Kodaly Circle had turned into a battlefield. Bodies sprawled on the street, some moving and others unmoving. Blunt-nosed Csepel lorries appeared at the far end of the intersection, crammed with helmeted riot police.
Hradetsky caught a glimpse of Kusin’s white hair through a tangle of struggling, swearing men and headed that way. He could see Kiraly pulling the older man back, trying to shield him from blows raining down on all sides.
A taller, heavier Frenchman blocked his path, teeth bared in sharp defiance and blood-slick stick at the ready.
The colonel ducked under the man’s first vicious swing, struck at his exposed stomach, missed, and backed away. They circled, each looking for an opening.
Duroc looked sourly at the melee developing below him. He’d underestimated the ability of the Hungarians to defend themselves, and now he was running out of time. Bands of enraged protesters were already streaming back down the avenue to the intersection, braving the tear gas to close with his struggling plainclothesmen.
Damn it, where were Kusin and his top lieutenants? With the opposition’s leaders in custody, his men could pull back, clearing the field for the riot squads already deploying in several of the surrounding streets. Without them, he had nothing.
“Major! Captain Miklos wants permission to advance!”
Duroc spun away from the window, his face dark with anger. “No! Tell him to wait!”
He remembered Miklos. The young, black-haired captain was one of the Hungarian police officers under his command for this operation. He was also a man the French security agent viewed with some suspicion — one with several black marks in his dossier for allegedly criticizing both the government and the new Confederation. Confronted by Vladimir Kusin’s unexpected ability to mobilize the people, the generals were being forced to rely on even their most unreliable officers.
Duroc scowled. He had the uncomfortable sensation that events were sliding beyond his control.
Down in the street, Hradetsky blocked a wild swing with his left forearm and got inside the tall Frenchman’s reach. Ignoring the pain rocketing all the way up to his shoulder, he rabbit-punched the security agent in the throat. The big man dropped to his knees, choking on a broken larynx.
Now what? He looked wildly around, trying to spot Kusin or Kiraly. He doubted it would do any good to shout for them. Not in a confused mess like this. More and more protesters were flooding into Kodaly Circle, intent on getting to grips with the men who had turned a peaceful march into a bloody free-for-all. With their comrades locked in a confused melee, the Frenchmen armed with tear gas launchers had stopped firing and joined the fight.
“Colonel!”
Hradetsky half turned toward the yell, just in time to see Oskar Kiraly knocked off his feet by several club-wielding men. My God. He took a step in that direction and felt the back of his head explode.
The agony drove him down to his hands and knees as the security agent who had hit him from behind struck again, this time slamming the nightstick into his side. His awareness danced away toward a world of darkness and shrieking pain. Dimly, through half-closed eyes, he saw his attacker tackled by one of Kiraly’s marshals. Five or six protesters crowded in, jostling each other as they kicked and pummeled the Frenchman senseless. Some of them were policemen wearing opposition armbands.
Still groggy, Hradetsky pushed himself up off the pavement, fighting to stop the world spinning around him. Each breath stabbed his side as sharp as any dagger. A broken rib, or maybe just badly bruised, he thought clinically — amazed at the mind’s ability to stay detached under stress.
“They have Kusin!” The panicked, sorrowing cry tore through both his pain and his adrenaline-enforced calm. He opened his eyes wide.
Those few Frenchmen still able to walk or ran were falling back. But they weren’t alone. They had a small number of captives with them. Most were opposition leaders who had been wearing the placards proclaiming their status as wanted men. Two plainclothes agents were dragging the lean, white-haired opposition leader between them. Kusin’s head lolled, rolling from side to side, as his captors hurried away, staggering under their burden. He was either dead or unconscious.
Hradetsky’s long-suppressed rage exploded, burning white-hot. He stood up straight, balancing precariously on wobbly legs for a moment. First one breath and then another cleaned the worst of the pain out of his lungs. He started running toward the retreating French. Others followed him.
As they shoved and clubbed their way toward safety, Duroc’s men were forced to fight through an ever-thickening crowd. More and more Hungarians were swinging wide around the tiny phalanx of security agents to block their path and slow them down. The colonel saw his countrymen surrounding the Frenchmen linking arms, trying to form a barrier to movement. Wherever the two groups came in contact, they fought tooth and nail — clawing and tearing at each other in a mindless fury.
Hradetsky was only meters away now, dodging through the ring surrounding Duroc’s men. Several of the Frenchmen raised their arms, frantically beckoning for help from the riot police waiting barely a block away. The Hungarian colonel could sense their growing desperation. Although their goal was in sight, they were now too weak and too few in number to reach it.
One of Kiraly’s biggest men, a burly, bearlike ex-army sergeant, bulled his way deep into the French phalanx. He backhanded one of the men holding Kusin and reached for the other, shouting aloud in triumph.
Hradetsky, just a few steps behind, saw everything that followed as though it happened in slow motion.
Instead of backing away from his attacker or dropping Kusin, the Frenchman’s hand darted inside his windbreaker and reappeared holding a weapon. As the barrel cleared his jacket, he fired twice, pumping two rounds into the ex-sergeant’s chest. The big man flew backward, punched off his feet in a spray of blood.
“Down! Down! Everybody down!” Hradetsky clawed for the pistol holstered at his side.
Other Frenchmen, also sensing defeat, were pulling their own weapons. The colonel recognized them as German-made MP5K submachine guns — special, shortened variants designed to be carried concealed under clothing.
Without warning they opened fire, carefully aiming into the crowd in front of them. They weren’t shooting to frighten. They were shooting to kill, deliberately clearing a path with bullets. People went down in droves under the hail of gunfire — either ripped open by 9mm rounds or throwing themselves prone behind the dead and dying to escape the slaughter.
Hradetsky dropped to one knee, with his service automatic extended in his right hand and braced by his left. He aimed quickly at the security agent who had fired first, and squeezed off two shots. The first caught the Frenchman in the shoulder and spun him around. The second blew a red-rimmed hole in his forehead.
The colonel searched rapidly for another target, cursing under his breath as panicked demonstrators stumbled into his line of fire. He swiveled back and forth, still holding his pistol braced. A clear space opened up in front of him. He had only a split second to decide. Should he fire at one of the men dragging Kusin toward the riot police? Or take out a Frenchman murdering his compatriots?
One of Duroc’s men leveled his submachine gun and fired a series of walking bursts into the screaming men and women ahead of him. More people crumpled, cut down by bullets fired at point-blank range.
Hradetsky squeezed off another shot. Blood spurted from the gunman’s back as he staggered and fell facedown onto the street.
The dead man’s comrades were already on the move, stepping over bodies while they fired at anyone still standing ahead of them. Two turned and began shooting at the crowds pouring into Kodaly Circle from the Radial Avenue to hold them back.