The Aquila Project

by Norman Russell

  Sleep came to him at last in the early hours of Tuesday morning, but it was an uneasy sleep, disturbed by fragments of memory distilled into fleeting dreams. Here was a great eagle, white and gold, flapping its wings lazily against a silver sunrise. And now a shadow, a great black eagle, its wings outspread, and with a crown on its head. Aquila was the Latin word for eagle. Project Aquila. So many eagles in Europe, some black, some white and gold.

  Here was the map again, but it was a live map now, like the land viewed from a high-flying balloon; he could see the rivers flowing rapidly, and roads alive with people. France, a nice pale buff, the German Reich, tinted a bluish grey, and then the border with Russia. Stoop low, enter the tunnel. You’re in Russia now, a land tinted a sober greenish grey. A black eagle soars above, menacing him from a clear summer sky.

  Look at the names on the great map – a German map, the colonel had said, with all the names of the towns in German. Danzig, Posen, Stettin, Warschau. Look at those men, all crammed into one little corner of the map: he was one of them, and the little corner was St Mary of the Icon. All huddled together just inside the border of Russian Poland. Kershaw, Thalberg, Augustyniak, representing three secret services, all crammed in a corner!

  The black eagle and the white eagle circled overhead.

  What are you doing here? We are waiting for the 21st. All three? Yes, we are waiting for the 21st. Ah, yes! The attempt on the life of the Tsar. But wasn’t there something else to do with the 21st? What was it? Of course! It—

  No time for thought. You slept in the night. Sleep…. Augustyniak, sleek and catlike, was over-confident. Eagles, bridges, Tower Bridge, Catherine Bridge. A few Poles, but more Germans. Kessler, Balonek, Haremza, Gerdler, Eidenschenk, Grunwalski. A few Poles, but more Germans. Too many Germans.

  The effort to make sense of these thoughts and images proved too much for Box’s tired mind and body. He fell into a deep sleep, and when he eventually opened his eyes the little room was cheerful with the light of morning.

  14

  A Confusion of Eagles

  OVER A BREAKFAST of black bread and salt butter, washed down by strong, milkless coffee, Kershaw told his companions that they would leave Poland early the next day, before Kessler and his fellow assassins arrived from Germany. Baron Augustyniak would furnish them with papers that would take them by railway from Brest Litovsk to Warsaw, from where they could return to Germany by catching one of the regular express trains to Posen.

  ‘Meanwhile, gentlemen,’ Kershaw concluded, ‘Baron Augustyniak has invited us to inspect the security arrangements at Polanska Gory, so that we can leave the area secure in the knowledge that nothing untoward is going to happen on the twenty-first.’

  The baron seemed to be very affable that morning: all the tension of the previous day had disappeared. Here, thought Box, is a man who is very sure of himself, a man who is enjoying the continuing discomfiture of his guests. Well, perhaps he was entitled to gloat, but over-confidence could lead to dangerous vulnerability.

  ‘You may be surprised to hear, my friends,’ said the baron, ‘that Polanska Gory is no more than four hundred yards from here. We shall be there in less than twenty minutes, and then you will see how ably the Okhrana protects its Sovereign.’

  They followed Baron Augustyniak along a maze of passages that gave access to the tangled rear gardens of St Mary of the Icon. An overgrown path led them to a wicket gate, beyond which a silver-birch plantation glowed in the strong morning sun. They walked along a well-defined path, and then, with dramatic suddenness, emerged on to a wide road lined with luxurious villas. Box gasped in surprise.

  They were standing on an elegant promenade, where men in straw boaters and women in fashionable summer dresses and carrying parasols, were taking the air. All around them rose white-painted town houses standing in colourful gardens and, as they progressed further into the town, they crossed a charming eighteenth-century square, in the centre of which a grand fountain was playing. Polanska Gory was a dramatic contrast to the wild and desperate land surrounding St Mary of the Icon.

  Kershaw, who was walking soberly beside Box, whispered, ‘They built this place in what had been a remote wilderness, Box, and I think that one day the trees and the wild plants will swallow up Empress Catherine’s gracious resort. This eighteenth-century spa town, built in such a wild and lawless place, was conceived without any concern for a viable hinterland. It’s the kind of dream-creation typical of the House of Romanoff. It puts me in mind of the elegant follies of Versailles.’

  It was certainly a remarkable sight, thought Box, after they had admired a mellow stone pump room and its adjacent spa baths. On a hillside rising above the spa, a fine residence stood in magnificent gardens. Baron Augustyniak told them that it was the summer residence of the Tsar’s kinsman, the Grand Duke George Constantine.

  ‘The Tsar will stay with the Grand Duke for a week, venturing into the town first to open the Catherine Bridge, and then to take the waters, as his ancestors did. I doubt if it will do him any good, but it looks well if he is occasionally seen in an informal light. Court protocol at St Petersburg can be very stifling. When the Tsar’s holiday is over, in just over a week’s time, he will be journeying to Moscow, to take up residence in the Kremlin there until August.’

  As the baron finished speaking, they came to the town’s end, and there they saw the new Catherine Bridge, built to span the River Gor. As he looked at it, Box vividly recalled the photographs that Sir Charles Napier had showed to Colonel Kershaw and himself, when they had visited him at the Foreign Office. The bridge looked exactly as those images had shown: a modest, elegant construction, with stone balustrades bearing cast-iron lamp standards.

  Yes, thought Box, there are the half-hidden store rooms built under the bridge at the bottom of the stone incline. The rooms were still obscured by vegetation, as the area had not yet been laid out as a garden. Across this bridge, on the 21st, would come the carriage of Tsar Alexander III and Empress Dagmar. What would the assassin have done then? Throw a bomb? Rush up the incline and discharge a pistol? And what would he have done afterwards? There was little cover around this bridge, no twisting alleys down which Grunwalski could escape. Was he prepared to stand his ground and either be shot dead on the spot, or be seized, and subjected to the tender mercies of the Okhrana?

  Box shivered. There was something decidedly odd about the whole business. Why had Colonel Kershaw and Count von und zu Thalberg not realized that Polanska Gory would be heavily guarded by the Tsar’s own Imperial Police? The colonel regarded Polanska Gory as a doomed enterprise, which one day would be reclaimed by nature. He felt the same about this assassination attempt, which had, apparently, been doomed from the beginning. It would not now take place, but even had Kessler and his gang eluded the Okhrana, they could never have succeeded in their attempt at the Catherine Bridge.

  To start with, the terrain was all wrong, and the curve in the stone incline would have meant that Grunwalski would have been spotted long before the carriage had mounted the bridge. He would have been shot dead in an instant by any one of the armed civil police of the town. The Russian authorities would not have given any man behaving suspiciously the benefit of the doubt.

  Did Kessler and his fellow conspirators not know this? Did they not realize the dangers into which they were leading Grunwalski? Or was Anders Grunwalski to be offered as a sacrifice to their misguided cause? A sacrifice…. Where was Grunwalski now? Where were Kessler and his fellow conspirators? Would such cunning men be foolish enough to walk into Augustyniak’s trap?

  The town seemed alive with civil police, all armed, and augmented by little detachments of Okhrana gendarmerie, conspicuous in their dark-green military uniforms. The Catherine Bridge was fully guarded, and when Box cautiously attempted a descent into the grassy space below the parapet, an Okhrana gendarme, rifle slung across his shoulder, appeared as if from nowhere, and motioned him away.

  ‘They are everywhere, you see, Kershaw,’ said the
baron. ‘You can appreciate now that your well-meaning interference in this matter was entirely unnecessary. The Okhrana can manage very nicely on its own!’

  It was nearing eleven o’clock when the party returned through the beech wood to what seemed by contrast the rough and dangerous world of St Mary of the Icon. Baron Augustyniak paused at the rear entrance to the fortress, and addressed the four Englishmen.

  ‘Colonel Kershaw,’ he said, ‘this would be a good moment for you and me to confer with Count von und zu Thalberg over some of the ramifications of this venture. I was teasing you just now, in the town, but there are ways that the co-operation of the three of us could be of great value in the future. I’m sure that there’s information that we can share to our common advantage. Let us all meet again at noon in the great hall, when a meal will be served.’

  Colonel Kershaw said nothing, He seemed understandably subdued, and Box had a suspicion that he was now anxious to drop the whole matter, and return to England where, no doubt, other matters were awaiting him. Morrison and Kolinsky followed Kershaw and the baron into the fortress, but Box lingered behind in the overgrown garden. What was it about the business of Polanska Gory that eluded him? The clue to it had invaded his dreams, but the true picture was still obscured. He would walk around the quiet summer garden and try to collect his thoughts.

  A faint sound came to his ears, the sound of someone humming a tune half to himself. Shouldering his way through a clump of bushes, he emerged on to a small, roughly scythed lawn, where he found Sergeant-Major Schmidt sitting at a little table, humming a song, and poring over a number of maps. A few rickety chairs were scattered around, as though the place was a favourite resort for folk with half an hour to spare.

  Box vividly remembered the last occasion on which he had encountered Schmidt, sitting like that at a table in the garden of Count von und zu Thalberg’s country house, Petershalle, on his remote Prussian estate. Somehow, Sergeant-Major Schmidt represented a fixed point in a turning world.

  ‘Herr Box!’ cried Schmidt. ‘Quite like old times, isn’t it? Come and sit down, and let us talk while the great ones are away.’ He had been wearing little round gold-framed spectacles, which he removed and folded carefully into a tin case.

  ‘You look distracted, my friend,’ he said. ‘What’s amiss?’

  ‘We’ve wasted our time, Mr Schmidt, coming all this way for nothing. It’s not like the colonel to make this kind of blunder.’

  ‘It’s not wasted time, Herr Box, it’s all experience – what’s that English saying? All grist to the mill. As for the Herr Oberst, well, remember that he has his little ways! So, cheer up, and let you and me smoke a cigar together.’

  ‘It’s my turn, as I remember, Sergeant-Major,’ said Box. He delved into an inside pocket, and pulled out his cigar case, at the same time dislodging a folded paper which fell on to the grass. He picked it up, and placed it tidily on Schmidt’s little table.

  He offered his open cigar-case to his old Prussian ally, and in returned Schmidt produced a box of wax vestas. Soon, the two men puffed away at their cigars, enjoying a few moments of silent companionship. Box picked up the folded paper that had dropped from his pocket, and saw written on it the words, ‘Supt S. Lucas, at Brixton Road Police Station.’

  Of course! That had been scribbled by his old guvnor Superintendent Radcliffe, when they’d met together at the Foreign Office in an attempt to seek some mercy for Bobby Fitz. And from Major Blythe’s cryptic remarks on the train from Danzig to Posen, their attempt seemed to have been successful. Bobby Fitz was off the hook.

  ‘What are you studying so carefully, my friend?’ asked Schmidt.

  ‘This?’ Box turned over the sheet of paper. ‘Oh! It’s an invitation to a royal wedding in Berlin. My old boss had a stack of them in his office. He’s part of the Royal Protection unit of the English Home Office. Do you want to see it? It’s in German.’

  Schmidt stretched out his hand, and took the sheet from Box. He gave vent to some indeterminate chuckles.

  ‘Ah, yes! The royal wedding. Here you can see the engraved pictures of the happy couple, Prince Adalbert Victor of Savoy, and our own Princess Gretchen of Hesse-Darmstadt, a kinswoman of the Kaiser. Between you and me, the bride’s papa has been trying to marry her off for years. In the end, he was successful in luring one of the Savoy princes into his matrimonial trap. Part of the bait was to promise that the Kaiser would be there.’

  ‘What does it say, Mr Schmidt – all that German, I mean?’

  ‘Let me translate it for you,’ Schmidt replied good-naturedly.

  ‘“The marriage of His Royal Highness Prince Adalbert Victor of Savoy, and Her Highness Princess Gretchen of Hesse-Darmstadt, will take place on Saturday, 21 July 1894, at Die Kapelle an der Brücke in Berlin, in the gracious presence of the Kaiser, accompanied by the Empress Augusta Victoria. The public will already be aware of the romantic nature of the Royal couple’s first encounter”—’

  Sergeant-Major Schmidt broke off his translation to give one of his throaty chuckles.

  ‘Romantic nature, indeed! It was all arranged, Herr Box, and no doubt an appropriate dowry was written into the marital agreement. And so, in the presence of His Imperial Majesty, the happy couple will be married in the ancient Hohenzollern chapel in Berlin – Die Kapelle an der Brücke: The Chapel on the Bridge, as you’d say in English— Why, what’s the matter, my friend? You’ve turned as pale as a ghost!’

  The Chapel on the Bridge…. The eagles…. The Aquila Project….

  ‘We must see them at once,’ Box stammered, ‘the Heads of Intelligence, I mean. I can’t tell you straight away what I’ve just realized, Mr Schmidt, because then I’ll have to repeat it all to them. Come with me, now, so that I can tell you all at once.’

  ‘Gentlemen,’ said Arnold Box, ‘I want you to listen carefully to what I have to say. This is not a time for any of us to stand on ceremony.’

  He and Schmidt had found Colonel Kershaw, Baron Augustyniak and Count von und zu Thalberg conferring together in an inner chamber of the fortress. Their entrance had been so sudden and informal that the three Heads of Intelligence realized immediately that something of the gravest importance was afoot.

  ‘This conspiracy, The Aquila Project,’ said Box, ‘has the theme of a bridge running through it, and I firmly believe that its whole purpose centres around a bridge. But it’s not Tower Bridge, gentlemen, and it’s not the Catherine Bridge. What was the point of Grunwalski’s escapade at Tower Bridge? Was it a rehearsal, to test the viability of planting a bomb, later, under the bridge at Polanska Gory? Or was it a test of the possibility of discharging a pistol at some royal personage crossing a bridge – the Catherine Bridge, for instance? No, it was neither of these things. It was an attempt to confuse and mislead.’

  Box saw Colonel Kershaw shift uneasily in his chair. Was he about to silence him? It was more urgent than ever that he should speak out. If only he could find the right words!

  ‘If a bomb had exploded under Tower Bridge, it would have caused minimal damage. A man brandishing a pistol would never have reached the carriageway, as the approaches to the bridge were thronging with police and soldiers. And what about the Catherine Bridge at Polanska Gory? No one could effectively conceal himself under that bridge, and all the approaches to it are open gardens. Don’t you see, gentlemen, that these two bridges, and all this talk of bombs and pistols, were designed to mislead?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Augustyniak truculently. ‘What can you know of these matters? I tell you, I was fully privy to the conspiracy.’

  ‘I know, sir,’ Box replied, ‘that our adversaries have very effectively contrived to lure the three Heads of Intelligence – the Okhrana, the Prussian Military Intelligence, and the British Secret Intelligence, to this little outpost of civilization in what strikes me as being a lawless, half-forgotten wilderness. Consider for a moment where you are – where Doctor Franz Kessler has lured you. You are camped out in this fortress beside a tow
n bustling with special Russian police, a town which no experienced anarchist would even consider as a likely place to carry out an assassination. You have been got out of the way—’

  ‘Are you denying that any attempt on the Tsar’s life is to be made here on the twenty-first?’ Baron Augustyniak’s voice still held its assumption of arrogant certainty.

  ‘Yes, sir, I am. Let me ask you a very pertinent question: where are the conspirators? If I were detailed to stake out a criminal’s hideaway prior to a police swoop, I’d have my undercover men in position days before the event. You tell us that Kessler, Grunwalski and the rest are lying low in Germany, ready to cross the border on Wednesday. What evidence have you to make that assumption? Do you actually know where they are?’

  ‘So you’re saying—’

  ‘I’m saying, Baron, that Kessler, Grunwalski, and the other members of the gang are in Berlin. It’s there, gentlemen, that Project Aquila will be put into practice, because on the 21 July, the Kaiser and the Empress will ride in an open carriage across the Bridge of the Hohenzollern Chapel. That, gentlemen, is the bridge in question!’

  ‘But this is a fantasy!’ cried Baron Augustyniak, flushing angrily. ‘I keep telling you that I myself infiltrated the organization long ago. I was present at its meetings, I orchestrated its actions – I am convinced that Kessler had no idea that I was an Okhrana agent.’

  ‘I believe you, sir,’ Box replied. ‘They thought you were a well-meaning and influential Polish patriot – which you are – an ideal cover for their activities. So they led you to believe that the Tsar was to be their target, knowing that you would be watched as a matter of course by the British Secret Service, and that you would end up here, on the borders of the Russian Empire.’

  Box saw that Baron Augustyniak had turned pale. It was an encouraging sign that his message was getting across to the three intelligence experts.