The screen descended like the reveal on a tired game show, with Peter Lowe the reluctant prize. His exhaustion was obvious, even from behind, his head only half turned towards her. His skin was flushed, sweaty, the day’s growth threatening to show on his chin, and he was nursing what looked a very fresh and particularly deep knife wound to his shoulder.
“Little bastard got me,” Peter cursed. “I’m getting too old for this shit.”
Mirushka sprang forward, reaching through the gap and pressing her hand onto Peter’s own, compressing the cut.
“This is too deep,” Mirushka frowned, “we need to get you to hospital.”
“Not much chance of that,” Peter sighed. “The engine’s dead, Ivan took off with your phone and mine ran out of power hours ago. Plus there’s the other problem we’ve got.”
“What other problem?”
“That we’re sat on top of a bomb.”
Mirushka’s practicality returned with the words, looking impotently around, hoping to see some tell- tale sign of its location, find some way of neutralising the new threat.
“You won’t find it, it’s underneath the car.”
“So you can get out and de-arm it, no?”
“Nope, it’s one of The Institute’s specials, weight activated. It arms by the weight of two people in the vehicle, and the explosion is triggered for a short time after one person leaves.”
“I’ve never heard of anything like that.”
“The Institute’s always been good at sabotaging cars; nasty little buggers these, very useful for lulling targets into a false sense of security.”
“So what can we do?”
Peter didn’t speak, but turned his head away from her. Slipping his hand from his wound he reached across and flicked a switch on the arm of the door next to him. The locks retracting from the rear cracked the silence like bullets in a shooting range.
“Your stop madam.”
“What?” She whispered the word, almost silently, her awareness rising as quickly as the locks had sprung from the doors.
“You’d better be quick, the fight might well have unsettled the bomb, it could go off anytime. Just open the door and run like hell.”
“Peter, láska moja, no!” Mirushka kneeled by the hatch, her hand clamping pathetically on Peter’s bleeding wound, her voice as quiet as the grave. “I can’t leave you here.”
“Course you can,” replied Peter, straining to be as matter of fact as she was quiet and tender. “We can’t afford to lose you, no time for rescues, final flings. No time for secrets.” Only his last words betrayed his emotion.
“You know.” Mirushka dropped her head, as though a weight had been lifted only to be replaced by one still heavier.
“I know.”
She slipped her hand from the wound, Peter making no effort to replace it.
“Did you know I was glad when you made your confession that night? I needed to know I could be forgiven. What better way to prove I could than by forgiving you, who came for me?”
“I never deserved your forgiveness, or Herbert’s.”
“But I gladly gave it, and not just for my own sake. You said yourself, in Bojnice; maybe no-one deserves their fate, but we should make the best of the circumstances we find ourselves in. That’s what you did that night, you tried to make the best of the hell you were in and by then I had fallen in love with you so why wouldn’t I seek to make the best of that? I could forgive you for the death of the world.”
“Did you think I wouldn’t do the same?” Peter spoke through his tears, without anger, his callousness smoothed.
“I was ashamed! You had me on a pedestal, you sacrificed everything you had for me, and to be my Protector, how could I admit it was all for one as steeped in dirt as you used to be? I couldn’t.”
“It wouldn’t have mattered, and I refuse to believe you were ever like me.”
“I wasn’t one of their murderers, but in truth I didn’t know what The Institute was. They contacted me one day, when Herbert was putting the party together, and asked me to get involved and report back to them on progress, unofficially. We were small news back then, of no real consequence and they paid me well. But then we started to grow. The people remembered Herbert and he had lost none of his youthful dynamism. Along with Karol, we built an effective movement, a popular one, one that started winning seats. That’s when they started demanding more of me; strategies, plans. And then came their suggestions for changes I could make, ideas I could tweak. But by then I’d been captured by Herbert’s vision; I believed it, shared it. So I refused and hoped that in time I would forget how I’d betrayed him.”
“You must have known you’d be a target.”
“I didn’t really know who I was dealing with. I had my suspicions after you arrived, but it wasn’t until Herbert’s death that I knew. I wanted to ask you, to confide in you the night of his death, but how could I admit my knowledge to you? I didn’t know what to say. And I couldn’t risk raising any kind of official investigation, for fear of upsetting the campaign, so I thought to keep you close to me.”
“But afterwards, you could have said something, you could have told me anything.”
“I wanted to and I nearly did, but then there was the crash and Adrianna. You see, that morning, the death threat I received, you remember? It contained a silver necklace.”
“So?”
“It was the necklace I’d bought myself with the first payment The Institute ever sent me. I thought it was at home in Bojnice, but to see it there…I knew they wouldn’t stop coming for me. So I resolved to end it then and there and spare as many people as possible. I contacted The Institute and told them I would not be travelling on the helicopter as planned, that I would stay on and return to Prague later. I’d planned to send you and Rado back separately and travel alone, giving them the opportunity they wanted, but instead…” She wept as the memory returned.
“Instead they went for the copter and killed her anyway.”
“Why would they do that?” Mirushka howled.
Peter shrugged. “Psychological?” He shrugged. “A warning of what was coming your way, that you’d involved too many people? Who knows.”
“I killed her. Because of my actions that young girl is dead. After that my shame was too great to tell you.”
“You didn’t kill her.” Peter’s voice was becoming quieter as the blood continued to flow from his wound. “They did. But if you don’t get out of that door and win that election, you’ll be letting her die in vain. Don’t let that happen.”
He turned again, twisting his body painfully towards her, shocking Mirushka with how pale he had so quickly become.
“You go!” She cried. “Leave me here where I deserve to be.” She pressed her forehead against his, reaching through and clutching his cold hands.
“I’d never make it down the hill,” he smiled. “And your country needs you.”
“And I need you.”
“I’ll still be knocking around in here,” he whispered, tapping his brow against hers. He reached into his jacket pocket, pulling a crumpled, tattered page from it.
“I want you to have this,” he said.
“What is it?”
“A gift Herbert left me. Keep it close. And take care, be careful who you trust and make it worthwhile. The Child is still out there and he won’t be happy.”
“You didn’t…?”
“No. I could have, I wanted to, but no.”
She kissed him softly, cupping his head in her hands.
“See?” she whispered, tears on her cheeks. “You have changed after all; you don’t deserve to die here.”
He smiled the softest smile she had known, taking her hands and delicately kissing them, holding them tightly in his own through the gap.
“We don’t get what we deserve.”
“Not in this world, maybe in the next?”
“I’ll pop over and find out.” He laughed through his tears. “I’ll let you know in a few decad
es, eh? Now go.”
Her face contorted, her throat aching, she nodded her silent acquiescence, slipping from his touch and opening the door to the heartless night outside. She crouched at the door, turning back to her love one final time.
“No happy ever after?”
“Not for us,” his smile, still gentle, his face devoid of fear, “but maybe for them. God bless, Miroslava.”
“And God bless you, Peter. You know? It was the very best love.”
“None greater,” he whispered back.
She wordlessly pressed her lips to her fingers, holding them up to him, before turning to the freezing blackness and stumbling and sobbing as she flailed down the wooded hillside, her feet ripping through weeds and bracken as she ran.
Inside the car, Peter watched her leave then turned back to recline in his seat, dizzy, faint, but content. The remnant flavours of his rain-soaked Communion played at the back of his throat and he closed his eyes, allowing the delicate caress of sleep play flirtatiously with him as he waited for the inevitable. Drawing into himself a deep, final breath, Peter grinned widely.
“I hear music,” he said.
The explosion thundered and echoed, illuminating the hillside in a bright orange hell, sending thick black smoke into the blacker sky and knocking the still stumbling Mirushka to the ground in a storm of broken twigs and leaves, where she lay sprawled, weeping into the dirt at the loss of this man sent to kill her, and of whose heroism she could never speak. Dragging herself to her knees, she strained her eyes in the glow of the flames to read the crumpled, blood stained page he had given her; his final message to his love, her sobbing growing harder as she translated the words of John, 15:13 in her mind. Sirens began to sound in the distance and though she knew she should wait, she clambered up and set off through the woods again, ready and determined to honour his sacrifice.
CHAPTER 26
SHE HAD DISAPPEARED. Not a soul in Prague hadn’t heard of the explosion, or that Svobodova’s body was not among the wreckage, only that of an as yet unidentified man. And the rumours had started, the theories concocted. This had all happened before, people muttered, just like with Dubček; the vehicle’s remains given only the most cursory of examinations before destruction, the driver unscathed. Moreover he had vanished.
Looking down onto the city from his imperious office in the Castle, President Čurda was worried. It was election day, Daleka was nowhere to be found and her advice was incomplete. The election should be called off, she had said, when Svobodova was dead. But who knew if Svobodova was dead at all and while he knew he should still make the call, the throng of people gathering below in Malostranské náměstí had him nervous. Headed by the obstinate Karol Černý, they were quiet, almost silent. They simply stood, en-masse, staring up at the castle, at Čurda, as if daring him to deny them their voice.
He snapped in irritation at the knock on his door and a young aide came scurrying in, breathless. “She’s been found!”
“Daleka?”
“Svobodova.”
“Where is she?” Čurda’s three words carried a world of dread and he silently willed the young man not to answer, but to no avail.
The aide stretched out his arm to the window and pointed to the growing crowd below.
“Out there,” he said.
The people present parted for her, and in her wake she brought others, the buzz of their confusion punctuating the stunned silence. Around her she could hear people quietly whispering of the Return of the Queen, or bestowing on her a new title, ‘ona jefénix’. Miroslava Svobodova stood, silent, looking around at them, taking in as many of the faces in the crowd as she could, wanting to look each of them in the eye, in the soul. Her delicate makeup betrayed the streaks of her tears, her skin was scratched from her descent, her outfit from the previous night’s concert tattered and brushed with the greenery of the hillside, yet still she was regal, still commanding, still in control.
Černý looked down from the small platform made up of crates and boxes on which he stood, as silent as she, an unused loudspeaker poised in his hand. Reaching the spot beneath him, Mirushka looked up into the old, proud eyes and offered him the gentlest of smiles; reaching out her own arm toward him.
“Karol?” She asked in uncertainty, wondering and hoping along with the crowd that he would accept her hand and have her stand alongside him.
For a moment he remained still, the great eyes burrowing and unreadable, his gaunt face an emotionless slate. All muttering in the crowd had ceased, and every head had turned to stare anxiously at Mirushka’s outstretched fingers, as though she were the leading lady in some romance, desperate for the embrace of her man.
A cheer erupted when he reached back, accepting her hand in his own still powerful grip, the touch tender, fatherly, and for the first time in her memory, she saw warmth when she looked into his piercing eyes. She stepped up onto the ramshackle platform and he pulled her gently level alongside him, the pair relaxing into a mutual smile while the crowd around them roared their bottled up approval.
“Děkuji Karol.” Mirushka whispered, leaning forward to kiss his cheek.
The old man’s smile widened further. “Prosim Mr Lowe?”
She shook her head and blinked away a tear. Černý bowed his head in genuine regret.
“I’m sorry.” He pressed the loudspeaker he still held into Mirushka’s hand, and moved to depart the plinth.
She tightened her grip on his other hand and looked quizzically at him, suddenly nervous at the thought of his departure, wanting to hold onto his presence a while longer.
He returned the squeeze of her hand and leant down to whisper back in her ear, “You were the face of the future,” he said, “now be the voice of the present.”
With that he slipped his hand from hers and stepped off the plinth, turning to face her at the bottom, alongside his fellow Czechs; looking up at her, excited and expectant.
“Many of you are wondering where I have been,” she began. “Well in truth that doesn’t matter. There was an accident, a man died, a good man. But what matters now is that we are together, together at the end of our campaign. And it was our campaign; your brothers and sisters in Slovakia fought it with you!”
Cheers bellowed out and Mirushka held up her hand for calm.
“We made mistakes, Karol and I,” she said, the crowd silent once more, drinking in her words, “mistakes between ourselves and mistakes with this campaign. When you look around Prague, around the Czech Republic, you’ll see our faces smiling back at you, like your Slovak brothers and sisters saw Herbert Biely’s last year. TV, the newspapers, all bestowed great titles upon us, titles like Europe’s Un-Crowned Queen, or Hero of the Prague Spring, and we clung to them jealously; we used them as weapons to beat down our opponents who couldn’t hope to match our personal glories for themselves.”
She paused, scanning the crowd, allowing her words to be properly digested in the silence.
“Yes,” she continued, “Herbert Biely was a great man, yes he was a hero to our country. So too is Karol Černý who stands before you today, asking to become your Prime Minister. But the faces on our posters should have been yours, not ours.”
A few sporadic cries of agreement broke out through the crowd, imbibing her with the confidence to continue.
“They should have been the faces of the doctors and nurses who healed us when we were sick, of the teachers who taught us when we were ignorant, of the parents who set examples for us. We should have seen the faces of our old who pass us their wisdom and of their families who return their care in old age. We should have seen the faces of our young, who inspire us with their drive and optimism, and their unwillingness to accept the inequalities of this world. We should have been looking into the eyes of the shop worker, who has packed our food each week for a lifetime, of the man who has swept our roads since his youth! We should have felt the warm smile of the friend, whose shoulder was there for us to cry on, or the priest who comforted us in our despair
, or the tram driver who got us home safely! We should have seen the Czechoslovak people, whose sweat built a nation, only for it to be torn in two by the greed of selfish men!”
The sporadic cries had become cheers now, finishing each sentence Mirushka spoke with affirmative exclamation. She looked around once more into the eyes of the crowd, waiting for the applause to subside.
“But instead,” she began, when the buzz had dipped, “like in every other election, we politicians smiled down at you from our billboard thrones, desperate in our desire to have you believe in us; to put your trust in us; but just as important is that you put that trust in yourselves. Trust in your ability to piece together our two nations into one again. We, Karol and I, can put the pieces in place, but you are the glue that will hold it together, through your trust in yourselves and each other!”
Looking down, she saw Černý’s lined face smiling proudly back up at her, freely offering her the respect he had previously begrudged her; the new found warmth in his eyes a now constant shine. Smiling back, she lifted the loudspeaker once more to her lips and revelled in the crowd’s excitement.
“A good man once told me that if I was the Un-Crowned Queen of Europe then all of you are Princes and Princesses. We are the same; all of us. Whether Czech or Slovak, whether our roots are Austrian, Moravian, Hungarian or Romani; we are one family, with one future!”
The crowd bellowed their approval now, and Mirushka held up her hand, appealing for quiet.
“Right now, in his office, President Čurda wants to cancel the election; claiming grounds for a state of emergency. I say that it is the desperate act of a man who doesn’t want to see his people enact their will!”
The cheers were replaced by boos, the crowd turning their heads towards the castle, venting their anger at the President.
“They call me the Face of the Future. Well that face has a voice too, and that voice says that we will not accept a delay, we will not accept postponement! So raise your voices with me now and say to President Čurda, that we demand our right to choose!”
She roared the words into her megaphone, her stare fixed defiantly on the castle. Stepping down from the crates, she linked arms with Černý and marched through to the front of the crowd, the people making way for them, where they stopped, in the shadow of the castle. As the throng joined their leaders in linking arms, it was Černý who started the singing, before Mirushka and the crowd joined in; heads back, joyous and unashamed, they sang their anthem, the anthem of the old Czechoslovakia.
Escape to Perdition--a gripping thriller! Page 24