Revolution (33 page)

Megan walked to the steps of the church, stopping there as Alexandre rapped on the heavy oaken doors. Megan could see a slim sliver of light glowing between the doors as she stamped her feet and clapped her hands to keep warm.

The thick doors opened a crack, and then wider as the pastor within recognised the face of Alexandre. The farmer gestured with the barrel of his shotgun at Megan, and she obligingly stepped into the church.

The interior was sparsely decorated, bare wooden pews and tall stone walls devoid of the excessive opulence normally associated with such buildings. A simple lecturn stood on a plinth at the far end of the church, which was lit with a galaxy of flickering candles suspended from simple chandeliers hanging from the cavernous ceiling.

The pastor of the church regarded the newcomers warily. Alexandre spoke a few soothing words to him as Cole closed the church doors behind them. The farmer then moved to Megan’s side and prodded her with the shotgun.

‘To the spare room,’ he gestured with a tilt of his head toward the front of the church.

Megan walked down between the rows of ancient pews and saw a door leading off to one side of the pulpit. She walked through it and, with Alexandre following, climbed a set of stone steps that turned as they ascended to a narrow corridor with three widely seperated doors set into the left wall.

‘The last one,’ Alexandre prompted.

Megan walked down to the last door and reached out for the handle, gripping it and taking a deep breath. The farmer watched as Megan turned the handle and walked inside.

The room was small but warm, with lighting coming from a couple of candles set into small alcoves in the wall to the right, either side of a mirror. To the left, a small dresser held a porcelain bowl of water and fresh cloths. In front of Megan, laying along the far wall beneath a tightly shuttered window, was a bed. Megan swallowed as she discerned in the low light the shape of a body beneath the thick covers, silent and unmoving.

She took a pace across the room and saw thick black hair spilling from the head of the bed over the covers, the face turned away from her. The candle threw flickering shadows across the walls as she advanced another pace. Beside the bowl on the dresser, Megan saw a small pile of used cloths, stained red. She swallowed, suddenly afraid.

When she spoke, her voice was dry and raspy.

‘Amy?’

The body moved slightly, a barely perceptible tension in the shoulders beneath the covers, and then slowly it rolled over. The thick black hair spilled away and Megan gasped, her eyes flying wide.

Amy O’Hara was clearly sedated, probably by recently administered morphine that Alexandre and the pastor had used. Her eyes were limpid pools of darkness, her eyelids drooping slightly as she tried to focus. But that was not what caused Megan’s heart to ache nor the tears that stung the corners of her eyes.

Amy O’Hara’s chest had been lacerated by an exit wound the size of Megan’s clenched fist. The bandages that sealed the wound were edged with dark, blood–encrusted shadows. Deeply bruised sclera circled her eyes, her lips dry and cracked.

All at once Megan forgot the shotgun hovering at the base of her spine and lurched forward, dropping to her knees beside Amy’s battered face.

‘Amy,’ she whispered, barely able to speak at all.

Alexandre lunged forward, pressing the shotgun into Megan’s back.

Megan looked into Amy’s eyes, and Amy stared back with an expression of confusion, as though she were coming awake from a dream. Slowly, Megan reached out and took one of Amy’s hands and held it for a few moments. From the depths of misery and suffering that Megan could only guess at, Amy’s distinctive, gravelly Chicago accent drifted weakly into the room.

‘Megan?’

Megan nodded, smiling now, briefly happy despite the terrible injuries she was witness to.

‘I’ve come to take you home,’ she said, holding Amy’s hand firmly. ‘You’re going to be okay.’

Megan felt the gun pressing against her back vanish, and turned to see Alexandre step back from them, stricken with guilt now. Megan turned back as Amy reached out with a wavering hand and touched her cheek, whispering as her vision cleared slightly.

‘What happened to your face? You look like shit.’

Megan laughed out loud, felt hot tears suddenly rolling down her cheeks.

‘I had a bad day,’ she replied.

Amy smiled and then her eyes closed gently. Megan put her hand back down on the bed, stood, and slowly backed out of the room, closing the door quietly behind her.

*

‘I want to know everything. What happened to her?’

Alexandre sat on the edge of the kitchen table with a thick slab of bread and cheese in his hands. His wife, Marin, ate at the table with Callum and Bolav, while Alexandre’s friends had presumably returned to their own houses on the farm. Lieutenant Cole sat impatiently nearby, unable to contain his curiosity as he listened to the conversation.

‘We were working the fields in the early morning,’ the farmer said, sipping hot coffee from a large, chipped mug. ‘Myself, Olgin, Dimitri and Petrov, when we heard the sound of Volkodavs up in the valley.’

‘Volkodavs?’ Megan asked.

‘Dogs,’ Alexandre explained. ‘Large Caucasian Mastiffs, hunting dogs used to protect rangers against mountain bears. We used to have some of our own here, but now we just borrow old Sergei’s dogs. They’re good, trusty and loyal animals if reared correctly, but if they’re abused they become dangerous, aggressive. Lethal, even.’

‘What did you do?’

Alexandre chewed mightily as he spoke.

‘We decided to go and have a look. We thought maybe that Sergei’s dogs had gotten loose, or that someone was in trouble and their animals were trying to raise the alarm. We could hear that the dogs were up on the ridge above the village, so we set off right away. We’d only gone a hundred paces when we heard the gunshots.’

Megan felt a chill ripple through her.

‘Gunshots?’

‘Yes. We went back and got our own weapons before climbing up into the valley.’

‘You went up there
after
hearing shots?’ Callum asked.

Alexandre looked at the Scotsman with a serious expression.

‘This is my home. I will not have it attacked by anyone.’

‘What did you find there?’ Megan asked.

‘Two bodies, a man and a woman’s. The man was probably a soldier. He’d been shot in the chest with a pistol that we found in the woman’s hand. Your friend Amy was the woman, and she’d been shot in the back at fairly close range, probably by the weapon the soldier was carrying. He’d hit her from an awkward angle with his shot: the bullet missed her heart and major organs. She was very lucky. There was a lot of blood, very messy wounds.’

Megan closed her eyes momentarily, mastering her revulsion before opening them again.

‘So the soldier attacked her, she fought back, he shot her and she returned fire?’

‘That’s what we thought at first,’ the farmer nodded. ‘But when we arrived there was just the two bodies.’

‘The dogs,’ Megan realised. ‘The dead soldier was not alone.’

‘Exactly,’ Alexandre smiled. ‘Someone else did this to her. We got to her just in time. She had a pulse, but very weak. We got her back down to the village and Marin took her in straight away. She exhausted our supplies of morphine, so we sent Sergei to Thessalia to get more.’

‘She owes you her life, Alexandre.’

‘She owes me nothing, except an explanation. We still don’t know who did this to her, but she will not speak to us. Perhaps, she will speak to you.’

Megan nodded.

‘She’s sleeping right now, but as soon as she comes around, I’ll try to find out what I can.’ She looked at Callum. ‘Whatever Amy found out, it was big enough for someone to hunt her down with dogs and then shoot her.’ Her voice turned cold. ‘I want to know who that person was.’

***

Principality of Monaco

Cote D’Azure

‘What news from the great and noble leaders of our free world, Seth?’

Sherman Kruger was lying on a sun–lounger on the deck of his yacht, his spindly legs absorbing the rays of the sun as a young, bikini–clad personal masseuse worked oil into his pale, purple–veined skin. His cell–phone lay open next to him, on speaker.

‘President Baker has been pushed into an intractable position by the events in the Black Sea and Mordanian President Akim’s televised plea for assistance in the region. The word on the hill is that the Americans will move on Thessalia imminently.’

Kruger smiled, watching the girl as she slowly rubbed lotion over his thigh.

‘Then our position is as planned. After the military solution is put into action, an interim government with western allegiance and loyalty will be installed. There will be the usual obligatory democratic voting and all of the rest of the politically correct bullshit that accompanies any well–planned occupation of a foreign country. Once all of that is accomplished, foreign investment will be encouraged and Kruger oil will be there to ensure the future security and financial success of the Mordanian peoples.’

‘At the right price,’
Seth Cain said.

‘At an extorionate price,’ Kruger corrected him. ‘Becoming a western democratic nation is not a cheap business these days, Seth. I take it that your man in Thessalia is now in compliance with our aims?’

‘He is, and President Baker has seen the light. Those responsible for the reports coming out of Mordania will soon be removed from the field or so thoroughly discredited as to be irrelevant.’

‘You threatened the president?’ Kruger asked, somewhat surprised.

‘I convinced him to act in the interests of democracy and liberty, as well as to save his own ratings in the polls. The Mordanian situation was making a fool of him .’

‘Seth, your initiative surprises me.’

‘Whilst we are speaking of initiative, don’t forget why I am doing this Sherman. I have yet to see any evidence of the incentives that I was promised.’

‘Seth, your work will not go unrewarded I assure you, but we cannot make such transactions without the IRS or perhaps even the media making too many connections and perhaps realising what we are doing.’

‘I am the media,’
Cain snorted down the line.

‘Yes, but you are not the reporter. You cannot maintain a tight leash over your entire network, but at least I can assume that following your successes the board of directors is off your back? One slip, even now my friend, and everything that I have worked to achieve could be unravelled overnight. Once the deal is done, once the Mordanian government are in our pockets, then we shall both reap our rewards.’

‘And if this little scheme of yours should fail?’

Kruger’s voice crackled like forked lightning.

‘I have already completed my work, Seth. It is now down to you to make sure that the rest of the world sees everything as we would wish them to. Failure, my friend, will rest only upon your shoulders.’

‘Convenient,’
Cain muttered disconsolately.

‘Continue to show the world how desperately the Mordanian peoples are suffering, how much they
need
an American presence and assistance. It shouldn’t be too hard, with all of those peasants shivering what’s left of their pathetic lives away in the refugee camps. Keep showing plenty of footage of the aftermath of American air–strikes in Iraq, and of past genocides in Bosnia and let the public think it’s from Mordania. Hell, half of America wouldn’t know Mordania from goddamned Montana anyway. As long as they feel empathy for the Mordanians, that’s all we need.
Justify the war
Seth, and you’ll justify everything that goes with it.’

*

Government House,

Thessalia

President Mukhari Akim stood in his private quarters and watched as the cold grey dawn slowly illuminated the mountainous terrain of his homeland, as though it were reluctant to reveal the horrors therein. The snow was no longer falling, but low clouds had draped themselves in wreaths across the ethereal heights of the mountains.

The striking, beautiful scenery brought a temporary surcease to the pain that he felt as his country dissolved into chaos around him. The ceaseless, day–by–day grind of anxiety, stress, grief and crushing helplessness in the face of the fate of a land for which he had dreamed so much had filled his heart with a corrosive cocktail that flowed like poison through his veins.

He turned away from the window as Sir Wilkins knocked politely and entered his quarters, followed closely by Severov.

‘What news?’ Akim asked the attache wearily.

‘There have been developments in the rebel camp. It would appear that they are asking for an exchange of prisoners.’

‘For whom?’ the president asked in mild surprise.

‘They wish to return a number of unnamed captives in exchange for the reporter Martin Sigby. I have turned down the request, naturally.’

President Akim’s eyes narrowed. ‘You turned them down upon whose authority?’

‘Sir,’ Wilkins smiled politely, ‘it is surely clear that they seek to use Sigby to further their cause in the eyes of the outside world. They will place him under duress and have him report what they wish to be heard – at this juncture, such propaganda could be highly detrimental to our cause.’

‘Our cause?’ Akim murmured.

Sir Wilkins shifted his feet.

‘The fate of your country is fast becoming a benchmark for all fledgling democracies, a test–case of American loyalty to the mode of government that it preaches.’ The attache handed the president a sheet of paper. ‘In addition, we have found that Martin Sigby’s
modus operandi
may leave much to be desired. The Medicines Sans Frontiers worker whom Sigby interviewed for his recent report is in fact not who she says she is.’

President Akim looked at the image on the paper as the attache continued speaking.

‘She is a fugitive, wanted for a manslaughter case in her native France. Put simply, sir, she is an imposter and a liar.’