Day of the Assassins jc-1

by Johnny O'Brien

  “But then the final bust up must have come, VIGIL was about to do away with your dad, but he escaped. As far as VIGIL was concerned the tests were complete and the Taurus was shut down. Without your dad to guide him, Pendelshape, must have just hunkered down at school, got on with his life, and continued to pretend he was loyal to VIGIL.”

  Jack shrugged, “Well, that’s all very interesting… but we’re still nowhere nearer deciding what to do.”

  “Well, I know what your dad would want us to do — now we’re here: help them complete their plan.”

  “But it’s like the Rector said — that could have unexpected consequences…” Jack said with alarm.

  The professor weighed in, “Jack, I think your father is right. It’s what I was trying to explain to you back at the castle…”

  “What?”

  “As I said, Jack — it is a bit different for me. I am from this age. I am part of it. As a civilised person, living at this time, I should do everything to prevent the war that is threatened. I think if I know about it, I must act. I have a duty. Remember — nothing has actually happened yet.” He shuffled nervously inside the canvas, “It sounds as if my own nation has an important part to play in the whole matter… and it sounds as if my nation will suffer — terribly…”

  Jack shook his head. He didn’t know what to do. The embers in the fire were dying and the last warmth of the evening evaporated into the twinkling Austrian night. They lay silently staring at the sky for a while longer. While Angus and then the professor gradually slid into a chilly slumber, Jack’s head continued to buzz with unanswered questions and the choices he would yet have to make.

  Anna

  They were up early, chilled by a dawn mist shrouding the river like a damp net from a lonely trawler boat. The fire from the night before was just a pile of soggy ash. Inside the canvas covering, Jack’s bones ached. It was good to get moving and pack the boat ready to leave. Soon, they were pushing the boat back into the river. The professor took position at the centre of the boat, manned the twin oars and manoeuvred them back out across water. As the boat rotated into the current, the mist unexpectedly parted and the gorge brightened for a moment in the morning light. Jack saw two birds, possibly birds of prey, circling way above them at the top of the gorge, where the green pine forest fringed the cliffs. As he slowly shook off the fatigue from a restless night, he sensed a slight vibration in the heavy air of the gorge.

  “Hear that?”

  “Probably my stomach — that fish didn’t have much impact,” Angus moaned as he scratched sleep from his eyes. “When are we going to get some decent food?”

  “Maybe not for a while,” the professor said. “We have no choice but to keep following the river downstream.”

  Angus snorted grumpily and folded his arms around himself to ward off the chill.

  Jack looked over the professor’s shoulder, downstream, but the view of the main river was well screened by the maze of boulders and rocks. The vibration in the air seemed to be getting stronger and he was sure that the current beneath them was increasing in strength. As the boat began to sway a little more in the water, occasionally a plume of white spray would whip up from the bow and spatter them.

  “I hear something now too, Jack,” the professor said, his brow furrowed. “Ahead of us maybe.”

  The vibrating sound was becoming louder — amplified by the canyon walls. The boat, now moving at a pace, rounded a large boulder on a wide bend in the river and, to their horror, they were suddenly presented with the source of the noise. Rapids. For most of its course the river had meandered through a network of boulders and pools. But just a hundred metres ahead, it steepened and descended angrily in a white-water torrent that threw vapour high up into the gorge. The vibration in the air was now a deafening roar.

  Jack and Angus braced themselves. The professor grabbed the two spare paddles from the bottom of the boat and tossed one each to the boys, just as the river dropped into the rapids. At the stern, Jack thrust his paddle into the heaving water. The force of the torrent nearly levered Jack clean of the boat. He snatched the paddle back before trying a second time. His efforts made little difference, but miraculously, the current guided the boat between the large boulders, which peppered the rapids.

  Somehow the boat stayed upright, and as they progressed they developed an uneasy technique for avoiding the worst of the rocks and the white water — with the professor in the middle, balancing the boat with the two large blades, and prodding the occasional rock to avoid collision, and Angus and Jack trying to guide them with the small paddles from either end. Then, just as their confidence was starting to build, the gorge suddenly opened out and the river washed over a wide downward-sloping platform of glass-smooth rock.

  The boat came up on to the lip of the precipice and then accelerated downwards, water spraying from the bow. They could hear the hull scraping as the stone beneath tore into it. The boat slewed left, then right. Then they were airborne. The rocky outcrop had given way to a sheer cliff where the waterfall cascaded down into a smooth expanse of blue water. The boat took off from the edge of the outcrop and twisted high in the air, propelled by the momentum gathered on its downward slide. They were flung free and wide from both the waterfall and the rotating boat. If it had been Olympic diving, none of them would have scored highly for technique as they plunged into the lake

  Angus belly flopped badly onto the water’s surface with a loud ‘smack’. He was quickly followed by the professor, who entered the water on his back, and finally Jack, who went in head first. Then, in the same order, the lake released them from its icy depths — bruised and confused — but otherwise unhurt. A moment later, their battered boat also emerged — like a whale coming up for air. Astonishingly, although the boat had a bad list to port, it was otherwise intact. They made their way towards it and, with the occasional groan and grunt, helped each other back in, before collapsing in a wet, panting heap. After a while, the professor eased his way, shakily to his knees. He looked down at Jack and Angus.

  “Great ride,” he grinned from ear to ear.

  Jack looked across at Angus, and promptly threw up.

  The lake was large — a couple of kilometres long. Behind them the waterfall cascaded unremittingly from the gorge above. The mountains to one side of the lake dropped dramatically towards the far end, where there looked to be a small village. To their right, the land was flatter and heavily wooded, but it appeared as if there might be a decent landing spot. Leaning over the battered sides of the boat, they used their hands to paddle to shore.

  At last they pushed the boat up onto a small stony beach where the lake met the wooded shoreline. A quick search of the boat indicated that almost everything had been lost in the final plunge into the lake. Angus nervously fingered his breast pocket — the time phone was still there. He whipped it out and flipped it open. The yellow bar was still defiantly greyed out, but the distinctive lettering of the read-out was glowing steadily:

  Date: Tuesday 23rd June, 1914

  Time: 8.17 a.m.

  Location: Achensee, Austria

  “Looks OK,” he muttered to himself with relief, placing the device carefully back in the zipped pocket. Jack and the professor were busy ringing out their clothes. The professor stopped for a moment and gazed across at the lake and the mountains beyond. He sniffed the air and said, “I think I know where we are…”

  “Achensee?” Angus asked.

  The professor’s face lit up, “Exactly! Achensee! How did you know?”

  Angus tapped his head, “As you said, brains, Professor, twenty-first century brains. We have silicon chip implants you know.”

  The professor looked at him oddly, and chose to ignore the comment. He seemed excited about where they had ended up, “Yes — we used to come up this way quite often on holidays… I know the spot well. It hasn’t changed at all.”

  “So does that mean you know how to get us some food?”

  “Better than that, I think. N
earby is the Mueller estate. I’m sure of it. It’s been a while, but they used to be good family friends. I met Mueller when he worked in the diplomatic corps. The family were quite big landowners round here.” The professor scanned the oak woodland which fringed the lake, looking for an entry point or pathway.

  Then, some way down the narrow beach, they spotted two figures emerging from the woods… and marching towards them purposefully. The larger of the two, a round portly man with a red face, was shouting loudly in German. He was wearing some kind of strange hunting uniform. It included a homburg hat adorned with feathers and a green high-collared jacket from the belt of which were suspended a dagger and, incredibly, a full-length sword. The outfit was completed with breeches and riding boots. His companion was a great deal shorter and thinner, dressed more modestly in a felt jacket, and was struggling to carry a large shotgun in one hand and a brace of rabbits in the other.

  The portly man strode confidently towards them, down the shallow bank and on to the pebble beach. The boys had little difficulty guessing what he was saying:

  “You cannot land here — no trespassing! No fishing. No hunting… No anything! This is the Mueller estate…!”

  The man got closer and his eyes narrowed as he focused on the group. Then, suddenly, the angry red face lightened a little.

  “It cannot be… surely not?”

  He advanced a little further. The professor also moved forward, his hand out-stretched, smiling, “Herr Mueller?”

  “Pinckard-Schnell? I don’t believe it.”

  The two men shook hands warmly and Mueller, who was a daunting figure close up, immediately peppered the professor with questions.

  “How on earth do you come to be here? It’s been, how many years? Perhaps five? Why did you not tell me you were coming…?” Then he paused for a moment, looking at Jack and Angus, “And who are these young men… and, my, you are wet, what has happened to you?”

  The professor thought quickly, “My dear Mueller, we are so sorry to, er, surprise you like this… we, well, these are my cousins from England and we are, well, the family is touring, yes, touring in the Alps. Well, we thought we would come up here for a couple of days. Show them my old holiday haunts. Left the others sightseeing in Vienna. Yes — Vienna. We thought we’d do a spot of early morning fishing, then maybe surprise you… I’m sorry — but we had a bit of a disaster with the boat… I was never much good at sports and that kind of thing, unlike you Mueller…”

  Angus and Jack winced at the professor’s story. He had to make it up on the spot — and it wasn’t very convincing. But the truth would have been even less so. Mueller looked at the three of them for a moment in exasperation and then broke into uproarious laughter. In fact, he found the whole thing so funny, he nearly fell over. Meanwhile his servant just stood there and, a bit like his brace of limp rabbits, continued to look miserable. Mueller’s laughter was infectious and soon he had the professor going as well. Between the professor’s high-pitched wheezing squeal and Mueller’s booming guffaw, it was quite a contest. Mueller wiped a tear from his eye.

  “Come, my friends, come. No time to waste. Oskar — your jacket, please. At least one of these fine fellows can be kept warm. Now, you must come up to the house at once and we will get you all sorted out. What about your things?”

  “At the bottom of the lake…”

  Mueller laughed again, “Dear me, dear me. Well, that’s too bad. Come now, Marta will be so excited to see you all…” And with that they plunged into the woods, following Mueller and the long-suffering Oskar, while Mueller chattered away happily, barely pausing for breath or for anyone else to get a word in edgeways.

  Mueller’s house was an impressive wooden chalet set in its own grounds, surrounded by woodland and overlooking the southern end of the lake. Larger-than-life Mueller and his diminutive wife, Marta, lived well now that Mueller was retired. Any children had left home, but there were a number of servants around and by all accounts the Muellers had an active social life among the upper class of the Achensee valley.

  The most interesting, and Jack thought, rather gruesome, aspect of the chalet, was the stuffed wildlife. Everywhere you looked there were stags’ heads, chamois and ibex heads and other, more exotic stuffed beasts. There were even two hollowed-out elephant hooves near the front door, and a pair of giant elephant tusks adorning the entrance. Jack had read that this kind of slaughter was not thought unethical at the turn of the twentieth century, in fact, it showed sporting prowess. According to Pendelshape, Franz Ferdinand himself had bagged thousands of game in his lifetime — not to mention hundreds of stags. It looked like most of them now hung from Mueller’s walls. Jack realised the irony that in only five days’ time, Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie were going to be similarly butchered in Sarajevo.

  After some loud introductions, they spent the day recuperating. Marta managed to locate some of her sons’ old clothes, and now Jack and Angus looked ridiculous in traditional Austrian garb, which would not have looked out of place in The Sound of Music. Marta inspected Angus’s fatigues and trainers closely and remarked that she had not seen anything quite like them before, but assumed they were some sort of English fashion of the time. The professor faked a call, using Mueller’s recently installed telephone, to Vienna to inform the ‘family’ that they would be back a little later than they had originally planned. Despite Mueller’s protestations, they managed to decline his invitation for the fictitious family to travel the long way to Achensee to join them for an extended house party.

  By late afternoon, they were sitting in Mueller’s grand conservatory overlooking the lawn that led down to the lake. It was very beautiful; the grand chalet with its flower-laden window boxes was surrounded by its own woodland looking onto the pristine lake with the white-capped mountains in the distance. Jack wondered what would have become of the place in the twenty-first century. Maybe it was a ski chalet, or a rehab clinic for ageing celebs.

  The professor and Mueller were trading stories on what had happened since they had last met. The professor had been working briefly on behalf of the German military in a research job at the time and Mueller, before he retired, had been an attache with the Austrian diplomatic service. Mueller was now onto one of his favourite subjects — the ‘problem’ of the Southern Slavs and the Balkans. His small and patient audience was more than happy to nod and listen, whilst picking freely from the large plates of cakes, sandwiches and biscuits that had been laid before them.

  “…Of course, we had no option but to annex Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1908, although in so doing we added a million Slavs to the empire — most of them peasants…” Mueller puffed on a large pipe as he held court. “We had to show that we could still act as a great power… and we couldn’t be doing with a strong Serbia on our doorstep. You know it’s not easy for us — a patchwork of so many nationalities — if we show weakness to one group the whole Austro-Hungarian Empire could collapse… and that would be tragic.” Mueller turned to Angus who had just taken a large bite of cake and boomed, “Do you know how long the Habsburgs have ruled, my boy?”

  Angus’s mouth was filled with cream cake. He tried to say, “No” but it came out as a sort of ‘Ooarg’ sound, and bits of saliva and cake spluttered out onto the tablecloth. Angus blushed and covered his mouth. “Er, sorry.”

  Mueller looked bemused, but pressed on, “Since 1273… 1273 I tell you! You English talk about the British Empire being the empire on which the sun never sets… but that title first belonged to our mighty Habsburg Empire — we stretched across Europe to Spain and even South America!” Another large smoke ring wafted up into the air as Mueller exhaled. Jack nearly gagged.

  “You’re a true Schwarzgelb, Mueller,” the professor said.

  Mueller snorted in acknowledgement, “But we need to watch out! Now, after the Balkan wars of a couple of years ago, of course, Serbia is much stronger… Turkey has lost most of its possessions in Europe, you know, Professor?” The professor nodded, not wishing to
question Mueller. “We have so many Serbs within the empire. Serbia is becoming stronger by the day, egged on by their wretched students and revolutionaries and those damned Russians — they have their eye on Bosnia and Herzegovina next. A direct threat to our empire…”

  Mueller took another long puff on his pipe and then exhaled a curling wisp of blue smoke, adding sinisterly, “No, there’s no doubt, we will need to teach Serbia a lesson sooner or later…”

  Mueller paused and without warning turned to Jack and Angus, “Politics, I’m afraid, my young friends, a bit boring for you, I think. Anyway, let us change the subject. Tell me now, what did you think of Vienna — isn’t it a jewel?”

  Jack and Angus had not anticipated this. Contrary to the professor’s story, they had never been to Vienna in their lives. Jack looked at Angus nervously and blushed — he was stumped.

  “Well? Has my friend the professor not shown you the Belvedere, Schonbrunn Palace, and all the other wonderful sights? Don’t be shy. Come on what did you think of it?”

  There was a pained silence, then Angus suddenly blurted out, “It was cool.”

  Jack nearly fell out of his seat.

  Mueller frowned, “Cool? At this time of year? I don’t think so. It is typically very warm in June…” He turned to the professor with a confused expression on his face.

  “Professor? Was it cool?”

  “Er, yes Mueller, in fact it was unseasonably cold the day we arrived, but, er we did not stay too long as we were so keen to visit the mountains. We are saving the sights for our return.”

  Mueller eyed the boys with a puzzled expression for a moment, but then accepted the explanation and moved on.

  “Oh, I see. Well, you have much to look forward to.” Distracted, he withdrew a large chain watch from his breast pocket and grunted in satisfaction.

  “Professor — I think it might be that time. How about a brandy?”