The Lawyer by Charlotte E Hart
Epilogue
IVY
It’s his eyes that make me shiver, the way they seem to sit low in his head, as he stares at me from across the room. I hold my nerve regardless, keep my chin up and gaze trained on his. Nothing normally changes in these interviews. All military leaders are the same, and the lower ranking militia beneath them certainly are. Corrupt, usually dismissive of anything remotely truthful, and biased to their own cause. This time, though, this one in particular—Asif Hadamain Hussain—seems antagonistic rather than arrogant.
“In the last attempt at a coup, the journalists were blamed for fuelling anti-war propaganda. Explain your new movement precisely so that doesn't happen again.” He just looks at me, slowly rolling his neck as if the option is beneath his status. Given the six armed guards around us, and the whole fucking army standing no less than a hundred meters from us outside, I’m beginning to wonder how close he is to the top of the food chain.
Gunshots ricochet outside the small tent we’re in, driving up the fear levels I’ve been under since arriving here to investigate this story. The only thing remotely reassuring I’ve had to desensitise myself to this situation has been the conversation with Landon. And that’s not something I could call comforting in the slightest.
“I’m trying to tell your side of this, Asif. I can’t write a damn thing if you don’t give me something.”
He stands suddenly, and the chair he was sitting in tumbles to the floor behind him. All six guards turn their guns inwards, not one of them looking at anything else but me. I drop the recorder I’m holding into my lap, both my hands going up in the air.
“You are Ivy Broderick,” he says, his heavy accent making the name sound alien. My gaze flits around, breath trying to stay calm. They shouldn’t know that. I never tell anyone my name, certainly not when I’m somewhere like here. “Tell me what you want, Ivy Broderick.”
“I don’t know who you’re talking about, but—”
“Enough lies. What do you want?”
“The story. Your side of it.” The soft sound of footsteps on sand gets closer to my back, two of the guards walking closer. “You agreed to this Asif. Just give me something and then I can sell it. You want your voice heard, let me help you.”
He walks closer, close enough that I can smell the stench and heat of blood all over him, and picks up the recorder in my lap. “Who sent you?”
“No one. I’m freelance. You know that if you know who I am.”
“I don’t believe you.” Another round of weapons fire outside of the tent, shouts and screams of potential triumph about something following. “General Kalif would not stop. You are here because of him. To infiltrate. To tell lies and breed contempt amongst the new leaders.”
Stupid or not, I stand and hold my hand out for the recorder he’s still grasping, hoping my show of scorn might work. He drops it immediately, his boot slowly closing over the top of it until it crushes under his weight.
“Look, if you’re not willing to talk, I’ll go. I came here for you, Asif, to show the world you have reasons that are relevant. But if you’re insinuating that I’m somehow here to covertly source information for Kalif, there’s no point.”
He looks up behind me, nods, and two sets of hands suddenly haul me backwards so fiercely I squeal at the assault. Nothing stops. They keep dragging me, kicking sand up in my face as they do, until we’re outside the tent and going somewhere else.
Dark night skies hinder my sight, and all I can make out is the lines of walls and old abandoned buildings I’m being towed around.
I stumble, only to be lifted and dragged again.
“Asif? What the fuck?” I call, hoping for a reprieve.
Nothing.
Fight instinct starts to kick in, and I struggle and squirm as I’m hauled towards an old truck. My feet dig in, weight leaning back to try and counter the inevitable. They’re too strong, though, and I end up feeling my whole body being lifted and thrown into the open doors. I hit hard, my shoulder jarring on the harsh steel surface, and listen to the sound of both doors slamming around me.
Fuck.
Pitch black.
Scrambling backwards, I tuck up tight into a corner and pant. What the hell now? I knew I shouldn’t have taken this job. Me and my fucking mind need to get a grip of themselves. If I hadn't sat in that café the other night, I never would have heard the commotion, and then I wouldn’t have eavesdropped at the bar when they started talking about the bloody coup in the first place. Tracking Asif down was idiotic enough, but following his directive about only meeting here was monumentally stupid.
The engine starts under me, and before I’ve even got a chance to get to my feet and attempt escape, it’s pulling off, and I’m being tossed around because of the rough ground. My fingers grip the metal above my head, hanging on for dear life, and then I look at the doors. I’m getting out of here before I’m taken wherever they’re aiming for. Fuck knows what might be waiting for me, but I’m no damsel in distress.
Stumbling towards the back of the truck, I eventually find the handles and try wrenching them open. They’re stuck fast. I pull the pins out of my hair, perhaps hoping to jack the locks somehow with the only piece of metal on me. That doesn’t work either, so I try wrenching and pulling again in a desperate bid for freedom. Nothing happens but me being thrown to the floor again as we race over more harsh terrain. My fists hit some part of the wall, fingernails trying to prise off some of the casing. Still nothing.
Frustrated, I sit and run through my options. There aren’t many that I can think of that end particularly well. If Asif believes I’m an enemy, I can only assume I’m on the way to one of his prison camps. Journalists are useful as bait, especially when they’ve got my name attached to them. Jesus, I don’t even know how he found out who I am, and now I’m on my way to some vile hovel of exile so he can ransom me off to the highest bidder?
This has not gone well.
And it does not go well for another Christ knows how long, as I continue to be bumped and barged around in this fucking truck. It’s dark, stifling hot, and all I can smell is the scent of death that’s probably already occurred in this space.
My head drops into my hands, frantic thoughts taking me back home to a family that, while oddly disjointed, is everything to me. They need me, and I need them, and now I’m possibly going to die, and there’s not a damn thing I can do to get myself out of the situation I’ve put myself in.
A sudden crash sends me rolling sideways, and my head rebounds off the side of the truck. I claw hold of the side of the vehicle as my body rolls over itself and the truck falls sideways. It turns again and again until I eventually feel my battered frame level out. Quiet for a second or two, and then gunshot sounds almost immediately.
I move, dazed from the impacts all over me, and inch towards the doors in a blur. They’ve buckled open slightly, and a slither of light peels in from headlights outside. I kick at them, using the sound of the gunshot to cover my noise, and then start trying to squeeze myself through the small gap I’ve created. It’s not big enough, and I rally to kick my way out again, but blinding light streaks into my eyes from nowhere.
“Jesus,” falls out of me as I stumble backwards.
The doors are sprung open, and the light gets brighter as the gunfire continues outside. I cower, shoving myself to the front of the truck as far as I can go. This is it. I am going to die, or be raped, or bloody worse that I can’t think about at the moment.
“Get the fuck up,” whispers from someone.
My gaze sneaks back up at the sound of his British accent, hand trying to shield me from its intensity. “Up. Quick.” The light drops a little, and I see the figure of a guy climbing in to me, a rifle hanging low in one of his hands and the other reaching for me. “Calm down. Listen. Do as I say. Come on.”
He’s got my arm in his hand before I agree to anything, and the full force of him starts pulling me towards the doors. I slide across the metal, feet trying to cling onto the relative safety of this truck for some odd reason.
“Maybe not fucking fighting me would be helpful,” he seethes, yanking me out of the open doors and into the night. I’m shoved by his hand on the back of my neck, hard fingers gripping and pushing. “Keep your head down and move.”
“What's going on?” I stutter.
“Quiet.” His gun’s up in front of us before I focus on the answer, a bolt of light and noise firing out of it. I almost gasp at the sight of a man dropping to the ground in front of us, but I’m pushed forward again to the undergrowth before I can. “Keep breathing, keep moving,” he hisses.
“Who are you?” I ask, running through the brush.
He turns us both, gun up again and pointing back where we’ve come from. “Saviour, I guess.” A shot comes over our shoulder, more men suddenly arriving from somewhere, and I watch another body drop to the ground behind us.
I spin in his strong hold, head into his chest because at the moment, he’s the only thing I’ve got. His arm goes around my back, the gun leaning on my shoulder, and he drags me backwards.
“Rhodes? That you?” His whole body relaxes at the sound of that name being called, the metal on my shoulder slowly lowering.
“Yeah.”
“What you got there?”
“Don’t know. She sure as shit wasn’t in the back of that truck for a date, though.”
I lift my face out of his chest, watching as more lights start strobing over the floor towards us. “I’m a journalist.”
Five men get closer to me, all of them as filthy as I am and dressed like they’re in the war zone they're in. I look them over, still unsure what is about to happen, and then look back at my saviour in the hope that he still is. He doesn’t smile, nor does he give me any indication that this is a team I want to be onside with in the dead of night. He backs off instead and lets his gaze roam over my body. It’s hungry enough that I turn to look at the other guys, two of which are smiling about something.
My hand goes up. “Don’t even think about it. If you knew who I was, you wouldn’t even contemplate it.”
“Who you are was just about dead in the back of a truck,” one of them says. “I’m thinking you should show a little gratitude.”
The very way he says it makes my skin crawl, and I turn back to look at the one guy I’ve got any hope of trusting. “I’m Ivy Broderick. Of Broderick Media. I was here for an interview with Asif Hussain, and he thought I’d been sent in to spy for Kalif.” He pulls the baseball cap off his head, his fingers running through his lank, dark hair.
“Broderick Media, huh?”
“Yes.”
He comes in closer, his gun to his side as he starts pulling some gloves off his hands. It isn’t until he comes into enough light and his features are clear that I realise my saviour is wearing the same as the other guys. A tattered, bulletproof vest over his chest. Light brown coloured camo gear. Heavy, sweat covered forearms lead out of his shirt as he wipes his hands on his gloves.
“Which regiment are you?”
“I don’t think anyone here knows you well enough for that, Ivy Broderick. Although, I’d like to change that.” Another hungry gaze, this time filled with a smile that might well be attractive on any other day of the fucking week. Not today, though. And definitely not when there’s five of them to contend with.
I twist, look at the other four, and then back at him.
And then I do the only thing I’ve got left.
I run.