Field of Mars (36 page)

As for the Crown, it had never been conceived as a great hotel—there hadn't been the budget from its Viennese owners for a lavish design. Instead it occasionally succeeded to being something more practical; everything was adequate and the kitchen not bad at all, but the rooms were uninspired, the balconies were small and filled ostentatiously with flowers to screen the occupants from the street. In the distance was the old Turkish fortress, looming over everything.

‘Will there be floods this year?' Andrianov asked the man seated on the tiny balcony. He could have been sitting out there beside him, but it would have meant touching knees.

‘Floods?' the man said without looking around. ‘Perhaps . . . It all depends if it rains upstream.'

Andrianov stared at the back of the head. The hair cut short, the skin a little whiter around the nape of the thick neck, the ears carefully plucked, the thinning hair on top macassared straight back, so that it shone in the bright light reflected off the walls of the building opposite—
Apis
.

‘If it rains, if it floods? It doesn't matter really. We can cross the river in a few minutes, but here . . .' the sleek head turned towards the great castle, the terrain that dominated the city and the quays. ‘Here, we wait for them to come to us.'

‘What about the gunboats?' When anything happened the Austrians would send their gunboats down the river to shell the city.

‘Floods would slow them down, true. And our guns are up there.' He extended a finger toward the ancient pile on the hill. ‘But they have longer guns, and eventually . . .'
Apis
opened his hand, turned it back and forth to show how tenuous the military balance was.

Andrianov turned his gaze down to a pair of donkeys shitting in the street. They did it together as if one had given the other the idea. A man hit them with a switch and stepped around the piles. A buzz rose from the street; the clatter of the horses, an occasional spluttering motorcar, the bells of the trams, the unintelligible calling of the women hawking fish, vegetables, sticks of firewood and unnameable items carried in filthy, fly-surrounded baskets on their shoulders. The women were short with brown leather faces and eyes that squinted at him, who began to giggle with curiosity when ever he went out.

He had come to Belgrade on business. As usual, everything was legitimate on the surface. To any outside eye he was a speculator, an investor, a man to be wooed if you wanted to swim in the seas of serious finance. He was open about it. Advertising his presence, open for business. He had even kept up with his Viennese contacts via a flurry of telegrams, most of it harmless, some of it in code. He was alone except for Rochefort, a sharp young fellow who worked in the legal house of Rose, Steer and Duborg, the British investment firm he used in the Kingdom of Serbia.

Like any business trip there had been several appointments, a flurry of meetings, dinners, drinks, smokes, and rides in the ridiculous park. He was increasingly sought after in the kingdom. Word, or at least rumour had leaked out about his deals during the latest Balkan crisis, he was in favour, and he had made his partners and investors a great deal of money. And with success came both respect and danger. Now he was firmly entrenched, running alongside or only slightly behind the great armaments manufacturers. Now the detectives from Krupp knew what he ate for breakfast each morning. Now Basil Zaharoff, the greatest of the world's arms merchants, read a report on him each day. He did the same for Zaharoff, for Krupp, and for all the other manufacturers, so fair was fair. It was part of the game. He would win in the end.

It was such a sleepy city in the heat.

He stared down into the street and watched the Serbian version of life go by. You saw everything, but what did you miss? ‘But isn't the weather of great importance to the military?' Andrianov attempted to pursue the point, but the man on the balcony gave no indication of having heard him. Perhaps he was bored.
Apis
often pretended to be bored.

‘We could go somewhere . . .' he started, but
Apis
shook his head, a long exhalation of smoke. A sigh of impatience? Of boredom? The last meeting of the day was with
Apis
, and when he had arrived he had inspected the pillars for microphones, then leaned over to see if a stenographer was listening from the window below. Andrianov had watched him with amusement—as if anyone could get into the Crown without Apis knowing about it. His control over the secret police was total. If anyone was listening it would be his own people.

He had not been looking forward to the meeting. Of all the conspirators he had been forced to bring into the Plan, he found
Apis
's independence the most disturbing, and watching him he gave an involuntary shudder. After all, the man was a killer. Only ten years before
Apis
had engineered the assassination of King Alexander and his wife, Draga, in order to put his own puppet on the throne.

Legend had it that
Apis
had arranged for his own men to guard the palace on that barbarous summer night. Explosives set into the locks had been detonated but had destroyed the electrical system in the building. The conspirators were forced to run through the palace searching for their victims, cursing and stumbling into the furniture, growing more frenzied lest the royal couple escape.

The king and his queen had huddled behind a secret panel in their bedroom, naked and terrified as they listened to the assassins prowl about and break up the furniture. Finally they were found, shot repeatedly, run-through and hacked, then thrown out of the window into the garden. Alexander, a pudgy, childlike monarch, had proven unexpectedly tough. He gripped the railing until
Apis
cut his fingers off and pushed him down. It had started to rain that night, and the bodies were left there while
Apis
took control of the city and its apparatus.

Since then he had taken total command of the hard-line faction of the Serbs. He wanted Serbian hegemony in the Balkans, and Andrianov pretended to want that as well. Well, if it happened, it could be advantageous. But putting Evdaev on the throne was his first priority.
Apis
knew nothing of that part of the Plan of course; he thought he was dealing with a fool—a Russian multi-millionaire, a super-Slav idealist ready to play at politics by funding terror. Fine. There was no need to educate him further.

Andrianov found himself thinking how much he'd like to be with Mina in France, perhaps a week at Evian. He had been lulled by the taciturn
Apis
and only suddenly realized that the man was congratulating him in his droning flat way. ‘. . . and the fuse is lit.'

‘Yes?'

‘Indeed. The invitation was made right from the top, by Potiorek, the Hapsburgs' governor of the province, and the acceptance came yesterday.'

‘Ah . . . Good. Is there a date?'

‘The date? St Vitus' Day, you know . . . at the end of June, but it's at the same time as the Kosovo celebrations. He's going to inspect the troops, participate in manoeuvres, ride his horse, bring his wife on a holiday.'

Andrianov turned, almost laughed. ‘Really?'

‘And from what is being said, he accepted because he thinks it is a gesture of peace and reconciliation. It's an olive branch to the occupied Bosnians, telling them that if they're good little boys and girls and don't blot their copybooks, one day they might get off the leash. He thinks he's a diplomat. Really, he's a fool like the rest of them,'
Apis
said.

Andrianov saw the street in a whole new light. It looked as if things were actually beginning to work. The acceptance was all he had been waiting for. Now
Apis
would carry the ball. ‘So . . .' was all he could come up with to say.

But
Apis
had stopped. Already thinking about something else, perhaps the details of the action. The awning over the balcony seemed to gather the heat, rather than cast any shade.
Apis
reached up and slowly undid one of the buttons on his tunic. It was hot, the sun already betraying how powerfully it would bake these stone streets when summer came round at last.

‘Well! So . . . I suppose we ought to congratulate ourselves,' Andrianov said, his tone a little forced. It was a remark designed to animate
Apis
somehow, draw him in. Now he might need encouragement, an extra push, a little motivation to carry things out to a conclusion. He might have to make him a friend, may God forgive him.

Apis shrugged. It was a rise of the shoulders, not much bigger than a breath. ‘All we have to worry about is if he gets a fever, or she does, or if Franz Josef takes sick again. Who knows.'
Apis
spat his tobacco smoke at the table, reached into the box for another cigarette, lit it from the first. ‘Everything is to chance. You plan, you organize, but still . . . everything is . . .' he trailed off. That gesture with the hand again.

Andrianov stood there at the balustrade, looking at him. What would
Apis
ultimately become? Where would he be in six months' time? Maybe God was on the side of the Serbs. They certainly thought so. Maybe Apis would put his new king out in front when his nation plunged into holy war and tried to claw Bosnia back from the Austrians. Maybe it would work out for both of them. He'd get Russia,
Apis
could have Serbia. If not, if things looked bad there could always be another coup . . . a few more severed fingers.

Andrianov suddenly realized that he had not thought beyond his ambitions for Evdaev. He had somehow just assumed that if he repaired the great suppurating sore that was the House of Romanov, he would be able to secure his businesses, protect his fortune and then . . . stop.

But had he miscalculated?

Once more he found himself shivering in the sweltering room. No matter what happened he and
Apis
were bound together. The magnitude of the treachery was too great. He would have to deal with
Apis
for many, many more years yet, he thought. Was there such a thing as stopping?

‘Are you hungry, Colonel? Would you like something brought up?' he said, more to hide his unease than to be a good host.

There was just the shake of a head for an answer. He had no manners at all, of course. It was the worst quality of the South Slavs. The arrogance of ignorance, the honest sophistication of a rock.

He decided to order something sent up, some fruit ices. Anything to cool down. He wanted to strip off all his clothes, and run and jump into the Danube, swim away from the city and the stench of the man on his balcony. He pressed the bell repeatedly and waited for someone to respond. After a few minutes, when nothing happened, he did it again.

Apis
reached into his pocket and lit another cigarette, flicked the burning match away into the crowded street.

Somehow, Andrianov thought, it was the most frightening thing he had ever seen.

THIRTY-THREE

A space of two weeks. Two weeks of waiting, fulfilling his non-duties as an Internal investigator. Two weeks of rising summer. In the sticky heat of the morning Ryzhkov went to Kryukov Street. Jekes and Dziga were packing up all their papers into pasteboard boxes. There was a boy, big for his age, smoking at the top of the stairwell. He stood up when Ryzhkov went up there. Inside everything had been torn down and was being packed up. There were trunkloads of transcripts, cabinets that were being secured by Ministry of Justice seals, mountains of file boxes containing photographic copies of the principals' personal correspondence. Dossiers full of testimony. All of it, evidence.

In the glass offices Sinazyorksy had a troika of secretaries typing around the clock. Everyone looked exhausted.

Tomlinovich was asleep, halfway dressed in his formal clothing, collapsed upon a shelf of boxes beneath the windows beside the loading lift. Beside him was a rack of clothing and Fauré was methodically getting dressed and watching himself in the mirror they'd used to tailor Vera's gown.

‘Ahh . . .' he said when he saw Ryzhkov coming over. ‘A very auspicious day, Inspector.'

‘I certainly hope so,' he said.

‘If God is willing by the end of the day we should be in the Winter Palace getting a signature from the Tsar himself. The government might fall, Ryzhkov,' Fauré said, turning from the mirror. ‘Do you realize that? You are making history here. Or, actually, you aren't because I've erased you from all our records, and I've used a code name for the divine Mademoiselle Aliyeva. I hope that will be sufficient?'

‘Thank you,' he said, surprising himself with the relief in his voice.

‘You've done a good job in a dirty business, Ryzhkov. If this works out you might come over to the Ministry, eh?'

‘I am not thinking that far ahead, excellency.'

‘Can't say as I blame you. I am not thinking past lunch myself. Wake him up, would you?'

‘Good luck up there this morning, I mean that,' he said as he shook Tomlinovich awake.

‘Thank you, Ryzhkov.'

‘What time is it?' Tomlinovich woke up groggily and took in a long wheeze to clear his head.

‘It's time,' Fauré said.

‘So what if the gods do shine on your proposal?'

‘Let's put it like this, Ryzhkov. A trial is going to be a very real problem for all of the people in that—' He pointed to the office where Sinazyorksy was hefting one of a series of red, leather-bound volumes into a leather trunk.

‘That's it?'

‘Twelve bloody volumes,' muttered Tomlinovich as he took up a stance beside Fauré and began doing up the buttons on his waistcoat.

‘There are no guarantees, not with this list of people. We did what we had to do, we move forward . . .'

‘Forward, forward, ever forward . . .' Tomlinovich moaned.

‘Do you want me to accompany you?' Both of them looked over at him, then eyed his rumpled suit.

‘I think not, eh?' Tomlinovich said. ‘Besides you are gone from here, you are a non-person. His supremacy General Gulka is very happy, the Minister of Justice Baron Double-Fart-fart is very happy. The only one who isn't happy is you; why aren't you smiling, Ryzhkov? Forgotten how?'