Revolution (8 page)

‘We need to get access into the interior of the country.’

‘Why?’

‘We’re journalists, but we are mainly here to find this girl and get her home. We believe that she may have been abducted by rebel forces or factions, perhaps as a bargaining tool or as a human shield. We have some leads but we can’t follow them whilst we’re stuck here in Thessalia. Let us help you, and in return we’ll get the chance to find her.’

Sophie gripped the picture tighter, appalled by Megan’s request.

‘You’re just chasing stories, not people.’

‘No,’ Megan snapped back. ‘We’re chasing the truth. If the truth leads us to this girl, then all the better. One way or another, we’re going in–country, with or without your help. Medicines Sans Frontiers – that means
doctors without borders
, doesn’t it? So do you have borders between nurses helping people and journalists doing the same? Do you want to help her, or hinder us?’

A thin, bleak smile cracked across Sophie’s features.

‘That is appalling emotional blackmail, even for a journalist.’

‘That’s all we’ve got, I’m afraid, and right now I don’t care how we get her back.’

Megan watched as Sophie eyed her testily.

‘What would you know of reporting the truth? The world doesn’t want to know what happens in places like Mordania, or Bosnia, or Sierra Leone or Sudan. You’ll not get close to the truth, because none of the reporters here have managed it.’

Megan stared into her clear green eyes.

‘I will, whatever it takes.’

Sophie Vernoux snorted dismissively before looking one more time at the photograph. Then she spun away from Megan and Callum, snapping over her shoulder.

‘The next aid column leaves at eight tomorrow morning.’

***

The first heavy snow fell during the night, spiralling down silently through the lights of the city as though a galaxy of stars were falling from the night sky. By the time the pale, cold light of dawn broke over the river, a blanket of pure white had smothered the entire city.

‘Did you hear the guns?’ Megan asked Callum.

They walked across Pevestraka Square, their boots crunching softly in the snow as they passed beneath Balthazar’s statue.

‘Eighty–eights,’ Callum replied, ‘heavy artillery. It’s difficult to judge distance at night, but I’d say they were no more than forty miles away and probably less as the mountains shelter Thessalia from the noise.’

Megan had seen, against the distant clouds, brief flashes of light as mortar shells impacted the ancient earth. Pops and rumbles were just audible, a distant hymn of war echoing through the night as it had done for thousands of years.

‘We’re running out of time already. If the rebel forces take the city we’ll have to leave too.’

Callum nodded, adjusting the heavy body–armour that he wore, modified from a standard NATO item.

‘We’re not done yet. They won’t break the Thessalia line for a few days.’

They continued walking in silence, and had reached the edge of the refugee camp when Callum muttered from the corner of his mouth.

‘There he is.’

Megan glanced across to their right in time to see Martin Sigby standing in front of his cameraman, who was filming against a backdrop of shivering human misery. Sigby saw them almost at the same moment and immediately curtailed his report, moving towards Megan.

‘Where are you going?’

‘None of your business,’ Megan muttered back, but Sigby was already intercepting them before they could vanish into the throng of the camp.

‘We’ve already got the best shots,’ Sigby said. ‘There’s no sense in you shooting the same scene and making the same report.’

Megan stopped and turned to face Sigby.

‘You’re shooting everything that’s been seen a hundred times before and nobody will take a blind bit of notice. You’re not showing them anything new, ergo, they will not watch.’

‘This is my show, Mitchell,’ Sigby pressed. ‘Mordania was my call at GNN.’

Megan refrained from mentioning the fact that Amy O’Hara had been in Mordania weeks before.

‘I know,’ she replied. ‘What I also know is that nobody has reported anything new from within this country for weeks. Therefore, I intend to change that by finding things out.’

Sigby darted forward, blocking Megan’s path.

‘You’re going in country?!’

Megan did not reply, simply standing in front of Sigby and wondering whether he would figure it out or not. Sigby looked at Callum and observed the heavy body–warmer style armour that he wore. He glanced across the camp before looking back at Megan.

‘You’re going in with the aid convoys,’ he said. ‘Callum’s going to shoot frames!’

Megan allowed a tiny smile to curl from the corner of her lips. Callum tapped the thick chest guard of his body armour. The garment was equipped with a concealed colour pinhole–camera with audio fitted into the armour, perfect for undercover filming. In his back–pack he carried a 40GB hard drive recorder. The camera faced forward from Callum’s chest, below his left shoulder and almost level with his elbow, its body tucked into a pocket there and the lens concealed as a button.

‘We used the same kit in Bosnia, Rwanda, you name it,’ Callum said quietly so as not to be overheard. ‘Near broadcast quality images, provided I keep reasonably still when the camera’s filming.’

Sigby shook his head. ‘You’re both insane. If you get caught out you’ll come back here in small wet pieces.’

Megan shrugged her shoulders and turned away toward the camp. ‘No gain without risk, Martin.’

‘Mordania is my show,’ Sigby repeated as he pursued Megan.

‘It was.’

‘If you were caught filming, you’d be expelled from Thessalia!’

‘We’ll be careful then,’ Megan said.

‘You’ll have to be more than that,’ Sigby muttered.

Megan glanced at Callum, who in turn looked at Sigby. Before Megan could react the Scotsman had taken two long paces and grabbed the correspondent by the throat, almost lifting him off the ground.

‘You wouldn’t dare,’ Callum hissed as Sigby’s puny arms wind–milled in futility against him.

‘Callum, let him go!’ Megan moved alongside, watching as Sigby’s panicked face began to turn an unhealthy shade of purple.

‘Why?’ Callum demanded, still crushing Sigby’s throat.

‘I didn’t mean that!’
Sigby gasped, his eyes bulging.

Megan rested her hand gently on Callum’s massive forearm. The Scotsman relaxed his grip, Sigby staggering backward and massaging his throat as he fought for air.

‘What did you mean?’ Megan demanded.

Sigby’s voice rasped as he coughed a few meagre sentences.

‘If you shoot frames inside the country…, then everyone will know that you’ve been there…., and you’ll be expelled anyway, if not arrested.’

Megan hesitated, glancing again at Callum. The Scotsman shrugged.

‘The footage could have been made by Medcines Sans Frontiers staff, or Red Cross,’ he said.

Sigby shook his head, regaining his breath.

‘Then they’d prevent them from entering the country too, you damned fool! You’d be denying people inside the country what little aid they get.’

Megan thought for a moment.

‘If you want Mordania so bad, you can have it. You’re the face on the television, Martin. You’re the anchor here for GNN. Whatever we shoot, you can use.’

Sigby looked at her, struggling to make rapid calculations despite the lack of oxygen reaching his brain.

‘What do you mean?’

‘What I mean,’ Megan replied, ‘is that we’ll shoot whatever is happening in Mordania’s interior and you can use the footage as your own. You’ll never have to leave the safety of the compound, you’ll never be under suspicion and yet you’ll get the story of the month, maybe even the year.’

‘What’s the catch?’ Sigby uttered.

‘You tell nobody who is doing the filming, and you use your connections to research anything that I deem appropriate, no questions asked. Got it?’

Sigby sucked on his cheeks for a moment. ‘Understood.’

Megan jabbed a thumb in Callum’s direction.

‘If you let me down, I’ll make sure there’s nobody around to see what he does to you.’

With that, Megan walked away into the camp. Callum moved alongside her, glancing back in Sigby’s direction as the squat little man watched them depart.

‘Either you’re a genius or insane, Callum said. ‘He can’t be trusted and this little ploy of yours might not work.’

‘As long as he’s gaining something, he’ll help. He won’t let us down as long as we can get shots inside the country and what’s going on there. As soon as we find Amy, we’re out of here and Sigby can go whistle for his stories.’

A large lorry emblazoned with a red cross was parked alongside the back of the
MSF
tent, nurses and volunteers loading heavy sacks of grain, bedding and medical supplies on board. Megan and Callum worked their way around the edge of the volunteers and found Sophie Vernoux checking manifests on an upturned box, trying to write whilst wearing thick gloves and with her face partly concealed behind a fur–lined hood.

‘Bonjour, mademoiselle,’ Megan intoned laconically. ‘Ca va?’

Sophie looked up and gestured with a curt nod toward the trucks.

‘Bonjour. Help them load the vehicles and try not to get in the way. We have a timetable to keep.’

‘We’re fine, thanks for asking, bonne passé le journee.’

Megan and Callum began helping the volunteers finish loading the sacks into the lorry. After perhaps half an hour’s worth of labour the lorry was full.

Two UN jeeps pulled up alongside the lorry as they were finishing, each with a manned machine–gun attached to the rear. Following them was a larger troop carrier with a dozen British soldiers cradling SA–80 rifles and wearing light blue UN helmets.

Sophie spoke briefly with the commanding officer of the patrol assigned to escort the aid convoy, a stocky, competent looking man named Lieutenant Kelsey, and then called out to the assembled nurses, doctors and volunteers.

‘Those of you assigned to the convoy, please board now. Well see the rest of you this afternoon. Merci beau coup.’

The volunteers began to disperse, and Megan looked questioningly at Sophie. Her voice crossed the fifteen meters between them as though it were a fraction of the distance.

‘You two, Bonnie and Clyde. You are to ride with me in the cab, non?’

Megan and Callum looked at each other in bemusement before joining Sophie as she clambered into the sparse cabin of the truck and got behind the wheel. Sophie started the engine with a belch of diesel smoke as Callum slammed the door shut. The cabin vibrated noisily as they waited for the UN escorts to take up station in front and behind. Sophie crunched the lorry awkwardly into gear to the sound of grinding metal, and Megan winced.

‘Can you play any other tunes?’

Sophie neither replied nor looked at her.

Megan tried again. ‘You know that we drive on the left, right?’

‘I offered you a ride,’ Sophie replied tartly, ‘not conversation.’

The UN jeep in front pulled away and Sophie drove into line behind it along a bumped and rutted track already filled with dirty brown slush. After a few minutes they cleared the camp and turned left onto a properly surfaced road, heading north toward the mountains that soared into the dense cloud overhead.

Megan and Callum sat in silence, watching as Sophie drove the truck with some degree of skill out through the suburbs of the city. Gradually, the narrow streets and blocky apartments gave way to smaller farmhouses and abandoned allotments and fields.

‘Here we go,’ Callum murmured under his breath as they approached a check–point surrounded by armed UN soldiers and Mordanian police.

Sophie wound down the window, and as if from nowhere Alexei Severov appeared, his dark eyes glowing as she peered into the truck.

‘Miss Mitchell, I was under the impression that you were working as a correspondent in Thessalia, not with Medicines Sans Frontiers.’

‘Just helping out Sophie here,’ Megan replied calmly, ‘and handing out pictures of my missing friend.’

Severov’s gaze scanned the cab of the truck suspiciously.

‘Cameras?’ he demanded.

‘They don’t have any,’ Sophie replied, ‘and we’re on a tight schedule. If there’s nothing else, commander?’

Severov eyed them for a long moment before speaking.

‘You will need a translator,’ he said. ‘It may smooth your passage into the towns.’

Before either Megan or Sophie could reply, Severov turned and waved toward a small, oily looking man standing nearby. The man sauntered over, regarding the trucks and the soldiers as a deer would regard a pack of wolves.

‘This is Bolav,’ Severov announced, ‘my personal liason officer to the United Nations envoy. He will accompany you and provide you with any assistance that he can.’

Sophie nodded and gestured to the troop carrier behind them. Bolav, looking intensely cold and unhappy, wandered disconsolately toward the vehicle and was hauled aboard by two of the soldiers.

Severov stood for several long seconds before backing away from the Sophie’s truck. He turned and waved for the guards to open the check–point barrier.

Sophie’s column advanced through the check–point and suddenly they were driving away from Thessalia and into the no man’s land of Mordania.

***

‘So, where are we going?’

Sophie did not answer Megan’s question for several seconds as she negotiated a series of deep pot–holes in the road, following the jeep ahead as it curved awkwardly around the obstacles and debris littering the highway.

‘Anterik, a small village just near the edge of the Caucasus mountain range, about five miles north of Thessalia.’

‘What’s there?’

‘People who need help,’ Sophie replied unhelpfully.

Megan took a deep breath, trying not to let Sophie’s combative nature rile her.

‘
Why
do they need help?’

Sophie tutted as one of the truck’s wheels juddered through a deep rut in the road. She wrestled the truck out of the crevice.