Free The Budapest Protocol by Adam LeBor Page A

He willed himself not to ask if Karoly was going too. Zsofi nuzzled his ear. He kissed her lightly on the cheek. She responded eagerly, her tongue darting into his mouth.
    Alex sat back. “I thought you couldn’t stay long,” he said.
    “I can’t,” she said, running her hand up his thigh.
    He sipped his wine and took her hand off his leg. “Zsofi, I’ve been thinking. I don’t think this is what I need right now, sharing you with someone else.”
    “Is that an ultimatum? You know the rules. We agreed: no questions, no demands, no breakfasts. You know my situation is very complicated. We always have fun together don’t we?”
    “Yes. We do.” But on days like these, he thought, when you didn’t feel like ‘fun’, what else was there between them?
    She sensed the change in his mood. They sat silently for several minutes, and she held his hand. “I’m sorry, I just thought you might need some tender loving care.”
    “It’s OK, really,” said Alex.
    Zsofi picked up the book of Radnoti poems and recited in a clear, musical voice.
    “That’s my favourite, ‘Whistle with the Wind’,” he said.
    She smiled at him. “And the best line is?”
    “Oh, I love you,” said Alex.
    “Well, then.” Zsofi kissed him chastely on both cheeks and walked to the door. “I’ll phone you tomorrow from Vienna.”
    His landline rang as Alex sat down. “Zsofi? Is that you? Did you forget something?”
    Silence. “Hallo,
Jó estét
, good evening,” Alex said. He clicked the receiver on and off. A hum of static, and a crackle. He pressed the handset closer to his ear. A familiar tune sounded. He slammed the receiver down, his hand shaking, a Hungarian version of “Happy Birthday” echoing in his ears.

FIVE
    Cassandra Orczy looked at her watch: 2.30pm. Her appointment was at 2.00pm, and she had been sitting on an antique chair in a wood-panelled corridor in Parliament for thirty-five minutes. What a way to spend Saturday afternoon, she thought, although in truth her diary was not exactly bursting with social invitations. Still, she had heard that Prime Minister Hunkalffy had already kept the American ambassador, a close personal friend of the U.S President, dangling for forty-six minutes that morning, so Cassandra was in good company. At least the ambassador probably got a cup of coffee.
    She picked up that day’s issue of
Ébredjetek Magyarok!
from a nearby table. The front page proclaimed: “National Salvation: Hunkalffy Takes Power.” The usual toxic mix, she thought and put the newspaper down. She took out the new edition of
Grazia
magazine from her handbag, keeping one eye on Hunkalffy’s door as she flicked through the paparazzi shots. One of his flunkies walked by, giving her a disdainful glance. Hunkalffy’s camp loathed the security service as a nest of communists. But she was still at work. It had immediately been made clear to Hunkalffy that any attempt at a wholesale purge would result in the release of information currently held in the pages of his own file in the basement registry. So the balance of forces in Hungarian power politics was maintained, for the moment at least.
    “He will see you now,” said a gangly youth, ushering her into a room bigger than most Budapest apartments.
    Attila Hunkalffy stood at the window, looking out over the Danube, his trademark ponytail of long black hair resting on his shoulders. He stood close to a tall, athletic-looking man. They both turned round as Orczy entered the room.
    Hunkalffy bade her a cursory good afternoon. He was dressed in a black suit and white shirt, without a tie. His dark eyes and olive skin exerted a hypnotic power, like a panther in a cage. He looked like an Italian film star, she thought. A fine black down covered the back of his hands. Frank Sanzlermann was dressed for the weekend in jeans and a light blue designer polo shirt that set off his sun-tan. He made himself comfortable on a nearby leather sofa and poured himself a brandy from a