The Great Game (15 page)

             
"I don't think I'll need a wrap," Cecily said. "At any rate, I'm willing to make the experiment."

             
"I'm sure I shall be quite comfortable," Diane said, peering doubtfully through one of the panes of glass.

             
Ariste Buleforte opened the French doors and stepped outside. The slight breeze that came through the open doors was cool, but not uncomfortable. One of Buleforte's impassive servitors did his best to rush around the room without appearing to be rushing around the room to get through the French doors and out into the garden right behind his master.

             
Barnett took his wife's arm, and together they strolled into the garden. The sun was down, and a large lunar disk was just appearing over the distant mountains. "A lovely night," he said, "with a full moon rising in a cloudless sky."

             
"Indeed," Diane Buleforte said, coming up behind them. "It feels peaceful, and endless; if a bit chill."

             
"Where one puts aside the cares of state, eh
?,
and reflects on the essential oneness of the universe and all its creatures." Ariste Buleforte turned and smiled at them. "And we are all one, are we not?
We creatures that swarm upon the earth?
All one in the futility of our hopes, and the brief flicker that is our lives."

             
"Ariste!"
Diane said.

             
"I apologize," Ariste said. "I did not mean that as maudlin as it, perhaps, sounded. Indeed, until the words came from my mouth, I thought they were going to be jolly. The stars have a strange influence upon man."

             
"Upon you, at any rate, my dear," Diane said, taking his arm.

             
A man stepped out from behind a tree about thirty feet away and yelled something at them in German. As Barnett turned to look, the man's arm swung forward and the object in it flew in an arc toward them. A red spark circled the object as it spun through the night sky.

             
"My God!"
Ariste Buleforte yelled.
"A bomb!"

             
Several things seemed to happen at once, in slow motion. Ariste Buleforte pulled his wife down onto the grass and fell on top of her. The huge servitor broke into a lumbering run toward the whirling speck of red light, but it was clear that he would never make it in time. He was on the left of the group, and the bomb was going to land on the far right. Right past where Barnett and Cecily were standing.

             
Without any conscious thought, Barnett shoved Cecily behind him, yelled, "Get down!" and took three running steps forward. He leapt into the air, his left hand raised to field the object, which smacked into his palm like a great hardball. His hand went numb, but he kept his hold on the massive iron globe.

             
Barnett came down, switched the object to his right hand, and with one motion hurled it as hard as he could back where it came from.

             
It arced through the air once again, the red spark spiraling toward the sky and arcing back to earth. And then, as it was almost at the end of its arc, the red spark disappeared.

             
For a moment that seemed to Barnett long enough to remember every detail of his life that he might have trouble explaining to the recording angel, nothing happened. Then the earth shook, and the sky turned red orange, and a great hand came and slammed across Barnett's chest, knocking him down.

Per Me Si
Va
Nella Citt
á
Dolente,

Per Me Si
Va
Nell' Eterno Dolore,

Per Me Si Va Tra La Perduta
Gente ...

Lasciate Ogni Speranza Vol Ch'entrate!

(This way to the city of sorrow,

this
way to eternal misery,

this
way to join the lost people ...

abandon
all hope, ye who enter here!)

— Dante

             
It was approaching noon on Friday. Paulus Leopold Hohensuchen, duke of Mecklenburg Strelitz, and his delicate and ethereal new bride the Princess Annamarie of Falkynburg, were on their way to make a formal call upon their imperial cousin, Franz Joseph, king of the dual monarchy and hereditary emperor of Austria-Hungary. Their for-state-visits-only gilded carriage, pulled by six finely matched grays, sandwiched between an honor guard of eight Household Cavalry officers in glittering uniforms, left the wide gates of their small Schloss on the Eugenegasse and proceeded to the wide and lovely Ringstrasse to make a formal circuit of Vienna's imposing circle of splendid municipal buildings before pulling in through the for-state-visits gate of the Hofburg.

             
The people of Vienna were used to such spectacle as a gilded coach escorted by eight of their splendid Household Guards, all in gold and red and high-plumed busbies. But the people of Vienna loved spectacle, and everyone on the street paused to watch as the lovely procession passed, and turned to tell his neighbor just who it was, and just what the relationship of Archduke Leopold was to their much beloved Emperor Franz Joseph.

             
By the monument to Maria Theresa, where the carriage would turn into the Hofgarten, a small platform had been erected and a cluster of people stood in front of it watching a puppet show in progress on the tiny stage. To one side, a small group of bureaucrats had paused on their way to lunch to watch the show, and they now turned toward the street as the carriage approached. Behind them waited a large Shugard Seuss revolver, stuck in the waistband of the student Carl Webel.

             
Carl wore an all-enveloping green greatcoat several sizes too large for him and a wide brown cap that had been stuffed with newspapers in the sweatband to make it fit. These had been supplied by Number One, who insisted that he wear them. Why this was important in the great scheme of things Carl did not know, but the first thing taught to a young anarchist when he swears on the blood of his parents never to divulge the secrets of the Secret Freedom League is to obey orders. Carl pulled the cap down, turned up the collar on the green greatcoat, and peered through his wire-rimmed spectacles. The Ferret had wanted him to remove the spectacles but he had assured the Ferret that, if he was actually expected to hit
anything, that
was impossible. The Ferret had grudgingly agreed.

             
The procession was just coming into sight around the curve of the Ringstrasse, unmistakable in its horse guard, state carriage,
horse
guard configuration. The remaining cluster of people watching the puppets turned and drifted over to line the street as the carriage approached. Carl Webel nervously
unwrapped
the scarf from around his neck and unbuttoned the green greatcoat. "Desperate times require desperate measures," he muttered; a litany he had learned from the Ferret, and one he firmly believed he believed.

             
His right hand reached for the revolver and clasped its bulbous grip firmly. As the leading pair of horse guards clattered toward him, he pulled the pistol from his waistband and held it ready, under the greatcoat and over his heart.

             
The horse guard rounded the corner. Webel tensed himself, ready to step out of the shadow, insert himself between a portly, red-faced man and his stocky, grossly over-mustached companion, and fire the revolver into the carriage as it came abreast of him. He tried to decide between "Death to the tyrant!" and "So perishes a vile oppressor of the people!" as the most impressive thing to yell as he fired.

             
The moment of truth arrived. Webel brought the Shugard Seuss from under his coat and put his thumb on the hammer. The approaching carriage came into amazingly clear focus, while everything else around him retreated into a fog. His feet seemed to have glued themselves to the ground, and become impossibly heavy to move. With one last deep breath he pulled himself free and ran forward toward the carriage and, yelling "Death to the people! Death to the people!" fired the heavy revolver repeatedly through the beautifully lacquered Mecklenburg Strelitz ducal arms on the carriage door.

             
The coachman whipped the horses forward, following his instructions to get away from any such event as quickly as possible. The horse guards wheeled around and headed off in at least three different directions, searching for the cause of the gunfire. Webel turned and ran back through the crowd, which seemed to part before him. One man clutched at Webel's greatcoat in an effort to stop him but Webel, in a blood-fury of exhilaration and fear, brought the Shugard Seuss revolver down sharply on the man's head and kept running.

             
Somewhere behind him there was a sharp explosion. A bomb had been set off in the path of the carriage. Two of the four Household Guards who were pursuing Webel, wheeled and galloped off to counter this new, and more immediate threat, but the others came pounding on.

             
The Ferret appeared before him and grabbed him by the shoulder. "Lie down!" he ordered.
"Now!"

             
Webel dropped. Several pairs of feet pushed and prodded him, and he rolled into an empty space that appeared before him. As a flap was lowered behind him he realized that he was under the platform holding the puppet show stage. Outside there was yelling and screaming and the sound of running feet and cantering horses, as the Household Guardsmen searched for their prey. Inside all was dark. Webel rolled over to get deeper into the space and something sticky brushed his cheek. He reached up and traced the stickiness to the shoulder of his coat, where the Ferret had grabbed him. Rolling back, he lifted the end of the tent flap slightly and looked at his
hand. There was a slender smear of almost-dried blood. Blood! What had the Ferret been doing to get his hand stained with blood?

-

             
It was approaching six o'clock when Paul entered the lobby of his building. A large man sitting on the staircase looked up as he entered. "Herr Paul Donzhof?
"

             
"
Yes?"

             
The man produced a Mauser automatic from the folds of his overcoat and pointed it at Paul. "We are of the police. I am Inspector Harcev. Please raise your hands above your head. Make no motion toward your pockets or I shall shoot you."

             
"What?"

             
Paul heard a footstep behind him, and then suddenly he was embraced in a powerful bear hug from behind by one man while another rapidly and impersonally went through his pockets and prodded and squeezed every place on his body where he might have concealed a weapon. Then his hands were twisted behind his back and
a pair of handcuffs were
screwed onto his wrists. The whole procedure took less than thirty seconds.

             
Charles Summerdane stood mute and impassive at this display of overwhelming force, but his mind raced. Had the police discovered who he really was or what he was doing in Vienna? Had they stumbled upon the lesser truth that, as Paul Donzhof, he was a member of an anarchist group? He had thought that it was the uneasy anarchists who were following him about. Could it, instead, have been the police? Perhaps the
Kundschafts Stelle
had been watching him for the past few weeks, and was even now rounding up the other members of his group.

             
Summerdane decided that a general denial, just to set the tone, would be in order. He would adopt the attitude of a truly innocent man until he found out just what they believed him guilty of—and probably beyond.

             
"I don't understand what this is about," he said with as much dignity as he could manage with his hands manacled behind his back and two large men holding him by the shoulders. "Why are you treating me like a common criminal? Am I under arrest? I have done nothing."