Revolution (17 page)

‘All of them. We know that the Red Cross teams have found evidence of broken laboratory equipment amongst the debris of the main building. Taken with the attire of the dead men, it would seem likely that they were at the very least working in some kind of controlled laboratory conditions.’

Sophie shook her head in confusion.

‘Why would these people be killed in this way? What on earth could they have been researching to get themselves murdered?’

The assistant shrugged his shoulders.

‘There’s no evidence to identify what they were working on,’ he said dejectedly. ‘This may simply have been an act of random violence. There’s nothing to suggest a motive for anyone to attack this site or the people employed within it.’

‘Has their been any formal identification of the victims?’ Megan asked.

The assistant nodded and produced a sheet of paper.

‘Seventeen of the victims were local men with either identifiable dental records or visually recognisable despite their condition.’

Megan took the sheet and scanned down the list before reaching the name she had desperately hoped not to see.
Petra Milankovich.
Sophie saw the look on her face.

‘He’s one of the victims, isn’t he,’ she said softly.

Megan nodded and handed the piece of paper back to the officer. She thought for a moment and then walked briskly out of the room. Sophie followed, hurrying to keep up with her.

‘What are you going to do?’ she asked, convinced by the purposeful nature of Megan’s stride that she was up to something.

‘We’re going to have to get this out to the world, and quickly. There’s nothing random about this: those people were killed for a reason. The perpetrators were seeking to destroy everything, not just the workers. There’s something being covered up here.’

‘What makes you so sure?’ Sophie asked.

‘The burning of an entire village would probably have been visible for miles around for hours, and yet nobody bothered to investigate at an official level. There were no phone calls, no emergency services requested, no nothing. That research facility, or whatever it was, wasn’t so isolated that locals would not have realised it was under attack, much less on fire.’

Sophie thought for a moment as she kept pace with Megan.

‘The country was at war by then. Local people might have been afraid, would not have wanted to get closer or to get involved. They might have just ignored the flames and the gunfire.’

Megan nodded, understanding that the people living in the foothills might have indeed wished to avoid the fighting.

‘I’m running out of options here.’

‘Why do you not ask Martin Sigby to help?’ Sophie asked. ‘He could broadcast the fact that Amy is missing, non? The more people that know about her, the more chance there is of someone coming forward who knows something.’

Megan winced.

‘Sigby won’t do a damn thing unless there’s something in it for him.’

‘Perhaps you could disguise your request.’

‘What do you mean?’ Megan asked, stopping in the corridor.

Sophie wrapped her coat around her more tightly and hugged herself against the cold.

‘I don’t know, maybe give her the name of the person that Amy was looking for. It is one of the dead men, so it is relevant to the story, non? A connection?’

Megan blinked, thinking for a moment.

‘It may be a way to get this out in the open a little more,’ she agreed as she walked out into the cold air outside Government House. ‘But I still don’t know if Sigby can be trusted and besides, if Amy is being held against her will or has been killed then the people responsible will know that we’re searching for her. It could make it all much harder for us.’

‘Or it could bring people forward,’ Sophie replied. ‘You have said it yourself, Megan. You are out of options.’

*

‘I’m busy.’

Martin Sigby’s tone was stiff and unfriendly, but Megan remained standing in the doorway to his room in the Thessalia Hilton, blocking his exit.

‘It’s important, Martin.’

‘So is my next broadcast,’ Sigby snapped back.

‘Without me, you don’t
have
a next broadcast.’

Martin Sigby smiled, his eyes squinting tightly as he did so.

‘I’m getting a bit tired of this back–scratching game of yours, Mitchell. You’ve been shoving it up my arse for days now and I really need a break.’

‘Fine,’ Megan capitulated. ‘We have some more footage from the Red Cross investigation and it’s yours, okay? But I need you to do something for me.’

‘What?’ Sigby uttered.

Megan produced one of the photographs of Amy O’Hara.

‘This girl, the person that we’ve been looking for. There’s a strong possibility that she is connected to one of the murdered people from Borack.’

Martin Sigby raised an eyebrow. ‘And how would you have come to that conclusion?’

‘I have evidence that she was communcating for some months with an individual from Mordania, whom she eventually travelled here to meet. Bear in mind that she did so when the civil–war had already begun, so whatever it was that brought her here, it was important. She was last seen heading north for the town of Talyn.’

‘You think that she’s amongst the dead?’

‘I did, but they haven’t found any female bodies. I think that whatever happened in that village, she was not killed. However, that does not mean that she wasn’t there.’

‘What do you want me to do?’

Megan handed him a sheet of paper with a few notes scribbled upon it.

‘This is a brief of everything we know so far, including the name of the person we believe Amy was searching for, Petra Milankovich. I want you to include it in your next broadcast. Callum and I are fast running out of ways to locate her, Martin, and with the fighting drawing closer we’re less able to get out of Thessalia.’ Megan looked at Sigby for a moment. ‘We need this, Martin, if we’re to get her back. If there’s a name that can be connected to Amy, something tangible to follow, then we can move on it.’

‘There’s only so much time in our broadcast window,’ Sigby said abruptly, looking at the sheet. ‘I don’t know how much I’ll be able to get in.’

‘As much as you can,’ Megan said, handing over a Flash–Ram drive and a business card. ‘The footage Callum got today. All of the victims were scientists, that’s the verdict of the Red Cross team on site right now. This was an act of genocide. This business card belongs to Frank Amonte, who first approached me about Amy’s disappearance. If you need anything else regarding the story, he’ll back you up. Just say it’s on my behalf.’

Martin Sigby looked at Megan in confusion.

‘All this will do is draw attention to her fate and perhaps give those who are holding her or murdered her a headstart. They’ll run.’

‘I need to get access to the interior again, but further than the site of the massacre. There is an airfield, somewhere north of the village, that an old farmer we met at Borack mentioned as being connected to the site. We think that it was being used to supply the laboratory. I need access to it. There may be clues there both to Amy’s whereabouts and to what was being done at the facility. If it can be linked to the events there, it may be considered important enough for an armed convoy to check it out.’

Martin’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. ‘And you’ll be on that convoy, correct?

Megan did not reply. Instead, she turned and walked away down the corridor outside.

***

Congress of the United States of America,

Washington DC

‘So they’ve been bugging you again, Richard?’

President Matthew Baker spoke discreetly out of the corner of his mouth, looking around at the congress as its members settled into their chairs. Vice President Richard Hobbs sighed mightily.

‘Every day. They’re lobbying like never before for us to move into Mordania. I’ve told them in no uncertain terms that this administration will not involve our country in another military venture without absolute conditions being met, and that Mordania does not meet those criteria. I might as well be talking to myself.’

The president smiled.

‘Let me guess – the petrochemicals industry, maybe some automotive, manufacturing, that sort of thing?’

‘All of them,’ Hobbs confirmed, but then added thoughtfully, ‘although there’s another one barking up my tree now, louder than the rest. Seth Cain.’

‘The media magnate? What’s his stake in the field?’

‘Who knows? He’s never tried to use leverage like he did when we last met. You’d have thought his financing of your campaign was a damned take–over bid. He was acting like he had the right to be sitting where you’re sitting now.’

The President frowned thoughtfully.

‘We’ve seen this before, Richard. Look at some previous administrations, infested with right–wing evangelicals demanding that abortion be criminalised, or that evolution not be taught in schools, and all of it based on nothing more than the bigotry of the believers and the greed for power of their heirachy. This is no different. The evangelicals thought that they had God on their side and thus were justified to do anything – these corporations hassling you are among the most powerful on earth and believe they are more valuable and more powerful than us, their government.’

Hobbs shook his head.

‘It’s not the same, Mister President. The God–Squad aren’t followed by America because there are enough sane people left to point out the flaws in their ideaology. But these guys, their motivations are concealed and the voters don’t see what they’re up to, especially people like Seth Cain. His ilk control virtually the entire media output of the United States. If he wants us to look bad he can damn well make us look bad, and by six o’clock tonight too.’

President Baker nodded as the Speaker of the House introduced him.

‘Then we shall have to make sure that we keep a close eye on all of them, so that they never come under the impression that they can influence this government, no matter how much money they may have. Agreed?’

The vice president nodded, but he looked uncertain as a brief but rapturous applause filled the House. The president took to the dais, aware of the ever–present cameras and the news feeds that were watching him as he spoke.

‘Ladies and Gentlemen of the House, Madam Speaker, thank you. As you will of course be aware, the recent budget requests that were submitted to Congress included the military spending paper, and that certain demands were made by congress of the administration concerning the usage of those funds in our military operations worldwide. There were concerns, across all parties, regarding the intentions of this administration toward foreign partners in conflict zones around the globe.’

The president, as was his habit, did not look at his notes when speaking

‘I think that it has become clear to all of us that our country’s foreign policy has often lacked the subtlety and attention to cultural divide that seperates the United States of America from our foreign cousins overseas. We have in the past presented a belligerrent, dominionist, heavy–handed face to those without the military might to stand against us, and have gone backwards in our rescinding of important treaties in place since the end of the Cold War.

‘I would like to make it clear now, to the House, to the Speaker and to the citizens of this country, that the foreign policies that I upheld in my campaign, the promises that I made regarding American military presence worldwide, will be upheld. I do not, and will not, send any more sons and daughters of America into conflict unless we ourselves have been attacked. Our fighting forces have operated on a policy for decades that has served them well. That policy is that we do not fire until we are fired upon. We have ignored that policy at our peril over the past few years.’

President Matthew Baker looked around the House for a moment before speaking again.

‘No more.’ A quiet ripple of applause sounded through the House as he went on. ‘From this moment on, our military strategy will revert to one of defence, not offence, and we will once again try to build bridges with those countries that have suffered beneath the might of unwarranted military aggression, wherever it may have occurred. Thank you.’

The ripple of applause suddenly thundered into a standing ovation as President Baker re–took his seat beside Vice President Hobbs. Hobbs leaned in close as he clapped, keeping the smile on his face for the benefit of the cameras as he spoke.

‘Now we’ll see what Cain puts across the news tonight.’

‘Let him,’ President Baker replied. ‘The people of this country want peace, as do the people of all countries. Nothing Cain can say or do will change that.’

*

Principality of Monaco,

Cote D’Azure

Sherman Kruger watched his television as the Speaker of the House re–took the dais from the president and began speaking to congress. As he watched, he dialled a number on his phone, waiting for a reply. When it came, he spoke in a determined voice.

‘They have betrayed our faith and our trust, and we must act accordingly.’

The foreign voice on the other end of the line was crisp and clear.

‘Our friends in the Middle East will be keen to see success, but they also fear retribution should our methods be discovered. Are you sure this will work without complications? I have a great deal to lose if this should fail.’

‘All will go according to plan. Just be sure that you play your role accordingly, and everything else will be taken care of. You forget, my friend, that you also have much to gain should we succeed. I take it that your payment is…, adequate?’

‘More than, Mister Kruger. More than.’

Sherman Kruger replaced the phone in its cradle and leaned back in his leather chair, watching the television as the camera focused on the president, on his expression of concentration as he listened to the speaker.

‘America belongs to me, Mister President,’ Kruger rasped to himself.

***

‘Do we have a connection?’

Martin Sigby stamped his feet against the cold night air as he stood on the roof of the Thessalia Hilton and watched his cameraman, Robert, tweaking the controls on their satellite dish.