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“No, thank you,” Thomas said. “We stopped by a café earlier. I might float into your river if I had anything more to drink.”
Bálint laughed again. I didn’t sense anything forced or false. He was, apparently, quite the jovial man. “Come, then, let us take in the glory that is our power grid.”
My boots crunched against gravel and broken frost. The cold bit through my coat, but I barely felt it. Because here, now, everything was performance.
Bálint turned on his heel and motioned for us to follow, already mid-sentence. “As you can see, the primary relay hub was constructed using reinforced concrete in 1936, but we’ve upgraded most of the internal cabling to accommodate dual-channel switching. We are currently testing a redundant grounding system, which allows the load to be diverted in the event of circuit failure—very advanced, very safe.”
He spoke rapidly, without pausing, as though afraid that any silence might give someone else a chance to interrupt—or report him.
“The western grid feeds through here,” he continued, gesturing at a wall of metal boxes and humming coils. “Before the war, it was only single-phase transfer, but now we have retrofitted for polyphase—though the coils still overheat in summer, of course. That is something we will address in phase five of the modernization effort. Or phase six, depending on Moscow.”
I was already losing interest. Thomas nodded along, likely calculating whether Bálint’s enthusiasm was authentic or fear worn as obedience. Egret looked like he was trying not to strangle himself with a spool of copper wire.
An hour later, Bálint was still in rare form—elbow-deep in an explanation of something called a “step-down transformer,” which, despite his obvious passion, sounded more like a Soviet nickname for a mediocre pianist. He gestured excitedly toward a caged unit humming against the wall, wires spilling out like overcooked spaghetti.
I nodded, offered a quiet “fascinating,” and let my eyes wander. Across the yard, past a row of leaning cable spools and an old junction box patched with rust, I saw him. A tall man in a gray overcoat with gloved hands clasped behind his back. He was still alone, walking the perimeter like a man with a thousand thoughts and no one to trust with any of them. He stopped to examine a relay box with a slow, precise interest—bending, tilting his head, frowning.
Even from where we stood, he looked like someone used to listening before speaking, used to being watched.
Because hewasbeing watched.
My eyes shifted—as subtle and smooth as possible—only three degrees left.
A pair of Soviet officers stood near the southwest gate. They weren’t close to Farkas, not obviously with him, but not doing much of anything else, either. One smoked, while the other held a clipboard he hadn’t written on in some time.
They weren’t talking.
They were watching.
Their uniforms bore no special insignia I could see from this distance, but their posture gave them away. They weren’t workers. They were wolves.
I turned, careful to keep my voice light.
“Who’s that?” I asked, gesturing toward Farkas.
Bálint followed my gaze. “Ah. That is Dr. Farkas. He is with the Ministry of Signal Innovation. He visits from time to time to evaluate our restoration progress and make recommendations.”
“Recommendations?” I repeated.
“Which we treat as gospel, of course,” Bálint added dryly.
I offered a diplomatic smile, but my thoughts were already racing.
Farkas moved again, stepping away from the box and toward a narrow side path between two sheds. His pace was slow, unbothered, a man who knew how to look ordinary.
“Would it be out of line if I introduced myself?” I asked. “I’ve seen his name in some of our reports back in Vienna. I’d be fascinated to hear his thoughts.”
Bálint hesitated, the lines around his eyes deepening, and his fingers tightening on his clipboard. Then, with a small, reluctant shrug, “If you must. Please be brief. He doesn’t suffer interruptions.”
“Neither do I,” I said with a grin, tucking the map under my arm, “but we all make sacrifices in the name of diplomacy.”
I gave Bálint a nod and stepped away from the group.
The air felt suddenly colder.
Though it wasn’t the weather—it was the eyes.
I could feel them, even without looking. Soviet interest slid toward me like a bead of water down a frosty glass. It was just enough to make me wonder if this approach had been a mistake.