Day of the Assassins jc-1

by Johnny O'Brien

  “Seems quiet. But it won’t take them long to catch up.”

  The river narrowed and they could feel the current speed up a notch beneath them. Up ahead, perhaps a half kilometre away, they saw that the banks heightened dramatically as the river passed through a deep mountain gorge.

  “We may have a chance — the river will be the quickest way down — and we have a good head start. Soon it will be dark too…” the professor said. “Jack — you need to get out of those things — otherwise you’ll die of cold. The professor nodded towards a compartment behind Jack’s legs at the back of the boat. “Anything useful in there?”

  Jack rummaged, “I don’t think this boat has been used for a while…”

  There were a couple of dusty blankets and also the canvas sheeting that fitted over the metal awning. He shook out one of the blankets. It was dry enough but smelt dusty and moth-eaten.

  “I’ve got some spare bits and pieces with me.” Angus opened his small rucksack, pulled out a T-shirt and fleece and handed them to Jack, “Try those.”

  Jack was grateful for the dry clothes and wrapped one of the blankets tightly around himself in an attempt to ward off the chill. Warming up, he scratched around some more in the compartment. He then yanked out a long, thin canvas bag. He undid the ties at either end, and out slid three sticks.

  “Eureka!” the professor exclaimed. “A rod. Maybe there’s a reel.”

  Sure enough, hidden in the back of the compartment was a reel with a line and, next to it, a small cigar box. Jack opened the box and inside were eight fishing flies carefully pinned to the bottom of the little box.

  The professor had now developed a more reliable stroke and the blades slopped rhythmically in the water. Pushed on by the current, the boat made steady progress. There was still no sign of pursuit and they all began to feel a little less edgy. Soon, they were listening to Angus’s remarkable story.

  “… I need to tell you what happened after you escaped, Jack, by the way, pretty impressive that… particularly the bit where you squashed Belstaff,” Angus grinned at the memory of their games teacher who had been impaled by the blast screen. “Never liked him anyway.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “In pain. But OK. Unfortunately.”

  “Thought he was dead.”

  “No — I tell you these VIGIL-support guys are tough. Anyway, I was pretty frightened. Particularly after Gordon had knifed poor old Pendelino… and then attacked me… I ask you — I’m even captain of the rugby team!”

  “The Rector explained all that… he said they had to act quickly…”

  Angus looked at Jack blankly, “Don’t know anything about that… but after the Rector, Tony, Gordon and the others had made their plan to bring you back from 1914, the next morning two guys rescued me and Pendelshape — right from under the nose of VIGIL. There was a short fight, quite scary but no shooting, just karate and stuff, and then these men just bundled us straight into the back of a van and we shot off.”

  “Where?”

  “Away from the school. And fast.”

  “But…”

  “Wait — I haven’t told you the rest. We drove on for a bit — but not that long. I was trying to keep tabs on the time, but it was tricky. I was rolling around the back of this van being driven at high speed, and getting really scared about what we’d got ourselves into.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “So anyway, this journey went on for a bit longer — I don’t know — maybe an hour, maybe more. We stopped a couple of times… I think we changed cars or vans. I needed a pee. They wouldn’t even let me do that. Whatever. Eventually we stopped. I was led out of the van and it was quiet, and dark, but I could tell we were near the sea. I could smell the salt air, and hear waves lapping against concrete. Then we were in a boat. It was rocking. The engine fired up and we were off, jiggling along through the waves, at a fair old crack. And then we arrived somewhere, the boat was moored up and I was taken up some steep stairs. I thought I was on another boat — but bigger. It was all pretty weird.”

  The professor was listening, but because of his central position at the oars, he had his back to Angus. He gently eased the boat into a shallow pool off the main current and then pulled in both blades and let the craft drift for a while so he could rest and listen.

  “Then what?” Jack said.

  “The blindfold came off… and there I was!”

  “Where?” Jack asked. “Where were you?”

  “Well, here’s the strangest thing. You know when we were with Pendelshape that afternoon down in the control room and he was telling us all that strange stuff, and I don’t know about you, but I wasn’t sure I was really believing any of it, and it was like, when are we going to get out of here…?”

  “Yeah…”

  “Right. So the room I ended up in looked just like the underground control room at the school with the Taurus. Then basically, I found out it was a second time machine — another Taurus! But I tell you — it’s much bigger. You could fit a tank in it.”

  “So it’s just as the Rector told us,” the professor said, nodding to himself thoughtfully.

  “You haven’t heard the half of it, Professor. It was then that I met him.”

  “Who? You met who?” Jack was sitting on the edge of his seat.

  Angus’s eyes glazed over. He spoke in a hushed, reverential voice.

  “Him.”

  “Who?” Jack could hardly contain his curiosity.

  “The Benefactor of course. The inventor of time travel. The man with the biggest brain ever.” Angus looked at Jack in awe, “Your dad, Jack. Your dad! I always wondered where you got your brains from.”

  Jack shrugged, “Right. I thought that’s who you meant.”

  “Is that all you’ve got to say?” Angus’s cheeks suddenly flushed red with anger, “You don’t get it, do you? Remember, he rescued me and Pendelshape then he sent me back using his Taurus to rescue you. I don’t know what has happened to the others who should have come with me — maybe they got caught out with the time signal. Anyway, you should be grateful… and, and you should be proud of him. Your father is a great man. And he has sent us on a mission. Us! Don’t you see?”

  Jack felt himself getting angry now, “Not really. I haven’t been sent anywhere. I pressed a random button to escape some people who were about to kill my history teacher, and then you, and who looked like they were about to kill me as well. Then I find out they’re chasing me half way across Europe. We turn up here and they tell me that they’re trying to protect me from, of all people, my own dad. Why? Because if he gets hold of me then there’s apparently nothing to stop him playing God with history — with consequences too awful to imagine…”

  There was a tense silence.

  “Sorry,” Jack said finally. He sighed, “To be honest I’m not really sure who’s right and who’s wrong in this whole thing. I feel like a pawn.”

  Angus replied sheepishly, “Yeah — I’m sorry too, Jack. Maybe it’s a bit more complicated than I thought.”

  The professor pulled on an oar to steady the boat and keep it from drifting into a sandbank. “We’ll get through this, boys,” he said. “With my looks and your twenty-first century brains, we can’t fail.” Looking at the professor’s dishevelled yellow hair, his muddied clothes, his round glasses, now with one cracked lens, and two bits of cotton wool still stuffed up each nostril to stop any more bleeding from the balloon crash, the remark sounded ridiculous. Angus and Jack looked at the professor and then at each other and laughed.

  The professor took up the oars again and rowed them out to the main channel. A fat orange sun was melting into the rocky horizon. In an hour it would be dark.

  “Probably time to try to find somewhere to rest for the night,” the professor said. As they moved slowly down the gorge, they scanned each side for a suitable landing spot. The river was quite low at this point and twisted through a maze of large boulders, rocks and the occasional gravel bank.
There were quite a few places where they could pull in and be well protected by the towering granite walls above. In some of the darkening pools off the main current, fish were starting to jump lazily at insects, which buzzed above the surface.

  They rounded the next bend in the river and spotted a large, deep pool to the left, where another low sandbank rose gently towards the cliff wall. The professor manoeuvred the boat towards the bank and they alighted, yanking the boat as far up the slope as they could manage. The professor then scrambled back into the boat to retrieve the rod they had discovered earlier.

  “Shall we give it a go?” he said as he looked at the pieces of rod and the reel and then at the box of flies. He had no idea what to do next.

  “Allow me,” said Jack. He quickly assembled the three pieces of rod, attached the reel and threaded the line through the eyes in the rod. Then he opened the box. “Which one do you reckon?”

  “Don’t ask me — you know I’m rubbish at all that stuff,” Angus replied.

  Jack picked a fly at random and threaded a leader, which he had attached to the line, through the narrow eye of the hook.

  “Ready.” He looked at the professor, “Fancy a go?”

  “It’s not one of my skills, I’m afraid.”

  Jack took the rod confidently and marched out to the edge of the sandbank, surveying the pool as he went. There was an occasional ‘plop’ followed by telltale concentric ripples in the water as the trout fed in the fading light.

  “Here goes.”

  He flicked the rod once, and then repeatedly, until a large loop of line was whooshing back and forth through the still air of the gorge. Then, he thrust out his arm, pointing the rod towards the last set of expanding circular ripples he had seen in the pool. The whole line raced forward across the river. The tiny fly, invisible in the gloom, presented itself just above the rippling water. There was a sudden disturbance and a brown fish leaped up from the surface with a splash. Jack was taken by surprise, but took the strike. He felt the tug on the line as the trout struggled to free itself. Slowly, he reeled it in.

  Angus danced on the sandbank shouting, “You got him!” several times over.

  “Hey, first time… what do you think of that? Never done that before!” Jack half-turned to Angus and the professor, delighted with his success. He plonked the medium-sized trout at their feet.

  But he had been lucky. It took him a further forty minutes to land another fish — losing two flies and having to rethread several leaders in the process. The professor busied himself with lighting a small fire from some driftwood on the bank and improvising a cooking grill. He piled up some stones on either side of the fire and looked around for something that they could use to suspend the precious fish above the flames. In a minute, he emerged from the boat waving two metal pegs. With these, they skewered the gutted fish and then balanced them neatly above the fire, with either end resting on the stones. It wasn’t perfect, but it did the job and soon the fish were sizzling away. After twenty minutes, Angus removed one and cut it open on a flat stone.

  “Prof?” he offered a piece of the moist, pink flesh to the professor on the end of his penknife. The professor popped it into his mouth and immediately started to gurgle appreciatively. In five minutes it was all gone.

  Afterwards, they wrapped themselves, mummy like, in the blankets and canvas canopy. With the security offered by the gorge, their stomachs at least partly full and the fire still giving off a modest warmth, their spirits were lifted. Although only just dark, Jack was astonished by the number and brightness of the stars that twinkled down from the Austrian night.

  The professor gently urged Angus to complete his story. They listened intently. Angus leaned up from his canvas bedding on one elbow. The dying flames from the fire flickered across his face, creating lines and shadows where none existed — making him look older than he really was.

  “In the short time we had together your dad told me a lot, Jack. I don’t want to upset you, but I really think you would be proud of what he’s done. I’m not really sure I understand all this stuff… But after I had met him, for the first time in my life I was sure of one thing. A hundred per cent sure.”

  “What’s that?” Jack asked.

  “I agreed with him and Pendelshape on what they want to do.”

  “What do they want to do?”

  “Change the course of history — stop the assassination of the Archduke in Sarajevo and stop the First World War. Now we’re here, well, maybe we can help them do it.”

  Jack had never heard Angus talk about anything so seriously — it didn’t sound like him at all.

  “It’s just what the Rector told us back at the castle,” the professor said.

  “Did he?” Angus was surprised.

  “Yes,” said Jack. “We should tell you what happened to us too.”

  He explained what the Rector had said. He explained how the Rector and VIGIL had been astonished to learn of the creation of the second Taurus and how alarmed they all were about the possibility that his father might use it to make changes in history. He explained why Pendelshape had taken them into his confidence — and how his attempt to snatch Jack to safety, away from the Rector — might have succeeded if the Rector had not arrived in the Taurus control room with Tony, Gordon and the others.

  “… So you see, it is not as simple as you first thought. When you came to rescue us, I suppose we panicked, and followed you… but maybe the Rector and VIGIL are right and Dad and Pendelshape are the ones who are wrong about all of this…” Jack struggled to remember what the Rector had actually said about making changes in history, “It might mean that we would make history different — possibly worse.” Yes that was it, “And maybe the war would happen anyway, maybe it’s even supposed to happen. Have you thought about that?”

  But Angus was having none of it, “Jack — your dad and Pendelshape are right. I’m certain of it. Your dad talked all about how this war leads to the Second World War and how the whole of the twentieth century is a complete nightmare — and it all starts this Sunday in Sarajevo.”

  “This Sunday?”

  “Yes. This Sunday coming — 28th June 1914 — in Sarajevo. That’s when the assassination happens.”

  “Today is…”

  “Monday 22nd June,” the professor said. “So — only six days to go.”

  “Right,” Angus continued. “You know I never paid much attention in Pendelino’s classes — but the way your dad talked about it — it was real, I can tell you. And what is also real is that he has now made a way of changing it all and, well, making it better. If you talked to him, I think you’d get it.” Angus shook his head and then lay back on the ground, exhaling slowly, “I think we need to help him do this. Your dad called it our destiny.”

  There was silence as they thought about the significance of what Angus was saying. In the short time that he had known him, Jack’s father had obviously made a big impression on Angus.

  “Why did he send you — why not come himself? Did he have any message for me?”

  “Not really. He sent me, I think, ’cos he knew that you would trust me. As I said, I was supposed to be supported by a couple of others — the guys that rescued us from the school — but something must have happened during the transfer. Your dad hasn’t got as big a team as VIGIL, or guards like Tony and Gordon. Pendelshape stayed with your dad — kind of in reserve — in case something went wrong. As for instructions… It all happened very quickly. We had one chance to rescue you. Your dad’s Taurus was powered up, we finally got a signal and a fix on your time and location and, of course, we were going to travel straight back again. We weren’t supposed to hang around here. But the signal went…”

  “Not very reliable these time phones…” Jack said. “What does it say now?”

  Angus sat up again and rummaged in the breast pocket of his fatigue jacket. He unzipped a padded pouch and took out his precious time phone. He cupped it in his hands carefully and flipped it open. Just in th
e same way Jack’s had done, a very faint blue light illuminated the device from the inside and they inspected the glowing read-out.

  Date: Monday 22nd June, 1914

  Time: 11.33 p.m.

  Location: Southern Tyrol

  “The yellow signal bar is still off,” Angus said. “So we still can’t use it. No surprise there.”

  “Did Dad or Pendelshape say anything else? You know — that might help us decide what to do… or where to get help… now we’re stuck here?”

  “Not really — although he confirmed what Pendelshape said to us — remember? That when they did the final testing of the Taurus at the school, Pendelshape, and I think your dad too, made some test trips back to 1914. Pendelshape chose the year himself — made some excuse that it was a period of history he was interested in.”

  Jack rummaged for the photo that was now in his pocket. “Yes — I think I’ve still got the photo that he showed us.” Jack produced the black-and-white photo of the four young men of the Black Hand standing next to Dr Pendelshape. They could just make out their gaunt, grey-washed features by the light of the flickering flame.

  “There they all are. Pendelshape and the assassins…”

  “Funny to think in the time we’re in now, 1914… this photo can only have been taken a few weeks ago, months at the most.”

  There was a pause before Angus continued, “Yes. And by choosing 1914, Pendelshape and your dad were actually starting to put their plan to change history into action. Pendelshape infiltrated the Black Hand — the assassination cell — and gained their confidence. They always planned to return…”

  “… and somehow disrupt the assassination in Sarajevo.”

  “Right,” Angus continued. “I think Pendelshape and your dad’s plan was to kind of infiltrate the group and support them — but then sabotage them at the last minute. You know — stop the assassination…”

  “And so stop the countdown to the war,” the professor added. “Incredible.”