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

Nedjo sat down at their table. He took off his hat and brushed back his wavy hair excitedly. ‘I’ve been surveying the Hotel Bosnia. I think... ‘

‘I told you to keep a low profile! I don’t want you involved,’ Gavrilo growled, interrupting him.

Nedjo looked taken aback and glared at Johnny. 'Are you planning to replace me with this angry fellow?'

Johnny squared up, wondering if he would have to fight Nedjo to become part of the group. Then he saw that Nedjo's aggression wasn't directed at him; the revolutionaries weren't completely united.

'What if we are? He shows far more conviction than you do in your endless boasts and bragging,’ Gavrilo said.

Nedjo looked at Johnny, 'Have we met? Do I know you from somewhere?’

‘I don’t think so.’ Johnny answered, looking round the cafe, which seemed very inhospitable again.

‘We don't know him, Gavrilo. He could be a spy,' Nedjo said, trying to stifle a cough.

'How do we know you're not a spy, Nedjo, like your father?' Gavrilo asked scornfully. Nedjo looked crestfallen and began to cough.

Johnny saw his chance to win everyone’s trust and look magnanimous at the same time. 'Was not our great hero, Milos Obilic, accused before Vidovdan of being a traitor?'

All three looked at him approvingly, but unfortunately he'd brought himself back to the attention of the group. 'When were you in the Chief of Detectives' office?' Ilic asked suspiciously. Johnny got the impression that he didn’t like him very much.

'As you know, I had a slight altercation in the Hotel Bosnia,' Johnny said, pointing at his bruises.

'Yes, we know you had some trouble with the police,' Ilic said, ‘but we only have the word of the flunky who told Pusara that you insulted the Governor. The Governor rarely leaves his mansion.’

Nedjo managed to control his coughing sufficiently to be able to speak. 'I remember now, I do know him. He called General Potiorek a buffoon and got a kick in the face. I was there, in the hotel, conducting reconnaissance. If he hadn’t been pulled away before he could act, I’m sure he would have taught old Potiorek a bloody lesson.’

‘Another boast Nedjo?’ Ilic said and turned back to Johnny. 'Where exactly are you from? You didn’t go to school in Sarajevo.'

‘I’m from a small village, across the Drina from Koviljaca. It’s a spa town on the Serbian border.’ Libby had wondered about staying there and Johnny thought it was sufficiently far from Sarajevo for them to be as unfamiliar with it as he was. ‘It’s the oldest...’

‘I know it,’ Gavrilo said, interrupting him. ‘Do you not feel the responsibility of history, coming from such a place?’

Johnny shifted uncomfortably - he’d forgotten that they’d only just arrived from Belgrade. It looked as if he was going to be caught out on his first lie. He decided to follow Breitner’s advice and switched to the truth. 'I do not consider myself to be from any one place, not since I was expelled from school for organising a student strike,' he answered, although officially the headmaster had called it a mutiny. 'So, as I told you, I went to Paris to continue my education.'

'How could you afford that?' Gavrilo asked.

'I had a scholarship,’ Johnny replied. Johnny's stepfather had seen both his potential and his natural self destructive tendencies, and had fought to ensure that Johnny won a scholarship to attend a minor public school, so that those respective qualities could be best developed and suppressed.

'A scholarship wouldn't cover your expenses to study in Paris,' Gavrilo said. He'd evidently been a scholarship boy himself.

'I knew a patriot who helped me get a job in the Civil Service. My intention was to work and save to study. Once I’d managed to pass my exams I hoped to go to the Sorbonne.'

Gavrilo looked away, brooding, and Ilic continued the interrogation. 'What brought you to Sarajevo?' Ilic asked.

'I fell for the wrong woman,' Johnny replied. He remembered the way that Libby had stood demurely in the casino, before he lost everything. He wondered briefly where she was now.

Nedjo grinned, 'The expensive kind.' Gavrilo looked at him disapprovingly.

Johnny shrugged. 'She was also the boss's wife. I was forced to gamble to accommodate her. I lost everything. I couldn’t go home, so in my shame I came here to escape corruption.'

'And what did you find when you got here? The Austrians undermining the morals of our national spirit, with gambling dens and brothels!' Gavrilo said, identifying with his despair.

Johnny made his eyes blaze with the same indignation he saw in Gavrilo's. 'When I saw General Potiorek, the living embodiment of the people who have corrupted our country, I had to act'.

'We might have need of someone like you.' It had been Ilic who spoke but all three added their agreement.

Chapter 20

Franz Ferdinand admired the gardens of Konopiste, his Bohemian castle, where the roses were at their zenith, a blaze of colour in honour of his Royal visitor, Wilhelm II. The Kaiser was so impressed by the display that Franz Ferdinand had enthusiastically guided him to the room that gave the best view, a water closet next to his private apartments.

The roses were a source of immense pride to Franz Ferdinand; he'd created the gardens from scratch, commissioning an army of gardeners, who'd worked for twenty years to transform the five hundred acres around his fairy tale castle.

As pristine as the bathroom was, the Archduke was starting to appreciate that their current location may impinge on the dignity of his honoured guest and so he suggested that they retire to the castle library. There were a number of pressing matters he wished to discuss.

The Kaiser concurred and Franz Ferdinand led him through whitewashed corridors lined with hundreds of antlers, hunting photographs and stuffed animals. He directed the Kaiser into a lift and invited him