A Colonel from the Gangs Taskforce met with the heads of all of Prague’s organised crime groups – this entirely off the record and as far as possible from the Press and some of the less-understanding members of Parliament – and reported back that they were as in the dark as anyone else. They all blamed each other for the killings, but when pressed could not give a single good reason why they should have taken place.
“I told them to stop, and they just shrugged their shoulders,” the Colonel told Petr over a drink. “This is a territorial thing, plain and simple. You mark my words. They just won’t admit it.”
Except for those two bodies with their throats cut. That whole business had disappeared into the pockets of an angry Major Vĕtrovec, but in Petr’s mind’s eye they stood out from all the other killings. Somehow those two murders, that room full of plastic explosive, made sense of everything else. Except they didn’t.
The Press took up the story of the gang war, questions were asked in Parliament, and one day Petr found himself sitting in the Minister’s office, feeling small and overdressed in his one good suit. The Minister, a florid woman who favoured grey trouser suits and red shirts, kept him waiting while she read through something on her desktop.
“Your officers call you ‘Major Zeman,’” she said without looking at him.
Petr sighed. Major Zeman had been the lead character of an infamous long-running Communist-era television series, a propaganda exercise more than anything else.
“A joke, Minister,” he explained. “The star and I share a surname.”
The Minister looked at him.
“Squadroom humour,” he added.
The Minister said, “This is no laughing matter, Major.”
“No, Minister,” he agreed. “It is not.”
She consulted her desktop again. “Thirty-seven fatalities. Not including the TikTok bombing. Not a laughing matter at all.”
“Has someone complained that we were treating it as such?” he asked.
Another level stare. The Minister said, “The Press seems to think that the Prague police force is incompetent. Those criticisms tend to arrive on my desk, Major, not yours, and the President and Prime Minister expect me to answer to them.”
“Yes, Minister.”
“The Gangs Taskforce appear to believe this will burn itself out eventually.”
“Do they?”
“They have something they call…” she checked her desktop once again “…dynamic modelling. Are you familiar with it?”
Petr shook his head.
“Computer software,” she said. “From the United States. It constructs a model of the relationships between groups. Any kind of group. Model train enthusiasts, football supporters, the fans of the latest teen pop singer, criminal gangs. It’s supposed to predict the dynamics between those groups, locate periods of stability and chaos. What do you think of that?”
“I think it would probably have been more cost-effective to examine the entrails of a chicken, Minister.”
A smile quirked her lips. “Dynamic modelling says that these killings will run their course and stability will return.”
“Eventually we’ll run out of criminals,” Petr said. “Then stability will certainly return.”
The Minister sighed. “Meanwhile, the latest round of budget cuts mean savings will have to be made across the board.” She left unsaid the obvious, that departments which showed results would need to make the fewest savings. She took a single photo printout from a folder on her desk and showed it to him. “Do you recognise this man?”
The picture was a blurred blow-up, the face of a youngish man in half-profile. He had an ordinary-looking face, shortish brownish hair. An ish sort of a man, completely unremarkable. Petr shook his head.
“We believe this man is involved in the gang war somehow,” the Minister said.
“Oh?” Petr stopped himself asking who We were.
“He’s been in the country several weeks now.”
“This is new intelligence to me, Minster,” Petr said. “May I have that photograph?”
“No.” The Minister put the print back into its folder, put the folder in a desk drawer, and locked the drawer. Petr watched each of these steps with interest, wondering what exactly he was being told here. “I know you and your detectives – the whole force – are doing your best, but these killings have to stop, Major. We can’t wait to see if this dynamic modelling is accurate or not. They have to stop now.”
“I won’t insult your intelligence by telling you that my officers are working as hard as they can,” Petr said.
“And I won’t insult yours by telling you that it’s not good enough.” The Minister busied herself with her desktop again. “Keep me informed, Major.”
And that seemed to be the end of the interview. Petr stood. “Of course, Minister.”
AND OF COURSE the pep-talk, if that’s what it was, had no effect at all. The killings continued. Cars were bombed, relatives kidnapped, shops ransacked, and nothing the police did could stop it. All leave was cancelled, Army Intelligence – to the displeasure of the police – was called in. Nothing availed.
“Look on the bright side,” said Jakub, “sooner or later there’ll be no one left and we can live in peace.”
“I told the Minister something similar,” Petr said.
“How did she take that?”
“I thought she appreciated the joke.”
They were sitting in a booth at The Opera, a bar whose one saving grace was that no other policemen ever used it. Jakub drank some of his beer and chuckled. He said, “There’s one good–” and then the air was full of smoke and burning and Petr found he was sitting against a wall some distance from the booth and something was dripping into his eyes. He wiped it away and looked at his fingers and saw that they were slick with blood.
He looked across the bar and for a moment his brain refused to fit the images together. The interior of the Opera seemed to have shaken itself to pieces, and limping towards him through the destruction was a young man with a walking stick. He limped right up to where Petr was sitting, leaned down, and offered his hand.
“Come with me, if you want to live,” he said.
“I’VE ALWAYS WANTED to say that,” the young man said. “Also ‘Follow that car’ and ‘I’m getting too old for this shit.’”
They were in an alleyway around the corner from the Opera, Petr with one arm slung over the young man’s shoulders, his knees still sagging. He said, “I know you.”
“You really don’t,” said the young man. “But I’m afraid I am the author of all your woes, Major.”
“The Minister showed me a photograph of you.”
The young man looked towards the mouth of the alley. Police cars and fire engines and ambulances were howling past towards the bombed-out bar. “Your Minister? The Police Minister?”
“Yes.”
“What did she say about me?”
“That you’d been here a while and that you were involved in the war.”
“Well, those two things are true enough. How are you feeling?”
Petr stood up straight. “Better. Where’s Jakub?”
“Your colleague? He didn’t make it.”
Petr took a deep breath and sighed. He put his hand in his pocket, brought it out holding a pair of handcuffs, and in one move snapped one bracelet to the young man’s wrist and the other to his own. “You’re under arrest.”