“Both sides are doing it, and both sides are wrong.”
“Maybe later, we could run it. Maybe.”
“How many kids have to die before it’s the right time?”
“We live here,” Kevin said. “Our kids live here. The Free Women are hanging on by a thread in Haughville. If the rebels break through, everybody you see in this room will be killed.”
“What I’m hearing is you think war crimes are okay,” she shot back, “as long as they help your side win.”
Kevin tossed his hands. “Jimmy, help me out here.”
“It’s the politics,” Jimmy said. “It’s a very delicate—”
“If we air that part of the interview, the militias will shut us down,” the Maestro cut in. “End of story. If you don’t like it, start your own radio station.”
Gabrielle looked at the men’s faces one by one hoping for an opening, a compromise, some way to get the word out. They stared back at her offering nothing. She wanted to say more but knew it would do no good. In fact, it might burn her relationship with them. She needed them on her side.
But she wasn’t on their side.
“Vous êtes trou d’cul,” Gabrielle spat. “C’est d’la marde.”
The men bristled further. Whatever she was saying, they didn’t like it. Which was appropriate, as she’d called them assholes and the situation a pile of shit.
“And you know what?” she went on. “Any side of this war that uses children as weapons doesn’t deserve to win.”
The men’s faces hardened. It was time for her to go.
And there, she thought, goes my CNN Factor.
FORTY-FOUR
The Castle bar had a name, the Keep. Appropriate for a city under siege, Aubrey thought, though nowhere in Indy was exactly safe. To her, the bar was instead an oasis, a place to escape for a while, not hold fast. So that’s what she called it.
Right now, she found its opulence stifling and the helpful service irritating. Even the piano grated on her nerves. She fidgeted, eyes glued on the entrance, oblivious to the murmur of the lunch crowd surrounding her.
Rafael rested his hand on hers. “He will come.”
She pulled her hand away and sipped her wine without tasting it.
He was right, nobody showed up anywhere on time these days. Protests, strikes, snipers, shelling, not to mention the terrific amount of snow blanketing the roads. Commuting had gone from hassle to hazardous.
“You’re a wonderful man and I like you a lot,” Aubrey said. “But don’t pet an alley cat waiting for her mouse.”
The photojournalist sat back and crossed his arms.
She said, “I told you not to fall in love with me.”
“Your mouse is here.”
Terry Allen huffed to the table and sat. He eyed the drink in front of him. “I hope that’s what I think it is and that it’s for me.”
Before they could answer, he scooped up the scotch and water that Rafael had ordered in anticipation of his arrival. He took a hefty sip and sighed.
“How bad is it out there?” Aubrey said.
Terry had come from city hall, where he’d mined his contacts for an update on the strategic situation.
“Nothing much is happening this morning, from what I could tell,” he grunted. “The foul weather.”
“Do you think the Free Women can hold?” Aubrey asked next.
“The situation is precarious. The real story is the government response, or should I say lack thereof. They’re sending supplies but no reinforcements, while they wank on about how they’re all united behind defending Haughville.”
For now, the IMPD was staying on the east side of the White.
“The government doesn’t care,” she blurted, the insight surprising her. “Territory doesn’t matter, only holding out until peace is declared in Ottawa. Meanwhile, the rebels and Leftists tear each other apart.”
“I think that’s a fairly astute assessment,” Terry said. “Now what did you want to talk to me about?”
She leaned forward. “I have a story.”
He nodded as if he’d expected this. “I’m all ears.”
“The Chronicle won’t publish it for political reasons.” Gabrielle, meanwhile, had tried but failed to get the major radio stations interested in talking about it, more self-censorship in action. “I’m hoping The Guardian will take it on.”
Terry’s big shoulders raised in a shrug. “I’ll be happy to consider it.”
“I need to be clear on this. It’s my story. I’m offering a partnership.”
He inspected his drink. “A shared byline?”
“That’s right.”
“Well, that’s bloody unorthodox.” Terry shot Rafael a look. “Is it worthwhile?”
The Frenchman nodded. “L’Opinion has its own interest. Aubrey does not need to work with you. However, she believes this story is very important to her country and wants it to appear first in a prominent English-language newspaper.”
“What about your interest?”
Rafael smiled. “I am freelance.”
“So you’re available if I’d need photos.” Terry finished his drink. “All right, Chronicle. If it’s as good as you say, I’ll get you a shared byline. I give you my word on that. Should I take it on, however, it’s my story. I’ll be making final decisions on content. Understood?”
“Deal,” she answered. “But after this, I’m not sure I’ll be with the Chronicle, so you might as well start calling me Aubrey.”
“Now that we understand each other, what’s this all about?”
“The militias are using child soldiers,” Aubrey said. “Kids working as porters, messengers, even fighters. Kids with guns. Kids who are fighting and dying.”
Terry turned to Rafael. “Were you aware of this?”
“Yes. In New Orleans. I believed what I had seen was isolated occurrences, but I was wrong. From what Aubrey says, it seems to be systematic and growing, at least in this city.”
The journalist reddened. Aubrey guessed he hadn’t known. Though a war correspondent, he stayed away from the fighting. He preferred to work behind the lines to get his stories. In his view, the front lines were always the same everywhere and offered little in terms of hard facts.
Instead, Terry focused his attention on the top. His gift was seeing through the government’s bullshit while cultivating contacts who gave him pieces of the real story. He wasn’t interested in exploring larger issues in singular stories. His Grail was finding truth in the big picture, a needle in a smoke cloud.
Aubrey didn’t care how he did his job. Whatever he was doing, it worked well for him and his readers. He produced timely and accurate stories. But men were men. Terry thought he was losing macho points being the last to know something.
He growled, “Let me see what you’ve got.”
She handed over her story and notes. He started reading and paused to push his empty glass across the table.
“Order me another of these,” he said. “If it’s not too much trouble.”
Rafael raised his hand for service and ordered another drink. Aubrey squeezed his leg under the table while she watched Terry read.
The reporter set the papers down. “This is a good start.”
She bristled. She’d read him wrong as a mouse. He was an alley cat, like her.
“What do you mean, a start?”
“Look, there’s no depth. It’s a fair piece, but this is a much bigger story than you’re letting on. For example, we don’t really know why this is happening.”
Aubrey had supposed child soldiers were being used because the militias lacked manpower and money to pay fighters. She’d guessed the children came to the militias on their own, just as Hannah had, or were brought along by their parents.
But Terry was right, she hadn’t asked Hannah, Maria, or Alex to explain it in their own words.
“What do you propose?” she said.
“Two items,” the reporter answered. “We take a more comprehensive l
ook at how many child soldiers are actually being used in the city. Then we get some of them to tell their story.”
He was proposing a lot of legwork, but he was right. She’d fast-tracked in the rush to get to print first. This was journalism. Time and energy to build a story piece by piece. Biting down on its leg and never letting go.
His big picture that told the truth on the ground, her human stories that revealed a single bigger truth. They would make a good team.
His drink arrived. Barely two o’clock in the afternoon. Aubrey guessed it wouldn’t put a dent in him. In her experience, war correspondents drank like fish.
“We can start with Hannah and Maria.” She stood and took out her phone. “I’ll call my UNICEF contact while you finish your drink. They’re working on a ballpark estimate of the number of child soldiers in the militias.”
“Just a moment,” he said. “First, I’d like to know what’s in this for you.”
Aubrey resumed her seat. “I’m not following.”
“You just informed me your newspaper won’t publish the story for political reasons. I take that to mean these facts are upsetting to very powerful people.”
“That’s right.”
“But you feel the story is important,” he said. “Children being used as weapons. Dreadful stuff. You’re hoping that getting the story out will put a stop to it. That’s why you reached out to me.”
“That’s also right.”
“You do realize you’re still going to upset very powerful people?”
“I could be fired.” Seeing Terry raise an eyebrow, Aubrey added, “Or worse.”
“Then why ask for a shared byline? I can run with this on my own. I’m a foreigner. The worst they’ll do, I think, is send me home.”
She hesitated. There was no simple answer. Plenty of justifications had already crossed her mind. The First Amendment, the America she believed in, the need for her countrymen to see a fellow American had broken the story.
“I assure you,” he added, “I’ll give this my all. It’s despicable, involving kids in this war. I’m a father myself, with two little ones back home.”
“I appreciate that, but I still want in.”
“Why?”
Aubrey said, “Because the truth matters, and it’s my job to tell it.”
Terry eyed her for a few moments, seemingly torn between accepting her answer and trying again to talk her out of risking her life.
In the end, he nodded and tossed back his drink. “No need to waste daylight, Aubrey. We have a story to write.”
FORTY-FIVE
In the ruins behind the front line, Alex trudged through drifts dropped by yesterday’s snowfall. The wind blew tiny bits of ice against his face. He dipped his head, mesmerized by sunlight glittering on the fresh snow.
Mitch and Tom followed in his tracks.
Alex was hungover and bone tired. Last night, Bravo had gotten him good and lit. He’d stayed up late hearing their war stories. After that, he’d stood guard duty and caught a few hours of fitful sleep until dawn.
He was glad there’d be no fighting today. Getting shot in the cold would be the worst—
Alex flinched at a sharp shock to the head.
“You want to get killed?” Mitch growled. “Pay attention.”
They were supposed to be behind the front line, but that wasn’t a sure thing. The line now snaked all over the neighborhood.
He clenched his teeth. “Roger that, Sergeant.”
Something had put the sergeant in a black mood.
It probably had something to do with whatever he’d found out at last night’s meeting with the colonel. The Christmas offensive had bogged down under the women’s ferocious resistance and the blizzard. They seemed to be winning, but maybe their position was more precarious than Alex was being told.
As long as he isn’t mad at me, he thought.
The clinic was a simple, boxy white building. Garbage bins overflowing with bloody linens stood out front in a ragged line. A few starving dogs rooted through piles of rags on the ground. They fled as the militiamen neared.
Alex walked up to the doors and entered bedlam.
A few exhausted nurses worked the crowded reception. The wounded lay in their own filth. The air stank of blood and piss and death. The nurses triaged the wounded, shouting for IV drips, resuscitation gear, immediate prep for surgery.
Alex stepped aside as two Liberty Tree fighters carried a comrade out on a stretcher. The worst off were being moved to a militia hospital behind the lines.
A hand clutched his ankle. Alex recoiled from the blanching brown face and kicked until the hand released him.
“Water,” the man groaned.
Militia, but not Liberty Tree. Alex scanned the room again. The place was filled with a mix of Liberty Tree, libs, civilians.
“You with the Indy 300?” he said.
“Water.” The man licked his lips. “Please…”
Alex shot Mitch a questioning look. The sergeant nodded.
The lib took a few gulps from his canteen. “Thank you.”
Alex said nothing. Rejoinders flitted through his mind. You did good out there. You guys are tough. Hey, in the end, we’re all Americans. Each more trite than the last. The man groaned and clutched a bloody rag against his guts.
You’re going to die for nothing.
Mitch whistled to get his attention. He’d found Casey, one of his militiamen, sitting in a nearby corridor, bandaged leg stretched out in front of him. Alex knew little about the man other than he’d left his family farm to fight.
“How are you?” Mitch asked him.
The man grimaced. “I’m hanging in, Sergeant.”
“We’ll give you something for the pain,” Tom offered.
Mitch crouched to inspect the swollen leg. “Let me take a look at it first.”
The sergeant unwrapped the bandage. Alex glimpsed a jagged, bloody hole in the muscle around the soldier’s shinbone. He shifted his gaze to study the wall.
“You’ll be all right,” Mitch said.
His arm shot out to block the path of a nurse rushing down the hall hugging a pile of linens. She froze and stared at his rifle.
“This man needs his leg fixed up,” he said.
The nurse gaped at him.
“Do you speak English? Go get a doctor. Now.”
She ran off, ignoring the cries of the wounded sitting or lying on the sides of the corridor. A man emerged fuming from a nearby room.
“I’m Dr. Walker. Can I help you, sir?”
“This man is under my command. I need you to patch up his leg.”
The doctor wore a surgeon’s smock peppered with lines of blood spray like grisly modern art. “He was triaged. He’ll receive treatment in order of priority.”
Mitch put his hand on the grip of his rifle. “I ain’t asking you again.”
The doctor’s laughter surprised them.
“I don’t care if you’re asking or telling,” he said. “We have a small staff, our supplies are down to almost nothing, and we have a lot of people here who will die if they don’t get treated first.”
“I see plenty Indy 300 here,” Tom said. “You treating them over our guys?”
“You think it matters to me what uniform they wear? Whoever needs life-saving treatment gets it first. Just as I treated your men first if they needed it when the 300 controlled the neighborhood. The 300 went along with that, and I expect you to accept it too.” He eyed Mitch’s rifle. “Are you going to shoot me?”
Mitch released the grip. “No.”
“Then kindly get out of here so we can do our work.”
“Wait up, Doc. You need anything?”
“Cigarettes,” said Walker. “So I don’t have to operate while going through withdrawal.”
Mitch nodded. “We can get you some.”
“And anything else you can spare. Gas for the generator, or if you don’t have that, some car batteries. Antibiotics, blood bags, aspirin, ketamine, plas
ma. It’s great you guys show up here with your blood type written on your sleeve, but it doesn’t help if I have no blood. Help me help you, sir.”
“I’ll talk to the colonel.”
“Good.” Walker turned and called back over his shoulder, “Menthol, if you don’t mind.”
“Well, shit,” Tom said in wonder.
“We don’t need him,” Mitch said. “I’ll do it myself.”
He gave Casey a shot of morphine from his med kit. The man’s sweaty grimace morphed into a dreamy smile. This time, Alex didn’t turn away. Mitch poured alcohol over the jagged hole and worked the bone with tweezers until he wiggled a squashed chunk of metal free. He flung it away.
“That ain’t the bullet that’s going to kill you,” the sergeant said. He thumbed a bullet from a spare magazine and pressed it into Casey’s hand. “This is the one. You keep it. As long as you have it, it can’t do its job.”
Casey nodded, his face slick with sweat. “Thanks, Sergeant.”
Mitch taped the wound shut. “We’ll scrounge up some penicillin. Until then, keep it clean, and hang tight.”
The farm boy’s eyes closed. “I’m good.”
Worry etched Mitch’s face. Grady was dead, Casey wounded. The platoon had taken thirty percent casualties. Maybe that’s what’s bugging him, Alex thought. Tough love was still love. Maybe Mitch had taken it all hard.
Alex wanted one of those lucky bullets for himself.
The sergeant stood and dusted his pants. Time to go. Alex looked forward to putting this place out of sight and mind.
“A lot of ladies here,” Tom observed. “They’re the ones we’ve been fighting.”
Mitch squatted in front of a woman lying on her back. “We expected nobody, or maybe the Indy 300. Instead, we got you. Who are you?”
“My name is Trish.”
“I mean what’s your outfit.”
She struggled to prop herself up on her elbows. “The Free Women.”
“Never heard of you.”
“You won’t forget us, though, I think.” She grinned. “You fucking fascist.”
He stood to full height. “You ain’t free anymore.”
She lay back with a nod and tuned him out. She didn’t need to be reminded she was going to a deep, dark hole for the rest of the war.
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