The Prague Ultimatum

by James Silvester

  “Not quite,” The Child answered, ignoring her inflection. “Due to an imminent change in the leadership of the Russian Federation, the occupation of Czechoslovakia will be initially brief, although you may well find yourself behind a renewed iron curtain. Those are the facts, there are no other terms to discuss. I await your answer, Madame.”

  She remained silent for a moment, taking in the figure from across the room before she finally broke the quiet.

  “You won’t believe this,” she began, “but I suspected I would see you here today. It’s funny but I think I’ve been waiting three years, ever since reunification, to meet with you, but now that you’re here, all the questions I wanted to ask, I can’t think of.”

  She shook her head, laughing at her apparent absent mindedness.

  “Except for this. I only knew Peter for a short time,” Svobodova said with sadness in her voice, “but sometimes I feel like I knew him his whole life. He told me so many things, about The Institute, about you. And in all of that, everything he told me I could never understand why? Why do you hate us so much?”

  She crossed slowly over to where he stood, in all his ghoulish noiselessness. Her resentment was deep and grew deeper as she approached him, but though she yearned to, the feeling refused to evolve into hatred, pity instead claiming her sensations, and she reached up to place her hand deftly upon his shoulder, meeting only the tiniest of flinches in response.

  “Is it because we let you down? After Lidice, the other survivors, the other children, they were all found when the war ended they were all brought home, all of them except you. Is that why you hate us? Because we forgot you, we forgot one of our own...?

  The Child twisted his head up to meet her eyes with a speed which defied his age, causing her to step back and recoil her hand as though his shoulder was forged from hot steel.

  “Your concern is touching, Ms Svobodova,” he intoned, “but misplaced, and the premise you proceed from is false. Though in frustration I may have claimed hatred of your country, the truth is I hold none, only the same affection I hold for all of Europe.”

  He stepped around her, his gaze fixed on the view of the war machines waiting at the border for permission to kill.

  “My heart belongs to Europe. It has done since the day they took me from my mother’s arms and so it will remain until the day it stops beating.”

  “And yet you are willing to sacrifice so much of it?” Svobodova responded.

  “What moral significance would a sacrifice have if it holds no personal stake?”

  “But surely you still have some national pride in Czechoslovakia?”

  “National pride?!” Anger filled the aged voice and he gestured out through the patterned glass windows where the massed ranks of armoured vehicles and regimented troops were visible in their tense stand-off.

  “I watched destruction roll across the continent in the name of National Pride! My father, my uncles and their friends were stood against a barn and shot, my mother rotted in a concentration camp, my friends scattered throughout Germany; I watched Europe destroy itself all in the name of national pride!”

  The rage, so untypical of the delivery Svobodova had experienced, shook the ancient frame with a ferocity that startled her, but still she pressed on, determined to exploit any chink in his aged armour.

  “You claim the noble motivation of preventing war, yet here you are today inviting one just to further your own goals; what moral high ground can you possibly claim to stand in?” She shouted her question with a rage all her own.

  “This is not a war,” he shook his head, his vice returning to its quieter state, “it is a taste, a reminder of the things that could so easily happen again if Europe continues on its current path. How long do you think the Far Right can survive when the next ocean of refugees contains waves of white faces, running in the opposite direction?”

  Svobodova narrowed her eyes as The Child laid out his reasoning, the frail master conspirator narrating his plan without pride or malice.

  “Do you think, when the world sees Czechoslovaks today fleeing into Austria, Hungary, Germany, that fear will not take hold? When British refugees begin flooding the Channel Tunnel as they desperately seek shelter in a closed Europe enforcing its boundaries, do you think they will still praise their politicians for ‘taking back control’? How safe do you think the barstool patriots in Germany and the armchair racists in France will feel when it hits home to them that they live in a world where their freedom can disappear in the time it takes for them to drain their beer?”

  “You would sacrifice Britain, too?”

  “Britain has sacrificed itself,” he retorted contemptuously, “through its willingness to believe the lies of charlatans and buffoons and whoring itself to the highest bidder in the name of unbridled capitalism.”

  “But there’s no way NATO would stand by and watch Russia invade Britain!”

  “Who mentioned the Russians?” The Child quizzed, the confusion in his voice apparently genuine. “And invasions are so ‘yesterday’. Britain will one day discover that, as with any prostitute, the decision to walk the streets when the night is at its darkest carries a great risk.”

  “You mean...?”

  “Thanks to the British government’s own greed, the Chinese now sit commandingly in their nuclear web, well within the borders the UK were so keen to ‘take back control’ of. God forbid that web were subject to attack; the Chinese can be so very protective of their assets, often militarily so.”

  “But NATO, America…”

  “Would happily surrender Britain to its fate rather than risk a full-scale confrontation with China, don’t you think?” No cynical smile appeared on the aged, lined face, and no trace of malice brushed his voice, which imparted its message coldly and hard. “But we in The Institute will ensure the sacrifice is not in vain. The people of Europe will see what happens to those left out in the cold; Britain occupied, Czechoslovakia on the edge of a new Iron Curtain, and they will clamour to ensure they are not next. Europe will unify, the extremists will be purged and our integration will renew apace, ready after a suitable interval to open dialogue with the new Russian Leaders shortly to take office; a new era of unity to reach far into this century and beyond.”

  “A unity paid for in unnecessary blood and pointless war.”

  “Not war!” He raised a finger, as though insulted by the suggestion. “Peace, paid for by the suggestion of war; a reminder, the briefest of glimpses to the people of the horrors that came before, in the days when Europe was divided through blood and tears and perverted notions of ‘national pride’.”

  For a moment, Svobodova had no words to speak, responding only in open mouthed silence.

  “And you tell me you are not driven by hatred.”

  “Hatred?” The Child frowned, as though the concept were alien to him, “No, Ms Svobodova, my motive is love.”

  She would have laughed were his words not so earnest, or his expression so pained at her condemnation. Instead, horror was her only reaction at the old man’s passionate sincerity.

  “You and I have no children, Ms Svobodova,” he said, a statement not a question, “no babes in arms to nurture and cherish; instead we channel our parental affections elsewhere; you into your country, mine into the Union. Europe is my child.”

  “Then why would you hurt it so?”

  “Hurt it?” The abhorrence twisted deeper onto his features and he shook his head at her claim. “Do you still fail to understand why I travel this road? Are you still so blind to the love behind my actions?”

  Cracks threatened the strength of his voice, as though the passion behind his oratory was too great for his ageing body to any longer contain or express, and despite herself, Svobodova felt a pang of sympathy as a tell-tale dampness played in the old, fading eyes.

  “My life, the life I should have had, was taken from me. I died with them that terrible day but still I am here; soulless, empty. And for what purpose other than to ensure that E
urope never falls to such monstrous evil again? I have no interest in personal glories or private empires; I hold no secret accounts filled with stolen millions, there are no palatial mansions crammed with looted art I call home. I am a simple civil servant, working for the good of all the people of Europe, not a dictator greedily marching across the globe and consuming it as I go. Though I resent this continued existence I have used it, every day of it since I learned the truth, to bring and hold the continent together in peace.”

  The sincerity of the elderly figure’s words was unmistakeable, yet Svobodova struggled to accept their veracity, shaking her head gently at his protestation while the thought of her long dead lover teased her memories.

  “You claim to be a man of peace, but you have destroyed so much, taken the lives of so many…”

  “And I mourn the passing of every one of them, whether they fell by my hand or through the ramifications of my arrangements; I accept responsibility and grieve them as I would my own family, I feel their loss as I would my own limb, however necessary it was. But it was not through destructiveness, never that; no, if I am guilty then let the charge be that I cared too much.”

  “What?” Svobodova frowned in incredulity.

  “What father would stand by while his child played carelessly in the busy street, ignorant of the speeding cars bearing down? Which mother would let her curious infant reach out to touch the flame without pulling them back to safety? You call me a monster but I administer only the necessary discipline of a loving parent, I admonish, I chastise, only to bring my previous love back on the right path, to spare them the hurt, to ensure them a future of unbroken peace.”

  The Child faced her with a yearning on his aged face, as though desperate that she show some slight acceptance of his logic or understanding of his cause, and his eyes scanned her face searching for it.

  “What parent could do more?” he quietly asked.

  TWENTY EIGHT

  “YOU’RE WELCOME, AGAIN.”

  Williams stood behind the fallen figure, Stone raising his cloudy eyes to soak him in as a potent cocktail of emotions bubbled inside him. The Scot simply returned the glare, unintimidated and unfazed, even if noticeably more bedraggled than usual, his clothes evidencing the aftermath of the tank shell back in Prague. The bony, skeletal fingers of his left hand clutched intently at his right arm, his face evidencing pain of some sort.

  “You didn’t have to fucking kill her!”

  Stone hauled himself to his feet, as if ready to swing a blow to William’s head; stopping when the familiar click of the old man’s knife sounded in front of his face. The spook had dropped his unscathed arm to his pocket and now stood with a grimace of obvious discomfort masked by the wrinkled features, which nonetheless scowled with considerably more tiredness than Stone was used to.

  “Don’t be fucking dense, of course I had to kill her,” Williams burrowed his eyes under their considerable brow. “You don’t honestly think she was going to let you go, do you?”

  “I was getting through to her, she was going to tell me who she was…”

  “It doesn’t fucking matter who she was!” Williams’ own temper erupted as he chastised the soldier for his emotional display. “All that matters is she wasn’t who she said she was and if I hadn’t just saved your arse, she’d have handed it to you the moment you pulled the trigger, wake up man!”

  Fighting for clarity in his crowded mind, Stone processed the information, and felt a sickness stir inside him as realisation struck home. He wagged his finger in silence at Williams for a moment, almost too nauseated to voice his suspicion, before finally opening his mouth to condemn him.

  “You knew,” he said, “you knew she was an imposter.”

  “Well seeing her stood behind you with a gun pointed at your head alongside Myska’s ripening corpse gave me one or two clues.”

  “No,” Stone ignored the sarcasm, his distaste deepening with each moment, “before then; you knew, didn’t you?”

  An unfamiliar twinge of discomfort flashed briefly across the lined face; a subconscious acceptance, Stone imagined, of the condemnation he aimed at him. A tense pause followed before Williams closed and pocketed the knife, returning his hand to his obviously injured right arm and holding it there.

  “I always knew The Institute would try and get plants close to Svobodova.” He began his admission non-apologetically, but without the usual shamelessness with which he typically spoke. “I’d been telling him that for years, but I must admit even I was surprised when I figured out who it was. The more I think of it though, the more Abelard was the obvious choice…”

  “So you did know?”

  Williams stared.

  “Yes.”

  “For how long?”

  “I had suspicions early on, but it wasn’t until last night in Smokin’ Hot that I was sure. Did you never wonder why she refused to be in the same room as him?”

  “They were divorced,” Stone replied defensively.

  “Oh yeah, well that must explain it,” the Scot rolled his eyes in exasperation. “You said she went back from the bar to get her roots done; Abelard was a natural brunette.”

  Stone laughed, coldly, at the matter of fact revelation.

  “So where is she? The real Natalie, what happened to her?”

  “I did some digging,” Williams answered, the frigidity returning to his face as he reapplied his customary insensitivity to his words. “A Jane Doe was brought in to Prague Community Hospital the day after Abelard was due to arrive. Homeless apparently, bit of a scruffy cow; she’d overdosed on a mixture of cocaine and strychnine and died on the toilet at Florenc.”

  Stone’s mind instantly replayed the memory of their first meeting with Svobodova, when the politician had despaired of the regular violence at precisely that location and Abelard, or the woman who had stolen Abelard’s life, had shuddered at the news of another death coincident with her arrival. He had admired this woman, loved her for who he was convinced she was; aching for her loving words of comfort and yearning for her physical affections, even allowing himself to dream of the day he could return home, his hand tightly in hers as his son met and embraced her for the first time. And now to learn, as he stood on the cusp of his last battlefield, that each kiss had been a new falsehood, each caress a macabre proxy given on behalf of a woman his lover had helped to murder, caused new levels of revulsion to rise in the soldier’s chest. The callousness, from whichever side these bastards claimed to be on, appalled him, all of them deserving of his condemnation and his utter contempt. The thought that this dead mystery woman had got just exactly what she deserved threatened to break into his head.

  “It looks like they intercepted her as soon as she arrived in the City and replaced with a double, whoever she was.”

  Williams, as so often, spoke without malice, merely the unabridged honesty of a man with no time for niceties, and he looked down at the fallen woman with disdain in his big, cold eyes.

  “And what about Greyson?” Stone pressed, hoping his suspicions were wrong, “did he know too? Did he know the woman who’d shared his life was lying dead on some mortuary slab because of the mess he’d dragged her into?”

  “What does it matter if he did? It wouldn’t change the job he had to do.”

  “You pair of absolute bastards,” Stone snarled, his righteous indignation catching up with runaway emotions, before Williams snapped in angry response to the reaction.

  “Oh for God’s sake man, you’re bleating over a woman you never really met! While you were whispering sweet nothings into the ear of whoever this murderous bitch was, which by the way wasn’t a particularly nice thing to do with the ex-wife of the man paying you, the real Professor Abelard was long since away with the fairies with a tag on her toe! Is that tragic? Of course! Is it unfair? Absolutely! But does it change the necessity of the work we were doing or the need for us to go on doing it without distraction? No. Fucking. Way.”

  It was William’s turn to shake his head
, his frown betraying his incomprehension at Stone’s sentimentality, while the stricken Captain knelt down by the crumpled body, fighting to forge a path for his mind through the chaos which was jealously squeezing it. Brushing the threat of dampness from his eyes he stretched his lungs to their full capacity, drawing in the fullest and most refreshing of breaths. Looking into the dead eyes which gazed a sightless and unbreakable stare back at him, he reached slowly forward and touched them sadly closed.

  “Goodnight,” he whispered.

  Straightening himself up, Stone turned to look at his vantage point on the ridge, Williams stepping alongside him in grim accompaniment.

  “So what happens now?” Stone asked, the bitterness in his voice impossible to fully disguise. “I sincerely hope your Machiavellian repertoire extends to finding some way for us to quell the occupation?”

  “As it happens, it does,” Williams answered blithely. “It involves you turning around, picking up that rifle and getting your mind back on the job; you’ve got a President to kill.”

  “You’re mad!”

  “No,” Williams snarled, trying to keep his voice as low and quiet as necessary, “I’m trying to stop a fucking invasion! Your girlfriend was doing the right thing for the wrong reason,” Williams hissed, “Prague is crawling with Russian troops and as soon as they have it secured, the bald fucker down there with the delusions of grandeur is going to give the order for a full-scale invasion of the country; if we take him out now we can stop it happening, if we don’t then it’s bye-bye Czechoslovakia for the next twenty years!”

  “You take the damn shot then!”

  “I can’t!” Williams hissed, gesturing to his weak arm. “I couldn’t lift the rifle, let alone aim it! You’re a soldier, man, come on!”

  “You’re talking about assassination,” Stone argued, “that’s not the same as fighting in a battlefield.”

  “Of course it is!” Williams countered, “Assassination is just a fancy word for shooting someone. For fuck’s sake man, if you don’t take the shot, Myska wins a posthumous victory and Russia takes one more step towards a conflict with Europe, a real one. You say you want to make a better world for the kids? Well, let that bastard walk away and you’ve shoveled an extra layer of shit onto their lives instead; do this and save the fucking world, man!”