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hijacking?”
    “Nothing we can do here, and I suspect there won’t be much to do in the Capital. The Turks have the passenger manifest, and the Ministry’s looking into the records of four Armenians who were on the flight—we should hear something when we return.”
    “Four Armenians with the exception of Libarid?”
    “Yes.”
    Gavra pulled out a cigarette as a ship in the Bosphorus moaned. “What about Mas? He could be connected to this. Maybe he was also waiting for Libarid.”
    Brano shook his head. “It’s just a terrible coincidence. Libarid was on a plane that some Armenians wanted to use to get back at the Turks. It’s bad for us; it’s bad for Mas. It’s bad for everyone.”
    “I see.”
    “And I called the station. Gave the news to Emil. He’ll pass it on to Imre and Katja.” Brano was squinting in the light.
    “Was it hard?”
    The old man shrugged. “I’ve delivered this kind of news often enough. I think it’s going to be hard on him, though. Emil Brod does his best, but he’s not well equipped to deal with tragedy.”
    “And you are.”
    “Well, if I wasn’t, I doubt I’d still be alive.” Brano paused. “There are only two of us now.”
    “Two of whom?” Gavra noticed that the Germans were paying their bill and leaving.
    “Two veterans.” He frowned. “Stefan was killed back in the fifties, and at the same time Ferenc—Ferenc Kolyeszar, you’ve heard of that samizdat of his, The Confession —he was sent into internal exile and has been in a work camp the last three years. And now Libarid.” Brano blinked a few times, coming out of his reverie. “You’re not going out tonight, are you?”
    “What?”
    “I don’t want to have to kick some poor girl out of your bedroom in the morning,” Brano said, but without scorn.

Peter
     
    1968
     
    The foreign soldier’s beers settled his frayed nerves and helped him drop into a deep, dreamless sleep for hours, until he was woken by gunshots outside. He blinked in the darkness, at first only hearing Josef snoring in the other bed. Peter crawled to the foot of his cot and peered out the window. Down on Pod Stanicí, against the silhouette of another building, he saw a tiny burst of flame and heard another rat-a-tat. He couldn’t make out the figure with the gun, nor the intended victim. Boots crunched against the sidewalk, and as he waited for another gunshot he remembered that same sound just outsideeské Budjovice. A field, a shouted order from the road, then all three of them running westward through the stumps of harvested corn. Toman ahead of him, Ivana just behind. Toman was cursing— Fucking Peter, fucking goddamned Peter —beneath the rat-a-tat. Peter looked back in time to catch Ivana’s beautiful heavy-eyed face suddenly seize up. Then she fell forward, as if she’d tripped. Toman, ahead, was no longer shouting words, only long, painful notes, and Peter realized that he’d passed Toman’s writhing body in the stalks. But he kept on running as the rat-a-tat stopped and he heard one of the men at the road shouting at another in Russian. Though he knew Russian, he couldn’t make out the words.
    “What is it?”
    He turned back to see Josef’s face emerge from the gloom. “Gunshots. Outside. But I can’t see.”
    Josef rubbed his eyes. “Took days before I could sleep through it.” He climbed back into his cot and pulled the sheets to his chin. “Peter?”
    “Yeah?”
    “How did you get caught? I didn’t think there’d be a problem getting across.”
    Peter looked out at the street. “It was my own fault. I wanted to start a fire.”
    “A fire?”
    “It was cold. We were in a field, and I was cold. Nighttime in the countryside. I hadn’t brought a good coat. They told me not to start one, but they were asleep and I was so cold. I didn’t think anyone would see.”
    “But they did.”
    “The worst luck,” said Peter. “A Russian jeep came along the road. And we were woken by the bullhorn. It was