The Outlaws (Presidential Agent 6)

Vladlen

As Kocian handed the letter to Sándor Tor, he said, “I have no idea who either of these people are, Colonel.”

“Please, Herr Kocian,” Solomatin said. “I am really trying to help them; to right an injustice.”

“Well,” Kocian said dryly, “the Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki does have a certain reputation for causing injustices. But this is the first I’ve ever heard of them trying to right any.” He shook his head. “Sorry, Colonel, I can’t help you.”

“Herr Kocian, the last confirmed sighting of Colonel Berezovsky, his wife and daughter, and Lieutenant Colonel Svetlana Alekseeva was when they got on Lieutenant Colonel Castillo’s airplane at Schwechat airfield in Vienna.”

Kocian looked him in the eyes, and said, “Colonel Castillo? Someone else I never heard of.”

“The colonel is sometimes still known by the name he was given at his christening, Karl Wilhelm von und zu Gossinger. Inasmuch as you stood as one of his godfathers, Herr Kocian, I find it hard to believe you’ve forgotten.”

Kocian didn’t respond.

“Herr Kocian, I swear before God and by all that’s sacred to me that I am telling you the truth. And I am begging you to help me.”

Kocian said nothing.

“Will you at least get the letter to Colonel Castillo?” Solomatin asked, plaintively.

After a long moment, Kocian said, “Gustav, please be good enough to escort Colonel Solomatin to his car. Give him back his passport and carnet.”

/> “And the letter?” Gustav asked.

Kocian looked at the letter for a long moment, and then folded it and put it in his jacket pocket.

He walked toward the door to his apartment.

“Thank you, Herr Kocian. May God shower you with his blessings,” Solomatin said.

Gustav motioned for him to get back on the elevator.

When Gustav walked into Kocian’s apartment a half hour later, the old man was sitting in a Charles Eames chair with his feet on its footstool, holding a glass of whisky. Mädchen lay beside him. Max was sitting beside Tor, his head cocked as if to ask, “What the hell are you doing?”

Tor was sitting on a Louis XVI chair that looked to be of questionable strength to support his bulk. A section of a bookcase that lined that wall of Kocian’s sitting room had been swung open, revealing a hidden compartment with a communications device on a custom-built shelf.

Tor had fed the communications device the letter Solomatin had given Kocian, and now took it from the device and walked to Kocian and handed it to him.

“There was no car outside,” Gustav said. “I offered him a ride to wherever he wanted to go. He accepted, and said the Russian embassy. A Volkswagen with diplomatic plates got on my tail as we got off the Szabadság híd and followed us to Baiza. What I think is there were two cars, that one and another—or at least some Russian sonofabitch with a cell phone—here. They were waiting for us at the bridge.”

“And what happened at Baiza?” Kocian asked, referencing the embassy of the Russian Federation at Baiza 35, Budapest.

“He got out of the car, and walked to the gate. The gate opened for him before he got there. They expected him. When I looked in the mirror, the Volkswagen that had been on my tail was gone.”

Kocian waved the letter Solomatin had given him.

“Did you get a good look at this, Gustav?”

When Gustav shook his head, Kocian handed it to him, and Gustav read it.

“Well?” Kocian said.

Gustav shook his head again.

“I don’t have a clue,” he said. “Except, if I have to say this, it smells.”

“You don’t think the SVR forgives defectors?” Tor said sarcastically.