Page 29

29

Will

B udapest looked harmless in the morning. The sun hadn’t warmed anything, but it gave the illusion of softness. That was the trick of winter here. Everything appeared tender, like a quiet postcard city, but underneath it all, the bones were still Soviet steel.

We met near the Erzsébet Square fountain, its cracked basin half filled with brittle leaves and stray cigarette butts. Its water hadn’t flowed in years—not since the last shells dropped on this side of the Danube.

Thomas was already there when I arrived, standing with one hand in his coat pocket and the other holding a folded city guidebook he hadn’t opened once. He glanced up when he saw me and gave the smallest nod, the one he used when we were supposed to be two strangers at a corner, waiting for time to pass.

I fell in beside him but didn’t speak.

Egret arrived next. He lingered across the street long enough to ensure no one followed too close, then ducked into the square with a touch of his usual swagger—but it was muted this morning. His face was drawn, his humor tucked somewhere behind his collar.

Sparrow came last.

She approached from the south, weaving through a knot of schoolchildren, her scarf pulled high and her eyes scanning without appearing to. She looked like a local, which was the point.

Thomas gave a quick glance around the square. Once. Clockwise.

“I spotted two tails,” he said. “One posted by the tram stop, one across the street with a cigarette and a newspaper. See any others?”

Egret dropped to one knee to tie a shoelace that hadn’t come undone, his head rising to allow his eyes to scan. “Made your two. Another possible one in the corner. Woman with the empty stroller.”

“The Soviets don’t think women should do this kind of work.” Thomas grunted. “Anyone else?”

When Egret didn’t speak, Sparrow whispered, “Clear on my end.”

Thomas took one last glance, as though memorizing the architecture, then said, “Let’s walk.”

We moved in twos.

Thomas and Egret took the lead, their voices low. Sparrow hooked an arm in mine as we hung back, giving the others twenty paces and the illusion of unconnected company. We were a pair of foreign siblings exploring the city while the other two made polite conversation about nothing at all.

We turned east, slipping past cafés that hadn’t opened yet and storefronts whose mannequins wore coats that hadn’t been in fashion since Mussolini had a pulse. Sparrow shifted beside me, her gloved fingers twitching.

“Tell me again why we’re not in a warm hotel?” she asked, voice soft.

“Because the wallpaper has ears, love. And the chandelier and toilet paper rolls and telephones and—”

She sighed. “You’re telling me this entire mission rests on our ability to out-walk the KGB?”

“Oh, Sparrow, dear, we’re not just walking,” I said, making a dramatic flourish with one hand. “We’re strolling.”

She snorted, squeezing my arm, then leaned in. “You ever get the feeling we’re not going to make it out of this one?”

I smiled without meaning to.

“Every morning since we got here.”

At the next block, we closed the gap and fell into step as a group. Thomas shifted so that his voice would carry only a foot or two in either direction. His body was deceptively relaxed, but his eyes kept checking the reflective surfaces of every shop window we passed. I knew the look. He was watching for echoes—footsteps out of sync with the city, movements that felt rehearsed.

“We’re on for tonight,” he said. “Station Four. East platform. 20:15 departure.”

Sparrow lifted an eyebrow. “All four of us go?”

“Three ride. One watches the boarding.”

“And that’s you,” Egret said.

Thomas nodded.

“If anything goes sideways, you’ll be the first to spot it,” I said.

“That’s the idea,” Thomas replied.

We passed a bridge where rusted railings jutted up from the stone like broken fingers. The Danube crawled beneath it, thick with cold and secrets.

“We board with them disguised?” Sparrow asked.

“Yes. Will rides with the girl—he’ll carry her papers. Egret takes Shadowfox separately, both as locals. Clothes, bags, behavior—all prepped in advance. You’ll be the buffer. Documents, cash, alternate IDs are already in the hollowed-out book.”

She tapped the strap of her satchel. “It’s in here.”

“Good,” Thomas said.

“And if one of them doesn’t show?” I asked.

Thomas looked up toward the sky for a long moment before answering. “Then the other still boards.”

Silence.

Egret’s jaw tightened. “That’s cold.”

“That’s Manakin,” Thomas said. “There’s too much at stake to do otherwise.”

We paused at a corner, ostensibly to look at the stone facade of the Szabó Bookstore, where faded Hungarian poetry sat in the window behind grime-smudged glass.

Sparrow adjusted her glove. “What about watchers on the train?”

Thomas blew out a breath that billowed before his lips. “Lark will have someone watching for them. The signal is chalk lines on the platform number sign. However many lines you see, that’s how many Reds have been positively identified. Assume there are more.”

Sparrow cocked her head. “What if they move once we board?”

Thomas gave her the smallest glance. “Then we adapt.”

“Define adapt,” she said, crossing her arms.

“I shoot someone in the bathroom,” Egret muttered.

“You are not shooting anyone in the bathroom,” I said, biting back a smile.

“Fine, in the powder room,” he replied with a shrug.

Sparrow didn’t laugh. Her jaw was set, her eyes sharp. “What about the girl? You really think she’s ready for this?”

Thomas hesitated just long enough for me to see the truth slip through his mask.

“She trusts her father. She’ll follow him anywhere. That’s what we need.”

We kept moving, following the tram line up through the city center, past an old war monument covered in ivy and flyers. One of the leaflets flapped in the wind—a political caricature too smudged to decipher.

I pulled my coat tighter and asked, “And the fallback plan?”

Thomas didn’t blink. “If the train is compromised, we scatter. Shadowfox moves with Egret to fallback point Delta. The girl goes with Will to the market house on Nyáry Street. Sparrow meets you there.”

“And you?” I asked.

He hesitated, then met my gaze. “I’ll be where I need to be.”

It was the kind of answer that sounded noble but meant nothing.

I hated when he said things like that.

We cut through a narrow alley, empty but for a pair of rusted bicycles leaning against a wall and a laundry line that hadn’t been taken down in years. The air was tighter here. Shadows crept up our legs like vines.

Egret paused at the exit and turned to Thomas. “I don’t like how this feels.”

He shrugged. “When do we ever?”

“That’s not comforting,” Sparrow said.

Thomas turned to stare at her. “It’s not meant to be.”

Sparrow rolled her eyes. “God, you’re exhausting.”

Thomas glanced at me. Something passed between us, a flicker of warmth behind the frost.

“We’re asking a man and a child to walk into hell for a promise they can’t verify, and a hope that’s barely real enough to see,” I said.

Thomas looked away, down at the stones. When he spoke, his voice was so low I wondered if he meant his words for us or only for himself. “And we’re going to make good on that promise.”

We ended the loop near Károlyi Garden, slipping into the park like we were tourists looking for somewhere quiet to eat lunch. We found a bench by the fountain among the ivy—and sat.

Our tails passed on the far side, pretending not to look.

Sparrow peeled a mandarin orange from her coat pocket and split it open in her gloved hands. Egret crouched by a tree, retying the same boot that still didn’t need it.

Thomas sat beside me, silent.

“You really think she’ll make it?” I asked.

He sighed. “Lark says she’s braver than most grown men.”

“She’s thirteen,” I said.

Thomas cocked his head my way. “And you’re holding her hand tomorrow.”

I turned the words over like a coin.

“She’s lucky,” I said. “To have a father who’d risk this.”

“We do what we must for the ones we love.” Thomas’s hand brushed mine on the bench. Barely a touch.

But it was there.

The city moved around us.

The snow hadn’t yet come, but it would. The clouds above were too pregnant with silence for anything else.

We’d walk again. One more loop. One more pass.

And then that night, the girl and her father would board a train that would carry them to freedom—or vanish them forever.