The Prague Ultimatum Read online

  “Has it? I’ve been trying to avoid the media recently.”

  Finally, the Professor’s expression softened and she offered a smile to Stone.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, “I shouldn’t take it out on you. It’s just that running around Central Europe at the beck and call of my exhusband isn’t exactly my first choice of project assignments.”

  “You were Greyson’s wife?” Stone struggled to contain the surprise in his voice and regretted the tone of his question instantly. He was relieved when it was met with a further smile.

  “You really should read the odd paper you know?” She teased, “My name was in a few of them for a while, though fortunately they kept my face out. At least Jonathan and I could agree on telling the gossip rags where to go.”

  “So why are you here?”

  “He asked me.”

  “Yeah, but…”

  “Necessity. I’m a Professor of International Relations and Extremist Politics at the University of Vienna. It’s a good role and I have a degree of freedom, but that’s about as far as it goes in terms of an academic career. If I want to progress, to offer consultancy services to governments or private interests I need a track record to back up my expertise. Jonathan, for all his faults, and believe me I could tell you a few stories about them, knows how good I am and if this little project of his comes off then I have the background I need to boost my career.”

  “And what exactly is your role in the ‘little project’?”

  “Strategic,” she replied, gazing out of the window as the car began to pull to a slow stop outside a grand gothic building. “I offer my advice to Svobodova on how to manage the extremist pockets in the country that have come out of the woodwork recently, and the best way for her to take on Myska, while you dig around and try to find any connection between him and some of the shadier characters in his movement. If we can use any information you find to wrong foot him while I look for ways to trip him up politically, we can put paid to threat he poses nice and quietly.”

  “How very neat,” Stone said as the rear door was opened and the pair stepped into the courtyard of the imposing Prague Castle complex, each casting admiring glances at the impressive beauty of their surroundings while continuing their conversation.

  “Yes, well I hope so anyway,” Abelard agreed. “It might make up for being sent here in the first place. Let’s just say Svobodova isn’t someone I want to spend too much time around.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I think she’s sleeping with my ex-husband.”

  Stone had no time to respond as they were swept through the building, arriving with smooth efficiency at the door of Svobodova’s office, where they were asked to enter.

  Despite the voluminous nature of the room, there was little pretentious or overtly grand about its contents. Svobodova’s desk sat in the corner, adjacent to the clear windows overlooking Prague, while a couple of small sofas guarded a shorter table towards the middle of the room. Her desk, aside from official documents and office equipment was sparse, with few personal touches to admire, save for a small photo frame, inside which lay a wrinkled and torn page from a book, the writing on which was too small for Stone to read, and which was stained in what looked very like a deep, blood red.

  Standing before them was Miroslava Svobodova herself. She was, thought Stone, as beautiful in real life as television presented her, her features mature, the stress of her job beginning to deepen the lines on her face, but her eyes full of strength and determination and her smile warm and genuine, if a little less full than the one worn in interviews and broadcasts. Her blouse sleeves rolled up to elbow length, her skirt black as was the tightly buttoned waistcoat from which a delicate gold watch chain eccentrically hung. Only the white, open necked shirt beneath it contrasted the dark shades, presenting, it seemed to the Captain, the image of a woman in mourning.

  She strode across the room towards them and held her hand out to Stone who shook it firmly in response.

  “Captain Stone,” she said, “thank you so very much for coming, I know this is a difficult time for you.”

  “Happy to help,” he replied brusquely, determined to avoid any display of sympathy, “this is Professor Abelard.”

  Svobodova turned to the Professor, her smile a notch thinner, not from coldness, it seemed to Stone, but more likely with a slight anxiety. Stepping closer, the Czechoslovak Premier offered a softer handshake to Abelard and her voice, when it came, lacked any trace of political bravado.

  “Thank you, Professor,” she said.

  “My pleasure,” Abelard responded, her own smile equally awkward, “and please, call me Natalie.” Abelard’s words were stiff and far from caked in sincerity, but the politician seemed keen to welcome any opportunity to break the ice between them, or at least chip it a little.

  “Natalie,” Svobodova held the Professor’s hand a moment longer before stepping back and gesturing to them to come further into the room and sit down.

  “I must apologise for the short notice of your invitations here,” she said, joining them on the sofas, “and in the spirit of honesty let me admit straight away we’ve had reason to be suspicious of outside help in recent years and I was not immediately overjoyed with the idea of bringing you here; either of you.”

  “That’s alright,” Abelard answered, settling herself into her seat, “I know how persuasive Jonathan can be.”

  The barbed comment pricked any warmth from the room and an uncomfortable silence settled at once around the table.

  This was not a situation Stone was either used to or desired to be in and he moved to limit the damage as quickly as possible.

  “Anyway,” he began, “the fact is we’re here now and I presume our help is welcome.”

  “Absolutely,” Svobodova confirmed.

  “In which case, shall we get down to business? I took the liberty of reading up on our friend Mr Myska on the plane here, quite a colourful character in many ways, certainly in terms of his opinions, but I gather he wasn’t front page news until after the bomb last year?”

  The news at that time had been full of little else; a terrorist attack in the heart of Prague at Wenceslas Square itself. A young man, no more than a boy really, strode into one of the countless bars lining the famous tourist spot, with a suicide belt strapped around his waist. Luckily for the victims, if stupidly on the part of their attacker, he chose to detonate his device during the early hours of the morning, resulting in a much-reduced casualty list but one which nonetheless reached into double figures. After the initial panic and stutter in the flow of tourists, the City and the country had slowly returned to a semblance of normality, the media merely chalking up the attack alongside the similar occurrences in Paris, Brussels and elsewhere as the continent began to ease itself almost into a reluctant acceptance of such periodic atrocities, as though they were an occupational hazard.

  “Precisely,” nodded Svobodova. “After the business of reunification was settled, there were many who accused me of focussing too greatly on the plight of the dispossessed and disaffected in our society, but the bomb made them more vocal than ever before and Myska was the one who focussed that rage.”

  “What was his background?” Stone asked, “Where did he come from?”

  “He was raised in London,” Abelard interjected eagerly, apparently keen not to be excluded from a discussion involving her specialist subject. “He moved to his mother’s home town in Moravia when he turned eighteen and got a job in a warehouse packing frozen food, eventually getting promoted to warehouse Manager before he got himself elected as an MEP a few years back.”

  “Unusual for an anonymous independent candidate to win election, isn’t it?”

  “It is, but he’d built up quite a following locally,” the Professor continued. “There was heavy unemployment where he lived and he’d run campaigns and drawn attention to the problem. Local people saw him as ‘one of them’ and when he was elected it was a case of ‘local boy done good’
,”

  “Unfortunately,” Svobodova said, taking up the tale, “his message didn’t extend only to the well-being of the unemployed. He lived in an area with a large population of Romani, and very soon he began scapegoating that section of the community for the problems people were facing; employment, crime, you name it, he blamed it on them, but in such a way that he sounded as though he did so with genuine concern for their well-being as well as that of his white neighbours. He would speak at length about the incompatibility of the two cultures and the importance of allowing both the freedom and room to prosper. He never explicitly advocated apartheid, but everyone knew what lay behind his words.”

  “And since the bombing it’s a theme he’s returned to with relish,” Abelard said, reclaiming the verbal baton from Svobodova, “only this time his focus is chiefly on Muslim immigrants from Syria, Libya and the like and after the bombing people are prepared to listen on a grand scale. He’s been able to succeed where other Leaders have failed and essentially unite the European Far Right under his banner. The arrangement might be somewhat implied and informal at present, but it exists and for the moment at least, the other extremist groups across the continent are prepared to ride his coat tails to glory, as it were; they’re making electoral inroads everywhere by mimicking his style and his message and the main Parties are negotiating a new grouping in the European Parliament as we speak.”

  Stone stopped himself from smiling at the game of verbal ‘oneupmanship’ the ladies were playing and focused on the veracity of their words.

  “So,” he mused, “Aside from the fact that technically speaking he could be accused of being an immigrant himself, and that he’s not only riding the xenophobic band wagon across Europe, he driving the thing, what else do we have on him? Greyson seemed to think there’s a possibility he’s not as squeaky clean as everyone thinks, does he have any concrete grounds to do so?”

  “Nothing definitive,” Svobodova shook her head, “but Myska, for all his faults, is a clever man and any unsavoury connections he has, he’s been sure to hide well, Jonathan knows that.”

  Abelard shot a look to Svobodova at the mention of Greyson and stayed silent, leaving the politician to continue the briefing.

  “No-one can prove anything,” she said, “so far as we’ve been able to tell, no-one in his movement has any criminal record or association with the more violent extremist groups; no-one officially on the payroll that is…”

  “Meaning?”

  Svobodova sighed deeply. “Well as you might have seen on the news, there have been several instances of unrest in the country; hate crimes have soared just as in Britain after your referencdum, attacks on immigrants and Romani are sadly far from uncommon at the moment. There have been ‘sightings’.”

  “Of?”

  “Familiar faces, people in the crowd at Myska rallies showing up later at Crime Scenes, sometimes as witnesses, sometimes just… there.”

  “You suspect coordination?”

  “We have no real proof, but it’s not beyond the realms of possibility.”

  She stood and walked briskly over to her desk, opening the drawer and pulling out a thin black file, passing it to Stone who opened it and began to leaf through. Inside were a variety of photographs, some pulled from newspapers or online, others CCTV images, often grainy and unclear. Each held the image of a different face, alongside a few lines of text detailing any available extraneous information.

  “And these people have all been present at both Myska rallies and trouble spots? To be honest that’s not much to go on.”

  “I know,” Svobodova agreed, sighing once more.

  Stone slapped the book shut and looked up.

  “Well I think the first thing I should do is get a feel of a Myska speech first hand.”

  “You’re in luck,” Abelard said, breaking her self-imposed silence, “he makes public appearances most days, usually in Prague. His website says he’s at Náměstí Míru, that’s the square by the Church of St Ludmila, later today.”

  “Not exactly appropriate,” Svobodova replied, “in English the name translates to ‘Peace Square’.”

  “Well hopefully it’ll be a peaceful day for the people he targets in his speeches.”

  “A fun day out for all the family,” Stone replied. “That’s settled then, I’ll head over there and keep an eye out for any of these characters and see what I can pick up.”

  He leaned back slightly on the sofa and, with a first step in place, sought to break the ice a little more thoroughly than had been managed before.

  “I must say,” he smiled, “this all sounds small potatoes for the woman who reunified Czechoslovakia; surely that earned you sufficient stature to withstand any challenge from fly by night populists like Myska?”

  Svobodova reciprocated his smile.

  “Reunification was the easy part,” she laughed without humour, “it was afterwards the problems started. He warned me that the Institute always had a plan B…”

  She tailed off, lost for the briefest of moments in her own thoughts, looking, it seemed to Stone, as though she were fighting back tears.

  “Who warned you?” He asked, frowning.

  She shook her head quickly, as if to banish any surrender to emotion.

  “It doesn’t matter. Jonathan told you about The Institute…?”

  “For European Harmony,” Stone finished, “yes but only briefly.

  What exactly is their stake in all this?”

  Svobodova’s face betrayed the weight of the question and she took a deep breath before answering.

  “The Institute were violently opposed to reunification, so I knew our doing so would be problematic, even more so when we merged the national banks and withdrew from the Eurozone, but the ‘punishment’ we expected has never come. Until now that is…”

  “What punishment?” Abelard quizzed, meeting a wry smile from Svobodova in response.

  “A motion is being raised in the Commission,” she began, “on the legal status of Czechoslovakia’s membership of the European Union.”

  “On what grounds?” came the Professor’s surprised reply.

  “On the grounds that Czechia and Slovakia joined the Union as independent nations that now, technically no longer exist and the new country which has replaced them has never formally applied for or been granted membership.”

  Although Stone was no lawyer, he frowned at the preposterousness of what Svobodova had said, hearing his own thoughts immediately echoed by Professor Abelard’s exasperated objections.

  “But that’s ridiculous!” she exclaimed. “How can the merging of two States into one invalidate Membership? Not to mention how losing another Member State after Brexit would weaken them, the whole thing is an absurdity!”

  “I agree,” Svobodova nodded, “but the motion has nonetheless been raised and a vote on the matter is imminent.”

  “Forgive me,” Stone interjected, “But why are you too concerned? If Europe, or at least this ‘Institute’ or whatever it’s called, has been responsible for so much trouble in your country then wouldn’t it be better for you to be outside? From what Greyson told me, I’d have thought Britain would willingly make closer ties with you.”

  “It’s not that simple,” Abelard snapped in apparent irritation at the thought of Greyson’s ‘closer ties’ with Svobodova. “Britain has the luxury of its island status, but Czechoslovakia is landlocked with Russia on the doorstep. If they lose EU status, and worse, if NATO decides to take that as a legal precedent and also withdraw membership then…”

  “We find ourselves very alone, very quickly,” Svobodova said, her face grim. “And despite Britain’s own predicament, Jonathan is very much a lone voice in his government in his support of Czechoslovakia.”

  “Lone voice?” Stone’s voice betrayed his confused irritation, “I was under the impression this was a government sanctioned operation?”

  Svobodova broke eye contact for the briefest of moments, in apparent acknowledgement of t
he exaggeration.

  “Yes,” she answered quietly, “And no. Jonathan barely hung onto his job as Foreign Secretary when the new Prime Minister chose her Cabinet; you wouldn’t believe who she wanted to replace him with. He speaks in our favour but I’m led to believe The Institute’s reach extends far into your new government.”

  “I was promised….” Stone’s irritation began to bubble dangerously close to anger.

  “Exoneration, I know,” Svobodova finished, leaning forward and placing her hand warmly over Stone’s own, “And it remains in his gift, he assures me. Complete your task here and you can return to Britain with your honour restored, and my eternal gratitude.”

  It was political charm she offered, Stone knew that, but there was a sincerity behind her eyes that calmed, a little at least, his desire to rage at the deception.

  “How can I refuse?” he asked, sarcasm biting his tone.

  “My gratitude is sincere,” Svobodova reassured him, “to both of you. I realise you have your own priorities at present Captain, and Profess…. Natalie… I can well understand how uncomfortable this must be for you. But please be assured that I, and my country, are more thankful than you know for your assistance.”

  She stood up and moved to the window, gazing out across the City of a hundred spires as though she were a mother hen keeping watchful, loving eye of her chicks.

  “I must admit,” she said, “I thought we had seen the end of such extremist politics as Myska’s as a major force, but when people are scared or circumstances less than perfect, they seem as eager as ever to find someone else to blame for their woes; the oppressed and the outsiders, whether our own Romani kin or the refugees from Syria and Libya, especially so if they happen to be Muslim. People willingly blind themselves to the real cause of their misery and the realities all around them. Take Russia for example; have you seen what they’ve done to the Ukraine in two years? And now they sit, just a few short miles from our border, goading us with their incessant ‘military manoeuvres’, while we rely on the security of an ally that hates us…”

  “To be fair,” Abelard countered, “a lot of that can be put down to the EU and America trying too hard to influence things in an unstable country. If NATO hadn’t pushed so strongly for a presence in Ukraine, and if the EU hadn’t essentially backed a coup, then it’s doubtful Russia would have got their knickers in a twist the way they did.”