This Drakotny_A Gripping Spy Thriller

by Philip McCutchan

  “Which, in particular?”

  Smiling still, he said, “You shall see, you shall see. It is Christmas Day. I think there is a saying in your country, is there not — the better the day, the better the deed. What day could be better than Christmas Day, to a Christian?”

  I nodded. “True. And I’m a Christian, all right. But not you, Drakotny.”

  “Also true. Yet many of my countrymen follow your Christ, and we have not forbidden worship. Today, many people will go to the churches. And Racilek is still in Moscow.”

  I felt danger again, very strongly now. I asked, “What’s that got to do with it, Comrade Drakotny?”

  “It was Racilek’s habit to attend a service on Christmas Day. In the Castle. A public service. This year, I shall attend in his place. I feel it to be my duty.” Once again, he put a hand on my shoulder. “I am not all bad, Commander. Not all iron and blood and guts. I try to be representative of all the people in my country.”

  I frowned; something was troubling me, at the back of my mind currently, but thrusting forward. “Why are you telling me all this?” I asked. “What’s behind it?”

  He said, “Today, this morning, I shall be among the public.”

  I got there. “You’ll be vulnerable. Do you really think the attempt will be made today, in church?”

  He shrugged and said, “Yes, it is possible.”

  “It’s known that you’ll be attending?”

  “Of course.”

  “You’ll be adequately protected?”

  He caught Colonel Starke’s eye and smiled again. “One hopes so, does not one, Comrade?”

  Starke said, “You will be safe, Comrade Drakotny. I will answer with my life.”

  “Well spoken!” Drakotny turned to me once again. “This morning,” he said, “I think you are going to prove something to me finally. And at the same time, I think you are going to get one very, very big surprise.” He looked once more on the snow-covered streets; so did I. The square was coming more alive now, and children were throwing snowballs. The sun glinted, red and gold on the roofs and the fragile, frosty network of the acacias. My sense of danger grew; the nub of my mission was not far off now. Drakotny, I thought, was a brave man whatever else he was. He showed no fear of the unknown assassin’s bullet, or knife, or whatever it might be if and when it came. Maybe he had great faith in Colonel Starke, but I doubted if that would have been enough for me. Every assassinated statesman of the past must have had faith in his security bodyguard. While my thoughts were churning on, Drakotny moved away from me and spoke to Starke. He said quietly, “It is time for a report, I think, my friend. See to this, please.”

  “At once, Comrade.” From the corner of my eye I saw Starke go to the desk and pick up an internal telephone. I heard him speak into it, but couldn’t catch the words. He held the line for a while, then murmured an acknowledgement and put the instrument back on its cradle. To Drakotny he said, “Comrade, the suspect has left Olomouc Street with the old woman and is being kept under surveillance, though at the present she appears to be wandering aimlessly.”

  I saw both Drakotny and Starke looking at me and all at once I saw, blindingly, where all this had been leading. It was a tremendous shock.

  *

  Close to exhaustion in any case after all the experiences of the last few days, culminating in last night’s interrogation, and now in a state of numbness that amounted to a sort of suspended animation in my brain, I was scarcely conscious of contributing anything to the events of that morning. I know that soon after Starke had made that telephone call we all left the room and went down in the lift, and got into a car, and were driven to the Castle. I was aware that we went back to the splendid apartment in which I had first met Drakotny only the day before, and that we passed through this apartment to another, smaller, room, where steaming hot coffee and hot, spicy breakfast rolls were brought. I was made to eat and drink, and I was given a cigarette with the coffee. Physically it did me good; but I didn’t come through mentally. I kept thinking and thinking of Nada Strecka, Drakotny’s girl. Drakotny had got it all wrong, though I could see now why he had mounted that interrogation on me: he had a strong suspicion and he needed to know if I was part of the plot, part of Nada Strecka’s set-up. I wondered what had led to this suspicion, why he was as sure as it seemed he was. It could have been Vorsak: Vorsak could have found out something I hadn’t, and passed it on. I did in fact ask Drakotny, but all he did was to smile, and shake his head chidingly, and tell me to have patience.

  “The proof of the pudding, as I think you say, lies in the eating.” The smile widened. “Today it is Christmas pudding. We seek the sixpence.” He drank coffee; he was totally relaxed, I believe. He was so sure … perhaps relief had come with the very certainty of his apparent knowledge. The threat was no longer vague; not to him, anyway. As for me, I couldn’t bring myself to believe as Drakotny did. But I recalled Nada’s insistence on knowing from me what Drakotny had said about her, my wonderment as to why, as I had thought, she wanted to be hurt again. Perhaps she had needed to be hurt further by Drakotny, in order to screw her courage to the sticking point as it were, to give her intentions the greater steel of hate. Also, some of the slight mistrust that I’d felt, rightly or wrongly, had grown between us latterly could perhaps be explained — she may have fancied I had been responsible for her arrest and the resulting likelihood that her plans might have been wrecked. Again, she had never mentioned this surprising church service to me. I went on and on, churning the thing over in my head. Nada Strecka, and that poor old woman in her frayed and rusty black, wandering the streets of the city, aimlessly, with Nada, perhaps, still making up her mind, still screwing up her determination? If Drakotny was right, there could be only the one reason for what she was going to do: the fact of her rejection by Drakotny. That, and the filthy drugs. She wasn’t thinking straight any more; she was, in fact, mad. She was not responsible. I hoped Drakotny would bear that in mind afterwards. Afterwards? Oh, yes! He was so calm and collected that I knew, now, he was going to be all right himself. Nada wouldn’t have a chance; the church would be stiff with plain-clothes men, obviously, kneeling to God but keeping their hands on their concealed guns and their eyes on the suspect. They would let her through the security check, they would allow her to commit herself, to cross her Rubicon openly, and that would be it — this was precisely why Drakotny had released her. In my mind’s eye I could see the hard, wooden faces, watchful in the congregation, and I could hear the clump of the police-issue boots up the aisle as the posse trooped in and stealthily separated. There was something devilish in Drakotny’s allowing this charade to go on, in his permitting such an obscenity before God on Christmas morning. Thomas a Becket had been murdered by those devout, well-meaning knights in his own cathedral at Canterbury; there was no need for Comrade Drakotny to steal his thunder, and then survive to bask in the reflected glory of a saint. I found myself hoping, with all my heart, that Nada would bring it off! And balls to Lattenbury of the Foreign Office. He and the rest of his inane set of gilded bastard idiots had never had to witness the field work. I sweated, and I prayed; though only God knows what my prayers were about. I don’t; they were just a jumble. In between, I was cursing Drakotny and his cleverness. The whole thing was clear enough now. This was why Nada had been left behind last night, when Starke had come. She had to be left, she had to have her freedom, Drakotny needed a dead certain catch. Then he would act the martyr in front of the Czech people, with a fine excuse to start the blood bath.

  I became aware that Drakotny was watching me. I caught his eye and he smiled and said, “You must not worry, Commander. All will go well. You will see for yourself.”

  “I will?”

  “Yes. You shall come with me, to church. You will sit next to me. You see how I trust you now!”

  My head reeled. I said, “Yes, I bet you do.” There had to be some sort of trickery in it.

  He seemed to sense that thought, because he shook his head
and said, “I intend no subterfuge. You have come here, you say, to protect me. Very well, then! Protect me you shall. You will use your eyes. If the assassin should escape the vigilance of my police, I shall expect you to act as my last safeguard.” He got to his feet then, and came towards me, slowly. He stopped in front of me, and folded his thick, strong arms, and fixed that dynamic gaze on my face. His massive chin came forward and he said in a quiet, deep voice, “I do not wish to sound melodramatic, Commander, but if you fail, then I have left instructions that you will be sent into Russia and it may well be that you will be executed. At the very least, you will be sent to Siberia for the rest of your life. The same will happen to the Frumms, all of them, and also your Mr Bassett.”

  I said, “Don’t be ridiculous. Bassett’s only concerned with cabbages, not high policy. The Frumms are equally innocent.”

  Drakotny shrugged. “I have said what will happen.”

  Wearily I looked back at him. I asked, “Why all this bloody play-acting, Drakotny? Why don’t you just make an arrest and have done with the whole thing?”

  Drakotny laughed, a sound almost of indulgence. “Because, my friend and saviour, even I cannot be entirely sure until the act itself takes place!”

  He turned away from me, and went into a huddle with Colonel Starke. Was there, I wondered, some hope in what he had said? Would the whole thing collapse after all? Would Nada Strecka be absent, or, if she came, would she merely kneel and, in peace, worship God, with the eye of love and not death upon Drakotny? I was in a fever of uncertainty, and anxiety, and even, now, of impatience for the last act to begin. I had gathered from Drakotny that the service would start at eleven o’clock; and that his party — our party — would leave the Prime Minister’s suite at ten minutes to eleven. Before that, however, there were things to be done. For one, I had to be properly dressed. So I was taken, together with Colonel Starke, to another room where I stripped. My fouled-up clothing was taken away and a tame Castle tailor measured me and then came back with an assortment of reach-me-downs from which suitable gear was selected. I dressed, and then went back to join Drakotny, who was standing over a bottle of old brandy.

  “A drink before church,” he said, as he poured four glasses. “We shall drink a toast to —” He broke off. “Who shall we drink this toast to?” he asked, addressing me and handing me a glass. “To Racilek? To the British Foreign Office, to the British Queen? To women we have loved and lost? You shall choose, my friend and saviour!”

  I said, “To the acting Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia. He may be going to need it.”

  Drakotny looked devilish for a moment, then he burst into a roar of laughter, quite boisterous. “I agree!” he said. “Gentlemen, we drink to me!” We did; Drakotny drank with us, and when he had drained his glass, after changing glasses from one to another in accordance with Czech custom, he dashed his own into the ornate fireplace. After some hesitation, the rest of us did the same with ours. After this, Drakotny’s mood changed; he looked sad and pensive all of a sudden. Maybe he was remembering happier days with Nada. As for me, I was remembering that only yesterday I had come away from the presence with a good image of Drakotny. I’d gone right off him now; the charm, the apparent goodness, were no more than skin deep. Just a mirage.

  *

  It wasn’t far but we went in the car, with a police motor escort in front and behind and a plain-clothes man with a concealed gun sitting beside our driver. Drakotny and Colonel Starke and some sort of aide were sitting hack on the rear cushions, Starke’s friend and I were on the fold-up seats facing them. Even Drakotny was showing signs of nerves now; a muscle was ticking away at one corner of his mouth and he was silent. We were all silent. But nothing happened on that short drive, except that Drakotny was dutifully applauded by the crowd, and we got out of the car without incident, to be met at the west door of the church by the chaplain. We went in procession up the aisle and were shown into the front pew on the right of the church. I could almost smell police; and mv heart sank when, sitting four pews behind us but on the opposite side, I saw Nada Strecka and old Fräulein Frossen. Nada was as pale as death but seemed quite composed and I imagine she had done a little skin-popping or main lining before church. She was staring straight ahead and she didn’t catch my eye, but when, after sitting down, I stole a glance over my shoulder, I saw her staring hard at the back of Drakotny’s neck. From where she sat she had an excellent line of sight. That must have been sheer chance, but it did give her a fine opportunity to put a bullet in Drakotny’s skull. It would split like an egg. Someone, somewhere, would have to shift fast. Very fast, or I and the Frumms and poor innocent Bassett would be booked for the long drop or the salt mines in Siberia’s bitter cold. I reckoned Drakotny had meant that threat to be taken seriously. It was the sheerest revenge in intent, it wouldn’t serve any useful purpose from anyone’s point of view, but there it was. With Racilek in Moscow still, Drakotny’s instructions would be followed after his death. And the fact that Nada had turned up in the church wasn’t promising: one of my hopes as inspired by Drakotny’s confessing to less than total certainty had gone for a burton. I looked around the church, feeling the sting of death in the midst of celebration and holiness, incense and genuflexions. Drakotny himself, at my side, seemed unmoved; he hadn’t so much as glanced at Nada. He must have had enormous faith in the security arrangements — or in me. I hoped the security boys would do the job before it fell to my lot to save my neck by throwing Nada Strecka in the mud. I listened to the organ as music swelled through the nave and chancel, rising to the high roof; peals of Christmas joy, Christ is born, and God save Drakotny. I was willing to bet heavily that all the faithful were feeling dishonoured by the presence of that blood-red puppet dictator.

  I felt the cold shivers run up and down my spine.

  Then, just before the service started, something happened. Something so totally unexpected that, when I became aware of the cause of the stir behind me, I wondered if I had succumbed to the strain and gone suddenly mad.

  That stir in the congregation was almost an audible gasp.

  A gasp of pleasure, too.

  Heads turned, row upon row. Drakotny looked round impatiently; I heard the way he caught at his breath and softly swore. He was furiously angry. I turned, myself.

  A man was coming up the aisle, holding a woman’s arm; two children were behind them, and a man who looked like another of the plain-clothes security men. The man and the woman were smiling happily, and giving little inclinations of the head to right and left, like British royalty at a garden party. I recognized the man from Press photographs. It was Racilek. I looked across the aisle, towards Nada Strecka. She was following Racilek’s progress with interest and surprise, I thought, but I couldn’t really read her expression. Racilek came on towards our pew; we shifted to make room for his party. As he passed by Drakotny, Racilek, with a smile, bent down for a word with his deputy — as Drakotny would now become once again, I imagined. I heard what Racilek said: “I’ve never missed this service, Josef. Our friends in Moscow understood. I am sorry not to have let you know, but it was a sudden decision.”

  Drakotny nodded, and smiled, and mumbled something in reply, and Racilek moved on and sat a few places along on our right. I glanced at Drakotny’s face; it was like thunder and lightning. He was wondering, I expect, just why he hadn’t been told. It was obvious nonsense to say it was a sudden decision. Such decisions were never so sudden that they couldn’t be communicated while the decider was in flight. Drakotny was wondering what had gone wrong, what Racilek had fixed up in Moscow, who he was going to be able to trust from now on out.

  The service started. The organ swelled in a triumphant peal of the message of Christmas, the choir, singing hard, started up the aisle amid the incense, with the chaplain in rear. Other clergy, acolytes in birettas, stood up and sang in the wide chancel. The voices of choir, clergy and congregation lifted the roof; they were not joined by Drakotny, who was still looking immensely angry. Pe
rhaps more frightened too, by now; Racilek’s return strengthened the hand of the assassin. Then I recalled that this would no longer apply; Nada wouldn’t be bothered by such considerations. If she had any preference at all, it would presumably be for Drakotny’s regime. I glanced round at the girl, who was looking at her hymn book and singing with the rest. Both her hands were visible; the moment was not yet.

  Not from her direction.

  As the leading files of the choir drew abreast of our pew, a man sneaked round from the right, from some dark recess behind the great stone pillars. He was a funny little man, scrawny and monkey-faced, with untidy white hair, carrying an attaché-case. I didn’t pay much attention; if I thought anything at all, I thought he might be a reporter or a photographer out to make a scoop by recording Drakotny and Racilek together in church, singing a carol. But he didn’t scribble anything, and he took no photographs. He made a beeline for Drakotny, bobbing and bowing obsequiously, and grinning from that monkey’s face. Drakotny saw him, and scowled.

  In a harsh voice across me he said, with no attempt at any devout whisper, “What brings you here, Fierlinger?”

  “A moment only, Comrade,” Professor Fierlinger said, and scuttled to Drakotny’s side.

  I could almost feel the hair lifting on my scalp. How wrong could a Prime Minister be. Drakotny’s doctor, and a small leather attaché-case. I didn’t like attaché-cases, not after the Prospect of Whitby and Vaclav Vorsak. I wondered whose the copyright was — Vorsak’s, or Fierlinger’s. I threw myself on Fierlinger and I gave that attaché-case a godalmighty kick. It rose into the air, and spun towards the altar. Women screamed, and dozens of men drew guns. Acolytes scattered in horrified dismay, and one, sliding on the marble, ended up on his backside. Talk about chaos. I just beat the police, in other words about half the congregation, to the altar. The case had come open. There was the syringe, and the needle, and the spring, and the string, and the hole. It was neat, and Fierlinger just might have got away with it.