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modest front door of the grandest hotel in Paris. He could not remember the last time he’d felt so full of purpose.
    Leo was not the first to arrive. Janos Bacso was already engaged in conversation with a man whom Leo did not recognize.
    The newcomer was short. His face was round, his mouth thin, and his eyes slightly almond-shaped. He had black hair and a dark olivecomplexion. His badly cut suit was made from a fabric with a loud stripe that might have looked decent on someone taller, but looked comical on him as he sat with casual arrogance in an armchair made for a finer class of person. At first Leo thought he was a gypsy, but immediately disregarded that possibility. Janos Bacso would never do business with a gypsy.
    Bacso made the introductions. “Allow me to present Imre Károly, the chief of police of Budapest. He’ll be participating in our meeting tomorrow evening.” Károly rose from his seat. Leo automatically extended his arm to shake the man’s hand, then resisted the urge to wipe his own hand off on his pants. He’d never seen Károly, but he’d certainly heard of him. Few people in Budapest had not. He was one of Gyula Gombos’ chief henchmen. Gombos was the head of Hungary’s small but noisy Fascist party. Although the Fascists had not garnered much popular support among the Hungarian voters, through sheer ruthlessness and the maximization of their few political connections they’d managed to place some people, like Károly, in positions of power. Leo wondered why Bacso was involved with this man.
    It was not the first time that he’d been forced to be gracious to an avowed anti-Semite. His post as concierge required that he ignore the political opinions of the hotel guests, but this was testing the limit. On the other hand, he couldn’t back out just because he didn’t like the company. There might be valid security reasons for including the chief of police. He would have to wait and see how the game played itself out.
    Soon five men were in the room: Leo, Bacso, Graetz, Mitchell, and Károly. Despite his burning curiosity about how to accomplish his electronic surveillance, Leo didn’t feel comfortable broaching the issue when everyone else seemed content to make small talk. Graetzand Károly debated the relative merits of two types of machine guns. Mitchell told several bawdy tales about what services one could buy from a Chinese whore in a seedy quarter of Shanghai known as Hongkew. After forty-five minutes Bacso dismissed the group, reminding them that the time and place for tomorrow’s all-important negotiations would be communicated via a message delivered to their respective hotels. He asked Leo and Károly to stay for a few moments, to discuss “logistics.”
    “Leo,” Bacso began, “each of us is going to spend the day preparing for certain aspects of tomorrow’s meeting. Imre is here as our electronics expert. He has valuable experience in this area, and will assist you in learning how to use the telephone wiretaps we will be utilizing. I’ll leave you two alone to get acquainted.”
    So that’s it, thought Leo. He’s the espionage expert. Must come in handy in his business.
    “So how about some lunch before we get to work?” Károly offered, proceeding to pinch his bottom lip between his thumb and forefinger in an absent-minded gesture Leo found particularly repugnant. This was going to be a long day after all; at least until he could escape and meet Martha.
    They decided to eat in a restaurant overlooking the Place de la Concorde. After relieving them of their overcoats, a disenchanted waiter led them to a poorly positioned table. Károly sat down and immediately ordered cocktails for them both. Some of the hostility Leo was feeling toward the offensive little man must have spilled out from under his normally composed demeanor, for Károly gave him a suspicious look.
    “Do you have something on your mind?” he asked.
    Leo came up with an excuse for his scowl. “Just