ARMAGEDDON WAITS, Tic, Tic, Tic

ARMAGEDDON
WAITS
C 05/03/97


ARMAGEDDON
WAITS
c 05/03/97











A Novel
by Larry Freeman
SS# 557-62-2574
The Lame Mustang Ranch
16976 Comanche Road
Apple Valley, CA92307-1064
760-247-4751



BUDAPEST 11/03/56
The cold gray rain drove in on them like a living thing, the fat gray drops splattering on the paving blocks of Pest. They ran headlong into the storm, Peter, Ferenc, Miklos




CHAPTER FIVE: JANOS

Miki drove to Main Street in Venice and looked for a place to park his aging Oldsmobile among the Mercedes, Beamers and Jaguars of the yuppified district. Finally parked on one of the side streets, he walked slowly to Janos' bookshop in the coolish humidity of a slight morning overcast. He still had some difficulty seeing young men walk hand-in-hand, but it was only momentarily jarring. Janos' storefront was out-of-place and out-of-time between a sparkling 'Starbucks' and a bikini shop with a sign reading 'Sea-Through!' in flowing pastels. Janos' place looked like something out of Dickens. Large, dusty, faintly green plate-glass, display windows which displayed only torn cardboard food boxes filled with loose books. Small, fading gold lettering on the right front window simply read:
JANOS BOOKSELLERS
RARE BOOKS
Miki knew that the 'RARE BOOKS' part was mostly a fiction. 'USED BOOKS' would have been closer, and 'MOSTLY UNWANTED BOOKS' would have been right on the mark.
The deeply inset door was reached by a red-tiled entranceway to a glass wood-framed door covered by too many coats of flaking black paint. Two small tarnished brass bells hung inside the door by a blackened rawhide thong. The bells jangled pleasantly as Miki pushed open the door using the deeply hand-polished brass handle. The interior of the store mirrored the outside style of decor except that the air inside was musty and smelled of little-moved dust and rotting paper. The ceiling made up of old, embossed white tin squares, with widely seperated hanging, white glass light globes that added little illumination to the musty interior. The floors were the original wood-planks, now deeply and darkly mottled with unknown and unknowable stains.
Browsers often had to take possible selections toward the front windows where the light might allow them to be examined. What little attraction the store exerted came from the muted excitement of the possibility of finding a hidden treasure of gold among the mountains of dross. The merchandise was displayed on the 8-foot tall bare wood rows of shelves that filled the store and were themselves filled with ill-sorted tomes of all sizes, colors, materials and states of disrepair. The quiet was little disturbed by the faint music of Hungarian Czardas that issued forth from the book-lined warren that lay at the back of the store.
"Yanosh," Miki called. "Yanosh you old bastard. Are you still alive back there?"
"Who is?" croaked a cigarette-abused voice.
"Why don't you clean up this pig-sty?", said Miki as he walked back into Janos' lair.
"Little Miki!": cried Janos. "Little Miki never knew from selling. That's why you become a, what do they call it here?.. cossack? no, no, a policeman. Miki, I fix up and make fancy, soon I get little girls with no clothes who want the.. the.. magazines."
"Is that a bad thing?" laughed Miki.
A wry smile creased the much-used face. "At my age, Miki. Is very bad thing."
Janos sat in his chrome and vinyl wheelchair. Miki thought that Janos' face looked like that character actor that was always playing the old Mafia Dons. The guy with the shrunken cheeks that looked like he was already dead of some terrible wasting disease.
Janos always wore a yarmulka and Miki thought to himself that the round piece of black silk covering Janos' bald spot in the midst of the tangled white hair, marked him as a jew no less than the yellow star that he had been forced to wear during the Nazi occupation. His chest was sunken and he couldn't have weighed more than a hundred pounds soaking wet. He was shrunken and cadaverous and his legs were shrivelled to useless sticks. The only healthy thing about him was his heavily muscled arms from all the years of pushing the wheelchair. He was a living memoral to his years in Thereisenstadt Concentration Camp and the blue tattoo number looked as if it had been wet-blotted on the inside of his left wrist.

In Budapest before the war he had been a celebrated political correspondent for the Daily Forward, the most popular Jewish newspaper in the thriving Jewish community, inextricably intertwined with the cosmopolitan life of Hungary's capital city, Jews were among the country's leading lights. At least they though they were inextricably entwined. The Nazis and Hungary's fascist Arrowcross easily figured out a way to untangle the knot and in 8 months 650,000 Jews were rounded up and sent to Germany to be butchered. Janos survived, but not by much.
His wife and child were gone and his entire family was gone. Janos himself had lost feeling in his legs after a beating in the camp and he had never recovered their use, and as time went on they shriveled until they were only useless bags of offal that trailed behind him. That it had happened only days before the liberation of the camp by the Amis was what saved him from a ride in one of the closed trucks with the exhaust piped back into the truck body.
Janos chain-smoked and chain-coughed and half the time he had the tubes of a green oxygen bottle pushed up his nose as he worked at what had become his obsession. He loved his books and spent his days and most of his nights at the card table lit by a hanging bulb while he repaired the covers and re-bound the pages shed on account of age. White glue and muslin, leather and buckram, mucillage and rubber cement, gum erasers and pounce were the tools of his trade. Since the camp he had never been emotionally strong enough to go back to his writing, and so he got as close to it as possible in his hospital of sick books.

Miki had been on the street as a green patrolman when he first met old Janos. He had thought of him as old even then, although now he realized that Janos had lived too long in his body even in those days. Janos had been Miki' secret resource. He was the best damn research source Miki had ever found. The others could have their computers, but in the time that it took Miki to formulate a proper query to the damn blinking screen, Janos usually could have the answer for him. Since they were both from Hungary they soon became friends, and even after he quit the cops, Miki tried to drop in on Janos a couple of times a week.
"So mine boy, vos vilstu fun mina leben?" what do you want from my life? Maybe you want a gless tea?"
"Sure Yanosh, I'll take a glass of tea, and maybe you've got some sponge cake?"
"So from the Samovar there maybe you'll get a gless tea for you and me both. The sponge cake is also on the plate there. And you'll put a cube of sugar in for me?"
Miki sat in the old wooden office chair with the torn green vinyl seat and began swinging slightly from side-to-side. He picked up Janos' thin silver X-acto and slit the loose end of his belt, pulling the medal out and handing it to Janos. "Can you tell me anything about this?"
Janos took it and pushing his silver-framed glasses up on his forehead screwed a battered jeweller's loupe into his right eye. Bending over he closely examined the object, turning it this way and that in the light. "So... Miki, is silver... and not the best silver... see... is tarnished. From impurities. Not from big country but from small country. Year is 1889. And lettering and numbers is Roman... but is not English and not American. So we need to find what countries use Roman letters but not English... and then we look only for silver and not for gold. Is good little Miki?"
"Is very good Yanosh. When do you think you can tell me about it?"
"Sit... Sit. We look now. Is not take long." With practised ease, Janos swung his chair around with one hand, and with the other he pulled an old and dogeared large paperback book and swung it onto the cardtable. Miki could see the title in red against the yellow cover, 'Collector's Coins and Medals of the World' it said, and Miki was only a little disconcerted by the date he also saw on the cover, '1957', but considering the date on the medal, he didn't think that an up-to-date edition was really called for.
It took Janos less than twenty minutes to stop paging through the alphabetized catalog. Sometimes he went slowly and sometimes he flipped through an entire section, but once he got to the coins and medals of Mexico, he could immediately see similarities and examined each entry minutely until he finally said, with a sigh of satisfaction, "So... little Miki, here it is, your little mystery. I have it", and he turned the book for Miki to see.
Miki recognized the medal immediately, even if it was only in black and white. The caption read:
1889. Ocatlan, Jalisco.
Obverse on a radiant monument, in five lines:


JALISCO
A LA
FILANTROPIA
OCATLAN
MARZO 24 DE 1889
Reverse, two figures, one saving the other from a shipwreck.
There is no reverse inscription.
50 mm. Silver.
"So, Miki. What does it mean?"
"I don't know, Yanosh. I really don't know. Let me think about it and I'll get back to you." After sewing the medal back into his belt, Miki left the little shop more confused than he had been. What the hell was it all about? What did an 1889 silver Mexican medal commemorating a shipwreck rescue have to do with Kati, or Hungary, or him, or anything? He just couldn't figure it out.
He returned to his old, empty house on Spaulding near Pico. The house almost a burden since his retirement. His wife Melinda was dead of breast cancer these last 10 years and their two sons were grown and flown. David was a Congressional Aide in Washington and Ross and his new wife Marti were making their own lives in Eureka, Washington. Miki had never really understood what it was that Ross did, something with computers and geology for the U.S. Geological Survey and Marti was in advertising. Miki wished they would give him grandchildren but they were too busy with their careers. Sometimes he wondered whether they were not having children because Ross had an unhappy childhood. Miki didn't remember it that way, but you could never tell.
Miki passed the night with confusion and irrelevancies, but sometime during the night between sleeplessness and catnaps he came to the decision that he would go back to Janos and see if Janos had any contacts that were still in Hungary. He was back in Venice by 9 because he knew Janos always opened at 9, but he found the door locked, no sign on the door and no movement inside or answer to his knock. He knew that Janos lived in the rear of the store in spite of the fact that Janos had never invited him back there.
Miki thought that Janos might simply have overslept, but after all, Janos was old and he just might be sick. Miki was not really concerned, but when he went to a coin phone to call Janos and there was no answer, Miki became downright worried. It was not like Janos at all. About his shop hours, Janos was conscientious to a fault. It was an obsession with him. Miki went around the block and came up the alley behind the store where there was a rear entrance. He didn't have much hope, because it was a steel firedoor which was double-barred from the inside. But not this time. This time the door was open just a crack, and when he pushed it and went in, he found the bars torn out of the jamb and lying on the floor and all the lights in the rear on.
Miki had been a cop a long time but he recognized the smell more from his time in 'Nam than from anywhere else. Someone was dead in here and it must be Janos. He quickly moved through the little kitchen in the rear, sorry that he did not have his gun, and then through the dishevelled bed-sitting room, emerging into the rear of the store where Janos worked on his beloved books.
Janos was there, on the floor beside his wheelchair, his useless legs at unnatural angles to his body. He lay on his back, clad only in a T-shirt and underpants. In spite of the dried blood that had run from his nose and his mouth, he seemed relaxed and at peace and Miki imagined that there was even a hint of a smile on that seamed dead face. He brushed some flies away from Janos. The hands were bruised and swollen, almost crushed and there were burn marks on his bare arms and shrivelled legs. A paper Star of David had been thrown on his chest. Probably a heart attack, thought Miki. They tortured the poor bastard and he died. They killed him.
Janos had a bulletin board next to the card table that was his workplace and there were cut out items pinned to it, but someone had spray painted over it. In blood red was a Maltese cross with a extended stalk. At the intersection of the arms there was a large circle with diagonally crossed arrows pointed up. Even without the legend 'Nyilas' emblazoned under the symbol Miki recognized the sign of the fascist Arrowcross Party from the old days in Hungary. Miki realized he was crying bitterly. He knew that tears were not for the dead but for the living that were left behind, and he did not really know why he cried.
The bastards, he thought uselessly, why did they have to torture the poor old son-of-a-bitch? His cop training cast aside the usual gangs or robbers. This was not a robbery. Everyone in the neighborhood would know that the old man had no money and there were many easier pickings, even nearby. And the Arrowcross? For the first time Miki really considered the business about the Arrowcross and the Jewish star. What the hell was that?
The first thing that came to his mind was that the fascist bastards had finally caught up with Janos after all this time. Chasing one old Jew for 50 years? Ridiculous! Couldn't be! But it was connected to Hungary and the old days certainly. Then he realized that maybe it wasn't Janos' old days that were the problem, maybe it was tied to Kati and the medal! Maybe he was being followed and he led them to Janos! But what the hell would they kill Janos for? What would they have to torture him for? To answer some question, obviously. But what question could Janos answer? What did he know? The stupid medal? Who cared about some stupid medal enough to kill and torture an old man for. . .?
Aahh! This was all stupid. He was becoming paranoid. Why would they follow him? No one would give a damn about the medal. No, it was nothing to do with him. It was probably some gang thing. . . but still.
He called Chet, his old partner from his days on LAPD and within minutes the uniforms arrived, followed at a leisurely pace by the whole homicide crew. Miki spent the rest of the day answering questions and signing statements. Once they found out that he had been one of them, they were easier on him than they would have been on a civilian found alone in a place with a dead body. Still, there were the formalities to be gotten out of the way, and the possibilities of guilt could wait until Miki got home.



LAPD

He called Chet, his old partner from his days on LAPD, and told him about Janos. Within minutes the uniforms arrived, followed at a leisurely pace by the whole homicide crew, but Miki waited for Chet.
"Hey Mik, how they hangin'?" Chet was large, rumpled, sloppy and aging badly. Too little hair and too much scalp. He looked like one of those English Bloodhounds and suspects often thought him slow and stupid. Chet was anything but.
"Low and slow, Chet," Miki gave the stock answer without feeling.
"Sorry about Janos, I know you two were 'buds'. I sometimes used him myself. Hell of a way to cop it."
"Let's face it, no way's a good way."
"Yeah, but some is better'n others. Listen, Mik the techs've been through the place and there sure isn't much, except that fucking piece of art over there on the board. It mean anything to you?"
"I think I killed him, Chet." Miki raised one hand up, "No, I don't mean that I did it, but I think I'm responsible for it. I think I brought them here, but I don't know how."
"Mik, why don'cha tell me 'bout 't from the top. I got lots'a time and let's see if we can figure it through."
"Jeez, you know how that annoys me. I wish you'd at least call me Miki."
"Sure, Mik, and I wish you'd call me Prince Charlie, but let's get on with it, okay?"
"Okay, but do me a favor will you. Call out one of the techs to sweep my car for bugs while we're talking."
"Sure thing, Mik, HEY LOOT, CALL THE SWEEPERS FROM DOWNTOWN TO SWEEP MIK'S HUNK A' DEAD IRON, WILL YA?"
Miki told his old friend about everything that had happened. The medal and the note, the phone call to Frank, the assault under the market and his visit to Janos the day before. Chet listened quietly, making the occasional note, and then he asked, "and what 'bout that ugly art work on the wall? Know anythin' 'bout that, do ya?"
"Just that I can't believe its there. It belongs to another time, back in Hungary."
"Like I said before, Mik, I got time and that thing's up on that wall, so ya better tell me what ya know . . . "
"Okay, Chet, I'll tell you what I know. Let me start off with the easy stuff first. The 'Nyalis' on the wall is short for ''Nyalis-Keresztes Part' . . . "
"Shit, slow down, and you better spell that for me so I can get it right."
"Okay, you already got ''Nyalis', and ''Kereszetes' is K-E-R-E-S-Z-T-E-S and ''Part' is just like a party of something, got it?"
"Yeah, go on, Mik . . . "
"All that simply means 'Arrowcross Party'. That thing on the wall is just that, a Maltese Cross with two diagonal arrows pointed up, get it? Arrow-cross."
"So what?"
"Well, nothing, I guess. It's just a symbol, like the swastika was a symbol for the Nazis. And this is kind of the same thing."
"Okay, so now we got the symbol. What about it?"
"Chet, remember that a lot of this happened before I came on the scene, and I can only tell you what I heard."
"Yeah, well get on with it, then."
"Well, the first thing you gotta be aware of is that Central Europe has always been a hotbed of anti-semitism. They just hated Jews, and it's not really too surprising because the Jews were often brought into a country to run the farms and the estates for the absentee nobles. Naturally, the peasants resented them. Then, Jews were only allowed occupations that Christians weren't. So they were pawnbrokers and moneylenders and the first bankers.
"They charged interest where Christians couldn't and often became rich. And they provided money to kings and nobles for wars and high-living, and in return, they were granted license to collect taxes. Another strike against the Jews. Then, the Jews in different countries knew each other and inter-married and exchanged information, so they had the only real intelligence networks.
"Then too, the Jews were the conduits for the wisdom of the Moslems, who were the great scientists of the so-called 'Renaissance' age. Add to that the love of the Jews for wisdom and reading and you had the rise of the great professional and artistic Jews. When the citizens of the country looked at who the leaders and the money-makers were, they were Jews all out of proportion to their numbers."
"Son-of-a-bitch, Mik, I didn't expect to get a fuckin' lecture, so they didn't like the Jews. So what? Lots a' people don' like th' Jews, even over here."
"Maybe, Chet, but here we don't have the whole country get together to kill them."
"A'right, a'right, ya still ain't told me nothin' 'bout that Arrowcross."
"I'm getting to that. Jews were hated and were natural scapegoats for popular movements. You could always hate the Jews and very few would argue with you. Hitler knew that and made it the focus of his National Socialist Party. Same thing in Hungary."
"Is this where you come in?" said Chet impatiently.
"You want to know or don't you?"
"A'right, just get on with it."
"Arrowcross started small in the late '20's and grew rapidly to become a shadow government, helping Hungary join the Nazi Camp to take Transylvania back from the Romanians and only slipping into direct and collaborationist control of the country between March '44 and February '45. In eight months, right at the end of the war, they rounded up 650,000 of the 700,000 Jews in Hungary and sent them to be murdered in concentration camps."
"How do you know all this, Mik? Why'd ya care?"
"We lived in an apartment, like a duplex, just a big house that had been divided in half. Before they took my parents I had a friend who's family lived downstairs. His name was Jakab and he was more like a brother than just a friend. We were always at each other's houses and we were always together. Then, one day the fascists came in their black uniforms and took the whole family away. Jakab was crying but his mother and father were just stone-faced. "The next day there was a new family living downstairs. I asked everyone what had happened but nobody would talk about it and my parents must have been afraid because they wouldn't talk about it either, just said that they had moved away. It was only later that I found out that they were Jews and had been sent to the camps. Well, you know how kids are. I pestered everyone to find my friend but I never heard anything. Made quite an impression on me. Still does to this day.
"Then the bastards came and took my folks. They weren't Jews but it was some political thing. Nobody ever really explained it to us."
"Sorry, Mik. How come they didn't take you and your brother?"
"We were with my uncle, and that bastard was high up in the Arrowcross. He hid us and then he raised us as his own until the Russians came, then we could be his nephews again."
"So I guess he couldn't have been all bad, huh?"
"That's what you think. The bastard was Arrowcross and then he was State Security for the Communists and he was still Arrowcross and after the Communists he was still Arrowcross. Shit! We were just there so he wouldn't feel too guilty about not putting his life on the line for my parents. And I blame the bastard for Peter too. He collaborated with the Nazis and then he collaborated with the Russians and he was a fascist until the day he died."
"So what happened after the war?" prompted Chet.
"The usual, the country's bureaucrats, many of them Arrowcross, were needed by their new Soviet masters, and they rose to power, just like my uncle. And ever since then, no matter who is supposed to be in power, it's really the Arrowcross that runs the country. I don't know what the hell is going on now, but it looks like this all has something to do with Arrowcross."
"No Shit, Sherlock! But the question is what?"
"I've told you everything I know, and I haven't got a clue. I guess I'll just have to wait until I'm contacted and then see what happens from then."
"Look, Mik, let me level with you. I'll do what I can, but I'm not sure that it'll be a hell of a lot. This might just be out of my league. I'll trip some wires and see who shows up, but you gotta keep in touch with me, let me know where you are, Okay?"
"Yeah, sure. Hey, what about my car?"
"Right, just a minute." Chet stood up and looked around, finally spotting an overalled figure over by one of the units. The guy was leaning against the car and sipping coffee, talking to one of the uniforms. "HEY, YOU, RIGBY. CAN YOU COME OVER HERE FOR A SEC?"
Rigby detached himself from the unit and sauntered on over. "Yeah Cap?"
"Did you get a chance to check his car yet?" Chet pointed a finger at Miki.
"Nothing on it that I could find. I even had the wrecker come up and lift the rear end so I could get under it. Nothing. Looks clean to me."
"Thanks, guy." Chet turned to Miki. "Looks like you're just getting paranoid in yer old age. Just let me know where you are, Okay? . . . By the way, drop by the station and go through the books when you got a couple hours to kill. I'll try and put some Koreans together for you." Chet shook hands with Miki and walked away as Miki went back to his car.



CHAPTER SEVEN: CONTACT

Something different had completely taken over his life and he didn't seem to have any control over it. What was worse was that he didn't even have any idea what it was all about. Afraid to go to his house. Afraid to go to his office, a danger to his friends, what the hell was he going to do now. Kati may want help, but he couldn't even help himself.
He called Caroline at the office on his cell phone and she told him that he'd had a few calls. He told her he might not be able to come in for a while and had her read him the messages. Most of them were business, but there was one that he wasn't sure of. It was a call from a woman and she said that she'd been referred and she wanted to talk about retaining his services. That was strange enough because he didn't get too many walk-ins but she also said that she'd been referred by Kati. She suggested they meet that night about 10 and that she'd wait for him at the Ronald Reagan Library out in Simi Valley.
It was a hell of a long way to go, but the more he thought about it the better the idea seemed to him. It would give him more than enough leeway to pick up a tail, and if he got there early, he could watch the road leading up to the place. At that time of night it would be deserted. All in all, it seemed like a pretty good idea.
He was heading up the Ronnie Reagan Freeway about nine, at the top of the Santa Susana Pass, doing about 60 or 65, just taking it easy, when a Toyota passed him on the left pulling away. For just a minute, Miki thought it might be a tail, but he saw that there was only a lone woman in the car and she didn't seem to be paying any attention to him.
Something was wrong with the Toyota. It started weaving a little in the lane, then it got worse and the little car started slewing back and forth across the lanes and slowed right down. Miki caught up to it and then it turned right in front of him. The left front of his Oldsmobile caught the right rear door of the Toyota and scraped a gouge up along the side ending up by the front wheel well.
Oh Shit! thought Miki as he slowed and pulled to the right onto the breakdown lane. The Toyota slowed too and pulled off onto the shoulder about 30 yards in front of the Oldsmobile. Both cars had their flashers on as the sparse traffic whizzed past. Miki kept his headlights on so they'd be able to see. He got out and walked toward the other driver who was already walking back.
"Jeez, lady, are you all right?"
"I . . . I think so. Nothing seems broken anyway."
"Something wrong with the car?"
"I don't know, all of a sudden I was having trouble steering and then I just kinda lost control." By then they had pretty well come together between the two cars right there on the freeway. She was carrying her purse.
Miki reached for his wallet and said, "Guess we better exchange information, huh? I mean, if nobody's hurt then we don't have to worry about the police or an ambulance or anything. Sure made a mess out of the side of your car though."
"Well, at least I'm thankful that your car wasn't too damaged." She was rummaging through her purse looking for her wallet.
Miki laughed. "No, my old clunker's built like a tank. Take more than your little Toyota to bend her any."
She was dressed in a soft brown suit over a high-necked beige blouse, and seemed to be in her 40's. She handed him something and looked into his eyes. "She told me what you would look like, it's hard for me to remember you, but now that I see you . . . . She was pretty close, but you're a little heavier than she thought you would be."
Miki was confused. He didn't understand what she was saying and he noticed that she had a slight accent. His hand closed on what she was handing him and it didn't feel like a license. He turned his hand over and opened it. It glinted in the beam from the headlights. The other half of the coin.
He finally understood. She was the courier.
"I am Irena, and I hate to be a nuisance but we need to match the coins. Do you have yours?"
Miki took the miniature penknife on his keychain, opened it and then slit the end of his belt to produce his coin. They matched perfectly and he showed the match to Irena.
"I was pretty sure it was you," she laughed.
Miki took hold of her hand. "I've got a million questions."
"That's a shame, because I don't have too many answers. I really don't know what this is all about. I'm an American now, but I was a refugee like you many years ago. In fact we went to the same school in Szeged. Oh, you wouldn't remember me, I was two classes behind you and Kati. I went back to Hungary to see if I could find relatives and I found my old girlfriend Kati. Or rather, she found me."
"How is she? I thought she was dead. Why didn't she ever contact me? Why didn't she come herself?"
Irena smiled. "Wait a minute. One question at a time, please. First, she looked okay to me. A little thin, but healthy . . . and worried."
"About what?"
"I don't know. There are lots of things I don't know."
Miki noticed a car slowing and moving into the slow lane, then slipping smoothly into the breakdown lane to glide to a stop about 20 yards behind them. Miki froze. The bastards had found them again. Now both of them were dead. If only he had his gun he could let off a couple and they could take off for the canyons beside the road, but he didn't have his gun, and anyway, a brilliant spotlight pinioned them like flies against the wall. A figure walked toward them slowly, a figure backlighted by the spotlight in their eyes. A figure that had one hand on a holster?
"Evening folks. Everything okay here?" The Highway Patrolman was a kid. A big kid. A tall kid. But still a kid. They all seemed to be kids to Miki these
days. But he sure was a welcome kid. Miki relaxed.
"Evening Officer," said Miki and he took out his wallet and flipped it to his badge. "Lady had a little car trouble and we had a fender-bender. Nobody hurt. I know the drill."
The Highway Patrolman took his hand away from his gun. "Good," he said. "I don't need any more paperwork this close to off shift. Anything I can do for you folks? Call a tow truck, take you guys off the freeway?"
"No thanks," answered Miki. "I got my cell phone if we need the triple A, and we can take care of the rest of it between ourselves. We sure appreciate you stopping."
The Chippie threw one finger to his cap, turned and walked back to his car. Miki and Irena waited until he had driven off.
"Who picked this god-forsaken spot?" said Miki.
"Let me tell you, it sure wasn't me. This whole thing was planned out. All I had to do was wait at the side of the road until I saw your car on the Freeway. You know the rest."
Miki said sarcastically, "A little hard on your car, wasn't it?"
"But worth it. As you saw, it's a little hard for anyone to sneak up on us. And if anybody was following, they'd just have to go right past. Besides that, it would just look like some stupid coincidental accident. I think it's pretty clever, myself."
"I guess. Well, someone went to a hell of a lot of trouble to set up this meeting, and I don't even know the reason for it."
"Come over to my car and I'll give you the tapes."
"Tapes?"
"Yes, two videotapes that were given me to give to you."
They started toward the car and Miki said, "How about instructions? Do I get any instructions?"
Irena shook her head. "No instructions, nothing. Kati said the tapes were everything and you'd know what to do with them. Miki, she was very frightened. This meant a lot to her."
"She sure expects a lot when she doesn't give me any guidance. I already got one man killed with my blundering around, not knowing what I'm doing."
"Miki, the only thing she told me was that the whole world should be watching. I don't know what that means, either."
She handed him two unmarked videotapes and wished him well. He hoped that she was out of it now and would be safe, but for him, he knew it was only just beginning, whatever it was.


CHAPTER EIGHT: THE RETURN

Miki realized that he was becoming paranoid but he was rather proud of it. He'd never been that way before. Not even on the cops. Never had to have his back to the wall and face to the door. Never thought they were out to get him. Now they were.
He developed a routine that wasn't routine. He called Mrs. Flanagan next door to feed his cat and pick up his mail so he wouldn't have to go back to the house. He bought new clothes and toiletries.
He took roundabout routes to check for tails. He stayed in a different motel each night all around the city. Ate in a different place for every meal. Kept in touch by cell phone. If he needed to use a computer to make up correspondence or do research on something there was always a Kinko's and a library nearby. He figured he had all the bases covered.
After Irena gave him the tapes he went to a Blockbuster, rented a video player and drove out to Lancaster to stay at the Hilton. It was almost two in the morning before he checked in. He went back out to his car to get his clothes and his bag and was still bending in at the back door when someone in the car next to him said, "Miki."
Miki jumped up and banged his head, then turned around to see who was sitting in the car in the dark. He couldn't. "Who is it?" He still didn't have his damn gun because he'd been unable to return to the house. He tensed to throw himself to the side.
"Ease off Miki, it's me."
Miki's temper was running a little short. "WHO THE FUCK IS ME! I CAN'T SEE YOU!"
The car door opened and, lit by the interior light, a very elderly man said, "Remember me?"
Miki peered at the seamed, skeletal parchment face and the sparse white hair strategically combed over the bald spot. The deepset pouched egg-white eyes with black pinpoints. The laughable whisp of a yellowed-white moustache over a crater of a mouth. The hanging wattles of a once-fat man. "Jeezus", he breathed. "Reiger. You were Jackson Reiger."
"Still am, Miki."
"I thought you were dead. Years ago."
"What do they say about 'rumors of my death being greatly exaggerated . . . ?"
"What the hell are you doing here? Were you looking for me?"
Reiger made a sardonic moue. "No, I always sit around Hilton parking lots in Lancaster at 2 in the morning. Do you really think this is a chance meeting? You can't be that stupid."
"But how . . . ?"
"Look Miki, Old Boy, do you think we might discuss this inside? I'm a little beyond these middle-of-the-night parking lot meetings."
Miki had to help Reiger into the place. Reiger now walked with a cane, and haltingly as well. They finally made it up to the room and Reiger sat at the table. "Reiger, how did you find me?"
"Oh hell, young Miki, while you've been hopping about playing 'silly buggers', I'd venture to say that half the population of this continent and several over there have known exactly where you were at all times. Got yourself into a pickle, have you, young fellow m'lad?"
"Shit, Reiger, you were born in Wisconsin. Will you drop the phony brit accent?"
"Can't, young Miki. Doing it so long it's become a second skin, don't you know."
"Shut up! Shut up! How'd you find me?"
"Your car has a bug. Didn't you ever consider that your car would have a bug? And cell phone security has always been a joke. Don't you know that? And we won't even discuss your profligate use of credit cards. It was never necessary to go even that far."
"But I had the car checked, and I didn't think the cell phone was a problem as long as I kept moving. I didn't think I'd be in range."
"Checked by who, your Keystone Kops? You're playing with the big boys now, young fellow m'lad. You've got a transponder, a reflector. As for the cell phone, if we've got you, then we're in range."
"Where the hell is it?"
"You'd never topple to it, Old Boy. It's just a spray. They sprayed it on the roof, probably. Just makes it look dirty, but it's a big, bright, beautiful beacon for the 'eye in the sky'."
"Satellite? They've got a satellite on me?"
"These days everyone has a satellite on them, G.S.P., young Miki. Hear of the Geo Synchronous Positioning Satellite?"
"I guess. But I don't know much about it."
"No matter, dear boy. All you need to know is that given a GSP receiver and a computer, I can find you anywhere. I don't know what you've got your self into, young Miki, but it very definitely has put our friends in Hungary up the spout. Killing on someone else's patch is extremely bad form and if they're that interested then we're interested."
"But why you, Reiger? Aren't you out to pasture?"
"They thought you'd be more comfortable with someone you knew."
"You mean more cooperative."

"Well, yes, there is that of course."
"What do you want?"
"Same as always, my boy. Information, always information. We deal in information."
"Just like when you sent me back in to spy on my uncle after the uprising."
"You sound bitter, my boy. I did what I needed to do, and you were paid in coin of the realm. You're here aren't you. A citizen. A successful career on the coppers. A long marriage and two bright boys. Is that what you're bitter about, young Miki?"
"I was a child."
"We had planned to work with your brother, but regardless, we had to know what the Arrowcross was doing. You were in a position to know. You wanted it almost more than we wanted it. You hated the Arrowcross and you hated your uncle."
"My childhood was stolen."
"Yes, but it was not we who stole it. It was the times. It was the Communists. It was the Nazis. It was the Arrowcross that killed your parents. It was your uncle who allowed your parents to die. It was the Russians who killed your brother and your uncle who collaborated with them. But it was not us."
"You used it."
"Don't be a child. You were an asset and we both profited. We are interested in what is going on now. Again it looks like the Arrowcross and again you can help. Will you help?"
"Specifically, what do you want?"
"Frankly, dear boy. We don't know. We assume that something has been passed to you and we'd like to see what it is."
Miki was thinking while Reiger was talking, or maybe while Reiger was selling. The question was, did Miki want to buy? Under the circumstances, he didn't see that he had a lot of choice. If they were really on to him, it was only a matter of time before he had another visit from the Koreans, or maybe from the people who did Janos. And Kati did say that she needed help. As Reiger said, they were "playing with the big boys now", and he might well need some of the "big boys" on his side.
"Okay, Reiger, you can stop the sales pitch. You're right. They passed me some videotapes and I rented a player so I could watch them. Now we can do this now or in the morning, whichever you like."
"Oh, now, dear boy. My principals are rather anxious, and under the circumstances, the sooner the better. But, before we do that, allow me to make a small suggestion. We should definitely move your car."
"To where?"
"Oh, anywhere but here. You drive yours over to say, Palmdale. Leave it in a shopping center and I'll follow you and bring you back here. That way we shouldn't have any unexpected visitors. Don't leave anything in the car you don't want to lose. Remember, the car is 'live'."



CHAPTER NINE: DRAGON'S TEETH

"...CAST THE TEETH OF THE DRAGON INTO FURROWS LIKE SEED-CORN-
AND THEY WILL SPRING UP AS A CROP OF ARMED MEN.
THESE MUST BE CUT DOWN AS THEY ATTACK-
A FEARFUL HARVESTING."
The Quest for the Golden Fleece.
-Edith Hamilton

It was after 3 in the morning by the time they got back to the room and set up the VCR. They finally sat down to watch it with Reiger taking notes.
Goddam Russians! The only country in the world that makes a virtue out of kitsch. That was Miki's first reaction to the opening shot on the color tape. That it had to be Russia.
The room was enormous and dwarfed the 30 or so men sitting around the huge table, each with a large acrylic nameplate at his place. Some of the men had baggy-suited or brightly-dressed assistants seated behind them. A man in a camouflage outfit sat at the head of the mirror-polished mahogany conference table, surely no longer than your average football field.
In spite of the fact that it was almost necessary for the men to shout to be heard by all until their lapel microphones went live, there were no echoes because of deep, tightly-woven red wool carpets. Rich velvet, floor-to-ceiling draperies, generously pleated, also blood-red and covering the multi-paned windows, didn't admit the least shaft of intrusive sunlight. Armed, green-uniformed men with berets, paratroop boots, sidearms and AK's were at either side of three sets of ceiling-height carved mahogany doors
Heavy, high-backed, green upholstered, mahogany Queen Anne chairs. At each place an ornate silver tray sat fatly, and upon each tray, a crystal and silver decanter of water, a bottle of vodka in a silver bucket of ice, and two cut-crystal glasses. Beside each tray sat a wireless button pad with three buttons and a single light which came on when that person's mike was live.
Each place held a huge solid-glass ashtray, often filled to overflowing with the smoking remains of the ubiquitous Marlboros, the cigarette of choice among the Eastern Bloc nations. A thin layer of smoke drifted in the still air of the badly ventilated room.
The men seated at the table, and they were all men, were all rather ordinary looking, but concerned about taping the session.
The leader seemed to be the man in the camo's, and he was made a very forceful case for "the record of history", and promised that the tapes would be secure. He said that everyone knew that secrecy was paramount and would not be compromised. A man seated behind the speaker was continuously whispering in his ear and the whisperer's face was hidden until he leaned back in his chair. Miki recognized him with a start. It was his cousin Ferenc Szent-Gyorgi. Frank.
They were hearing a translation into Hungarian, in which both Miki and Reiger were fluent. Each of the participants wearing an earbud for simultaneous translation.
The camera zoomed in on the man in camo's who was gavelling the meeting to order. He seemed in charge and his nameplate read; 'Colonel Juri Duranyi'. Underneath it said; 'Hungary-Arrowcross'.
The lens followed the Colonel as he walked around the table and soberly introduced each of the Representatives by name, title, country and organization that he represented. Miki recognized several of the men introduced as world figures and it was obvious that this conference was the fruition of a long series of previous meetings. The participants were from the twenty-seven Republics that had made up the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics prior to the breakup in 1992, and observers from other countries.
After the introductions, pre-arranged elections elected the Colonel as 'Chairman'. There was no Vice-Chairman, Miki guessed that the Colonel didn't want any competition, but there was an Executive Committee headed by balding, swollen, smiling, stainless-steel toothed, Buddha-looking Mikhael Lvov from Leningrad. A President of the Russian Duma and Minister for Economics with an Oxford MBA, he wore his Janus-headed 'Black Hundreds' eagle proudly and represented the new Russian State in his grey Saville Row suit and rep tie.