Mack lights up a cigarette and attempts to re-assert his authority. “Right, Jacko and Pete, I have three immediate questions: “What the hell happened? How the hell are we going to cover the story? And why did you bampots not phone me?”
Pete replies. "The answer to Question Three is that there was no mobile signal.” Pete then points to the television screens. “As for the first two questions, the answer is right there, boss.” Mack turns to see all three networks have graphic film of the mosque explosion. Then, as though on Pete’s cue, the BBC runs Jackson’s piece-to-camera. Mack is transfixed by the jerky, powerful images that end with a white-out as the suicide bomber blows himself up. “Jings!” is all he can say.
They watch the rest of the images in silence for a few minutes, then Mack’s decades of crisis management begins to kick in. “Right,” he says, “that’s wonderful stuff guys, but we have to keep the ball rolling. And London will, no doubt, want to know why I didn’t cover the story, seeing that they know I was on call.”
“No worries on that score, Mack,” asserts Pete, “you’ll come out of this smelling as sweet as a pod of fresh green peas. You’ll tell them the truth that Jacko and I just happened to be close by to the bombing. They don’t need to know that you weren’t aware of the story. Just tell them you instructed us to cover it while you co-ordinated everything from the bureau. As for the coverage, you’ll explain that your Duty of Care required you to ensure that your staff were safe and well, which is why a deal was struck with CNN and Al-Jazeera to pool all three lots of film and for us to return immediately to the bureau. You now take over coverage of the story while I return Jacko home for a well-deserved drink. As I said, ‘no worries’!”
Mack is humbled by this sensible and sudden role reversal -- a junior staff member telling the boss how to respond to a crisis. Pete’s scenario makes a lot of sense. He accepts it as a case of one honest friend advising another in a time of unexpected difficulty.
The bureau phone rings. It is Samira. She has just seen the television news and wants to know if Jackson and Pete are okay. Mack assures her that they unharmed, but it would be helpful if she came in to help Mack and Farouk with the rest of the coverage.
The phone rings again. Mack takes it and finds that it is Jackson’s mother. “Oh, hello Lady Dunbar. Yes, there’s something wrong with the mobile phones tonight, but I’ll hand you over to him.” Jackson shakes his head furiously, adamant that he won’t take the call. “Oh, sorry Lady Dunbar,” says Mack, “I see Jackson is in the middle of , er, a live radio report and can’t be interrupted. I’m sure he’ll call you when he gets a moment. Meantime, there’s no need to worry. Your boy wasn’t injured; just a bit shaken. It probably looked worse on the screen than it really was.” He listens. “Yes, I’ll make sure that your message is passed on. Bye.” He hangs up. “Thanks, Mack,” says Jackson, “there is only so much strife I can cope with at the moment.”
Mack takes another phone call. “Yes, who shall I say is calling?” He turns to Jackson. “Someone called Felicity for you?” Jackson picks up the call at his desk. “Hi, there,” doing his best to sound upbeat. “Don’t worry. I’m okay, apart from a few bruises and a ruined set of clothes.” He listens. “Sorry the dinner was all messed up.” He listens. “What about Thomas? Did he get back okay?” He listens. “Are the kids okay? Not too upset, I hope. Tell them I’ll read them Hairy Maclary when I see them next.” He listens. “Right. Well, I’d better go. I’ll give you a call in a day or so.” He hangs up and finds that Mack has put a large whisky on his desk. “Drink up,” says Mack, “you’ve earned it.”
CHAPTER 8
Jackson and Pete arrive by taxi outside their apartment block. “Do you want to come in for a steadying nightcap?” Jackson asks his colleague.
“No, I’d better go to my own apartment. I’m stuffed and rather sore and I need to ring the family in Sydney to tell them I’m okay.”
“Righto. See you in the morning.”
“Yeah. Okay.”
They enter the building, nod to the night concierge and press the call button for a lift to take them up to their apartments. As they wait, Pete reflects on the night’s events. “It’s a bit of a mystery, Jacko, isn’t it?”
“What is?”
“You know, mate, how you weren’t killed and I wasn’t injured or worse.”
“Well, I wouldn’t have wanted to be any closer to that guy, if that’s what you mean.”
“No, I don’t mean that, Jacko. Don’t suicide bombers usually pack their explosive with nails and stuff? If that had been the case, you’d be on a mortuary slab right now, looking like a dead porcupine. And so would I, probably.”
“Oh Christ, Pete, haven’t I got enough on my mind tonight without you coming up with that graphic stuff! Let’s be grateful we’re still alive and able to spend the night in our own beds.”
“Yeah. Sorry mate,” says Pete as the lift arrives to take them upstairs.
On reaching his front door, Jackson’s hands begin shaking and he has difficulty opening the lock. He twice drops the keys before he manages to insert the correct key and gain entry. He switches on the lights and goes straight to an almost-full whisky bottle on the bench. He pours himself a large one, gulps it down, then immediately replenishes the glass. He doesn’t feel like eating, but knows he must. He empties a tin of baked beans into a bowl and puts it in the microwave. While the beans heat up, he finds some bread to toast.
The red message light is flashing on Jackson’s answering machine and he sees there have been 10 calls, all in the past half hour or so. He presses Play. There are no messages, just a click as each call is terminated prematurely.
The microwave dings and he pours the baked beans onto the toast without bothering to butter it first. He eats without enthusiasm and takes another gulp of whisky to steady his shattered nerves.
The phone rings and he studies it for a few moments, not wanting to take the call, but curious to know who has been trying repeatedly to get in touch. He presses the speaker button on the phone and answers in poor humour. “Yes. Jackson Dunbar!”
“It wasn’t us,” says a male voice without preamble, “it wasn’t us!”
Jackson is suddenly attentive: “Who’s that?”
“It’s Roger’s old school friend,” says the voice, which Jackson now recognises.
“Ahmed! Binnie!”
“Yes, my friend. I saw your report, but it wasn’t us. We don’t target mosques.”
“Oh really,” responds Jackson, his voice heavily laced with sarcasm, “so who else would have done that?”
“Ask MI6, the CIA, Mossad, or the government. Ask them, my friend!”
“What about that fucking suicide bomber who nearly killed me?”
“Trust me, Roger. It wasn’t us.”
Jackson reaches for a notepad and pen and prepares to question Ahmed further, but there is a click as the call ends. He thumps the table with frustration and pours another whisky, his baked beans forgotten. He phones the bureau and the call is answered by Samira.
“Is everything alright, Jacko?”
“Yes, as alright as anyone can be after being blown up.”
“You don’t sound good. Have you been drinking?”
“Just a soothing tot or two of Scotland’s finest.”
Samira is worried. “Look, I’ll be finished here soon. Would you like me to come over for a bit of company and a chat? You know, to talk things over. I could stay for the night on your spare bed.”
“Thanks, my dear, but I’m going to hit the sack shortly. I’ll be fine in the morning, apart from a bit of bruising.”
“If you’re sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure, but first I urgently need to speak to Mack.”
“Sorry, but he’s about to do a live interview any second now. Can’t it wait until the morning?”
“Well, just tell him not to put too much stress on the al-Qaeda angle. It might be someone else.”
“That doesn’t sound very lik
ely. Are you certain?”
“I’m pretty sure. Just run and tell him that now, please!”
“I’ll do that, Jacko, but you’d better not drink any more.” She hangs up.
Jackson goes to the bathroom and runs a hot bath while he undresses. He examines himself in a full-length mirror and is hugely relieved to see that his body is unmarked by the explosion. He has brought with him the whisky bottle, still half full. He eases himself into the hot water and takes another drink, straight from the bottle. He is beyond caring that this is a stupid thing to be doing.
As the bath and the alcohol ease his body’s tension, Jackson allows himself to be fully submerged in the hot water. In his drunken state, he idly wonders what it would be like to drown. He holds his breath for what seems like a couple of minutes, but in reality is much briefer, before bursting out of the water, gasping for air. He takes another gulp from the whisky bottle.
Hours pass and Jackson realises that he has been lying unconscious and chilled in what is now a cold bath. He reaches for the whisky bottle, but it is empty. He struggles to get out of the bath and can only do so by rolling himself with great difficulty over the side and onto the floor. He lies on his back staring at the ceiling for a while before slowly rolling over and crawling on all fours through the kitchen towards the bedroom, leaving a trail of water puddles. He grasps a tea towel from a kitchen rail and tries with only modest success to dry himself. He attempts to pull himself upright, using the kitchen rail, but it comes adrift and he crashes back onto the floor.
Four more hours go by and he is woken by a persistent ringing of his front door bell. He is still lying naked on the kitchen floor. As he attempts to stand up, the doorbell stops ringing, followed seconds later by a call on his landline phone. He yanks the cable and catches the phone as it falls towards him. “Yes,” he mumbles into the handset. It is Pete standing outside Jackson’s flat and wanting to know if he is ready to go to the bureau. “Not just yet,” his voice barely audible.
Pete recognises there is a problem and demands to be let into the flat. “Give me a minute,” replies Jackson as he drags himself unsteadily to his feet with the aid of a chair. He goes to the bathroom, splashes water on his face, pulls the plug on the cold water in the bath and returns to the kitchen, where he bins the empty whisky bottle.
The doorbell rings again. Jackson puts on a dressing gown from behind the bedroom door and lets Pete in. “Christ, Jacko!” exclaims Pete, “you look like a heap of pig shit.”
“Thanks for the flattery,” responds Jackson caustically, “I feel like shit, but there’s no need to tell me so.”
Pete puts down his camera kit and goes to the kitchen area. “Have a shave and get dressed, mate, and I’ll make some coffee and get you something to eat.” Jackson mumbles his agreement and staggers to the bathroom.
Pete fills the electric kettle and rummages around in the cupboards for a jar of instant coffee. He opens the bread box and finds a few slices of stale bread that have yet to go mouldy and sticks them in the toaster. He opens the refrigerator and finds butter and jam to put on the table. He opens a container of milk, but it fails the sniff test and he pours the contents down the kitchen sink.
Jackson returns sheepishly to the room as Pete puts the coffee and toast on the table. He sits down feeling very sorry for himself, and more than a little ashamed. “Thanks, Pete. Sorry about all this. Not very professional is it!”
Pete is sympathetic. “Don’t feel bad about it, Jacko. This is your first really big test as a correspondent. Being lifted the other day by those blokes was small cherries compared with being blown up. We choose to put ourselves at risk and when it gets nasty we have to learn to shut our minds down in some respects. This crazy business is not for Nervous Nellies.”
Jackson eats some toast and jam and washes down a couple of paracetamol. He lets his colleague continue to do the talking.
“There’s another thing to keep in mind, mate. What happened to us last night wasn’t personal. They weren’t out to get us as individuals. We just happened to be in the wrong place when that nutter blew himself up. We could easily have been a block away and it would’ve been just another interesting element to the story. It’s when it gets personal that you’ve reason to be nervous.”
Jackson is now irritated by this lecture. “Stop it, Pete! What would you know? When you were in Australia you probably never covered anything more dangerous than road accidents and house fires and crap politicians and third-rate celebrities mouthing off at press conferences.”
Now it is Pete’s turn to get angry. “Bullshit!” He pulls up his T-shirt and points to a scar to the side of his chest.
“Hell,” exclaims Jackson. “That looks nasty.”
“I got it when a gang boss and his biker mates ambushed me after I filmed them doing a big drug exchange in Sydney. The fuckers intended to kill me so there’d be no witnesses. They grabbed my camera and made their escape, thinking that I was dead, but the bullet missed my heart by a centimetre or so and I survived.”
“Bloody hell!”
“Yep, not good. I spent a couple of months in hospital under police guard.”
“Why the guards? Where you considered a suspect?”
“The gang didn’t know that I had taken the memory card from the camera and put it in my pocket. It was used as evidence at the trial and the lot of them were sent to the slammer for 20 years.”
“Well, that was a good outcome,” Jackson enthused.
“Up to a point, mate. The gang boss took out a contract on me from behind his cell bars. The New South Wales Police advised me to go abroad for the foreseeable future. And here I am!”
“Blimey! Shouldn’t you have moved somewhere a little quieter than here?”
“Of course,” agrees Pete with a smile, “but that would be very boring for someone born to live dangerously.”
They both laugh and Pete tells Jackson to finish his toast and coffee and get ready to go to the bureau.
******
Jackson and Pete arrive at the bureau just as everyone is gathering in Mack’s office for the morning editorial conference. Samira is pleased to see them and gives them both a comradely hug. “I appreciated your offer last night,” Jackson tells her, “but you don’t need to be concerned. Pete and I reckon we’ll be okay.”
“Yes, I’m sure you will, but I was worried when I saw what happened. If you do want to talk things through, I’m available.”
“Thanks, Samira,” says Pete.
Both Jackson and Pete have done their best to look presentable, but this is only partly successful. They gingerly ease themselves into their seats. Jackson’s thumping headache is easing, thanks to the paracetamol, but he cannot entirely hide his hangover and the trauma that led to it.
Mack lights up a cigarette from a packet that is already half empty and studies Jackson and Pete for a few moments. “Morning, lads. You both look a bit delicate, if you don’t mind me saying so.”
“I think I might have had a whisky or two more than was wise,” Jackson admits, “but give me a few hours and I’ll be okay.”
Mack nods sympathetically. “What about you, Pete?”
“Oh, I’m okay, boss, apart from being a bit sore from when I hit the ground. I’ll be set for any filming you want today.”
“Good. You’ll be pleased to know that your film, particularly the piece-to-camera, has been much in demand around the world and our competitors have offered another pooling arrangement today to allow you a bit of a rest. By the way, how did you come to be so handy for the explosion?” asks Mack as something of an afterthought.
“Oh, I was having dinner a few blocks away with some university friends who are in town,” says Jackson, blurring the full truth, “and I had no more than a mouthful of the starter when it all happened.”
“It was worse for me,” announces Pete, “I was preparing to have a most enjoyable time with a fine Aussie lady of my acquaintance. It was trousers-down and action stations when all hel
l broke loose at the other end of the street. Coitus interruptus big time.”
Mack is amused. “I’m sorry to hear that both of you had your evening spoiled so spectacularly – particularly you, Pete. I admire your dedication to your chosen career, never going anywhere without your camera, even with a good shag in prospect.”
Mack’s phone rings, and as expected, it is the Foreign Desk in London. He puts the call on his speaker phone. “Morning London.”
“Hi Mack, it’s Harry Kingston. We hope that Jacko and Pete are okay.”
“Yes, we’re okay,” Jackson and Pete reply in chorus.
“Good,” says Harry, “the pooling arrangement with CNN and Al-Jazeera worked to everyone’s benefit, but we hope that coverage from your end will soon return to normal. More thought needs to be given to sending you some backup. Frederick Wynter is wondering whether the story is important enough for his attention.
Mack is now bolt upright in his seat. “We don’t want fucking ‘Wet’ Wynter trampling all over our patch and offering our audience nothing more than shallow platitudes!” he shouts.
“Understood,” acknowledges Harry, “but you may find it’s either him or Sally Singer.”
“What a choice!” says Mack, slumping back into his seat, reaching for another cigarette.
Harry knows that the presence of “bigfoot correspondents” descending on a major story is always a sensitive matter, with local correspondents feeling, often with justification, that they are being pushed aside with no added value to the reporting. “Well, just let’s see how the situation plays out,” he says. “Those two are pretty much a law unto themselves.”
There are murmured voices in the background in London and Harry announces that he has just been joined by Amanda Murphy from the DG’s office.
“Hello to everyone in Armibar,” says Amanda without warmth. “Before we move on to the business of the day, let me say that the comments I have just heard about Frederick Wynter and Sally Singer are unfair and unwelcome. Both are highly regarded members of the newsgathering team and their views on international affairs are respected by a great many of our listeners and viewers. I would remind you that we are ‘one BBC’ and this sort of professional rivalry is not productive. I urge you to accept that Mr Wynter and Ms Singer are an important part of the ‘BBC brand’.
The Mortal Maze Page 8
