The Prague Ultimatum

by James Silvester

  The Captain ignored the creek of his knees as he pushed himself into action, quickly pulling his frame up to a full sprint towards the mystery man, who without even a suggestion of panic, slid into the throng of tourists clambering around the ornate pillar. Stone emerged on the other side of the tower with the tattered stranger nowhere to be seen.

  “Damn!” hissed Stone to himself, vainly scouring the milling swarm for any sign of the unknown figure. He began to traverse the perimeter of the Square, surely an impossible task given the multitudes within it, his annoyed expression eliciting the occasional mocking glance from the more inebriated members of the local custom as he continued on his fruitless patrol.

  The shrill ring from his mobile phone broke Stone from his obsession and a small and brief wave of excitement washed over him as he pulled the phone from his pocket in the hope his boy was returning his call. The disappointment that it was not his son’s name on the display was quickly quelled by the appearance of Natalie’s moniker, and he pressed the device to his ear, his eyes still flicking through the crowd.

  “Lincoln?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you alright?”

  “Yes, why?” he answered distractedly. “I mean, yes, I’m fine Natalie, thank you. Look, I’m sorry about earlier, I just think she’d have been better taking him on there and then, and then when you back her up…”

  “Where are you?” she interrupted.

  “In the Square, by the Clock Tower,” he answered, puzzled by her tone, “I thought I saw…”

  “Get to a bar, quickly,” she interrupted.

  “What?”

  “Get to a bar, a British one with a news channel, you need to see this.”

  There was a desperation in her voice which spurred him into action. Listening for the sound of British voices, Stone heard a collective roar from an inebriated stag group sat outside a pub wedged into the alcove of one of the Square’s side streets close to where he was standing. Jogging over, he squeezed past the drunkards and headed inside, phone still in hand, to the dark bar area, illuminated only by the light of a half dozen fruit machines and a hat trick of TV screens, all tuned to football updates. The unpalatable smell of stale alcohol greeted the Captain; the chipped, varnished wood of the bar sticky with uncleaned spillages upon which the remnants of cigarette ash and the occasional stub had been dumped. Stone grimaced as his palm pressed onto a cold and tacky deposit of spent gum, spread across the unpolished brass bar rail, and he hastily wiped his hand on the not altogether cleaner towel while trying to catch the attention of the disinterested teenager manning the fort.

  “Hey,” Stone gestured to him, “can you switch the news on mate?”

  “Are you drinking?”

  “Fine,” he answered in frustration, “I’ll have a pint of whatever’s on draft. News please?”

  The bored youth slunk a thick pint glass underneath a plastic tap and flicked the lever down, before taking what seemed like a deliberate age to locate the TV remote from behind hanging bags of cheese and onion crisps and dry roasted peanuts, eventually knocking the TV closest to the bar onto the European news.

  “Have you got it?”

  Stone heard Abelard’s voice through the phone and he pressed it again to his ear.

  “Ok, I’m here, what am I looking for?”

  “It’s Jonathan,” came the voice, “he’s…”

  “Yes, I know,” Stone’s face plummeted low, matching the hollowness he felt in his stomach as he watched the words flash up in stark, white capital letters against a sensationalist red background complimenting the looped video of Jonathan Greyson stepping from the doorway of Ten Downing Street and waving briefly to the camera before sliding into the waiting limousine. Were this any other time, or any other politician, Stone would have hopped straight to another channel without batting so much as a politically disengaged eyelid, but instead he stood rooted and open mouthed as the listless barkeep placed the crudely drawn beer on a mat in front of him, with a simultaneous demand for 48 Crowns. Stone made no move for his wallet, as the shot cut back to the studio for analysis, the lurid headline following.

  ‘FOREIGN SECRETARY DISMISSED’ read the banner, before a string of noble words and commendations from the usual band of rent-a-quote talking heads spewed under them across the screen like a stock market ticker tape.

  “He’s gone,” Stone murmured into the phone, odium engulfing him as the knowledge that the departing MP carried with him in his soon to be relinquished Ministerial limo, any and all hope of Stone’s promised exoneration. “He’s bloody gone.”

  NINE

  THROUGHOUT THE MANY BATTLES in his extended career, Captain Stone had always found it easy to adapt to whatever challenge was thrown at him; his enemies and his goals had always been clear, allowing him to focus his energies on overcoming the problem and pressing on. Would that his situation in these last days was so transparent; instead he found his enemies faceless and his goal, the exoneration he so desperately sought, had been pulled from his grasp, an apparent casualty of political score settling, leaving him devoid of objective and, more importantly of hope. It was that, far more than the unfamiliarity of the streets he pounded, that encouraged his adoption of the mantle of ‘stranger in a strange land’.

  Since the news of Greyson’s dismissal broke, it was as if Stone had been stupefied; his routine over the last couple of days involving little more than walking the streets and drinking in whichever bars he fell into before staggering back to his apartment and passing out, his phone in one hand and his son’s picture in the other. Ah, his boy, his boy! The thought of going home with his record expunged, his son being able to tell his friends that his Dad was a hero again and not the villain of the piece, had obsessed him now for so long that being robbed of that outcome had left a cavernous vacuum which the Captain was unable to fill. It was more for his son than himself that he yearned for absolution and each night since the sacking, he lay drunkenly maudlin on his bed, unable to dial his son’s number to break the news. Twice he had even made it to the airport, fully intending to board the first plane home, wrap the boy in his arms and confess all, but the fear of the disappointment it would bring him always made Stone turn back to the bar in search of a liquid courage which wouldn’t come. He was falling into a dangerous cycle, from which he needed to escape, but with his objective gone, he struggled to find the motivation to do it. Abelard had tried to help but Stone had refused, declining all invitations to meet and denying even Svobodova’s requests for meetings. He had likely offended Natalie in the process despite his efforts to remain polite, and with few others in this city likely to be interested, it was a mystery to him how he would break free.

  The conundrum still pecked at Stone as he made his way back to his apartment later that night, his mind unceasingly occupied as he jumped onto the cobbled street from the tram, swaying a little as the union of alcohol and night air began to flirt with his senses. The wide-open street was practically deserted, save for a scattered few mid-week tourists staggering towards whichever bars would allow them entry; their journeys illuminated by the bright lights of fast food joints, underground clubs and dank, corner house gambling dens, whose slot machines and roulette tables sang to the drunkards like world weary electronic Sirens.

  The seductive intoxication spurring him on, Stone felt in his pocket for any remaining crowns and quickly assessed their worth, heading towards another of the seemingly infinite number of convenience stores peppered into the streets in this part of town. After much pointing at the selection of bottles behind the counter, the ancient Vietnamese woman at the till, who insisted on shouting at him with all the linguistic intricacies of her mother tongue, passed Stone two dark bottles of some Bohemian mixture. He slapped the money down on the counter and slipped the bottles up his coat sleeves, stepping out of the door and yearning now for the sanctity of his apartment as the alcohol continued to claim his senses.

  He set off on the road leading to Pricna, not travelling f
ar before an accented voice called out to him

  “Hey, English!”

  “Oh, fuck,” he sighed.

  The voice cut sneeringly through the night towards him, muffled a little by the speeding taxis and thud of basement club beats, but unquestionably aimed at Stone. The Captain knew what to expect and cursed himself for allowing his defences to drop and leaving him underprepared. From the shadows in front of him, stepped a young girl, no more than twenty, her clothes dirty and ill fitting, her smile insincere.

  “Hey, English, you want have a sex? Have a good time?”

  “Maybe another night,” Stone answered, trying to retain at least a semblance of his usual eloquence.

  “Oh, another night?” The unsettling smile grew wider, displaying poorly maintained teeth which blighted her potentially attractive face, “I think tonight, come on English.”

  She was stood before him blocking his path, and now moved closer, taking him in an embrace and running her hands over his body, dipping her fingers deftly into each of his pockets in turn.

  He pulled himself free and stepped backwards, the adrenaline helping him to focus his drink addled mind.

  “Keep your hands to yourself and back the fuck off,” Stone commanded, hoping to God the words didn’t sound as slurred out loud as they did in his head.

  “A problem here, English?”

  Another voice, this time from behind him, joined the conversation and Stone quickly turned to take in the newcomer.

  “I know you, don’t I English?”

  The new voice belonged to a man, not much cleaner than the girl and of a similar age, but bigger and stronger; the overpowering stench of rotten breath coming from his maliciously grinning mouth.

  “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure,” Stone hissed.

  “Oh yes,” said the newcomer, “I see you around town, following Myska, he makes good speeches, no?”

  “I wouldn’t know; my Czech could use a little brush up.”

  “Ah,” the young man laughed, “well, I can translate for you?”

  “No thanks.”

  “I insist! It’s no problem!”

  The man stepped closer, taking his hands from his pockets. His breath cut through Stone’s intoxication and he could feel the woman inching closer to him from behind, his body tensing in readiness for a confrontation but hampered by the day’s drink.

  “All Myska wants, really wants, is for people to be happy again.”

  “Really?” Stone’s voice was etched in sarcasm.

  “Really. All Czechoslovak people, that is.”

  “I see, and what’s this got to do with me?”

  The man began to look around in exaggerated fashion, as though trying to prove some point.

  “Well,” he said, looking around him, “I don’t see many Czechoslovakians around here quite like you, you know what I mean? So to see you here, there, wherever Myska goes, it makes me nervous, makes me think that maybe you don’t like him very much, no?”

  “I’m sure he’s a positive delight.” Stone’s voice was as cold and hard as his name, and he defied his eyes’ lingering desire to blur, to stare into the young man’s face.

  “Absolutely,” he confirmed through the unsettling grin on his thin face, “he’s a good guy, a man of the people. So, there’s no need for you or any more of the Whore’s little band of foreigners to come to any more meetings, ok?”

  “And supposing I feel compelled to enjoy his oratory again?”

  “Then watch him on YouTube,” came the contemptuous response, “or buy his DVD. Either way, keep your ugly, angry, black face the fuck away from us, or I’ll carve you a matching scar on the other side of your head.”

  A dull but unmistakeable click sounded, eliciting a snigger from the woman behind him and dragging the soldier’s mind fully home to sobriety. His muscles tensed as he registered the new development, not letting his now fully focused eyes drop from those of his opponent and permitting a thin but confident smile of his own to form on his face.

  “Young man,” the Captain calmly said, “if you don’t promptly put your toy away and apologise for that remark, then this ugly, angry, black face smiling goodbye to you as the light fades is the last thing you’ll ever see.”

  A sneering laugh came from the man with the knife, echoed by the woman.

  “Really?” came the mocking tone, “Well maybe you need a little taste in advance.”

  His senses proved as faithful in the street as they had on the battlefield, overriding the day’s booze and fuelling his reaction to the man’s quickly raising knife hand. The Captain swiftly and calmly slid sideways, before the hand of the woman behind him poised and ready to push him into the blade could make contact, causing it instead to meet the knife as it swished across her palm. She yelped in pain while Stone’s enraged attacker lurched and veered towards him.

  The bottles still held securely in his sleeves, the soldier’s arm swung fast, windmill like, connecting with the young man’s head with a sickening clunk and crack, dropping him to the pavement with blood issuing forth from the deep cut on his temple. Stone too winced as the Moravian wine coating his forearm mingled with blood from his own laceration, and he shook the fractured remnants of the bottle from his sleeve. The woman, crouched next to her fallen partner in crime, used Stone’s momentary weakness to scramble forth and scrape the dropped knife from the pavement with the fingers of her other hand, fury engraved on her dirty, unhealthy looking face.

  Spotting her lunge, the crouched Stone rolled to the side, her attack finding only thin air, before he picked up the largest of the broken shards around him, raising up on one knee and holding it steadily towards her.

  “Don’t think for one moment you’d be the first woman I’ve had to kill,” he said, his stare as hard as his voice and as steady as his arm.

  For a moment she looked from the jagged glass bottle to his face and back again, as if weighing up her chances against a man who had so easily felled her accomplice. When after a few seconds had passed, Stone half-heartedly thrust the craggy glass towards her, the wounded assailant turned at once on her heel and fled from the blackness and down the street towards the neon lights and milling drinkers.

  Stone too heaved himself upwards and ran the short distance to Pricna, hurrying through the doors and climbing the stairwell to his apartment with only a cursory nod to Honza, the regular night manager. He slammed the door behind him and collapsed against it, sliding down until he sat on the laminated floor, pulling his stained coat from his back and tossing it into the corner, the remaining unbroken bottle atop it, and cursing himself as he examined the cuts on his arm. While he could hardly have prevented the targeted assault, he could have at least been better prepared for it by keeping his mind clear instead of pickling it in drink like a sulking teenager. He might even have escaped the encounter without the gash in his forearm he was examining now.

  The adrenaline was beginning to leave his system and encroaching tiredness replaced it, the Captain yawning widely as his eyelids began to droop. It would be another night without a call home, but the soldier reasoned it was better that than attempt an exhausted explanation of events through an unrested mind. He knew he should shuffle to the bathroom to clean his arm, but fatigue had him in its grip and he gave in to the heaviness in his eyes, his head dropping forward as the unfamiliar stresses of the past days caught up with him. Greyson might have disappeared but there was still a job to be done which he’d given Svobodova his word he’d help to fix, and he wasn’t going to be able to do that from the bottom of a pint glass. Tomorrow he would start putting things right, whether exoneration was on the cards or not he’d make his lad proud of him.

  “Night, night mate,” he whispered as blackness rolled in, “God bless, see you in the morning.”

  TEN

  HE JERKED AWAKE EARLY THE NEXT MORNING, his mouth rough and waterless and his throat swollen from a night’s snoring. He was still in the same position against the door and as the aches bega
n to toy their way through his body, Stone dreaded for a moment the prospect of shifting his legs and inviting the worryingly familiar pangs into his battle worn knees and ankles. Braving the twangs, he pulled himself upright and headed into the bathroom, throwing his blooded and wine-stained clothes into the corner and stepping into the hot, purifying torrent, willing it to bring him back to some form of life. On closer inspection, his fresh scars were not as intense or deep as they may have been and after cleaning them in the water he sufficed himself with a quick, homemade bandage from the First Aid box stashed under the kitchen sink.

  His arm dressed, though the rest of him was not, he quickly threw on fresh jeans and a white cotton shirt, his black overcoat flung over the chair to pick up on the way out; early morning chills still enough to aggravate an unprotected chest before the summer sun could take firm hold. Sliding his phone’s music app into service he breakfasted simply on toast with butter and jam and as big a cup as he could find of hot tea, frowning only slightly at the creamier taste of the Czechoslovak milk, while the timeless melodic tones of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata played over him. He sought to give a mental acknowledgement to the fact that while in this part of the world he should be listening to a Dvořák or a Smetana, but those names merely served to remind him of the carnage of a few nights ago and he was determined to keep his mind in a calmer state today. In the dark days after his return from Kosovar, Stone’s mind had been restless, emotional; his aggression crouching in a persistent state of readiness just beneath his skin. It had been after one typically charged and stupidly trivial breakfast time confrontation over the failure of his son to place dirty pots in the sink, the youngster had fled to the sanctuary of his room, seeking to control his own temper by playing Beethoven’s masterpiece. Then, the damaged father and son had wept their apologies to each other, clinging tightly to their only refuge from the insanity of life and never wanting to let go. Stone, for his part had lamented that while he had frequently chastised his boy for failing to learn his lesson, in truth it was he himself who seemed incapable of learning and he’d promised then to make amends in future. From that day on, this had been ‘their tune’, their shared method to take the stress from a situation and relax their minds; and the stresses of Stone’s present situation were too high for any substitute to be worthwhile.