Johnny O'Brien - Day of the Assassins

VIGIL attacking. Need help. Hurry. Jack

He pressed a button and the message was gone. Inchquin was nearly upon them and he continued to bark orders to the VIGIL guards beyond and to the palace life guards. He was furious that a lack of discipline had resulted in the professor’s unseemly death… More mess in the space-time continuum that they would have to clear up later.

There was a sudden ‘bleep’. Dad had replied!

Rescue imminent; hold tight.

Proud of you. Dad.

“Yes!” Jack hissed. As Inchquin approached, he flipped the time phone shut and slipped it back into his pocket. He didn’t have long to consider what form his father’s rescue attempt would take, because off to their right, there was another flash of light. For some reason, this flash was brighter than those that had signalled the arrival of the VIGIL guards. Everyone turned to see what had caused it, but they could only make out the outline of the bushes and trees of a large thicket, some way off, silhouetted by the moon. For a moment everything was still. Then, they heard a loud mechanical grinding. The earth shook. The grinding got louder and soon they could hear the roar of an engine. A very large engine.

Suddenly, the bushes at the front of the thicket collapsed and a huge dark object emerged, crawled half way across the moonlit lawn in front of them… and stopped. The distinctive shape of the metal behemoth was so clear in the moonlight, Jack knew at once what it was, and understood exactly how his father proposed to expedite their escape. Their little party at Schonbrunn Palace had a gatecrasher. But this was not any old gatecrasher. It was a Mark II Tiger tank of the German Wehrmacht. The biggest, heaviest and deadliest tank from World War Two. And it wasn’t there for the lemonade and cream buns.

All hell broke loose. The 7.92 millimetre forward machine gun on the Tiger opened up and bullets ripped across the lawn and into the band of massed life guards, who leaped for cover. At the same time the muzzle of the Tiger’s massive 88 millimetre main gun flashed and a shell whistled over their heads, narrowly missing the VIGIL guards and embedding itself in the nearby wing of Schonbrunn, which promptly collapsed in a pile of rubble as the high explosive shell discharged.

The VIGIL guards returned fire, but their APRs were useless against the armour of the seventy-tonne Tiger. Its machine gun continued to rattle away as the main gun found its range. The muzzle flashed again and a second shell pumped straight into the melee of VIGIL guards.

Jack’s father had been one step ahead. Inchquin had been about to use the time signal to send them home and then to carry out some sort of assault on his father’s base using the assembled VIGIL guards and the location codes on Angus’s time phone. But Christie had got there first. Even before Jack’s message, he must have anticipated that help would be needed and, when the moment had come, had taken advantage of the available signal to send help in the form of a tank. But now this wasn’t looking like the best of plans. Jack, Angus and Anna were caught in the middle — they had Inchquin and the Schonbrunn life guards behind them, Tony and Gordon and the VIGIL guards in front of them, and a Second World War tank off to one side. The professor already lay by their feet — dead. It wasn’t looking good.

Next Jack spotted two of the VIGIL guards fiddling with a large device — some sort of bazooka. One of them hoisted it onto his shoulder. The weapon bucked and its shell fizzed like a firework as it shot across the lawn. It smacked plumb into the side of the Tiger and there was an ear-splitting explosion. The 180 millimetre frontal armour of the Tiger was holed and the machine gun abruptly stopped. Yet someone in the tank had survived. The gun turret swivelled towards the two VIGIL guards who were desperately reloading the bazooka. The massive gun aimed downwards across the lawn towards them, but just as the muzzle flashed and recoiled, releasing a third shell, a second round fizzed from the bazooka towards the Tiger. It was too late for the VIGIL bazooka crew who were vaporised as the shell exploded just in front of them. But almost instantaneously the second bazooka’s round ripped open the Tiger’s armour and buried itself in the engine compartment. The rear of the Tiger erupted in a huge orange fireball. In a moment, the turret hatch swung open and a figure emerged, briefly silhouetted against the fierce flames rising from the Tiger. Even at a distance, the portly figure was immediately recognisable to Jack and Angus.

“Can’t be,” Angus said.

“It’s Pendelshape. Dad sent Pendelshape back,” Jack confirmed, awestruck.

“In a tank,” Angus added unnecessarily.

Pendelshape leaped from the turret into the gloom and was gone.

“Come on!” Anna shouted.

As one, they dashed further into the gardens. Jack’s eyes had adjusted to the moonlight, and he could now make out the elaborate matrix of Baroque-style pathways and hedges. Anna pushed them on at a heart-burning pace. He had a nagging feeling that, with his lungs, he would be unable to keep up. But they stayed strong… and he found himself breathing deeply — actually managing to keep pace with Anna. Suddenly, Jack felt a tremor in the earth. He glanced round and made out some large shadows behind them. Lancers from the palace — on horseback. They hadn’t wasted much time. Anna shouted to her brother.

“Dani — what do we do?”

“Split up — as we planned. You and I take the English boys. Vaso and Goran split off.”

The lancers were already only ninety metres away and bearing down on them.

Dani and Anna whisked Jack and Angus off the main path and into a narrow, hedged passageway. Vaso and Goran disappeared in the opposite direction.

Behind them, the horsemen came to a sudden halt, in a maelstrom of dust, scraping leather and metal. They had been temporarily caught out by the split of the group — but it wouldn’t be long before they were back on their trail. Dani led them out through an archway in the hedge. Ahead of them was a wide, grass bank, which rose gently to a long, low building with a series of archways built into the walls. It was a strange structure and it was not clear what it was for.

Anna egged them forward, “Come on!”

Behind them, one of the lancers had managed to force his horse through the narrow passageway and was hot on their heels. Anna raced towards the low building — Dani, Jack and Angus following closely behind. Anna took her rifle and thrust the butt hard into the large glass window of one of the arches. It shattered instantly.

Anna jumped through the gap and they followed her through and started to run. Inside, the faint grey moonlight washed through the arched windows. The building was so long that they could barely see from one end to the other. It was mostly empty, although there were some large tables set in rows and, bizarrely, a section of manicured trees in large boxes. The atmosphere was different in here — it was warmer than outside and more humid… there was a fragrance in the air — a citrus smell, like oranges. That’s where they were: inside a massive orangery — although most of the trees had already been moved to the gardens for the summer. But before they had a chance to gather their wits, there was another loud crash. They wheeled round. A tall figure sat astride a large black horse. One of the pursuing lancers had burst through the broken window and skidded to a halt in the central aisle of the orangery. His steel helmet glimmered and the long, feathered plume quivered in its crest. The horse bucked, and the horseman wheeled round expertly to face them. He was balancing his lance, a gossamer-thin pole in his right hand. At one end, Jack could make out a small metal spike. In a flash, the lancer dug his heels hard into the flanks of the black horse. It reared… and then charged.