Lion - Most Wanted

Prologue

PrologueBudapest, Hungary

The tram bell chimed in the silence of the dawn.

Istvan Kello waited for the carriages to rumble by. Hands jammed in the pockets of his jacket, caution in his step, he ventured across the intersection. He reminisced the days of his youth with a wry chuckle. His friends and he dared to — stupidly — bound across the tracks before an oncoming tram. Now at sixty-eight years, afflicted with a knee injury that gifted him a limp, he was the only survivor of that raucous lot. It would be ironic if he met his end plastered across the front of a tram.

Upon reaching the opposite side of the road, Kello willed away his morbid thoughts. He descended the stairs to the embankment.

The fog over the Danube swirled on a cool breeze. Ahead, Budapest's iconic bridges were invisible in the ethereal shroud, but for the ghostly incandescence of their lights over the Danube.

Kello inhaled and started his riverside jog toward the parliament buildings. Initially, his bum knee accentuated his awkward gait. His face contorted in a grimace. He did not concede to the discomfort. If he did not exercise, his knee would deteriorate and cripple him. And the former Hungarian police officer refused to imagine being remembered as a man who faded away .

A hundred metres later Kello had coaxed himself into a comfortable pace that matched the rhythm of his breathing. The promenade was bereft of pedestrians. He slipped beneath Liberty Bridge. Within a few hours, it would be bustling with tourists. He passed moored tourist boats and floating restaurants. Elisabeth Bridge and the Chain Link bridge swept overhead. He consulted his Fitbit, a gift — no, a proxy — from a son who could not check in on Istvan as often as he would like. Kello was averaging 160 bpm, which was encouraging for his age and the intensity of his calisthenics.

Ahead, was The Shoes on the Danube monument.

In the final months of World War II, Arrow Cross militia executed 3500 people on the banks of the river. Before they — children, women, men — were shot, their executioners ordered them to step out of their shoes because footwear was valuable during the War. In 2005, film director Can Togay and sculptor, Gyula Pauer installed the memorial near the Budapest parliament building. 60 pairs of period-appropriate iron shoes. A solemn reminder of the horrifying episode.

Kello always took a few respectful moments by the monument. He paused, hands clasped by his waist, as if in prayer. He was facing southwest. Across the river, in Buda, the Liberty monument surmounting the citadel atop Gellért Hill was tinged with the first rays of sunrise. The sky was hastening toward a glorious cerulean blue, a shade he believed was peculiar to Budapest. It was a sight he never tired of.

Something caught his lower peripheral vision. It was a body. Slowly-rotating, face-down on the river. It took a second to comprehend before Kello’s latent law-enforcement reflexes surfaced. The river would sweep the body past the moored boats. Kello hurriedly retraced his steps, keeping pace with the body. Calling for help at the top of his voice, he broke into a sprint, angled toward the gangplank of a boat. Kello ducked beneath the chain prohibiting access to the gangplank. He stumbled with his protesting knee. The sound drew the attention of the solitary figure on the stern deck. The man was about Kello’s age. Before he could speak, Kello appraised him of the situation and pointed to the body hook he held. He had been using the hook to dislodge garbage collected between the boat and the pier.

As one, the pair rushed to the riverside of the boat and stretched the hook as far as they could. Kello anchored the other guy, giving him more reach. The hook snagged the body. Straining, they drew it in and hoisted the water-logged unfortunate onto the deck. Kello flipped the body over, intending to perform mouth-to-mouth.

And stopped.

He immediately deduced two things. One, the skin was not wrinkled and pale. The body had not been long in the water. And two…

Drowning was not the cause of death.

Kello grimly regarded the raw knife wound, stretching from ear to ear across the man’s neck.