The Outlaws (Presidential Agent 6)

Early in the morning of their fifth day together, Sándor Tor led Eric Kocian to the thermal baths—built by the Romans—below the hotel where they soaked, had a massage, and soaked again. And then they had a haircut and shave.

At noon, they were at work.

Sándor returned only once to the apartment he had shared with Margo. He selected the furniture he wanted to keep, and had it moved to the Gellért, where Kocian had arranged an apartment for him on the floor below his own.

Sándor Tor draped the ermine-collared black leather overcoat over Eric Kocian’s shoulders.

The bitch, who answered to the name Mädchen, headed for a row of shrubbery to meet the call of nature. Kocian led the puppy, named Max, to the shrubbery.

“You and Gustav go to bed,” Kocian ordered. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

Tor got back in the Mercedes, which then carried him to the hotel entrance. When Gustav had parked the car—a spot near the door was reserved for it—he followed Tor into the hotel lobby. Gustav got on the elevator to check the apartment out before Kocian got there, and Tor walked to a column and stood behind it in a position from which he could watch Kocian enter the lobby and get on the elevator.

Kocian came through the door four minutes later and walked toward the elevator bank.

A tall, well-dressed man who had been sitting in an armchair reading the Budapester Tages Zeitung suddenly dropped the newspaper to the floor and walked quickly to where Kocian was waiting for the elevator.

Where in the name of the goddamn Virgin Mary and all the fucking saints did that sonofabitch come from?

Tor had almost made it to the bank of elevators when the door opened. Gustav saw him coming and stopped, then stepped back against the elevator’s rear wall.

Kocian, Mädchen, and Max got on the elevator.

Tor followed.

“I thought I told you to go to bed,” Kocian said.

Tor took a Micro Uzi from his under-the-arm holster, held it at his side, and then pushed the button which would send the elevator to the top floor.

“I mean Herr Kocian no harm,” the tall, well-dressed man said in German, and then repeated it in Hungarian.

The elevator door closed, and the elevator began to rise.

“Pat him,” Tor ordered, now raising the muzzle of the Micro Uzi.

Gustav quickly, but unhurriedly, thoroughly frisked the tall, well-dressed man.

“Nothing,” Gustav said, referring to weapons. But he now held a Russian diplomatic passport, a Hungarian foreign ministry-issued diplomat’s carnet (a plastic-sealed card about the size of a driver’s license), and a business-size envelope.

He examined the carnet, saw that it read, COMMERCIAL COUNSELOR, RUSSIAN EMBASSY, and then handed the carnet to Tor.

“Actually, I’m Colonel Vladlen Solomatin of the Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki,” the tall, well-dressed man then said in Hungarian, and for the third time said, “I mean Herr Kocian no harm.”

“You’re from the Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki?” Kocian asked in Russian.

“It’s the Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation,” Colonel Solomatin said. “Yes, I am.”

“I know what the SVR is, Colonel,” Kocian said.

The elevator door opened.

Kocian looked over his shoulder to make sure there was no one in the landing foyer, and then backed out of the elevator, motioning for Solomatin to follow him.

“Put the elevator out of service,” Kocian ordered.

“I mean you no harm, Herr Kocian,” Solomatin said again.

“You keep saying that,” Kocian replied. “What is it you do want from me, Colonel Vladlen Solomatin of the Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki?”