Page 14

14

Will

T he city rolled by like a film reel someone had spliced together out of silence and suspicion.

From the back seat of our taxi, I watched Budapest unfold. The buildings were beautiful in that worn, haunted way—like someone had built them to withstand ghosts instead of weather. Wire-strung tram lines sliced through the air, taut and humming, and the Danube flickered to my right in occasional glimpses, a dark ribbon that didn’t care who lived or died beside it.

Our driver didn’t speak.

Or maybe he just knew better than to talk to someone dressed like me.

I wore a wool coat three years out of fashion, gloves scuffed, a scarf the color of fresh mustard, and the kind of bureaucratic expression that came from long hours spent in rooms filled with charts and tea gone cold. My bag was full of meaningless papers, and my camera was real, though it didn’t work unless you held the shutter just right. I looked like someone who had been sent to ask questions no one wanted to answer.

Which, in a way, was true.

I pressed a fingertip to the fogged window and traced a lazy circle as we passed a majestic stone church half rebuilt from mortar scars. In another life, I might’ve stopped and marveled. In this one, I checked every window and rooftop for men who weren’t there to worship.

Behind me, somewhere out of sight, I imagined Thomas and Egret watching from their taxi. I wasn’t sure why we’d split up for the short ride, but Thomas had insisted. Sparrow would already be at the tram stop, gloves in her pocket, her eyes tracking everything.

We’d done everything right. Ran the plan. Rehearsed the lines. Timed the route. And still, my stomach was doing its best impression of a washing machine set to spin—because this part, first contact, always felt like walking a high wire blindfolded. One wrong word, one flinch, one little tell . . . and the whole act unspooled with a theatrical splat .

We knew Farkas was watched. Not always, not obviously, but enough to make us think twice about which way we breathed. I’d be playing the fool—an inquisitive American with poor Hungarian and worse timing.

But if he took the bait . . .

If he wanted out . . .

Then maybe we’d be playing for something more than survival.

If he didn’t, I shuddered to think of what came next, of how we’d have to “deal with” Farkas and his invention. One way or the other, the world could not afford for Stalin to obtain such power.

The car slowed as the street opened to a small yard beside the river, bordered by chain-link fencing and old communications buildings built like fortresses.

I spotted him immediately.

Dr. Farkas.

He was tall, thin, wearing an overcoat buttoned high and dark leather gloves. His hair was gray, worn longer than most, and his gait had the careful rhythm of someone used to being followed, even when he wasn’t.

He walked alone.

I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.

The car pulled over, and the driver gave a little grunt and nodded at the curb.

“I’ll only be twenty minutes,” I told him, flipping a few coins into his palm. “I’m cataloging the telecom restoration effort for my department.”

He didn’t answer. I was fairly certain he hadn’t understood a word I’d said. He lit a cigarette and went back to staring through the windshield like he’d done this a hundred times before.

Thomas and Egret’s car arrived as I stepped out into the morning light, adjusted my scarf, slung the camera higher on my shoulder, and walked toward the cracked stone retaining wall near the fence line, the one Farkas was expected to pass.

“Hey, Henry,” Thomas called as he climbed out of their taxi. “Wait for us.”

I stopped and turned, letting a look of bored annoyance enter my eyes.

The moment Thomas and Egret reached me, a gate screamed on its poorly oiled rails, and a bespeckled man stepped through, raising one hand in greeting. He said something in Hungarian. Seeing our blank stares, he switched into broken English.

“Welcome, comrades.” The man smiled more broadly than I thought possible for a Hungarian, given the somber state of every other face we’d encountered. “I am Imre Bálint,” he said, pronouncing his first name EEM-reh.

Thomas extended a hand and mirrored our host’s smile. “Dr. Charles Beckett.” He then motioned to Egret and me. “This is Dr. Hans Weiss and Henry Calloway. Mr. Calloway belongs to one of the U.S. departments who oversees electrical grid issues. Please do not ask me to remember which. They are filled with letters and little meaning.”

Bálint laughed, a genuine, rich sound that echoed off the walls surrounding his facility. “We will try to make today interesting, even for you, Dr. Beckett. Would you like tea before we begin? Coffee?”

“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 he was being 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.

I adjusted my scarf as I crossed the yard, letting the chill bite at my cheeks. Each step brought me closer to Farkas—and, more worryingly, closer to the Soviet officers still lingering near the gate.

Only now, they didn’t look like men wasting time.

The one with the cigarette ground it out under his boot and shifted his weight, one hand sliding over the strap of his rifle. The other no longer pretended to read his clipboard. He stood straighter now, like he’d remembered what he was being paid for.

I didn’t look at them, but I felt it—their attention—sudden and full.

Farkas stood beside a rust-stained relay post as he studied a printed schematic. His coat billowed in the wind. Up close, he looked older than his file photo—hair thinner, lines of his face deeper—but there was still that intense, restless intelligence behind his eyes.

“Excuse me, sir,” I said, affecting a friendly, almost sheepish smile. “Are you Dr. Farkas?”

His head turned, and his eyes landed on me like a scalpel. “Who’s asking?”

“Oh, sorry, I’m Hank Calloway, U.S. State Department liaison. I’m part of the joint infrastructure review group from Vienna.” I gave a slight bow. “Apologies for the interruption, but I’ve read your name in a few reports and didn’t want to miss the chance to meet and ask something directly.”

He looked me over, jaw tight. “They’re publishing my name now, are they?”

“Just citations,” I said. “Footnotes. You’re a legend in our reconstruction offices.”

That earned me a snort—dry and unimpressed.

“Well?” he said. “Ask. Quickly. I have much to do, and this inspection is keeping me from more important work.”

I took that as a green light and opened the map I’d brought, pointing at a section near the river. “I was curious about the secondary transfer points along the western grid. Are they still routing through the pre-war junctions, or has the Ministry authorized new bypass channels?”

Farkas’s expression soured. He stepped closer and glanced at the map like it offended him. “You do not build new channels unless you are prepared to demolish half the city,” he said. “The pre-war junctions are brittle, but they are all we have. Soviet engineers are more interested in efficiency than endurance.”

“Interesting,” I said, nodding as I scribbled nonsense into my notebook. “And signal redundancy—are you finding issues with field overloads on the civilian supply grid?”

“This is Hungary. I find issues with everything,” he muttered.

A few feet behind me, boots scraped against gravel.

One of the Soviets had moved—just a pace or two—but it made my pulse spike.

Farkas noticed. His eyes darted past me for the briefest second, then returned to mine, sharper now.

“Is there a point to this, Mr. Calloway?” he asked, voice clipped. “I am not a tour guide.”

I smiled, hoping to disarm the frigid man, and folded the map.

“No, of course. I didn’t mean to distract you.” I reached into my coat pocket and pulled out a folder—the kind they handed out at the embassy, all meaningless charts and exaggerated success stories. “I just wanted to share this, in case you’re interested in how we’re rebuilding Vienna’s signal structure. You might find the methods useful—or laughable.”

Farkas didn’t take it.

“All manner of things are flowing west.” I extended it anyway, keeping my tone light. “I believe you will find this interesting, particularly the playbill. American jazz fascinates me. Did you know there is a wonderful band playing here in Budapest? I purchased you tickets, should you be interested.”

Farkas’s brow furrowed as he grappled with the strangeness of my offer.

“Two tickets,” I said, holding up two fingers.

He stared at my fingers, then glanced to the folder. His face screwed up, then smoothed as he realized he was thinking far too loudly.

Then he reached out and took it.

I kept my hand on the folder, forcing him to lean in while I whispered, “If you would like to attend the concert—or discuss it further, there is a map in your folder. Tear the playbill on the corkboard indicated, and we will arrange a time to chat in a more private setting.”

Releasing the folder, I stepped back and smiled. “Thank you for your time, Doctor. I’ll leave you to your inspection.”

I turned, walked back the way I came. Not fast. Not slow. Just enough to say: Nothing happened here.

I could feel Farkas’s eyes on my back the entire time.

And the Soviets’, too.

Watching. Measuring. Waiting to see if the next act in my performance was worth applause . . .

. . . or a bullet.