Revolution (7 page)

The secretary reappeared and beckoned for them to follow her. Feeling as though she were about to walk on hallowed ground of some kind, Megan followed Wilkins into the briefing room.

The room was dominated by a long, highly polished mahogany table, lined with gently flickering candles. Thick red folders had been discarded at each seat by the recently departed parliamentary representatives, along with jugs and glasses of water.

President Mukhuri Akim was older than Megan had imagined but tall and broad, his face weather–beaten and his hair salt–and–pepper grey. A heavy jaw and thick nose gave the impression of a retired boxer.

The president was standing with a dark skinned man who wore the camouflage and patches of the Mordanian Secret Police. His jaw was shadowed gun–metal grey against his deeply tanned skin. He turned to survey Wilkins and Megan with heavily browed obsidian eyes as they approached.

‘Sir Wilkins,’ the president greeted the attaché in awkwardly pronounced English.

‘May I present the President of Mordania, Mukhari Akim,’ Wilkins announced grandly. ‘Sir, this is Megan Mitchell.’

Megan shook the president’s hand firmly. ‘Thank you for agreeing to see us.’

‘It is no problem at all,’ Mukhari replied. ‘This is my Chief of Police, Alexei Severov.’

Severov shook Megan’s hand with a grip just a little tighter than was necessary, his dark eyes boring into Megan’s.

‘A pleasure.’

‘What can we do for you?’ the president asked.

Megan once again produced the photograph of Amy O’Hara and explained to the president the circumstances surrounding her disappearance. Mukhari studied the photograph with an expression of deep concern before passing it to Severov. The policeman looked at the photograph for several seconds before shaking his head, passing it back to Megan as Mukhari spoke.

‘Miss Mitchell, there are believed to be some two hundred thousand or more displaced people, my people, living in regrettable conditions in the refugee camp outside the city. Our hands are full, even with the generous assistance of the European aid groups in organising and providing for these refugees.’

Megan nodded in understanding.

‘I do not wish to impose upon your personnel for assistance in locating Amy O’Hara,’ she said. ‘Only that sufficient awareness of her disappearance is broadcast to those with the will and the means to locate her. It means a lot to me that she is found, sir.’

Mukhari watched Megan for a long moment.

‘I will have copies of this photograph distributed to all of our guard posts around the city, throughout the refugee camp and at the food halls in Thessalia. If we cast our net wide it is likely that someone will recognise her, or may know of what has happened to her.’

‘I appreciate that, sir,’ Megan replied.

She was about to politely take her leave when Severov addressed her from one side. His dark eyes shone with curiosity as he spoke.

‘You are here to search for this woman?’

Megan shrugged non–commitally.

‘I promised that I would try to find her, but I am not unaware of the brutality of the rebel forces. Amy is the kind of girl to go looking in places that she should not.’

Severov seemed satisfied, nodding in agreement.

‘As Chief of Police I consider myself responsible for the safety of all residents of Thessalia, especially in these difficult times. I understand your need to find your friend, but I have no desire to launch a search and rescue operation should you too go missing. We simply don’t have the resources.’

Megan nodded.

‘Have no concern. Our enquiries will be limited to the city itself. I don’t want to share whatever fate has befallen Amy.’

Severov bowed slightly, his gaze never leaving Megan’s, and he walked slowly away and out of the briefing chamber.

President Akim sighed heavily and rubbed a hand wearily across his forehead.

‘Not since the time of the Mongols has our country faced such a threat to its existence,’ he said forlornly. ‘Even Russia’s dominance over our people lacked the ferocity of this rebellion.’

‘There has been no cessation of hostilities?’ Sir Wilkins asked the president. ‘The rebels continue to advance?’

‘Every day,’ Mukhuri replied solemnly, glancing toward the north through the office windows. ‘Most of the villages and towns have only local militia, no defence against such a well trained army turned against them, the very people that the rebellious forces were supposed to protect. The advance is unstoppable, at least until they reach the city.’

Megan raised an eyebrow.

‘You’ll fight?’

President Mukhari Akim straightened slightly to his full height, tall and broad enough to become physically imposing.

‘All Mordanians will fight to protect their right to a government of their choosing and their freedom. We will stand as Balthazar the Great stood, and lead the charge against the enemy.’

Megan nodded, raising a placatory hand.

‘I don’t question your courage sir, or that of your police. It’s just that urban warfare will bring the battle into the heart of the city and to the doors of your citizens. When that happens, if that happens, then the safe–haven will no longer be safe for anyone.’

Mukhari held Megan’s gaze for a moment and then sighed again, his powerful frame seeming to shrink with the burden of responsibility. He nodded.

‘This we know, and if we do not get the assistance and security we need, from the United Nations – men, equipment, soldiers, it will be the fate of our people to die in their own homes, victims of their own countrymen, led by the rule of a madman. Yet, if we cannot be shown to protect our own without outside assistance, then the people will lose faith in our ability to lead and to govern. All rests on the assistance of the west, yet they will not commit without my signing of the loans and contracts necessary from the World Bank to rebuild our country. It would be like signing away the very soul of Mordania.’ He turned to look at Megan. ‘Would you sign your family away, for safety’s sake, and perhaps in doing so lose their very identity?’

Megan performed a rapid calculation.

‘I would do whatever I had to, to protect them.’

The president thought for a moment and then sagged further, and Sir Wilkins turned to Megan.

‘Perhaps we should be getting along, Megan. Mister President, thank you for your time once again.’

Mukhari nodded vaguely with the most fleeting of smiles before turning away to stand silhouetted before the bright windows, his hands behind his back and the weight of two million lives upon his shoulders.

Megan breathed a sigh of relief when she and Sir Wilkins had left the chamber and closed the door.

‘Intense,’ Megan murmured.

‘Poor man. He has the strength of an ox and a heart of gold. I cannot bear to see him suffer in this way.’

‘With great power comes great responsibility,’ Megan murmured. ‘What do you make of that policeman, Severov?’

‘A capable man, no doubt. He’s an ethnic Mordanian, of his country’s blood, and apparently was trained by former Spetsnaz mercenaries, Russian Special Forces. He was attached to Mukhari Akim about eighteen years ago, when Mukhari was a Parliamentary Representative for the Ethnic Mordanians.’

‘That tells me
who
he is, not what you think of him. Come on Tom, stop playing the diplomat.’

Sir Wilkins looked at Megan as though surprised, before speaking.

‘I don’t like him. He’s too secretive and seems prone toward aggressive behaviour. The locals seem to dislike him too, which probably says more than anything.’

Megan nodded, before Sir Wilkins spoke again. ‘What will you do now?’

Megan zipped her coat back up as they walked, preparing for the chill outside.

‘The refugee camp. It’s the most likely place that we’ll find people who’ve come in from the interior and may know what’s happened to Amy. After that, it’s in the hands of fate.’

‘I’ll do what I can for you, Megan, spread the word. Maybe we can salvage something from this terrible war and send this young girl home again.’

***

Megan had been to some rough places in her time, but always and without fail the most heartbreaking were the refugee camps, places where souls who had lost everything but the beating of their hearts came to grieve together in a vast and chaotic communion of pain and loss.

Thessalia’s camp lay along the southern banks of the broad Ganibe River, its surface frosted with a thin sheet of fractured ice floating on dark, frigid waters. Makeshift tents were spread as far as the eye could see, punctuated by thousands of camp fires burning anything available to stave off the bitter cold.

‘Hell on earth,’ Callum said as he and Megan walked amidst the pitiful throng. ‘I’d have brought the camera, if the world hadn’t already seen this all before and forgotten how to care.’

‘The people care,’ Megan replied. ‘It’s the governments that fail to do anything.’

Families huddled around fires boiling rice and grain, the meagre flames whipping and snapping on the wind. Voices filled that wind, but the commingled chorus of two hundred and fifty thousand people was a background murmur – no children laughed, no adults joked. Dark, empty eyes devoid of any emotion she could recognise stared forlornly at Megan and Callum as they weaved their way toward rows of large canvass tents, each flying banners or flags on poles that rippled on the cold wind. They were the command centres of the aid charities and medical organisations, islands of sanctuary amidst a moaning sea of human suffering.

‘That’s the one,’ Megan pointed. ‘Medicines Sans Frontiers.’

‘You sure you want to try this?’ Callum cautioned as they veered torward the huge hospital tent.

‘No,’ Megan admitted, hurrying as snow began to fall in tiny myriad specks that spiralled around them on the wind. ‘But right now it could be our only relatively safe means of access to the interior.’

A ragged queue of Mordanian refugees were standing in the cold waiting for access to the tent, the entrance to which was guarded by two UN Peacekeepers. Megan and Callum briefly flashed their GNN identity badges and slipped into the tent.

The interior was not a great deal warmer than the exterior, but it was sealed well enough to keep out the bitter wind. Megan advanced past rows of refugees standing in line with bowls and spoons as aid workers ladled hot soup from giant metal vats that belched clouds of steam onto the cold air.

Further on, beyond a wall of canvass with a transparent plastic door, was the hospital section of the MSF tent. Megan walked toward it, easing past ranks of emaciated children chewing on chunks of bread that they dipped into their soup. She pushed the transparent plastic flap aside and moved into the hospital.

A group of French MSF nurses were sitting beside tables stacked with syringes, inoculating children against whatever unspeakable contagions might threaten them in the camps. Other nurses were handing out blankets at the far end of the tent, where a large UN lorry had reversed up to another, larger transparent door. Soldiers handed the blankets down to the nurses, who diligently stacked them in neat piles nearby.

‘Qui etes vous?’

Megan turned to see a young female nurse approaching her with a stern expression on her features. She had barely a moment to register her face, beautiful in a simple way, long brown hair tied in a pony tail, one wisp of it dangling down over sharp green eyes.

‘Who are you?’ the girl repeated in heavily accented English.

Megan, on an impulse, extended a hand.

‘Megan Mitchell, pleased to meet you. And you are?’

The girl gave Megan’s hand the briefest of shakes before releasing it as though it were poisonous.

‘Sophie Vernoux,’ she said in her softly lilting French accent. ‘I am the head of this department. What do you think you’re doing in here?’

‘We were looking for someone.’

‘Well now you’ve found someone, haven’t you? You’re press.’

Megan blinked, quite taken aback both by the Sophie’s abruptness and by her apparently supernatural instinct.

‘Well, yes, but..,’

‘No buts,’ Sophie cut her off sharply. ‘There are no press allowed in the hospital tent, full stop, you see? I will not allow it.’

Megan stared at her in shock. ‘Why on earth not?’

‘Because all you’re here for is your stories, and most of them are damned lies. You’re not interested in helping the suffering, you’re interested in helping yourselves and getting whatever silly little award it is that you’re after. Get out.’

Megan was almost speechless for the first time in years. Sophie Vernoux looked at her as though she were retarded.

‘What’s the matter? Did I go too fast? No–press–in–here–get–out–now!’

Sohpie’s green eyes blazed their challenge into Megan’s, and for a moment Megan was about to turn around and leave. Instead, she gathered herself together and reached into her jacket. Sophie winced pitifully.

‘I don’t want your card because I’m not going to change my mind,’ she snapped.

The anger finally hit Megan’s nervous system, scalding through her synapses. She pulled out several copies of the photograph of Amy O’Hara and slapped them down on the table beside her. Her voice when she spoke sounded like a cobra’s hiss.

‘Missing, presumed dead, last seen in Thessalia around two weeks ago. Her name’s Amy O’Hara. I’d like to find her if I can because she’s important to me. Put these up where they can be seen. Sorry to have been such an irritation to your day. Have a nice life.’

Megan whirled, only just catching the look of surprise on the girl’s face as she forged past Callum, who had watched the entire exchange in silence. Sophie Vernoux looked down at the photographs, and then at Callum.

‘We’ve had a long day,’ the Scotsman said, by way of an explanation.

‘Haven’t we all,’ Sophie replied, rediscovering some of her haughtiness, but it was half–hearted and without passion. She called out. ‘Wait!’

Megan halted near the hospital exit and turned, glowering at Sophie.

The nurse picked up one of the pictures. ‘We will put them up.’

Megan took a few paces back toward her.