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My collar was too tight, and Will’s shirt sleeves were an inch too short, but in Russia’s Budapest, that meant they were perfect.
Will rolled and tucked two other sets of clothes into a duffel bag beside the bed. I caught his eye in a mirror bolted to the wall as I buttoned the last of my cuffs. He gave me a look—one that said we’re both about to do something stupid, and “I’d rather do it with you than anyone else.”
He tossed a coat over the duffel bag, hiding the bulk of civilian clothes we’d stashed for the return trip.
“Ready?” he mouthed without speaking.
I nodded.
We slipped out of the room and down the back stairwell, our boots a whisper against the cracked tile. The building’s side entrance was meant for staff. Nobody used it after eight—except the occasional porter taking a smoke break, or a pair of American spies determined to evade their watcher.
The door let out a soft groan when I pushed it open. Cold air rushed in, as though we were walking into the coldest icebox ever invented. We stepped out into the alley beside the hotel and closed the door behind us.
Will didn’t look across the street, but I did.
Our tail was still in his car—a rust-colored sedan that hadn’t moved all day. From where we stood, I could just see the slope of his head resting against the window.
He looked asleep.
I didn’t believe it for a second. Soviets were far too disciplined—and their personnel too used to being disposable—to allow for such a lapse.
We waited a moment. Then another.
Still no motion. No radio. No door opening. The man’s head never moved. He never looked up. From the distance, I couldn’t see the rise and fall of his chest, but I imagined his breaths, slow and steady. I could hardly believe it.
He really was asleep.
So we walked.
Five blocks later, we flagged a cab—not from a queue, just a lone driver in a peaked cap who probably hadn’t been licensed since before the war. I climbed in first, sliding across the cracked leather seat. Will climbed in after me.
The man glanced at us through the rearview mirror and asked, “Hová?”
I didn’t know that word—or many others in Hungarian. Will knew even fewer but assumed the man was asking what any cab driver might and rattled off a street he’d spotted close to the train yards—close enough to the mansion for an approach on foot, but not so close it would spark interest.
We rode in silence.
Outside the window, Budapest turned stranger by the block—shadows pulling long across buildings scarred by war and patched by neglect. Neon signs flickered half-heartedly. A woman on a bicycle pedaled past us with a sack of something steaming slung across her handlebars.
We paid the driver in folded forints, exited at a nondescript corner, and walked the final four blocks with our collars turned up and our pace casual.
The mansion was exactly as Will had described it—and more. In the dimness of twilight, it appeared as stately as any manor one might see in New England or the poshest suburbs of London. The architectural style was a rare blend of Neo-Renaissance and Transylvanian Secessionist. Had we not been working undercover with a tangible fear of discovery, I might’ve bragged to Will about recognizing the architectural fingerprints that marked the place. I was, after all, a bit of a Renaissance man, or so my ridiculously wealthy family back home always hoped.
The place wore its elegance like a dame attending a ball.
Rich with intricate scrollwork, deep eaves, and ornately turned balustrades.
Every column, every corner bracket was hand-shaped—wood lacework framing the structure like frozen notes on some composer’s sheet. The roof rose steep and gabled, covered in dark green. Turrets flanked the eastern and western wings—one capped in a copper spire now turned to pale verdigris, the other topped with a domed cupola where pigeons nested under the rafters. A widow’s walk circled the upper level, cordoned by delicate rails, offering a view of the city.
I shifted my gaze to the front, where wide wooden steps led up to a double front door of cherry-stained oak. Stained-glass panels flanked the entrance, their colors muted but still catching the light in fractured shards of ruby and cobalt.
Surrounding the mansion was a tall, wrought-iron fence, its bars twisted into the shape of climbing vines and leaves. Atop the posts were sharp finials shaped like bayonets, black with age and soot. The gate at the front bore no insignia, only an unadorned lock and two sentry lamps.
We moved down the block, keeping to the side streets and hedges, crouching behind a line of overgrown bushes near the northeast perimeter. The earth was frozen, but the ground cover muffled our movements.
From there, we could see the front gate. Two guards in charcoal uniforms with crimson pins stood—one armed with a sidearm, the other with a PPSh-41 submachine gun slung loose on his shoulder. They didn’t talk. They didn’t smoke. Their eyes never settled, only scanned . . . and searched . . . and watched.
Motion tugged at my gaze.