Revolution (21 page)

***

Megan awoke slowly, not really aware of where she was, lost somewhere in an oblivion of unconnected dreams conjured from within her slumbering mind.

She felt warm and strangely calm, suffused with something that she had not experienced in what felt like several centuries, as though an internal abscess of pain that she had not realised she harboured had been suddenly lanced, the pressure released, the poison drained.

‘Something’s happened.’

The voice reached Megan from afar, pulling her out of her comfortable doze and into the present. She felt the cold air on her face, stark compared to the warmth of the bed. She recognised the accent in the voice and opened her eyes.

Sophie was standing near the bed, a mug of steaming coffee in her hands.

‘What time is it?’ Megan asked, confused now and slightly disorientated.

‘Eleven o’clock,’ Sophie replied, handing her the mug as she sat up in bed, ‘and everything’s changed.’

Megan took a sip of the coffee. ‘What do you mean?’

Sophie walked across the room to Megan’s laptop computer and moved the mouse cursor. The screen came out of its dormant mode and revealed a direct link to a news channel, the laptop picking up the feed via its wireless connection. Sophie turned the screen to face Megan and removed the head–phones she had evidently been using to listen to the news. The words of the news anchor on the screen sounded through the room.

‘… coming in with this exclusive and shocking news, that the Mordanian Air Force under the command of the infamous General Mikail Rameron has launched an aerial attack against the United States Battle Group in the Black Sea. The reports that we have are sketchy at the moment, but seem to indicate that the Mordanian fighters were destroyed by American interceptors before they could strike the fleet.’

Megan stared at the screen, her eyes wide.

‘The commander of the United States Atlantic Fleet and the Secretary of Defence are said to be at this moment briefing the President and advising the best course of action. It’s already being speculated that this extraordinary move by the renegade Mordanian General may be the result of the American president’s recent decision to refuse assistance to the beleaguered President of Mordania, a tactic which many critics said would embolden the rebel forces. Our political correspondent feels that we may be in for the biggest reversal of presidental policy in American history. We go now to our…,’

‘Oh shit.’

Megan leapt out of the bed and moved for the door.

*

‘What the hell did he want to go and do that for?’

Callum met Megan at the entrance to the Thessalia Hilton.

‘I have absolutely no idea,’ Megan replied, zipping up her jacket and walking with Callum through the steadily falling snow.

‘All hell’s going to break loose now,’ Callum said. ‘Anybody who lives within fity miles of the capital is going to make a bee–line for it. Nobody’s going to want to be hiding in the hills if our American cousins decide to carpet–bomb the countryside.’

Megan nodded in agreement.

‘Thessalia will be the only safe place to be. But I still can’t understand why Rameron would do this. American intervention will ruin his campaign – he can’t stand up to that kind of firepower.’

‘That may not have been his plan,’ Callum said. ‘His forces are stretched protecting the ground that they’ve covered as they’ve moved south. His supply lines are at their longest. He may have decided that rather than fight all the way to Thessalia, he’ll provoke fear of an American air strike and get everyone to run
into
Thessalia.’

Megan looked at Callum in surprise.

‘You think it’s a bluff? That he’s done it on purpose?’

‘It’s one hell of a gutsy move, I’ll admit that, but if he times it right and makes a rapid advance upon Thessalia before the Americans can deploy from the Black Sea, he can take the airport, the roads and harbours and then totally dominate Thessalia with artillery from the mountains over there.’

Megan looked in the indicated direction and understood.

‘The Americans won’t be able to bomb anything for fear of hitting the civilian population and won’t be able to deploy in time to secure a foot–hold without storming an occupied and heavily defended coast.’ Megan shook her head. ‘Brillant. Utterly insane, but brilliant. Whatever happens, everyone’s going to fall back on Thessalia and Rameron will follow.’

‘Which makes a balls–up of our plans,’ Callum pointed out. ‘The city will be under siege.’

Megan punched a gloved fist into her other hand.

‘Not if we’re as clever as Rameron. We need a transport.’

‘I was afraid you might say that,’ Callum uttered.

‘With everyone else running in the opposite direction we might just be able to push far enough north to reach Talyn before the rebels do,’ Megan said. ‘At least we’ll be able to make enquiries there. If nothing comes up we’ll head back, I promise.’

Callum shook his head.

‘This is not good, Megan. We’ll be running straight into the teeth of the enemy. Once they do start moving they’ll stop at nothing to beseige Thessalia. Their own lives will depend upon it.’

‘Then we’ll have to be quick.’

Callum moved off in another direction to search for a suitable vehicle to hire, whilst Megan continued in the direction of Government House. Sophie Vernoux caught up with her as she walked.

‘Where are you going?’ Sophie asked.

‘To see Sir Wilkins. I’m going to need help.’

‘You can’t go into the country now, it’s too dangerous.’

‘All the more reason why I have to go,’ Megan replied without breaking step.

Sophie grabbed the arm of her jacket to stop her.

‘You have to let her go,’ she said softly. ‘You can’t keep doing this, Madame Mitchell. You cannot save everybody. She may not even want to be found, for all you know.’

Megan gently removed Sophie’s hand from her arm.

‘My name is Megan, okay, and everyone wants to be found.’

Sophie smiled faintly.

‘But not everyone wants to be located, Megan. She may even be gone already, in another country, or perhaps she is dead. I’m sorry, but it’s true – she may already be dead.’

Megan frowned.

‘I can’t leave her here without trying.’

Sophie sighed and took a step back.

‘There is only so much that you can do before you begin to destroy yourself again,’ she said. ‘You should know that by now.’

‘I know,’ Megan replied quietly.

Something shifted in Sophie’s eyes and a little smile touched her lips.

‘You are a different woman now, Megan Mitchell,’ she said. ‘I can see it. You have a true purpose again.’

With that, she turned and walked slowly away in the snow through the crowds of panicked Mordanians.

***

The Gold Room, Pentagon,

Virginia, USA

‘The Commander in Chief of Atlantic Operations has put the fleet on high alert, Mister President. He wants you to know that they’re ready for anything.’

President Baker nodded toward the image on a television screen of the Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

‘Thank you, Jack.’

Vice President Hobbs sat next to the president, with Secretary of Defence Margaret Stone sitting opposite them both. Three of the eight screens in the room were illuminated for the conference briefing; one connecting to the Select Committee in the Hart Senate Building in Washington DC, another to Admiral James Fry aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt in the Black Sea, and the last to the Chiefs of Staff, the president’s military advisors.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, talk to me,’ the president said. ‘Admiral?’

Admiral James Fry spoke with the frank and honest tones of an experienced naval aviator and commander.

‘I’ve debriefed both of my pilots individually and I consider their testimonies to be accurate and without flaws. The aircraft that attacked them were Mig–23 Floggers of the Mordanian Air Force. No warnings were given by the enemy aircraft and no communications were made with the fleet or ground sources. My pilots were attacked in the process of intercepting the Mordanian jets, which they identified by their markings, and then defended themselves and the fleet accordingly. Both enemy aircraft were shot down and sank in the Black Sea. We found little wreckage.’

‘The enemy pilots?’ the president hazarded.

‘There were no survivors sir, I’m afraid,’ Admiral Fry replied. ‘Both of my pilots looked for parachutes but none were spotted. Search and Rescue also drew a blank.’

The president nodded and looked at Margaret Stone, SECDEF.

‘The situation has changed radically,’ she said, ‘and badly affects our foreign policy commitments, but we have to consider the possibility that this is a deliberate attempt to cause panic on the ground in Mordania, which would be of great advantage to General Rameron. He can use the opportunity to advance on Thessalia and secure his positions before we can deploy men and equipment. That would mean air–strikes to break up his lines of communication and support, followed by a difficult and protracted ground deployment, in all likelihood against a determined guerilla movement.’

‘Iraq all over again, in other words,’ the president noted bitterly.

Hobbs spoke up from the president’s side.

‘We must also consider the possibility that this is a direct challenge to US military authority in the region. General Rameron is being watched closely by Russia, not to mention Iran and China. They could easily be encouraged to back his movement as a fight for freedom from American influence. Nobody in the region is blind to the importance of oil supplies from the Caspian Sea – the area has been part of the great game of east and west over oil for decades.’

The president looked to his Chief of Staff, for all of whom spoke their Chairman, Four–Star General Tom Solomon, a broad shouldered, heavy jawed man with fiercely cropped steel–grey hair and piercing ice blue eyes. He sat so upright in his chair it seemed as though he might topple backwards over it.

‘General Solomon?’

The general suddenly shot bolt–upright from his chair as though a live current had been discharged directly through his buttocks.

‘The Mordanian military machine is fundamentally weak,’ he announced promptly as though addressing a parade ground. ‘It’s capacity to withstand prolonged aerial bombardment in any theatre of operations is severely limited. Its air force consists of no more than twenty five second–generation Soviet–class fighters and assorted training aircraft, significant for the region but both obsolete and irrelevant compared to even a single US Battle Group. The Army is reasonably well trained but numbers just a few thousand men, some artillery units and a scattering of militia drawn from the local populace.’

The president thought for a moment.

‘If pressured into a military solution, how would you proceed?’

‘Mister President, I would initiate an aerial bombardment of all major supply lines and choke points such as highways and bridges, and ensure the complete destruction of any aircraft and airfields available to the rebel forces in the north. This I would follow with an aggressive deployment into Thessalia and Khobal Airfield to its east, with airborne units dropped somewhere behind the main thrust of the rebel advance on Thessalia, should it occur. Our thinking is that if we separate General Rameron’s forces from each other and break the chain of command and supply, morale and equipment will degenerate sufficiently to force surrender or a rout. The presence of US troops both before and behind the enemy, and military police units within Thessalia, may be enough to deflect the imminent attack and thus protect the civilian populace.’

The president nodded. ‘Thank you, general.’

‘Thank you, Mister President!’

The general dropped like a stone, resuming his rigid seated posture. The president looked around the room for a long moment before speaking.

‘We have to do something, whatever it is. The United Nations has already begun an emergency session regarding their response, but most wars are over before they’re ready to commit troops on the ground.’

‘Mister President,’ Hobbs said from his side, ‘I hardly need to remind you of the political ramifications of deploying troops into Mordania. Our forces are stretched thin as it is and your entire administrative campaign was based on a policy of reduced intervention in foreign affairs. If you commit to a military solution in the Mordanian crisis, your popularity in the polls will be severely affected.’

Matthew Baker nodded in agreement.

‘That is quite true,’ he said simply, ‘but I did not take this office in order to become popular. I took it in order to do the right thing. I can’t let us just sit by whilst a rebel army storms a democratically governed city, especially after the commander of that army has just attacked one of our carrier groups!’

Margaret Stone agreed.

‘We should go in and hit them hard. Once the government is back on its feet and its troops able to control the city, we pull out again.’

Hobbs smiled bleakly. ‘That’s what they said about Iraq.’

‘Iraq was an entirely different situation,’ Margaret Stone shot back. ‘This is not a major power with a large army. This is a pop–gun state with no coherent policy for…’

‘This is a country struggling for its identity,’ Hobbs cut across her, ‘with human beings living within who will be severely affected by a military campaign.’

‘They already are!’ the secretary of defence snapped. ‘We need to end that campaign and restore order!’

President Baker slammed a hand on the table. ‘Enough!’

Hobbs and Stone fell silent. The president looked at the television screens.

‘General Solomon, do we know of the location of General Rameron’s base of operations?’

‘No sir, Mister President. Current intelligence places him north of Thessalia, near the mountain town of Talyn, but we can’t pin him down closer than that.’

The Vice President looked at the president for a long beat.

‘Are you going to do what I think you’re going to do?’