Bullets whipcracked through the air over Hradetsky’s head. He threw himself flat, taking cover behind one of the Frenchmen he had killed. High-pitched screams and low, muffled groans rose from the people behind him.
He raised his head, risking a quick glance ahead. Duroc’s agents were close to safety — a line of helmeted riot troops, most of them ashen at the butchery they were seeing, and rows of trucks and armored cars waiting to carry them away. The Frenchmen were too far away for him to risk another shot. At this range, he could easily hit Kusin or one of the policemen by accident.
Hradetsky wanted to roar in anger and frustration. They’d been beaten.
In that instant, the universe turned upside down.
Captain Ferenc Miklos watched in stunned disbelief as the Frenchmen approached with their handful of battered and bruised prisoners. Did they really think he would shelter them after what he had seen? After watching them massacre his own people?
He bit his lip hard enough to draw blood. Kodaly Circle looked like a slaughterhouse. The dead and wounded lay heaped where bullets or clubs had thrown them. He could hear a baby wailing inside a stroller lying on its side next to a young woman who stared up at the sky with open, unmoving eyes.
The captain could also hear the outraged murmurs rising from the formed ranks of his own men. None of them had signed on for something like this. Nor had he. As a young police cadet, he’d sworn to uphold law and order, but whose law and which order? Those of Hungary? Or those of France and Germany? The laws that made a simple protest march illegal? Or those that made outright murder a crime?
The French agents came closer, dragging or shoving their captives along at gunpoint. One of those in the lead, a tall, hard-faced man, arrogantly waved Miklos and his men out of the way with his snub-nosed submachine gun.
Something snapped inside the short, black-haired police officer. He had to do something — even if that meant taking Kusin and the other opposition prisoners into his own custody. He stepped into the French security agent’s path. “Halt!”
Miklos saw the taller man’s arrogance change to fear. He had only a second to feel satisfied by that before the Frenchman stuck the submachine gun in his stomach and pulled the trigger.
The young Hungarian captain died a martyr without ever really deciding whose side he was on.
Hradetsky scrambled to his feet before the echoes of the latest shots faded. Had Duroc’s men gone mad?
Fifty meters ahead of him, the policemen stared from the group of French agents to their captain’s sprawled corpse and back again. Then they charged. More submachine guns stuttered, spreading chaos and carnage. Uniformed Hungarians went down, torn in half by concentrated bursts. But Frenchmen were falling, too, beaten to the ground by flailing nightsticks and Plexiglas shields.
As Hradetsky sprinted toward the battle he could see other police units moving into the circle, closing in on the French. They were ignoring the demonstrators.
The surviving agents were retreating, hobbling away from the trucks that were supposed to ferry them to safety. Instead, they were falling back toward a small, three-story stone office building overlooking Kodaly Circle. Still carrying Kusin, they disappeared inside.
Several helmeted riot troopers followed them all the way to the door and then crumpled suddenly, mowed down by automatic weapons fire from inside. Other policemen close by scattered for cover behind the armored cars and trucks parked next to the building. Protesters raced to join them.
Bent low to stay out of the line of fire, Hradetsky worked his way through the crouching men, looking for the highest-ranking officer he could find. He came face-to face with a major kneeling beside a badly wounded police corporal. “Are these your men?”
The man looked up, staring at him with shocked and wild eyes. “Yes, they are, damn you!” Then he saw Hradetsky’s shoulder boards. “Sir.”
“Will you obey my orders, Major?”
The man’s eyes focused and slid down to the red, white, and green band over Hradetsky’s uniform jacket. He stiffened instinctively, then glanced down at the injured man gasping for air by his side. When the major looked up again, his expression had changed. It was harder and more determined. “Yes, Colonel, I will. And so will my men.”
“Good.”
“Colonel?”
Hradetsky turned to see Oskar Kiraly limping toward him. The big, blond-haired man looked dazed and in tremendous pain. Blood streaked the side of his face, dripping from an open gash over one cheekbone.
“Where is Kusin?”
Hradetsky nodded toward the office building. “In there. The French have him.”
“No! Oh, God.” Kiraly slammed his fist against the steel side of a truck. Tears mingled with the blood running down his face. “I failed him. I couldn’t stop them!”
The colonel grabbed his wrist before he could pound the truck again. When Hradetsky spoke, he kept his voice low. “None of us could stop them. But this isn’t over. Not yet. Fall apart later, when it doesn’t matter. Right now we need you. So pull yourself together, man.” He released Kiraly’s wrist and turned away to give the big man time to recover his composure.
Thousands of protesters were still flooding into the circle. Some were ministering to the wounded or staring in horror at the carnage. Most were streaming past on their way toward the city center and the government buildings there. They were angry now, ready for revenge against those responsible for the nightmarish scenes all around them.
Members of Kiraly’s security team stood watchfully around small bands of riot police — shielding them from the mob. Others moved among the policemen handing out opposition armbands. What had been planned as a protest was rapidly becoming a full-scale rebellion. Hradetsky stood silent for a few moments, weighing the odds in their favor. Then he shrugged. There were times when you could control events, and there were others where events controlled you. The people were taking matters into their own hands. His job now was to make that as swift and sure and peaceful as possible.
He glanced at the officer still waiting by his side. “I want you to get on your radio, Major. Get in touch with all major police and military commands throughout this city and tell them what’s happened here. Everything that has happened here! Understand?”
The major nodded vigorously, obviously relieved to have orders he could follow with a clear conscience. He hurried away, heading for his command car.
The colonel turned back to Kiraly. Though still somewhat dazed, the man looked calmer and more in control of his emotions. Good. “Oskar, I want you to take command here. Organize a force and surround those bastards in there.” He jerked a thumb toward the office building and ducked involuntarily as gunfire rattled somewhere not far off.
“Should I attack them?”
Hradetsky shook his head. “Not without more weapons. They’re too heavily armed.” As though to emphasize his point, more automatic weapons fire from inside hammered the sidewalk next to the building’s entrance. Several policemen and protesters who had been readying themselves for another charge dropped back into cover.
“And what about you, Colonel? What will you be doing?”
“I’m going on to the Parliament,” Hradetsky growled. “While you keep these swine penned here, I want the cowardly scum behind this butchery brought to justice. Our justice.”
Kiraly nodded grimly. Hungary’s military rulers were about to pay a blood price for selling their nation to foreign powers.
Major Paul Duroc glowered at his closest subordinates. He and his surviving agents had been trapped in this godforsaken building for more than an hour — trapped while Budapest crumbled into riot and ruin.