The Assassins by Alan Bardos (best novels in english txt) 📗

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