Strangled Silence (3 page)

'It was a fairly traumatic event,' Amina pointed
out. 'It's hardly surprising it sticks in your mind.'

'No, it's more than that,' he insisted. 'I was
drugged, remember? Morphine sends you into
outer space; it should all be a blur. But I can
remember what times each stage of the event
happened. I went and checked the incident report
afterwards and I was accurate to the minute. I can
remember it like it was
timetabled
. The recollection
of it sits solid in my mind while the rest of my
memories flow around it like . . . like . . . it was a
rock in a stream. It's just not possible.'

'So . . . what? You think these memories aren't
real?'

'Yes . . . no. I think . . .' He hesitated. 'I think
I've been made to forget what really happened and
had these false memories . . . implanted into my
brain.'

'You're saying you've been brainwashed?'

Ivor winced at the term, with all the science
fiction it implied, but nodded reluctantly.

Amina gazed out of the living-room window
at the blocks of flats beyond, trying to avoid meeting
his intense stare. She was becoming less and less
certain about his state of mind. Goldbloom would
not thank her for writing about the ravings of a
shell-shocked war correspondent. Although maybe
there was an angle on the man who was too mad to
spend his lottery winnings.

'I've mentioned this to other people,' he
continued, becoming increasingly animated.
'But nobody paid much attention to me. Posttraumatic
stress disorder, they called it. I just needed
therapy, they said. I've had bloody therapy! I know
what I remember . . . and I know it's just plain
wrong!

'The army just ignored me! They ignored me
right up to the day that I won the lottery.'

He looked pointedly at her. Amina waited to
be enlightened, sitting a little further back, grateful
there was a coffee table between them. Ivor seemed
ready to burst.

'And then what happened?' she asked, when
she realized he was waiting for the question.

'Then they started having me followed,' he
breathed.

Amina wondered if this was the time to turn
off the recorder and get out, but she didn't want to
do anything that would set him off. He could be
dangerous as well as delusional. Better to hear him
out, let him calm down a bit, make her excuses and
leave as inoffensively as possible.

'I was rich, see?' Ivor said, opening his hands
towards her. 'There are thousands of hacked-off
soldiers with paranoid gripes against the army, but
the world doesn't listen to them because they're
nobodies. But suddenly I'm a millionaire, and if I
want, I can start using all that money to shove a
great big thorn up the army's backside. They're not
ignoring me now because all of a sudden I'm rich
enough to cause them real problems.'

'So why haven't you done it?' Amina asked.
'You haven't done anything with the money. You
told Goldbloom you've hardly spent a penny!'

'I've been afraid of what they'll do,' Ivor said in
a hushed voice. 'I mean . . . I don't even know what
they've done to me
already
. I know they're watching
every move I make and I don't know how
they're interpreting what I do. I think they might
hurt me . . . or . . . or they might mess with my
mind again. I didn't want to do anything that might
make them . . . angry with me.

'I could go out and buy . . . y'know, the wrong
thing, and they read into it and decide I'm a threat
to whatever they're doing and the next thing I
know I'm being pulled into the back of a van.
I can't spend the money because I'm afraid of what
they'll do.'

'But if you're scared that they'll come for you
if you make trouble . . .' Amina asked slowly, a
quizzical expression on her face, 'why did you ring
Goldbloom and tell him you wanted to tell your
story?'

'Because I'm sick of waiting for it,' he sighed.
'Whatever's going to happen, I just want it to be
over.'

Ivor watched from the window as Amina walked
away down the street. He knew she was sceptical,
but she'd still listened to everything he'd had to say.
The sense of dread that he'd been feeling for the last
week had lifted slightly. It was like confession, he
supposed. It was all out in the open now; whatever
they wanted to do to him, at least he'd had his say.

But he was already getting that queasy churning
in his stomach. Maybe he should call her and
tell her he'd changed his mind. She had left him her
office number. He could say it was all in his head –
he was just confused. He could say he was on
medication that was affecting his judgement.

It was too late. What was done was done. Ivor
kept his gaze on her as she made her way towards
the turn for the Underground station. She was a
beautiful girl, and it had been a long time since he'd
spent time with any girl, gorgeous or otherwise.
What age was she – seventeen? Eighteen? He
looked away. Even at twenty-three, he felt like a
burned-out old man. His hand went up to his glass
eye, touching it tentatively. An ugly, disfigured old
man.

He looked back at her tiny figure as it headed
for the end of the street. Somebody stepped out of
an alley and walked after her. Ivor uttered a curse
and reached for the binoculars that hung from a
hook behind the curtains. A close look at the man
told him nothing. He could just be going the same
direction as Amina. There was no way to tell. She
disappeared round the corner and the man followed
a few seconds later. Ivor released his pent-up breath
and turned away from the window. He had said
what needed saying. There was nothing to do now
but wait and see if there was a price to be paid.

Amina's mind was racing as she strode away from
Ivor's block of flats. He was seriously delusional;
there was no doubt about that. Her father was a
senior officer and she knew the military didn't
always do their best to look after their people, but
she didn't believe for a second that the top brass
deliberately screwed with their troops' heads. Over
the years, her father had taken their family with
him as he was posted to one military base after
another, and she had met a number of soldiers
suffering from post-traumatic stress; she knew what
it could do.

Men and women returning from conflict zones
were often traumatized by what they had seen and
done there. She had seen the strongest men, battle-hardened
men, reduced to shadows of themselves;
constantly trembling, sick and unable to sleep.
Paranoia was common, as well as hallucinations,
unpredictable aggression and other psychotic
behaviour. War could drive you insane.

As she walked, Amina became aware of people
walking past her carrying placards; protestors on
their way to the march in the city centre. She
played with the idea of following them, but knew
she had to get back to the newsroom to start working
on her story . . . whatever it was going to be. It
was easy to dismiss Ivor's theories as lunacy, but
Amina found herself feeling sorry for him. In other
circumstances, she might have found him quite
attractive, what with that worldly look and the sad
smile. She wasn't as freaked out by the whole oneeye
thing as most girls would have been. Whatever
had happened to him, its effects were real enough.
Something really had blown his mind.

She stopped short.

Maybe she was looking at this the wrong way.
What if his memories really were distorted? Maybe
he had seen something, or done something that his
mind couldn't deal with, and he had blocked it out.
Some atrocity, a war crime – maybe even some
barbaric act that his own troops had committed.
People who had suffered trauma often suppressed
the memories of it. Whatever horror he had
experienced, his psyche had put a shield up around
it. But he knew something wasn't right, so he had
concocted this idea of being brainwashed to make
sense of it.

Once you started thinking along those lines, it
was easy to convince yourself you were being
watched. Amina nodded to herself, feeling an
abrupt shiver of excitement. This could be a serious
story after all.

The first thing to do was to check his account
of the bombing in Tarpan. Even if the
Chronicle
didn't do a piece on it, a report must have come in
over the wire. There had to be something about it
in the back issues of one of the papers, or even
on the web. If she played this right, she might
escape the horoscopes page a lot sooner than she'd
hoped.

All of a sudden, Ivor McMorris had become a
much more interesting character.

The meet was at a bench in front of the war
memorial on Swift Square. But Chi Sandwith knew
better than to take a direct route there. Getting a
bus south from his street, he changed to another
one going east and then hurried into an
Underground station to take a train back into the
centre of town. Once there, he mingled with
the crowds, shuffling one way and then another,
before catching another bus to Swift Square, all the
while keeping an eye out for anything suspicious:
maybe a face that appeared in two different places
on his trip, somebody pointing a camera in his
general direction, or somebody changing direction
whenever he did.

The meeting place was a square of urban
greenery surrounded by purple-leaved maple trees.
Chi had tried to dress so as not to stand out, but he
was sufficiently ignorant of modern fashions to
prevent him from doing this effectively. His long,
frizzy blond hair was tied back in a ponytail and
topped with a Metallica baseball cap. At six-foot
four inches, he was noticeably tall, and the dark
grey trench coat he wore emphasized this, while
contrasting with his black combats and Doc
Martens. The aviator sunglasses were the final touch
in sabotaging his desire for anonymity.

The square was crowded at this time of day,
which was important for avoiding curious ears. The
war memorial was a marble statue of some heroic
mariner wearing a sailor's jacket and tri-cornered
hat. Chi passed the bench twice, doing a circuit of
the area before sitting down next to the young man
who was already there.

'Nexus,' Chi greeted him, without looking
directly at him.

'Hi, Chi, how's it hangin'? You got the thing?'

'Sure. You got the goods?'

'Course.'

They both looked warily around the square,
and then each of them cast an eye up at the sky as
if it might offer more than a few clouds and a jet
trail or two.

Nexus was small, pale and skeletally thin, but
similarly dressed. His mop of dark hair looked
permanently greasy and unkempt. They both tried
to move their lips as little as possible when they
spoke. The square was surrounded by office buildings,
from which any number of people could be
watching with long-lens cameras, tracking what
they were saying by reading their lips. There was
also the chance of being listened to using parabolic
microphones that could pick up sounds from a
distance of over three hundred metres.

But both young men were too experienced to
discuss their business out loud.

'I need to hear it before I make the trade,' Chi
said gruffly.

'No problem.'

Nexus had a discreet pair of black earphones in
his ears, the cord running into an MP3 player
concealed in his hand. He took out one of the earphones
and offered it to Chi, who took it and held
it at arm's length in disgust. The nub-shaped piece
of plastic was covered in earwax.

'Jesus, Nex! Ever heard of cotton buds?'

'What are you, my mother?'

Chi wiped the earphone on the sleeve of
Nexus's coat and then stuck it in his ear. Nexus
pressed 'play' and Chi listened for a couple of
minutes.

'Sounds like the real deal,' he said with a nod.

'That's what I've been tellin' you, my man,'
Nexus said in a whisper, covering his mouth as he
spoke.'And there's over an hour of it: names, places,
dates. I swiped it straight off Counter Terrorist
Command. Their security's a joke. They've an
isolated server with the really hot stuff, but their
administrative staff are accessing it all friggin' day. I
got a program that pools all the references—'

'Yeah, yeah, I hear you,' Chi said sourly.

Nexus was the better hacker and he took every
opportunity to rub it in. But Chi had the savvy and
the contacts to use the information his friend dug
out of all those high-security databases.

He palmed the MP3 player, disconnected the
earphone cords and stuck it in his pocket. With an
equally furtive movement, he attached an identical
player to the earphones and slipped it back into
Nexus's hand.

'Here's what you want. Use it wisely.'

'I'm going after the military next,' Nexus
muttered. 'I think I've got a lead on a bunch called
the Triumvirate. I think they're trying to smuggle a
weapon—'

'Enough,' Chi cut him off. 'You're talking too
much . . .
again
. You've got to be more careful, man,
or you're gonna end up as just one more chump on
Suicide Beach. Just get on with it and keep it quiet.
Let me know if you get anything I can use.'

'Will do. Watch the skies, man. Catch you later.'

'Stay safe, brother. Watch those skies.'

Chi took another careful look around and then
got up and left. A minute later, Nexus walked off in
the opposite direction.

Amina sat in front of Goldbloom's desk, waiting for
his reaction. She had done what he'd asked: she'd
written the story up and handed it in. But she'd also
checked out the news reports of the bombing that
had injured Ivor McMorris's crew and it had
happened just as he described – despite his claims
to the contrary. Now she wanted to make more of
the story and that meant asking for a new deadline,
which would give her time to root through Ivor's
past. Goldbloom was sitting staring through the
glass wall at the newsroom beyond.

He had asked to listen to the recording and had
remained expressionless as it played. Now Amina
waited for his decision. Part of her hated this,
having to await judgement, but she also knew that
office temps didn't normally get this level of
attention from the managing editor and she was
going to make the most of it.

'He didn't offer any proof for what he thinks
might have happened,' Goldbloom said at last.

It wasn't a question.

'I don't think he has any,' Amina replied. 'But it
might be worth digging up some facts on this. Even
with what I've got, I—'

'I don't think so,' Goldbloom sighed, shaking
his head. 'We could get into serious hot water
making allegations like this against the military.
Believe me, I've been there. So has your mother –
ask her to tell you about the Harding story some
day. Without concrete proof we'd just be setting
ourselves up to be sued for libel. Even if McMorris
had offered
something
, some kind of documentary
evidence, other witnesses . . . but he's got
nothing.

'No, it's got no legs. Leave the text with me –
I'll have to cut it down a bit, take out the most
contentious bits. It's too long anyway.'

Seeing her disappointment, he gave her an
encouraging smile.

'You did a good job, Amina. It's well written
and there's no harm in pushing a bit sometimes, but
you'll have to let this one go. And don't worry, we'll
find you something else to work on. In the meantime,
get me a coffee, will you? You know how I
take it.'

Amina left the office feeling utterly deflated.
Too long? The article was barely two hundred
words – there was no room to cut anything out.
Making her way over to the newsroom's canteen,
she yanked the jug out of the coffee machine
reserved for the senior staff. Pouring out the stale
brown remains at the bottom, she rinsed it and
put it back in the machine. She took a new pack
of filters and some freshly ground coffee from a
cupboard, slamming the door closed. Then she set
about making a fresh brew. Her anger percolated
along with the gurgling machine.

'Too bloody long, my
arse
!' she shouted at the
top of her voice to the empty canteen. 'If I can't fit
the whole goddamned story in, what's the point of
writing the bloody thing at all?'

'That's the spirit!' a woman's laughing voice
called from somewhere outside. 'We'll make a
reporter out of you yet!'