by Alan Bardos
'I've also had a report of a Young Bosnia cell returning to Sarajevo,' Breitner added. He was sure it was a cell - everything he'd seen so far pointed to it. Vila had even told him that he thought Cabrinovic had two travelling companions who'd been trying to distance themselves from him. Vila had said that one of them was called Gavrilo Princip; his name had cropped up in the piles of intercepted mail Breitner spent his day sifting through. Breitner couldn’t quite believe that Cabrinovic had given Vila his name, but Gavrilo Princip was a known associate of Cabrinovic’s in Belgrade so it was possible that they were travelling together.
'Two members of the cell have registered with the police in Sarajevo. One of the addresses is of a known police sympathiser, so nothing much will be going on there. The other is altogether more interesting.'
Breitner saw that Johnny was fully alert now, taking in every word and analysing it for this report he'd been shouting about all over town. 'Have you passed your concerns on to the Archduke? Doing that should clear things up nicely and draw my report to a logical conclusion,' he said.
'There are protocols for such things, Johnny,' Breitner replied.
‘Even so, if you went directly to him, it could be a feather in our - your cap. I mean do you want to spend the rest of your life in a place like this?’ Johnny waved his hand at the drab surroundings.
‘I doubt the Archduke would listen, even if that were possible. He’s not overly fond of Hungarians, especially Hungarians with my heritage. Also, I’m not currently in favour with our illustrious Heir. How do you think I ended up in this place?'
Breitner had had to clear up the mess when Colonel Redl was exposed as a spy. Conrad von Hotzendorf, the Chief of Staff, had ordered Breitner to go and see Redl, give him a gun and make it plain that he should do the honourable thing.
That should have been an end to it. A discreet announcement was made, explaining that the Colonel had been overworked and had taken his own life; he was to be buried with full military honours. Unfortunately, the full extent of the Colonel's treachery was discovered by the press. Redl had been living a secret life of debauchery well beyond his means. To pay for it, or because he was blackmailed as a result of it, the Russians had induced him to give away his nation's secrets. When the story broke, Breitner and the Chief of Staff had been summoned by Franz Ferdinand.
Breitner had heard stories about the Archduke's temper - it was still part of the folklore of the Ninth Hussars years after his tenure as colonel, but nothing could have prepared him for the maelstrom that confronted him. Breitner had thought Franz Ferdinand was going to choke with rage.
He was incensed that Colonel Redl had been allowed to take his own life, firstly because it was a mortal sin and secondly because he hadn't been properly interrogated to discover the full extent of the damage he'd done.
Breitner and Conrad von Hotzendorf both tendered their resignations. The Emperor refused to accept the Chief of Staff's, but Breitner was not quite so fortunate. Along with a number of other members of the Intelligence Bureau he was forced out of the army. He counted himself lucky to have salvaged enough from the situation to get his current position.
The Bosnian Civil Service was predominantly Hungarian and one of his contacts in the Joint Ministry of Finance had been able to get Breitner attached to the political section. After that experience, Breitner wasn't willing to approach the Archduke and risk the wrath of those pale eyes again.
'I can report to my superiors that there is a plot to assassinate the Heir,' Johnny suggested, looking desperate to be able to tell them something. 'Maybe they can pass it along to your chaps.'
'We need to know what the Young Bosnia cell is planning. Our best hope is to try and persuade the Governor, General Potiorek, to call off the visit or at the very least, increase security. The visit is being organised by the army, not the Joint Ministry of Finance and thus comes under the Governor’s control.’
'Can't the Governor just go and arrest them?' Johnny asked.
'As you have found out for yourself, the authorities here don't believe that there is a nationalist problem and the Governor is chief among them. He isolates himself behind the walls of his residence and has no idea about the realities of the province he governs. He’s aware that there are student protests in Bosnia, but he thinks they’re isolated instances and tries to control them with strong arm policies, that only further anger the Young Bosnians.’
'Well, it sounds as if you've done all you can. I'll make a full report praising your diligence and er, hospitality,' Johnny said.
Breitner laughed. He thought Johnny was perfect - impetuous, youthful, malleable and his Serbo-Croat was excellent. ‘Tell me, young Johnny, how did you come to speak the local language so well?’
‘I had to as a special condition of my entry into the Diplomatic Service, so I spent a few months seeing a Serbian emigre living in Paddington. I could already speak Russian and well, I do have a gift for languages,’ Johnny said haughtily.
‘That is most interesting. You see, I have intelligence that people of your age are being recruited to carry out the assassination,' Breitner said.
Johnny went pale, finally grasping why Breitner had taken such a sudden interest in him. 'Oh, no-no!' He made a leap for the door.
*
A bored policeman pushed Johnny back into Breitner's office and slammed the door shut in his face. He'd got half way down the corridor before he was grabbed by four gendarmes.
Johnny tried to regain his dignity. He hadn't meant to behave in such a cowardly way but he remembered the hard stares he’d received in the cafe and it felt as if all of Sir George Smyth's greatest hopes had come true.
'If the plot to assassinate the Archduke succeeds it could have untold implications, for your country as well as mine,' Breitner said. He was nonplussed by Johnny's attempt to escape and carried on the conversation as if nothing had happened.
'You want me to join up with a gang of assassins!' Johnny repeated Sir George's prophetic words. 'You want me to get my bloody head blown off.'
'Tell me, Johnny, why were you sent here? You aren't stupid, but you clearly understand nothing.'
'It's all part of the cult of the gifted amateur. Whitehall and the Diplomatic Service thrive on it.'
'Not even the British Government would send someone so inexperienced here without a reason.' Breitner didn't appear to understand how a gentleman behaved any more than Johnny did.
'This whole region is considered to be the backwoods of diplomacy - a highly volatile backwoods, where they can send someone expendable on a fool's errand.' And now it looked as if Johnny was going to be stuck in the middle of it for the rest of his life - if this man Breitner didn't get him killed first.
'So you're a fool, disgraced and clearly degenerate, sent here to be killed or forgotten? Unless of course, you help me.' That cut Johnny to the quick. Breitner had read him completely.
'Why can't you use one of your own chaps?' Johnny asked.
'I don't have any “chaps”.’
‘What about that fellow that just dragged me in here?’ Johnny said, pointing back at the door.
‘A few well placed bribes allowed me to keep you under guard in City Hall. No one would be willing to risk any more than that for me, and even if they were they wouldn't be the right "sort".'
'What, a disgraced, degenerate British diplomat? I'm sure I would blend in perfectly with the local fanatics.'
'You'll be able to blend in much better than you think. And of course there's your performance last night at the hotel, insulting the Governor.'
Johnny flushed with anger at the memory. 'He insulted me…' Johnny trailed off. He'd been so angry with the way his evening had turned out that he hadn't realised he'd been shouting in Serbo-Croat.
'Obviously, I embellished things by giving you a thrashing and dragging you into prison and then that little scene with the clerk just now. He’s sure to tell all his Young Bosnia friends what happens to those that disrespect the Governor. Such is
the current feeling in Sarajevo, that's likely to be enough to qualify you as an assassin.'
'What wonderful foresight and initiative,' Johnny said acidly. 'But how could I possibly pass myself off as a Bosnian revolutionary?'
'Draw from your own life. I’m sure you’ve been in plenty of scrapes. The best lies always come from the truth. Besides, Bosnians don't make good conspirators, they're very open and extrovert, which is how I found out that a Young Bosnia cell has returned to Sarajevo.'
'I'm not convinced.' Johnny was starting to feel distinctly uncomfortable about this whole conversation.
'The Heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne is bound to reward you for saving his life.’ Breitner smiled, he knew that he had struck the mark. ‘The British Diplomatic Service might even forgive whatever crime you've committed. You're a gambler - why not take your chances?'
It was common knowledge at the Vienna Embassy that Franz Ferdinand was one of the richest men in Europe. He owned huge estates and had inherited vast sums of money from dying branches of Europe's aristocracy.
‘What kind of reward?’ Johnny asked.
‘The thanks of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy,’ Breitner said enigmatically.
‘Some type of commendation, from the Heir, at least?’ Johnny asked. He thought a cash reward might be considered a bit uncouth, for saving the life of the Heir Apparent, but a commendation could be useful when he had to face Sir George again. If he could actually pull it off he might even get a decoration and a title. They'd have to take Baron Swift back into the Diplomatic Service. He’d also be in a position to find out what the nationalist situation was and ‘ferret about’, from the inside.
Breitner stood up, offering Johnny a faded, black suit jacket. ‘At the very least, I can promise you a letter of commendation, even if I have to write it myself.’
Johnny still felt reluctant, but in his hungover and concussed state he couldn't see any other way out of the mess he was in. Libby wasn't coming any time soon and he didn't even have the money to get back to Paris, let alone pay off his gambling debts. He could stay in Bosnia goat-herding or as Breitner said, take his chances with a gang of fanatics.
'Why not? Might as well take a chance on the outside, for once,' Johnny declared. ‘Play up and play the game.’
Johnny took the jacket from Breitner. With the white shirt and black trousers he'd already been given, he felt like an undertaker.
'You look every bit the young revolutionary,' Breitner smiled, acknowledging his own genius. 'Complete with the bruising from a night in police custody.'
Breitner took down a battered Gladstone bag from one of the storage shelves behind his desk and handed Johnny an identification card. Johnny glanced at the name. ‘Jovo?’
‘It’s the nearest equivalent of Johnny I could come up with, at short notice.’ Breitner replied and beckoned for Johnny to follow him out.
'You want me to go now?' Johnny was dazed - he’d thought he'd have a few weeks at least to familiarise himself with the Young Bosnia Movement.
'The sooner you start, the sooner it will all be over,' Breitner said, enjoying Johnny's alarm.
'Surely, you're joking?'
'The Archduke is coming to Sarajevo at the end of the month, Johnny. That only gives you three weeks to infiltrate the cell and find out what's going on.'
'But I haven't got a clue how to do that,' Johnny said, trying to make Breitner see sense.
'The first thing is to make contact with Danilo Ilic. He's a local journalist with strong nationalist leanings. I've been monitoring post to his address for some time now. He recently received instructions to start recruiting members for a Young Bosnia cell here in Sarajevo.' Breitner patted Johnny on the back. ‘That is where you come in. Ilic was sent these instructions by a man called Gavrilo Princip who crossed the border with the other cell I mentioned and registered at Ilic's address. My guess is that Ilic is acting as an intermediary between the two cells.'
Breitner took Johnny out through the back entrance of City Hall. It still reminded Johnny of an expensive hotel, but it certainly wasn't a safe place for the discerning traveller to experience the pleasures of the East, quite the opposite in fact.
Johnny was still suffering from his beating and struggled to keep up as Breitner pulled him through Sarajevo's old town. The dome and minaret of its mosque rose gracefully from behind the red tiled roofs of the ancient market. The city was still full of the same exotic sights that had charmed Johnny so much before, but they felt different to him now, as if he'd been absorbed by the city.
Breitner used the Gladstone bag to ram his way through the crowds into a roughly cobbled side street, crookedly lined by long, slender houses with whitewashed walls and over hanging roofs. Johnny doubted if it had changed much since the fifteenth century. Something suddenly occurred to him. 'How am I supposed to make contact with this person, Ilic?'
Breitner put his hand on his forehead in an absent minded gesture, which didn't fill Johnny with confidence. He stopped and looked through his Gladstone bag.
'Maybe I should go to my hotel and collect my luggage and… settle the bill,' Johnny suggested, wondering if it wasn’t too late to get out of this. Breitner had been moving so quickly that Johnny hadn't thought about how he was actually going to win the confidence of these assassins.
Breitner gave Johnny a knowing look. 'I'll collect your belongings and settle your bill.' That was something, at least, Johnny thought.
'But I'll need a change of clothes.'
Breitner showed Johnny the contents of the bag - there was nothing in it, just some old books and a shirt.
'A good revolutionary doesn't need baggage. These people have little more than the clothes they stand up in and their books.' Breitner pointed at the books in the bag. 'Commit those to memory,' he said.
'What are they, Serb poetry? Oh, and Kropotkin’s “History of the French Revolution”,' Johnny said, looking into the bag and taking out a book with a picture of a man carrying a scythe on the cover.
'You're familiar with Russian revolutionary writers?' Breitner asked, handing Johnny the Gladstone bag.
'I heard of him when I was at school,' he replied.
‘Bogdan Zerajic was wearing a homemade badge with that picture on it when he died; a contact of mine in the Budapest police identified it.’
‘I never really understood the difference between Kropotkin and Lenin.’ Johnny said. When he was at school all he’d ever wanted to do was revolt against the oppressive forces that kept him down - the whos and whys of it all were just detail.
Breitner gave Johnny a worried look, ‘There’s no time to explain everything to you now.’
Breitner carried on, leading Johnny around a blind bend where the houses curved outwards. 'So am I meant to walk up to this Ilic, start quoting a revolutionary tract and he’ll let me into his cell?'
'Don’t worry, I’ve got some ideas about that. Just try and make friends for now. His mother runs a boarding house - that boarding house.' Breitner pointed at a corner house as they came round the bend. 'Be in the park opposite the embankment at lunch time tomorrow and make sure you bring the Kropotkin book. If I’m not there don’t worry, just send me a note when you find something out. Oh, and good luck.'
Chapter 18
Archduke Franz Ferdinand watched as the ‘battue’ began, his beaters driving tiny roebuck towards him, through a narrow wattle trap. Hunting, for the Archduke, as with most of his contemporaries, was not an exercise in tracking but a test of marksmanship. He lifted his double barrelled Mannlicher rifle and took aim. The rifle had been specially made for him, as Franz Ferdinand believed that repeater rifles didn’t enter into the spirit of the hunt.
The first roebuck sped gracefully past the stand, the sun shining on its gold-red fur. When it came to marksmanship, the Archduke was in a league of his own. He pulled the trigger, hitting the roebuck cleanly on the shoulder. The Archduke fired again and again, bringing down a roebuck with every shot and pausing only to reload.
A dark shadow drifted over the traps. Franz Ferdinand instinctively switched target and fired at an itinerant pheasant, surgically bringing it down, then turned back to the roebuck and without missing a beat, felled the final one of the batch.
"You haven't lost your touch Franzi," Sophie said, while the next roebuck were brought up. 'You're still King Gun.' She occasionally liked to join him when he hunted; hunting was part of the story of their relationship.
Franz Ferdinand had first met Sophie during a hunting party organised by his cousin Archduke Friedrich and his indomitable wife, Isabella. They'd been good friends at the time and they were Sopherl's employers. It had been the Archduke's first hunt since returning from his grand tour of India, the Far East and America, however nothing could replace the sport of his homeland. He'd been "King Gun", at that hunt - the person with the biggest “bag”.
'But that was not the prize I sought,' Franz Ferdinand said, taking Sophie's hand. Sophie may have been a lady-in-waiting, forced into the shadows by the rich and highborn, but she had stood out instantly.
She was one of eight children, five of whom were daughters. Her father, a career diplomat, did not have the means to support unmarried daughters. The only choice they had when coming of age, if unmarried, was either to become a lady-in-waiting or a nun, both of which were considered equally untouchable for a man in Franz Ferdinand's position.
'Don't you think you should have left me alone? Surely, I was more trouble than I was worth,' she responded teasingly.
'Not for a moment,' he answered. She'd enthralled him from the first. There was something defiant in her large, brown eyes that betrayed intellect and strength, and had captivated him, like the dark eyed dancers he’d seen on his grand tour. She was the self-assured swan he'd been seeking in a pool of inbred ducklings. To prove the point, Sophie had been unimpressed by the advances of the heir to the throne, rejecting him with firm politeness.
Unbowed, the Archduke continued to pursue her whenever they met at balls or hunting parties. He even arranged for a transfer to an infantry regiment near his cousin Friedrich’s palace in Pressburg, where he could visit Sophie twice a week. In the elegant gardens of that majestic chateau, they eventually fell in love. It was when Franz Ferdinand came down with tuberculosis that he resolved to marry her, regardless of what society thought.