The Spider of Sarajevo

by Robert Wilton

  Belcredi was pointing a pistol at his chest. ‘Ah, Ballentyne; you make excellent time.’

  After the jolt, Ballentyne found himself oddly unperturbed. The Austrian anthropologist had become a part of his disrupted world; distasteful but unavoidable. After Albania, after Serbia, even the physical threat was becoming tiresome rather than frightening.

  ‘This how you do your research, is it, Belcredi? Breaking into other men’s studies?’ Life itself seemed rather wearying.

  Something flickered in Belcredi’s face. ‘You are the fool here, Ballentyne. You have acted completely according to our plan.’

  ‘Happy to help.’ Isabella had said he needed to belong.

  ‘We knew you would lead us to the house of your contact here.’

  ‘He’s dead, is he? Strangest ideas of anthropology you have.’

  ‘Your friend was not here when we arrived. But do not worry; we shall have him yet.’ He waved the pistol in Ballentyne’s direction. ‘You were supposed to lose me a little earlier. Tenacious Ballentyne, eh? You forced a little change in our plans.’

  ‘The police; at the station. That was arranged?’

  Belcredi grinned and nodded.

  ‘The men in the alley too?’

  Grin and nod. Ballentyne scowled. ‘Clever.’

  ‘I lured you’ – the verb was drawn out pleasurably – ‘to Vienna. We judged that once you lost me here you would make contact with your associates. We were going to follow you, but when you thoughtfully gave the address to the cabman, you gave us the opportunity to come here ahead of you. Avoid any tricks. And better to get you in off the street; all this running is so tiring, I think.’

  ‘You’re out of condition. Too much politics, not enough fieldwork.’ Was Belcredi really alone?

  ‘Your old friend Hildebrandt will be joining us shortly.’ A flicker of fear; the memory of fear. ‘He is anxious to see you again.’ That eternal evil smile. ‘He would have been here now. But your temporary persistence meant he had to divert to take care of… certain other business. You will not be the only British agent captured this evening. Perhaps not the first to die, either. We shall see.’ Again the smile.

  A breath. ‘It sounds as though the company’ll be better on the other side anyway.’

  A mighty clattering from outside, metal on metal, and they both flinched; Belcredi spun towards the window, and Ballentyne jumped at the stairs. He took the half-flight in one, floundering off pictures and crashing into the wall at the bottom, legs and elbows burning, and the air was a roar and a shattering as a bullet smashed one of the frames over his head; pushing himself off with aching arms, stumbling down the rest of the stairs and flinging a fist at the servant as he emerged, feet hammering behind him and another shot, grappling with the door and wrenching it open. I want to belong; I am not done living. And he leaped for the pavement and then the street, and there was a shrieking and a clanging and a blazing light and the world was a tram and it swallowed him.

  Knox

  The station clock struck six, but Knox didn’t hear it. He was first out of the train, eyes set and striding hard. His attention was entirely on the immediate physical factors in his world: the bodies, the faces, the luggage, the windows from which his progress might be watched; the interruptions, the threats. The thinking had been done. The old man had named a contact in Vienna; a music teacher. If he hadn’t got away already he was at risk, and the old man wanted to limit the damage from whatever chaos was now unfolding. Also, if by chance he was still in Vienna, a useful ally. After that, locate the four agents: protect if necessary; learn from everything.

  There was a handful of policemen at the end of the platform. Two came together to form a funnel for those coming off the train. A couple in front of Knox were waved through.

  He relaxed himself. Awareness. Watchfulness. But best to lose the expression and posture of a British soldier coming to wreak havoc.

  The gap between the soldiers narrowed, and then closed. A pair of uniforms, of blank determined faces. Edgy; they knew him for a threat. Someone close behind him.

  ‘Mein Herr, will you come with us, please?’

  There was a click behind him, a revolver being cocked.

  Not a question, then.

  He looked around the faces. All determined; all waiting for the danger. A handful of them, weapons ready, in a crowded civilian environment.

  He nodded. Cold smile.

  No checking; no questioning. They knew him.

  Two uniforms came tight beside him, the third behind with pistol at his back, and they set off at a march across the concourse.

  It looked like the old man had been right, then. Vienna was a trap, and for him as well.

  Cade. James Cade just a few yards away on the concourse, gaping. Get away with you, man. Get well clear. Then Cade was past, and he was being steered towards a door that opened in front of him and closed quickly behind; a corridor, the sound of the boots different. Another uniform in front of him, another grim face, and the escort stopped and the man was rummaging in Knox’s jacket and pockets; his pistol was removed like it was a dead rat. Another door, and a bare waiting room.

  The door closed behind him; a lock clicked.

  Table; two chairs. One window, high, only mesh protecting it but too narrow for shoulders. Filing cabinet, empty. A print of the Emperor Franz Joseph, looking pretty disapproving.

  He sat, facing the door.

  They may have some idea who I am and what I am. But they have nothing on me here.

  He pulled out a cigarette, and lit it.

  Frustration. Mission interrupted. Wondering what was happening to his agents. Need to focus on immediate problem.

  Waiting for me. Knew of me. Vienna was a snare indeed, and it turned out he wasn’t the gamekeeper, but just another rabbit. So what is happening to my agents?

  Time passed. Escape? He’d kick through the door panel all right, but there was no telling who was on the other side. For now play innocent; keep ’em confused, gauge the situation. Feign some kind of seizure? It might come to that. Escape a last option.

  The door opened, and two men stepped in: one the chap who’d taken his pistol off him – officer of some kind perhaps – and the other a guard.

  The officer looked at him; frowned. You like to sit this side, don’t you, old lad? He sat with his back to the door. Knox said, in English: ‘Can you please tell me why I have been arrested?’

  ‘You know why.’

  ‘I sincerely don’t. Some misunderstanding perhaps.’

  ‘We know who you are.’

  ‘Well that’s good. I know who I am, too. But it still doesn’t explain why I’ve been arrested.’

  ‘You have not been formally arrested.’

  ‘Kidnapped, then.’

  ‘You are an agent of your government. A spy.’

  ‘Pardon me, I am a soldier of His Majesty. I wear a uniform.’

  ‘You are not wearing a uniform now.’

  ‘I’m on my holidays. I was told Vienna was very lovely.’

  ‘You take many holidays in Europe, I think.’

  ‘I like to travel.’

  ‘Why do you carry a pistol?’ Life in the eyes; he was pleased with that one.

  ‘I’ve been attacked by robbers in… Turkey twice, Italy once, and France once.’ He smiled. ‘Never before in Austria.’

  The officer didn’t get it, or didn’t bother. He considered Knox for a while, and then his face wrinkled in indifference. He stood, and walked out, and the guard followed.

  The door was closed and locked again.

  Knox gazed at it.

  You’re not interested in me at all, are you? Doesn’t matter who I am or what I’m doing. All you want to do is hold me.

  He stood. Either they were waiting for someone else to come and take him. Or they were doing something else and they didn’t want him complicating it.

  He rechecked the window; tried to imagine the squeeze. Tested the door handle; tapped at its panels. Wha
t is happening to my agents?

  He paced. He visualized the map of Vienna in his head. Played and replayed actions and itineraries for the moment when he got past the door. Every five minutes he did twenty press-ups. Blood flowing. Ready for the whistle.

  After five repetitions of this he’d had enough. They were clearly prepared to keep him as long as it suited them. That, by definition, could not suit him. What is happening to my agents? Stuck in this room he was neutralized; passive. No options, no opportunities.

  Time to break their rhythm. He moved to the door, felt the panels again. A series of actions, as many as possible to be completed before they put him down: kick through panel, reach for key or if no key create wider hole, get through door, subdue anyone between him and external door, through external door, run through station, no dawdling, keep running until first moving transport appears whether tram, carriage, horse or indeed old man on bicycle. However far he got, he would have changed their plans and created new opportunities for himself.

  He stepped back from the door. Three deep breaths. Punch anything that moves. Put it down. He raised his foot and brought it back. Another breath.

  The lock clicked and the door opened, and the officer was in the doorway.

  ‘You are free to go.’ He seemed disappointed.

  Knox got his heartbeat under control, then stepped into the corridor before they had a chance to change their minds. ‘My pistol?’

  A sniff. ‘You do not have the necessary permit. There is a procedure—’

  ‘Keep it. Way things are going, you’ll be needing a decent firearm.’

  He left. Closed the door behind him. Instinct to hurry; to run! A fraction of a second with his fingers still pressed against the door behind him. Bit sudden, wasn’t it? Something had happened. Something was about to happen.

  He dropped his bag at the left luggage office, partly because he didn’t want the burden and partly because it was a natural next step from there to the lavatory adjacent, which as he’d hoped had a window that did accommodate the Knox shoulders. A moment later he was through and out and pushing into the Viennese evening.

  Walk to first corner. Run for two more changes of direction. Then look for transport where there was no chance of it being a stooge. Through the warmth and the grandeur, among top hats and frock-coats and elegant dresses and furled parasols, a man in a foreign suit dodged and swerved and ran. He picked up a cab on Heinestraße, got down at the Rossauer Barracks, as the clocks were chiming seven. He walked the rest of the way, zigzag and double back.

  He was thirty yards along Porzellangasse when its silence was interrupted by a noise somewhere behind him. A thump of some… A loose paving slab? He didn’t turn; walked on. He stopped at a house that didn’t have a number, peering for it. The shuttered window was mirror enough to show a figure on the other side of the road, a little behind him, now stopped as well.

  Knox walked on. Hadn’t been followed; sure he hadn’t been followed. So the man – perhaps there were men – were waiting here. Which meant they had the address. Not good… He was now marked again; his movements restricted at what looked like an increasingly crucial time.

  Number 33.

  He walked on; didn’t hesitate. But there was an alley adjacent, and that might serve… He ducked into it. Nice and gloomy as night came on. A short way along it there were two dustbins. They’d have to do.

  Ten seconds later a figure appeared at the alley entrance. It hesitated, a shadow against the lamplit houses opposite. It was looking for Knox’s shadow walking away down the alley, and could not see it.

  The figure came into the alley. Cautious. Careful. Five yards; three yards; one yard, and then Knox launched himself upwards, shoulder into stomach and driving the man back into the wall. A roar of discomfort, and Knox was wrenching himself free and looking for the mark. The man staggered, caught a breath, came near upright and Knox punched him full in the face, pushed his head back against the wall and jabbed for the throat. The man dropped, retching for a breath that would not come, and Knox picked his moment and kicked him in the head.

  Now the man went still. Knox gave it a moment to be sure, then sank to his haunches beside the body. There was breathing, shallow and far away. He’d be unconscious a good while. Knox was about to rise, but on a whim rifled through the man’s jacket. No papers, but there was a pistol, which he took.

  It felt very much like his pistol.

  He knelt closer. ‘One day soon, old chap,’ he whispered, ‘you’re going to come across Valentine Knox in a fair fight. He’ll be ready.’ This time the pistol went in an outer pocket.

  Then he stood and set off down the alley at a jog. The house of the music teacher was somehow a focus for the enemy; under observation at least, or they had something more in hand. He had to come at it from a different direction now. Ten yards brought him into a cul-de-sac; fifty yards down that brought him to a side street. He forced himself down to a fast walk – a few people around him now in the dusk – and followed back towards Porzellangasse. He crossed straight over it into another side street, and looked for the turn that would bring him round in the direction of Number 33 again.

  From somewhere, a faint clattering burst into the quiet of the evening; instinctively he thought of his dustbins, but ignored the thought and hurried on. Turn. The Viennese town planners hadn’t been as logical as an English spy might have hoped, but he was heading in the right direction at least.

  A gunshot.

  No mistaking it, even at a distance. Then another. He began to jog again.

  It took only a few minutes to work back to Porzellangasse, and he came out roughly where he’d aimed: on the opposite side to Number 33, a few dozen yards away.

  But now there was a crowd near the house: gawpers, gathered around something, and it only confirmed the presumption that the gunshots were somehow his business.

  There was a woman hurrying away up the street, and for a moment something about the set of the head seemed familiar. Instinctively he started to move, then stopped himself with a hiss. Enemy ground; no distractions. But what if— Again the restraint. What if it wasn’t her?

  He quartered the ground before stepping out of his shadows: to his right, a motor car, the driver inside; nearby, a tram, stopped, dark, empty; beyond it the gawpers, perhaps one dozen; beyond them Number 33. The tram? Was the commotion to do with the tram, rather than with the gunshots? Speculation. Once again he looked up and down the street, concentrating on the shadows where other watchers might like him be lurking. Then he moved out towards the crowd; fair cover, at least.

  The crowd were gathered around a body. Head smashed in, poor devil. The tram it had been, then. There was a dark-haired fellow tending to the body – No… Not tending, checking. Hands pulling at the jacket that had half covered the distorted torso, rummaging. Then he found something – Knox couldn’t see whether it was a paper or a mark of some kind – and turned to someone behind him and hissed ‘Ballentyne!’ and Knox became ice.

  He looked again at the jacket; perhaps it did seem familiar. He forced another look at the obscene face, trying to conjure a living Ballentyne out of the tissue. You poor bastard… And like this.

  The dark-haired chappie was up and his associate was saying something to him, and now Knox was re-considering him. Then you, sir, I presume, are the enemy. He mapped the face; handsome sort of Hun. Now the man was snarling at the associate. ‘I can’t!’ he snapped in German. ‘I have to see the damned Scotsman.’

  Cade. Ye gods, had the trap worked so well?

  Now the man was pushing out of the crowd and striding off, the associate hurrying behind, and Knox knew he had to follow them. The old man’s priority: the enemy network, not the agents. Knox shook his head, but moved to the pavement and began to shadow the two men. Seconds later they were at the motor car, though, and climbing into it and it was turning and accelerating into the evening. And Knox was left in the street, no one left to follow, the body of a dead agent abandoned in the gutter b
ehind him.

  Come on, damn you. At the end of the street he found a cab, and within minutes it had him at the hotel where Cade had reported he’d be staying. Trace Cade. A chance to find both him and the dark-haired Hun. Two birds. He forced a smile for the clerk. ‘Good evening; I’m supposed to be meeting a friend who is staying here: Mr James Cade. Now I worry he thinks we are meeting in the city.’ The clerk’s finger began to run down the register in front of him. Upside down, Knox saw that one of the most recent entries was Cade. ‘Ah, yes of course! Mr Cade.’ Finger tapping the name. The one below it looked good and Teutonic. Von something. ‘I beg your pardon, sir.’ Von Waldeck. Knox looked up. ‘I didn’t connect the sound and the spelling. I’m afraid he has gone out, sir. I remember now. Perhaps half an hour ago.’

  ‘Did he say where he was going?’

  ‘I don’t remember, I’m afraid. He may have asked directions, but I – I don’t remember.’

  Von Waldeck? ‘It is quite important.’ Uncomfortable shrug from the clerk.

  Running out of avenu— Hathaway’s friend, surely.

  He glanced down at the register again. The name below Von Waldeck was Hathaway.

  ‘Another question, then. We were hoping to see another pair of acquaintances in Vienna as well. Miss von Waldeck and Miss Hathaway.’

  ‘Oh yes, sir. They are staying with us.’ Sympathetic. ‘They are also out this evening.’

  ‘You don’t, by any chance—’

  ‘Oh yes, sir! I took the message myself.’

  Another race through Vienna, and now he hardly cared about concealment. A gold piece thrust at the driver and a roared order. Whatever the enemy plan was, it was happening now. The trap had been sprung. The hooves clattered over the cobbles like a fusillade, the cab lurching and swaying dangerously on the turns; at last, an Austrian who could be kicked out of complacency. Duval – God only knew where Duval was. Ballentyne was dead. Cade was presumably in the hands of the enemy. But Hathaway…