Day of the Assassins (3 page)

There had also been one of those short but violent summer
thunderstorms. Jack remembered it being very hot and then getting wet and running along for shelter. He had heard thunder and seen lightning and remembered thinking that the raindrops were huge – big pea-sized blobs that exploded on the tarmac. He hadn’t been frightened; more curious. The images of the thunder and lightning combined in his head with what his young mind imagined the soldiers must have endured. This had made it real to him – for a moment it was as if he had become one of them, but because he was from another time somehow he wouldn’t be harmed; he would always be able to escape.

But the strongest memory of that time was waking up in the hotel or guest house or wherever they had been. He’d had his own room and the closeness of the night had woken him. He had pottered along the short corridor to his parents’ room, opened the door and seen his mum and dad standing there. He remembered feeling it was strange that they were not in bed and that the bedside light was on. They were quite far apart and he would never forget the pleading expression on his mum’s face. Both his mum and dad had red eyes and he felt uneasy when he realised that they were both crying. He had never seen an adult cry. Then his mum swivelled round to the open door, saw Jack there staring up at them and, with alarm, whisked him back off to his bedroom.

He saw even less of his father when they finally returned after the holiday – he was hard at work at the lab. Always working. Then the move back to Scotland had come and suddenly one day his mum told him that his father had left, and that “it would just be us now”.

“Hey, what’s this?” Angus had finally tossed the pyramid puzzle onto the floor in disgust and it had shattered back into separate pieces. Next to the puzzle, there was a piece of folded paper that must have dropped from the parcel when Jack had ripped it open. It was a letter.

Jack stared at the page blankly. Suddenly a wave of sadness welled up from deep within him. For a moment his eyes moistened. He bit his lip hard. He didn’t like to show emotion. Especially in front of Angus.

“What does he say?”

“It’s just a letter,” Jack said quietly.

Angus shrugged. “Whatever. Least your dad sends you presents. My dad only ever sends me to the farm – to work.”

Jack looked at his friend and put all thoughts of his father out of his head. “Food. Let’s go.”

They sat round the kitchen table. There was a smear of chocolate on Angus’s top lip and on the table, there were a few crumbs where the cake had been. It looked as though the kitchen had been visited by a swarm of locusts.

Mrs Christie looked at Angus.

“Any more?”

“Sorry Mrs C, I couldn’t eat another thing.”

“But you’ve only had five slices…” Her eyes twinkled.

“It was very nice, thank you, Mrs C.” Angus groaned. “But I think I need to lie down.”

Jack leaned over and poked Angus in the ribs. “Don’t they feed you at yours or something?”

Angus grunted.

Mrs Christie said, “On you go Angus – Jack can you just help me clear away?”

With some difficulty Angus rose from the table and waddled his way towards the cellar door.

Jack called after him, “Try the first level again –
The Archduke and
the Assassin.
”

But Angus could only offer a weary nod of his head in response.

“So, come on then, what was the present?” His mum looked at him expectantly as they started to clear the table.

Jack shrugged. “Just some book,” he squeezed out a smile, “I think you were right Mum, Dad’s presents are going downhill.”

“Sorry about that love – that happens when you get older.”

“Suppose.”

Jack stared into the open dishwasher.

Suddenly he blurted out, “Mum, what happened to Dad – where is he now – ” he immediately regretted the question, “ – exactly?” The words hung uncomfortably in the air. His mum sat down, holding a plate, a sad look in her eye.

“I don’t know, love. We just kind of grew apart. That sort of thing just… happens.”

“But why do we never see him… I mean most people who are separated or whatever, well… they still see their kids… right?”

She shrugged. “Not necessarily. I don’t think it’s that easy for him.”

“Why did he leave?”

“It was… complicated.” She put a gentle hand on Jack’s shoulder, “He was always working. He was a bit of a machine, truth be told.” She sighed. “Soon there was nothing left… for us, I suppose.”

“But I thought that all ended when we left Geneva and came here?”

His mum snorted. “What? It got worse! More work, more pressure, more stress. I loved him… and he loved me… and you, of course, but after a while, I figured…” her cheeks flushed, “he felt what he was doing was more important.”

“And then he left – just like that. Where is he now?”

“I have no idea,” she shrugged. “But whatever he’s doing – he thinks it’s important… and more important than us. And that’s the problem – always was.”

“But people always have problems… shouldn’t you have patched it up? Shouldn’t you have tried, I don’t know… harder?”

This time she was defensive. “We did try… I tried, anyway, it’s not easy to explain.”

Jack knew he was about to reach the limit in this line of questioning. He didn’t want a row, but he pressed on, more boldly than before. “Well I don’t think you tried hard enough… I never hear from him. I get a present once a year – and that’s it. Is that normal?”

“I know it’s not a great explanation, Jack, but it’s the only one I have. I’m sorry.”

“I
t’s Europe, 1914 and the continent is on a knife-edge. An alliance system of great powers has been created. Germany and Austria-Hungary on one side; Russia and France on the other. Britain has moved closer to the Russian and French camp…”

They sat in the cellar – Angus perched up on the edge of the moth-eaten armchair and Jack on a beanbag. The screen went dark and the title of the level popped up in the game’s distinctive gothic font:

Jack studied two images that had appeared on the screen in front of them: old photographs from before the First World War. In the left-hand photo stood a man who looked like royalty. He had on the full dress uniform of a cavalry officer – a dark tunic with a high collar and cuffs, a golden sash, light trousers and a hat adorned with ribbon and plumes. The other photo, on the right, was quite different. Dark shifty eyes peered away from the camera from an unshaven face with a defiant stare. The man looked like a peasant.

The bass voice-over of
Point-of-Departure
explained who the men were.

“On your left is Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the nephew of Franz Joseph I – Emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Franz Ferdinand is the heir to his throne… a mighty sprawling empire that covers a quarter of Europe.”

There was a pause before the narrator continued.

Archduke Franz Ferdinand

“To your right, is Gavrilo Princip – student, freedom fighter… or terrorist, depending on your point of view. Princip is a Serbian who grew up in Bosnia in a very poor family.”

Angus glanced at Jack. “Looks thin and pale – a bit like you.”

Jack ignored him.

“…Princip and his co-conspirators of the ‘Black Hand’ are planning to assassinate the man on the left, the Archduke, in Sarajevo, a town in Bosnia – part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire… By shooting the Archduke, Princip will set in motion a chain of events that will lead to the outbreak of the First World War. Eight million people will die in this war.”

The boys both gripped their controllers tightly.

The narrator completed the introduction, “Your mission is to infiltrate the Bosnian Serb assassination cell, prevent the killing of the Archduke and thereby stop the countdown to war. In this way you will change the course of world history. Good luck.”

They spent the next hour working their way through the level, taking turns. It was compulsive gaming. They travelled across 1914 Austria in a train to Vienna. From there, they journeyed by horse, cart and even a pre-1914 motorbike to Belgrade. They dodged Austro-Hungarian imperial lifeguards, secret police and a range of other unsavoury characters. On more than one occasion their cover was blown and they were thrown back to the start of the level. Finally, they infiltrated the ‘Black Hand’ in a dusty café in Belgrade and learned of the plans for the assassination in Sarajevo, which would take place at the end of the level. If they could stop Princip before he pulled the trigger of his pistol, history would be changed forever. Much more importantly, they would move on to the next level.

The great thing about
Point-of-Departure
was that depending on how you played the early levels, the subsequent levels would change – sometimes subtly, sometimes drastically. Sometimes the diplomatic intrigue would take a different course or the war, triggered by the assassination in Sarajevo, would be delayed or possibly even averted (although they hadn’t managed to work out how to do that yet).

Gavrilo Princip

In other scenarios, apparently, the war was successfully postponed only to turn into a much longer and even bloodier affair. It was all down to how you played the first levels and the choices you made.

Now it was Jack’s turn. He held the controller in two sweaty palms. In the game, he was standing on the Appel Quay in Sarajevo next to the Lateiner Bridge. He knew that Princip was near him in the crowd – but he couldn’t see exactly where. Suddenly, a car passed in front of the crowd, then a second. There were a few muted cheers as a third car passed. He caught a fleeting glance of hat feathers and finery over the heads in front of him… and then the Archduke Ferdinand and Sophie, his wife, and the pursuing motorcade were gone.

Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the unmistakable figure of Princip furtively crossing the Appel Quay in front of him and then disappearing into Moritz Schiller’s delicatessen. Beside him, in the cellar, Angus was on tenterhooks, staring intently at the images on the screen.

“There he is!” he shouted. He jumped up and down in excitement as Jack expertly fingered the controller to manoeuvre himself towards Princip.

“Yes, I can see him,” Jack said sarcastically.

“You’ve got to get him!”

“I know.”

The tension mounted. In a few minutes Jack knew that the motorcade would be returning from the Town Hall and Princip would have his final chance to shoot the Archduke – and strike a devastating blow for the Bosnian Serbs against their oppressors, the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Instinctively, he followed Princip and took up position next to the shop. History was about to happen before his eyes.

At that moment they saw the big headlamps and fender of the
Graf
und Stift
lumbering round the bend. The car was slowing down. He could see all the occupants including, perched up high in the rear, the Archduke and, to his left, Sophie. A man was leaning over to the driver to tell him something. Suddenly only two and a half metres away, Princip appeared. He had emerged from the delicatessen and
had a sandwich in one hand. He had a look of amazement on his face as the Archduke’s car ground to a halt, right in front of him. Princip dropped his sandwich and reached into his jacket pocket.

Angus was standing on the armchair. “There! Get him!”

But Jack kept his nerve. “Wait for it…”

He reached into his own coat and pulled out the pistol that he had been given earlier in the game. He held it in both hands and levelled it directly at Princip, who was by now pointing his own gun into the large car.

Angus was apoplectic. “Shoot him!”

Jack pressed the button on his controller once. The pistol jerked in his hands on the screen and Princip collapsed to the ground.

“You got him! You got him!”

They had completed the level. They had foiled the assassination and thereby stopped the countdown to the First World War. They had changed history, but they would not know exactly how they had changed it until the next level. In his excitement, Angus leaped onto the armchair. The big old springs inside the chair absorbed his weight, but then unexpectedly rebounded. Angus suddenly found himself flying over the back of the armchair and towards an old bookcase that stood against one wall of the cellar. Jack turned away from the game just in time to see Angus’s large frame crash headlong into the bookcase. There was an explosion of splintering wood and collapsing shelves as he made contact. Then, the entire structure started to move. With a huge crash, the bookcase, its contents and Angus landed in a heap of rubble, wood and dust.