Between the Lines

First Act

Like most reporters on the little regional jet that afternoon, Peter Lawton had departed Ukraine by rail and then hopped on a LOT Polish Airlines Dreamliner in Rzeszów; the big Boeing was packed to the rafters with reporters and aid workers heading to London Heathrow, but even so, most of the professionals leaving the region weren't as angry as he was just then. He was tired and hadn't eaten in two days, and as he watched the Jetway retract and felt ground equipment pushing the aircraft back from the glossy new terminal building, he tried to listen to the safety announcement. Yet he was distracted and, frankly, still too mad to listen to anyone at the moment.

And even up front he felt he barely had enough legroom, but at least he'd be able to grab a nap.

"Peter, right?" he heard someone say, so he turned to look at the woman in 3B.

"Yes? Have we met?" Lawton asked -- though more than a little duplicitously, as he vaguely remembered the woman.

The woman smiled at his diversion, for she knew damn well he knew exactly who she was. She was about half his age, in her early thirties, and she remembered meeting him a few years ago. "Angela Eastman, BBC. We met in Libya, after all that Benghazi stuff."

He shrugged. "Sorry," he managed to say, "I'm drawing a blank."

"Nice to know I make such lasting impressions," she said, smiling noncommittally at his deceit. "Too bad about your network. Did you get the axe as well?"

He shrugged. "Nothing official yet, but that seems to be the consensus of opinion right now." After the election, everyone and anything with even the slightest patina of liberalism had been shown the door, so after almost forty years as a reporter and prime-time anchor his career seemed to be at a sudden and very public end.

"We just got word about fifteen minutes ago," she added. "The United States has officially pulled out of NATO."

And again he shrugged. "I hardly think that comes as a surprise right now."

"No, I suppose not," Eastman said. "Still, it comes as a shock to those of us in the UK -- not to mention the EU."

"Why's that? The Russians have been paying off our politicians for decades. The bill came due, that's all. So what if someone in the Kremlin decided it was time to collect on all their outstanding balances."

"Oh, come on! Do you think it's really as simple as that?"

"Who knows, but really, who the fuck cares anymore."

"But that seems so outlandish! Where's all the moral outrage?"

"Outrage? Really? You're going to fall back on outrage? Where were you when Turkey sided with the Russians, where were you when Italy elected a fascist PM, and where was all your moral outrage when Hungary keeps 'reelecting' a fascist dictator. And now, with Macron on the ropes and French fascists on the move, France is as good as out of Nato one more time, and heaven knows Germany has been looking for an excuse to bail out. So, with the alliance in tatters and with most western economies hovering somewhere between recession and outright depression, all the Russians had to do was wait us out and then call in their markers, then wait for the politicians they'd purchased to retake power. Now the only real question is what will Germany and the UK do. Turn on the printing presses and try to build up their armed forces or sit back and wait for the inevitable collapse of the EU. And like everyone else, your guy in Number 10 waited too long to respond to Putin so, I guess, in the end everyone in Europe never truly accepted the fact that the America of your dreams had fallen into the cult and collapsed under the weight of too many delusions."

"The America of our dreams?"

"Yes, of course. Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, versus a nation fractured, splintered, and in the end a government polarized by disinformation into political incoherence and incipient irrelevance. But we were just like you guys: too many disparate groups unwilling to compromise. Too many people willing to drink the Kool-Aid, and I guess too few able-minded people ready to lead."

"It's happening at home, too, you know?" she sighed as she thought about the most recent collapse of the Tories.

"Of course it is. Why shouldn't it? Humanity has never been more united than it is right now, in this moment. We are united by our Hate of The Other, and so the Second Coming is upon us."

"Funny. I never took you for a Christian Nationalist."

He laughed at that, then he leaned back and closed his eyes with a sigh: "That twenty centuries of stony sleep were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle. And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?"

"Oh yes. Sorry."

"Sorry? Why should you be sorry? I think Yeats was declaring humanity is a doomed species, doomed by our collective narcissism."

"Indeed. To what, exactly, are you referring?"

"We jump to conclusions. Or how did he put it? 'The best lack all conviction.'"

"Perhaps you should stop speaking in metaphors and verse and try plain English."

And that made him laugh out loud -- just as their Dreamliner turned onto the runway and he began yet another journey to one final lost cause. He looked at the passing landscape below and wondered when the next war would consume the people lingering in these lengthening shadows.

"What's the point," he finally said, reaching up to turn off his overhead light.

+++++

He rode into the city on the Paddington Express and walked down to the Hilton, Angela Eastman still by his side, still talking up a storm. She wanted to know more about the White Nationalist Party currently joining forces with the last remnants of the Republican Party, consolidating their hold on Congress now that Their Man was back in the White House.

Lawton had been doing his best to talk politely with the woman but now he felt like he'd been ambushed, and that he had somehow become the story. Here was the old-school liberal journalist being summoned back to headquarters, his immediate future to be run out of town on a rail, and frankly he wanted nothing to do with the pouting lips of her manipulative bush league ambush journalism. He walked up to the reception desk and checked in, and the man behind the counter handed him a large manilla envelope that had, apparently, just recently been hand delivered from the local bureau.

He opened the envelope right then and there -- then shook his head as the irony of his current situation came home to roost.

"What is it?" Eastman sighed. "Bad news?"

"I guess that depends on your point of view," Lawton replied. "A new assignment, and in Jackson, Mississippi."

"Not exactly a hotbed of international importance, I suppose."

Lawton looked at her, at this 'reporter' -- and he wondered why some people got into the business. This one was certainly attractive, well -- actually, she was rather more than simply good-looking, and it wasn't a stretch to assume she'd gotten into the business to accrue an audience -- and therefore to gain a political following. That had become the new paradigm, after all. The Coalition was top-heavy with former reporters who'd cut their teeth working for right-wing media, and he had to admit it made a lot of sense. Who else was in a better position to understand how easy it was to manipulate public opinion? From there, you hitched your wagon to a Party stalwart and went along for the ride, collecting your bribes while you paid your dues.

"Well," he said, stifling a yawn, "I guess I'm off to Dulles in the morning. I'd better get some sleep, so I guess this is goodbye."

"I don't mean to be forward, Peter, but I know a great spot for curry a few blocks from here, and my place is nearby..."

"I'm afraid I wouldn't be good company tonight," he said as another yawn came for him. "Perhaps another time?"

She nodded uneasily, almost duplicitously. "Yes. Perhaps."

He turned and made his way to the lift and rode up to the third floor in silence, but after a discrete interval, he changed clothes and made his way back down to the taxi stand. The sun was finally down and despite all the rabid uncertainty in the air, life in London seemed almost normal out on the streets; it was certainly a far cry from the savagery on display in Crimea. After a few minutes in the taxi, he walked into The Grill at The Savoy and ordered his favorite dish in the known universe -- a Dover sole amandine with fresh asparagus Hollandaise -- while he waited for a friend from the network. While he waited an aging rock star he'd interviewed more than once stopped by for a chat, but other than that he simply let all the tension and anxiety he'd experienced over the last two months fall away to memories of better times.

"Well, better late than never," Sara Beckman said as she sat down beside Lawton. "Peter, you'll excuse me for saying so, but you look awful. Have you slept recently?"

He shrugged. "I don't remember. Matter of fact, I don't recall eating anything for the last two or three days, so I hope you don't mind but I've already ordered."

"The sole?"

"Yes. And one for you as well. Hope you don't mind."

"You look as though you've lost two stone. Was it as bad as they say?"

"It was medieval. Fighting hand to hand under torchlight. Sickening, really, the things we've come up with to kill our fellow man. Expeditiously, I think, is the word that most comes to mind. No feeling anymore -- no humanity. One minute it's drone warfare and the next you see men going after one another with bayonets."

"Your segment yesterday hit hard; there's a lot of talk about it today."

"And obviously it did no good at all. We're out of Nato now, I hear?"

"Yes. Did you get the envelope at the reception desk?"

Lawton nodded, but he didn't have much to say.

"You need to be careful over there. You know that, right?"

He shrugged. "What are they going to do? Kill me?"

"I wouldn't be too surprised. You really pissed off the man, you know?"

"I tried to."

"Well, the word is you really got under his skin this time."

"So, go out on a blaze of glory? Is that what you're thinking?"

"Don't go, Peter. Stay here. Stay with me. We could still make a nice life together."

"I have a job to do. Something to finish."

"Can't you do it from here?"

"And what if I did? They'll come for me here if that's what they decide to do. There really is no place to run."

"Not that you would."

He shrugged. "You've always known that about me."

"Hard-headed. Pig headed. Yes, I know. So, what are you going to do?"

"My job."

Their dinners came and they ate in silence, yet she hardly took her eyes off him.

"Some things never change, you know?" he said as he finished. "This place is a constant in an ever-changing universe."

"It is, yes."

"So, why are you staring at me?"

"I wanted to memorize your face, Peter, because once you leave this place I know I'll never see it again."

"Indeed."

"You loved me once, didn't you? Enough to stay, I mean?"

"I still love you, Sara."

"Just not enough to stay?"

"Odd way of putting it, don't you think? You either love someone or you don't. Love isn't a matter of degrees -- or have I had it wrong all this time...?"

"So, why won't you stay? Really, I mean?"

"Because, well, I don't know how to say this, but there's one more war I need to cover, and I want to be there when it starts."

"You...what?"

He took her hand, felt her skin and the fine bones that still seemed so familiar to him, then he looked into her eyes. "I was thinking about Yeats earlier today and, well, the lines have been drawn, you know. Everything seems to be racing towards this one point in time..."

"What point?"

"A flash point, I think."

"And you think you'll find it in Mississippi?"

"Hate comes easy to some people, Sara. And some just follow along. And haven't you ever thought it odd that in our business we're always chasing hate?"

She looked away, perhaps because she knew her war was already over. "So, that's it? Game over?"

"I am what I am, Sara. I go..."

"You go where hate takes you? Are you really telling me that's all there is to it? To us?"

"I think I know the bones of your hands better than I know my own. That isn't hate, Sara. That's love."

"If you love someone set them free? Is that what you and Gordon were talking about before I got here?"

"You little spy!"

"Always. Just like you."

"We were talking about Ukraine."

She nodded, but then she pulled her hand slowly from his and he watched the movement carefully. Was this a tactical retreat, or a surrender?

Yet she smiled. A little. "Do you remember the beach? And that funny little house?"

"Of course," he sighed. "Do you?"

She leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms over her chest. "You remember everything, don't you? Every little thing, I mean?"

"That wasn't such a little thing, Sara."

'That' was the night he'd found her in the shower, passed out and dying after swallowing a bottle of pills. After she'd taken a penknife and carved 'Love me' on her belly.

"You've never forgiven me, have you?" she whispered.

"I've never stopped loving you, if that makes a difference."

And then he'd watched as she quietly stood and walked away -- and he knew then that their war was finally over. She'd ended it on her terms, which he assumed was what she needed from him now.

And after a quick glass of port, he'd made his way back to the Hilton on the Underground, as always listening to what was on people's minds. Russia, it turned out, was the number one topic of conversation that night, and what the new leadership in the Kremlin would do now that their allies were once again in the White House and the American Congress. Even the few Americans he overheard seemed to still be in a state of shock, and more than one said there was no point returning to the States anytime soon.

Which was predictable enough, Lawton thought.

By the time he made it back to his room he was too wired to sleep so he pulled out his laptop and began writing up his observations of the evening. This was an old habit, and part of a routine that had kept him in top form for decades. He listened everywhere he went, but then he took the time to synthesize these ramblings in search of a coherent pattern -- because patterns made the story -- and these ramblings also helped him gain the perspective he needed when he interviewed people 'on the air.'

Yet tonight something felt 'off' -- and almost eerily so. First was Sara's contrived performance, then there'd been the defeated mood on the Tube. Now it felt like the norms that had guided American foreign and domestic policy had finally gone off the rails, yet the most worrisome part of this entire episode was that it 'appeared' to have been the will of the people, but all the histrionics of the past four years Lawton still had a hard time swallowing that idea. Populist movements like the one found in America weren't spontaneous eruptions of popular sentiment; no, they had been engineered over decades by people with opaque agendas, people willing to use the core tenets of an open society to destroy the foundations of that society. And authoritarian propaganda wasn't exactly rocket science, was it? Both the means and the ends were taught in every political science class these days, and that had been the case because, it had been hoped, that by shining the light of reason onto such techniques it would be all the more difficult for the current dictator du jour to pull it off again.

But for that to hold true it would have been necessary for the politicians of the so-called Ruling Classes to play by the old, established rules of the game, and that had proven America's undoing. Republicans had, by and large, supported the idea of impeaching Richard Nixon in late July 1974, but by 2020 all sense of checks and balances had been discarded by the Republican Party. The only thing left now was partisan jockeying for power in the service of a working majority. And Justice didn't mean a thing now, especially in the courts -- because the only valid verdicts would soon be issued under the auspices of Public Opinion, the very same opinion manipulated by the wizards behind their green curtains. There was a certain, peculiar logic to the manipulation that even Lawton admired.

Because to that end media empires had long sold distorted views of government to gain ratings. Political insiders worked to undermine the very rules of basic governance by making the government completely unresponsive to the needs of the people, and when the government failed to deliver these needs the very same insiders blamed the government for failing the people. In a sense, it was a circular firing squad, because as this media circus further distorted and amplified the failures of government they also encouraged outrage directed at the old-school insiders still working to make government deliver on it's promises. But what made Lawton laugh hardest was the realization that none of it made sense until you realized the entire scheme was a political hit job orchestrated by none other than the Kremlin and their allies in America, in other words, by politicians and oligarchs that would most benefit by a rewriting of the old rules.

But when Neo-Nazis and White Nationalists allied with the main evangelical Christian political movement within the Republican Party, a new, much more powerful dynamic had been created through the new Faith and Freedom Coalition, which had proven to be not so easily managed by the Undermining Insiders, as liberals and other progressives were now called. Of course, the original Coalition had splintered into more violent cadres, and members of these new splinter groups were much more likely to employ outright violence to achieve their goals, so when it appeared that Republicans might win the election, talk of a Second Civil War had suddenly taken on a new urgency. 'But how could there even be a civil war,' the old liberal naysayers cried, 'when both sides are evenly distributed throughout the country?'

Lawton wasn't alone in realizing that the model for that type of war had played out in South Vietnam, when neighbors started killing neighbors and when no one was safe. Putting up a yard sign stating your political preferences had suddenly become an act of defiance in many parts of the country, and in some states, it was an act that could get you gunned down in your front yard.

So when Lawton reflected on the conversations of Americans he'd overheard on the Underground he understood the fear these people were expressing. It was, he had to admit, not all that different from the anger he'd overheard in Kyiv and Odesa, or even in Afghanistan during the last days of the American occupation. When the unifying fabric of a society began to fray around the edges it wasn't long before the whole enterprise began to fall apart.

Lawton finally gave up on the idea of sleep and took a long shower, then he repacked his suitcase and made sure his phone and camera were fully charged before checking out of the hotel. Once on the Paddington Express he sat in silence, noting that the carriage was empty, but when he made his way up the escalators to the check-in concourse at Heathrow's T5 he found that the entire building looked, and felt, deserted. He walked over to the Business Class check-in counter and once again noted that no one else was waiting in line at the long row of unmanned British Airways counters, and to him, that was a very bad sign indeed.

"What's going on?" he asked as he made his way over to the lone agent behind the counter.

"Very few people flying to the States right now," the girl said with a shrug. "Everything feels so unsettled over there."

"How long has it been like this?"

"Since the election, I think."

He nodded, then decided to change the subject. "What's the equipment today?"