To Hradetsky, this march was taking on a whole new aspect. It was changing rapidly from a “test of strength” to the kind of crazy game called Chicken he’d seen played out in American movies. The kind of game where two automobiles raced straight toward each other — with each driver betting the other would flinch first.
Kusin looked at his watch, took a deep breath, and looked up with a confident smile on his careworn face. “It’s time, gentlemen. Oskar? Will you do the honors?”
Kiraly nodded. He started relaying orders to the marshals scattered up and down the still-growing crowd, using a handheld portable phone. The phones and dedicated cellular circuits were the gift of opposition sympathizers inside the city’s telephone center.
Slowly, with several fits and starts, their march got under way — picking up speed and support as they tramped down the avenue. Within minutes, more than 100,000 Hungarians were heading for the Danube and the government offices around the Parliament building. Thousands of colorful banners and flags waved above the crowd, streaming proudly in a light, westerly breeze.
They were led by a thin line of Kiraly’s toughest men, all army or National Police veterans, holding large Hungarian flags spread out on poles between them. Kusin, Kiraly, Hradetsky, and other opposition leaders followed right behind. Many sought actively by the security services wore placards that said simply, “Outlawed — For Loving Hungary.”
Rank after rank of Budapest’s citizens came after them, sometimes organized and sometimes not organized at all. Men in business suits mingled with laborers in hard hats and dungarees. Policemen, some wearing opposition armbands, paced them. Mothers pushing infants in strollers walked side by side with their next-door neighbors or with people they’d never seen before. Bands deployed at regular intervals played a mix of stirring marching songs that set a brisk, purposeful pace and lifted people’s hearts.
Striding along beside Kusin, Hradetsky carefully scanned the faces of his fellows. He saw determination, fierce joy, and very little uncontrolled anger. They were off to a good start.
Another watcher saw the same crowd, but with a very different set of emotions.
Major Paul Duroc leaned forward, almost touching the glass window in a third-floor office overlooking the Radial Avenue. He’d “borrowed” the office from the aging, homesick manager of a French-owned firm. Now it served as his command post.
The command post was small, just himself, a radioman, and one assistant to answer the phones and run any errands. That was enough, though, to manage the platoons of Hungarian riot police and French security agents under his immediate control. And if he needed more men, he could get them with a single phone call. The head of the DGSE had made it clear that the Hungarian government itself would answer to Duroc’s orders if he wished it. Dismayed by their own inability to control events, the generals were ready to grasp at straws.
He would have preferred making a preemptive strike by arresting Kusin and the other opposition leaders before they could organize this protest march. Unfortunately the Hungarian regime’s incompetence and sloth had made that impossible. You couldn’t capture people you couldn’t find.
Duroc sneered at the sight of the massive, ragtag mob coming down the street. Numbers meant nothing. He had sufficient strength in hand to crush this demonstration, and more important, the minds behind it. Any fool could use force to break up a rally. The key was to move so quickly and so violently that those you hit were left stunned, unable to defend themselves or strike back. But he had bigger plans. His orders from Paris were clear: His superiors wanted him to do more than just temporarily restore order to Budapest’s streets. They wanted him to smash Hungary’s political opposition once and for all.
Well, he thought, that should be simple enough. Kusin and the others on his list were positioned close to the front — out in the open and out of hiding at last. That was brave, but foolish. They would be easy pickings.
Still, years of experience had taught him to plan for the unexpected. That was why he’d stationed Michel Woerner and five men armed with automatic weapons in the building’s central stairwell. They would provide security against any unwelcome intruders if things went wrong.
He leaned closer to the window to get a better view.
The first rows of marching morons were almost in the noose he’d fashioned. Kusin and his followers were just moving into Kodaly Circle — a major intersection surrounded by ornately decorated buildings whose façades curved to follow the circle. The other streets feeding into the circle were a maze of businesses, small hotels, and apartment blocks.
Small knots of tough-looking men loitered near the intersection. They weren’t hiding, but they kept to the corners and to the early morning shadows. Although they were dressed in plain, workingmen’s clothes, no one could possibly mistake them for civilians. They were too quiet, too disciplined.
Beyond them, out of sight, were trucks and armored cars full of riot police. Once his men had the king and other important pieces in hand, the Hungarians could clear the board of the pawns. With their leaders gone, the mob out there would run like sheep — not roar like lions.
Duroc watched the approaching crowd draw nearer, noting the individuals in it but not really seeing them as people. They were simply obstacles he had to overcome to complete this mission. Three stories below, the line of Hungarian flags crossed into the circle. Now. He turned to his radioman. “Proceed with Phase One.”
Hradetsky swore suddenly as the men he’d been watching suspiciously sprang into action. Long-handled nightsticks and blackjacks came out from under windbreakers and long coats as thirty to forty of them formed into three squad-sized wedges and charged. Others hung back, apparently armed with short-barreled grenade launchers. Without waiting for further orders, they aimed and fired.
He whirled to shout a warning. Too late.
Tear gas grenades whirred overhead and exploded in the crowds further back — bursting in puffs of white, choking smoke. Panic spread backward along the avenue as the CS gas drifted east on the wind. Marchers stumbled and fell, overcome by acrid fumes that left them retching on the ground or crawling away with tears streaming down their faces. In seconds, Hradetsky, Kusin, Kiraly, and several hundred others at the front of the march were isolated — cut off from their supporters by a rising wall of tear gas.
Nightsticks rose and fell as the first wave of plainclothes security agents smashed into the flag bearers at the front. Men spun away from the melee, clutching bloodied faces, fractured ribs, and broken arms and legs. Torn Hungarian flags fluttered to the pavement. Shouts, curses, and guttural snarls echoed above the fray — some in Hungarian, others in French.
The first Frenchmen broke past, breathing hard as they sprinted toward Kusin. Two of Kiraly’s marshals tried to tackle them and went down — clubbed brutally to the ground. Bastards!
Hradetsky moved to intercept Duroc’s men, sensing others running with him.
One of the Frenchmen saw him coming. Hradetsky dodged a quick, flickering jab from a nightstick, grabbed the agent’s outstretched arm, and whirled, pulling the man off his feet. As the Frenchman’s head slammed into the pavement, the colonel kicked him hard in the ribs and turned away, looking for a new opponent.