Guardian Knight

by Aarti V Raman

  “Do you trust her?” Brand asked quietly. “Knowing she’s probably digging into your life with her incredibly smart brain? Knowing the consequences of it… just because you want San Magellan safe again.”

  “I trust her, I do,” Sebastian replied instantly. “You think I am a monster because I want to use her for my country’s gain and I don’t care about her life, but you’re wrong. I spent five minutes with that woman in a situation that required guts and heart. And she has both.”

  “Akira isn’t all that.” Brand was very proud of his poker face at that moment.

  It hurt like a bitch to lie to Sebastian because he was so absolutely right about her!

  “When you think about her, you smile. Think about that. Good morning, Brandon. Or should I say, good night?” Seb slipped in and shut the door closed gently.

  Brand’s face turned into stone the minute he heard the click that meant the internal alarm on the door was activated. It was ridiculous that he smiled thinking about a mere woman. Even one as annoying as Akira Ashwin Naik.

  He was Brandon Rice, mercenary extraordinaire. He didn’t think about women. He didn’t have time to think about anything other than his job.

  He almost convinced himself of that fact.

  Fourteen

  “So, I think we are looking at it all wrong.” Ari announced, two weeks later, while she fished out a fresh pad and wrote MOTIVE in big block letters on the very first page with a red felt pen.

  Matt groaned without looking up from his pile of newspaper articles.

  “Don’t ask me to use my brains right now, Akira. I am staying afloat by just feeding you information, you goddamn insatiable robot.”

  Invariably Akira’s mind winged back to Brand’s email about robots, and how funny and chatty and knowledgeable he was.

  With determined and practiced effort she pushed him from her head and continued, “Such defeatist attitude did not journalism awards win.”

  “I don’t want to win one, anyway. Now, in the interest of us getting out of here by sundown, do tell, what are we looking at all wrong?” Matt lifted his head up and flung the article back in the box.

  They’d divided the boxes into trash, useless, and slightly relevant. About thirty fell in the first two categories and they’d been reading from the other twenty-odd boxes for the past ten days. They’d gotten nowhere.

  Akira’s calls to the UN for a confirmation from their ambassador on their position on the San Magellan oil issue had been stonewalled. But that was expected.

  Nobody else had that story too.

  She wished, every time she wrote Brand she wished, she could ask him what he was doing. Where he was. Whether he knew anything about the dicey, very delicate situation in San Magellan, where the rebels were now openly inciting riots and the people were divided into two very definite groups.

  The moderates - who were with Tony Romero - willing to ponder the oil strike and UN issue, weighing the cost-benefit ratio of it all before proceeding. And the extremists who wanted the money the oil would provide to be used for the better of the country and the status of a UN admission and all the perks that went with it.

  “Matthew, you understand why this is very fishy, right?”

  He nodded reluctantly. “I do. Sebastian Delgado was a good man, a good leader and his death deserves more than being completely blackballed.”

  “If he is even dead,” she stated grimly.

  “Alright, you had me at “So”…so, tell me what’s going on and what are we missing?”

  “So far what do we have?” Akira pointed at the board behind them.

  The huge desk they were sitting on had a thick thermal blanket on it and their papers were spread over it. It was a comfortable arrangement and worked for them. After day five, even Matt had stopped complaining about the lack of matching curtains.

  “We have a country that is prominently involved in drug trade since the early seventies and then again in the eighties and nineties, till the death of Escobar.” She pointed at the Escobar massacre sections.

  “We have two parties, one democratic and one socialist, both wildly successful when they came to power and both led by charismatic leaders who genuinely wanted the development of their country.” She pointed to the Oil Board that had these details.

  “Then we have Sebastian Delgado - whose political mentor and eventual opponent Francesco De La Hoya overthrew the Communist government, established a democratic regime, gave people the power and then quietly began the drugs trade all over again.” She pointed at the board where they’d written all this info down in chronological order.

  “Sebastian, who was anyway reeling under the attack of his wife Emily, goes after Francesco, with help from Tony Romero, the current leader, and destroys him politically. Then he takes oath and within months finds oil deposits in the mountainous regions of San Magellan. You with me, so far?”

  Matt nodded, even though he knew she’d asked a rhetorical question.

  “Confirmation obviously takes a whole year, the reports of which still aren’t out. Also, property ownership of the land is under question. Since most of the Santa Boronias are perfectly uninhabitable, they assumed the land belonged to the current, democratic government.”

  They’d put this point down under ownership on the Oil Board.

  “Sebastian Delgado, leader of said government, his cabinet ministry which includes Alfredo Moya, Tony Romero, Geraldo De La Hoya, Francesco’s nephew, and Bernard Garcia all support his plan of using the profits from the oil to develop the country as a whole by nationalizing the oil strikes. But, before they can nationalize the wells, three things happen almost simultaneously.” Akira erased everything on the Sebastian Delgado board now.

  Matt startled, even though he was taken up with her story.

  She wrote in bold letters - ATTACK.

  “First, Sebastian gets attacked.”

  Then Akira wrote REBELS. “Then, two, not one…but two rebel fractions of the country, who were till now just minor players nobody paid any attention to, including the international political media, vow retribution on Sebastian if he tried to give away the oil wells. Either to the United Nations or to private investors. They want it “for the people” whatever that means.”

  “And lastly, the United Nations, that colonialist, elitist organization extends a warm welcome to induct another country which will benefit from its supposed support. San Magellan. It just wants an answer real fast, so that it can start conducting more of its business on the American continent and leave the Middle-East mess behind. South America is even more underdeveloped, and would be more grateful for its dealings with the UN. And the UN and its member countries, namely the Big Cheese will get their oil cheaper. Everybody wins.”

  The last phrase Akira wrote was UN: OIL.

  She turned to look at Matt with a wicked smile. “Now tell me, Matthew, what’s wrong with this picture.”

  “Uh, nothing? Sebastian’s country and his party win if he joins the UN, getting political sanctions lifted against his country and its neighbors. Development opportunities will proliferate if he does. And all he has to do is give up the oil, and not even all of it,” Matt argued.

  Akira smiled some more. “And, exactly, who loses if Sebastian and his country get their exalted status?”

  “Venezuela. They won't feel so special anymore.” Matt ventured.

  “Oh come on, Matt. Use that brain God mistakenly provided you with.”

  “Let me guess, our brothers on the desert.” Matthew sighed.

  Akira nodded. “Exactly. The only real losers in this deal are the people who are selling the same product Sebastian allegedly had. And they have more to lose than Sebastian had to gain with this venture.”

  “But a three-pronged attack?” Matt looked at the white board that only had four words in huge letters on it.

  “Why not? Take the guy’s life, problem solved. Get the UN involved, they’d all be fighting over the booty like vultures over carcasses, again pro
blem solved. And, thirdly, introduce anarchy. Problem. Solved.” Akira ended with savage satisfaction.

  “And do we have suspects? Proof? Apart from pure conjecture and bullshit?” Matt asked her pleasantly while he hopped down from the table and came to stand in front of board.

  “Tell me it’s plausible. Tell me this really could be about the oil,” Akira said quietly, while she gripped his arm.

  “Akira.”

  “Tell me you believe me and I will get you proof.”

  “I believe that you believe.” Matt grinned wanly, squeezed her numb fingers together.

  Akira smiled back, a little demented but that was to be expected. Her head was swimming with facts and figures and numbers and dates and names.

  Theories and past stories and headlines and political dissertations about the dwindling state of today’s economies were playing in her head like an Ashutosh Gowarikar film on loop.

  But, that’s what made her job so special. It made it all worthwhile.

  “That’s good enough for now. And I have a plan on how I am going to get that picture I want for my prize-winning story.” Akira rubbed her palms together.

  Matthew was instantly wary. “How?”

  “I am going to write an obituary to die for.”

  ~~~~~

  Hi Brand,

  I opened my inbox and saw like three mails from you. Does this mean you finally find me irresistible or is it that you’re impatient to know whether I am dead or alive? *wink*

  You’d asked me once where I’d like to vacation. And I can say I finally have an answer for you now. It’s Paris, the city that Gertrude Stein called her hometown. Nothing that is anywhere near a yacht, of course, but you’ll find that understandable, won't you?

  Do pacemakers and bazookas really share almost the same basic components? I didn’t know that. Do tell me more.

  Oh, and since my equipment finally arrived last week, (thank you) I have been busy putting together my San Magellan series. Sending you two articles as attachments. And the links to them, if you can't access the attachments.

  See if you can find where you’re mentioned.

  Bye for now,

  Akira.

  Attachments: Night of Terror Aboard The Sea Princess: First Hand Eye-Witness Account.

  Birth of A Man: the Sebastian Delgado Story

  Death of a To-Be Legend: Obituary of Sebastian Delgado.

  Akira hit send and tapped her foot impatiently. The stories had hit the papers about three days ago and Akarshdeep had been inundated with calls and emails ever since.

  Her photos, her pull quotes, especially from the Argentinean ambassador were in demand. Her stories, all three of them had become instant successes, not least because they were eye witness accounts of events that were still shrouded in mystery for the rest of the world.

  And they had done what Akira had hoped they would do.

  The calls had begun to come after the end of press on the first day, a Monday. Her obituary had been written in such a manner that most people were left with an impression of Sebastian Delgado being still alive.

  Combining that with her own account of what had happened at the documentary premiere where her last glimpse had been that of a vibrant, heroic, still alive Sebastian had made all the crazies come out of the woodwork.

  She’d started hitting all her European sources, because she was convinced that the former premier would flee the Americas and hide out in another continent altogether before he came forward to reclaim his rightful place. Regardless of whatever dangerous game he was playing.

  She’d given shout outs to the stringers in Asia and Australia and come up with zilch.

  Nobody had heard reports of any odd VIPs who’d entered their territory under mysterious circumstances. Nobody had heard any reports of any specialist surgeons being flown out anywhere to repair heart and lung damage. Nothing.

  But Akira was persistent, reaching. She’d started looking at huge real-estate acquisitions and purchases made over the last month. Everywhere in the world. Her buddy at the local Grants offices had helped her out with his password. She’d focused on Europe mostly, because the stringers there were slow in responding to her requests of unusual sightings.

  She’d come across at least seventy suspicious properties bought under umbrella corporations and sham names. And she and Matt had painstakingly checked out each of these properties before figuring that the only way they could ever hit some kind of lucky strike was if they had some help.

  By now, the story had hit the papers and even one of the big time political magazines.

  Then, they’d struck pay dirt.

  One of the stringers had sent an innocuous enough item from a small paper in Switzerland which had mentioned how a group of security experts were securing a new chalet for their invisible millionaire boss and helping out the local town authorities with their own cyber security program. One of the sources who had been quoted was a six-foot-four black man named Markham Legrand.

  And he’d talked about their resident technical expert Lucas Manchester, a man who’d been approached to head the biosecurity department at MIT.

  Akira would have passed over the article usually, but the stringer had written on it, “Sound like your man?”

  Markham was a very distinctive name, especially Markham LeGrand. And Lucas Manchester was one of the men Henry had talked about that day on the Sea Princess. Henry had mentioned about how the man had been approached by MIT to do big important stuff for them.

  He’d called him Luke of course. And no last names had been mentioned.

  But Akira was willing to overlook the obvious probability of failure and go out on a limb to meet with Stephan Flaubert, the stringer, in an effort to get him to talk.

  She’d chosen this roundabout way because, if the men in the little Swiss town were Brand and his men and Delgado was with them, they’d run the minute she set foot on her Swiss Air flight. She wanted pictures, she wanted quotes and she wanted confirmation before she crossed the Alps.

  Akarshdeep had almost approved her request to be part of the Roland Garros press corp for a week and she was leaving in the morning.

  She smiled as she waved her goodbyes in the office, poked her head into Akarshdeep Singh’s office one last time and got a gruff good luck for her effort. Matthew had taken off to Malaysia for the crashing of an airplane under extremely mysterious circumstances.

  And besides, she didn’t really want him to come to Paris with her.

  She punched the down button on the elevator banks. Read the text from Matthew.

  Don’t drink and make merry too much in Paris. Leave some hotties for me too, mere humdum, mere dost.

  She didn’t intend to drink or make merry in Paris, if at all. But…she was expected to meet Stephan who had indicated he was intending to sing like a canary given the right kind of persuasion. And she expected to see Brandon Rice there.

  It was the key reason why she’d emailed Brand tonight, before she left.

  He was a smart man. He’d figure it out.

  Fifteen

  It was two nights later that Brandon finally got a free moment from his various activities and the reaming of one Markham Legrand who’d been thoroughly chastised for talking and fraternizing with the cute reporter from Basel Du Monde.

  It was a testament of how much they respected Brand and the gravity of the slipup that they didn’t really ask him what the hell was he doing writing emails to one such cute reporter himself.

  He’d been praying that Akira would not get her hands on the little item that had been featured in the human interest section of Basel Du Monde.

  As he read through her email, he knew he was wrong.

  When he scoured her articles for the fifth time, he was convinced she was onto something. Something big. Something that would most probably get her killed.

  Brand walked out of the control room after asking Murad to take over his shift.

  He cursed silently at the fates that had seen fit to p
resent him with the most persistent woman in the world. And she didn’t even seem to want him this much.

  He knocked on Sebastian’s suite and the door was opened by an extra-vigilant Markham. He looked sheepishly at the floor while Brand strode past him with barely a nod.

  “Sebastian, we have a situation,” he said with barely a break in his stride or anger.

  Sebastian nodded from where he was reading Proust. “Alright. What kind?”

  “The very serious kinds. The kind that requires you to leave town now. The kind that comes with being a reporter of the female persuasion who just won't give up.” Brand resisted the urge to pace out his anger.