricked, maybe manoeuvred into a position where he was blocking Raphael's line of fire...

"Stay where you are please, Morgan," Raphael said, as if he'd read his thoughts.

Morgan nodded, holding his hands away from his sides as he let the tension in his body relax. The old man was too dangerous to play games with, at least until he'd got a better sense of what was going on. He took the chance to look around him instead.

The room might once have been a laboratory. Old, grooved benches and rickety stalls lined its walls, but they didn't seem to be serving their original purpose. The entire central area had been cleared to leave twenty square feet of dark wooden floorboards. At first Morgan took the patterns on them for dirt or decay, but after a second his eyes resolved them into elaborate runes written in chalk. The surrounding benches were crowded with junk. He spotted statues, elaborately carved in ivory, one a horned man, another of a heavily pregnant woman. Nearby, an old-fashioned telescope was resting against the skull of something that might have been a monkey or a man. A jar next to it held the pitiful, deformed remains of a human foetus.