Liberation Movements Read Online Free PDF

were guarding the place. Inside, a thin, spectacled political science student ran up to him. “Jesus, what are you doing here?”
    “I didn’t make it, Jan.”
    Jan gripped his shoulders and squeezed as tight as his weak fingers could manage. “Christ. Peter—”
    “I’m really tired. Can we talk later?”
    “Yes, yes. Of course.” Jan patted his back. “I’m glad you’re all right. Josef’s up there now.”
    He took the stairs to the second floor and paused in the empty corridor. The window at the far end was broken, and a cool evening breeze swept through. He took a breath and knocked on the door marked 305.
    “Yeah?”
    On one of the two cots, his roommate, Josef, lay with a book propped on his chest. Then he dropped it and was on his feet, his small, dark face twisting. “What happened?”
    “They caught me,” he said as he dropped into his own cot. “Neareské Budjovice.”
    “Where’s Toman?”
    Peter shook his head. “Toman and Ivana weren’t caught.”
    “They made it?”
    “I assume so.”
    Josef paced a moment, as if this news opened a whole new world to him. Then he stopped. “But you’re all right, Peter? They didn’t hurt you.”
    Peter stretched out and intertwined his fingers behind his head. “Just questions.”
    “And?”
    “And what?”
    “Did you give them anything?”
    Josef had never wanted to bring Peter in on the marches in the first place. He’s got no political conviction, Josef had told Toman. Peter shrugged. “I don’t know enough to tell them anything. You never let me know.”
    The pacing began again. “You see why now? If they’d gotten names out of you, there’d be hundreds more dead.”
    “Yes, Josef.”
    “They were around here, you know. Some bald bastard. Asking questions.”
    “Yes, I know.”
    “But at least Ivana and Toman made it. They’ll let the Americans know the truth.” He finally sat on his cot and clasped a knee. He sniffed. “Say, Peter…are you drunk?”
    “A soldier bought me drinks.”
    “One of ours?”
    Peter shook his head.
    “And you accepted his drinks?”
    “I needed them. If you’d ever been in prison, you’d know.” He closed his eyes. “All he wanted was to tell me about his girlfriend.”

Gavra
     
     
    Back in the arrivals lounge, Gavra lit another cigarette. His hand didn’t shake, but it seemed that it should. A plane had exploded. His stomach felt like it was working on a stone.
    Claustrophobic Ludvík Mas was still by the mullein, trying unsuccessfully to look patient. Gavra scanned the other faces in the crowd, old women and young men and whole families. There was no concern in their sweating faces, only frustration. Some approached the information desk, and the girl did a good job with her smiles and sympathetic shakes of the head, as if she really didn’t know what was going on. Maybe she didn’t.
    Ludvík Mas checked his watch. He confirmed it with a clock on the wall—6:48 in the morning—then walked over to the telephones. Gavra joined him, two down.
    “…nothing, that’s what I’m telling you. And they’re not saying anything.”
    Gavra tapped cigarette ash on the floor and began to dial.
    “Who told you that?…I would have noticed something, some activity…Okay. Yes, comrade, you’re right. It does appear she didn’t play along.”
    Then Mas hung up and walked out of the airport.
    The morning sun was hotter than Gavra expected, beating down as he slipped on his sunglasses and followed Mas across the parking lot to where he got into a rented beige Mercedes. Gavra half-jogged to his Renault.
    On the drive back into Istanbul, he convinced himself that Ludvík Mas was behind the hijacking. There was no reason to believe this, but he believed it just the same, and he was self-aware enough to know why. He was too attached to surfaces, always falling victim to that word Brano Sev enjoyed harping on—sentimentality. It is, Brano had told him numerous times, the demise of all good operatives,