Andromeda, a novel by Joe Nobel, Part 48 -- Anna goes back

joe.nobel (55)in #writing • 7 years ago

Andromeda

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Anna’s mission, it turned out, was to return to Hungary and bug Uri’s apartment. She was perfect for the assignment, they told her; she knew the land, she knew the man, and she knew his habits.

“But the last I heard, he took a post in Vladivostok,” she objected when she got her assignment.
“He didn’t accept the position. He’s still in Budapest. He’s now a diplomat,” they told her. “Same apartment, same habits, a new girl.”

“Only one?” Anna raised an eyebrow.

True to their word, Anna was released from training on weekends. She’d return home to the Harlsden flat, to Liudmila. Friday nights would find the place in a mess, Liudmila would pick up, mumbling vague apologies about having a busy day. Anna would get a headache and feel a tinge of depression as she watched Liudmila clean, a chore she could have done throughout the week. They would then stay in bed late on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Her spirits would improve by Sunday. But just as she was starting to relax, the taxi would come and take her away.

Training was precise and detailed. Already speaking both Hungarian and Russian, her MI6 handlers polished away any traces of an accent in either language. They taught her new techniques for climbing walls; slipping from alley to alley in the cover of dark. She memorized the Budapest street map. She realized that in all the years living there, she had only walked in her own little area in the heart of the city, never venturing over to the Buda side of the Danube — even though everyone told her it was much nicer. Was that a part of Uri’s invisible tether over her?

Anna memorized the locations and paths to the various safe houses where her MI6 handlers would be waiting. They drilled endlessly on getting from any point A to point B until she was able to recite the directions effortlessly.

Then came the trip. She made arrangements for Liudmila to get a pension after her should she fail to return— something that was highly irregular at the time in Britain. Liudmila saw her off on the BEA flight to Budapest. Anna Singer became Anita Surrey, a purveyor of antiquities on a buying mission. It was a persona that would live just until she got through Hungarian customs.

Budapest, June, 1963

It was 11:30 at night. Anna stood in Deak Square looking up at her old apartment on the corner of People’s Republic and Bajcsy-Zsilinszky Roads. She watched from behind the trees on the opposite corner of the intersection. The streets were dark with only the occasional pedestrian walking past. The people who came and went seemed freer, a degree less guarded. Anna took advantage of this new openness. She dressed in a revealing leopard-print shirt and black miniskirt. Fishnet stockings and stiletto heels completed the disguise. A common prostitute.

Two guards stood at the main entrance to the building. They were no longer Soviet, just regular Hungarian army. No guards were posted within the foyer. The windows of her old apartment on the third floor were dark — had been all night. It looked like no one was home. Intelligence told her that Uri was out in the countryside, a meeting at a Soviet Army base. Her handlers weren’t sure where his current slave was. They argued amongst themselves whether Uri’s new girl was there at all; with even less agreement on whether she lived with him full time.

Uri was expected back the following morning. Yet Anna knew from experience that he often had his chauffeur drive through the night to get him home so he could sleep in his own bed, surrounded by warm slaves. She had to decide whether to break in now or wait for another opportunity.

She made her decision to go in now.

She slipped into the archway of the neighboring building when a guard struck a match to light a cigarette. The momentary flash of light dulled his night vision long enough for her to get by. That next building was based on the same general architecture as her old home: a central courtyard surrounded by apartments and was unguarded, so it was easy for her to slip up its marble stairway to the top floor. From there, she ran silently to the other side of the gallery circling the courtyard. With the aid of a rope she had sashed around her waist and a grappling hook in her handbag, she pulled herself up to the roof.

image source: google images,
The Third Man

Anna jumped from rooftop to rooftop to land on her old building. She then swung down onto the third-story gallery with the same rope and hook. The British agents believed General Konstantine no longer kept a guard posted by his door. She was relieved to see they were right. Her only remaining qualm was not knowing if the apartment was empty or not. She picked the lock in less than a minute and was across the threshold. She would know in a moment if anyone was home.

Not much had changed, not from what Anna could see by the light of the street lamp below. It appeared that neither Uri nor his new slave had bothered to redecorate after Anna’s grand escape.

With the aid of a tiny flashlight, she crept along the train of rooms that made up the backbone of the apartment. Anna planted her listening devices as her MI6 handlers had instructed. She found the most ingenious places for them along the way: cracks in the plaster; missing buttons on the fabric of the sofa; in a cobweb in a corner too high for anyone to bother to reach. And these devices were small, smaller than anything she had seen coming out of the labs at the CIA. Did she fall behind that much on technology while she was enslaved, or were the Brits that much more advanced than the Americans?

For no apparent reason, she felt a sinking feeling in her stomach. Word association brought her back home to America. It was an odd time for these feelings to well up. All of a sudden, she felt abandoned and betrayed by the Americans. Especially by her American handler — and lover — Andrew Locket. To think, to be labeled a traitor. She should have been given a hero’s welcome.

She planted her bugs methodically; trying not to let these troubling thoughts distract her. Three in the living room. Three in the dining room. Two in his infamous play room. She continued through the rest of the rooms. At least with Uri, she knew exactly where she stood.

Anna was about to walk into his bedroom but stopped when she heard a creak of the mattress and a quiet sigh. They were almost imperceptible sounds, but they told her someone was there. Anna had been silent so far, fairly certain her footsteps made no squeaks on the floorboards. Whoever was in there, couldn’t have heard her moving through the apartment. Standing with her back against the wall she turned to peek around the corner. Her eyes having gotten used to the darkness, she saw the figure of a woman lying on the bed. A faint trickle of light from a street lamp below was all that illuminated the scene.

That woman was tied down, struggling, desperate to free herself. She lay there, bound by ropes that were invisible to Anna's eyes in the dark. But Anna knew they were there by the motions she made in her struggles. Watching her, Anna saw that she wasn’t merely trying to squirm free. That, she clearly could not do. The woman’s arms were tied together at the wrist. A rope loosely tied her to the top of the headboard. She held something in her hand, a vibrator or dildo.