Revolution (4 page)

‘It’s your call,’ Megan replied. ‘But GNN UK isn’t exactly getting the headlines right now, is it?’

The editor turned away for a moment, concealing his displeasure.

‘All right, you’re GNN cleared. That’ll get you into Thessalia but beyond the city you’re on your own. Who do you want for cameras?’

‘I’ve got that covered but I’ll need a second pass.’

‘Surely not for that damned Scotsman?’

‘The same,’ Megan replied. ‘Who’s running the UN liaison office in Mordania?’

‘Sir Thomas Wilkins, CBE, your friend from Kuwait. One of the old–boy network tied up with the Saudis during the first Gulf War.’

‘Good, it’ll be useful to have a someone on the inside.’

‘I take it that you don’t need a salary for this jaunt of yours?’

‘I have the number of an account in Oklahoma, United States. Send any payment there.’

‘Oklahoma,’ Forbes echoed, and then shook his head. ‘You’re keeping me in the dark. I didn’t like it before and I don’t like it now.’

‘It’s probably for the best.’

‘Still drinking, Megan?’

It was an old journalist’s trick, an unexpected question thrown in on a whim to catch out an unsuspecting witness. Megan hesitated for just an instant too long.

‘Not at all.’

Harrison’s eyes narrowed but he didn’t pursue the matter.

‘Once you’re in the country, I expect a call once every day at twenty–one hundred hours GMT, understood?’

Megan felt a tightening in her gullet at the demand, but she nodded and turned for the office door, hesitating as she reached for the handle.

‘One more thing,’ she said, ‘make sure Martin Sigby understands that he answers to
me
. I don’t need him dragging his feet or throwing a hissy–fit if I go in–country and he can’t.’

‘He won’t like it,’ Harrison warned, ‘it’ll put sand up his arse if you try to steal his show.’

‘Like you said, he’s a company man, by the book,’ Megan said as she left the office. ‘Convince him.’

***

Shere, Surrey

The house was nestled beneath the rolling hills of Newland’s Corner, a quaint quarried–stone cottage that had been extended to cater for the family of five now living there. Megan Mitchell drove her Lotus Caterham Seven onto the gravel drive outside the cottage, parked beneath the shade of a large apple tree, and climbed out.

The front door opened and out strode Callum McGregor, a broad smile on his angular face, a hammer in one meaty hand and a chisel in the other.

‘If you’ve just committed a grisly murder,’ Megan called, ‘you’ve been caught red–handed.’

‘Not guilty y’honour,’ Callum set his tools down and greeted Megan with a bear–hug that lifted her of the ground. ‘Not yet, anyway.’

Callum released Megan, shook her hand vigorously and gestured for her to follow him. They walked inside and through to the living room, which Callum was extending into a conservatory at the back of the cottage. A beautiful garden spread away from the shell of the conservatory, centred around an elaborate rock–feature and surrounded by willow trees.

‘Aunty Meg!’

A trio of voices rang out the moment Megan appeared in the lounge, and Callum’s three young daughters came bustling in from the back garden, all of them jostling with each other and competing for Megan’s attention. Vicky, Nina and Sam were all eight years old, triplets borne to Callum’s wife, Maria, who followed them in and greeted Megan with a smile.

‘Leave Meg alone girls, she only just got through the front door.’

Maria pecked Megan on the cheek and gathered the three giggling girls together.

‘Haven’t seen you for a while,’ she said, a hint of concern in her expression.

‘I’ve been away,’ Megan said. ‘Took the boat down to Spain for a few weeks over the summer.’

‘Very nice,’ Maria smiled, and looked at her daughters. ‘And Aunty Megan didn’t invite us?’

‘Aunty Megan,’ Callum interjected before the three girls could challenge him, ‘has important business to discuss.’

‘What’s more important than taking us girls to Spain?’ Maria smiled slyly.

‘The next time,’ Megan promised as Maria ushered her daughters out of the conservatory.

‘Can I get you a…, beer?’ Callum asked cautiously.

‘Just a coke,’ Megan said, shaking her car–keys and ignoring the furtive expression on Callum’s features, ‘but why don’t you have one?’

‘Don’t mind if I do,’ Callum agreed, and strolled across to a small refrigerator plugged into one of the wall sockets. He retrieved a beer and a can of coke, passing it to Megan. Callum opened his beer and took a long pull as he sat down on the edge of a make–shift workbench standing nearby.

‘How’s the life of the country gent?’ Megan asked.

‘Much like that of the city slicker I suspect,’ Callum replied with a grin. ‘Beats working for a living, doesn’t it?’

‘Sure does,’ Megan replied, sitting on a deck–chair that had been abandoned in the middle of the conservatory. ‘You got your share through, and all the paperwork cleared?’

‘Every penny,’ Callum nodded, his ever–cheerful eyes twinkling even brighter than they had used to. ‘Everything went fine. I’ve been working on this place ever since and watching the interest quietly build up in every account Maria and I have.’

‘Do you hear much from Pete?’

‘Not so much now. He’s all set up down in South Africa. Converted his share into SA Rand, ended up being worth five times its relative value in Sterling. I’m surprised he didn’t just buy Botswana.’

Megan nodded in contemplative silence, looking around at the idyllic cottage and its garden.

‘You got your yuppie pad in the city I take it,’ Callum enquired.

‘All done, and the marina there’s just right for the boat. Everything’s perfect.’

Callum chuckled, shaking his head.

‘The three of us sure pulled off the coup of the century out there, didn’t we?’

‘Once in a lifetime opportunity,’ Megan nodded.

‘Do you ever wake up in the night fearing that it’s all going to end, as though it’s all been just a big dream?’

‘Used to all the time,’ Megan replied, ‘less now though.’

‘Me too. Which is why I suppose I’m a little worried that you’re here. This isn’t a social call, is it.’

‘No, it’s not.’

Callum looked around at the cottage and smiled to himself.

‘I suppose you had to call it in one day or another, but I wasn’t expecting it to be so soon.’

‘Something came up.’

‘Tell me.’

‘Do you remember when I was working in Mexico?’

Callum’s face fell as though he’d just recalled a particularly bad nightmare.

‘I could hardly forget – you were gone for years.’

‘An investigative reporter from Chicago got interested in my stories on abductions helped me out.’

‘Amy something–or–other,’ Callum nodded. ‘Sure, how is she?’

‘I don’t know, that’s the problem. She’s disappeared.’

The Scotsman’s features hardened like granite, thick fingers playing distractedly with his beer can. ‘You’re going after her.’

‘I need your help on this one.’

Callum took a deep breath.

‘Megan, I know you’ve got a thing about lost people, but maybe this isn’t something you should be doing right now, after – after what happened, you know?’

‘I know what I’m doing,’ Megan replied evenly. ‘This isn’t a crusade and I’m not looking to become a martyr in the process. I owe her, Callum. She went the distance for me more times that I can remember. Without her I’d never have got as far as I did.’

‘Where was she last seen?’

‘The Republic of Mordania.’

Callum paused half–way through a mouthful of beer, peering at Megan over the edge of the can. He swallowed and wiped his mouth across the back of one thick forearm.

‘Smashing.’

The Scotsman stood up, crushing the can in one giant fist before dropping it into an old tin bucket with a loud rattle. Megan stood up.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’d never drag you into something like this unless I absolutely had to, but I’ve got nobody else that I can rely on.’

Callum nodded, smiling.

‘I know, and without you I wouldn’t have all of this, so I guess that I’d be doing the same if you went missing.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m just afraid to lose everything I’ve got here.’

Megan clasped the big man’s shoulder.

‘You’re not going to lose anything. All I need is support. We go in, we find out where she is, we grab her and we get the hell out.’

‘You think it’ll be that easy? From what I can gather from the news, Mordania’s in a mess. You can’t leave the capital without risking being shot and Russia’s on the border threatening an invasion of its own. And how are we getting out there? All commercial flights into the country have been banned.’

Megan smiled.

‘We’re going back into the journalism business. Have you still got your cameras?’

‘We’re going in as press? Don’t tell me you went wandering back into Harrison’s office?’

‘Yes we are and yes I did,’ Megan confirmed, finishing the last of her coke. ‘We’ve got
carte blanche
, provided we get Harrison some good footage and something resembling a decent story.’

‘Reporters have been banned from leaving the capital because the insurgents are tearing up the countryside and everyone in it. If we get collared shooting frames out there…,’

‘We’ll be discreet,’ Megan promised, ‘just like back in the Gulf.’

Callum smiled briefly at the memory, but wrung his hands as he spoke.

‘That was when I was in the infantry and you were embedded with us. Desert Storm might have got you on the map as a war correspondent but all it got me was bullets, bombs and sand up my arse. It’ll be good to work together again but that was for money, which I already have.’

Megan grabbed her keys.

‘This trip’s not about money. It’s a rescue mission.’

‘Straight in and straight out, right?’ Callum asked again.

‘That’s right. Do you still know enough people to get us inside the country?’

Callum nodded, following as Megan hurried from the house.

‘I still drink with loadmasters from Lyneham, good RAF guys.’

‘Perfect. As soon as you can, Callum.’ Megan stopped at the front door and gripped her friend’s hand. ‘This will be over quickly, I promise.’

***

Principality of Monaco,

Cote D’Azure

The broad harbour glittered a beautiful Indian blue beneath the Mediterranean sun, soaring mountains overlooking a city basking beneath trembling blankets of heat. Ranks of exclusive hotels and casinos rose high above the bay into the hard blue sky, towering over hundreds of yachts moored beside the restaurants that ringed the entire marina. In the centre of the harbour were anchored the largest vessels, those too big to moor.

Sherman G. Kruger sat upon the quarterdeck of one of those vessels, the pearlescent white hull of his personal yacht almost painful to look at in the bright sunlight. He adjusted his Gucci sunglasses, ignoring the smaller vessels scuttling past his yacht like insects around a swan and instead admiring the huge blue helicopter perched on the stern.

‘Julia, wine.’

A young, white–suited girl walked out of the shade of the yacht’s interior with a suitably expensive looking bottle in a chrome chiller. Julia opened the bottle before Kruger and poured sparkling Chardonnay into a crystal glass before handing it to him with a smile.

The old man took the glass with one hand, and with the other grabbed one of Julia’s pert buttocks. ‘Prepare the master bedroom, and yourself,’ he said.

Julia’s carefully cultivated smile slipped. Kruger waved her away with one wiry hand a crewman appeared in a nearby doorway.

‘Seth Cain is here to see you, sir.’

A man walked out onto the deck, his inky black suit stark against the pure white deck like a crow cruising above ice. Kruger turned his head fractionally, acknowledged his guest with a barely perceptible nod and pointed to one of the chairs opposite. Seth Cain sat down.

‘You’re late,’ Kruger said.

‘You’re clearly in no rush.’

Kruger coughed and then laughed. ‘I should have you thrown overboard.’

‘I’m not one of your puppets Sherman,’ Cain replied. ‘Why am I here?’

Kruger set his glass down and folded his skeletal hands under his chin.

‘The Mordanian situation has not proceeded as we had expected. Our purpose remains the same, but we must be more careful now than ever before. The slightest slip in our timetable could prove devastating to our cause.’

Seth Cain leaned forward over the table, plucking a grape from a nearby bowl of fruits. He popped it into his mouth before speaking.

‘Devestating to
your
cause, Sherman. I’m only here because you’re paying me to be here. Your little war–games hold no interest for me.’

‘They should hold an interest for you, Seth, as they should hold an interest for the entire Western world.’ He pointed a gnarled finger at Cain. ‘Kruger Petrochemicals controls virtually the entire network of oil pipelines from the Middle East and Russia to Europe and the United States. That flow has made me enviably wealthy. However, with Russia playing political games in the Ukraine by cutting off European gas and oil supplies whenever it suits them, and with Iran seemingly intent on destabilising the entire Middle East, we need to properly secure the flow before our countries are brought to their knees.’

Cain raised an eyebrow.

‘Surely such moves are merely political posturing. Both Russia and Iran need the flow of revenue that results from the west’s dependence on oil.’

‘So you might think, and yet they flaunt their control of the fields before our very eyes. Our ability to make the most financially from every barrel is being diminished by their new and bold front. Think about it. The United States did not go to war in Iraq just to gain control of the oil fields. It went there to push up the
price
of oil. As long as there is instability in the Middle East, oil will remain expensive.’

‘But it is also difficult to maintain a secure supply,’ Cain said.