The action pack box set, p.83
The Action Pack Box Set, page 83
‘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.
***
31
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?’
The president closed his eyes for a moment before speaking.
‘The people of Mordania aren’t to blame for this war, and even the rebels under General Rameron are only Mordanians themselves. The impetus for confict has come from one man, Rameron himself. That is where our war should be.’
The president stood from his chair, resting his hands on the table and lowering his head in thought for a long few seconds. When he finally looked up again, he had made up his mind.
‘Admiral Fry?’
‘Yes sir, Mister President?’
‘Prepare your marines for a shock assault, to deploy once I have spoken to congress and obtained authority for military action. I want a plan for air–superiority to be secured around a one–hundred nautical mile perimeter of Thessalia, with all access and supply routes north of that perimeter destroyed, ready to go on my word.’
‘Yes sir!’
Admiral Fry saluted crisply and the screen went blank. The president turned to General Solomon.
‘General, organise what you can from our troops in Afghanistan. Pull a few strings if you have to, but I need a reserve force ready to back up Admiral Fry’s marines en route to Thessalia within twenty–four hours.’
Another bolt of live current shot up through the general’s nether regions and he jerked upright out of his chair and saluted.
‘They’ll be there, Mister President sir!’
The screen went blank, and the Chairman of the Select Committee spoke.
‘I’ll talk to the committee and ensure cross–party support, Mister President.’
His screen too went blank, and President Baker leaned back in his chair and ran his hands down his face.
‘This isn’t just about our role in world affairs,’ Hobbs said. ’You’re playing directly into the hands of the media, of Seth Cain. This is what they wanted. They’re controlling us!’
‘You’d better organise a press announcement,’ the president said, shaking his head. ‘They’re gonna love this about as much as the public are going to hate it.’
***
32
The refugee camp was a frightening place.
He had never seen so many people in one place before, camped out in the freezing snow and mud in endless rows of tents that seemed to stretch forever. He too was cold, wrapped up against the bitter wind and the snow that tumbled thickly from the pale clouds above to drift in dense whorls on the wind.
He hobbled on through the slush, looking for a familiar face amongst the hordes of miserable strangers, their dark eyes framed with hoods and scarves and watching him as he passed. His legs were weary with fatigue and his body ached from the cold but he travelled on determinedly, for his mission was an urgent one.
Pausing, he retrieved from his coat pocket a scrap of paper with a hastily scribbled drawing upon it and a single word beneath the sketch. He looked at the large tents dominating the camp, at the flags fluttering in the wind above them, and found the one he sought.
The tent was cavernous as he walked inside, past huge metal vats boiling soups and cooking grain, clouds of steam enveloping the queues waiting to eat. He passed them by, heading toward the plastic sheets dangling beneath a large red–cross sign at the rear of the tent, and pushed through them to stand in the hospital.
Two queues of people, young and old, were being administered to by young volunteer nurses, who variously gave them injections or patched wounds and dabbed at cuts. He advanced, moving past the queues, until his eyes fixed upon someone he knew.
Weakly he moved forward to where the young girl, dressed in a heavy coat to keep out the cold, was stacking boxes and ticking them off a roster at the rear of the hospital. He was almost next to her before she noticed him.
‘Bonjour monsieur, ca va?’ she asked, looking down at his frail form.
The old man smiled up at her from beneath his hood.
‘Mowpheen,’ he pronounced awkwardly.
‘Morphine?’ Sophie Vernoux repeated with a slight smile.
‘Ya, ya,’ the old man grinned in delight. ‘Mawfeen!’
Sophie chuckled and pointed to the queues.
‘You need to queue, over there.’
The old man looked at the queue, still smiling, and then back at Sophie, offering her a shake of his head.
‘Niet, mawfeen,’ he said and pointed toward the exit.
‘We can’t just hand out morphine,’ Sophie replied, feeling sorry for the old man. ‘You need to bring the patient here.’
The old man’s face creased with confusion as he tried to understand what Sophie was trying to tell him.
‘Mawfeen?’ he repeated.
Sophie gave up and called out across the hospital tent.
‘Do we have a translator here?’
Sophie brushed past the old man as she tried to hear the various calls and shouts that came in reply to her question. The old man let her pass and looked idly around the boxes and crates and sacks stacked around the tent, obviously the place where goods were brought in. He wondered briefly whether he might find the mysterious mawfeen amongst the boxes, and was moving to have a look when he saw a picture tacked to one of the wooden posts supporting the framework of the tent.
A young girl, a black and white photograph, the face smiling out at him. His breath caught in his throat as he stared mesmerised at the picture.
‘What are you doing?!’
The old man whirled to see the young girl standing behind him with her hands on her hips, watching him with a stern expression. Quickly, the man pointed at the picture.
‘Mawfeen,’ he said, jabbing at the picture. ‘Mawfeen.’
Sophie looked at the picture for a moment and was about to berate the old man when she suddenly caught on. Her eyes widened as she looked again at the old man. On an impulse she pointed at him, then at her own eyes, and then at the picture.
‘You have seen her?’ she said slowly.
The man nodded eagerly, mirroring her gestures and pointing at the picture.
‘Mawfeen!’
The old man lifted his hood to reveal a large medical patch over his left temple, and Sophie suddenly realised that he was the farmer she had treated, the old man that Severov had beaten days before.
The old man produced a piece of paper with a crude picture of the MSF logo, and beneath it a single word. Morphine. Sophie looked at it, and then the old man pointed at Amy O’Hara’s picture again.
‘Oh merde,’ Sophie said as she whirled and dashed away.
*
‘You’re absolutely sure?’
Megan looked uncertainly at the old man, who returned her gaze with a broad toothy grin and nodded repeatedly despite not having the slightest clue as to what she was saying.
‘His name is Sergei and he’s seen her,’ Sophie insisted, ‘and I think that he came here on behalf of someone else who needs morphine, perhaps for your missing girl, Amy. I was wrong Megan. She’s not dead, she’s still out there.’
Megan frowned, folding her arms over her chest.
‘He might just want it for himself, to cure the headaches he’s probably still getting,’ Megan suggested. The old man grinned, nodded and drooled. ‘We need a translator,’ Megan added.
‘I’ve looked everywhere, but the damned news crews have grabbed them all. They can pay money that we can’t afford.’
‘Bloody journalists,’ Megan smiled at Sophie.
The grinding, clattering sound of an engine outside caused Megan to get up and move out of the tent and into the softly falling snow.
