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.”
