A Simple Assassination

The wind blows across my face as I sit in the café, watching him. Nerves cloud his features as he fidgets with his beer, pulling at the label, running his thumb along the bottle’s lip. All the while, his gaze is intent on the random pedestrians walking up and down the street. He stares at them, one after another, expectant. Still he doesn’t see who he’s waiting for.

And he doesn’t see me.

I take a sip of my wine which is a welcome relief to the warm summer night in Sarajevo. If I had visited this date in this year as a vacation rather than an obligation, I might have enjoyed Bosnia in June. After all, tonight, everything is peaceful. No one can sense what I can. No one knows that tomorrow, a war will begin. Hopefully.

1914 has always been a difficult year to manage. The web of alliances and fruition of events, especially in this part of the world, creates a fragile system that we have to handle carefully.

June 28, 1914, is a different beast entirely. And now, if I don’t find what happened to alter the timeline and correct it, our future will not exist. The threads of history will begin to unravel, slowly at first, but eventually everything will come undone.

I am your only protection from the past. I cannot fail.

For the past month I have been tracking Princip, hoping to find that moment where everything changes. But there was nothing in Belgrade. Nothing in Sabac. Nothing in Tuzla. Nothing in Doboj. So far, nothing in Sarajevo. And I only have one night left to find it, because tomorrow, Gavrilo Princip is supposed to assassinate Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

Now I watch him, jittery and anxious and I wonder how this man, who is only 19 years old, could have ever killed someone and started a World War? It seems illogical and I almost don’t want to fix it. I almost want to let things happen differently. I almost want to save this man from a fate he previously deserved and protect the world from a war that ravaged Europe.

But I know I can’t do that.

Finally Princip locks eyes on his target. Danilo Ilic is the mastermind behind the entire plot. He’s the one who assembled a team of potential assassins. He’s the one who will line them up tomorrow on the streets, waiting for the archuduke’s car to drive by them. He’s the one who really started it all, ignited this war. And he brought with him Muhamed Mehmedbasic, a man Princip has not met before.

Out of habit, I feel for the gun hidden in my purse. A 1910 Browning. I must have felt for it hundreds of times in the past month, but not out of fear for my safety. No, I reach for it as a reminder to myself. A reminder to ensure the future.

As I hold my gun in my purse, I see Ilic hand Princip the same exact Browning. I watch them carefully, searching for the moment where history might change. But it never comes. They talk as though they aren’t planning an assassination. They laugh, unaware of my gaze or the role I’ll make sure they play.

After some time, Princip takes a final swig of his beer before he gets up to leave. One step. Two steps. Three steps. I let the gun drop in my purse as I stand up and walk after him, still hopeful that I’ll find the moment tonight. I long for something concrete that I can fix and return home before the archduke even arrives in this city.

But I was meant to be disappointed.

I could have followed him down the streets blindfolded. Princip leads me to Ilic’s mother’s house, where he has been living. As he walks in through the doorway, I hide in the shadows across the street and watch him. Always watching him.

Nothing will happen here tonight. He’ll sleep, he may try and talk himself out of the assassination, but nothing will come of it. So I decide to not waste my time and I jump to the morning. It’s the only moment I have left. My last chance to fix this timeline.

Ilic and Princip leave the apartment together and I follow them as they move down Appel Quay to where Ilic will station all of his accomplices in anticipation for the archduke’s arrival. I walk past the place where I know Mehmedbasic could have thrown a bomb. But he won’t even try and I keep walking.

Further down the road, Ilic stations Princip and I watch him feel for the gun I know well. Reflexively I reach for my version of the gun, separated by hundreds of years. If history goes as scheduled, I know their attempts right now will be unsuccessful. They will try, but the archduke will live. For a few more minutes, at least. So I wait.

At 10:00, Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s motorcade is driving through the streets of Sarajevo, nearing us. I stand near Ilic’s assassin named Cabrinovic, doing my best to blend in with the crowd and go unnoticed.

At 10:08, the pull of the crowd draws me in and I find myself eager, watching and waiting for the car that carries the ill-fated aristocrat. I want to see him, I want to experience life like a Bosnian. In the fervor, I almost let myself forget what’s about to happen. What needs to happen. I wait.

At 10:10, as the motorcade reaches us. Cabrinovic throws the bomb.

Screams erupt in the street and the wave of pedestrians pushes me back. Moments later, the bomb explodes and I jump, surprised at the noise. But I am not afraid like the crowd is. I know what’s happening. At least, I know what should be happening.

The crowd is a frenzy, trying to run from the attack, but they don’t realize that it’s over for now. The bomb missed its target, instead exploding beneath the vehicle behind the archduke.

I focus on the archduke and his motorcade. As it speeds away, I move with it, glad to see nothing has changed. And yet worried that everything will change. When the car completely disappears from view, I know my only hope to fix history lies with Princip.

When I return to the aftermath of the explosion, I see the police pulling Cabrinovic out of the river. He had taken a cyanide pill which didn’t do its job. So he threw himself into the river to drown. Would have been brilliant, except you can’t drown very effectively in five inches of water.

My gaze shifts to Princip who is watching this spectacle from along the street. When I spot him staring at the car that has long passed out of view, I wonder what he’s thinking. Is he going to give up? Is he going to turn himself in? Is he going to betray Ilic? All I know is what I see him do. He joins the crowd, appearing to be an innocent bystander in the midst of an assassination attempt.

The next half hour is agony. I’m eager to find that moment that I can fix, where time begins to unravel. But everything goes as planned. I almost believe that he will pull the trigger without my intervention. Yet something is still wrong.

I begin to worry when Princip finally arrives at Schiller’s Delicatessen. This is the moment I have been waiting a month for. But still, nothing out of the ordinary. I wait.

At 10:45, I know the archduke has cancelled his visits for the day. He is heading to the hospital to see the wounded instead. A simple mistake will lead him right to us.

At 10:49, I see the car come into view. In anticipation, my hand grips the gun in my purse.

At 10:50, the driver is being told he made a wrong turn. I squeeze the barrel.

A moment later, the car stops right in front of us. And I wait.

I visualize everything as it is supposed to happen. I almost see Princip walk up to the car, unable to believe his luck and fire into it. He will shoot Archduke Franz Ferdinand in the neck. He will attempt to shoot Governor Potiorek, but instead he will hit the archduke’s wife Sophie in the stomach. Like Cabrinovic, he will try and take a cyanide pill and fail. Then he’ll try and shoot himself – a much better plan than drowning – but his gun will be taken away before he can shoot again. He will spend the next three years in prison before dying of tuberculosis.

But this is not what is about to happen.

Something is very wrong. The edges of history are fraying, but I can’t see where.

So I freeze time around me.

People stand mid-step on the street. Walking into shops. Talking to their friends. The driver has his hands on the wheel, preparing to turn around and head in the correct direction. The archduke is looking at his wife, his hand held tightly in hers. Sophie is looking out the window, almost directly at Princip, who stands on the sidewalk, glaring at them.

None of them realize that they are part of the catalyst to launch them into a war. Well, none of them except Princip. I stare at him and wonder how he might change it. At this point, I don’t know how he could. He must kill the archduke. He must kill Sophie.

Perhaps I’ve missed something. Something glaringly obvious. I start with the car, the driver, the road, the sidewalk, the innocent bystanders until I end on the only thing left. Princip.

Something is wrong with him.

I pat him down, looking for something obscure to show up under his clothes. I empty his pockets, open his mouth, and reach into his shoes. Everything is normal.

Until I grab the gun.

It’s the same gun I have been carrying in my purse for a month. The same gun Princip will use to start a war.

And it’s too light. A few bullets too light.

When I pull out the magazine, I see nothing. Not a single bullet. How long has it been empty? Since Ilic handed it to him? Since the bomb exploded? Did Princip take them out? Did Ilic never give them to him?

Ultimately, I am relieved. Finally, I have found the thread. Now I just need to weave it back into history.

I take two bullets out of my own gun. This gun was meant to ensure the future and not for the first time, I am thankful I have it. As I hold the newer gun in my hand, I am amazed how similar they still are to each other, despite the time that has passed between them. Thankfully, the bullets slide in without any difficulty.

Princip only needs two bullets and now he has them. I set up the shot before replacing the gun back in his hand, unconcerned about whether or not he’ll notice the additional weight. He’s too preoccupied to notice something like that.

I slip around the corner and let time resume. Princip is unaffected by my actions and I’m glad for it. He begins to raise the gun, while I begin to worry. What if that was not the moment? What if, after all of this, Princip still won’t shoot?

There are ways to ensure history happens accurately. I take my own gun and thread my finger around the trigger. And I wait.