TWENTY-FOUR
STONE AWOKE WITH A CRY, heaving air thick with the dust of ruined concrete into his lungs and shaking his head free of the temptation to sleep. Mentally checking himself and feeling only superficial pain, he scanned his surroundings before inching to his feet.
The room he had stood in was devastated beyond recognition. The cacophony caused by the exploding shell and falling rubble had resulted in a room covered in the shattered remains of its upstairs neighbour; the whole floor now a study in crushed plasterboard, splintered wood and twisted metallic beams. By some miracle, the shell had hit home one or two levels above Myska’s office, saving its occupants from the direct hit which would surely have killed them, instead showering them with debris.
His senses returning, Stone looked to check on Natalie’s condition and turned to his side where he had thrown her, to help her up. She wasn’t there. Spinning around, he eyes quickly searched for her, the sickening tell-tale sensation of anxiety gnawing its way to residence in the pit of his stomach. She was nowhere to be seen; Williams was there, unconscious and breathing awkwardly, lying in a crumpled heap on the floor away from Stone, his battered old coat caked in a layer of plaster dust. Across the room from him, the chair used to restrain Myska was on its side, minus its traitorous occupant. He had taken her.
Bounding over to the stricken Williams, the Captain pressed his fingers to the older man’s neck, searching desperately for a pulse and striving vainly to rouse him, slapping the deeply lined cheeks and repeating his name.
“Williams? Come on now Williams you old bastard, don’t die on me now.”
It was no use, though the pulse throbbed faintly, the stick thin body remaining resolutely limp in Stone’s grasp.
Cursing, he felt a buzz against his leg and reached into his pocket to fish out his phone, his heart leaping for a moment in anticipation that it was the Professor calling; it was a false hope, with the unwelcome name of Jonathan Greyson appearing on the display; Stone pressing it to his ear in annoyance.
“Stone, it’s a fucking invasion! The tanks…”
“She’s gone Greyson,” he interrupted, his voice the very essence of angered frustration.
“What?”
“I said she’s gone! Natalie’s gone, Myska took her!”
“You let him…”
“No I didn’t fucking let him!” Stone bellowed his defiance at the politician, “We were shelled, I was knocked out. When I came round she and Myska were gone. Williams is still out cold, he needs medical attention.”
“So do a lot of people, he’ll have to wait.”
“You can’t abandon him!”
“I can’t prioritise him either!” Greyson’s own voice was dripping with disheartened anger. “The City is down, Stone, occupied! There are tanks rolling up Wenceslas Square and the President is trapped there. It’s 1968 all over again!”
“The whole thing was a Red Flag Op,” Stone said, searching almost pathetically through the rubble for any possible clue as to Myska’s intent as he spoke. “The bombing, the concert; everything was designed to make the Russians victims, to give them an excuse to invade.”
“They’re issued a press statement denying any hostile intent, saying they simply want to ‘aid their Czechoslovak friends’ in bringing to justice the perpetrators of violence against the Russian people’.”
“Bullshit,” Stone spat, “they’ve taken the Ukraine and now they’re taking Czechoslovakia, without even having to go through an invasion to do it. They already had the equivalent of an armoured division on the ground and with the Army at the border they can take the Capital unopposed and with minimal casualties.”
“The media are calling it ‘The Velvet Occupation’…fuck!” With each word Greyson’s voice conveyed a deeper understanding of the severity of the crisis. “With Prague held to ransom Mirushka will have no choice but to accept whatever terms thrown at her, this country’s about to be dragged thirty years back in time without a shot being fired! I have to get to the front, find some way through this…”
“Don’t be so damn stupid!” Stone shouted, chastising the politician’s recklessness. “What you need to do right now is disappear, get yourself hidden.”
“But…”
“No buts! If you go pissing around at the front now then you’ll only drag Britain into the mire too, and the last thing we need is to be mixed up militarily with the Russians.”
“But, Natalie!”
Stone froze at Greyson’s use of the name and the desperation in his voice when he uttered it, allowing silence to descend between them.
“I have to find Natalie,” Greyson repeated, with what sounded like tears in his voice.
Stone resented the man’s plea, this belated show of affection that had it come sooner might have spared her the pain of divorce. That thought too sparked a renewal of the jealousy Stone had begun to feel and he cursed his own illogicality before responding to Greyson.
“I’m already on it,” he growled, “but there’s not much to go on. You stay hidden while I try and find where she is.”
“She has to be at the border,” Greyson forcefully opined. “If Myska was working with the Russians that’s where he’s heading, he’ll be trying to get across to the Ukraine, trying to renew terms of his own.”
“They tried to kill him,” Stone snapped, his brow settling into well-worn furrows. “The shell they aimed at this place rather suggests he’s outlived whatever agreement he had with them; why would he flee to the front?”
“Where else can he go?!” the politician was insistent. “If he stays in Prague he’s as good as dead; it won’t take long for his involvement to come out, the people will lynch him in the street. The Russians are his best bet, particularly with my ex-wife to use as a bargaining chip!”
Stone was forced to agree with the logic, not least because it offered him a lead, and he began to make his way out of the ruins.
“What about the occupation? What do we do?”
“I haven’t a fucking clue,” came the answer. “At this point it might even be a case of damage limitation, trying to clean up as much of this shit as we can without becoming officially involved. I’ll think of something…”
“Make it bloody good,” Stone snapped, hitting his stride, “I’ll try and pick up their trail and check in with you when I can.”
“Good. Captain Stone? Lincoln?”
“Yes?”
“Find her.”
“I will.”
“Find her and bring her back to me.”
The line went dead, Greyson’s last words echoing in Stone’s ear in an unanswered loop, accompanied by the rhythmic thud of his own jealously.
“Oh, I’ll bring her back alright,” he muttered as he reached the street, still heavy “with the dust” and debris of the two explosions, “but it sure as hell won’t be for you.”
Though chaotic fear had claimed Wenceslas Square, the main perpetrators were confined to the centre, the entrances and alleyways closed by raised turrets and readied arms. Those who had managed to flee the scene had simply kept running, some unable but most unwilling to join the fight, some tripping and stumbling through a potent mixture of alcohol and fear. Others scrambled aimlessly, dragging confused children who themselves clung to adored stuffed toys, hoping for some safe and unguarded path from the country. They would be lucky to find one. The EU, whose open borders had been long decried by so many now stood resolutely closed against their former member, while the airport was secured by the tanks and all flights grounded. To the East lay only the path to the Ukraine, currently occupied on respective sides by the Czechoslovak and Russian Armies, each eyeing each other with a horrendously nervous and tense hostility.
Rado had fought tirelessly to get Černý to the car and away, but hampered both by the President’s own refusal to leave his people and the mass of fleeing public and invading soldiers, his task was a fruitless one, until an eventual rifle butt to the head sent him crashing to the ground. Č
erný himself remained defiantly at the podium, appealing for calm and order and condemning the occupation taking place before his very eyes.
A line of tanks had taken a running position down the center of the square, with others blocking access at each of the openings and roads running from it, backed by squadrons of soldiers who had taken position around the periphery of the square and were slowly hemming the public into the middle, where they could be more easily contained. This act itself was enough to cause claustrophobic anxiety, leading only to a still more violent response; rifle fire and tank shells firing into the air as a consequence from young and nervous soldiers uncertain how to react to the barrage of abuse and projectiles heading in their direction. Two such soldiers were heading to the podium itself, their objective Černý realised, undoubtedly to secure him, but as they approached, a small boy of no more than ten years and likely, he thought, of Romani background was doing his best to run for safety, squeezing and pushing through the crowd. Scared anger was on his face and he carried a handful of small rocks and pebbles with him which he threw into the face of the leading soldier as he ran past, eliciting an array of profanities and orders to stop.
With nowhere else to run, he sped up the steps of the podium, where Černý instantly knelt down to shield and protect him, noting the raised rifle in the offended soldier’s hands.
“Стоп, руки вверх!” the soldier and his colleague were shouting, which Černý knew only too well to be an order to stop and give up. Attention returned toward the President and his new protectee as he vocally defied the aggressors from the still working microphones on his podium, while the twin soldiers reached the steps, one with his rifle still drawn and aimed at the child.
With a sickening horror, Černý realised at once what was about to happen, as the jostling crowd heightened the young soldier’s nerves; a single but powerful cry issuing forth from the gun’s mouth and screaming towards the boy. Before it had been fired, Černý had dropped to his aged and frail knees in front of the boy, whose shouts of protest mixed with those of the crowd. It was a small bullet, only a very small one, but it was enough to pierce the old man’s flesh and he staggered forward on his knees a few inches before collapsing into a semi-consciousness. He could feel the young boy lifting his head and cradling him; the warmth of his body an honest comfort, and likewise he could hear the shocked and muted apologies of the soldier who’d fired the shot. But the sound that brought tears to his eyes and more pain than the hot metal in his body which twisted and burned within him, was the unmistakable and heartbreaking sound of Prague descending into leaderless pandemonium.
TWENTY-FIVE
“NATALIE!”
Eight long hours had passed by the time Stone caught up with them, and in truth, he was amazed that he’d been able to find them at all. After extracting himself from the ruins of Myska’s offices, he had taken advantage of one of the many abandoned vehicles in its car park and sped off in what he’d feared would be a fruitless pursuit of his lover. Greyson’s advice that Myska would surely head for the border was all he’d had to go on, but even then he’d been driving blind. The main access route between the two countries was at Uzhhorod, but there too was the Czechoslovak Army, and Stone surmised the other official crossing points he was aware of, such as Chop or Pinkovce, would likewise be officially monitored. If Myska was to make it across the border then it would have to be at an unmanned point and Stone had no idea where that would be. He had no choice but to keep driving and hope for some divine inspiration.
Resisting his eyelids attempts to droop, he’d pressed his foot down harder on the accelerator and carried on, what traffic there was heading in the opposite direction, worrying that his search was doomed to failure but not allowing such thoughts to deter him from trying. His focus had been eventually rewarded in the simplest way possible, with a pinged text message on his phone which he’d swiped immediately open: Co-ordinates. Map coordinates sent from Natalie’s phone! Slowing down only to feed them into his phone’s map application, he’d given an ecstatic cheer for his lover’s resourcefulness and accelerated again; driving until he had run out of road and was forced to follow the signal on foot. The border was sixty miles long, but Stone had guessed that if Myska and a reluctant Natalie were likewise on foot when she’d sent the message then they couldn’t be too far away, and the flashing marker on his phone had agreed he was close to the location she’d sent.
A tall, green, double meshed fence straddling the countryside marked the border with occupied Ukraine, and as he approached, he’d seen a section large enough for a man to crawl through precisely cut from the structure, the late afternoon sun glinting off the severed edges of metal.
Easing himself through, he had quickly assessed the terrain of his new country; this part of the border dissecting a green forested area, a tall standing pillar protruding from the ground a few yards from him, decorated with the blue and yellow of the Ukrainian flag, the only indicator of the country’s identity. He’d known that the military build-up was taking place not far from here and he could hear the distant rumble of heavy artillery, the stomping of booted feet and the bellowing of orders, so much so he had felt a peculiar pang of homesickness. Ignoring it, he’d carried on the couple of miles into enemy territory, keeping low and deathly quiet to avoid sentries, and straining his eyes for any sign of his quarry; a perverse excitement building steadily and relentlessly in his gut as the thrill of the chase returned to him and he was reminded why he’d volunteered for so many actions in his long career.
It was a passion that had almost overwhelmed him when he had finally spotted the crouching Myska a couple of hundred yards ahead of him, partially obscured by trees and peering over the top of a grassy ridge. Resisting the urge to rush the politician and beat Natalie’s whereabouts from him in a manner of which Williams would have been proud, Stone had approached him with all the stealth of his profession, swiftly and deathly quiet. As he’d drawn nearer, Stone saw the weapon the politician held more clearly, recognising it as the shining silver frame of a Tac-50 A1 sniper’s rifle; a powerful weapon of war, extraordinarily accurate and utterly deadly. Stone knew the normal field of effectiveness for the weapon to be some nineteen hundred yards, and he’d heard tales of confirmed kills from as far away as twenty-six hundred, but Myska’s unconfident grip had leant the gun an erratic quality.
Myska had been inching slowly up the ridge, the rifle cumbersome in his grip and Stone had almost been upon him before he could see clearly what the would-be gunman was struggling to aim at. In the valley below the ridge, some eight or nine hundred yards away, dressed in combat fatigues and surrounded by all manner of officialdom, was the Russian President himself; grand, imperious and oblivious to the threat above and behind him.
“Stop right there you bastard,” Stone hissed, shocking the politician, who had dropped the rifle in surprise and spun in the dirt towards the Captain, “where is she?”
Myska had been silent, simply shaking his head at the sight of Stone and scrambling backwards on the ridge.
“One chance,” Stone had growled as quietly as he could while still allowing the threat to carry in his voice, “tell me where she is and if you’re lucky I’ll drag you back to Svobodova alive.”
“She’s right here.”
Abelard’s voice had come from the trees behind Stone and he’d turned in surprise to see her step slowly out, her eyes red and watery and a silenced gun in her hand.
“Natalie?”
Stone had squinted in surprise at her emergence, the gun only heightening his incredulity.
A silenced bullet shot forth from the gun in her hand, sending the fleeing Myska to the grass, his fear now a permanent expression.
“I told him if he ran he was dead,” the murderous woman said.
TWENTY-SIX
“OH, LINCOLN I’M SORRY, I’m so, so sorry.” The beautiful Welsh lilt in her voice with which she had seduced him days earlier now teetered on the edge of despair, as tears began
to hinder her words. “I never was Natalie. I didn’t want you to find out like this Lincoln,” she said, “not like this.”
Any plan Stone might have had to rush her and take possession of the weapon was hindered by his ossification at Natalie’s, this woman’s, actions, and he remained rooted as she began to compose herself and sniff back her tears, her gun arm strong and steady. Even the dependable rationality of his military brain was failing him; the sight of his lover gunning down a defenceless man, however corrupt he may have been, burrowing into him with vicious relish. And what the hell did she mean she’s ‘not Natalie’?”
Catlike, he gauged her movements as she turned from the man she had murdered to point the gun, level and steady, in the Captain’s direction; the tears she blinked back shed not for her victim, it seemed to him, or even herself, but that he was there to witness the scene.
The Prague Ultimatum Page 24
