Burying
the Lede
by John A. Tures
“You came here at great personal risk for this interview, Miss
Renata.” The leader of the Nationalists grinned as she removed her blindfold.
“You could have done it by phone, or even email. Why do this in person?”
The reporter blinked
several times and then brushed a stray strand of her long black hair from her
pale face as she considered the candles barely illuminating what appeared to be
the end of the tunnel. “There is so much confusion in the war. I didn’t want to
bury the lede.”
The Vice-Commandant
of the Nationalists’ confident gaze flipped to a frown as his men who had
escorted her to the hideaway began to assemble. “Bury…the lead?”
“Lede,” she politely
corrected him. “It means losing the most important part of the story.”
The Nationalists’
leader, identified as public enemy number one not just in his country but in
many other places around the world, stroked his beard calmly. “And, Miss
Renata, what do you believe is, in fact, the lede?”
The journalist pushed
the eraser to the base of her bright red lips, showing some surprising
confidence for someone in her situation. “I’m here to find that out. I feel
most Americans are being fed a great deal of propaganda by my government and
your country’s regime. And I prefer to hear your story in person….to learn what
drove you to engage in armed rebellion against our ally, against such difficult
odds.”
The Vice-Commandant
looked intrigued. “Why do you think we are fighting so hard, Miss Renata?”
She glanced around the
room at the determined faces of the other bearded men in the basement, close to
the tunnel where she had emerged. “I suppose you believe it is the
righteousness of your cause, how firmly you believe this land is sacred to
you.”
Instead of bowing
reverentially, the men laughed.
The reporter paused.
“Am I wrong?”
The Vice-Commandant
pointed to a map on the wall, or more accurately, a series of images of the
country’s shape, often showing the same place in different colors. “It is also
holy to our enemies who currently control the governing apparatus of this
country as well. So many have trodden over the land that it is impossible to
tell who it belongs to, any more than you can pick out the hooves of a specific
horse where a herd has passed through.”
When she gasped
slightly, he added, “But it is so important to many of our followers that they
believe it is worth giving their lives for.”
The reporter
frowned. “But…”
“You perhaps
expected another full-throated defense of our armed actions for a noble cause?”
the Vice-Commandant laughed. “I joined the insurrection as a young man decades
ago against your country’s ally. All it taught me was the hopelessness of such
ideals. We could never hope to beat our regime and their American allies in
open battle. Our fortunes changed when I was in prison, reading the works of
your famous foreign policy professor, Henry Kissinger.”
Her audible gulp
caused the men gathered around her to snicker. One of them came back with
several cans with an American beer brand on it.
“Ironic, isn’t it?”
he continued. “Kissinger is an interesting mentor for me, wouldn’t you say? My
men and I replaced our pious policies with a new god—power. No longer shackled
by the rules of morality, our Nationalists grew strong indeed.”
He fished a
cigarette from his shirt pocket and produced a lighter, leading the reporter’s
eyes to widen further. “Doesn’t your religion frown upon alcohol and
cigarettes?”
The Vice-Commandant
ignored her question. “Would you like to see more evidence of our wealth and
power, my dear?”
She nodded. Then the
leader of the guerillas stood and walked across the room while an underling
shoved aside a work shelf of tools, revealing an extensive number of locks on a
section previously hidden by the power devices. As the door swung open, the
bearded men prodded the correspondent forward.
The Vice-Commandant
pulled the string on several light bulbs. It took a moment for the room to come
into view, but when it did, she needed a hand to cover her mouth to stifle a
cry of shock.
A large cavern was
in front of her containing enough contraband to stock a full bazaar of
debauchery: drugs, alcohol, and guns of all sorts. Posters glorifying violence
ringed the walls. And were those women being herded around like cattle?
“You’re…. nothing
more than a common criminal…a demagogue!” the reporter managed.
“So, you’ve
discovered our secret, ‘the lede,’ as you would say. But are we so different
from your ally’s regime, or even your own country? Western decadence and
depravity have replaced your own nation’s so-called morals. We are no crueler
than your Professor Kissinger, whose power theories took the lives of so many
across the globe.”
The reporter’s mouth
moved, but it took several times before sound emerged. “But…your people are
starving in refugee camps! All of this could have been spent to feed them…save
them!”
The Vice-Commandant
opened one of the laptops from the stacks on a table and clicked a few times
until a familiar website emerged. “Camila Renata, famous American reporter… in
expensive designer clothes. See the rich ball gowns you wear to the White House
Correspondent Dinners and Journalism Awards Ceremonies? How many families could
be fed if you sold those clothes on the open market? Would you part so
willingly with your penthouse, Porsche, and private vacations to feed people
from your own country in distress, much less poor residents in mine?”
Not waiting for a
response, the Nationalist leader pressed on. “You claim to care about our
‘noble struggle,’ but it’s the fame and fortune from obtaining a dangerous
exclusive interview that you care about.”
The correspondent
hung her head, unable to look at the speaker.
“So now you know the
truth about who we really are, and what we do behind the scenes. But that is
still not what you would call, ‘the lede.’”
The journalist’s
head shot up as she wiped away the tears of shame that covered her face.
“The real story that
will go out to the other members of the press around the world is that a
beautiful, famous news writer is now a human shield, a powerful deterrent
against a frontal assault by the soldiers of your country’s ally.”
The woman trembled
as she shook her head. “No…no! I don’t have to report any of this! I can tell
of your people’s struggle—your cause, and your good intentions. I could win you
sympathizers around the world. With my reporting, you could raise the money you
seek, and you wouldn’t need all of…this!” She waved her hand to indicate the
guns, illicit items, and the tied-up women, fearful of facing a similar fate.
The bearded leader
of the Nationalists shook his head. “The audience will look at your pretty
face, ignore your words, and go back to eating their dinners, forgetting
anything you said within the hour. But your captivity will shock the world. It
should make your government and your ally’s regime pause in their counterinsurgency
campaign.”
The correspondent
backed away from the leader of the insurgency. “They’ll only see your cruelty
as captors. They’ll see how you’ll be a tyrant if you ever come to power.”
“They’ll see how
desperate our enemies have made us,” he shot back. “You are our best hope at
staving off a brutal assault.”
The reporter backed
up against the cavern’s walls, clearly cornered, looking around with a panicked
expression as one of the Nationalist subordinates approached with a coil of
rope.
“As much as I’ve
enjoyed our little tete-a-tete, it’s time to cut this interview short,” the
Vice-Commandant announced, as a minion dragged her from the wall and then
pulled her arms behind her back, forcing her wrists to meet at an X, where the
other man with the rope fastened her wrists together.
“Y-you’re making a
big mistake,” the writer screamed.
The man who led the
Nationalists shook his finger at her. “No, Ms. Renata. It is you who have
erred, coming to us so willingly, and unprotected. Being our hostage is now
‘the lede’ as the world will now learn.” He carefully removed the silk
handkerchief from her jacket pocket and then crumpled it into a ball.
“This…is so…unfair!”
she wailed, a second before the Nationalist leader stuffed the cloth into her
mouth. Then he unwound the scarf around her neck, slowly like a serpent
slithering across her shoulder. He stepped behind her and shaped it into a
triangle, reaching over her head to pull the fabric over her nose and lips,
keeping the wad jammed into her mouth.
As he tied the two
ends of her scarf behind her hair falling down her back, the Vice-Commandant
joked “It seems I have…as your people would say…muzzled the press.” He
translated it for his fellow Nationalists, who roared with laughter, nearly
drowning out the journalist’s gagged cries as he led her across the room, past
the other helpless women, to another door which an underling opened with three
keys.
Inside were
furnishings almost as fancy as any five-star hotel. He pushed her to the bed,
which was thankfully soft, though she landed hard enough on her shoulder to
groan in pain after falling on her side.
He pushed her legs
up on the mattress. “Make yourself comfortable, Miss Renata, while I work on
your press release about you being my prisoner and distribute news of your
kidnapping around the world.”
Her muffled replies
could not be made out clearly, but her widened eyes telegraphed fear as he used
his necktie to bind her ankles. He gave a hearty chuckle and then stomped
toward the door, opened it, and banged it shut behind him, locks clicking
loudly.
Inside the palatial
room carved out of the cavern, she listened carefully for the footsteps to fade
away, before she went to work. The knots at her wrists might have rendered a
reporter helpless, but not a trained agent, who was no “damsel-in-distress.”
Quickly, she undid the ropes holding her arms pinned behind her back, and then
rapidly loosened the necktie above her feet so she could kick it off easily.
She considered pulling her scarf from her lips and removing the fabric wadded
in her mouth, but no, that would alert her enemy that she had freed herself.
Better to let him believe he still held her bound and gagged, she thought.
The spy then reached
under her long skirt, locating the small, thin object secured to her leg so the
transmitter would communicate their location to the ally’s government
commandos, waiting a short distance away for final confirmation of where she
was. Then it was time to reach toward her other thigh for another long thin
object, less technological, but far sharper, and more lethal. She held the
weapon behind her back, making it appear that her hands were still tied behind
her back.
As she waited for
her opportunity to attack, she considered what he was doing, announcing the
capture of Camila Renata. But the woman on the bed wasn’t the stylish publicity
hound he thought he had locked away in his lair. The real reporter was safely
tucked in her flat, under agency guard, her silence bought by promises that the
story about an affair with a media mogul, and the pictures, would disappear if
she cooperated until the mission was over. Instead, that newswoman was replaced
by a trained assassin who specialized in disguises, infiltration, and
close-quarters killings.
During the
interview, the Vice-Commandant made a point about the weakness of idealism and
the power of realism. But there was one value the autocratic terrorist had
overlooked in his lesson, one which led her to volunteer eagerly for the
mission, despite the potential peril.
She thought back to
her grandfather, her first political tutor, so handsome in his uniform even in
his later years. Summoned out of retirement, he agreed to lead a peacekeeping mission
to the county she was currently held in, enforcing a cease-fire during a prior
war between the ally and Nationalists, leading to hostage swaps and allowing
peace to take hold. But calm and stability are bad news for any terrorist
group, and a new target was chosen.
Everyone in the
world soon saw the grainy video footage of her grandfather, arms behind his
back, a noose tied around his neck. The bearded man on the film read from the
paper a death sentence for a myriad of made-up crimes. Then the chair was
kicked, leading him to struggle for breath until he expired. But all that the
agent could see in repeated viewings was the once young man, beard less gray
back then, who once pronounced the verdict, now having risen through the ranks
to adopt the title of Vice-Commandant.
They wouldn’t allow
the granddaughter to view the mutilated corpse when it arrived at Dover Air
Force Base. But access to her agency’s files enabled her to see the sad photo,
the image showing why it had to be a closed-casket funeral, and the reason she
would never see her beloved grandfather again, the true source of the tears she
had to produce to convince the Nationalists that she feared for her life.
Shots and screams
now enveloped the cavern as the commandos made short work of the Nationalists.
She steadied her nerves, thinking only of the final moment when she would have
her revenge. Within a minute, she could detect the frantic footsteps outside
the room, the desperate pinging of the locks as the Nationalist leader ripped
open the door, and then flung it behind him, several shots bouncing off it.
After rapidly locking it from the inside, he approached his victim, pistol in
hand. She would be his ticket to safety and perhaps more when he reached that
protection. He climbed on the bed…
In a flash, the
skilled agent slashed the Vice-Commandant’s neck with the retractable blade.
The move shocked him into dropping his firearm. Her second strike cut the other
side of his throat, hitting the jugular vein. As the Nationalist leader fell
from the bed, choking on his blood, she sprang to his side. Pulling down the
scarf below her chin, she spat out the handkerchief from her mouth. She
whispered the name of her grandfather and then revealed to him her real
identity, leaving him quarry bug-eyed at the disclosure.
The assassin completed her mission by
plunging her weapon into the Vice-Commandant’s chest, hissing, “Looks like you
failed to ‘bury the lede.’ Tomorrow’s headline will be your demise.”
