The Assassins by Alan Bardos (read novel full .TXT) 📕

Johnny hit the ground with a thud and tasted blood in his mouth. A shooting pain ran up his leg and for a brief moment he thought he was back on the playing fields of his school.

The Archduke turned his piercing blue eyes on Johnny, looking directly at him, then turned back towards Cabrinovic as he hurled his bomb at the car and dropped to the ground.

Franz Ferdinand put his arm up to protect his wife, but the chauffeur’s increase in speed caused the bomb to curve over them by inches and hit the folded-back roof of the car. Everything slowed down, as Johnny prayed, 'Please be the spiked one. Please be the spiked one!'

The bomb bounced off the canvas roof and landed on the road without going off. Johnny began to breathe again and felt the same sort of elation he had experienced when scoring the winning try in the inter-house cup.

The bomb continued to bounce along the road, smoking. Johnny thought it was odd; the bomb shouldn't have been smoking if it had been spiked and he watched as it disappeared under the next car along in the motorcade.

*

Cvjetko Popovic waited with growing apprehension; he could hear the motorcade getting closer. The people around him started to cheer and push to the front. Popovic put the cyanide in his mouth and waited with the bomb ready in his right hand and the pistol in his left.

He was in a trance, rhythmically repeating the words of the people around him under his breath. 'Now they're coming, now they're coming, now...' The first car in the motorcade went past.

As the crowd crushed in, the enormity of the situation started to weigh on Popovic's sixteen year old shoulders. The people around him began to shout, 'Long may he live! Long may he live!’ Popovic heard a dull crack and a second car drove past - then an ear splitting explosion, followed by pandemonium.

His nerve left him and he bolted. His only thought was to get rid of his weapons and he turned and ran down to the cellar of Prosvjeta Palace to hide them.

*

Nedjo Cabrinovic swallowed his potassium cyanide and jumped over the embankment wall into the Miljacka River. It was a fifteen foot drop and he landed heavily in the inch deep water. Ignoring the pain, he tried to submerge himself in the effluent, red mud of the river, in a bid to drown himself if the cyanide didn't take effect.

There was no time - several policemen and a number of spectators were on him and started to beat and kick him as they dragged him under Cumurija Bridge.

Nedjo coughed and retched; the cyanide had just made him sick and he couldn't get away. The group got to the low riverbank on the other side of the bridge and someone demanded to know who he was. Nedjo replied as proudly as he could, 'I am a Serb hero.'

*

Franz Ferdinand ordered his car to stop and instructed von Harrach, the transport officer, to investigate the scene of the explosion.

'Sophie, are you hurt? the Archduke asked.

'Something hit the back of my neck,' she replied.

'You've been grazed,' Franz Ferdinand said with concern, examining her.

'We'll get you attended to, Your Highness.' Potiorek was mortified and clearly wary of how the Heir would react.

Franz Ferdinand was too stunned to be angry. He wished that he’d listened to his last intuition about the trip to Bosnia, when he was at Konopiste. 'I always thought that something like this would happen,' he growled.

*

Princip was running with the crowd along Appel Quay towards the site of the explosion. He'd heard the blast of the bomb and could see that a car had stopped. He couldn't tell who was inside it, because of the mob, but he knew that the plan must have worked and his heart filled with triumph. He saw no need now to throw his bomb and shoot at the car, as had originally been planned when it was forced to stop.

A commotion across the river drew Princip's attention. Nedjo was being pulled out of the river, alive, into the park where Princip had been walking earlier with the prosecutor's son.

*

Von Harrach hurried back to the Royal car and reported to the Archduke. 'Your Highness, no one was killed. Two people from the car, one of them the Governor’s ADC, have been wounded and some spectators were injured.'

Breitner the Magyar staggered up to the car, cradling a wounded arm. 'Your Imperial and Royal Highness, might I suggest you continue to City Hall, immediately. You're extremely vulnerable stopped in the middle of the road like this.'

Franz Ferdinand turned to von Harrach, 'Very well - the fellow must have been a lunatic. Let us proceed.' He’d been subject to an ambush of this kind at the King of Spain’s wedding. All that could be done was to carry on.

Breitner climbed onto the running board next to the Archduke as the car set off. Franz Ferdinand wasn't overly pleased with his presence, but Breitner had been correct about the threat to his life. If the Archduke had been wrong about people, he tried to make things right. He regarded everyone he met as being a scoundrel at first, and then let them gradually change his opinion, if they could. Breitner had changed his mind and Franz Ferdinand decided he would reinstate Breitner's commission in the army.

*

Princip watched as the police dragged Nedjo through the park, then he looked at his gun, deciding what to do. For a brief moment, Princip thought that he would kill Nedjo and then shoot himself. They had agreed that even if they were successful they should take their own lives.

The car that had been stopped in the middle of the road suddenly came to life and sped past Princip and