Алистер Маклин: The Last Frontier

Four wooden steps led to the door and Reynolds walked up these as softly as a cat, kneeling at the top to peer through the keyhole. In the space of a second he could see what he wanted to see – a chair on the left-hand side, a made-up bunk on the right hand and, at the far end, a table with what looked like a wireless transmitter bolted to the top of it. Hidas, back to the door, was just seating himself in front of the table, and as he cranked a handle with his right hand and picked up a telephone with his left, Reynolds realized that it was no transmitter but a radio telephone. They should have thought of it. Hidas was not a man to move about the country without means of instant communication available to him, and now, with the skies clearing, he would almost certainly be calling in the air force, in a last, desperate gamble to stop them, but it didn’t matter any more. It was too late, it made no difference now, none to those whom Hidas was pursuing, and certainly none to Hidas himself.

Reynolds’ groping hand found the knob and he passed through the well-oiled door like a shadow, not quite closing it behind him: Hidas, his ear filled with the sound of the ratchety whirl of the call-up handle, heard nothing. Reynolds took three steps forward, the barrel of his carbine gripped in both hands and the stock raised high above his shoulders, and, as Hidas began to speak, brought it swinging down over Hidas’ shoulder and smashed the delicate mechanism to pieces.

Hidas sat for a moment in petrified astonishment, then whirled round in his chair, but he had lost the only moment he would ever need, Reynolds was already two paces away, the carbine again reversed in his hands, the muzzle trained on Hidas’ heart. Hidas’ face was a stone mask carved in shock, only his lips moved but no sound came from them as Reynolds slowly retreated, picked up the key he had seen lying on the bunk, felt for the keyhole and locked the door, his eyes never once leaving Hidas’. Then he moved forward and halted, with the mouth of the carbine, rocklike in its steadiness, just thirty inches short of the man in the chair.

‘You look surprised to see me, Colonel Hidas,’ Reynolds murmured. ‘You should not be surprised, you of all men. Those who live by the sword, as you have lived by the sword, must know better than any man that this moment comes to all of us. It comes to you to-night.’

‘You have come to murder me.’ It was a statement and not a question. Hidas had looked on death too often from the sidelines not to recognize it when its face turned towards himself. The shock was slowly draining out of his face, but no fear had yet come to replace it.

‘Murder you? No. I have come to execute you. Murder is what you did to Major Howarth. Is there any reason why I shouldn’t shoot you down in cold blood as you shot him? He hadn’t even a gun on him.’

‘He was an enemy of the State, an enemy of the people.’

‘My God! You try to justify your actions?’

‘They need no justification, Captain Reynolds. Duty never does.’

Reynolds stared at him. ‘Are you trying to excuse yourself – or just begging for your life?’

‘I never beg.’ There was no pride, no arrogance in the Jew’s voice, just a simple dignity.

‘Imre – the boy in Budapest. He died – slowly.’

‘He withheld important information. It was essential that we got it quickly.’

‘Major-General Illyurin’s wife.’ Reynolds spoke quickly to fight off a growing feeling of unreality. ‘Why did you murder her?’

For the first time a flicker of emotion showed in the thin, intelligent face, then vanished as quickly as it had come.

‘I did not know that.’ He inclined his head. ‘It is no part of my duty to wage war on women. I genuinely regret her death – even though she was dying as it was.’

‘You are responsible for the actions of your AVO thugs?’

‘My men?’ He nodded. ‘They take their orders from me.’

‘They killed her – but you are responsible for their actions. Therefore you are responsible for her death.’

‘If you put it that way, I am.’

‘If it were not for you, these three people would be alive now.’

‘I cannot speak for the General’s wife. The other two – yes.’

‘Is there then – I ask you for the last time – any reason why I shouldn’t kill you – now?’

Colonel Hidas looked at him for a long moment, in silence, then he smiled faintly, and Reynolds could have sworn that the smile was tinged with sadness.

‘Numerous reasons, Captain Reynolds, but none that would convince an enemy agent from the west.’

It was the word ‘west’ that did it – but Reynolds was not to realize that until long afterwards. All he knew was that something had triggered open a flood gate, released a spate of pictures and memories in his mind, pictures of Jansci talking to him in his house in Budapest, in the dark agony of that torture cell in the Szarháza prison, with the firelight on his face in the cottage in the country, memories of what Jansci had said, what he had said over and over again with a repetitive persistence, with a passionate conviction that had hammered his ideas more deeply home into his mind than Reynolds had ever suspected. Everything he had said about – deliberately, desperately, Reynolds forced the thoughts and pictures from his mind. His carbine jabbed forward another six inches.

‘On your feet, Colonel Hidas.’

Hidas rose and stood facing him, his hands hanging by his sides, and stared down at the gun.

‘Clean and quick, Colonel Hidas, eh?’

‘As you wish.’ His eyes lifted from Reynolds’ whitening trigger finger and found his face. ‘I would not beg for myself what had been denied so many of my victims.’

For a fraction of a second longer Reynolds continued to increase the pressure on the trigger, then, almost as if something had snapped inside him, he relaxed and took one pace back. The white flame of anger still burnt within him, burnt as brightly as ever, but with these last words, the words of a man quite unafraid to die, he had felt the bitterness of defeat welling in him so powerfully that he could taste it in his mouth. When he spoke his voice was strained and hoarse, he scarcely recognized it as his own.

‘Turn round!’

‘Thank you, but no. I prefer to die this way.’

‘Turn round,’ Reynolds said savagely, ‘or I’ll smash both your kneecaps and turn you round myself.’

Hidas looked at his face, saw the implacability, shrugged to the inevitable, turned away and collapsed without a sound across his desk as the butt of the rifle caught him behind the ear. For a long moment Reynolds stared down at the fallen man, swore in a bitter fury that was directed not against the man at his feet but at himself, turned and left the caravan.

There was a feeling of emptiness, almost of despair, in Reynolds’ mind as he descended the steps. He was no longer particularly careful to conceal his presence, that fury within him had still not found its outlet, and though he would not have admitted it, even to himself, he would have welcomed the chance to turn his automatic carbine on the armed AVO men within that other truck, cut them down without compunction as they came pouring out the door silhouetted against the light behind, just as they had cut down Jansci’s wife silhouetted in the light of the door of the ferryman’s cottage. And then suddenly he broke step and stood still, stood very still indeed: he had just realized something that he should have realized minutes ago had he not been so bent on his reckoning with Colonel Hidas. The brown lorry was not only quiet: it was far too quiet to be true.

In three steps he had reached the side of the truck and pressed his ear against it. There was nothing to be heard, just nothing at all. He ran round to the back, flung open a door and peered inside. He could see nothing, it was pitch dark inside, but he did not need to see anything: the truck was empty, and no one moved or even breathed inside.