Revolution (32 page)

Megan watched as Alexandre and Marin left the room and Bolav and Callum dove toward the food on the table. Megan did not move, glancing instead around the kitchen.

The house was large by Mordanian standards, well kept and with a comfortable air about it, a curious cross between modern materials and rustic styling. A fireplace dominated one wall of the room, but the heating was modern, radiators lining the opposite wall. The kettle and cooking implements were clean but old, perhaps turn of the century. Yet despite this, a fairly modern looking computer was visible in a study off the main hallway leading toward the kitchen.

‘What are you thinking?’ Callum asked from around a mouthful of bread.

Megan shook her head vaguely, looking around further.

‘I’m not sure,’ she said curiously. ‘Where do you think they’re getting their power from?’

‘Diesel generator, most likely,’ Callum guessed. ‘It’s a farm, after all.’

‘I didn’t hear one when we arrived,’ Megan murmured.

‘Alexandre’s one of the good guys,’ Callum said, taking another bite of bread. ‘I can tell.’

‘That so?’ Megan enquired.

‘It is so,’ Callum confirmed cheerfully. ‘It’s a gift.’

Megan was about to reply when she heard Alexandre coming back down the hall. The farmer walked into the kitchen and looked at his guests.

‘You are eating well?’ he asked earnestly.

‘Like kings,’ Callum replied.

Alexandre nodded and looked at Megan.

‘I am wondering, why are you here, in Mordania?’ he asked.

‘Bad luck,’ Megan replied. ‘We were working in Thessalia but had to travel into the country. We were caught by General Rameron, who extended his own personal courtesy to me.’

Megan gestured to the bruises and cuts on her face. Alexandre nodded vaguely, the edge of his bottom lip pursed in his teeth. Megan looked at his strange expression.

‘What is it?’

The farmer seemed cautious suddenly, guarded.

‘Why were you not in Thessalia, where it is safe?’

‘We had to come out here,’ Megan replied. ‘We were looking for someone.’

The farmer nodded again, and looked briefly down at his feet.

Megan looked down at Alexandre’s hands. In his right hand he held a chunky looking satellite phone. Megan saw that the farmer’s hands were marked around the nails with the dirt of years’ of honest work, the palms calloused and the skin tough. Yet it did not look like the work of a farmer, more the work of an engineer, the dirt not soil but oils or greases and lubricants.

Alexandre handed the satellite phone to Megan.

‘You might be able to use this,’ he said. ‘It will help you to return to Thessalia. I think that you should leave as soon as possible.’

Megan took the phone from the farmer.

‘You have a lot of modern equipment here,’ Megan said, gesturing to the computer and the phone.

‘We are isolated,’ Alexandre replied. ‘Sometimes these expensive toys can save lives, especially in the winter.’

Megan nodded, looking at the phone and catching Callum watching her with a raised eyebrow as she did so.

‘How much power does it have?’ Megan asked Alexandre.

‘None,’ the farmer confessed quickly, then more slowly. ‘It has not been used for some time and we no longer possess the charger. I have been trying to find a way to charge it. Perhaps you might have an idea of how to do that.’

Megan looked at it curiously, turning it over in her hand. She was about to press the
‘on’
button when her heart froze in her chest. She stared at the phone for a long moment before walking casually away from the table, putting some distance between himself and Alexandre.

‘You have an expensive satellite phone that can save lives, but you have lost the charger?’

Alexandre looked at Megan blankly, then at Callum before replying.

‘My country is at war. I have had other things on my mind.’

Megan saw Callum watching her strangely, suddenly alert and on guard. Bolav was watching the exchange uncertainly, his cheeks puffed out with unchewed food.

Megan looked again at the satellite phone in her hand.

‘I used to have one of these,’ she said quietly. ‘This is more advanced than the one that I had, newer and more powerful. They’re typically owned by reporters, especially war reporters.’

Callum was tensed now, ready to move. Alexandre looked suddenly concerned.

‘I did not know that,’ he said.

‘It’s true,’ Megan said, walking slowly back toward the farmer. ‘We use funny little vibrating pens to put our names on the backs of the phones, you see. The pens raise little bumps on the plastic surface of the phone so that it cannot be erased. I’m surprised that you did not notice it.’

Megan held the back of the phone out toward Callum, who could see the name written there. He shot the farmer a serious look. Megan came to within two feet of where Alexandre stood and held the phone out to him.

‘This phone belonged to Amy O’Hara,’ she said softly, looking down at the name etched indelibly into the rear of the satellite phone. ‘How did you happen to come by it?’

Alexandre looked at Megan, and then suddenly he saw Callum get to his feet and come lumbering toward them both. He swallowed thickly, but he held his ground.

‘I did not look at the phone much,’ he said quietly.

Megan leaned closer to him.

‘Where is she?’ she demanded in a voice heavy with threat. ‘Tell me, now.’

***

Alexandre stood still in the silence of the kitchen, watching Megan for what felt like a long time before speaking with a tone now devoid of welcome.

‘Your friend here, Bolav, says that you have come from the rebel camp. He says that you have escaped from an escort of General Rameron’s men.’

‘That’s right,’ Megan said. ‘There was an accident. Our escorts were unconscious or killed and we were able to flee into the forest.’

‘Not very quickly,’ Alexandre pointed out, looking at Callum. ‘He cannot run in his condition.’

‘We did the best we could,’ Megan defended herself. ‘There wasn’t much choice.’

Alexandre remained unconvinced, looking at the three of them.

‘I heard gunfire, an hour ago, to the north of here.’

‘We heard it too,’ Megan said honestly.

‘Do you bring the war to my doorstep?’ Alexandre challenged. ‘I want no part of this conflict, no part of the fighting.’

‘We are not bringing the war to you,’ Megan insisted.

‘Yet you escaped from the rebels no more than a mile or two from here, and in your haste must have left a trail to follow in the snow, that will lead to us.’

‘We had no choice,’ Megan repeated.

‘The fighting that we heard, it was nothing to do with you?’

Megan hesitated only a fraction of a second before replying.

‘The fighting was nothing to do with us.’

Alexandre suddenly shoved one heavy hand into the centre of Megan’s chest. The stocky farmer was quick for his age and the blow sent Megan reeling backward into Callum, who staggered off balance.

Alexandre’s apparent fear had vanished in an instant. The door slammed behind the farmer as he vanished down the hallway toward the kitchen. Megan leapt forward, yanking open the door and taking a single pace before stopping in the hall.

Silhouetted in the kitchen doorway, Alexandre stood with a double–barelled shotgun aimed directly at Megan’s chest. Megan stared down the muzzle of the weapon, the farmer regarding her without fear from behind the sights.

‘Get out of my house. You are no longer welcome here.’

Two more men appeared behind Alexandre in the hall, both armed and bearing grim and uncompromising expressions. Megan realised that Alexandre had gone with his wife not to fetch medicines, but reinforcements.

‘We need your help,’ Megan said quickly. ‘Please put down your weapons.’

‘You can either walk out of this building,’ Alexandre hissed, ‘or I can spend the night wiping you off the walls with a cloth.’

‘You don’t understand,’ Megan pleaded. ‘If you don’t put...’

‘Get out now!!’ Alexandre bellowed loudly enough to make Megan flinch.

‘No. I’m not leaving without Amy.’

‘There is nobody here by that name.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ Megan snapped harshly. ‘Where is she? We’ve been looking for her!’

‘You’ll not find her here!’

‘We’re reporters, Amy is a friend of mine,’ Megan tried to reason with Alexandre.

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘It’s the truth, ask Amy.’

‘Get out of my house.’

Megan heard the farmer flick the shotgun’s safety–catch off.

‘I’m not leaving without her.’

A crash of shattered glass and wood from somewhere in the rear of the house broke the stand–off. Megan felt a bolt of panic slither inside her guts as Alexandre turned to see his two companions shouting in the hall as sleek, shadowy figures moved rapidly through the house toward them.

‘Cole! Don’t shoot!’ Megan shouted.

The kitchen door burst open as Lieutenant Cole rushed through, his M–16 pointing at Alexandre’s shocked face.

‘Don’t shoot!’ Megan yelled. ‘Don’t shoot!’

Lieutenant Cole’s men hesitated, their weapons trained unwaveringly on the Mordanians. Cole’s voice was remarkably calm as she spoke.

‘Hold your fire.’ Cole shot Bolav a brief glance. ‘Tell these men to drop their weapons.’

‘I can hear you,’ Alexandre growled furiously.

‘Then do as you’re told,’ Cole snapped.

‘Go to hell,’ Alexandre snarled back.

Megan rushed forward and put herself between the Navy SEAL and Alexandre, raising placatory hands and trying to defuse the stand–off.

‘Everyone back off.’

‘You lied,’ Alexandre muttered. ‘Why should I trust these people?’

‘Because they didn’t want to be here either,’ Megan replied. ‘We’re passing through and soon we’ll be gone.’

‘Get out of my way, Mitchell,’ Cole said angrily, still aiming at what he could see of Alexandre.

Megan ignored the American, keeping her hands up. Alexandre glanced at the soldier’s steely, dispassionate gaze and Megan knew that the Mordanian was preparing to face certain death. He and his fellow farmers could not hope to defeat the elite American team.

‘You can’t win,’ Megan pressed, ‘but you can live.’

Alexandre was about to speak when a sudden, desperate and shrill voice sounded through the house. Before anyone could react an old man hobbled down the corridor toward them, waving his arms frantically and shouting in Mordanian.

Megan stared in disbelief as Sergei burst into the kitchen.

‘I don’t believe it,’ Callum said from one side. ‘He’s bloody immortal.’

‘Who the hell is this?’ Lieutenant Cole snapped.

Megan ignored her as Sergei began gesticulating wildly, pointing at Megan and Callum and mentioning ‘mawpheen’ several times. With each sentence, Alexandre’s shotgun lowered a fraction and he looked at Megan in surprise.

‘You know my uncle?’

‘We’ve met,’ Megan said, and despite the tension still filling the room she managed a smile in Sergei’s direction. ‘He came to us in Thessalia. For medicine, for an injured girl. Amy O’Hara.’

‘Who the hell is Amy O’Hara?’ Cole demanded in exasperation.

Alexandre ignored Cole and glanced back down the corridor to nod at his companions, who lowered their weapons, their wary expressions locked on the soldiers. Alexandre turned back to Megan.

‘He says you saved his life.’

‘I’d say that Sergei already has a remarkable capacity for survival. We thought that he was killed in Talyn.’

Alexandre eyed Megan testily, not willing to surrender yet. ‘You are spies, servants of that corrupt despot.’

‘We’re bloody reporters,’ Megan replied flatly, seeing no point now in pleading further. ‘We came here looking for Amy.’

‘You were released unharmed by that tyrranical monster, to continue your search for Amy,’ Alexandre muttered in disgust, ‘and yet you expect me to believe that you wish her no harm? I should shoot you anyway.’

‘Go ahead,’ Megan snapped. ‘Just do it, if it’s such a big deal to you.’ She saw Alexandre’s expression change slightly to one of surprise. ‘But before you do, you take us to Amy and let her identify us. She knows me. Let
her
tell you who we are.’

Alexandre frowned.

‘I cannot. She is dead.’

Megan gestured to Sergei. ‘Then why send your uncle so far for morphine?’

‘We have others here who are sick,’ Alexandre mumbled.

‘I don’t doubt it,’ Megan conceded, ‘but if Amy is here and she is dead, then you have nothing to lose by letting me see her body. If she’s dead, I can hardly harm her.’

Alexandre’s voice stammered slightly as she spoke.

‘What difference does it make? What do you care if you see her body or not?’

Megan shook his head.

‘To me, nothing – if she is truly dead then there is nothing that I can do about it. But her parents live in Oklahoma in America, and they have heard nothing from her for weeks now. They need to know what happened to her. That is why we are here.’

Megan watched as the farmer hesitated. His two burly friends watched too, waiting to see what he would decide to do. Alexandre regarded Callum and Megan for a moment.

‘She is in the church.’

Megan felt her throat constrict painfully.

‘Tell me you’re not lying Alexandre, please.’

‘I am not lying,’ the farmer replied.

Megan turned and waved at Cole to lower his weapon.

‘If someone doesn’t tell me what the hell is going on here,’ Cole complained as he lowered his M–16, ‘I swear I’ll shoot the damned lot of you!’

‘This is why we came here,’ Megan said softly to the American, suddenly feeling at peace for the first time in years. ‘We were looking for someone.’

***

Megan Mitchell walked through the thick snow with Callum beside her and Bolav bringing up the rear. Behind the Mordanian translator, Alexandre trudged with his shotgun at the ready for any sign of betrayal. Behind them, Lieutenant Cole followed, having left his men to guard the farmhouse. Above them the stars sparkled with a silent, unnatural lucidity in the darkened dome of the heavens.