The Furies (5 page)

Gabriel nodded and followed the chief back onto the pavement. The two men began to walk briskly back towards Schiller's, but as they neared Franz Josef Strasse the chief suddenly stopped and pointed ahead of them. ‘Wait a minute,' he said. ‘Isn't that the Archduke's car?'

They were only thirty yards from Schiller's, and just as the chief had said, a dark green convertible was driving fast along the embankment road towards them. As it neared the junction with Franz Josef Strasse, Gabriel could see the green feathers of the Archduke's helmet and the duchess's white dress in the back of the car, and General Potiorek still sitting in the front passenger seat. Standing on the silver running board outside the vehicle was an officer in a pale blue uniform, who Gabriel recognised as Colonel Harrach, the Archduke's advisor. Another car, a dark blue convertible with two men seated in the front and two women in the rear, was following behind.

‘Thank goodness,' the chief said, and Gabriel saw the smile of relief on his face as they stood watching the two-car convoy approach. ‘It looks like they're heading back to Illidza.'

But as it drew level with Schiller's café and the Latin Bridge, instead of carrying straight on the embankment road towards them, the Archduke's car slowed and began to turn into Franz Josef Strasse. Gabriel was surprised: why on earth were they going that way? Then he saw General Potiorek turn towards the driver and shout something at him, and the car came to a sudden stop, directly outside Schiller's café.

‘You bloody idiot,' Potiorek bellowed, and even at this distance Gabriel could hear the anger in his voice. ‘You should have continued straight along the Appel Quay. Hasn't anyone told you the tour is over?'

Apparently not, thought Gabriel, feeling sorry for the driver, who seemed genuinely surprised and flustered at Potiorek's tongue-lashing. Gabriel watched as the poor man tried to reverse the car into the embankment again, the dark blue convertible behind also backing up to give him space to manoeuvre.

And then everything seemed to happen in slow motion.

The entrance to Schiller's café swung open with a clatter, the entry bell clanging violently as the door slammed against the frame.

A slim young man in a scruffy dark suit rushed out of the café and ran up to the car.

The man lifted his hand and pointed a small black pistol at the car's occupants.

There was the sharp crack of two shots fired in quick succession.

A woman on the pavement nearby screamed and several bystanders rushed to overpower the man.

Potiorek was gesticulating wildly and Colonel Harrach was leaning protectively over the Archduke as the car's engine howled and the vehicle turned back into the embankment. Then with a screech of rubber it drove towards the Latin Bridge and accelerated south over the Miljacka River, followed a moment later by the second car.

Gabriel – in shock – turned to look at the chief. ‘My God, do you think he hit anybody?'

The chief's eyes were wide, his face pale. ‘I'm not sure…he was only a few feet away from the car.'

‘Where have they gone? That's the wrong way for the hospital.'

The chief had already begun to jog towards the Latin Bridge. ‘I think they must have driven to the Konak,' he shouted as Gabriel ran after him. ‘I can't think where else they'd take them.'

‘I'll go ahead,' Gabriel said, as he sprinted past the chief and onto the Latin bridge. He ran across to the far side, and then another fifty yards along a narrow street, before ducking left into a side alley that he knew led past the Emperor's Mosque. With the green dome and spire of the mosque behind him now, he ran through a small side street that brought him to a set of open metal entrance gates and the grounds of the Konak.

Running across the oval lawn in front of the building, Gabriel saw the dark green convertible parked at the bottom of the short flight of steps that led up to the Konak entrance. As he neared the vehicle he could see it was empty, all doors ajar, the engine still running. He stopped for a moment and saw a bullet hole in the rear passenger door, green feathers scattered on the rear leather seat, and bloody footprints on the silver running board outside the car. Someone had definitely been wounded: was it Colonel Harrach, who had been standing on the running board when the shots were fired? Gabriel heard a shout and turned to see the chief jogging across the lawn towards him, the older man puffing heavily as he tried to keep pace.

‘There's blood in the car,' Gabriel shouted back before striding up the white marble steps that led to the Konak entrance. And now he saw that there was more blood on the steps; fat clots of it, like some strange species of purple slug, which glistened against the brilliant white of the stone.

He ran to the heavy oak door, which was ajar, and hurried inside the building. The white tiled surface of the Konak's lobby was streaked with blood and a single ladies' dress shoe lay forlornly in the middle of the floor. A staircase at the back of the lobby was also splashed with blood and Gabriel followed the trail, taking the steps three at a time.

He was breathing hard by now, and on the landing at the top of the steps he took a moment to catch his breath. But then he heard voices coming from an open door nearby, and he hurried through to find himself inside a bedroom. From the oil portrait that hung on the wall Gabriel guessed it was General Potiorek's bedroom. But it was the bed that grasped his attention; for lying on top of the bedspread, in a heavily blood-stained white silk dress, was the wife of the Archduke.

Two aides were attending her: the first, an older woman with a tear-streaked face, was leaning on her abdomen, pressing down in an attempt to staunch the flow of blood. The other aide, a younger man, was hunched over the duchess's face, his ear close to her mouth.

‘I'm a surgeon,' Gabriel said as he approached the bed.

The aide lifted his head to look at Gabriel. ‘Thank God you're here…I can't hear any breathing,' he said, his voice filled with panic as Gabriel reached past him to feel for the carotid artery in the duchess's neck. Gabriel tried his fingers in several different positions, but he couldn't find a pulse and when he lifted her closed eyelids he saw the already-glazed, dilated pupils. Gabriel felt strangely calm now; the shock of finding blood in the car had already passed and his surgical instincts had taken over.

‘I'm afraid she's dead,' Gabriel quietly said to the young man. The woman pressing on the duchess's abdomen sat back on the bed and let out a low moan, then began to sob uncontrollably. Another aide – Gabriel hadn't noticed her at first – was kneeling on the far side of the bed and she now began to pray and weep at the same time.

The young man pointed at an archway across the room. ‘The Archduke's through there,' he said. ‘You must try to save him.'

Gabriel hurried through the archway and found that it led into a separate annexe, a small dressing area off the main bedroom. In the middle of the annexe was an ornately embroidered red-and-gold Ottoman couch. And lying on his back on the couch, with his eyes closed as if asleep, his hands resting on his lap, his gold-buttoned blue tunic heavily stained with blood, was the Archduke.

Standing above him was General Potiorek, his face a mask of disbelief as he looked down at the wounded man. Kneeling on the floor beside the couch was Colonel Harrach, his clean-shaven cheeks splashed with blood. Standing next to Potiorek was another of the Archduke's aides, a frantic look in the man's eyes as he waved a small pocket-knife in the air.

‘I'm sorry,' Gabriel heard the aide say to Potiorek, ‘but the buttons are only for decoration: the Archduke always insists on being sewn into his tunic.'

Potiorek and Harrach both looked up at Gabriel as he entered the annexe. ‘Captain Bayer – thank God you're here,' Harrach said as Gabriel knelt beside him.

‘Please, good doctor, can you save him?' Potiorek said, the pitch of his voice raised in desperation as Gabriel took hold of the Archduke's wrist. ‘He must not die…'

Gabriel could feel a fast, slender pulse at the wrist bone. ‘He's still alive…just,' he said, looking up at Potiorek, ‘but he's lost a lot of blood.' He turned to Harrach. ‘Where's he been shot?' he asked.

‘In the chest, I think,' said Harrach, just as the chief appeared in the archway behind, breathing heavily.

‘Good God!' the chief exclaimed.

Gabriel looked up at him. ‘He's still alive but bleeding badly.'

The chief knelt beside Gabriel as they tried to find the bullet entry hole. Gabriel could see a large gash had been made across the left side of the Archduke's tunic; unsuccessful attempts by the aide to cut the jacket open, he presumed. But the right side of the tunic was more blood-stained and there was a small hole in the right side of the collar…

‘There,' Gabriel said, pointing to the rent in the collar.

The chief reached across and lifted the collar: and immediately a small fountain of blood gushed from a hole at the base of the Archduke's neck; Potiorek gasped at the sight. The chief quickly pushed the collar back into place: at the pressure of his hand the Archduke's eyes flickered open, then closed again.

Gabriel looked up at the aide. ‘Give me the knife, quick,' he ordered. As he took the penknife he turned to Harrach. ‘Get him on his side. I'll cut the jacket open at the back.'

While the chief kept his fingers on the neck wound, Harrach and the aide rolled the Archduke onto his side. A stream of blood trickled from the wounded man's mouth: his eyes opened again and his lips began to move. ‘Sophie…don't die…please…for the children…' He began to cough and splutter.

‘Keep him on his side,' Gabriel said, concerned the Archduke might choke on his own blood. He slit the back of the jacket from the hem to the collar, then watched Harrach and the aide pull the tunic off from the front. More blood spurted from the wound when the tunic was removed, only stemmed when the chief applied more pressure with his fingers.

With the Archduke positioned on his side, Gabriel leant over the body to examine the wound. He couldn't see an exit hole – only the entrance wound just above the right clavicle – but when the pressure of the chief's hand was eased, the flow of blood coming through the hole was heavy and suggested a major vessel was involved. Could it be the subclavian vein, which lies close to the lung? It would explain why the wounded man was coughing up blood: for a moment Gabriel's hopes rose; the Archduke might survive a subclavian vein wound. But when the chief removed his hand and Gabriel slipped his little finger into the gushing hole, he felt the track pass away from the lung and up towards the base of the skull. The Archduke must have been leaning backwards when the shot was fired, as the bullet had travelled upwards once it entered the neck. And that meant that either the jugular vein or carotid artery had been injured.

In a battlefield situation a wound like this would normally be considered fatal, and any attempt at surgery would almost always result in death. Gabriel knew the situation was beyond serious, almost certainly hopeless, and he looked across at the chief. He could tell by the expression on his mentor's face that he thought the same.

In any case, what more could he do? He had no surgical kit, no bandages, no instruments – apart from a penknife. The aide had cut a piece of linen shirt into strips, and in desperation Gabriel used the blunt end of the penknife to stuff a piece of this ad-hoc dressing into the wound to try and reduce the blood loss. But the wound track was long – longer than the four-inch hilt of the penknife – and Gabriel suspected that the bullet was embedded deep at the back of the neck. Within a few seconds, blood was again seeping through the exit hole. More ominously, Gabriel heard the Archduke's breathing change to shorter gasps with longer pauses between each breath.

‘Can't you do something more?'

Gabriel looked up to see Potiorek staring down at him, the look on the General's face one of utter desperation.

‘Can't you operate, stop the bleeding?' Potiorek persisted.

Gabriel's eyes flicked towards the chief and they exchanged glances. The chief looked up at Potiorek.

‘General, I'm afraid this is a fatal, untreatable wound.'

Even though the chief's words only confirmed what Gabriel knew to be the truth, hearing them filled him with dismay. It was always horrible when – in spite of your best efforts – a patient died under your care. But this, Gabriel thought, was different. The second most important man in the Austro-Hungarian Empire was going to perish right in front of him and there was nothing more he could do. He tried to suppress his rising anger. Why were they here at the Konak? Why hadn't they driven to the hospital? He heard the Archduke mumble a few indistinct words, and then there was one final, drawn-out, sighing exhalation – almost a farewell: then silence.

The chief felt for the carotid pulse on the other side of the neck, then looked across at Gabriel and shook his head. Gabriel knew it was over and sat back on his haunches, the desolate feeling of losing a patient already beginning to well up inside of him.

And now – just as he was about to sit forward and stand up – a hand grasped the collar of Gabriel's smock and he felt himself being pulled backwards. He turned his head and found he was now eye-to-eye with General Potiorek who was staring down at him, flecks of spittle at the corners of his mouth, lines of tension radiating across his cheeks as he gripped the back of Gabriel's jacket. ‘For God's sake,' Potiorek said, ‘there must be something more you can do?'

Gabriel was at first stunned, then angry at being manhandled. But before he could react, he heard the chief's reprimanding tone – ‘Herr General!' – and saw Potiorek turn towards him. ‘There is nothing that God or any man can do,' the chief continued.

Potiorek seemed to come to his senses and released his grip. Gabriel pulled away, shrugging his jacket back into place as he stood up and stepped away from the couch; Colonel Harrach – standing beside him – looked embarrassed at Potiorek's outburst.