Revolution (10 page)

‘Did she say who she was looking for?’

The children looked excitedly at Bolav.

‘Ayoh den parletchi moisayt ech odysset?’

This time only one of the children spoke, the older boy. Bolav listened, responded with surprise, and then turned to Megan.

‘Aslian here says she was looking for a friend, a family friend.’

Megan lowered the photograph and looked at the children. She moved across to the truck and grabbed a handful of candy bars from within before sharing them out amongst the pathetically grateful children. She noted that none of them pushed or shoved each other or fought over the candy. Aslian instantly gave his sweet to one of the smallest girls, presumably his sister, before speaking to Bolav. As the children drifted away like the snow on the wind, Bolav looked at Megan.

‘He said that you should not follow her, because she did not come back.’

Megan handed Aslian two candy bars. ‘I know.’

Callum appeared from nearby to stand alongside Megan.

‘Any luck? he enquired, discreetly filming the troops and the aid trucks in the same shot.

Megan explained what she had learned, and Callum nodded.

‘Good. If she’s got connections here that we can identify then it could narrow down our search.’

‘Or end it,’ Megan pointed out. ‘If she went too deep into the country, it could already be somewhere over–run by the rebels. We don’t know how close their forces are or…,’

Callum was not looking at Megan and had frozen still. The Scotsman spoke in a voice as frigid as the winter winds.

‘They’re here.’

Megan turned to see a broad column of troops on the hill that rose over the town centre. Their ranks were silent, motionless, dark eyes watching the aid workers and civilians in the town square beneath them, and their aged Mordanian Army uniforms were ragged with the stains of war.

***

‘Enemy rear!’

Lieutenant Kelsey spotted the ranks of rebels at almost the same moment that the Mordanian villagers did. In an instant, pandemonium broke out.

The villagers scattered in all directions, fleeing the central square and dragging screaming children and sacks of grain with them. Megan saw the British troops rearrange themselves with impressive speed to counter the unexpected appearance of rebel troops so close to Thessalia, covering their points and presenting the bulk of their firepower toward the hill.

Megan and Callum bolted for the cover of a collapsed wall of rubble on the western side of the square, whilst the aid workers variously ducked behind the trucks or hid in recessed doorways on the eastern side of the square.

The sound of the villager’s fearful cries and the screams of children died out on the wind until it seemed as though Anterik was once again deserted and devoid of human presence.

Callum peered over the pile of rubble, trying to get a clear shot with his camera.

‘There are too many, maybe eighty,’ he whispered, watching the rebels. ‘And they have the high ground. Our boys will be forced to fall back to the bridge.’

Megan nodded, glancing across at the British soldiers now watching the rebels through the sights of their SA–80’s. Lieutenant Kelsey was watching the enemy also, but wisely had done nothing as yet to provoke the situation further.

‘They’re not moving,’ Callum said, still eyeing the rebels.

‘Maybe they won’t attack an aid convoy,’ Megan guessed.

‘From what we’ve heard about these guys, they’ll attack anything.’

Megan’s eyes narrowed as she watched the rebels, still standing in plain view at the top of the hill. She checked again the position of the British, standing firm but not yet ready to offer truce.

Megan pulled her collar closer about her neck.

‘Stay here and keep filming,’ she said.

Before Callum could react, Megan stood up and strode into plain view in the centre of the square.

Megan heard a rush of shocked whispers on the cold wind as it whipped through the square, the gasps of the aid workers and the abrupt curses of the soldiers twenty yards behind her, but she did not move. Instead she waited until she was sure that every one of the rebels had seen her. She then moved to one side, grabbed a carton each of coffee and cigarettes from the aid pile, and began walking up the hill.

‘Megan, what the hell are you doing?’

Callum had moved from cover slightly in order to film her, but Megan did not respond to the urgent whisper, instead climbing steadily toward the rebels. Her heart felt as though it was doing its best to batter its way out of her chest and bounce back down the hill to safety but she ignored it, trying to maintain a confident bearing.

Behind her, she heard Lieutenant Kelsey order his men’s weapons to port arms, unwilling to risk Megan’s life in a crossfire, and then she could hear nothing but an overwhelming silence as she climbed toward the enemy.

The rebels ahead were heavily armed, wearing dark blue belts around the waists of their camouflage. Kalashnikov AK–47’s were held at port arms before them and grenades hung from their webbing. Some held RPG’s, others heavy assault machine–guns. All wore pitiless expressions, their faces as hard and cold as the Mordanian winter. Megan noted their identical uniforms however, perhaps an indication of some kind of remnant discipline within their rebellious ranks.

As Megan came within ten metres of them, one of the rebels raised his weapon cautiously to point at her. Megan’s heart changed tactics and tried to climb out of her throat as a hot flush of panic plunged in a nauseous ripple through her intestines.

Another, heavily bearded rebel reached out, gripped the barrel of the offending Kalashnikov and lowered it gently but firmly. Megan looked at the rebel and saw thin chevrons on his shoulders, perhaps denoting an officer or NCO. She changed direction slightly toward the man and stopped a few feet in front of him.

A silence enveloped the scene, time and space seeming to stand still for an endless procession of seconds, until Megan slowly and carefully reached into her pocket and produced a copy of Amy O’Hara’s picture. She slowly held it out to the rebel NCO, who looked at it in momentary confusion.

Megan pointed to her own eyes, then to the picture, and then at the NCO and his accompanying troops in general. The NCO understood and took the photograph, looked at it and passed it on to the men behind him. Megan handed over the cigarettes and coffee, which the NCO took, looking at Megan with a curious expression on his face. He opened both of the boxes before passing them back to his men, Megan assuming that he was making sure there were no explosives inside.

Megan waited for what felt like an hour but was in fact just a few minutes, before the picture of Amy was handed back to the NCO with a brief exchange of gruff dialect. The NCO handed Megan back his picture, then smiled a small, curious little smile that creased his thick, silvering beard.

‘You are American, no?’

Megan felt a wave of relief sweep through her chest.

‘British.’

‘Ah, yes, British. Only an Englishman would be insane enough to confront us alone. Know this,’ the NCO said, ‘that we will not allow foreigners to govern the rule of our country and control our resources. We will not stand by and watch our country used as an economic experiment by the Americans.’

Megan blinked, not sure if she understood what the Mordanian meant.

‘Have you seen her?’ she asked instead.

The NCO smiled again, more warmly this time.

‘This woman was seen by two of my men in a small town called Talyn, fifteen miles north of here.’

‘Do they know when she was seen?’ Megan pressed hopefully.

The NCO called out a question without taking his eyes off Megan, and from somewhere in the rear ranks a voice called back.

‘A week ago, at the most,’ the NCO said, and looked down the hill toward the square. ‘You are an aid group?’

‘Medicines Sans Frontiers,’ Megan replied, ‘the people down there are getting pretty desperate. You?’

The NCO regarded her with a guarded expression. ‘Reconnaisance. Good luck in your search.’

With that he barked an order in an extremely loud voice that made Megan jump half out of her skin. With practised efficiency, the rebel troops wheeled about on their heels and marched back the way they had come.

Megan stood stock still for almost a minute, watching the rebels march away, before she turned and walked back down the hill. The British soldiers and the aid workers moved out of cover and congregated at the base of the hill as Megan reached them. Lieutenant Kelsey stormed across to stand rigidly before her and jabbed a finger at her chest.

‘What the hell was that all about? What the devil did you think you were doing?’

‘What I came here to do,’ Megan replied. ‘What do you know about a town called Talyn?’

The lieutenant blinked and performed a rapid calculation.

‘Maybe twenty or so kilometres north of here. It’s on the fringes of rebel occupied territory, not all that far from the nerve–centre of General Rameron’s forces. Why?’

Megan looked at Callum, who had come to stand alongside the British officer.

‘We need to go there.’

‘I was afraid you’d say something like that,’ Callum murmured bleakly.

Sophie Vernoux was standing next to the cab of her truck, watching the exchange and regarding Megan quietly. She spoke now to Megan, her voice no longer as abrasive as before.

‘Talyn is beyond our reach. We cannot travel that far into the interior.’

‘Not to mention the fact that we can’t protect you,’ Lieutenant Kelsey pointed out. ‘Talyn is probably as dangerous a place as you’re likely to find in Mordania.’

‘That’s right,’ Megan replied, ‘and my friend’s somewhere out there in the middle of it. I appreciate your concern, sir, but I came here to find someone and that’s what I’m going to do.’

Megan looked at the faces of the aid volunteers and the soldiers and she realised that she had inadvertently gained their complete attention.

‘Let’s get this stuff unloaded and get the hell out of here,’ she said instinctively.

As though they were her own employees, the entire gathering split eagerly to complete their work. As Megan walked away with Callum, she saw Sophie watching her quietly from her vantage point by the truck.

Sophie turned quickly away from Megan’s gaze and began calling orders out to her volunteers.

***

‘Megan? Is that you?’

Megan struggled to hear the American accent over the distortion plaguing the telephone line.

‘Yeah, it’s me Frank. Listen, I need some information.’

Megan was sitting in Martin Sigby’s room, using the correspondent’s satellite phone in the flickering light of a dozen or so candles. It had taken several minutes of intense bargaining to persuade the defensive Sigby to let Megan use the damned device, including threats of withholding the footage that Callum had gathered during the day.

‘Anything Megan, name it.’

‘Find out if Amy had any friends in Mordania, specifically family accquaintances. I’ve uncovered evidence that she may have been looking for someone, and that she disappeared whilst doing so.’

Megan was acutely aware of Martin Sigby listening in as she spoke. The correspondent was preparing for his nightly live broadcast from the hotel roof, no doubt with the distant flashes of conflict glowing against the night sky behind him for maximum impact. Frank Amonte’s voice reached Megan’s ear from New York city.

‘They didn’t mention anything before, but I’ll check it out and get back to you as soon as I know anything.’

‘There’s something else,’ Megan added in a whisper. ‘I need you to do a search for an employee of Medicines Sans Frontiers, a Sophie Vernoux.’

‘What’s her connection to Amy?’

‘There isn’t one Frank, it’s just a hunch.’

‘Will do, take care out there okay?’

Megan shut off the phone and looked thoughtfully out of the windows into the darkness of the night. The distant sound of an artillery shell pounding a hillside rolled through the blackness.

‘You’re looking for someone,’ Martin Sigby said.

‘And people say you’re dense.’

‘The footage,’ the correspondent demanded, holding out a stubby hand.

Callum, sitting on the edge of the bed nearby, stood up and loomed over Sigby for a menacing moment before handing him a slim Flash–Ram drive. Sigby grabbed it and then rushed across to his laptop, plugged the drive in and accessed the video files.

Megan and Callum watched as Sigby viewed the twenty or so minutes of footage. The correspondent looked around at them only once, as Callum filmed Megan’s ascent toward the rebels on the hill.

‘Oh my God,’ he murmured as he watched.

When the video reel ended, he turned to look at Megan.

‘Incendiary,’ he said, quite awestruck. ‘This will cause a storm back home.’

Megan stood and turned for the door.

‘Enjoy your fifteen minutes,’ she said, opening the door to leave with Callum following.

‘Wait.’ Sigby shot up from his seat.

Megan turned cooly as Sigby glanced briefly at the laptop before speaking.

‘Let me use your name,’ he said. ‘You did a hell of a thing there and you deserve the recognition.’

Megan replied without revealing her surprise at Sigby’s gesture.

‘Recognition’s the last thing I want. Just say that it’s an aid worker, and only use the shots where you can’t see my face.’

With that, Megan turned and with Callum walked out of the hotel room, leaving Sigby to his broadcast. Callum appeared confused as they walked away down the chilly, dark corridor outside.

‘I thought you’d still want the exposure,’ he remarked. ‘It might help us.’

Megan shook her head.

‘I’m done with being on the news. Let Sigby get the credit – it’ll make him more inclined to keep helping us.’

*

Global News Network UK Ltd,

London

‘Twenty seconds! Let’s run the feed and get ready to fit him in!’