AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Okay.
Mociar.
A backwater country, but only when people want to downplay its value to the United States. At other times, Morcia is an important ally and a linchpin. Much of the country’s importance as an ally has to do with its position in Europe, directly between a group of United Nations member states and one former United Nations member state. Rathbek left the United Nations after they consolidated the government. That was what they called it when the military became the government.
It’s a rather sanitized term for what the “consolidation” became.
I hadn’t been particularly clear-headed during my meeting with the Senator. Now that I am, I need to know what flavor of political unrest he was talking about. Senator Walsh has access to classified intelligence assessments, and I don’t expect those to be publicly available on Google, either. I’ll have to read between the lines.
There’s not much Mociar coverage from the big media outlets in the U.S., and what does exist is succinct to the point of rendering it dull.
Feels purposeful. As if someone, or many someones, in the government and media establishment think that looking directly at the problem will turn it into a catastrophe, Law of Observation–style. The Senator felt comfortable using the phrase civil war.
All the reporting I can find is meticulous about avoiding those words. An attempt at manifestation? If they say that the current tensions in Mociar are the predictable result of a democratic system with two political parties enough times, will that make it true?
There are hints that the answer is no. Like every member of one of the political parties in Mociar staging a mass walk-out at the last congressional session. Like a single-paragraph news item declaring a return to business as usual because three members of that party showed up to the next session. Like those three members giving a statement calling for bipartisan cooperation, by which they meant that the president should agree to meet with the leader of the party in a neutral location to discuss security for the next election.
If this is the publicly available information, then I think it’s a safe bet that the situation is worse on the ground. Bad enough to worry about a civil war? I don’t know.
What I do know is that it’s very likely a civil war would devastate the country’s infrastructure and make it easier for a hostile government like the one in Rathbek to take over, especially if the opposition party doesn’t have the means to do it alone. And neither the opposition party nor Rathbek is likely to honor trade agreements with the United States. Mociar is the world’s top producer of promethium, and we need promethium. For nuclear batteries and exploring space and all manner of research projects that will gutter like a spent candle without it.
Almost every mention of Mociar I can find comes paired with one about Rathbek. My heart rate rises whenever the name comes across my screen. Unsurprisingly, a free press hasn’t been a priority for the military regime in Rathbek. Neither has reliable internet access for its citizens. The non-state-sponsored reports from civilians are not promising, and that’s my fault.
But it’s not time to dwell on guilt.
Everything I’ve read dovetails with what the Senator said.
There’s only one more piece, which is asset management, which begs several questions, such as what assets? and whose assets? and why do the two political parties in Morcia need to go through channels to resolve the management of the aforementioned assets?
Another set of questions that can’t be answered with a Google search.
And when I broaden the queries and switch to less obvious terms, what turns up gives me a sick, creeping feeling. The phrase missing persons comes up, along with Rathbek army. I find an archived comment thread on a movie review website where several people are talking about passports and building storage areas that are more like panic rooms or bomb shelters.
I look into reports from near Rathbek’s borders next.
More missing people. More unrest at the border. More signs that whatever’s being moved at Rathbek’s borders—including the border with Morcia—isn’t material assets. It’s people.
Delphi’s phone rings when I’m mid-report about imports and exports being delayed at the Rathbek border. My desk phone beeps not long after.
“Do you have a few minutes for Senator Walsh?” she asks.
No, every cell in my body says. No. Get up and leave.
“Put him through.” There are two clicks as she transfers the call. “Senator Walsh, this is Apollo.”
“I wanted to get your confirmation on the arrangements we made at last week’s meeting,” he says. There’s traffic noise in the background. He’s not calling from inside his office.
“I don’t believe we made any arrangements at last week’s meeting. Refresh my memory.”
He laughs, booming but lifeless. “It’s an in-and-out. Less than twenty-four hours on the ground, and you’ll be back in New York.”
“On the ground?”
“In Morcia.”
I know he didn’t say anything about going to Morcia last week.
Unless he did, and I didn’t hear it.
