Revolution (46 page)

A jeep drove up the hillside from the nearby military compound, Callum at the wheel. It pulled up alongside Megan, Callum switching off the engine before climbing out and joining her to look out over Talyn.

‘President Akim has fully endorsed the cease–fire,’ he said. ‘The Americans are to stay in the city until order has been restored, then they’ll most likely bug out.’

Megan nodded, not saying anything. Callum sighed before speaking again.

‘Martin’s dead, you know that don’t you?’

‘I know.’

‘General Rameron was also killed in the bombardment, along with most of his staff. The UN teams are sifting through the debris now, trying to find any others lost during the attack.’

Megan took a deep breath. ‘Sophie?’

Callum swallowed thickly before speaking.

‘Sophie D’Aoust’s body was recovered by President Akim’s investigators from a building in the south–west of the town. I’m sorry, Megan.’

Megan did not reply for a long time, watching the various news crews down in the town reporting on the devastation that surrounded them. When she did, her voice sounded hollow, devoid of feeling.

‘I want to see her again.’

Callum looked briefly down at his boots before speaking carefully.

‘Megan, the safehouse she was in was hit directly. She was identified only by fragments of clothing and hair. You’ve got to let this one go. You saved one lost soul but you can’t save them all.’

Megan’s jaw tightened slightly.

‘We didn’t achieve much, did we?’ she said quietly.

‘We found Amy, that’s enough. They’re saying on the news that the American president is going to seek new laws through Congress that will limit big corporations and banks from using lobbying to influence media networks or government offices. If they pass half of what’s being talked about, things like this will never be allowed to happen again. It’s a revolution all of its own.’

Megan seemed unmoved by the magnitude of the aftermath of the conflict.

‘Too many people lost their lives for this, Callum.’

‘They always do, you know that. Governments never act until they’re forced to, often due to exposure of their own flaws by the media. We’ve made that easier now, for the media to act freely. Come on, let’s get out of here.’

‘There’s nothing much else left for me to do anymore.’

‘Except live,’ Callum said, and gripped Megan’s shoulder. ‘You’ve spent so much of your life looking for other people, I reckon you’ve lost yourself. One person can’t change the world on their own.’

Megan smiled faintly as she remembered Sophie D’Aoust’s words.

‘They can do more than someone who does nothing.’

Callum let his arm drop in silent exasperation. Megan turned to look at him, and smiled faintly.

‘But you’re right, we’d better go.’

They turned together toward the jeep, leaving the smouldering rubble of Talyn behind them.

***

London

Megan Mitchell liked mornings in the city. There was nobody else around.

The sun had just risen in watercolour over the glassy surface of the Thames as she jogged along the side of the river, the towering edifice of Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament peering through the light mist hovering above the water.

There was no headache this time and the morning air smelt fresh and clean.

She was back in St Katherine’s Docks before the first of the other residents had left their apartments for their offices and banks, their garages and bakeries, supermarkets and estate–agencies. She jogged up the steps to the Penthouse suites and walked to her door, opened it and stepped into the apartment.

It had been two weeks since the flight back from Mordania and her various, indeed numerous bruises, cuts and abrasions had healed nicely enough for her not to feel like an outcast in public. Which had been just as well, for the mention of her name upon the news networks, when her disappearance in Mordania had caused Martin Sigby to alert the world to her plight, had provoked a rash of interview requests from networks eager to learn of what the celebrated correspondent had experienced in his final days in Thessalia.

Megan had given only a single, two–hour interview to a journalist whom she trusted. Likewise, Amy O’Hara, herself now a media celebrity in America, had agreed only to one comprehensive interview in which she furthered Martin Sigby’s final reports with greater details of the engineering works of her uncle and of the brutality of the secret police in Thessalia.

Megan flicked the television on as she slipped out of her T–shirt and began her
Shotokan
form routine. Reports on the news channels detailed the decision by incumbent Mordanian President Mukhari Akim not to run for office in the elections that had been promised for the following year, despite a surprising percentage of his people showing great confidence in his dignified handling of the aftermath of the conflict.

Megan changed channels and saw an image of Sherman Kruger, the oil baron whose immense corporation had come under the spotlight following the revelations that he, along with media tycoon Seth Cain, had deliberately engineered the conflict from the very beginning. Megan watched as Sherman Kruger’s representative spoke to the cameras, a huge white luxury yacht floating on crystalline waters behind him.

‘…and I say again that these vicious conspiracy rumours are nothing more than the figments of the imaginations of journalists with nothing better to do than orchestrate smear campaigns against the energy companies of this great country. Kruger Petrochemicals is proud to be an American, patriotic and democratic company. It is not, and never has been, the policy of Kruger Petrochemicals to allow profits to hinder the advancement of the human race.’

A reporter aggressively shoved a microphone beneath the representative’s nose.

‘And what about the allegations that the company purchased the aircraft responsible for the attempted attacks on the American carrier fleet stationed in the Black Sea during the conflict?’

The young man smiled slickly at the reporter.

‘Sherman Kruger is and always has been a fan of aviation. The aircraft were bought legitimately but were hijacked on their passage by road from the Ukraine to Europe. Of the equipment alleged to have been used to control these aircraft in their henious attack on our servicemen and women in the Black Sea, we know nothing.’

Another reporter jostled his way to the front.

‘Then perhaps you could explain these sir,’
he
said, showing the papers to the camera, each with a clear example of the old man’s signature at the bottom.
‘These are the purchase papers for both the radio equipment and the aircraft, signed by Sherman Kruger’s own hand sir. They were obtained by a journalist in New York.’

The representative’s face collapsed in upon itself and one hand shot out for the papers. The reporter whipped them out of his reach as a barrage of questions fell like rain upon the young man.

‘What of reports that Sherman Kruger’s assets have been frozen, and that he is now to be charged by the United States Government for treason?!’
asked another reporter. ‘
How do you think he feels now, to be effectively penniless?’

The aide hurried out of sight onto the luxury yacht, followed by the ranks of reporters and shouted questions.

‘Well done Frank,’ Megan smiled to herself as she remembered the tenacious New Yorker who had first approached her.

The image changed to one of American President Baker, who was addressing a press conference from the White House and had just been challenged to explain how his administration had been duped by the media into entering a war.

‘There can be no excuses for the conduct of those who would use the power of their organisations to influence politics or public opinion for their own gain. However, we are a capitalist nation – there are those who will rise to positions of immense power outside of politics as well as within. We must learn to strike a balance between what is acceptable in our society and what is coercive. The people did not want this war – people very rarely do want war. Only governments seem unable to avoid it. Yet we cannot avoid our own place in time and the duties of office in which we are expected to succeed by the people who put us there. You.’

The president looked up from his notes, speaking without an auto–cue.

‘We must survive. We must bear the burden, undertake the responsibility to rid our world of terror, of deceit, of senseless conflict and of wars without reward. There are no winners and we know it, and yet still we continue to choose bloodshed over public opinion, time and time again. People think that the president of the United States has no superior. Well, he does. You. That is what a democracy is: a politician should not be a leader of the people but a servant of the people. We were challenged to defend a democracy in danger, and we did so. Had we not, we would have been criticised. We did, and still we are being criticised. Damned if we do, damned if we don’t. Our freedoms are not free, as well you know. Generations past fought and died to defend our way of life, and I have no doubt that future generations will do so too. It is up to us – not just me or just you – all of us, to ensure that if they go into battle again it is for the right reason, and not for those who would wish to gain financially.’

The press conference erupted into applause as a small knot of presidential aides wrung their hands and bore worried expressions at the extent of their president’s candour.

Megan turned off the television and walked toward the shower just as she heard the mail drop into her safety box. Megan opened the box and lifted out a handful of letters. She was about to drop them onto the sofa when a postcard caught her eye. A picture of the northern Mordanian city of Rhocha in summer was on the front, and the postmark was Mordanian. Megan flipped it over.

Everyone wants to be found, but not everyone wants to be located.

Rameron’s men protected me, Akim’s men liberated me

and Callum’s false news has freed me for life.

One day I hope to see you again,

SD

Megan blinked in surprise, felt a sudden stinging in the corners of her eyes as her throat ached. Smiling like the idiot she sometimes felt she was, she stood the postcard on a narrow shelf beside the television. She looked at the calendar and saw that it was Monday. Still smiling, she walked across to her answering machine and pressed the message button.

‘You have two–new–messages. Message one.’

‘Hi Megan, it’s Tom from the office. Heard you were back in town and got your number from Harry. Give me a call back if you fancy a drink or something.’

Megan was about to say ‘delete’ when she hesitated, turned, and grabbed a piece of paper to write Tom’s number down.

***