This was the moment of decision. She looked around the room once more. It was empty and silent, the only sound the soft clicks of her keyboard.
A Bloomberg terminal stood in one corner for the newly recruited business reporters, next to a fancy chrome coffee machine with an impressive array of levers and switches, and bowls of fruit, cookies and muffins, all freshly delivered every morning at 8 a.m., in case of any early bird arrivals. She tapped her desk with her fingers for a few seconds. All of the journalists had a new wide, grey wooden desk, with a new Apple Mac desktop and silver keyboard, as well as a Mac laptop computer and a new iPhone 6, all paid for by the website’s new owners. Once again she wondered why they were spending so much money. But that story would have to wait.
Zsuzsa watched her cursor hover over Misc. She dropped her thumb, let it press down on her touchpad until a faint noise sounded. It was done. She was downloading.
Misc opened to reveal two more folders: one titled ZB and the second, RB. ZB was obviously her initials. She opened the folder, her eyes widening as she saw copies of her article in various drafts as she had sent them to Roland. But there was much more material, which she had not and would never have sent to him: her source notes, transcripts of all her interviews, telephone log, contacts, research files, documents from international databases and web pages that she had saved.
Zsuzsa dug her thumbnail into her index finger as she tried to control her rising anger. She had been sitting here feeling guilty – while the whole time Roland and his bosses and lawyers had been inside her computer, pulling in everything to do with her work. Feeling guilty – for a moment she almost laughed.
A separate folder within Misc was marked Correspondence. She opened that to see various emails back and forth from the lawyers to Roland. That was expected and it was normal practice for lawyers to check contentious articles for libel. Then she opened one of the lawyers’ emails. Her eyes widened as she scanned its contents, her anger turning to incredulity as she read through to the summary:
In short ZB’s investigation has more than served its purpose. Her diligent and insistent probing has revealed numerous weaknesses in the structure of Nationwide Ltd., both in Hungary and its network of satellite organisations abroad, and the network of connections and financial channels between them, which leaves the organisation vulnerable to charges of money laundering and corruption in multiple jurisdictions – as suggest by ZB in her article. Ukraine is an especially weak node in the network and needs immediate attention.
Now that these vulnerabilities have been identified we can chart a clear path to eradicate them and so strengthen our position, both legally and in the many markets in which we operate.
She sat back, closed her eyes for a moment and exhaled. She had been duped. More than duped, she had been played. And how.
Part of her – a small part – was almost admiring. Whose idea had this been? In a way it was quite brilliant – use an investigative journalist to investigate what information could be discovered and so needed to be shut down. Probably not Roland. He was incapable of standing up for himself, or his reporters, but this level of betrayal, she thought, was beyond him. She glanced at her watch. It was after 8.20 a.m. She needed to speed this up. She copied the whole of Misc onto her computer, watching the download bar as it slowly crept forward.
Zsuzsa checked she had everything then closed the ZB folder on Roland’s hard drive. Her task was completed. But the RB folder still showed, unopened. Then she realised what the letters probably stood for: the initials of the prime minister, Reka Bardossy.
She glanced at the newsroom door once again. It was still closed. The RB folder must hold something quite incendiary to be stored alongside her material. Furious now at the violation of her privacy, her workplace, and the confidentiality of her sources, who had trusted her at some risk to their jobs and careers, she clicked on the RB folder and opened it. There were two files inside, a Word document and a video of several hundred megabytes. Just as she started to download them both, the office door opened and Roland walked in. He looked across the newsroom, saw Zsuzsa and waved at her. She waved back, told herself to stay calm.
She glanced again at her desktop. The video file’s download bar was showing just a few per cent. She looked back at Roland, who had started to walk over to his room.
Take control.
She stood up and walked quickly toward to the coffee machine. It stood in the centre of the newsroom, equidistant between their workplaces. As she arrived, Roland was almost at his door.
Zsuzsa called his name and he turned. ‘Could you help me here, Roland,’ she asked, gesturing at the array of handles and shiny tubes. ‘I’m dying for a coffee but I still don’t know how to work this thing.’ She gave him her brightest smile. ‘I think it’s men’s work.’ Playing the ditzy girl worked without fail in Hungary, she had learned over the years – especially with anything mechanical.
Roland turned slightly pink, clearly pleased and flattered to be asked to help. He started walking over to Zsuzsa. ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘What can I make you?’
‘A cappuccino, if that’s not too much trouble?’ A cappuccino, she knew, would be the most trouble, what with all the steam and milk-frothing business, and so take up the most time.
Roland smiled, his saggy face creasing to reveal yellowing teeth. ‘Coming right up. I’ll make us both one. We can take them back to your desk, if you like. I can spare a few minutes to catch up; you can tell me how you are settling in.’
Zsuzsa nodded, hoping her extreme alarm at that idea did not show. The printout of her hacking instructions was still next to her keyboard. Even Roland would notice it. And what a screaming hypocrite he was. How could you use me like that, you coward? she wanted to yell at him.
Instead she smiled, stepped a little closer. ‘Sure, I’d like that, but first could you talk me through how this works, so I can work it for myself next time?’
Roland nodded, and went through a long and detailed explanation about steam, pressure, milk froth, types of grind and beans. Zsuzsa pretended she was paying attention, but was actually watching the clock on the facing wall. Four minutes had now passed. That was plenty of time for the video file to download. Roland handed Zsuzsa her coffee. She thanked him. Now she had to get rid of him.
She looked at the clock again, tutted, shook her head and said, ‘I’m really sorry, I completely forgot. I have to dash, a contact told me to call them before 8.45 a.m. and it’s someone I have been trying to get for ages.’
Roland nodded, the disappointment clear on his face, and began to walk to his office. Zsuzsa quickly crossed the newsroom and sat down at her desk. The RB files had downloaded. She closed the folder, made sure Misc and all the other files were also closed.
She looked at Roland’s office. He was hanging up his coat. Roland walked over to his desk. Zsuzsa cut the connection.
After ten minutes going through more of the material she had downloaded, her suspicions were confirmed. The website’s new owner was a fully owned subsidiary of Nationwide Ltd. She was working for Karoly Bardossy.
FIVE
Dob Street, 9 a.m.
Javitas, next door to the entrance to Balthazar’s apartment house, was the newest addition to the gentrification of District VII, much of which was focused on the streets around its epicentre, Klauzal Square. Javitas meant repairs in Hungarian. Until recently Javitas actually had been a repair shop for everything from typewriters to washing machines, run by Samu bacsi, an elderly Jewish man. Balthazar often dropped by for a chat and one of Samu’s powerful coffees. The two men talked about how the neighbourhood was changing, as it evolved into the buli-negyed, or party quarter, the old shops and cafés slowly turning into trendy bars and eateries that were crowded with tourists every night, leaving the locals with fewer and fewer places to go. Even worse, in the spring and summer the pavements, especially in the morning, were often spattered with vomit or pools of urine.
Several months ago Samu had surprised Balthazar with the news that he was selling up. Balthazar was shocked: Samu bacsi was an institution. He kept erratic hours and charged almost nothing for his repairs, but everyone in District VII knew him. But soon he would be seventy-five, Samu told Balthazar, so it was time to retire properly. Somewhat to Samu’s amazement, the value of his premises was enough for him to retire and buy a new apartment for himself and his wife in one of the fancy riverside blocks in District XIII with a concierge, a balcony and view over the Danube. Even better, the purchaser was his grandson, Mishi.
It was Mishi who greeted Balthazar as he walked into Javitas. The old fading paintwork had been stripped away, the cracked parquet slats and the creaking wooden window frames had all been replaced. Javitas had a new floor of wide grey planks, white plaster walls, and a jumble of used furniture dating back to the 1970s and 1960s. Charlie Parker drifted from a Bose sound system, and the air was rich with the smell of brewing coffee.
Behind the counter was a blackboard with the day’s specials: a new coffee from Ecuador, vegan stir-fry noodles with tofu, a gluten- and sugar-free banana cake. Javitas was a pleasant and welcoming place, the kind of café loved by hipsters from Budapest to Berlin and Brooklyn. But what lifted it from the legion of trendy eateries now colonising the city were the framed photographs of Samu bacsi at work. Some showed him as a young man, others just before he retired. The walls were also bedecked with souvenirs from across the decades: framed newspaper clippings, faded family photographs, posters for films and gigs by long-forgotten Hungarian rock bands. Perched on shelves and in various alcoves were some of the items Samu bacsi had worked on: an ancient black typewriter, an anglepoise-style lamp, a wooden radio. It was a loving homage.
Mishi put down the coffee cup he was polishing as Balthazar walked up to the long, zinc counter. Mishi was short and podgy with black hair tinged with grey, a goatee beard, soft features and shrewd brown eyes. Mishi had recently returned to Budapest after several years living in London, where he had opened several coffee bars in Hoxton, the area of central London known as ‘Silicon Roundabout’ for the number of tech firms that had opened up there.
He smiled when he saw Balthazar. ‘Drink? Eat?’ he asked. ‘We have a fabulous limited-edition new roast from Ecuador. Notes of caramel and burned orange, a long finish.’
Balthazar laughed as shook his head. They both knew that he had no interest in the fine gradations of coffees from different countries. ‘A Samu, please.’
A Samu meant coffee like Mishi’s grandfather used to make: a thick, tepid sludge, brewed from a vacuum-packed supermarket blend of cheap robusta beans.
Mishi pretended to looked pained. ‘OK. If you insist.’ He looked at Balthazar, sensing there was a reason for today’s visit. ‘Something else I can help with?’
Balthazar looked around before he spoke. The only other customer, a teenage girl with green-streaked hair, was sitting in a far corner, deeply involved with her mobile telephone. He leaned on the counter, then asked, ‘Is Vivi in?’
‘So you’re not here for the vegan stir-fry?’
Balthazar laughed. ‘One day. Promise.’
