Liberation (I Am Margaret Book 3) (26 page)

Bane and I, lost in that tender kiss in the cathedral.
On the front page of almost every newspaper. Picking one up, I stared at it, head fogged with lack of sleep and heart aching unbearably. We looked so happy. How happy we’d been... it felt like someone was digging my heart out with a blunt spoon.

A couple of brave papers had chosen photos of us kneeling at the communion rail, one actually had the word ‘marry’ on the front page – ‘M.V. ‘marries’ B.M.’ it proclaimed. The others used convoluted phrases such as ‘unofficial registration’ or ‘superstitious pseudo-registration ceremony’. But they had the photo, with the carefully unfocussed background that was still clearly a church. Lots of stupid fishing puns, like, ‘M.V. hooks her man’.

“I’m very sorry, Margaret.” A quiet voice beside me. “I’d already sent them off.”

I dumped the paper back on the table.

“Doesn’t matter.” My voice was as tight as my chest. “Apparently everyone wants to see. Not like he isn’t coming back.” I turned my back on the photos and started to move towards the serving hatch. Stopped. “No news?”

“No news, Margaret. Radio silence, remember.”

The day dragged unbearably, but we could do nothing but bear it. Jon and I spent most of the time in the cathedral, praying, but we kept rushing up to the TV room for each news broadcast.

Nothing. Nothing about the two planned executions being carried out. Nothing about them not being carried out. Nothing about a raid on Nice Detention Facility. Just...
nothing
.

“What the hell does that mean?” I muttered, as the three o’clock news ended.

“Don’t know,” said Jon. “But they’ll probably be back soon. It’ll all make sense then. Perhaps they got them and the EuroGov are still racking their brains how to save their faces, hmm?”

“Oh, Lord willing,” I whispered. “I’m going back to the cathedral...”

I was kneeling in a near trance of fear and exhaustion when the noise finally penetrated. An engine. A large one. Ticking over in the square outside.

“How long’s that been there?” exclaimed Jon.

Shooting to my feet so fast my head swam, I genuflected and tore down the aisle, Jon’s stick tap-tapping behind me. I burst through the doors to see the truck easing through the arch, on its way back to its discreet garage.
They were back!

I raced all the way to the conference room usually used for debriefing the teams –
they were back!
– paused for a moment outside to swallow my pounding heart back down. Pushed the door open and went in.

Near silence. The room was so subdued.
They hadn’t got them?
But no, there was Juwan sitting at a table... thin, his face tear-streaked. Oh Lord, no, only partially successful? My eyes skipped around the room, searching, searching. The guys were avoiding my eyes.

“Where’s Bane?”

No one answered, but Juwan looked up and saw me.

“Oh
merde
,” he cried softly – put his head in his hands.

My insides were clenching up, tighter and tighter and tighter until something must surely tear...

“
Where’s Bane!
” It came out a hoarse shout.

Sister Krayj and Kyle hurried over to me and I sensed rather than saw Jon arrive at my elbow.

“We managed to get in.” Sister Krayj spoke very levelly. “Reached Juwan’s cell all right. But Dominique had already been taken to the Lab. So Bane and Hyena went to get her. Not long after that every alarm in the place went off and all hell broke loose. We barely got out. And Bane and Hyena... didn’t.”

I stared at her. The world was grey.

“I don’t understand.” My voice. Blank and stupid and thin. “Where’s Bane?”

“They’ve got him, Margo.” Kyle’s voice, desperately, desperately gentle. “I’m so sorry...”

The world was spinning, echoing, dissolving... I was falling... and then mercifully, everything was black and gone.

***+***

24

KICKED IN THE STOMACH BY A CARTHORSE WEARING SPIKED SHOES

My head rested on something hard. I felt weak and disorientated. I’d been having a dream – couldn’t remember what. Was this the real world? The dream felt more real...

Lying on a hard surface...

I shot upright, my mouth open to scream... Oh, not strapped down. Not a gurney. Conference room floor. A ring of startled faces looked down at me.

Bane.

The strength went out of me and I flopped back again. Someone caught my shoulders before I could crack my head on the floor. I’d fainted. Should feel embarrassed. Didn’t feel anything. The world didn’t seem real.

They’ve got him.

The only real thing. The list of charges hovered before my mind.

Sedition: Category 1

Murder...

No need to go further, either would be enough...

Everything dissolved into grey again.

Then black.

...Eduardo was kneeling by my head, which lay in Kyle’s lap.

“Margo?” Eduardo pale-faced and grim. “You with us? Eat this...”

He pressed something between my lips. Square and sweet.

“Glucose.” He answered the question before it fully formed in my reeling mind. “You haven’t eaten today, have you.” Not really a question.

“Bane...”

Eduardo looked away.

“I’m sorry,” he said to the wall. “I’m really sorry. There’s nothing we can do.” He looked back at me again. “Look, I think you should have a lie down, and a little something to drink and eat. Unless you want to carry on fainting all over the place.”

Kyle glared at him and he held up his hands.

“Fine, I’ll leave this to all you more emotionally sensitive people. I’ll start the debriefing.”

He got to his feet and disappeared into the sea of legs.

Bane
.

Kyle was speaking to me, but I just stared at the old ceiling, high above. My mind had come to a complete stop.

“It’s okay, Margo, Doctor Frederick’s on his way...” That penetrated my daze.

“I don’t need Doctor Frederick!” I pushed up into a sitting position. My head swam and I sank halfway back again. Kyle supported me, pressing another glucose tablet to my lips. Jon crouched the other side of me, silent, white-faced. His expression... he agreed with Eduardo. It was hopeless.

A strangled sound of pain escaped my lips, drawing Jon from his despair – he reached out, found me and gathered me to him, held me tight. Didn’t speak. What could he say?

I clung to him just as soundlessly. I didn’t cry, couldn’t cry. Beyond tears.

Eventually my head stopped going numb and blurry and echoey every few moments and my brain cells began to spark just a little – no choice but to draw away from Jon and face the world. Empty though it would be soon enough.

“Are we sure? Are we sure we can’t save him?”

An uncomfortable silence.

“Well, how did you get in this time?”

“Won’t work again, Margo,” said Kyle, quietly. “And it was the only way we could spot.”

“
How
?”

“Well, Bane and Sister Krayj cooked it up. There was this whole cordon of guards in the forest around the place, supposed to be keeping quiet ready to catch us but it was the end of their shift and they were cold and bored and fidgeting. We put them out and put on their uniforms, then waited for the relief to arrive and put them out too. After which we marched off into the Facility as though we were the returning guard. We had those towers before anyone thought to pay us any attention whatsoever. So we thought we’d avoided the trap, you see.”

“But there must’ve been two traps,” said Sister Krayj. “That or something simply went wrong in the Lab. We’d have tried to get them, but we were taking fire. Gerbil and Salmon are in the hospital wing as it is.”

Guilt stabbed me. I’d not even counted the team.

“Are they... okay?”

“They should be. But Gerbil’s arm is a mess. Doubt he’ll be on active service again.” She sighed. She usually partnered with Gerbil, a cheery Swiss guard who pretty much worshipped her.

“Is there
nothing
we can try?”

“Margo, I think the world of Bane, but could you really advocate an attempt?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

No one answered. But of course, I knew. The chances of success were minuscule; the cost likely to be huge.

A sticky silence. Eduardo, sitting nearby with Trout, said in a tone of intended comfort, “Well, it will only be normal dismantlement, so it could be a
lot
worse.”

I staggered up and ran from the room.

Jon talked me out of the cathedral eventually, pretty much force-feeding me supper, then late that evening, after several more
nothing
news broadcasts, we were back at Eduardo’s room.

Juwan was there with him. Not
still
being debriefed? The thought was listless, unimportant. Hardly anything mattered.

Juwan got up to leave when he saw us.

“Margo, I’m so sorry. I wish... I wish they hadn’t tried. I wish...” His voice shook, “I wish I was back there with... with Doms… and Bane was here with you. What good is
this
?” He swallowed, tears shining in his eyes. Doms was dead, little real doubt about that.

“Anyway, I’m... I’m off to Africa, middle of the night. So... I just wanted to say... thank you for trying. And...
sorry
.”

I nodded, my throat too tight for words I couldn’t find anyway. He shook hands with Jon and left.

Eduardo eyed the pair of us warily, me in particular.

“Your brother has instructed me not to try and say anything comforting to you. Also to avoid anything factual. Or inconsequential. In fact, I think he feels I should try not to speak to you at all. So please feel free to leave.”

“
We
want to speak to
you
,” I said.

“You’ve been warned, then. I am, to quote,
as sensitive as a clod of earth
. What is it?”

“Why haven’t they said
anything
? About capturing Bane? Shouldn’t they be boasting? Is it... is it possible...”

Eduardo looked at me sharply.

“No, Margaret, please do not torture yourself with that hope. They have Bane and Hyena. After debriefing the team, I have no doubt about that whatsoever. And their silence is quite understandable.”

“It is?”

“Of course. Do you think they’re going to risk the world finding out how they lured your – very popular – husband from your side on your wedding night – and if you’d read any of those papers, you’d know people think your wedding is the loveliest thing that’s happened this year – or decade – by means of the execution of two New Adults, who, though legally guilty, have great public sympathy?

“That by this means they’ve captured your husband and are going to execute him for his assorted crimes, which most people will – again, thanks to you – scarcely think of as crimes at all?

“Oh no, I think the population would be quite unhappy about it all. Stirred up, even. And the EuroGov do hate the population to get stirred up. No, they’ll want to present it as a
fait accompli
. Much easier to persuade everyone they’ve been protected from a dangerous rebel if it’s too late to change anything.”

My stomach was turning over at all the references to Bane’s imminent demise.

“So... should I get on my computer and tell everyone?”

Eduardo shook his head.

“Won’t do any good. I mean, you could, but they won’t actually release him, will they? And anyway...” He grimaced and his voice went very soft, “It’s probably already too late, isn’t it? Probably was before the team even got home.”

The world went grey and swam slightly – I seized Jon’s arm with both hands.

“You think...” My voice was a squeak, like a mouse’s. “You think Bane’s... already...
dead
?”

“It would not surprise me. They absolutely want him dead, absolutely cannot release him, and equally absolutely don’t want it to become a focus for public discontent. I reckon they’ll have done the deed absolutely a.s.a.p., and now they’re thinking about the best media spin before announcing it.”

I took several quick steps to the desk and threw up in his wastepaper bin.

“I expect Kyle will blame me for this too.” Eduardo handed me a handkerchief.

“I’m fine.” My lips felt numb.

Bane
.

Are you already gone, beloved?

“Of course you’re not fine,” said Eduardo, “Ah, Jonathan, a little help?”

Jon blinked in surprise and found his way to me, slipped an arm around me but said nothing. He looked a little green himself.

“Margaret, don’t bite my head off,” said Eduardo, “but have you thought of getting Doctor Frederick to give you something to help you sleep?”

“
No
. What if there was news?”

Looking resigned, Eduardo opened his mouth again, but Alligator shouldered through the door with some printouts in his hand.

“Wall guard are all alert, have you considered...” He looked up from the pages, saw me and broke off abruptly. “Oh, Margo. Sorry.”

“I was just going,” I said weakly.

Jon walked with me from the room, frowning. If anything he looked even greener than before.

“What’s wrong?”

He started.

“Huh? Oh, just... everything.”

There was an eerie silence, in the world and in the Citadel. The EuroGov said nothing about Doms or Juwan – or Bane. In the Citadel my presence caused a hush in every room, but I was scarcely aware of the compassionate looks.

As the silence dragged on the following morning, I wrestled with whether to tell the world what was going on. If Bane were dead, it could do no harm. But if Bane still lived, then irrational as it might be – for no way would they ever let him go – I feared to anger them further...

“Yet public opinion is surely the only thing that might help!” I exclaimed, yet again.

“Huh?” Jon raised his head from a doze. He’d coaxed me back to my – ‘our’ – room after breakfast, but I couldn’t rest. “
Oh
. Margo, it’s... it’s too late. I’m sure.”

Strangely, the protestations were ringing more and more false. I stared out of the window, brow furrowed. Why would everyone
want
me to think Bane was dead?

To stop my mind spiralling into another hopeless circle I tried to pick out the camouflaged guard hides on the walls. There was one. And another... and...

“How many wall guards are there usually, Jon?”

“Hmm? How would I know. I can’t see them.”

There were extra hides in place, surely? Was Eduardo expecting trouble?

Then I understood.

Like being kicked in the stomach by a carthorse wearing spiked shoes.

I actually doubled over, a choked scream breaking from me.

“No! Bane! Oh God!
Oh Lord, help him!
”

Jon was already sinking down on the window seat beside me.

“Oh, Margo...” he tried to hug me. “Why do you have to be so smart?”

“Not as smart as you!” I sobbed. “You knew all along, didn’t you, you
lying
...!”

“No... Jack kind of put me on to it.”

It.

That Bane knew the location of this tiny Holy See. The location the EuroGov would do pretty much anything to discover.

Probably should’ve been praying that he
was
already dead.

“Eduardo doesn’t think he’d
tell
?” Sudden indignation seized me.

“We haven’t exactly spoken about it. I imagine, being Eduardo, he’s assuming anything’s possible. They have Hyena as well, don’t forget.”

I
had
almost forgotten. My cheeks burned in shame.

“The success rate for breaking Underground prisoners isn’t all that high, though, is it?” I said desperately. “D’you think they’d bother?”

“For
this
particular piece of information?”

My heart sank. I sprang to my feet and crossed to the desk, opening up the laptop. In a fit of rather mad optimism – or perhaps pure denial – I’d whiled away a bit of the night moving Bane’s things and mine up here.

I clicked ‘New Blog post’ and began to type.

“Why didn’t someone just tell me? I could’ve been trying to ‘stir everyone up’ as Eduardo puts it.”

“They’re not going to let him go. So it won’t make any difference in the end. Except to you.”