investigation.”
“Oh, that, ” Glenda said. She took a sip of her drink, looked at it, then took another sip before setting it on the table. “Well, you didn’t hear it from me, okay?”
Sophie waited.
“They found him.”
“Who?”
“The man.” She held Sophie’s gaze. “The killer.”
Her vision went a little fuzzy. “When?”
“Yesterday. Morning, I think. They don’t have him, not in custody, but they got his picture on CCTV at Keleti Station—he took the Munich train.”
Sophie blinked, trying to clear her sight, but it was hard. She felt a lump in her throat. “All yesterday you were with me. Ray came for dinner.”
“It’s hush- hush, Sophie. I shouldn’t even be telling you now.”
“But you knew?”
“Not until we got home. Ray told me.”
“Who is he?”
A shrug, then Glenda reached for her Cosmo again. “I don’t know. Albanian, though. Some Albanian prick.”
“And?”
“And nothing. That’s all Ray would give me. Maybe he knows more, maybe they’re just kicking around in the dark, but that’s all I know.”
Sophie closed her eyes, blocking out everything, then opened them again, but it was all the same. That zebra print, Glenda with her drink, and, in the distance, one of the tinted windows just above the sidewalk, where high heels and cheap casuals hurried by. She felt the same way she had felt twenty years before on the Charles Bridge, mourning the loss of her Lenin—ignorant, an outsider, an object of scorn.
“I need to make a call,” she said, taking her shoulder bag as she stood.
Glenda made a worried expression. “Not angry?”
She shook her head.
“Sisters?”
Sophie gave her a smile that felt entirely false. “Sisters, Glen. I’ll be right back.”
She climbed to the front door, stepped outside, the cold descending on her, and continued up to the sidewalk. There were two City Taxis coming up Üllői, and she waved at them. The second stopped. She climbed inside and said, “Ferihegy.” As they moved, she took out her phone and dialed Andras Kiraly’s number.
“Kiraly Andras.”
“Sophie Kohl.”
He took a breath. “Mrs. Kohl, how may I help you?”
“I’d like the name of the man who killed my husband.”
Another breath, a cough. “You haven’t been told this?”
“I suppose my friends forgot to mention it.”
He waited, as if his patience would convince her to hang up. It wouldn’t. She watched the dirty buildings pass by, shadows of a grander age. She had all the time in the world.
Finally, he said, “He has a Hungarian passport under the name Lajos Varga. However, his real name is Gjergj Ahmeti, and he is Albanian by birth. He is a known criminal, usually hired to kill people.”
“An assassin?” she said, but kept her voice low so that the driver wouldn’t hear.
“Yes.”
“Does he work for the Serbs?” she asked without thinking through the question.
“Why would you ask that, Mrs. Kohl?”
“I…” She wasn’t ready to share with him what she hadn’t shared with the embassy—or anyone, for that matter. She wasn’t ready to trust Andras Kiraly. “Sorry, I have to go now.” She hung up. Immediately, the phone began to ring. It was Glenda. She disconnected her friend, then turned off the phone.
SOURCE: WikiLeaks.org
“Cablegate: 250,000 US Embassy Diplomatic Cables”
AUTHOR: Harold Wolcott
9 December 2009
O 261214Z DEC 09
FM AMEMBASSY CAIRO
TO SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 1752
INFO NSC WASHDC IMMEDIATE
S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 03 CAIRO 001403
STATE FOR F
AID FOR AME
STATE ALSO FOR NEA/ELA
E.O. 18239: DECL: 12/09/2019
SUBJECT: FALSE PREDICTIONS RE: STUMBLER
Classified by DCM Frank Ingersoll for reasons 1.4 (c) and (d).
¶1. (C) Summary and Key points: This is an analysis of the May 2009 draft proposal, AE/STUMBLER. Based on present assessments of the regime in Tripoli, the primary assumptions behind STUMBLER are in doubt. It is the belief of this embassy that the operation should be abandoned
Erma Bombeck
Lisa Kumar
Ella Jade
Simon Higgins
Sophie Jordan
Lily Zante
Lynne Truss
Elissa Janine Hoole
Lori King
Lily Foster