Dave Hutchinson - Europe in Autumn

“We believe this man is involved in the gang war somehow,” the Minister said.

“Oh?” Petr stopped himself asking who We were.

“He’s been in the country several weeks now.”

“This is new intelligence to me, Minster,” Petr said. “May I have that photograph?”

“No.” The Minister put the print back into its folder, put the folder in a desk drawer, and locked the drawer. Petr watched each of these steps with interest, wondering what exactly he was being told here. “I know you and your detectives – the whole force – are doing your best, but these killings have to stop, Major. We can’t wait to see if this dynamic modelling is accurate or not. They have to stop now.”

“I won’t insult your intelligence by telling you that my officers are working as hard as they can,” Petr said.

“And I won’t insult yours by telling you that it’s not good enough.” The Minister busied herself with her desktop again. “Keep me informed, Major.”

And that seemed to be the end of the interview. Petr stood. “Of course, Minister.”

AND OF COURSE the pep-talk, if that’s what it was, had no effect at all. The killings continued. Cars were bombed, relatives kidnapped, shops ransacked, and nothing the police did could stop it. All leave was cancelled, Army Intelligence – to the displeasure of the police – was called in. Nothing availed.

“Look on the bright side,” said Jakub, “sooner or later there’ll be no one left and we can live in peace.”

“I told the Minister something similar,” Petr said.

“How did she take that?”

“I thought she appreciated the joke.”

They were sitting in a booth at The Opera, a bar whose one saving grace was that no other policemen ever used it. Jakub drank some of his beer and chuckled. He said, “There’s one good–” and then the air was full of smoke and burning and Petr found he was sitting against a wall some distance from the booth and something was dripping into his eyes. He wiped it away and looked at his fingers and saw that they were slick with blood.

He looked across the bar and for a moment his brain refused to fit the images together. The interior of the Opera seemed to have shaken itself to pieces, and limping towards him through the destruction was a young man with a walking stick. He limped right up to where Petr was sitting, leaned down, and offered his hand.

“Come with me, if you want to live,” he said.

“I’VE ALWAYS WANTED to say that,” the young man said. “Also ‘Follow that car’ and ‘I’m getting too old for this shit.’”

They were in an alleyway around the corner from the Opera, Petr with one arm slung over the young man’s shoulders, his knees still sagging. He said, “I know you.”

“You really don’t,” said the young man. “But I’m afraid I am the author of all your woes, Major.”

“The Minister showed me a photograph of you.”

The young man looked towards the mouth of the alley. Police cars and fire engines and ambulances were howling past towards the bombed-out bar. “Your Minister? The Police Minister?”

“Yes.”

“What did she say about me?”

“That you’d been here a while and that you were involved in the war.”

“Well, those two things are true enough. How are you feeling?”

Petr stood up straight. “Better. Where’s Jakub?”

“Your colleague? He didn’t make it.”

Petr took a deep breath and sighed. He put his hand in his pocket, brought it out holding a pair of handcuffs, and in one move snapped one bracelet to the young man’s wrist and the other to his own. “You’re under arrest.”

The young man looked at the handcuff on his wrist. “And you are an ungrateful bastard, Major. That little bomb back there – and it was a little bomb, otherwise nobody would have got out of there alive – was meant to up the ante, make things personal between the police and organised crime. It was a provocation. And I saved your life.”

“You have a minute,” Petr said. “Talk quickly.”

“It’s going to take more than a minute,” the young man said. “And it’s easier if I show you.”

THEY WENT TO the end of the alleyway and down a connecting alley, and down another, and another, and across a street Petr didn’t recognise, and down another alleyway, and all the time the young man – who called himself ‘Rudi’ – was talking and talking and talking. Talking about Coureurs, heads in lockers, maps, parallel worlds. And suddenly Petr had no idea where they were and all the shops looked strange and the people they saw were dressed a little oddly, a little old-fashioned, and all the shop signs were in English and they emerged from one last alleyway into a magnificent town square, all lit up and cobbled and full of promenading men and women and Petr, who had lived in Prague all his life, had never seen it before.

“We’d better not go out there,” Rudi said. “We’ll stick out like sore thumbs. I know somewhere we can go.”

“What…?” Petr managed to say.

“Welcome to Władysław, Major,” Rudi said. “And you’d better take these handcuffs off. You’ll never find your way back without me, and I’m not going anywhere chained to you.”

A SHORT DISTANCE from the square, Rudi knocked on the door of a handsome-looking townhouse. The knock was answered by a tall, elderly gentleman who glanced from Rudi to Petr and back a couple of times before letting them in.

“I hope you don’t mind if I don’t tell you this gentleman’s real name,” Rudi said as they made their way down a hallway. “You can call him ‘John’, if you want. John will have a quick look at you, clean you up.”

‘John’ was some kind of physician, it seemed. One of the rooms on the first floor of the house was done out as a surgery. Petr sat on the examining table and let John clean and dress his wounds while Rudi kept on talking.

“Prague is the only city in Europe with paths that lead directly to the Community,” he said. “I don’t know why. It seemed to me, though, that existing so closely together there must have been some kind of accommodation between the two cities. I needed to see what that was, see how things fitted together here and in Prague.”

“So you started a war?”

“There’s a lot of distrust on both sides, it seems. I just gave it a nudge. Learned all kinds of useful things. What you told me about the Police Minister, for instance. That’s very interesting.”

“She’s involved?”

“Maybe not. Maybe someone just gave her the photo and told her to show it to various interested parties. But it implies someone quite high up in Prague is involved.” His leg was obviously giving him discomfort. He shifted in his chair while John pressed a cotton wool ball soaked in some alcohol solution against Petr’s head wound. “Anyway, while everyone’s attention has been wandering, I’ve been popping here and there, chatting to people. There’s quite a useful little dissident movement here. They’ve let me have some very nice maps, which will come in handy.”

“Who bombed TikTok?”

Rudi looked thoughtful. “The bar? The big bomb? Oh, that was them.” He nodded towards the street. “Community Intelligence.” He snorted. “Intelligence. They bombed the wrong bar. They were supposed to attack a bar in the next street owned by some shady Czech character. I don’t know why, exactly.”

“And the couple in Pankrác?”

Rudi nodded. “They planted the bomb. And were then killed – you’re going to enjoy this – by colleagues of the young Arab men who were living over the bar when they blew it up.” He looked thoughtful. “I suppose this means the Community is now part of GWOT. That’s going to make things interesting.”