“Yes,” said Kate. “Tomorrow.”

Voivoda Cioaba frowned deeply. “Tomarav?”

“Hetfo,” said O'Rourke. “Tomorrow. Monday night.”

“Ahhh . . . hetfo .. . . yesss, ve cross tomarav night . . . Monday. It isss . . . iss all . . . how do you say? . . . arranged.” The Gypsy swirled fingers in front of his face. “Sajnalom . . . my son, Balan . . . he speak the English very good, but he . . . business. Yesss?”

Kate nodded. “And have we agreed on how much?”

Voivoda Cioaba squinted at her. “Kerem?”

“Mennyibe kerul?” said O'Rourke. He rubbed his thumb and fingers together. “Penz.”

The Gypsy threw his hands apart as if brushing away something in the air. He held up one finger and pointed at Kate. “Ezer . . . you.” He pointed at O'Rourke. “Ezer . . . you.”

“One thousand each,” said O'Rourke.

“U.S. American dollars cash,” said Voivoda Cioaba, enunciating carefully.

Kate nodded. It was what Father Janos had communicated to O'Rourke earlier.

“Now,” added the Gypsy. His teeth flashed.

Kate shook her head slowly. “Two hundred for each of us now,” she said. “The rest when we meet our friend in Romania. “

Voivoda Cioaba's eyes flashed.

“Ketszaz ejszakat . . . ah . . . tonight,” said O'Rourke. “Nyolcszaz on erkezes. Okay?”

Kate extended the envelope with the four hundred dollars in it, Voivoda Cioaba lifted it with nimble fingers and slid it out of sight under the sheepskin jacket without glancing within, and there came the flash of gold. “Okay.” His hand came out with a map and he spread it on the pew.

Kate and O'Rourke leaned closer. The Gypsy's blunt finger stabbed at Budapest and began following a rail line southeast across the country. Voivoda Cioaba's voice had the hypnotic lilt of litany as he recited the names of stops along the way. Kate closed her eyes and accepted the litany in the incense smelling darkness of the cathedral.

“Budapest. . . Ujszasz . . . Szolnok . . . Gyomaendrod Bekescsaba . . . Lokoshaza . . .”

Kate felt the vibration through her leg as the Gypsy's finger stabbed heavily at the map. “Lokoshaza.”

Chapter Twenty-three

KATE knew the Orient Express from the Agatha Christie book and from countless movies: plush cars, elegant dining, luxurious fittings everywhere, and stylish but mysterious passengers.

This was the Orient Express, but not that Orient Express.

She and O'Rourke had arrived early for the seven P.m. departure from Budapest's Keleti Railway Station. The place had been bustling and echoing, a huge, outdoor, ironandglass open shed that reminded Kate of etchings of train stations from the previous century. She knew the terminal at the opposite end of this tripBucharest's Gara de Nord Stationbecause she and other World Health Organization workers had gone there in May to document the hundreds of homeless children who lived in the station itself, sleeping in broken lockers and begging from hurrying passengers.

She and O'Rourke had prepaid lbusz, the Hungarian state tourism agency, for two firstclass apartments on this Orient Express, but when they checked in there was only one apartment available for them, and “first class” meant a narrow, unheated cubicle with two bunks, a filthy sink with printed warnings that the waterif availablewas dangerous and undrinkable, and only enough room for O'Rourke to sit on the low sink while Kate slumped on the bunk, their knees almost meeting. Neither complained.

The train started with a jolt, leaving the station on time. Both watched in silence as they sped out of Budapest, past the rows of Stalinist apartments on the outskirts, then through sparsely lighted cinderblock suburbs, and then into the darkness of the countryside as the train barreled south and east. Wind whistled through the loosely fitted windows and both Kate and O'Rourke huddled in overcoats.

“I forgot to bring food,” said the priest. “I'm sorry.”

Kate raised her eyebrows. “There's no dining car?” Despite the squalor of the “firstclass apartment,” she still had an image of elegant dining amid linen and porcelain vases holding fresh flowers.

“Come,” said the priest.

She followed him into the narrow corridor. There were only eight apartments in this “firstclass” car and all the doors were shut. The train rocked and bounced as they careened around curves at twice the speed of an American train. The sensation was that the car was going to leave the narrow-gauge rails at every turn.

O'Rourke slid back the heavy, scarred door at the end of the compartment; rows of heavy twine had been tied across the entrance. “The other end is the same,” said the priest.

“But why . . . “ Claustrophobia surged in Kate like nausea.

O'Rourke shrugged. “I've taken this train from Bucharest west, and it's the same coming the other way. Maybe they don't want the other travelers mixing with first class. Maybe it's some security precaution. But we're sealed in . . . we can get off the train when it stops, but we can't go from car to car. But it doesn't matter, because there's no dining car.”

Kate felt like crying.

O'Rourke rapped on the first door. A heavyset matron with a permanent frown answered.

“Egy uveg Sor, kerem, “ said the priest. Kate heard the first word as “edge.” O'Rourke looked over his shoulder at Kate. “I think we need a beer.”

The frowning woman shook her head. “Nem Sor . . . CocaCola . . . husz Forint. “

O'Rourke made a face and handed across a fifty-forint bill. “Keno CocaColas, “ he said and held up two fingers. “Change? Ali . . . Fel tudya ezt valtani?”

“Nem, “ said the frowning woman and handed across two small Coke bottles. She slid her door shut.

Back in the compartment, Kate used the Swiss Army Knife that Tom had given her to open the bottles. They sipped Coke, shivered, and watched black trees whip by the windows.

“The train gets into Bucharest about ten in the morning,” said O'Rourke. “Are you sure you don't want to stay on it?”

Kate bit her lip. “It seems nuts to get off in the middle of the night, doesn't it? Do you think I'm nuts?”

The priest drank the last of his soft drink and then paused another thirty seconds. “No,” he said at last. “I think the border crossing, might well be the end of the trip. Lucian warned us.”

Kate looked out at darkness as the train lurched around another bend at high speed. “It's paranoid, isn't it?”

O'Rourke nodded. “Yes . . . but even paranoids have enemies.”

Kate glanced up.

“Joke,” said the priest. “Let's follow the plan.”

Kate set her bottle down and shivered. She could not imagine traveling in this nightmare train during the dead of winter. The only illumination was from a single, sickly 10watt bulb set into the ceiling. “What's to keep the Gypsies from robbing and killing us?” she said.

“Nothing,” said O'Rourke. “Except for the fact that Janos has done business with them before and would tell the authorities if we just disappeared. I think we'll be all right.”

The headlight on the train illuminated trees passing in a strobe effect. Suddenly a pasture opened up into blackness and the sudden absence of trees made Kate dizzy. “Tell me about the Gypsies, O'Rourke. “

The priest rubbed his hands and blew into them for warmth. “Ancient history or recent?”

“Whichever.”

“European Gypsies or our Romanian variety?”

“Romanian.”

“They don't have an easy time of it,” said O'Rourke. “They were slaves until eighteen fifty-one.”

“Slaves? I thought European countries outlawed slavery long before that.”

“They did. Except for Romania. Except for Gypsies. They haven't fared much better during modern times. Hitler tried to solve the `Gypsy Question' by murdering them in concentration camps all over Europe. Over thirty-five thousand were executed in Romania during the war just for the crime of being Gypsies.”