Archangel Project

By Jerome Dougherty

The dawn of the Space Age coincided with the birth of a secret Soviet-American alliance of necessity known as the Archangel Project. Taking place from 1951-1970, the history of the Archangel Project has been pieced together from classified files and the recollections of a few who participated in the project.  The concerns of the East and the West throughout this time focus on the survival of the planet as it is threatened by the politics of the Cold War.  What if Earth's fate was really not for those on Earth to decide?  A small group of non-elected officials work to understand the significance of monitoring devices found around the planet while dealing with the global distrust and misunderstanding that forms the cornerstone of the era. 320 pages.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jerome Dougherty
• Release date: Dec 5, 2015
• ISBN: 9781519992727

Book preview

PROLOGUE

1908 – 1953

June 30, 1908, Vanovara, Siberia

Alexi Belov released the bound hindquarters of the rain-soaked deer carcass that he had dragged behind him for some three kilometers. At the bank of the Stony Tunguska River, he raised his arms above his bearded, square face, arching his back, letting the pelting raindrops fall into his open mouth. A distant, whistling whine seemed to come from high above. He squinted into the hovering grey clouds, listening intently. He saw nothing. A scream of the spirits, a trick of the chill early morning winds.

He exhaled, answering the spirits with a low rumbling growl. Belov's workday was done. The deer, a mature female, slightly bloated after a recent birth, would provide weeks of food for the entire Tungus IEvenki] clan. He felt more relieved than elated. The clan had come to expect such feats from their youngest leader. Belov was easily the tallest, and probably the strongest in the clan. He hunted alone, except on those few clear summer mornings when his eldest son carried his quiver of handmade wooden arrows. He often hunted just before dawn, in fierce storms, and took risks no other clansman would dare. He was arrogant, confident and feared by every man in the tribe. The elders looked upon Belov as one of their successors.

Deer had been plentiful. The short summer season had only begun, and the Tungus clan already had meat enough for the next long winter. The younger boys, his sons included, would haul the heavy carcass to the Vanovara encampment in the early afternoon. The women of the tribe would skin, butcher and cure the steamy flesh, and store it in the bark huts that circled the periphery of the inner camp.

Belov squinted again. A burst of light split the low rainclouds. No thunder, but iridescent flashes of yellowish green shot through the heavy grey cumulus, fading to pink. The strange colors changed so rapidly that they were visible simultaneously, like faint, soft stripes of a small rainbow. He felt an indistinct trembling under his feet. The rumble of a stampede by a large herd. It couldn't be. Not in this storm.

Belov blinked, unable to focus. The flashes were brighter, like sheets of lightning, hissing and buzzing. The low hanging blanket of grey seemed to tear open. He sensed, then saw, something immense, whiter than mountain snow, plunging toward the river, high above the clouds. Two huge, silvery sheets floated gently toward him through the torrent of rain, like monstrous falling leaves oozing drops of greenish sap. The brilliant, diving lights suddenly changed direction, ascending through a tight turn toward the densely wooded plateaus to the northwest. Then they disappeared.

Belov snatched at the stiffening carcass, then abandoned it. The temblor seemed to be coming from every direction. The cloud cover vaporized, scorched by a blinding flash of brilliant orange fire that filled the horizon with the glint of a thousand white hot scimitars. Below pitched forward, sliding on his forearms down the embankment of the river, surrounded by the blinding flash, enveloped in a terrifying roar. To avoid a young sapling, he rolled over on his back. Above him, a thick column of raging fire spurted upward, rising like a huge geyser into the cloudless sky. Confused, he continued to roll, averting his face from the brilliant light. A blanket of intense heat rushed over him, scorching his clenched shoulders and buttocks. He felt the thick mat of his hair raise up from his scalp, crackling in flame. Shouting hoarsely, Belov rolled into the icy river waters, shielding his face with both arms, pressing his massive shoulders against his ears to douse the flame and dull the sound, no longer a roar but a whistling shriek so loud that it seemed to be crushing him.

Abruptly, the whistling ceased, smothered in a rumbling thunderclap that violently shook the riverbed. Belov curled into a tight ball, knees against his chest, only his head above water, mumbling disjointed fragments of a prayer to Ogdy, the god of fire, childhood phrases learned from the shaman and half forgotten. The thunder continued to roll over him, between repeating waves of intense heat. All around him, Belov could feel death — the smell of seared meat in the rush of wind, the sharp cracks of falling timber and the crackle of exploding trees. Rocks and burning branches showered all around him, sizzling briefly as they hit the chill, roiling waters of the river. A small spot of luminescent green gelatin hit his forehead. It was slick, like the scales of a fish, and spread slowly across his face, into his eyes, under his eyelids.

Belov felt an instant of nauseous panic, then a long moment of relief, and release. He was too young to die, but the capricious gods paid little attention to age. He thought of his wife, no longer the slender girl she had been before she bore his three sons, no longer a passionate woman. Other, younger women in the clan raced through his mind, but traces of his fear blurred their seductive images. He would miss his sons. His heart was pounding uncontrollably. His time had come. He would leave the earth in the eye of some incomprehensible catastrophe.

Submitting, he submerged himself under the flowing water. Death by drowning was far preferable to death by fire. He felt his innards dissolving into strange spasms, defecating into the river as he slipped into unconsciousness. The rushing water seemed warmer. The spreading film of ooze seemed to surround him like a web, warm and tactile. In this comforting cocoon, Belov faintly heard a familiar voice calling. His son? No, a child's voice, high-pitched and no longer familiar.

Alexi Belov lived to hear the legends of his own miraculous survival. At the small trading post near Vanovara, it was said by some that Belov had looked into the face of the gods. Others claimed he had witnessed the return of the One True Savior, or a moment of Samadhi. When the young villager, hardly more than a boy, reached in and pulled him from the river with an incredible burst of strength, Belov was near to death. The boy, panicked by the quaking ground, needed Belov to protect him. He fell upon Belov's chest repeatedly and somehow restored the rhythm of his breathing. No one knew more details. The boy and Belov had been alone, and both had survived.

Whatever the cause, no one doubted any detail of the apocalyptic vision witnessed by Alexi Belov. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of villagers on the vast Siberian plains had seen the blinding fireball hurtling across the morning sky. When Belov stumbled into the encampment, like a ghostly demon from some netherworld, his fellow tribesmen fled in terror. Not a hair remained on Belov's head. His left arm and shoulder were scorched to an oozing scarlet, like boiled flesh, and he would henceforth be stone deaf in one ear. Hardly twenty, Belov looked ancient and shriveled. Still, he was alive.

Belov not only survived, he recovered quickly. The scarred skin crooked his left arm slightly, but his hair grew in and his handsome, bearded face was unmarked. In months, he was speaking with remarkable lucidity of the spectacle he had seen. The silvery skin of a great flying beast that looked at one moment like a huge tree trunk, then, as it turned, seemed to be hollowed, like a great, shallow bowl. He remembered, months later, the two huge sheets falling toward him. They, too, had disappeared. He never mentioned them to anyone.

Within a year, Belov was a changed man. He was stronger than ever, but his arrogant temper had faded. His touch soothed pain and his voice quieted the inner terrors of the ill and dying. Some called him Sadguru, others called him a saint. He had found, in a glimpse of hell, remarkable wisdom and perspective. He spoke to the young boys of the tribe, teaching them strange lessons that defied strict tribal conventions of manhood. Kindness required courage, Belov would say. Love was the true source of fearlessness. His mastery of dialects increased remarkably as he traveled from village to remote village. The local elders listened to him in perplexity, but without fear. Belov had changed in a way that his fellow tribesmen could feel but not describe. His words stirred strange emotions, as if they held the promise of a long and revealing future.

Word spread and, as the years passed, Alexi Belov became famous in the cold Siberian plains, a seer and a prophet who recounted again and again his confrontation with the gods, the flying beast, and the gift of life reborn within him. He was invited to Moscow after the fall of the Tsar, but deftly declined, even when the great Stalin himself sent an emissary. His condition, Belov explained, made him unfit to travel long distances. The emissary returned to the Kremlin alone and fearful. Saying no to the great Stalin, no matter how gently, was dangerous. Belov's legend grew to mythic proportions, but he seemed oblivious to his own notoriety. He remained, as always, a humble and honest tribesman, as reverent as he was revered.

Belov often travelled to the nearby Vanovara trading post to see the second miracle of the heavenly fires, a tubular spear found a few years after the Tunguska explosion, deeply imbedded in the swampy shallows of the sinuous Selenga River, in the dense woods near Lake Baikal, standing at an odd angle, otherwise hardly distinguishable from the surrounding trees. It was taken as truth that the long, metallic tube had been propelled into the river like a huge arrow on the day that Belov had witnessed the great white bowl explode in the sky. The hollow spear was metallic and flexible, but it took two dozen men to remove it from the bed of the river. The Herculean effort had taken three full summer days. Within a month, five of the men, bloated and dehydrated, died a mysterious and painful death. A few of their family members, women and children, met a similar fate.

The spear became a symbol of evil, too dangerous to move and too extraordinary to ignore. No one in the Tungus clan would speak of it. For years, it lay under the rotting roof of an old lean-to at the outskirts of the encampment, exposed to long periods of severe winter cold. During the summer months, the villagers covered the spear under deep layers of snow and shards of ice, a ritualistic custom that no one could explain, except the older priests, who incanted vague solemnities about appeasement and expiation.

Perhaps another decade passed before Belov suggested that the spear be wrapped in cold, wet bearskins and carried to the Vanovar trading post. His clansmen recoiled at the thought. Belov then swathed the spear in furs himself, showing no fear, but great respect to the token from the heavens. The elders joined him in a solemn parade to Vanovara, and the spear was propped in the corner of a small, dank cave in the side of an embankment at the rear of the trading post. After the others withdrew, Belov unwrapped the spear and sat alone with it through the night. Each year thereafter, Belov would spend one night alone in the cave with the lance. Following each visit, the cave was closed and sealed.

At the end of one particularly cold winter, word reached Vanovara that the great Stalin had died [March, 1953]. Belov, white-haired, tall, and as strong as ever, retreated to the small cave for two days and nights, and then disappeared from the encampment without a trace. He said no goodbyes, not even to his beloved children. Rumor had it that he had been seen on the railway train to Moscow, but no one could be sure.

1956

October 23, 1956. Budapest, Hungary.

Major General Pal Maleter stood at the large French window, one hand on his holster. He idly traced the transept spires of the distant Parliament Building in steamy patches on the pane. It was a view of Pest that had fascinated him since his first boyhood visits to the beautiful old patrician house near Vienna Gate. Below, along the riverbank at Batthyány tér, the waters of the Duna were still, and the ancient city of Pest seemed serene and silent. Pale pink shafts of autumn sunlight played on the mottled green Parliament dome. An antique cable car, climbing slowly from the riverbank, shuddered and stopped, halfway to the top of Castle Hill.

I came to this old mansion so often when I was a boy. Maleter drummed three fingers on the polished radio console sitting near the window. Thirty years ago, Captain. Before you were born. This old radio was here, always playing the classics. Relina Kiraly's father lived here. I always wished I did. He was my closest friend, then. Even before he married my sister.... Long before he disappeared.

An eruption of whistles and cheers in the distance brought Maleter out of his reverie. A few shouts - short, ragged slogan - rose above the cheers from the direction of Józef Bem square. He looked at his watch. Almost two thirty. The demonstration is starting, on time. Good.

A bolt of static, then a low voice, crackled through the muted sounds of a Brahms concerto. Maleter fiddled with the huge center dial. An official announcement from Kossuth Radio. The announcer sounded nervous. Laszló Piros, Minister of the Interior, has withdrawn the ban imposed on public meetings.

Maleter grunted, pulling at the sleeves of his baggy safari jacket. In profile, his shock of black hair accentuated a long, thin face. Only the wide leather holster belt strapped across his chest made his gangly frame seem a little bulkier.

Have you heard the American broadcasts, Captain? He half turned from the window. Captain?

Sir? Sorry. No. Karol Nagy hesitated, carefully folding his blue woolen jacket across one forearm. Titles were almost another language to him. 'Captain' was only a word he had first seen next to his name three weeks ago, on a document signed by the General himself. A few of the bolder young women at the Science Institute occasionally called him 'az orvos', but he discouraged the frivolous flirtation. He was a physicist, after all, not a doctor. Radio Free Europe? No, sir, I haven't.

They are supporting us. Eisenhower supports us. Maleter inspected a pair of painted plaster statues perched on the console, then tapped at the bridge of his large, beakish nose. Piros knows that. That's why he withdraws the ban.

Piros is a coward. Nagy said, pacing a small circle on the faded Turkish rug that dominated the large parlor room. He avoided the window. The view of the old city, and Maleter's towering height, disconcerted him. The ban was announced earlier, to the students in Bem Square. There were hundreds of them. After the announcement, thousands more showed up....

Ahh, there she is... Maleter waved toward the sound of footsteps approaching from another room. Nagy stopped pacing. The young girl coming through the double door was tall and willowy, her dark eyes worshipfully bright as she skipped toward Maleter, two long black braids floating like kite tails behind her.

General Maleter kissed his niece affectionately on the cheek. Look at her, Captain Nagy. Yesterday, just a child. How old now, Miss Relina Kiraly...?

Seventeen, General...

Seventeen. So different you look from a year ago.... Relina Kiraly smiled, without a blush. She had a quiet assurance about her. This is Captain Karol Nagy. In charge of the Fifth Company. Only twenty-five, but one of my very best men.

And you can stay for dinner, both of you? Relina looked steadily at her uncle. Mother's making coabai with gombaleves and ....

Maleter took a few steps away from the window, clutched the wide lapels of his jacket, and seated himself in a green velvet armchair. I can taste the aromas. All the way from the kitchen. For her mother's venison, Captain, we should delay the revolution...

That would be a pleasure. Nagy glanced quickly at Relina as she brushed a splotch of white flour from her pleated szoknya.

If only Comrade Yuri Andropov could be trusted. You've heard of Comrade Andropov, Miss Kiraly?

I... I don't think so, Captain. Another Russian? Another Stalinist? I can't tell one from the other.

No reason to, Maleter said. Soon they'll all be back in Moscow. The General looked up at Relina, one hand at her elbow, and spoke in a hushed, confidential tone. The revolution was about to begin. All the workers' demonstrations of the past weeks had been enthusiastic, but futile. Months of negotiations with the Russians had come to nothing. Soviet Ambassador Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov was a snake, a charming man with the heart and soul of a Hun. The time had come. Every man and boy in the city was needed. The people of Hungary would take back their country. Send the Russians home. The Soviet armies could do nothing, under the watchful eye of General Eisenhower and the Americans.

Of course they can't. And you must take my brother, Relina said, tapping her nails on the bowed wooden rib of Maleter's armchair. If the Major General needed boys, she said, then her brother Ferenc ought to be one of them. No matter that the boy was Maleter's nephew. Fourteen was not too young to fight for the freedom of Hungary. It wouldn't seem right, otherwise, she said. Her father would have wanted it that way. It was as simple as that.

Good. I was hoping you'd agree. My nephew will be a symbol for the others. No one is exempt from the liberation. I'll talk to your dear Anya.

No. Please. You know how Anya worries so much. I'll tell her. Maleter stood up, adjusting his holster belt. As you wish, Relina. Ferenc will be under Captain Nagy's command. I wanted you both to meet him. The venison dinner would have to be postponed, he said. All troops of the Fifth Company were to meet at the Szentkiraly barracks. At seven sharp. There would be matters of importance concerning the revolution.

Ferenc will be there. Relina turned around, as if looking for the boy.

We must go, Captain. You know what to do. Maleter flashed a distracted, crooked grin. See you tonight. Thank you, my dear Relina. My love to your mother. Your father would have been proud of you. This is our one chance to send the Russians home. This is the revolution.

It is my honor, General. Ahh, Ferenc, there you are. Relina extended her arms to her brother, a whippet thin blonde boy. You're ready to send the Russians back to Moscow? I just volunteered for you. You're in Captain Nagy's Fifth Company.

Ferenc blinked, then stepped into the parlor and shook his uncle's hand. At seven, he said. At the barracks. With you, General, we will take back Hungary. Captain? I am ready to go. Köszönöm. [Thank you]

Szivesen. But we cannot leave together. Be there on time, Ferenc. Nagy raised a finger for emphasis. Discipline is important if you want to be a soldier for Major General Maleter. Your mother and sister, Nagy looked at Relina, catching the flicker of concern in her green eyes, will be leaving this house.

Ferenc shrugged, not knowing what Nagy could possibly mean. But soldiers didn't ask questions. The boy seemed to know that.

It was just before six. Maleter was gone. Karol Nagy walked slowly across Margaret Bridge, wondering where the General found his courage. In an hour, if the plan held, Nagy would be at the barracks, and the Hungarian Army would join the revolutionaries. In an hour there would be war in Pest.

It seemed impossible. Lenin Boulevard was awash in soft autumn sunlight, a windy, late afternoon left over from summer. A wizened, toothless gypsy woman reached out a cupped hand to Nagy. Younger schoolchildren dawdled in front of sweetshops, bouncing small rubber balls against the grey stonewalls and enameled doorways. Two pregnant young women walked by in bright print dresses, chattering and pushing stately black baby carriages. Revolution seemed nothing more than a mad dream.

Along the soot-covered walls of Western Railroad Station, Nagy began to notice the small clusters of university students, knotted in hushed, hissing conversations. Others stopped, lining the pavement, forming procession lines behind long, narrow banners of red, green and white. The groups were mushrooming. Lace curtains fluttered from dozens of open windows. He had seen no banners when he crossed Dohány, but now they were everywhere, flapping from balconies above, hastily pasted into storefront windows. Out of nowhere, unseen and unnoticed, Maleter's organizers were on the move.

Behind him, he heard the shouts of a thousand voices, an enormous chorus of cheers and singing.

Ahead, another crowd was gathering, all heads turned toward St. Stephen's Boulevard. Nagy edged to the curb. Across the bridge, a huge throng of workers from Csepel and Ujpest appeared, marching in disarray, hundreds of them pointing toward the Parliament building, shouting defiantly.

Death to Rakosi! Free our prisoners! A rattling, haphazard collection of trucks preceded the workers. Boys hung from doors and tailgates. Hundreds of the students began to sing the Marseillaise. The workers drowned them out with a roaring verse from the Kossuth. The trucks honked and sputtered, creeping toward Stalin Square. Streetcars, at a standstill, served as a refuge for children. Boys and girls scrambled to their yellow rooftops to escape the crush of the swarming crowd.

A miraculous mirage, the revolution. Nagy's eyes watered. He laughed to himself, retreating toward Stalin Square, sensing the momentum of the mob. He looked for a clearing, somewhere to watch and cheer as the huge bronze statue of Stalin came down.

Across the cement parade ground, the crescendo of the crowd told him the effort had already started. Seven large, grimy lorries, some equipped with hovering black cranes, surrounded the statue, belching black smoke into the spray of the City Park fountain. Thick cables hung from the cranes, noosed around Stalin's stolid effigy. A pair of trucks accelerated away from the statue, grinding gears, spewing stones and chunks of black tar. The cranes stiffened. Two cables unraveled and snapped, high in the air, curled like circus whips. Stalin stood, towering, unmoved. The mood of the noisy throng quickly turned sullen, paralyzed by the giant mold green figure.

A solitary young man in eyeglasses broke through the edge of the crowd. He walked hurriedly across the square, hunched over, holding a heavy metallic rod in one hand. He stepped under the tangle of cables and ropes and sprinted up the dozen shallow steps of the broad cinderblock foundation that surrounded Stalin's statue. Jol Siessen! A single voice in the crowd urged him on. The young man turned, raised his blowtorch high, and adjusted the wire frame of his glasses. He scaled the hollow, oblong pedestal that supported the statue, perching for a moment on the tarnished SZTÁLIN nameplate. He let out a shout of triumph. Then he positioned himself just below the straddled bronze legs of the Soviet dictator, training a bright blue flame at Stalin's knees. The crowd fell into an expectant silence. Nagy could hear the hiss of acetylene.

Suddenly, there was a loud, metallic crack. The statue tilted left. Viszlát, viszlát, Papa Joszif...[Goodbye. Goodbye, Papa Joseph] The lone voice again. Dozens of hands raised, waving goodbye. Josef Stalin's bronze head wobbled, then fell to the pavestones, clanging like a broken bell as it rolled across the square.

Eltévedtem, one hunched old woman cackled from under her babushka. El vagyok veszve. Nem Sztálin? [I'm lost. No Stalin?] The crowd roared, pressing toward the monument.

A leader, Nagy thought. The young man with the blowtorch was a leader. He felt a chill along his shoulders. He wondered whether he could possibly succeed as the superior officer of the Fifth Company. Months of planning were easy enough. Sessions on a strategy to capture the city, not unlike the scientific conferences he attended all over Eastern Europe. But this was very different. This was real.

The crowd surged forward, obscuring Nagy's view. In front of him, a quartet of disheveled, grey-haired men in grease-smeared overalls held flaming booklets of paper high in the air. They shouted in unison and tossed the small torches into the crowd. Nagy sidestepped toward the perimeter of the crushing mob. He should caution the men. He reached the fringe, next to the monstrous iron head of Stalin. He started to shout, but no words came. A dozen burning booklets were in the air, floating for a moment before they fell.

Ur. Nagy tugged gently at the soiled suspenders of a shouting street worker. The bulky, middle-aged man paid no heed.

Ur Nagy tugged harder. What are they burning? It's not smart to.... The street worker reached into a pocket and pulled out a small brown booklet. This, he said, showing the booklet to Nagy for a moment before he skimmed it through the air toward Stalin's decapitated torso. The Communist Party card, Citizen. The man broke into a wide grin, exposing jagged yellow teeth.

The roar of the crowd swelled again, breaking into snatches of the Kossuth. The tower clock read twenty before seven. It was time. At the periphery of the crowd, Nagy began to run along Dozsa György. His blue woolen jacket tailed out behind him. He skidded twice on the uneven pavestones. A truck, overloaded with students, came to a stop as Nagy reached the Rákóczi intersection. He climbed onto the tailgate with an assist of groping arms and hands.

As the truck lurched down Rákóczi, the jubilance of Stalin Square evaporated. A military command vehicle was burning at the curb, spewing a rubbery stench of dense smoke. The workers clustered along the sidewalks were shouting and waving fists. Mangy stray dogs bolted into the street, barking ferociously. Scattered bursts of gunfire erupted from rooftops. Students in the truck, obscured by smoke from tear gas, shouted insults unintelligible above the roar of the exhaust. Something about the AVO and the radio station.

AVO! AVO! Nagy heard the repeated chant all along Rákóczi, a cursing, mocking obscenity. The demonstrations, so raucous on Stalin and Lenin Boulevards, had escalated into a small war. It was time. Maleter had given his instructions. Arrive and take charge. The Hungarian Army was waiting to join them. Maleter was sure of it. Nagy wasn't. But it was time.

Nagy leaped from the truck as it slowed for a moment, a block away from the barrack gates. His mouth was dry. He had been to the gates before, a half dozen times, with Maleter's aides, quietly discussing details of the plan. Now it was real. Acrid smoke seared his lungs raw. Coughing, he threaded his way down Szentkiraly to the gates. Facing a crowd of young men and boys, Nagy shouted once. No one seemed to hear him.

Take the guns! The Army is with us! The signal agreed upon. The Army is with us!

The silence was fearful. Nothing, no one moved. Old men squinted at him. Young boys looked at one another, hitching at their leather belts. Then, it happened, just as Maleter said it would. The barrack windows at ground level rattled open. Uniformed Hungarian soldiers passed rifles, pistols, tommy guns and ammunition through the window bars.

Take the weapons! Nagy waved his arms, as if pulling the men closer to the windows. Take them. Now! Rifles were raised high in the air. He saw Ferenc at the front of the crowd, his frayed leather jacket open, clutching a Sten gun, a box of bullets in the crook of one arm. In seconds, a hundred or more were armed. Nagy tossed rounds of ammunition to the center of the crowd, stuffed canvas belts of bullets in his jacket and dangled others from his waist.

Company, Keep close to the wall! Nagy shouted over the heads of the cluster around him. Avoid the Radio Building! AVO there! Scatter! Report to Corvin Theatre! Nine, sharp!

Ferenc edged close to Nagy. Nagy glanced at the boy. Frightened?

No. Ferenc didn't sound convincing.

Good. Follow me. This is a war. Nagy started trotting, taking long, loping strides. Didn't anyone tell you about being a soldier, boy? Your father? Someone?

Don't have a father. The Communists shot him.

Oh. Nagy slowed and turned back. The sister, the willowy Relina with the beautiful green eyes, had said something about that. Or was it Maleter.

Eight years ago, Ferenc shrugged. I hardly remember it....

Well, look. Don't stay put in one place, boy. You coming....? Ferenc hesitated, uncertain. Or staying here, to get killed? Nagy turned the corner, into a cloud of smoke on Bródy Sándor. The street was murky with tear gas. In the shadows, the sounds of gunfire intensified. Ferenc was following, tossing the Sten from one hand to the other. Then he tucked the gun into his belt, under his jacket.

Nagy turned back toward Rákóczi. The light was fading. It was over. The words had come. The Company had responded. At least this time.

He crossed the wide boulevard and headed along the arc of Dohány. Ferenc trailed behind like a distracted pup. Small groups of students were painting whitewash slogans on the weather-stained walls of old warehouses. Young men and boys trotted past, most of them armed, heading toward the Ady Theatre. Five or six slowed to a walk on either side of Nagy, nodding to him, holding pistols and rifles, occasionally shouting out the slogans they read on the walls.

Free press! Free press! Free the prisoners!

From the direction of Bajcsy-Zsilinszky Avenue, Nagy heard pops, like firecrackers. Two men in their early twenties, not two meters away from him, grunted and pitched to the ground.

Down! AVO! His heart jumped. Others were scattering in all directions, diving for cover.

Nagy scurried into the shelter of a recessed doorway and looked back down Dohány. A paunchy, buxom woman, barefoot and waving a dripping brush, screamed and fell just in front of Ferenc. The boy sprawled on the sidewalk and crawled to the woman's body. He turned his head skyward as another barrage of fire exploded.

Bullets whistled just over Nagy's head with an abrupt, eerie rise and fall of sound. The boy was in trouble, tucked under the corpse. Tommy gun shells intermittently pounded into her body. Nagy bit at his lip and prayed. A dry, chalky taste caked his tongue. Ferenc lay still.

As suddenly as the firing had started, it stopped. Nagy waited. Heavy footsteps scurried by. Voices shouted behind him. The living were tending to the dying.

Nagy dashed to the curb. Goddamn it, boy! Run! Ferenc looked up, over the woman's corpse, his face bloody, his eyes slitted. Nagy slipped into the wide doorway of a two story stone building. Ferenc pulled himself to his knees like a sprinter in starting blocks, lunged across the wide street and reached the wall of the building. He held himself half erect, walking unsteadily, his legs wobbling like rubber.

Here! Get in here! Nagy pushed open the shattered door to the small lobby. Get inside! We'll go for cover!

Nagy stepped softly along the dark wall to the rear of the hallway, holding Ferenc's forearm. Silently they climbed the stairs to the second floor. Nagy rapped at the door nearest to the landing, waited, then rapped again. A pale young woman opened the door slowly, pushing wisps of reddish hair from her forehead, her tired face quartered in a slice of grey light. Squeaking hinges echoed in the hallway. She stared at Nagy, then looked down at the bony blond boy with darting blue eyes that seemed too old for his face. His hand was dripping blood that he had wiped from his face.

We must come in, Nagy said, pointing down the stairs. He pushed Ferenc gently by her, into a cramped vestibule. She swung the door shut behind them, smoothing her cotton print dress over her full hips. The light of an old street lamp seeped through a single window in her tiny kitchen. She paused, pulling her stained apron into a fist at her mouth, listening. Then she took Ferenc's hand and led him to the sink just under the window.

Can you wash yourself? Are you hurt? Ferenc reached for the tap and ducked under the cold water.

My God! You need help. The woman stepped back, startled by the gushing pool of red that swirled in the basin. I'll go...

No! Nagy touched at her arm. Ferenc pulled his head up, watery blood dripping to the cement floor. It's not....it's not his blood. AVO are down there.

Nagy peeked out the window and drew back. The young woman exhaled, her wet hand across her mouth, muting a squeal, then pulling at curls of her disheveled hair.

Or maybe just the Russians, Nagy amended quickly, trying to soothe her. I saw Russian uniforms just then.

A burst of gunfire broke the eerie calm below, followed by explosions of breaking glass. She turned away from Nagy, her hands cupped over her ears.

Look, Nagy searched the young woman's eyes. Ferenc grabbed an old, freshly laundered piece of cloth on the sink and brusquely rubbed at his face. I'm sorry, but we had to come in.

My husband is in the Corvin Theatre group. In one hand, she cupped the polished gold locket on the small chain around her slender neck. Tamas....

Nagy raised his hand, cutting her off. Good. It's my company. I'll tell him you're all right.

I'm Ferenc. Don't tell us anymore, the boy whispered. What we don't know, we can't tell.

I see. The woman looked surprised, even a trifle amused around the eyes, but her lips were trembling. You really are a soldier, aren't you? I am Marika.

I....I have a gun......to protect us. Ferenc pulled back the flap of his leather pilot's jacket, revealing the stock of the Sten. The woman nodded without looking. She seemed calmer with the blood gone from Ferenc's face and hands.

I have some food, she said. Her ashen face was in the shadows, and one hand rested on the boy's shoulder. Ferenc looks hungry. I'll feed him.

I've got to get on, Nagy said. You two stay inside. It's safer.

Nagy crossed Dohány, waited, then looked at his watch. Almost eight. The firing had ceased. The avenue was quiet and empty. Strips of bloody newspaper covered the heads of twenty corpses. The first casualties of the revolution. Maleter's revolution. And his. An hour to get to the Corvin Theatre. Time enough to....

Nagy took a step to his right. A large, blockish figure in a Russian uniform hulked at the open doorway of the apartment building, a brown bottle dangling from one hand. Damn everything to hell, why hadn't he thought to close the shattered door? Suddenly the soldier shouted orders in crude, unaccented Hungarian.

Várj! Rendőrséget! Mi az! [Wait! Police! What is that...!] Mother of God. AVO in Russian uniform. Something the bastard had heard. Nagy felt a throbbing in his throat. The soldier pulled at his heavy overcoat and lurched into the lobby, dropping the bottle, splinters of glass skidding across the stone floor.

Nagy sprinted across Dohány, circling out and then