The Prague Ultimatum Read online

  “I know, I know,” Svobodova replied, remembering how the internal dissent in the eastern country had led to its latest puppet President ‘inviting’ the Russian army to help restore order and precipitating the takeover, “Don’t get me started on NATO at the moment, they’re every bit as difficult as the bloody EU.”

  Svobodova exhaled and shook her head, walking to the window and gesturing out.

  “You know? You should have a good look around our tourist spots while you’re here,” she said. “Every other bar or restaurant is owned by Russians, some of them far from reputable and with discreet connections to the Russian mafia. Russian gangs have added massively to our problems with organised crime, just last night there was another murder at Florenc, that’s three this year, all gang related…”

  “I was at Florenc last night!” squirmed Abelard, visibly shaken by the revelation.

  “Then you are lucky to have missed it,” Svobodova replied, her hands resting on her hips and her face thin with stress. “All those years we spent fighting them, trying anything and everything we could to resist their takeover of our way of life. How we celebrated when the Revolution came and we were rulers of our own destiny again, or so we thought, how we were free at last from Russia’s rule. Only now, nearly thirty years later, Russia has practically taken over again and used Capitalism to do it, with everyone too busy hating Muslims and gypsies to notice, especially with Myska whipping up trouble at every turn.”

  The already tense atmosphere in the room was now doubly heavy with the added layer of moroseness ladled on by Svobodova’s lamentations, and Stone sought to break it by excusing himself from the scene.

  “Well,” he began, “all thing’s considered, I think Greyson would prefer I didn’t get too involved in any more bouts of diplomacy with the Russians at present. If that’s everything, I’ll get myself ready for the rally.”

  “I’ll have a driver take you back to your apartment,” Svobodova offered.

  “No need,” he replied, “I need to get a feel of the city first and I’d rather do that under my own steam. It makes sense for me to keep a low profile too.”

  “Very well,” Svobodova agreed. “When you head to the rally, you can take the underground to Náměstí Míru, the Church is just outside. Radoslav will provide you with papers on your way out. In the meantime, it would be helpful Natalie if we could discuss strategy, perhaps an analysis of our opponent’s key positions?”

  “Of course,” the Professor responded stiffly, her discomfort evident in her inflection.

  “Then good luck in your endeavors today, Captain Stone, I look forward to discussing your findings.”

  She stretched out her hand to him, clasping his in her now familiar grip and he stood to leave, smiling to his new associates and inwardly relieved that he could work alone, at least for the day.

  “Mind you don’t trip,” Abelard said as he rose, “It’s the deepest subway in Europe if I’m right?”

  Svobodova nodded.

  “Eighty-seven meters,” she confirmed with a dash of pride.

  “Then I’ll try and land on my feet.”

  Stone afforded them both a respectful nod of the head and turned briskly on his heels, eager to do the best job he could as quickly as he could, return to Britain and his boy and hopefully put this experience a considerably long distance behind him.

  FOUR

  CONFUSING THOUGH THE INTRICACIES of Prague’s transport threatened to be, Stone had negotiated worse and took his place on the crowded tube train to the accompaniment of several frowns and one or two audible sniffs at the presence of the well dressed and imposing Captain and, more particularly, his skin tone. Prague, Stone had been led to believe, was a vibrant and cosmopolitan city which not only tolerated the communities which composed it, but actively celebrated them, and in most parts of the City through which he had spent the morning walking to get his bearings, that impression had proven true. Nonetheless it still saddened him to witness the backward glances and distrustful stares in his direction as he made his way through certain other streets, which no doubt mirrored roads in every other city and town in Europe, his own included.

  Since the EU referendum back home, Britain had never quite felt quite at ease with itself. The atmosphere was a shade nastier, the people just a degree colder; the new tensions accompanied by the return to the country’s streets of the kind of open racial abuse that had blighted Stone’s childhood and which he had long hoped was dead and not just sleeping in the nation’s heart. And though these days it was ‘them bleedin’ Polish’ and ‘those fuckin’ Muslims’ who bore the brunt of the resurgence of hateful ignorance, Stone knew that he and anyone sharing his colour very much remained secondary targets, tolerated but never quite wholly accepted, even if they were, for now, superseded by others. If London, Manchester and so many other cities in the UK had succumbed to the symptoms of racism in these last years, Stone couldn’t really expect that Prague, or indeed anywhere else, would remain immune, and deep down he knew that the contagion had spread far across the continent and even beyond. And while politicians continued to fuel displacement and migrant crises ballooned, Stone knew it was a disease that showed little sign of abating.

  The train heaved into the stop and Stone stepped out with a trickle of others onto the platform, heading up the escalator which stretched as high above him as Abelard had opined, and he freed his mind from his musings on the state of the world and focused on the task in hand. Reaching the top of the escalator, he stepped out of the station and found himself in a scene of quiet tranquillity. An ancient, twin-spired church of ornate authenticity jealously commanded attention, guarded as it was by meticulous greenery and a litter-less path framed by black metallic benches. To his delighted surprise, across from the square stood the resolute shell of a further Russian T54 tank, regally poised as though resentful of the ignorance afforded it by a population used to its presence.

  Checking his watch, Stone bounded over with a grin of boyish enthusiasm on his face, drinking in the dull and dusty green of its armour as though it were a cloak of sovereignty adorning some triumphant Monarch. It was the real thing, Stone realised, not a model or a reconstruction, but a genuine and veteran T54 with all the character and experience one would expect from such a machine seeping from its very frame. It was a thing of beauty, Stone thought, and said as much out loud, ducking under the tape around it and reaching his hand to pat the dusty and worn caterpillar track, only for a shrill voice to halt his movement.

  Frowning, he turned around to the source of the cry, to see a balding, slightly rotund, middle aged man, jogging up to him, the remnants of some sauce coated wrap dropping from his other hand to the pavement as he did so.

  “Hey! Don’t touch the props!”

  Stone lifted his hand away and smiled at the newcomer who, judging by his accent was British, from somewhere below London.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude. Are you filming here today?”

  The man grumbled. “If they ever get here, it was supposed to be this morning but there’s some big delay at the last location so we’re pushed back to this afternoon. This old baby is too expensive to move and so we have to look after it until they are ready.”

  He gestured to a small collection of similarly dressed stage hands a few metres away accompanied by their larger set security colleagues, who looked over at Stone with an air of nonchalant indifference.

  “And now we have to wait for this fucking idiot to talk to his sheep before we can shoot, which means we’ll have to redress the whole square…”

  He lapsed into a barrage of swearwords, Stone smiling in sympathy.

  “Not a fan of Mr Myska’s gang?”

  “No,” the man spat adamantly, “and you won’t want to hang around here too much longer when this lot start to get wound up, you don’t exactly fit their idea of the perfect resident, if you get my drift?”

  “Thanks, but I can look after myself,” Stone said. “Is there often trouble a
t these things?”

  The man leaned closer and lowered his voice, flicking his eyes around him as he spoke.

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “Try me.”

  “Well, If you believe Myska, if you read his books or watch his speeches, he says he hates violence, he condemns anyone who uses it, he won’t have those people in his movement. That’s how he stays ‘respectable’.”

  “But?”

  He leaned closer still.

  “These idiots I’m working with,” he said, his voice almost a whisper, “some of them support him, I have to be careful what I say, they don’t like when I talk bad about him, and what’s more most of them are Russian…”

  “But?”

  “Well, see… I’m an ex-pat; been here for years, moved here after de-mob, met myself a nice Czech lady and until the fucking Brexit disaster and the arse fell out of the pound, I was living ‘happily ever after’ you know? Now all of a sudden my pension isn’t worth as much and I have to make ends meet as a bloody roadie for the film crews.”

  “De-mob? You were a soldier?”

  “Queen’s Royal Hussars,” the man said with pride, his back straightening in subconscious salute to his regiment’s name, “Barry’s the name, Barry Hendry, Sergeant as was.”

  “Lincoln Stone,” came the response, the pair shaking hands in mutual respect, “Captain, RTR.”

  “Sir!” Barry clicked his heels, a smile on his face, which gave way to a gradual dawning.

  “Hold, on… THE Captain Stone?”

  The Officer nodded with a slight reluctance, unsure if his thus far warm reception would continue. He needn’t have worried, Barry grabbing his hand once more and shaking it with a passionate ferocity.

  “It’s an honour sir, a real honour. It’s a bloody disgrace what those bastards in Parliament and the Press have been saying about you; fucking cheek is what it is. How many of those bloody desk warmers have had to go through the shit we had to, eh? A bloody disgrace, a VC like you ‘n all…”

  Stone’s appreciation of the warm words were genuine, but he balked at any notions of hero worship.

  “I’ll survive,” he smiled, “if I could come through Afghanistan I can come through this. You were telling me about Myska?”

  Barry’s face turned serious again and he gestured subtly to the group of roadies he had come over from.

  “You see the lad over there? The one with the goatee, a bit on the skinny side?”

  “Yeah?”

  “That’s Petřík. I keep my eyes open for him, give him an arm around the shoulder when he needs it and a kick up the arse if the situation demands it, just like I did for all of my lads on the line back in the day. He’s a good kid, hard worker, give you the shirt off his back he would, I mean really, no-one would say a bad word about him. But that was before.”

  Stone raised an inquizative eyebrow.

  “Before what?”

  “Young Petřík went and fell in love with an immigrant didn’t he? The wrong kind of immigrant.”

  Stone grimaced, instinctively realising where the story was heading.

  “The girl was from Libya, she came over to get away from all the chaos and shit after Gaddafi got done. Lovely girl, lovely,” Barry shook his head, his eyes dropping for a moment as he recounted the painful memory. “When they got married, the whole village threw them a huge party; bugger me I got so drunk that night I could barely see the next morning...”

  He began to stutter over his words, clearly troubled by something. Stone placed his hand on his shoulder and frowned in concern.

  “What happened?” he softly pressed.

  “They were attacked. Not long after the bomb, they were walking in Malá Strana, Myska had been speaking there earlier that day, making one of his big speeches about how it’s impossible to tell which migrants are real and which are terrorists in disguise; the usual shite he spouts. Three men attacked them, young Petřík he tried to fight back but they knocked him out cold and with him out of the way, they… bloody hell, if only I’d been there.” He gave in again to the lump in his throat, heaving a shaky breath into his lungs to counter it. “She’d been pregnant.”

  A torrent of revulsion enveloped Stone and he dropped his head, tensing his stomach to quell the rising pain the revelation had inspired.

  Regaining his composure, the man nodded over to the Square, where people were beginning to mill about in anticipation of Myska’s arrival.

  “Look at them,” he sneered. “Even if I could believe that Myska wasn’t a violent man himself, that he thought he was doing the right thing and wasn’t full of hatred, every word he says is sweet fucking honey to the people who are and he spends every day of his life making it worse.”

  Stone was lost for words. There were no remarks, no utterances he could make which could either express his sympathies or ease the young man or of his friend, Barry, and so, for a precious few moments, he simply stood with him, their heads respectively bowed as the bustle in the square grew louder.

  A shout came over from the man’s colleagues, gesturing for him to return to them and he straightened himself in readiness.

  “I have to go,” he said, “if you please sir, don’t touch my tank and if you’re taking an interest in that bastard, make sure you look after yourself.”

  “I will,” Stone promised, “and it’s Lincoln; I hope I bump into you again.”

  “Thank you, sir. I mean Lincoln,” he answered, smiling again in appreciation, “if you’re planning to be in town for a while pop along and watch one of the shoots if you like; they don’t exactly stick to the schedule but if you hang around one of these beauties long enough we’re bound to show up.”

  “I will, thanks. I can’t say much but I’m taking a close look at our friend Mr. Myska, and I’ll be doing everything I can to make sure shit like your friend has been through never happens again.”

  He offered his hand to the former Sergeant who took it and gave a professional, military nod of the head, before turning back to his work mates and walking away.

  Stone watched him return then moved back across the Square, offering a last admiring glance to the tank as he went.

  A group of people were gathering before a small and apparently hastily assembled wooden platform, their number added to by newcomers hurrying past Stone from the station behind him, and others scurrying from side streets in all directions, congregating before the makeshift stage. Stone estimated their number at around two hundred, and while slightly larger than most extremist gatherings he had heard of, the outward ‘normality’ of the people comprising it was unusual. Well-tailored and well groomed, the crowd was every bit a snapshot of everyday life; the expected loose assortment of tattooed skin heads and beer bellied malcontents nowhere to be seen, their places taken instead by fresh faces and apple pie smiles, eagerly awaiting the arrival of the man who justified their everyday prejudices. Far more of the usual suspects made up the counter demonstration held back by police, way across the other side of the square; an assortment of stark hair colours and starker slogans interspersed with everyday folk in jeans and trainers, typifying the predominantly young group who swore and gestured their contempt at the waiting listeners.

  Stone hung back from both groups, idling over to an elaborate archway leading from the square, from where he could keep both groups in sight and leant against it. For an age, it seemed as though nothing would happen until a black, immaculately shining but unpretentious car sidled into view, slowing down as it passed the counter demonstrators as if to encourage their cries, before coming to a halt a short distance from stage. A security guard leapt from the passenger seat and stood by the rear door, holding it open as the occupant emerged to a cacophony of deafening applause, mixed with the boos and cries of the protestors further away.

  Oscar Myska.

  The politician paused for a while to work the crowd with a Barnumesque showmanship, his grin wide, his handshaking strong, the odd flattering word of thanks steeped in po
litical sincerity, before he stepped up onto the platform and raised his hands to his supporters, urging them, not too forcefully, to stop their cheering.

  Stone ignored the theatrics and assessed him coldly, as he had so many enemies before, and could not help but be impressed. He was a man still early enough into his forties to get away with being called young, though the flecks of grey in his otherwise dark brown and casually brushed hair added to an image of political maturity. He wore his collar open but, surprisingly to Stone, not tieless. Instead, a thin, knitted affair hung loosely under the open button which accentuated the casual ‘everyman’ look he pulled off so well, a look completed by the unbuttoned, off the peg Navy blue suit he wore. Everything about the man’s image screamed that he was ‘one of the people’ a man reluctantly pressed into political life by the pressures of the modern world and the crises facing the continent. He was here, his image said, because he had to be, not because he wanted to be. He was not one of the well to do, privately tailored, political elite who ignored the concerns of the people while feathering their own nests. He was one of them, a Man of The People.

  Stone half smiled as the words of his Colonel flitted through his memory. ‘When the Devil shows up,’ the grizzled old war horse used to say, warning his troops of the dangers of insurgents and suicide bombers, ‘he won’t be the horned red bloke walking around on goat legs. Evil is attractive, charming; it offers you what you think you want and makes you feel foolish for not taking it. Remember that’.

  “Yes Sir,” Stone said out loud, smiling as he repeated the mantra of old and acknowledging its appropriateness now.

  The applause of the crowd gave way to a semblance of silence, interspersed with chanting from the protestors nearby, as the people gazed longingly upwards, yearning for the words of their hero who shushed them gently into silence and leant closer in to the microphone.