Revolution (16 page)

Another aide jogged up to Harrison Forbes’s side.

‘Boss, there’s an urgent call for you from Seth Cain in Washington.’

Harrison felt a warm spot begin to glow within him. Finally, it seemed, Harrison Forbes had been put on the map of the high and mighty.

‘I’ll take it in my office,’ he said and hurried across the newsroom, closing the door behind him and picking up the phone. ‘Harrison Forbes.’

‘Harry! You’ve been making some serious waves my friend.’

‘It’s all down to my man on the ground there, Seth. He’s pulling off a remarkable job.’

‘Figures are the highest I’ve ever seen for a UK reporter,’
Seth confirmed.
‘However, Harry, there’s something of a problem here.’

‘Problem?’

‘Yeah, Harry, I don’t really know how to tell you this, but the word is that we really need to pull Martin Sigby from the story.’

‘What?!!’

‘Harry, I know how you feel, but this isn’t a decision that’s being made lightly here. There’s a real fear that his success in covering this conflict could have repercussions beyond what we’re seeing right now.’

Harrison Forbes’s skin darkened beneath his beard, and he became aware of people outside watching him as he boomed into the phone.

‘Beyond finding the truth? You consider the truth a repercussion? Against who exactly?’

‘The people of Mordania, Harry,’
Cain said, trying to sound reasonable.
‘Nobody knows how far this thing’s going to go now that it’s running. There are a few big wheels in the senate and the administration who don’t like what they’re seeing here. It’s new and it’s unpredictable, and you know how these political types can get agitated when they feel they’re not in control of things.’

‘You’re damned right I do!’ Harrison yelled. ‘They usually start shitting themselves because they fear that someone’s turned whistleblower on them, or that they’ve been photographed with a cheap hooker in a roadside hotel or been busted for tax evasion. Don’t screw around with me Seth, tell me why this is happening.’

There was a long pause on the line.

‘Let’s just say that those to whom we answer don’t want the boat rocked in Mordania any further than it has been already. They don’t like seeing a democratic government being criticised whilst it’s facing an non–democratic uprising, a rebellion. They fear that it undermines trust in what democratic rule can do, and that it could potentially damage the advance of democracy into the developing world.’

Harrison Forbes thought for a moment.

‘Utter crap. These countries chose democracies because they wanted them, not because the rest of the world suggested it was a good idea. What you really mean is that someone, somewhere will probably stand to lose a lot of money, respect or credibility if Martin Sigby continues to tell the truth. They don’t like the fact that he can’t be controlled.’

‘Your words, Harry, not mine. That’s the deal and we’re stuck with it.’

‘We? You mean
me
!’

‘That’s the way it is Harry, and it’s on you to ensure that Martin Sigby bows gracefully out of the Mordanian arena.’

Harrison stood for a long moment, holding the phone in a vice–like grip before speaking.

‘No.’

There was a long pause.

‘That is not an option, Forbes.’

‘I’m not pulling Martin Sigby off Mordania because of political niceties. He’s staying.’

‘Don’t make me come over there.’

‘Up yours!’

Harrison slammed the phone down in utter disbelief. He ran a hand across his head and then looked out of his office windows to where his entire staff stood frozen in silence, watching him.

‘Do I look like a sodding ornamental side–show?! Get back to bloody work!’

*

Government House, Thessalia

‘The president will see you now, Mister Sigby.’

The secretary pointed toward the door of the president’s personal suite. Martin Sigby crept forward, swallowed, and opened the door.

He had been caught entirely unawares by the request for a personal meeting with President Akim. His senses felt as though they were supernaturally attuned, hearing the touch of his shoes on the thick carpet, flames licking wood in an ornate grating, his own breathing in his ears.

The suite was, like most of the rooms in the building, expansive, and was also one of the few that was heated, the crackling fire glowing on the opposite side of the room. The president stood in front of the hearth with his hands behind his back, facing away from Martin as the reporter quietly closed the door behind him.

‘Mister Sigby,’ the president’s voice rumbled.

‘Yes, sir?’ Martin said uncertainly, wondering briefly whether the man had eyes in the back of his head.

President Mukhari Akim turned away from the fire and regarded Martin Sigby’s diminutive form with a curious expression.

‘Please, sit,’ he said.

Martin Sigby took a seat on one of the plush sofas and realised for the first time that the Chief of Police, Alexei Severov, stood nearby in the shadows, his arms folded across his chest and his expression stony. The president produced two tumblers from a cabinet in one corner of the room, along with a decanter of dark liquor. He poured two glasses, handing one to the correspondent before pacing slowly up and down the room as he spoke.

‘You have enjoyed remarkable success here in Mordania, Mister Sigby. You must be eager to continue your work.’

Martin Sigby felt overwhelmed by the sense that he was in the presence of an intellect far greater than his own.

‘I seek only to report the truth of what is happening here, to the people of the world.’

President Mukhari nodded, taking a long and thoughtful sip of his drink before turning and facing Martin Sigby directly.

‘And yet you speculate, Mister Sigby. You make uneducated guesses about the state of this country, and those guesses put ideas into the minds of people. They ruminate and discuss and debate in their homes and their governments and in their rebel bases. They make judgements based upon your innaccurate assessments of the safety or otherwise of this country, and upon those judgements they do this government an ill service.’

The president moved to tower over Martin Sigby, who grasped his glass tightly as the president spoke.

‘You are becoming famous for being the man who has changed the face of a country with his reports, who has perhaps begun to influence the course of a war with his broadcasts. But neither yourself nor your viewers have stopped to consider the possibility that the effect will worsen events, not improve them.’

Martin Sigby got up from the sofa, feeling uncomfortable being dominated by Mukhari’s sheer presence. His voice sounded reedy and thin in the room compared to the president’s deep and melodious tones.

‘We report what we see. Our work is unbiased and shows only what is happening. It is hardly my fault if your government and its police are no longer able to provide security for the people living in Thessalia and the surrounding areas.’

President Akim’s eyes seemed as deep as the universe as he looked down at Sigby, and the reporter began to feel as though the enormous pressures bearing down on this man’s shoulders were somehow being transferred to his own. The president raised the thick index finger of one large hand to point at the correspondent’s chest.

‘You report to the world that we are unable to protect our own, Mister Sigby, and yet do not consider the consequences of such brazen and dangerous statements. Out there, beyond the mountains, lays a force of more than ten thousand men who will stop at nothing to destroy everything that I represent. They advance with neither fear nor mercy. They are well equipped and well trained, and have already proven themselves savage fighters with no desire to give quarter to those they conquer. They come closer by the day, moving even as we speak, to bring fire and sword to this city.’

The president was leaning toward Sigby, his powerful frame seeming to fill the room. Suddenly, he seemed to realise his proximity to the British correspondent and backed away.

‘I am responsible,’ the president went on, ‘for the lives of the two million people who consider themselves Mordanians, people who are proud to call themselves so. Do you have any idea how incredibly frustrating it is to be made aware on a daily basis that I am failing them? That they become more disappointed with each passing day? That they may even now ridicule me under their breath, or hate me, perhaps even yearn for the rebel attack that must soon come to these walls?’

Sigby did not reply, unable to speak, as though some great pressure on his chest had trapped his thoughts and his voice. The president looked into the flames of the fire, his voice distant now.

‘I fought in a war, in Afghanistan, when Russia invaded from the north. I saw my friends die, saw good men fall as the young so often do, in mud and horror and pain and confusion. I swore to myself that if I ever achieved an office of any kind of stature, that I would never commit men to such terrible actions except in an act of self defence.’

He turned back to Martin Sigby, his expression both proud and saddened, his voice raw with grief.

‘I never have, until now, until there was no other choice. This last stand is that of a man who was voted into power by the people he wished to serve, and then saw his legitimate government defied by the very people who swore to defend it. I have nothing left, and this country has nothing left, if it cannot hold on to the principles of government that it chose for itself and that I swore to uphold. Your reports, describing the weakness and ineptitude of my staff, are hastening that downfall. You, sir, are destroying what’s left of the country and constitution that I built for the benefit of all Mordanians.’

Martin Sigby stood his ground, shaking his head.

‘My reports have uncovered the things that you refused the rest of the world the right to see. You banned foreign journalists from travelling through your country. You denied your own people the one thing that a democracy demands – a free press. By defying their own wishes, by going against the principles that you claim to uphold, you made it inevitable that somebody would eventually find a way to reveal what was happening here. You caused the problem by concealing your government’s failures!’

‘And you compounded the problem by blaming me for them,’ the president replied. ‘You have made me look weak, a laughing stock to my own people and to the international community. Did it not cross your mind, Mister Sigby, that I might have wanted to protect the lives of foreign journalists in Thessalia with the travel ban, because I knew that I would not be able to protect them outside of the city?’

Martin Sigby shook his head dismissively.

‘Foreign journalists understand the risks they take, sir.’

‘Did it not occur to you then, that by preventing journalism from exposing the weakened conditions of this city, I was also preventing a brutal and aggressive enemy from knowing the true state of affairs and thus delaying their decision to advance and attack?’

Martin Sigby hesitated uncertainly, and then swallowed.

‘It did not,’ he admitted.

The president shook his head slowly.

‘There is more to this conflict than your stories, Mister Sigby. There is so much that you do not consider, fail to understand, lack the experience to translate into a meaningful interpretation of a country in crisis. Two million souls, Mister Sigby. Two million people rely now not upon what I say, as they should, but upon what
you
say.’

‘That was not my intention,’ Sigby said.

From the shadows, Severov spoke for the first time. ‘Yet it is the result of your actions.’

The president set his glass down on a table, not looming over Sigby as before but addressing him frankly.

‘Do you want to lead my people into the chaos and terror of conflict and possible conquest by a violent and implacable enemy? Or will you provide them with the spirit they need to defend themselves in this, their darkest of hours?’

Martin Sigby’s eyes narrowed slightly.

‘What do you mean?’

‘What I mean is, will you report on the truth of the desire of my government to lead its people from this conflict and into the light of democracy and freedom? Or will you continue to undermine it with your reports on how the rebels bring aid to the needy while I stand by and ignore their suffering?’

Martin Sigby opened his mouth to speak, but no sound issued forth.

‘You’re being used of course,’ Alexei Severov said from one side, moving out into the light. ‘The rebels act only because they know that you will duly report their deeds to the outside world. Do you really think that such savages will continue to aid the needy once you have gone, once this war is over?’

‘I must report what is true.’

‘Yet how can you be sure of what is true?’ the president challenged. ‘Or what is false?’

Severov smiled slightly in the flickering light of the fire, moving closer.

‘Perhaps we could help you, to find the truth.’ Sigby saw President Akim shoot Severov a sharp look, but the Chief of Police went on. ‘I could give you absolute and legal access to the interior, without barriers. You could literally become the only man actually allowed to traverse Mordania, and send your reports without fear of census or arrest. And I will ensure that you are rewarded well for your work, both professionally and financially.’

President Akim opened his mouth to protest, but Martin Sigby’s eyes began to sparkle with barely restrained excitement.

‘In exchange for what?’ Sigby asked, unable to remove the image of Megan Mitchell from his mind. ‘What would you want of me?’

Again, Severov smiled, glancing briefly at President Akim before speaking.

‘Here is what you must do.’

***

‘They were all scientists?’

Sophie Vernoux stood beside Megan Mitchell in the UN offices of Government House as a Red Cross officer relayed to them what the investigation team had managed to learn about the bodies found in the forest.