The Last Frontier. Alistair MacLean

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      And now they had left the Embankment and were turning into the long, broad, tree-lined Boulevard of the Andrassy Ut itself: the Andrassy Ut, that street of well-loved memories leading past the Royal Opera House to the Zoo, the Fun Fair and the City Park, had been an inseparable part of a thousand days and nights of pleasure and enjoyment, of freedom and escape, to tens of thousands of citizens in days gone by and no place on earth had lain nearer to the hearts of the Hungarians: and now all that was gone, it could never be the same again, no matter what befell, not even if peace and independence and freedom were to come again. For now the Andrassy Ut meant only repression and terror, the hammering on the door in the middle of the night and the brown lorries that came to take you away, the prison camps and deportation, the torture chambers and the benison of death: Andrassy Ut meant only the headquarters of the AVO.

      And still the feeling of remoteness, of detached unreality remained with Michael Reynolds. He knew where he was, he knew his time had run out, he was beginning to know what Szendrô had meant by the mentality of a people who had lived too long with terror and the ever-present spectre of death, and he knew too that no one who ever made a journey such as he was making now could feel exactly the same again. Indifferently, almost, with a kind of detached academic interest, he wondered how long he would last in the torture chambers, what latest diabolical variations of destroying a man lay in wait for him.

      And then the Mercedes was slowing down, its heavy tyres crunching through the frozen slush of the street, and Reynolds, in spite of himself, in spite of the unemotional stoicism of years and the shell of protective indifference in which he had armoured himself, felt fear touch him for the first time, a fear that touched his mouth and left it parched and dry, his heart and left it pounding heavily, painfully in his chest and his stomach as if something heavy and solid and sharp lay there, constricting it upon itself; but no trace of any of this touched the expression on his face. He knew Colonel Szendrô was watching him closely, he knew that if he were what he claimed to be, an innocent citizen of Budapest, he should be afraid and fear should show in his face, but he could not bring himself to it: not because he was unable to do so, but because he knew of the reciprocal relationship between facial expression and the mind: to show fear did not necessarily mean that one was afraid: but to show fear when one was afraid and fighting desperately not to be afraid, would be fatal … It was as if Colonel Szendrô had been reading his mind.

      ‘I have no suspicion left, Mr Buhl: only certainties. You know where you are, of course?’

      ‘Naturally.’ Reynolds’ voice was steady. ‘I’ve walked along here a thousand times.’

      ‘You’ve never walked here in your life, but I doubt whether even the City Surveyor could draw as accurate a map of Budapest as you could,’ Szendrô said equably. He stopped the car. ‘Recognize any place?’

      ‘Your H.Q.’ Reynolds nodded at a building fifty yards away on the other side of the street.

      ‘Exactly. Mr Buhl, this is where you should faint, go into hysterics or just sit there moaning with terror. All the others do. But you don’t. Perhaps you are completely devoid of fear – an enviable if not admirable characteristic, but one which, I assure you, no longer exists in this country: or perhaps – an enviable and admirable characteristic – you are afraid, but ruthless training has eliminated all its outward manifestations. In either case, my friend, you are condemned. You don’t belong. Perhaps not, as our police friend said, a filthy Fascist spy, but assuredly a spy.’ He glanced at his watch, then stared at Reynolds with a peculiar intentness. ‘Just after midnight – the time we operate best. And for you, the best treatment and the best quarters – a little soundproof room deep below the streets of Budapest; only three AVO officers in all Hungary know of its existence.’

      He stared at Reynolds for several seconds longer, then started the car. Instead of stopping at the AVO building, he swung the car sharp left off the Andrassy Ut, drove a hundred yards down an unlighted street and stopped again long enough to tie a silk handkerchief securely over Reynolds’ eyes. Ten minutes later, after much turning and twisting which completely lost Reynolds, as he knew it was designed to do, all sense of place and direction, the car bumped heavily once or twice, dropped steeply down a long ramp and drew up inside an enclosed space – Reynolds could hear the deep exhaust note of the car beating back off the walls. And then, as the motor died, he heard heavy iron doors clanging shut behind them.

      Seconds later the door on Reynolds’ side of the car opened and a pair of hands busied themselves with freeing him of the restraining chains and then re-securing the handcuffs. Then the same hands were urging him out of the car and removing the blindfold.

      Reynolds screwed up his eyes and blinked. They were in a big, windowless garage with heavy doors already locked behind them, and the brightness of the overhead light reflecting off whitewashed walls and ceiling was momentarily dazzling after the darkness of the blindfold and the night. At the other end of the garage, close to him, was another door, half-open, leading into a brightly-lit whitewashed corridor: whitewash, he reflected grimly, appeared to be an inseparable concomitant of all modern torture chambers.

      Between Reynolds and the door, still holding him by the arm, was the man who had removed the chains. Reynolds looked at him for a long moment. With this man available, the AVO had no need to rely on instruments of torture – those enormous hands could just tear prisoners apart, slowly, piece for piece. About Reynolds’ own height, the man looked squat, almost deformed in comparison, and the shoulders above that great barrel of chest were the widest Reynolds had ever seen: he must have weighed at least 250 lbs. The face was broken-nosed and ugly, but curiously innocent of any trace of depravity or bestiality, just pleasantly ugly. Reynolds wasn’t deceived. In his line of business, faces meant nothing: the most ruthless man he had ever known, a German espionage agent who had lost count of the number of men he had killed, had the face of a choirboy.

      Colonel Szendrô slammed the car door and walked round to where Reynolds was standing. He looked at the other man and nodded at Reynolds.

      ‘A guest, Sandor. A little canary who is going to sing us a song before the night is through. Has the Chief gone to bed?’

      ‘He is waiting for you in the office.’ The man’s voice was what one would have expected, a low, deep rumble in the throat. ‘Excellent. I’ll be back in a few minutes. Watch our friend here, watch him closely. I suspect he’s very dangerous.’

      ‘I’ll watch him,’ Sandor promised comfortably. He waited till Szendrô, with Reynolds’ bag and papers in his hand, had gone, then propped himself lazily against a whitewashed wall, massive arms folded across his chest. Hardly had he done so when he had pushed himself off the wall and taken a step towards Reynolds. ‘You do not look well.’

      ‘I’m all right.’ Reynolds’ voice was husky, his breathing quick and shallow, and he was swaying slightly on his feet. He lifted his shackled hands over his right shoulder, and massaged the back of his neck, wincing. ‘It’s my head, the back of my head.’

      Sandor took another step forward, then moved swiftly as he saw Reynolds’ eyes turning up till only the whites showed, beginning to topple forward, his body twisting slightly to the left as he fell. He could injure himself badly, even kill himself if his unprotected head struck the concrete floor, and Sandor had to reach forward quickly, arms outstretched to cushion the fall.

      Reynolds hit Sandor harder than he had ever hit anyone in his life. Thrusting forward off the ball of his foot and pivoting his body with whiplash speed from left to right, he brought his manacled hands scything down in a violent, vicious, chopping blow that carried with it every last ounce of power of his sinewy arms and shoulders. The flat edges of his two hands, pressed hard together, caught Sandor across the exposed neck, just below the line of jawbone and ear. It was like striking the trunk of a tree, and Reynolds gasped with СКАЧАТЬ