The Prague Ultimatum

by James Silvester

  “Right then,” he said quietly, “let’s tear this bastard a new arsehole.”

  Stone and Abelard shared a brief raised eyebrow at their colleague’s words and fell in behind him as they walked across the street to the Party Office.

  Their actual entry into the building was a lot smoother than any of them had thought it would be, Abelard making the initial approach to reception, her polite tones asking to speak with Mr. Myska rebuffed before Stone and Williams joined her in making them. Muscular looking security had then invited them to a waiting room on the first floor where they waited for an age before Williams attracted further attention by standing up and heaving the table in the middle of the expansive, sparsely decorated room onto its side. When the muscular operative returned, Stone blocked his entry to the room, demanding Myska’s immediate attention and telling him to pass on the message that they had come to talk about Abdul Salam.

  Sure enough, they found themselves attended moments later by the populist leader himself, Oscar Myska, who, unfazed by the obvious animosity towards him, still smiled at them with the typical magnetism for which he was famous.

  It was an impressive act, Stone inwardly conceded; political charm without smarm was a tough ask and Myska pulled it off with aplomb, appearing almost statesmanlike before them as he fielded their questions patiently; defending and justifying his Party’s position, his attack dog minder behind him, until Williams’ thin patience finally snapped.

  “Alright you little shit, that’s enough of the party political. The Russians are about to roll the clock back thirty years by riding the coat tails of so called terrorist attacks that I think you know far more about than you’re letting on.”

  Myska adopted an expression of what anyone would consider sincere offence.

  “And how could anyone think that? I have dedicated my life to standing up for my people against the terrorists; to taking back control for my country…”

  “Abdul Salam,” Stone interrupted, his face displaying all the solid dependability his name implied. Salam’s name elicited a momentary flicker across the politician’s face; just the slight squint of an eye betraying a disguised concern.

  “The man who tried to kill me and a crowd of loyal patriots,” he said, guardedly, “the very man who you and our paper Prime Minister allowed to be blown to his death on the bridge; not that I mourn him for a moment.”

  “The very same,” answered Stone. “He was on the verge of telling us something, of giving someone up, before the convoy was attacked.”

  “Then you have my condolences that his demise occurred before you could get all you required from him.”

  Myska’s voice was low and burned with an obvious contempt, mirrored by the intensity of his stare.

  “Thank you,” Stone answered back in a similar tone. “Rather conveniently timed, his death, for the people he was protecting, wouldn’t you say?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” came the reply. “But what I do know is that those men arrested are nothing to do with my organisation; the police have confirmed as much. And furthermore I know that you, Captain, are a disgraced man for your actions in Syria, allowing a terrorist cell to escape disguised as refugees. I should thank you Captain, for proving my case for me, even if your error did nearly cost me my life.”

  “Ah well, that’s the thing you see,” Williams said, walking nonchalantly around the room, “I’ve just got a new phone, it’s brilliant, do you like it?”

  He held up the device to the room, the widest, most unsettling smile on his face.

  “I think it’s great and I just can’t keep off YouTube, you know? I’ve seen the footage of the fucking Marx Brothers’ answer to terrorism and their failure to launch so many times over the past few days and do you know what I notice? Everyone in that shot looks scared. The crowd are scared, the bombers are scared; even the security agents look less than happy; in fact the only person who doesn’t look scared on that clip, Myska, is you.”

  He held up the phone again zooming in on the politician’s reaction which was significantly calmer than those around him.

  “In fact, my fascistic little friend, the word I’d use to describe your reaction is ‘disappointed’. The last time I saw an expression like that, Miss Marple was attending a social gathering and nobody died.”

  Abelard picked up the thread, while Myska remained still, keeping them all in his line of sight.

  “It’s almost as if,” she began, “you were expecting a disturbance; that either you knew the blast wouldn’t reach you or that the belts themselves would fail to ignite.”

  “And that,” Stone intoned, “would be another amazing coincidence.”

  A few moments of tense stillness were broken by Myska’s guard slipping his hand into his inner jacket pocket, holding it there in readiness for the order, while the man himself allowed all pretense to drop from his features.

  “As you say,” he quietly began, “astounding coincidences. And now, would you believe, we are about to witness another? All three of you disappearing on the same day; though mind you, with the chaos today is about to bring, I doubt anybody will notice.”

  He nodded to his guard who pulled the gun swiftly from its holster, a silenced shot whooshing between Williams and Stone. Stone threw himself forward, knocking the big man to the floor and the gun from his hand, before Abelard picked up a decorative, modern vase from the window ledge and cracked it hard across the man’s head; his consciousness fleeing on impact.

  “Hell of a shot, Natalie,” Stone grinned in surprise.

  “Born in Cardiff,” she grinned back.

  Myska was reeling from the blow to the head delivered by Williams, who pulled a flex of telephone wire from the wall, pushed the politician backwards into a chair and tied him roughly to it. A swift flicking sound signaled the presence of Williams’ knife and Stone knew from experience he was prepared to use it.

  “Alright you little bastard, exactly what ‘chaos’ are you talking about? Another bomb?”

  “I have no idea what you mean,” the restrained leader grinned, his senses returning.

  “Enough of the games,” Abelard piped up, “we know all about how you’ve targeted unstable people and used drugs to make them think they were religiously inspired and part of a cell; how you’ve manipulated them into killing God knows how many people by blowing themselves up for you.”

  “Not forgetting the added insurances like the bomb in the bin,” Stone added. “And all so you could march all over Czechoslovakia claiming the Muslims are out to get you all and Europe needed to be rid of them.”

  “So where next?” Williams snarled, “first the bar in Wenceslas Square, then the concert, then the no show in Old Town; which tourist trap are you after next?”

  “Tourist trap?” Myska answered innocently, “You misunderstand.”

  Williams scowl plunged to new depths as he glared at the populist with fury.

  “I’ve never misunderstood anything in my life,” he hissed, before pausing for a moment, looking up at a map of the city on the wall behind Myska.

  “Unless…” he stared intently at the diagram, his widening eyes signalling the dawn of realisation. “Unless we were wrong about the target!”

  A sudden anxiety captured the Scotsman’s voice and he slapped his hand against his forehead, cursing his own blindness with an apoplectic rage. With a hefty boot, he kicked the restrained Myska hard in the middle of his chest, tipping the chair backwards until it crashed on the floor, then knelt at the politician’s side, the familiar switchblade in his hand and pressed to the squirming man’s neck.

  “Where’s next, you Nazi bastard? Where’s next?!”

  “For God’s sake Williams!” Abelard’s shouted objections to his actions went ignored, Williams continuing to bellow his abusive question at Myska, who simply grinned his malicious grin back into the wrinkled face.

  “What is it? What have you seen?” shouted Stone, his own temper rising.

  “Look at it!”

/>   Williams ripped the map from the wall, screwing it up and and throwing it towards Stone, who caught and swiftly un-crumpled it.

  “It’s a map of the attacks,” he said, confused, “there’s nothing we don’t already know.”

  “Oh yes there is,” Williams countered, his fierce eyes not leaving Myska’s, “something obvious that’s been staring us in our stupid, dense faces since the start! Look at the locations!”

  “We know the locations,” shouted Abelard, “the bar, the concert and the Square, so what?”

  “Forget the Square; that was just window dressing. Who owned the bar?” Williams growled, “Who was playing at the concert?”

  The pit of Stone’s stomach churned nauseously as his understanding unclouded irrefutably before him in an instant. The bar, the performer and material at the concert; all had one thing in common.

  “Oh, shit,” he exclaimed, looking from the map to Williams, “the Russians...?”

  “We were supposed to think Muslim terrorists were blowing up Western tourists,” the aging spy spat, “but they were never the target, it was the fucking Cossacks all the time.”

  He let his blade pierce the skin of the wriggling Myska, who winced but kept the taunting, mocking smile on his face.

  “Where next you little shit?!”

  Stone put his foot on the rim of the chair, flipping it back upright and jarring the smirk from the MEP’s face and bringing it face to face with his captor’s.

  “Tell him,” Stone softly intoned, “or I’ll gut you myself.”

  “Oh you’re going to find out very soon now,” Myska sneered.

  “I’m going to find out right now.”

  “Oh, Captain,” he whispered, the diseased smile returned to the twisted face, “you don’t know how right you are…”

  At that moment, a thunderous booming erupted from across the street, spreading in all directions and sending shards of broken glass over Stone, Abelard and Williams who ducked for cover at the sound of the blast. Myska too sat rigidly upright, strapped immovably to his chair, his neck turned away from the windows and his eyes clamped shut.

  At the sound of the explosion, Stone had covered Abelard and he gently eased her to her feet as it subsided, replaced by the even more horrible pandemonium of aftermath; the screams, the alarms and the ever nearer cry of the sirens.

  “Are you hurt?”

  “No, I’m fine,” Abelard answered, dusting herself off and moving to the window. “That must have come from across the street at…”

  “The Embassy,” Williams finished, brushing broken glass from his frayed coat, his face a portrait in anger. “We were too fucking late, they’ve only gone and bombed the Russian fucking Embassy; now the shit’s going to hit the fan!”

  From the window, Stone witnessed the film crew panic and run, the Director screaming at them to stay and film, before realisation hit him and he threw himself into the backseat of a taxi that screeched to a halt for a handful of his colleagues, before high tailing away into the distance.

  Smoke was pouring from the destroyed roof of the Embassy; certainly an internal blast, Stone thought, but there was also a cavernous opening in the road in front of the Embassy gates. The smoke plume and pattern of debris indicated something had blown upwards from beneath the ground, and the Captain strained his eyes to make out the unclear shapes moving around.

  First one, then another, then a continuous flow of men, uniformed, armed men stepped out of the smoke and into the anxious street, lining up in formation as they emerged. Out into the street they poured, as though from the bowels of an earth spewing out its dead for mortal conquest.

  “Where are they all coming from?” Stone shouted incredulously.

  “It’s the tunnels!” Williams answered, having dashed to the window to take in the spectacle. “I can’t believe I was such an idiot! In the Forties, the gestapo took over the Embassy building and used a system of tunnels underneath it to spread their network, then when the Communists took over the KGB ran espionage from there. They were supposed to be abandoned and sealed after the Revolution, but…”

  He marched to the laughing Myska and gripped him by the lapels, lifting him, chair and all, into the air with a show of age defying strength. Slamming him against the wall and letting him drop back to the floor, Williams cuffed him hard across the face.

  “Well this is a fucking game changer, isn’t it? And you, my little basket of shite, if you place any value on the unfairly small objects dangling between your legs, you are going to come with Captain Stone and I and help mop it up.”

  “Where are you taking him?” enquired Abelard, desperation in her voice.

  “Out there,” Williams gestured to the street, “we’ve got a fucking invasion to prevent.”

  “I’ve got a bad feeling it’s too late for that.”

  All eyes turned to Stone who stood, facing out of the shattered window into the smoking chaos below, the same incredulity spreading onto the faces of Abelard and Williams as they joined him.

  On the street below, ignored by the panicking figures fleeing the scene, the archaic shell of the T-54 creaked and groaned into reluctant life. Decades old caterpillar tracks began to turn, crushing debris beneath them as they slowly inched the obsolete machine into animation, its movements becoming more fluid with each passing second as its painful manoeuvres became a steady rumble.

  “Way too late,” Stone continued, his voice steeped in trepidation. “There’s no need for an invasion; they’re already here.”

  The turret on the ancient vehicle twisted slowly upwards until it pointed directly and deliberately at the building the trio of observers stood in. Though he yearned to disbelieve what was happening before his eyes, Stone had seen combat enough to know all too well what came next.

  “GET DOWN!”

  He bellowed his command to his comrades and threw himself back from the window to the floor, dragging Abelard along with him and whispering, even as the room collapsed around them, burning lamentations to the sound of shell fire and crumbling concrete, before something heavy thumped against the back of his head and consciousness slipped swiftly away.

  TWENTY-THREE

  THE PODIUM WAS PREPARED; a simple boarded stage set before the grand statue of St Wenceslas, which shared the domination of the Square with the imperious, domed National Museum behind it. A lectern had been placed centrally on the stage and Černý prepared himself to make good use of it as the car slowly rolled up the length of the Square. Stepping from it as it stopped, the aged hero paused, allowing himself to savour if only for a moment the long-held love of his people, before heaving his frame onto the platform, Radoslav alongside him.

  The timing of the ceremony was hardly appropriate, given Svobodova’s current excursions at the border, and the cancellation of the World Leader’s visit in the aftermath of Czechoslovakia’s expulsion from the international clubs, but Černý was determined to pay his own tribute to the fallen. The bright sunshine robbed the occasion of any excessive degree of somberness, but the atmosphere was still one of respect, just as Černý had hoped. This should be a sober occasion, where the memory of sacrifices old and recent were honoured and cherished and the hush of the crowd, bar infrequent and instantly quietened shouts, pleased him. His speech laid out on the lectern in front of him, Černý preferring to rely on the more traditional tools of speech making, he stood dignified and Presidentially; his people gazing up at him.

  He opened his mouth to speak but a noise, as unexpected as it was dreaded, and coming from the far end of the Square, was enough to shake the concentration from him; a heavy, rumbling sound accompanied by the squeak and grind of decades old metal components biting and shifting against each other accompanied by the revving of grimly determined engines.

  Disbelieving his eyes, he tried time and again to blink truth into them, or stop them from taunting him with their display of the horrors of the past. But this was not the past and the truth was only too evident. The noise increased, coming
too from other directions all around the square and the crowd now began to look around, sharing the President’s confusion at the unexpected events

  Stepping back from the microphone, Černý gestured to Rado, busily talking into his radio.

  “Commander,” said the President, still transfixed on the horrors rolling towards him, “I ordered these monstrosities cleared from the Square before the ceremony.”

  There was no answer Rado could give other than taking firm hold of the old man and ushering him back towards the podium steps, but the route to the car was already blocked by half-panicking, half-cheering figures.

  Černý cursed as the still closing tanks ensured the nightmare of his youth continued to be re-lived. And it was a nightmare, surely; a visitation by the horrors of yesteryear, forcibly playing out in front of a powerless, sleeping mind. Or else the wandering mind of an old man, teetering on the abyss after a lifetime of pressure, affording him a fearsome glimpse on the senility to come by reliving past terrors before his waking eyes. But these were not the victims of yesterday fleeing the streets, and these were not the events of the past, and as he watched, he hoped and prayed that madness has taken hold of him, rather than be forced to accept the dawning of a fresh hell for his people.

  He had seen these looks before, so many years ago. The first wide-eyed stares of wonder at the steadily rumbling machinery, and the excited innocent laughter at the grand military display playing out in the streets for their pleasure. Until the sudden and final realisation that the tanks were rolling inexorably towards them, that the faces of the soldiers who rode and marched alongside the metal hulks were devoid of warmth, focussed instead on the unstoppable march towards them, coming for them. The dawning of that understanding took longer this time, common sense and the survival instinct numbed by decades of infotainment, reality television and the blissfully ignorant misbelief that such a fate could never conceivably happen to them. But slowly, painfully, he watched genuine reality twist the faces of the crowds; their whoops of joy and cheers of giddy inebriation at the entertainment unfolding before them degenerating into the panicked clutching of children to breasts and impotent protestations. Childlike joy and innocent escapism crumbled away with the sound of rolling caterpillar tracks and stomping boots, replaced with the knowledge that the weapons did not dance for their pleasure, that this was not some far away trouble in some far away land. This was happening here and now; their forced participation as extras in a show which threatened to prove compulsory viewing for the rest of the world. And as they screamed and shouted and cried their powerless rage to the wind, he knew that they at last realised the folly of their belief in their own imperviousness; that their safety was based on nothing but paper promises and that the designer clothes and expensive sunglasses with which they adorned their suddenly fragile frames were insufficient to shield them from the cold when the world blew its hardest. And that it could, after all, emphatically happen to them.