Scanning the assembled women in my hospital room, my gaze fell on Caroline.I hadn’t expected to see her again so soon, and as she and Kaspar disturbed me from my nap, I was struck by just how wonderful she was all over again.Something about her faltering expression, though, warned me the latest intrusion wasn’t a social call.
“We have news, Mr.Harper.”Kaspar flashed a phone at me as she approached and, once again, my focus slid to the woman I loved.
The way she nibbled at her lower lip told me she was worried about whatever was coming next, and I watched as she pushed the duffle bag she was carrying down onto the floor between us.I didn’t recognize the bag, and I wasn’t sure how she had been able to go back to the house to retrieve it, but I hoped our remaining possessions were tucked safely away in there.
“What’s happened?”My gaze traveled from Caroline to Elsa, and then back to Kaspar.
“Your president has just made a rather public declaration about you.”Kaspar’s stare flitted to Caroline.“It seems he is in disarray without his commander general.”
“He said you were kidnapped.”Caroline’s voice was laced with anger.“Snatched from your ‘crowning jewel’, Fortorus, and taken from the country.”
“What?”My pulse sped up, the acceleration registering on the machines I was still attached to.“Ian said this?”
The small-minded little prick I’d rescued my little girl from was many things, but concerned about the fate of those who fled didn’t sound likely.Ian would have been enraged at my audacity, and I had no doubt others would have paid the price in my absence.He was nothing if not cruel and unjust.
“See for yourself.”Kaspar thrust the device at me, and my gaze fell over the still image of the second man in English history who’d deposed the monarchy and crowned himself the king.Staring at the picture, I could scarcely believe I’d once called the man a friend, let alone followed him so far into lunacy.“Caroline and I watched in the car.”
Pulling in a steadying breath, I pressed play on the phone and ushered Caroline to my side while I waited for the video to load.She closed the distance between us, nudging the bag to the side of my bed as the image of Ian abruptly burst into life.
“Good morning.”Ian’s podgy hands gripped the side of the lectern as he stared into the camera and, instinctively, a recollection of the room the press conference had been recorded in burst to the fore of my mind.I knew that place, having had to organize and deliver a number of speeches there myself over the months.Just like the man presiding over it in the video, it was all depressingly familiar to me.“As many of you will be aware, our great nation suffered a terrible blow this month.”
Ian paused, frowning as though he was struggling to go on, but it wasn’t distress I saw in his countenance, only rage.He was trying to hide the emotion, but for someone who knew him as well as I did, the tell-tale tics of his anger, like the reflexive way his lip twitched, were easy to see.
“Commander General Harper, a man I personally know and consider a friend, was taken from our shores.”
Pressing pause, I snorted at the absurdity of his statement.Even for Ian, the statement was bullshit.“This is madness.No one can genuinely think I wastaken!”
I was a grown man, and until recently, a powerful and capable one.Who would have been adept enough to ‘take’ me?
“It’s how he’s spinning it, I suppose.”Caroline reached for my shoulder and squeezed gently.“You know he’s full of hot air.”
“That’s one way of putting it,” I agreed.
“Watch the rest,” Kaspar instructed.“I want to know what your response is.”
My focus darted fleetingly to Caroline, her expression stony as I commanded the video to resume.
“The commander general’s loss is deeply felt.”Ian’s face was somber, as though he was delivering my eulogy.“He was a founding father of this great system and the architect of our mighty Fortorus.”Another pause, that time followed by a deliberate intake of breath.“Needless to say, I shall ensure the glorious place stays strong and flourishes in his absence.”
“He makes it sound like I’m dead.”I rolled my eyes but noticed the way Caroline’s grip loosened at the mention of her prison.
“There is more,” Kaspar goaded.
“I have no doubt.”If there was one thing Ian enjoyed even more than barbarism and pussy, it was the sound of his own voice.
“That is why I want everyone in the country to know who’s responsible for his plight.”Ian’s brow creased.The man was almost certainly psychopathic and had rarely shown anything akin to empathy in all the years I’d known him.The fact that he felt deeply about my loss seemed unlikely, unless I counted his anger.“I want the world to know which whore caused all this trauma.”
Caroline’s grip tightened again on my shoulder, and then and there, I knew what Ian would say next.Shifting forward, I intended to pause the demoralizing show, but my finger seemed to move in slow motion, unable to reach the screen before my odious old friend continued.
“This is the whore!”An image of Caroline’s face appeared on a vast screen behind Ian’s lectern, and from the corner of the room, Elsa took a sharp intake of breath.“A former prisoner at Fortorus, she is no longer entitled to a name, but she was once known as Caroline Craness.Take a good look at her face.”He stepped aside and motioned to the picture.“This is the face of the whore who tried to topple Fortorus.”
My fingertip hesitated by Ian’s head, one facet of me determined to halt his disgusting display of power, while another was darkly fascinated by whatever drivel would come from his lips next.Even by Ian’s standards, he was being ridiculous.How could Caroline have snatched me against my will?Caroline, a woman who, until I had liberated her, had been my captive, and had been weak, unarmed, and malnourished.There was no way she could have achieved the feat without my active participation.He knew it.I knew it, and surely everyone else watching the footage would know.
Except that years of effective and relentless propaganda had done its job back at home.The average Briton seemed liable to fall for any line they were told, so long as the rhetoric was served with vitriol and someone else to blame for the current calamity.On reflection, the population’s compliance with the new regime, although not surprising, was hugely disappointing.
“He’s talking nonsense.”My voice was a throaty growl as my fingertip finally ceded to my will and pressed pause on the screen.“Caroline is not responsible for us leaving.She was one of many victims there.”
“We realize this.”Kaspar pressed her lips into a hard line.“He is obviously saying these things for effect.My question is, what do you think he seeks to achieve from this?”
