Charles Cumming - The Trinity Six

‘What’s my job?’ Gaddis asked. He knew that it was incumbent upon him to seem alert and professional, to ask the right kind of questions, though in truth his mind was scrambled by doubts.

‘Good thinking.’ Miklos made a left turn on to a single-lane highway and sounded his horn as a man riding a moped cut them up on the inside lane. ‘You have the same job. You teach history at the University College in London. This has not changed. Nothing has changed except your address, your surname and your passport number. We always try to keep things simple.’

Always try. Gaddis looked out of the window at an ordinary day in Budapest. Who else had been through this process? What kind of people and under what circumstances? How different would things have been, say, thirty years earlier, with informants in every apartment block and the secret police on every corner? The car was held at a set of traffic lights and, for the first time, Gaddis experienced a burst of panic, as if he was about to be surrounded by gunmen or pulled over to the side of the road. But the moment passed. He put it down to nerves and sleeplessness and reminded himself to buy cigarettes at the airport. The traffic lights turned green and Miklos pulled away, past a second-hand car dealership and faded billboards advertising Samsung televisions, whisky, brands of Hungarian lingerie.

The airport appeared sooner than he had anticipated, a brand-new building finished in the style favoured by architects looking to save time and money: the Departures terminal resembled an aircraft hangar shaped from moulded plastic. Gaddis had been expecting something akin to the chaos of Sheremetyevo, but the interior reminded him of a branch of Homebase. It was spotless and gleaming, with hard plastic seats the colour of terracotta and white walls which amplified the harsh artificial light in the terminal. Miklos chatted amiably as they strolled towards the Departures board, saying, ‘Very good, excellent,’ when he saw that the Easyjet was on time. After queuing only briefly, Gaddis checked his bag into the hold, received a boarding pass and then sat with Miklos at a branch of Caffe Ritazza, drinking espressos and occasionally scoping the building for any sign that he had been recognized. It was an utterly mundane environment, seemingly entirely without threat. Miklos, continuing to put Gaddis at ease, revived their earlier conversation about Russian literature and encouraged him to talk at length on the subject of Tolstoy’s childhood. By the time they had drunk a second round of coffee and picked their way through a brace of tasteless muffins, it was time to catch the plane.

The two men walked towards the security area. There were no cops at the entrance, no sniffer dogs, no heavy-set Russians lingering in the shadows brandishing black-and-white surveil-lance photographs of Dr Samuel Gaddis. It was just a regular afternoon at a regular budget-flight airport. Gaddis could not imagine that any problem was going to befall him.

‘So,’ Miklos placed a hand on his back, ‘we are old friends, OK? You have been to stay with me for a few days. We have done nothing but get drunk.’

Gaddis suddenly felt alarmed. He realized why Miklos had left it this late to furnish him with the final details of his cover. He had obviously been concerned that he would forget them.

‘We met on a stag weekend in Budapest five years ago.’ Miklos grinned and rubbed his beard, as if recalling the sordid details. ‘So now you must go, Mr Tait. Now you must have a safe journey.’

Gaddis managed to smile, though his gut was churning with nerves.

‘Thank you for everything,’ he said, and reached to shake the Hungarian’s hand. But Miklos had other ideas, seizing him in a bear hug which punched the wind out of his stomach.

‘We are friends, remember?’ he said, growling into Gaddis’s ear. He pulled away, still holding him by the arms. His grip was very strong. ‘If you have a serious problem, you call the British Embassy. By law, Sam, you are entitled to seek representation from your government. An official will come to you, an official who is aware of your situation. Does that make sense?’

‘It makes sense.’ He brushed away what felt like a bead of sweat above his temple and tried to arrange his face so that he would look more courageous. ‘You’ve been extraordinarily kind to me. I wish there was some way that I could thank you.’

‘There is nothing to thank me for,’ Miklos replied quickly, and Gaddis saw the sparkle in his eyes, the mischief he had noticed at Keleti. ‘It has been an interesting day to spend with you. Such interesting conversations. I wish you a very happy and safe journey home.’ There was a slight pause as Miklos set himself up for a cruel joke. ‘If they ask you if anybody could have interfered with your bags, you know what to say.’

Gaddis laughed and walked towards the security check. He felt as though he was in a room in which all the pictures had been tilted to one side. What if the passport was recognized as a fake? What happened then? Would Miklos wait for him, come forward and help? Would he ensure that he made it through to Departures, or was the Englishman now on his own?

He was held in a queue behind a young Polish couple and a man carrying what looked like a guitar in a brown leather case. He turned to aim one final wave at Miklos.

But he was gone.

It was like Berlin all over again, only this time Gaddis was alone. This time there was no Tanya for company.

He made it through the X-ray and metal detectors, removing his shoes, removing his belt. Miklos had bought him a Guardian Weekly and a copy of Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point. Gaddis had put them in a plastic bag along with a packet of cigarettes and a slab of Toblerone. He put his shoes back on, threaded the belt through his jeans and took the plastic bag from the container in which it had passed through the scanner. It was soon time to queue again. Passport control was just a stone’s throw from security.

He picked the closest of two queues and found himself standing behind an elderly British couple and a young man with dreadlocked hair who was shouldering a canvas satchel which had been attacked by a plague of moths. He was in the shortest line, but as he looked ahead at the border guard, felt that he had chosen badly. There was a woman operating the adjacent desk who looked easygoing; his own guard had the stern, officious look of a dyed-in-the-wool bureaucrat. Just the sort of person who might get a kick out of making a British tourist sweat.

Gaddis was summoned forward with a flick of the wrist. He had the counterfeit passport ready and passed it underneath a thick glass screen. The guard did not take it but instead let him rest it on the shelf, as if checking to see if his hand was shaking. Gaddis could feel the guard’s gaze tracking upwards towards his face and made a point of looking at him directly and of making eye contact. The guard’s expression was utterly cold. He snapped open the passport with what Gaddis took to be an almost contemptuous sense of suspicion and said: ‘What is your name, please?’

‘Tait,’ said Gaddis, trying out the pseudonym for the first time. ‘Sam Tait.’

The guard had already flicked to the back of the passport and was studying the photograph. It was almost as if he knew that it had been secured there by an MI6 forger just a few hours earlier.

‘Why were you in Budapest, please?’

Gaddis experienced a system-debilitating fear. He was sure that he was on the point of being arrested. Was this the final double-cross of Tanya Acocella? Had Miklos deliberately tipped him into the arms of the Hungarian police?

‘I’m sorry?’

‘I asked you, what was the purpose of your visit to Budapest?’