Escape to Perdition--a gripping thriller! Page 13

  It was as Peter and Mirushka relaxed in the car as it cut through the night that the news came through. The helicopter had crashed midway between Bratislava and Prague. Everyone on board, including Adrianna, was killed. Peter had silently held the weeping Mirushka for the rest of the journey, until she stepped into the Prague night at the door of the hotel and offered Prime Ministerial words of tribute to her fallen aide and condolences to the families of those involved, before retiring to her suite.

  Peter did not sleep that night, watching the reports as they came in, hoping against hope that this was just a tragic accident while knowing with absolute certainty that it was not. He knew Mirushka would share his certainty and he cursed his own selfishness at the thought that she may blame this on him. When early the next morning her bedroom door opened, he quickly flicked the images off the TV screen and offered her a weak smile before turning back to the window, waiting an age before risking any words.

  “There might be someone who can help us, although I don’t know if he would.” Peter’s words were barely audible as he gazed out at the city. “He’s someone who knows about the Institute.”

  “Who could help us?” Mirushka said in a soft voice, staring at the untouched breakfast lying on the tray before her, her eyes swollen and unblinking.

  “The only people in Prague who know about the Institute apart from us are either dead or next on the list.”

  She stifled the urge to wretch and pushed the tray away.

  “What’s the point? Maybe I should just let them do what they want and get it over with.”

  Peter spun away from his introspection at the window and looked at his lover, properly, for the first time that morning. The sight horrified him. She sat dishevelled in her grief, staring dead ahead at the tray she had rejected. The dressing gown that only nights ago draped over her like the flowing cloak of royalty now appeared as a shroud, clinging eerily to her thin frame, itself frail and robbed of strength. The natural beauty of her delicately lined features had been replaced with a hollow mask of sallow skin, patterned with worry lines and shadows.

  “I killed her.”

  Mirushka had repeated the words since she had closed the door to the press the previous night and Peter had long since abandoned objecting to them. Better, he thought, to let her cry it out of her system.

  “I should have sent her away, she was a child.”

  “You tried, she wouldn’t go. End of.” Peter had no words of comfort to offer, his merciless sense of analysis not allowing him to formulate any. “I know how you feel, but this isn’t helping.”

  Unmoving, a sarcastic snap came from the wraith like woman on the chair. “And what can? What magic words do you have?”

  Peter sighed, hardly wanting himself to mention the name.

  “McShade.”

  Svobodova laughed; a harsh laugh, appropriate to the joyless body from which it emerged. “That’s your hero in waiting?” she snorted. “Sir Roger McShade? What possible good could he do? He’s already refused to meet either Černý or myself before the results of the election are known; the preservation of Britain’s neutrality towards anything European is paramount to him. He’s just an aging diplomat who has chosen to flex his ego in Prague in the twilight years of his career.”

  Peter, though devoid of nationalistic sentiment, smarted at Svobodova’s dismissal of both the British Ambassador to Prague, and Peter’s recommendation of him.

  “Egotistical he might be,” Peter responded curtly, “but what did you expect him to do? All he can publicly say is reunification is a matter for the Czech and Slovak people to decide, and he’s done that. But it’s no secret that he isn’t Čurda’s biggest fan, and he’s one of the most respected men in European politics; at least he used to be. He’s got the ear of more than a few of Europe’s finest, including the British Prime Minister, and they’re exactly the kind of people you need. You’ve already got their Foreign Secretary onside haven’t you? Get McShade too and the battle’s half won.”

  “You’re right Miláčku, it’s a brilliant idea!”

  Peter saw a glass had appeared in her hand and she threw back the vicious shot, slamming the glass down, re-filling it smoothly and immediately from the bottle clamped in her other hand.

  “Get as many people as possible involved and ‘onside’ so I can go on hiding behind my human wall, toasting my own health while you drop like flies around me; all the Queen’s Men, lying down before me while I step on your broken backs on my way to destiny. Perfect.”

  She punctuated her sentence with another shot, swaying a little this time as the glass once more slammed down for re-filling.

  Drunkenness in women was a phenomenon which had always unsettled Peter. There was something dangerous about women when in a stupor, which made him nervous and cautious around them. Men were different. In Peter’s experience, drunken men were either fun, like Rasti, or a threat, in which he case he would be prepared for them; but women? They were unpredictable, as though the female propensity to confuse menfolk was emphasised with the introduction of alcohol. But with no magic words at his disposal, Peter could only fall back on the brutal honesty with which he typically condemned himself.

  “If that’s what it takes, then yes!” His voice was louder than he would have liked but it at least served to stem the flow of hard spirits into her body. “The harsh truth is, Mirushka, that every one of us is expendable if it means getting you to stop pissing about at the gate of history and actually walk through the fucking thing. Rado, me and even Adrianna, God bless her. If it’s one of us that drops it means you don’t, and that’s all that matters. So instead of moping about here, acknowledge what she did for you and win the election for her!”

  Peter gestured out of the window.

  “Those people out there are your people Miroslava. They’re waiting for the leader they were promised, for their uncrowned Queen. Černý’s name might be the one on the ballot paper but it’s you they’re voting for; you’re the face of the future to everyone in the bloody region!”

  Svobodova, draining her glass once more as Peter spoke, slammed it down and finally turned her head toward him, her face skeletal in rage.

  “I never asked for anyone to make me their goddamn poster girl! Those ‘people out there’ waiting for me to lead them to history should take more care about who they make idols out of.”

  “Oh, they have. This time they have,” Peter countered, his temper rising. “Walk into any student bar in the world and you’ll see Che Guevara’s face staring back at you from a thousand t-shirts like he was some sort of idol. Where are the pictures of Ghandi? Of Martin Luther King? Where are the posters for the workers who built the nation? Of the doctors and nurses who healed it? Of the teachers who educated it? The saints and philosophers who guided it? They’re the ones who should be lauded; they’re the heroes, not some murdering sadist who looked good in a beret. There’s no political heroes out there, not any more, not for most people. But this time, your people had three. And out of them, Herbert’s dead, Černý’s too old so you’re the only one left. Be the hero they need you to be!”

  “I’ve already told you!” Svobodova’s voice was frustration itself. “Even if what you say is true, that I am some icon to be protected at all costs, your precious Sir Roger won’t meet with me, or with Černý! And what’s so fucking special about the British, that the word of one tired, irrelevant ambassador, womanising his way to retirement in eastern Europe, could sway the kind of men who do the things they do?!”

  Her words were distorted by the grief which once more claimed her, and she turned away from her silent lover.

  Peter watched her shoulders hunch and shake as she tried desperately to control, or at least internalise, her sobbing; and he clawed through his mind again, yearning for something, anything, to say. He reached clumsily out, hoping to offer a gentle touch as a substitute for words, only to hesitantly withdraw it. A dozen times he opened his mouth, with his breath the only sound to emerge, and he beg
an to curse his frustrated impotence.

  Svobodova stopped shaking and spoke again, the grief in her beautifully accented English replaced with a rising anger that bubbled and threatened to boil over.

  “How can they do it?” She asked; her fury quiet and contained. “Kill?”

  Peter struggled for an answer but was interrupted as Mirushka screamed her question again. “How could you do it?!”

  She spun around to face her murderous lover, throwing the clear, glass bottle at him with furious speed. Peter ducked as it flew past him, smashing on the wall behind his head and covering him with a generous blend of its high proof contents and angry shards. Stunned, he uncovered his head to see Svobodova running at him like an angel perverted by pure anguish; a mask of hysteria clinging tightly to her features and dressing gown spread behind her as wings. She reached him before his mind was able to process what was happening and, surprised, Peter fell backwards onto the broken glass which crunched and stabbed under his weight. Svobodova landed on top of him, hitting his chest and screaming her accusatory question over and over again.

  Writhing from the jagged fragments beneath him, Peter grabbed hold of her arms and rolled them both away from the glass, shouting her name into her face, desperate to snap her out of her insanity. Her arms were struggling against his clamp like grip on them, her fingers outstretched, trying to claw into his eyes. She was a strong woman, and in her anger stronger still, voicing her question with as much ferocity as she had shown in attacking him.

  “How could you do it?! How could you do it?!”

  The words thumped incessantly into Peter’s ears, loud and constant until he could bear to hear them no more. With all his might, he forced her arms to her side and himself up, so that she sat on the floor in front of him.

  “Because I didn’t care, alright!” His bellowed words silenced her in an instant. “I didn’t fucking care! I figured all you politicians were the same, that you were all probably up to your necks in some filth or other, so I killed whoever I was pointed at and the bills got paid, that’s all I gave a shit about!”

  Her resistance waned under Peter’s grip and the silence gave way to deep, calming breaths.

  Peter, himself breathing deeply, looked into his lover’s face and sighed. Her eyes were tight shut, her anguished howls reduced to a faint, barely audible moan, and her hitherto pale cheeks flushed with expended passion. Peter slowly released his grip on her wrists and, when no renewed attack came, cradled her head against his chest, brushing his thumb against her hot, damp cheek.

  “Miroslava?” he said softly.

  She opened her puffy eyes in response, and looked through the blur of her last tears at him.

  “Peter.” She replied, her voice as soft as his.

  Peter saw the beginnings of her familiar smile forming at the corners of her mouth and as the adrenaline left his system he smiled back at her, both in pleasure at seeing life return to her face, and relief at the end of the outburst.

  “It’ll be alright,” he said softly, hoping to God he was telling the truth. The tightness of her embrace betrayed her own similar hopes.

  “But what do I do now?”

  “You go out there and you tell them that you’re in this for them, that you’re one of them. And you do something else too. Something no other politician does in this day and age.”

  He leaned in closer, his lips next to her ear, faint traces of day old perfume tickling his nose.

  “Mean it.” He said.

  The pair helped each other to their feet and continued their embrace. “And while you’re at it,” Peter said, “Get in touch with McShade.”

  Mirushka tiptoed to the bedroom door, carefully avoiding the glass, shaking her tired head.

  “Láska moja, what do you think an old has-been like McShade can possibly do to help us? How would he know how to fight the Institute?

  “Because he was the one who created it.”

  CHAPTER 15

  “WHAT’S GOING ON?” Jonathan Greyson’s question was an understandable one as he stood at the entrance to the conference room of Prague’s British Embassy, surveying the collection of people before him. To his side stood an immaculately powersuited young woman, eyes wide in surprise.

  Sir Roger McShade rose from his position at the head of the grand, oak table and beckoned the pair inside.

  “For those of you who haven’t met him, may I introduce the United Kingdom’s new Foreign Secretary, the Right Honourable Jonathan Greyson MP, accompanied, it seems, by Her Majesty’s Minister for Europe, Ms Caroline Bland. We’re all very proud of Ms Bland; straight from Cambridge to Parliament and the youngest Minister ever to hold office. You read ‘Political Studies’ I believe?”

  Peter suspected that he wasn’t the only one in the room to pick up on the tainted sarcasm in the ambassador’s voice, despite the welcoming smile on his face.

  “Never mind that,” snapped Greyson, “what the hell is going on here? I dislike being ambushed and this looks like an ambush.”

  “Believe me, I know how you feel,” said the older man. And Peter knew he had reason to.

  A few days earlier, he had persuaded Mirushka to contact McShade under the guise of an innocuous call for electoral support. The ambassador, offering his usual bland best wishes, had sought to end the call before Mirushka’s insistent voice requested a meeting regarding ‘The Institute’. The silence at the other end of the line was palpable, while the eventual response that there were many Institutes and his knowledge of them sparse, was equally emphatic. It was then that Peter had interrupted his bluffing, begging to differ with the ambassador’s recollections. Peter knew that his voice would be recognised and stir memories in the older man, and the result was the meeting they all sat in now, McShade going so far as to request the Foreign Secretary cancel the Berlin Banquet and join him. Now that the politician had walked into a conference room to find not only McShade but Karol Černý, Miroslava Svobodova and the unknown quantity of Peter himself at the table, he had, Peter conceded, every right to be suspicious.

  “I assure you this is of the utmost importance,” McShade began. “I’ve called you away to discuss vital developments in relations with our European partners, particularly in relation to the Institute for European Harmony.”

  “The what?” Greyson turned his head in irritation towards Bland.

  “It’s a think tank,” she responded. “They offer advice and promote theories on greater harmonization and relationship management within the EU.”

  “Is that all?” Greyson turned around and headed towards the door. “You called me all this way to talk about a think tank?”

  “Sit down, please.” McShade gestured to a chair.

  “Absolutely not! I’ve got better things to do than be shoehorned into meetings about pressure groups and lobbyists.”

  “Sit down man!” McShade’s tone was severe, stunning all in the room, including Greyson, who turned slowly back and slipped silently into a chair, Bland alongside him.

  “You’re posturing is all very well, but there is more than that to foreign relations as you are about to discover.”

  Peter couldn’t help but be impressed by the way McShade took command of the room, as the ambassador resumed his place and began his oratory.

  “The Institute, until recently the employers of Mr Lowe here,” he nodded towards Peter, “are far more than merely a think tank, and at this present time pose a very real threat to our political ally Miroslava Svobodova.”

  “Why?” Greyson squinted, assimilating the new information.

  “Because Czechoslovak Reunification goes against everything the EU holds dear. It wants to see devolution, declarations of independence, the rise of smaller, more manageable groups, all of whom will defer to the supranational body for their guidance and their enlightenment. Any token importance afforded to the likes of Berlin, Madrid or London is precisely that: symbolism, diluted by a reality that sees power invested elsewhere. Reunification counters that, it create
s a popular mood, and galvanises a sense of pride in nationhood. While that’s bad enough in any country, here it has the potential to act as a catalyst, bringing the whole of central and eastern Europe with it.”

  “Are you seriously suggesting we leave?”

  “Emphatically not, for the simple reason we cannot survive on our own, even with the ‘support’ of our alleged friends in Washington. And even more emphatically the new Czechoslovakia must remain within EU borders to be sure of safety from any further Russian advancement.”

  Greyson held up his hand.

  “Look, we all know that different EU countries want advancement at different rates, that doesn’t make them a body of dictators. How is this ‘Institute’ posing a threat to anyone?”

  McShade exhaled his impatience and drew in a lungful of air. “Because rather than being a pressure group for pseudo-intellectuals, the Institute is the body created to aggressively defend the internal and external security of the European Union and its Members, even from themselves and each other, for the long term good of the project.”

  “What?” Greyson’s face was twisted in confusion, “No such body exists! There’s no supranational secret defence force for the EU; we can’t even agree on a shared army!”

  “Not formally no, but it exists nonetheless.”

  “Impossible.” Bland interjected, shaking her head. “Something like that would be traceable, it couldn’t exist without a formal infrastructure, and no formal infrastructure could exist on the scale you’re talking about without being discovered.”