The O.D. (17 page)

“L. Pilot, I presume,” he said, extending his hand.

“I’m Macushla Mara, Pilot’s Press Secretary. And this is our Deputy Leader, Henry Bradingbrooke. We never thought you people would beat the Royal Marines here.”

“Neither did we, “Palmer said, “and I’m surprised, given the presence of the French troops here. The Government knows about you, but have their reasons for not admitting to it.”

“You got our press release, “Mara said. “
Everyone
must know we’re here.”

“We got it, but we needed physical confirmation.”

“I can understand that, Austin. Well, here we are. Will you publish now?”

“I gave the go-ahead the second I saw your convoy from the helicopter window. By the way, your declaration’s all over the internet, but only one broadsheet ran it.
The
Morning
Journal
went ahead and printed your statement in their early edition and by the look of things here, they’ve stolen a march on all of us. Give them a copy, Len.”

A small man in his thirties stepped forward with a rolled up newspaper, which Mara and Bradingbrooke retired into a huddle to read. The press release/declaration was printed in full below half a page of reports on the amazing happenings in the Bay of Biscay. The speech by the MP from Falmouth in support of Eydos had also been printed. The gist of Len Wenlight’s account was as follows: With the British Parliament on holiday, and the summer recess not due to finish for another month, a handful of sour cabinet ministers had been rounded up to handle the necessary business of government in the wake of the tsunamis devastating the southwest coast of England. Sixty-eight-year-old Hugo Gramercy, the soon-to-retire MP for Falmouth, had arrived at Westminster at 7pm, purportedly to represent his constituents’ needs in the disaster. [
Not
in Wenlight’s report was the fact that shortly after 8pm the MP’s pager, activated by a signal from The Bay of Biscay, had gone off in his pocket.] To the bafflement of everyone present, Gramercy had begun making a speech supporting a claim of sovereignty on behalf of L. Pilot and his followers over a new land mass which was at that moment breaking the surface of the sea in the Bay of Biscay. For an hour the man had been humoured by his parliamentary colleagues, who thought him quite mad, until first reports of the emergence of the island reached Westminster at 9pm.

Further down the page, another headline caught Mara’s eye:

CORNISH MP’S STORY BOLSTERED BY UN CLAIM

The article stated that, during a debate in the United Nations General Assembly on Third World Labour Exploitation, the Ambassador for Iceland, Fridrik Geirsson, had interrupted proceedings to deliver a statement echoing that of Gramercy. Addressing the assembly in his capacity as an expert in maritime law, Geirsson advised that if reports of a landing proved to be true, then the colonisers could indeed have a legal right to sovereignty over the island.

‘There
is
no
denying
,
’
the paper concluded,
‘that
,
simultaneous
with
the
raising
of
this
new
island
in
the
Bay
of
Biscay
and
Geirsson’s
statement
at
the
United
Nations
,
claims
to
it
on
behalf
of
L
.
Pilot
and
his
or
her
followers
were
also
being
made
by
their
representatives
in
Britian
and
Ireland
.
Improbable
and
impossible
as
it
sounds
,
the
new
land
may
already
have
secured
its
independence
under
international
law
.
It
only
remains
to
be
seen
whether
the
settlers’
physical
presence
on
the
island
is
a
reality
or
merely
an
elaborate
hoax
.
’

“Did you write this?” Bradingbrooke asked Wenlight.

“Yes.”

“Thank you. Elaborate hoax we are not. Nor is L. Pilot a her.”

“Can we talk to him?” Palmer asked, pointing to the convoy.

“No.”

Palmer turned to look at his fellow journalists, then asked Bradingbrooke, “You seem very well prepared – as if you knew in advance that this island would be surfacing. This was
not
an accident. Can you explain?”

“I used to work at the IGP in London as a meteorologist,” Bradingbrooke began. Although he had rehearsed the story many times with Vaalon, he had never done so in front of ninety journalists and his discomfort was noticeable to all. “For several years we had been researching and measuring the movement of pyrocoagula in the Earth’s magma –”

“Pyro what?” a voice asked.

Bradingbrooke spelt the word and went on to explain in laymans’ terms the science behind magmatic pulses, the new measurement methods developed by the IGP, the theory of Solar Tides, and how their computer model had predicted the ascension of the island.

“So, the IGP knew all along that this was going to happen?” Palmer said with a note of pique in his voice.

“Yes and no,” Bradingbrooke replied. “We know that this spot was last above water 5,000 years ago. The Director also knew it was due to resurface about a year from now. He was going to make a formal announcement this coming January. He was not aware that I had gone into the data the previous month and added a year to the predicted date of the event. The IGP is not the culprit in this.
I
am.” The pack of newshounds began to yelp and Mara raised her hand to silence them. “The only thing I doctored was the date of the island’s emergence,” Bradingbrooke said. “The fact that there has been minimal loss of life during this event is primarily due to the information and warnings the IGP began issuing back in May, long before the first tremors began.” Bradingbrooke looked beyond Palmer into the eyes of the other reporters and lied. “No one but I had prior knowledge that the island would be surfacing
this
year.” [Vaalon, Pilot and Bradingbrooke had agreed during their meeting in Bristol that this was to be the only untruth ever voiced in the name of Eydos.]

“THAT, I cannot believe,” Palmer said. “L. Pilot’s declaration was time coded 2003 GMT, the exact minute your flotilla made landfall. How do you expl
a−
”

Palmer’s last few words were drowned out by the sound of another helicopter approaching from the east. Thirty French newsmen and women exited the hot machine, passed easily through the wall of their military compatriots and took their place next to the British contingency. Mara signaled Odile Bartoli over from the convoy to translate and asked the French to nominate a spokesman. There was much arguing and gesticulating, but no decision, so she asked a tall, middle-aged man with no shoulders and a face like a bloodhound to step forward. After fifteen minutes of conversation with him, it was clear to Bartoli that the situation in France was no better than that in Britain. Those few papers and radio and TV news services not attached to French government strings had given fair coverage and printed a translation of the press release. On the other side, those with the national interest at their throats and a lot more influence in the country, were already labeling it a conspiracy and a hoax. They went further, stating that if, indeed, there were already non-French nationals on the island, then they were trespassers on what was obviously and unquestionably French sovereign territory – part of France’s natural continental shelf. The journalist added that as far as he was aware, no representation had been made at a high level in Paris, as had happened in London, New York and Dublin. The French military presence, he explained, was natural, as this was French territory.

Mara sensed that it was time to wrap up the meeting and report back to Pilot. “We have work to do,” she said to the reporters. “You’re welcome to stay here and film from a distance, but the talking is over for now.”

As she and Bradingbrooke turned to walk back to the convoy, Mara called over her shoulder, “All of us on Eydos thank you for coming here to document our presence.”

Pilot greeted them in Ptolemy’s wheelhouse and debriefed them. “It’s not a perfect situation, but it’s not a disaster either,” he said. “We’ve got allies in the media of both countries, the story is public and the timings of Gramercy’s, Geirsson’s and the others’speeches are on the record. The evidence, if nothing else, is on our side. Let’s just let those for us and those against us thrash it out for a week or two in the open. Public opinion will come down on our side in the end.”

He almost convinced himself.

By ten o’clock the media circus had set themselves up in little encampments around the convoy, their telephoto lenses aimed like siege guns at the flotilla. As a result, they were perfectly positioned to record every minute of the action when the French commandoes stormed the convoy at noon.

IX

The rough tactics used to round up and manhandle everyone into the barge’s mess room were uncalled for. People were arm-locked, pushed and shoved, rifle barrels pressed into their spines. “CECI N’EST PAS ADMISSIBLE,” Odile Bartoli called out. “OÙ EST VOTRE COMMANDANT?” The reply was a slap around her ear and a shove to the floor.

The convoy’s camera operator, meanwhile, hearing the troops entering the jumbo, quickly switched off her equipment, removed the memory card on which she’d just recorded the invasion and concealed it in her panties just as the first commando appeared at the top of the steps. Two soldiers stayed behind to examine the video equipment and search the lounge and cockpit while half a dozen others frog-marched their prisoner down to the barge. Three females were rousted out of
Bimbo’s
Kraal
, where they had been preparing the stalls for the sheep’s arrival, and two further crew members were plucked from their hiding place behind a rubber barrage.

The round-up took a full hour, the colonel in charge demanding that every barge be thoroughly searched and all fugitives netted before ordering the next stage of the operation. When he was satisfied that no further ‘trespassers’ would be found, he said in English, “You will now be escorted to your cabins to retrieve your passports or identity papers, if you do not already have them on your person.” He shouted a command and the captives were hustled away, each accompanied by two commandoes.

Twenty minutes later, all 81 crew were back in the mess room empty-handed. With no way of identifying his captives, the Colonel had no choice but to resort to Plan B. He barked an order to an aide who relayed it another step down the rung of command to a soldier who produced an indelible marker pen. Another soldier placed himself before a laptop at one of the tables.

“You will come up here to be logged in,” the Colonel instructed. “You will give your name and nationality, be photographed and given an identification number on your forearm, which you must display at all times.” When a queue began to form in front of the registration desk, Pilot imagined a young Ruth Belkin taking her place in a similar queue.

In his place near the back of the line with Jackson and Bradingbrooke, Pilot whispered an instruction that was passed down to the front of the queue just as registration commenced.

One by one, the captives were processed and photographed. All but one gave a false, but believable, name. Aaron Serman was Ron Mann and Macushla Mara was Mary Cushing. For
nationality
, everyone said
Eydosian
. The atmosphere in the mess room was tense, but it reached boiling point at detainee number 57. “EMBARQUEZ LE,” the Colonel shouted. The crew looked on impotently as their compatriot was spirited out of the mess room and up the companionway by four commandoes.

Several minutes later, the swishing of rotor blades announced the departure of a lone helicopter. “Tout va bien,” the Colonel said, “Monsieur Pilot will be asked some questions in Paris this evening and you will be our guests here on French soil until I receive further orders. Ne quittez pas le vaisseau, s’il vous plait. Do not leave this vessel.” With two hundred guns trained on them, they couldn’t have left if they tried.

As the helicopter crested the escarpment above Nillin to begin its run to Paris, Kerry Jackson, unable to contain himself any longer, began to laugh, much to the puzzlement of his two guards.

At the register, Lonnie Pilot gave his name and nationalit
y−
Ollie Bolling, Eydosia
n−
and was photographed. The number 60 was then written on his forearm. He had always felt certain numbers to be special or significant, but couldn’t attach any meaning to this one. He sat down at the furthest table he could find from the French guards and, through some gravitational force of sexuality, locked eyes with Dubi Horvat, who was sitting at the far side of the mess room. She gave him a loaded smile. He gave one back. His tension immediately began to be replaced with a feeling of familiar helplessness. He recognized the sign
s−
that tipping point when innocent eye contact between two people morphs into something more auspicious. But that something would have to wait. They were going nowhere.

He studied the faces of their guard
s−
some tense, some relaxed, some fearful, some bold. It was easy to separate the men from the boys. Then he turned to Jane Lavery, who had taken the seat next to him.

“What do
you
think of the situation here, Mrs. Normal?” he asked.

“Mrs.
Who
?”

“Get in character, Jane. You’re
Mrs
.
Normal
from
Normalton
,
Normalshire
. You represent the status quo. I want to know what you think. Does France have the right to invade and occupy Eydos?”

“Let me ask
Average
Joe
,” Lavery said. “Get in character, Lonnie.”

Pilot smiled. “Touché. It’s not our job to give an opinion, Norma. It’s to follow the lead of others.”

“You’re right, Joe. The rights and wrongs of this invasion will be determined by our leaders, not by us.”

“That’s the problem, Jane. A billion Mrs. Normals and Average Joes sitting on the fence, waiting to see which way the wind blows.”

“So, here we are then,” Lavery said, removing her mask. “Becalmed in a sea of indecision and indifference.”

Those were the last words Lonnie Pilot heard. In the confined space of the metal-walled mess room, the two gunshots that cracked the air ten feet from Pilot’s head caused instant deafness. Thinking they were about to be massacred, crew members began flinging themselves under tables and behind chairs. Others rushed for the exits, but were stopped by their captors. In the far corner, four French soldiers were holding a fifth one flat out and face down on the floor in a full nelson. One soldier had his knees in the assailant’s back, and two others were attempting to smother his flailing legs with their arms. Nearby, a body lay motionless in a pool of blood.

“Lonnie,” Lavery screamed. But there was no response. “LONNIE.”

Pilot could see her mouth moving, but he pointed to his ears and shook his head to indicate he couldn’t hear. Then he rushed over to the body on the floor and saw immediately that Ali Jeckyll was dead.

Alistair Bremner Jeckyll had grown up in the Gorbals of Glasgow and seemed dim to those unwilling to look deeper. Rather, he was just verbally challenged. Ruth Vaalon and the Director of the Glasgow chapter of Scholasticorps had recognised Jeckyll’s hidden depths and latent brilliance when the boy was 15. Had Mr. and Mrs. Vaalon not plucked him from the stairwells of the Languthrie Estate, circumstances would eventually have suffocated the man. Conversely, had the Vaalons not plucked him from the stairwells of the Languthrie Estate, Ali Jeckyll could still be alive.

Jack Highbell and several of the others were hurling abuse at their guards in the far corner of the mess room. One of the shepherdesses snatched from
Bimbo’s
Kraal
was wailing beside Jeckyll’s body, and Macushla Mara was kneeling at his head, tears running down her cheeks. Pilot bent down between the two women and lowered the lids on the man’s dead eyes.

“Leave this to me, Lonnie,” Bradingbrooke mouthed slowly as he pulled Pilot away. He faced Mara, whose hearing was beginning to return. “Take him away, Macushla. Lonnie Pilot is supposed to be on his way to Paris, so we need to keep this one out of sight.” Calm was beginning to replace distress, but it was the calm of shock, not respite. A French medic appeared, squatted by the body and realized there was nothing to be done.

Bradingbrooke, meanwhile, had found the commanding officer and was looking him square in the face. “Quoi est arrivé?” he demanded.

The Colonel shrugged. “Je ne sais pas,” he said. “We are very sorry for this.”

“Pourquoi votre soldat tiré?”

“En auto-défense.”

“SELF DEFENCE? BASTARDS.”

“Asseyez vous. SIT DOWN.” With that, the Colonel turned on his heel and directed his men to remove the body.

Outside in the journalists’ colony, there was much speculation about the gunfire. Although no more shots had been heard, an explanation was being demanded of the soldiers posted at the entrance to the convoy, but they refused to be drawn.

Inside, Pilot, Bradingbrooke, Lavery, Mara and Josiah Billy were holding a post mortem. Billy had been sitting across from Jeckyll when he was shot.

“What happened, Josiah?” Pilot asked, hearing his own words as if through water.

“It’s the way Ali was looking at him,” Billy said. “I can’t explain it. It was like some primeval animal stare… burning… accusing… threatening. He didn’t divert his eyes from the soldier for a second, and I could see the guy begin to squirm and the red mist fall across his face. There’s no excuse for what happened, but even
I
felt uncomfortable. This went on for five minutes. I never even saw Ali blink. If I’d known the soldier was going to crack, I’d have done something.”

“It’s not your fault, Josiah,” Mara said. Pilot remained silent, composing a statement to be issued the moment they escaped their current predicament. For the moment, they could only sit and sweat it out.

In the outside world, information had been scarce until the ever-thickening layers of reporting, mostly internet-driven, forced the British and French governments to admit to the settlers’ presence on the island. The snowball in favour of Lonnie Pilot’s Eydos was rolling, but there was still the chance it would melt in the heat. There were many behind-the-scenes goings-on that were not yet, and probably never would be, public knowledge. The British Prime Minister had ordered an expeditionary force onto the island within two hours of its appearance. However, in light of the claims made at the United Nations, at Westminster by Gramercy and in Dublin, the PM had been advised to postpone the landing.

On learning that the French had occupied the island, Britain reacted strongly. Exhibiting the hypocrisy of all governments, they called it a ‘unilateral, imperialist act’ tantamount to ‘piracy on the high seas’. They demanded immediate French withdrawal until the matter of sovereignty could be resolved multilaterally. The British Ambassador to the United Nations called for a special meeting of the General Assembly to condemn France’s hasty and heavy-handed occupation, unaware that the Icelandic Ambassador had already done so.

Before this meeting convened, however, the French Government made a fatal miscalculation. News of the killing of one of the prisoners had just reached them, although it had not yet been made public. Panicking under this, and the realisation that perhaps they
were
acting unlawfully, their top tactical brains decided to pressure their prisoner, Lonnie Pilot, into making a statement admitting that the landing had been a fortuitous accident which had then been manipulated by the castaways themselves. A video press conference to that end was convened in which Jackson played the role of proud resistance followed by reluctant acquiescence. His ‘confession’ was shown throughout the world, but of course it only required one look at the photograph of the real Lonnie Pilot, on file at the Passport Office, to show that, although there was a clear resemblance, the man in French custody was in fact an imposter. A government-sanctioned ‘leak’ from London ensured that the photograph of the real Lonnie Pilot was worldwide within hours. Condemnation of France was global; her embarrassment acute. ‘Where did law, justice and liberty originate from, if not from La Belle France?’ one British paper proclaimed. In another fatal error, the French Prime Minister ordered that news of the killing be kept secret until their international standing had improved.

The healthiest climate for Eydos was in the Republic of Ireland. A prominent Irish intellectual had staked their claim in the Dáil, the members of which had shown much interest. The entire event had appealed enormously to the Irish national character. There was no love lost between Dublin and her near neighbours in London and Paris, although in the highest circles this fact wasn’t often admitted. Eire was therefore committed from the outset to keeping both Britain’s and France’s hands off Eydos.

Pilot’s advocate in Spain, a descendant of Cervantes and a personal friend of the Spanish Prime Minister, had timed his intervention to perfection, although luck played an important role. He had invited the Prime Minister to his home for dinner, along with three high-ranking ministers and a Cardinal, on the evening Eydos had surfaced. In the middle of cocktails his pager went off, much to his surprise and relief. He had immediately raised his glass in a toast to the settlers of the newly risen island of Eydos and proceeded to make the speech prepared for him by his friend Forrest Vaalon, but with a few embellishments of his own. His stunned guests had thought him mad and quixotic of course.

The following morning, with the first official reports from Spanish television of the island’s emergence, at least a small measure of credence was being shown by his guests of the previous evening, none more so than Cardinal Peña. Noticing the Godless tone of Pilot’s declaration, which was now public, the Cardinal had already begun formulating plans to send one of his deputies on a mission to export Roman Catholicism to the colony.