Girl of Rage

by Charles Sheehan-Miles

  Dylan flinched at the blood. He hated the sight of killing.

  “You okay?” Andrea asked.

  “Yeah. Fuckers.” He honked the horn and waved at the protesters. “Almost there,” he said. They were crossing a bridge now, heavy trees on both sides of the road. Dylan turned on his right hand turn signal then pulled to a stop just after 30th Street.

  “Here’s where you get out. You’ve got three minutes.”

  Andrea looked him in the eyes. “Dylan—be careful.”

  “Same to you.”

  She nodded, then reached over and squeezed his arm. She stepped out of the car, just as a cab behind Dylan started honking his horn. Dylan stayed there while she looked both ways, crossed to the yellow lines, then cut between cars and started walking down Whitehaven Street, a small street bordered by the Brazilian Embassy and several very large houses.

  Once she was on her way, Dylan hit his left turn signal and pulled back into traffic. He drove intentionally slow, swerving the Oldsmobile slightly left and right, enraging the cabbie behind him. A moment later, he approached the British Embassy on the right side of the road.

  Dylan had studied the satellite photos and images on Google as closely as possible. While those images told him nothing about the security setup at the Embassy, he knew that the first two driveways in front of the residence buildings were blocked with steel bollards before the fence and gates. He’d never get the Oldsmobile past those. The grass in between driveways was blocked with solid looking brick planters bordered by a well manicured lawn. It was attractive, but also functional.

  The third entrance, however, didn’t have the steel bollards. A solid looking gate stood between two stone pillars, with a small guard booth just inside the gate on the left. The stone pillars were capped by carved gryphons.

  Just to add to the chaos when he arrived, Dylan turned on the radio at full volume. The sound of Jason Derulo singing Talk Dirty to Me blasted out of the car, the subwoofers in the trunk vibrating the windows of nearby buildings. Dylan came to a stop in the road, his left turn signal on. The guard stepped out of the booth, staring curiously at Dylan from the other side of the fence.

  That lasted until Dylan turned and stepped on the gas, accelerating rapidly toward the fence.

  George-Phillip. May 4.

  The newspaper headline was troubling, but not nearly as troubling as some of the quotes inside the lead article. Heads would roll, and quite possibly some at the newspapers would be tried for violations of the Official Secrets Act, but that didn’t erase the damage. In some ways it would make it worse. The Special Report had been online for less than ten minutes before the first phone call came in. George-Phillip had just finished breakfast. Now he sat staring at the screen on his tablet, wishing he’d waited to eat.

  Special Report. MI6 Insiders Accuse Government of Covering Up Afghanistan Massacre

  This is a Guardian Special Report.

  Related Special Reports:

  * Who Was Involved in the Massacre?

  * Interviews with Survivors

  * How the Tragedy Unfolded

  On an ice-cold night in Afghanistan in December, 1983, the villagers of Bozai Gumbaz were huddled in their mud huts and yurts, large round portable structures used by the nomads of the steppes of Central Asia. For four years, war had raged in Afghanistan, following the 1979 Soviet invasion. But for the poor villagers of the Wakhan Corridor, a finger-shaped protrusion from Afghanistan squeezed between Pakistan, China and the then-Soviet Union (now Uzbekistan), the war was remote. The villagers and herders of this region, once part of the Silk Road, had largely been bypassed by the war. With no roads, no structures, and few mineral resources, there was little here to interest outsiders.

  Unbeknownst to the villagers that night, the war was about to reach out to them. Two unmarked helicopters left the mountains of Pakistan and crossed the Hindu Kush Mountains into the Wakhan Corridor. At approximately midnight on December 13, 1983, they came to a hover over the village. Survivors described a punishing whiteout as fresh snow was blown into the air by the rotors of the helicopters. No one on the outskirts of the village (those who survived) could have imagined what happened next. Villagers, standing in their doors and windows gawking at the helicopters, began dropping in their tracks. Men, women and children died within seconds, their village washed with a cloud of sarin, a deadly chemical warfare agent that can cause nearly instantaneous death to those exposed.

  More than six weeks passed before word of the massacre reached the outside world, and three more months before the first outsiders reached the village. Two investigators from Helsinki Watch (now Human Rights Watch) trekked on snowmobiles from Pakistan into the country. What they found became an international crisis, with U.S. President Ronald Reagan denouncing the Soviets for using chemical weapons in Afghanistan.

  Our investigation, however, has shown that the chemical weapons were provided not by the Soviets, as the entire world assumed in 1983, but by a group of American and Saudi intelligence officials led by the current Secretary of Defense nominee Richard H. Thompson (shown in a 1985 photograph, right). Further, according to confidential sources within the Special Intelligence Service, it was learned by The Guardian that current SIS Chief George-Phillip Windsor (second cousin to Her Majesty) was responsible for the investigation and later cover-up of the massacre.

  George-Phillip closed his eyes as he read the last paragraph. His ability to influence events in Adelina’s favor was about to come to a difficult end if he didn’t get ahead of this.

  Where did his responsibility lie? Was it to continue to protect a past Prime Minister, and by extension, the entire government? Was it to Adelina? Or to those poor villagers who had never had an advocate? Or, for that matter, was it to Jane, who had already lost her mother?

  George-Phillip sighed. His daughter. She’d been the most cheerful of babies, always smiling and burbling and drooling. But after Anne died, she’d cried for months, inconsolably. He’d done everything he could, including taking a lengthy absence from SIS, but it wasn’t until he’d hired Adriana Poole that Jane began to recover.

  Adriana was flighty. Sometimes George-Phillip thought she was genuinely stupid. But she was also kind, and cared very much for Jane—no matter how indifferent she was to Jane’s father. Like any man and woman in their position—a wealthy widower and a young woman of good stock, they’d both tossed around the idea, but quickly ruled it out. Two less compatible individuals had probably never existed.

  He stood up and walked to the window, then looked at his watch. It was 2:00 pm. O’Leary should be in shortly. Not a day went by when George-Phillip didn’t thank God he had the pugnacious little man working for him. He turned back to the article and read further.

  According to the Guardian’s sources inside the MI6, Prince George-Phillip led the investigation into the Wakhan massacre in the spring of 1984 while he was assigned as a medium-level attaché at the British Embassy in Washington, DC. His final report fingered Secretary Thompson—then a low-level state department functionary—as the ringleader of a small group of intelligence officials responsible for delivering the chemical weapons to Ahmad Shah Massoud, the leader of an anti-Soviet militia operating in Badakhshan Province.

  According to a senior MI6 official, Prince George-Phillip’s report fingered those responsible, and then recommended burying the report.

  George-Phillip muttered a curse. The last paragraph was patently untrue. He’d recommended confronting the United States publicly over the issue. But the Iron Lady had not only given the order to suppress the report, she’d also made a very persuasive argument. People today forgot that in the early 80s, the United States and Russia were poised to destroy the earth with their nuclear weapons. The Cold War was at its peak and George-Phillip’s report would have created a tremendous propaganda victory for the Soviet Union and undermined everything the Queen’s government had worked for.

  The argument felt hollow with the retrospect of time, and the years of
staring at the photos of the twisted and bloated bodies of children. He wondered how he would explain the decision to his child. Jane would know nothing of the Cold War and Ronald Reagan and Mutually Assured Destruction. She would understand only that children and their mothers had been murdered and a generation had passed and no one had done anything about it. No one had done anything for those children.

  George-Phillip wondered how he would explain his actions to God, were he called to account today. He sighed. He had so many regrets. So many. He remembered one of his last conversations with Adelina, when he’d begged her to leave Richard and run away with him.

  You don’t mean it, she had said. Your sense of duty is too strong to run away.

  He’d last seen Adelina in China a lifetime ago, in the fall of 1996. The American Embassy had hosted a dinner for the officers of the British and Australian Embassies along with their wives—even in the 90s, the diplomatic services of all three countries were still dominated by men. By that time George-Phillip was a senior intelligence officer, but publicly he was a junior attaché for the Diplomatic Service. With his cover as a junior diplomat, he was required to attend such functions.

  The meal had been tense, unusually quiet for a diplomatic function. All of George-Phillip’s instincts had screamed that it was time to force the issue, insist that Adelina leave Richard. How was it even possible that the other Embassy personnel were not aware of the painfully obvious dysfunction of that family? Adelina mumbled through the meal, never taking her eyes off her plate, responding to queries about her health with only the barest of courtesies.

  George-Phillip had frozen when he saw eleven-year-old Carrie for the first time. She stayed through the dinner then was escorted away by a governess. Unusually tall for an eleven-year-old, she had raven hair and blue-green eyes, and a slightly upturned nose that looked nothing like her mother or her father. She looked a great deal like his first cousin, Eloise Percy, right down to the glint of mischief in her eyes. Moments after the introduction, George-Phillip’s eyes darted involuntarily to Adelina, whose face revealed nothing.

  She’d never told him that Carrie was his daughter. But it was obvious, now that he’d met the girl. He didn’t understand why. Nor could he erase the sudden surge of anger at the thought that he had a daughter who had been kept from him.

  Adelina’s eldest daughter Julia, fourteen years old, had a haunted, pale look about her face. George-Phillip had been alarmed to see that miscreant Harry Easton, the Ambassador’s son, corner her after the meal, speaking urgently, his hands waving all over the place while she shrank back. Her curly brown hair was a disorganized mess, hanging in her eyes, and she kept her face pointed to the floor. Midway through the meal, she disappeared entirely, and so did Harry.

  Neither Richard nor Adelina noticed. Adelina kept her head low, obviously terrified of Richard, who occasionally whispered urgent words in her ear. Every time he touched her she flinched.

  George-Phillip had wanted to scream, because everyone else ignored all of it. He found himself questioning his own perceptions. Was everything normal and it just seemed wrong in his eyes? How could they just stand around and drink and laugh and enjoy themselves when everything was so obviously wrong?

  He finally ran out of patience. Ronald Easton, the British Ambassador, was deep in a conversation with Richard Thompson, and Adelina had just broken away from a talk with the Australian Consul-General when George-Phillip approached her, his heart thumping.

  “Hello, Adelina, how are you?”

  She froze, her eyes darting to him, then away. She didn’t say anything.

  “You haven’t called,” he said.

  “I’m pregnant,” she whispered.

  He swallowed. “You didn’t tell me about Carrie.”

  “That’s because I want to live,” she whispered. “He put me in the hospital when he found out she wasn’t his. I don’t know what he’ll do when he finds out I’m pregnant again.”

  “Is the baby—is the baby mine?” he asked, his voice low and urgent.

  “Yes. Of course. I never voluntarily touch him.”

  Of course he knew that. He looked her in the eyes and said, “Adelina, you must leave him. He’s destroying you and your children.”

  “You don’t understand what you’re asking. If you did, you wouldn’t say that. I’d lose my children. I’d lose everything.” Her face shifted to a smile and she said in a much louder voice, “Yes, I enjoyed the show very much! I’m hoping we can take Julia to see it, I think she’d love it. She’s very musically inclined.”

  George-Phillip restrained himself from jumping back in disgust when Richard Thompson casually clapped him on the shoulder. “Prince George-Phillip, it’s a delight to see you again.”

  “And you, Ambassador.”

  “Please excuse me,” Adelina said. “I must find Julia, she seems to have snuck off.”

  George-Phillip grimaced. “I’m afraid she was speaking with Harry Easton a little while ago, and he’s gone as well.”

  Adelina’s lips pursed and she nodded. She stepped away, walking toward one of the side doors of the room.

  George-Phillip found himself drawn into a policy discussion with Richard Thompson. It was bizarre and irritating, and as a diplomat he had to just bear it. Walking away from the American Ambassador just wasn’t done. But where did she go? His eyes scanned the room over and over again, but she never reappeared.

  She never reappeared. Not that day, not that month.

  The diplomatic community was small, and word began to spread. Something had happened to Adelina. Or possibly one of her daughters. Harry Easton vanished from Beijing in June, sent back to London even though his father still had another year as Ambassador. Adelina Thompson wasn’t seen at all, and when Richard Thompson attended functions without her, he would simply say that she felt ill.

  Finally, in May of 1997, George-Phillip had reached the end of his assignment in China. He gave up any pretense of discretion and showed up at the Thompson’s apartment the day before his departure. He knocked and knocked, and finally a young American woman answered.

  “Miss Adelina ain’t here,” the woman said. “She can’t see you.”

  “Tell her it’s George Lansing.”

  “She can’t see you,” the woman said again. Then she leaned forward and whispered, “She told me to give you this, if you came. But she doesn’t want to see you no more. Go back where you came from and leave her in peace. That woman deserve some peace.”

  She held out a thick, cream-colored envelope the size of a greeting card.

  George-Phillip staggered away, walking down the block toward the entrance to the compound. It was late afternoon, and a black Ford pulled up to the gate—one of the many cars hired by members of the diplomatic community. Three girls stepped out of the car and quickly walked inside the gate.

  The oldest, fourteen-year-old Julia, walked with her head down, her curly brown hair hanging almost in her face, books clasped to her chest. She kept her head down and rushed past George-Phillip without a word.

  Behind her, twelve-year-old Carrie walked, holding the hand of her sister. The one Adelina had named for George-Phillip’s aunt, Princess Alexandra. Carrie was already tall for a twelve-year-old, towering over the young and fair-haired Alexandra. For a moment she met George-Phillip’s eyes.

  “Good afternoon,” he said to her.

  “Hello,” she said. She gave him a brief, impersonal smile, then tugged her sister along. “Come on, Alexandra. Let’s get inside. I bet Grace made cookies again.”

  George-Phillip had walked away quickly, struggling to hide the tears that came to his eyes as he walked away from his daughter. His daughter that didn’t know—would never know—that he even existed.

  At the gate, the guard waved him out and he tore open the envelope.

  It contained a note.

  For my safety, you must never contact me again.

  The envelope also contained an ultrasound. The baby was a girl.

&n
bsp; Over the years since, George-Phillip had kept tabs on Adelina, of course, as well as all of her daughters. Through O’Leary, he’d kept a discreet eye on the girls, and when he learned that Carrie and Andrea were in Spain in 2002, he’d taken the very risky step of going there by himself to get an in person look at his daughters. He’d stayed in the background, but he’d longed to reveal himself to them. Four years later he’d made arrangements to give the commencement address at Columbia University the year Carrie graduated with her Bachelor’s degree, and so was able to shake her hand and smile at her and say congratulations when she accepted her degree. She didn’t know, of course. How would she? He doubted she even remembered his existence. He was just an old man who had spoken at her college.

  He’d never had any indication Adelina wanted him to contact her. He’d never heard from her again. And finally he’d given up and moved on. He’d married Lady Anne, and they’d had a child, and then in due course his wife died. And now—more than anything—he wanted to know where his daughter Andrea was, where the love of his life Adelina was.

  The knock on the door startled him. He turned away from the view of trees and large brick houses just on the other side of the fence.

  “Come in,” he said.

  The door opened. It was Oswald O’Leary. He looked unusually flustered.

  “What do you have?” George-Phillip asked without preamble.

  “Nothing solid, sir, but one of our agents reports tracking her near the Mexican border. It seems she’s trying to get across the border.”

  “And do we have anyone on the Mexican side of the border? In case she makes it across?”

  “We’ve got a small team in Tijuana sir, watching the border crossing. If she goes across there, we’ll get to her right away.”

  George-Phillip nodded. “All right. That’s good news, I suppose. And how much is this all costing us?”

  “We’re up to four million, sir, I’m afraid. All the subcontractors. They charge a pretty penny in the States.”