by Oisin McGann
LIFE IS DEFINED BY DEATH.
GOD IS A CREATION OF MAN TO EXPLAIN HIMSELF.
DON'T READ THIS!
WE HAVE CEASED TO EVOLVE, NOW OUR WORLD ADAPTS TO SURVIVE US.
And there were plenty more, all equally morose and reflecting her brother's prematurely worldweary personality. She dearly hoped he would cheer the hell up soon. This was worse than those six months when he'd decided to start taking Islam more seriously and berated the rest of the family for failing to show the proper respect to Allah. He was always going around, squawking 'La ilaha illallah! ' (There is no God but Allah!) in his adolescent about-to-break voice, and kept waking her in the middle of the night to pray. He only stopped when she threw a fit and threatened to hit him with her hockey stick. A few months before that, he'd complained about not being Christian like all of his friends on the base where they'd been living. And before that, he'd been expelled from two different schools for getting into fights. He had a savage temper.
Even so, there was something comforting, something lovely and normal, about Tariq's teenage angst. Absent Conscience was still playing on his stereo when she walked in. He was dressed in his black gothic best, lying on his bed and reading Sun Tzu's The Art of War, probably just so he'd be able to impress people by quoting from it. Amina was sure he would already have underlined some of the best bits.
'Hey,' she said.
'Hey.'
'What's up?'
'Not much. What's up yourself ?'
'Nothing. Stuff,' she said, shrugging. 'Y'know.'
Tariq noticed how she was standing, leaning against the wall with her shoulders hunched. She wasn't dressed yet and it was almost lunchtime. She looked pale too. He sat up, put the book down and crossed his arms.
'OK, I'll bite. What's wrong?'
'Nothing,' she assured him.
And then she started talking.
She told her brother about Ivor and Chi, and about the story they were all working on. It all just came out of her, even though she hadn't meant it to. She knew she was being indiscreet. The Scalps could be listening to every word she said, but they had just shown her they were one step ahead no matter what she did. Maybe they would leave her alone when they heard how frightened she was.
She told him about the Sinnostan vets with fake memories and hallucinations, the three-day disappearances in the war zones, the film of the unconscious soldiers from Gierek's helmet camera, about Ben Considine's apparent suicide, about the plastic surgeon named Anthony Shang and the unrealistic wounds that Agatha Domingues had found on the soldiers. Amina described the surveillance they were all under, telling her brother about the devices in Ivor's flat and the watchers with no faces and the message left on the ground in chalk at the café. And then she told him about the card. By this time she was crying.
She went back into her room and took the card out of the bin, bringing it in to show Tariq. He had an incredulous look on his face, but it was obvious that she was genuinely upset. Taking the crumpled card, he flattened it out on his desk and looked at it and then back at her.
'Wow,' he said softly.
Amina just nodded, wiping the tears from her face. She felt better, having got it all out of her system, but now she'd got Tariq involved.
'I'm in over my head,' she said to him. 'We all are. None of us have any idea who these people are. Even if we did, we don't have any evidence – any believable evidence – that something is going on. We don't even know what's going on.
'I feel like I've been acting out some bloody Famous Five adventure and now I've just discovered these are real villains – the kind who don't care that you're just a kid; who'll . . . who'll . . . wrench out your teeth and smash . . . your . . . your kneecaps and dump your cut-up body in a canal. You know: the type nobody ever reports to the police because they know where your family lives and you're terrified they'll . . . they'll . . .'
She stopped, feeling suddenly drained. Tariq exhaled softly.
'You need to tell Mum and Dad about all this,' he said. 'If half of this is true, you're in deep shit here, Mina.'
'I'll talk to Ivor and Chi first,' she replied hoarsely. 'And maybe Goldbloom too, although I hate to think what he'll make of all this. You know, Mum was threatened on a bunch of occasions 'cos of the stories she was working on, but I never really thought about what that meant. There were a couple of times when Dad actually asked her to drop a story. She never did.'
'Yeah,' Tariq muttered. 'But we've never had anyone break into our house to deliver a funeral card before. That's really freaky when you think about it. No broken windows or locks, no alarm . . . they just came in and left without a trace.' A look of realization came over him. 'Bloody hell, Mina! What if this wasn't the first time!'
'Don't, Tariq,' she moaned, holding her hands up. 'I may never sleep again as it is.'
The trip to Chi's house on the Underground seemed to take for ever. Amina tried to ignore the feeling that someone's eyes were crawling all over her. The train was about half full and whenever she looked up, there always seemed to be somebody just turning to look the other way. She was an attractive girl; she was used to being looked at. But this was different. Now all of the men who eyed her up no longer wore expressions of excited interest or concealed lust; they all appeared more intent in their observation. The women – and she knew it was always the women who stared more – were no longer measuring her up as a rival; they were assessing her as a target.
There was no way to be sure about any of this. It could just have been her imagination, her newfound paranoia reading into things. They couldn't all be watching her. Most of these people – if not all of them – were just going somewhere; taking the Tube with no thought of tangled conspiracy plots. But now Amina was looking at the world through new eyes and was suspicious of everything she saw.
The gaunt-faced man in the suit sitting across from her, with the briefcase lying on the seat beside him. Could there be a weapon in that case? She had caught him looking at her a couple of times already. Or the young woman with the hair-wraps and the backpack standing near the door, holding onto the rail, her body swaying with the motion of the train. Amina could see her face clearly in the reflection on the window, which meant that she could see Amina's. Or the stocky man with the beard further down on the other side, tapping on the screen of his PDA with its little plastic stylus. There were a few occasions when he lifted it high enough to get a picture of her with its camera.
Allah help me, she thought. I've caught Chi's disease.
Chi was not surprised. She babbled out her fears as soon as he opened the door, showing him the funeral card. He in turn told her about the visit from the CTC officers. Amina suggested they take what they had to Goldbloom and see what he made of it. They needed help with this.
'No,' Chi said, shaking his head.'This is our story; if we get mainstream people involved, the corporate interests will come into play. They won't do anything if they think they'll be taken to court, you know – or lose their precious advertisers. And half the time they just take the government's word for everything anyway. But we're wild cards! Unpredictable! The fact that somebody's worried enough to threaten us means we've got them rattled now.'
'We've got who rattled?' Amina threw her hands up in exasperation. 'Rattled about what? We're snatching at shadows here—'
The doorbell rang. It was Ivor, and he was grinning. Chi followed him back into the study and watched in bemusement with Amina as Ivor whipped three copies of a paperback out of his bag and held one up.
'He wrote a bloody book!' he exclaimed. 'Anthony Shang wrote a bloody bestseller! So much for being top secret!'
He looked at their faces.
'What's wrong now?' he asked.
After the three of them had talked it out, they still could not come to any consensus about what to do. Chi was keen to chase up on the leads they had without any outside involvement; Amina wanted to get help from Goldbloom and the Chronicle; Ivor was worried for his two younger friends and as
ked them to give up on the story before something more serious happened. He felt he had nothing to lose, but he didn't want to put them in any danger.
In the end, the three of them decided to hold off making any decisions until after they had all read Shang's book. Amina still had plenty of articles to search through from the newspaper's archives and Chi wanted to get back to his contacts to see if they had any news. Ivor had already tried to get in touch with some of the other veterans he'd known in Sinnostan, but none of them would admit to suffering the same symptoms. He said he'd try again, and this time he was going to offer rewards for any solid leads. It was time to start spending some of his money.
'This is what I've been afraid of doing all along,' he told them. 'It's why I'm being watched – because rich people can cause more problems than poor ones. But you two need to look like you're backing out. I'm going to get all the wrong kind of attention for this and there's no point you taking any more risks – at least' – he raised his hand against their protests – 'until it's absolutely necessary. So don't call me, don't email me, don't come near me until I tell you it's OK, right?'
The other two reluctantly agreed.
Ivor and Amina took the Tube back into town. He sensed that she was uneasy and noticed how she kept looking around her. Overcome with a sense of sympathy for her, he chatted with her about normal, everyday things. She was just a kid with big ambitions, much as he'd been a few years ago. But she'd been living in a sheltered world and now it had been tainted by the pervasive fear he had endured ever since he'd returned from Sinnostan. It was deeply unnerving to know that something was wrong with the world around you, but you didn't know what.
'So it must be handy, having a famous correspondent for a mother,' he said, when she mentioned her mother was working on a story about arms companies working in Sinnostan.
'I could make more of it, I suppose,' she admitted. 'But I want to do this on my own, not because I'm her daughter. Still, they definitely cut me more slack at the paper because of who she is, and I'm not above using that. She's always saying I should do whatever it takes. There's pressure though, too. It means I've a lot to live up to.'
'What about your dad? He's in the media too, right?'
'He's a marine. Well . . . technically. Nowadays he does more press releases than assault courses. That's how they met; they were both working in Iraq and he chatted her up after a press conference. Mum jokes about their marriage being a conflict of interest. Only sometimes she's not joking.'
'And you haven't talked to them about any of this yet?' Ivor asked. 'They might be able to help.'
He didn't point out that Amina should have told them as soon as she thought there was any risk involved in working on this story. It would have done no good – he was much the same at her age; he had figured the less his parents knew about his activities the better.
'They'd want me to stop, they'd say it was too dangerous,' Amina sniffed. 'But that's the whole point, isn't it? The ones who break the big stories, they don't stop for anything. When I think about what some reporters have had to go through: death threats, beatings, imprisonment, torture . . . just for trying to tell the truth, I always wonder what I'd do in their place, you know? I'd like to think I'd be brave enough to do the same.
'It should be easier for us, shouldn't it? We have democracy and a free press and all that. But now I don't know. You look back through history and so much of what went on seemed black and white. Now it's complicated – it's all about versions of the truth. We don't have any dictators or secret police or . . . or censors telling us what is and isn't true. Do we? So why do I have this growing feeling like . . . like . . .'
'Like everyone's treating you like a mushroom?' Ivor grinned.
'What?'
'You know – keeping you in the dark and feeding you loads of bullshit.'
'Oh, right.' She smiled back at him. 'Yeah, like that.'
Ivor looked out of the window as the train slid squealing into a station and the doors clunked open.
'I don't think it was ever simple,' he mused. 'Hindsight's a wonderful thing. We have the luxury of looking back at history and thinking we'd do it better. But there's as many different versions of each story as there are people to tell 'em and we normally only get to hear from the ones who were left in charge after the smoke settled. History as told by the losing side is a real eye-opener.
'As for being brave, I think it's a rare event when you can make that great, courageous gesture that gets you noticed. Most of the time it's just about plugging away and making all those tricky little decisions that come at you every day. That's how it was when I was in the army.
'And I'd be lying if I said I hated giving boring stories a dramatic touch, or simplifying the background information so it could be given in catchy sound-bites. I figured this was reporting for the MTV generation and I was good at it. News these days has to be less like a documentary and more like a movie or a video game. It's got to look good and still fit between the ads!'
His eyes were on the dark walls of the tunnel as they swept by.
'And war is the most entertaining news of all. It's the best story. Human drama, action, explosions, cool machines, medical emergencies, heroes and villains, dramatic locations and constantly changing situations . . . tragedy and triumph. It triggers the most extreme emotions. Everybody wants to report on a war.'
'If everybody wants to report on it,' Amina asked quietly, 'why can't we find out what's really happening over there?'
'War is loud,' Ivor replied. 'If you want to distract people's attention from something, there's nothing better than a bit of death and glory. Isn't this your stop?'
They had agreed to say goodbye publicly, to make it look like they might not be seeing each other again. He stood up to see her off and gave her a hug.
'Maybe I'll see you again sometime,' he said.
'Yeah, let's keep in touch,' she replied.
On impulse, she kissed him on the lips. Ivor was so taken aback, he almost forgot to wave as she got off. She turned to watch him through the window as the train pulled away.
There was a man standing behind her wearing a leather biker jacket and jeans. His face was a blurred smudge. The train moved away into the tunnel before Ivor could do anything to warn her.
9
Ivor tried to reach Amina on his mobile as soon as he came out of the station, but he couldn't get through. She was probably on the connecting train home. Deciding a text or message on her voicemail would do more harm than good he hung up, swearing under his breath.
Frustration, fear and rage whirled through him in a confused mass. He wasn't thinking this through. They knew they were being followed. They had said the safest thing to do was to avoid contact for a while. The man he had seen behind Amina probably wasn't there to harm her, but even the slightest chance that he might be was enough to terrify Ivor. What should he do? Try and reach her at home? He knew where she lived. He had the solid steel bar from his dumb-bell and his stun-gun in his pockets in case of trouble. But maybe this was a test. The man on the platform might have known the effect he would have – he could have been attempting to get a reaction out of Ivor, to see what he would do. If Ivor sought Amina out, he could be endangering them both. Perhaps he shouldn't react at all.
But the thought that she might be in danger ate into him, making his skin tighten, searing him like acid. It was all he could do not to seek out a taxi and drive straight to her house.
It was starting to get dark. Ivor jammed his hands in his jacket pockets and walked quickly with his head down, trying to get his thoughts into some kind of order. He became aware of somebody walking behind him. Out of habit, he checked the darkened reflection in the window of a designer clothing shop as he passed. It was a short, stout man wearing a woollen cap and a bomber jacket. There was nobody else on the street. Ivor stopped suddenly, pulling his hands free and patting his pockets as if searching for something. He glanced at his watch and then looked back the way he had come, givi
ng the impression that he was thinking of going back for whatever he had forgotten.
The man behind him had no face. Ivor was careful not to react. Instead, he made a disgusted expression and started back along the path. As they passed each other, Ivor turned, pulled his stun-gun from his pocket and fired it into the man's back.
The two darts pierced the man's jacket, embedding themselves in his skin, trailing two wires from the gun. Two hundred volts shot through his body, jolting him rigid. He collapsed to the ground with a gasp. Ivor gave him an extra shock for good measure and then grabbed the man by his collar and pulled him into an alley around the side of the shop.
It took a little over a minute for the man to come round. He was obviously in good shape. Ivor could not see his face, no matter how hard he looked. Just the eyes were visible, blinking slowly. It had a sickening effect on him. What the hell had they done to him?
'Who are you?' Ivor hissed at him, brandishing the stun-gun, which was still wired to the man's body. 'Who are you working for?'
There was no way of telling what expression the man was wearing, but his voice said it all.
'I don't know what you're talking about,' he grunted, his eyes staring up at Ivor. 'You just attacked me for no reason. I have no idea who you are.'
The words were clear enough, but it was how he said them that rattled Ivor. He was far too calm. It was as if he was lying without any attempt to make it convincing. There was no fear or confusion or outrage in his voice, as there should have been if he were telling the truth. But there was an edge to it; one that implied that he was in control of this situation, and not Ivor. To persuade him otherwise, Ivor punched him where his nose should have been. He felt a satisfying crack.
'I'm going to ask you one more time,' he snarled. 'Then I'm going to keep triggering this thing until the battery runs out, you get me? Who are you? Who are you working for?'
'This is all in your head,' the man told him. 'You're having a nightmare you can't wake up from because you are awake. You need help, Ivor. And we can give you that help.'