The Cinderella Factor. Sophie Weston

Tim bit back a smile. He was very keen on the Balkan specialist. If she saw Patrick Burns now, she wouldn’t think he was sexy, Tim thought with faintly guilty satisfaction.

      Like Tim himself, Patrick was swathed in a triple-lined all-weather jacket. The hood had a fur inset and his gloves would have got him up Everest without frostbite. It was the right gear for this bitter mountainside. But suave Count Dracula was definitely out.

      Patrick put down the equipment he was carrying and shaded his eyes, looking across the valley. The distant peaks were like a silhouette out of a Victorian Arabian Nights. But he was not looking at the mountains. He was looking at the town in the plain. From their vantage point, it looked incredibly small. Clouds of smoke, colourless in the night air, were billowing up from the road they had travelled with the tiny group of stunned, silent refugees only this morning. The village where the refugees had stopped, hoping for a brief rest, was now invisible behind the smokescreen. The thud of bombs reached them a few seconds later.

      ‘Poor bastards,’ said Tim, following Patrick’s gaze.

      A muscle worked in Patrick’s jaw. He had not shaved for two days now, and the throbbing muscle was very clear under the residual beard.

      But all he said was, ‘Yes.’

      Tim made the satellite link and went through the routine methodically. He had done it three times a day for the last ten days, and he and his opposite number in London had it down to a fine art now. They finished with plenty of time to spare, and Tim stood down, idling, waiting for the countdown to air time.

      Patrick stood where Tim told him to. He had to push the fur-lined hood of his parka back to insert his own earpiece.

      ‘You look like a brigand,’ said Tim.

      The brown fur at Patrick’s shoulders was ruffled in the icy breeze, brindling his uncropped dark hair. Between the gypsy hair and two days’ growth of beard, Patrick did not look so different from some of the hard-eyed men they had met on commandeered tanks in the field.

      Patrick gave a grim smile. ‘Thank you.’

      Suddenly, Tim’s vague unease crystallised. Everything began to make sense—the long hair, the beard, the urgent conversations with the interpreter. Even giving away his rations like that to the bedraggled locals. It was as if Patrick was wound so tightly he no longer needed food. As if he was preparing for a great adventure…

      ‘You’re going underground, aren’t you?’ Tim said slowly.

      Patrick nodded. ‘I’ll give it a try, anyway.’

      ‘Man, you’re crazy,’ said Tim, awed.

      The countdown to live broadcast started.

      Against the black sky, lights flared intermittently. The distant wump, wump of bombs landing drifted across to them. It was out of synch with the flares.

      In their earpieces, they could hear the newscaster setting the scene. The man’s voice said in their ears, ‘…and, in the mountains, our correspondent Patrick Burns. Any sign of the struggle abating, Patrick?’

      Over him, the editor said, ‘Three, two, one—cue Patrick.’

      Patrick launched fluently into broadcaster mode. Only it wasn’t the agreed script at all.

      He said, ‘This is a terrible place.’

      ‘What?’ screamed the editor. ‘Patrick, get back to the agreed line, you bastard.’

      Patrick ignored the voice in his ear.

      ‘The night air is bitterly cold, even worse than the day.’ He was serene, intense. ‘There has been a drought here for two years. The dust is everywhere. It’s in our shoes, our clothes, the food in our packs. My cameraman and I have to keep scarves across our mouths or the dust gets in our throats.’

      ‘The battle,’ yelled the London editor. ‘Talk about the battle, you insubordinate son of a camel.’

      And for a moment Patrick did, listing the advances, the losses, the claims by both sides. He nodded to Tim and the camera swung slowly round to focus on him.

      Oh, yes, he looked good on camera, Tim thought. Alert and reliable, like the captain of a ship. The sort of man you could trust. The public of the English-speaking world certainly trusted him. According to the company’s latest annual report, he was Mercury News International’s greatest asset.

      It had to be that trick he had of looking straight into the camera, earnestly, as if he really wanted you to understand. He was doing it now. And he had finished with the battle.

      ‘The bombs our government sold one side,’ Patrick told the world, in his measured, unemotional way, ‘hit the arms dumps our government sold the other. You can see the explosions in the night sky behind me.’

      He gestured. Obediently, Tim ran a long, slow tracking shot along the smoky line of bomb fog. It went on, and on, and on.

      ‘And while the bombardment goes on,’ said Patrick levelly, as the camera tracked relentlessly, ‘we come across little groups of people on the road. They have lost their homes. There is no food. There will not be any food next year, either.’

      The editor was now keeping up a steady stream of profanity in their earpieces. Patrick talked through it as if he could not hear the woman.

      ‘This land had already been turned to concrete by drought. Now it is a junkyard of weapons.’ He paused. ‘Weapons made in the developed world. Sold by Western governments. Like ours.’

      Tim brought the camera back to him. Patrick was shaking now. That had to be the fierce cold on his unprotected head. He did not seem to notice.

      ‘There are mines here. And the rest. Nobody knows what is live and what is safe. Nobody will know until a farmer sets one off when he comes out to plant next year’s crops. Or a child throws a ball and the earth explodes in his face.’

      He was mesmerising, thought Tim, shaken in spite of his professional cynicism.

      ‘And the truly terrible thing,’ Patrick told the camera quietly, ‘is that nobody knows how to stop it. Too many people are making money out of it.’

      The furore in their earpieces quietened. A new voice spoke. An authoritative voice.

      ‘Patrick, stop this,’ it said coldly. ‘Give me the balance of power analysis.’

      Veteran newsman Ed Lassells ran a tight ship. You obeyed him or you walked.

      Patrick went on as if he had not heard Ed Lassells, either. He was shaking with cold. ‘For the last day my cameraman and I have been travelling with eight people from a village that doesn’t exist any more.’

      ‘Give me the analysis, Patrick,’ said Ed, in a voice like lead.

      Patrick ignored him so completely that Tim wondered if he had actually removed his earpiece. He realised suddenly that Patrick was not shaking with cold. It was passion.

      It was unprofessional. By God, it was awesome.

      ‘The adults are stunned,’ Patrick told the camera levelly. ‘They are being led by a boy of eleven. “Why?” I asked one of the women. “Because he is so young he does not yet know it is hopeless,” she said.’

      Even Tim, who had been there when the tired woman had said it, was moved.

      ‘That boy saved my life,’ said Patrick Burns starkly.

      ‘Right, that’s it. I’m pulling the plug,’ said Ed.

      They heard the studio presenter say, ‘We seem to have lost contact with Patrick Burns. We’ll try to link up again and bring you the rest of his dispatch later in the programme.’

      Patrick said nothing. He drew a long breath, as if he had come to the end of a race that had pushed him to the limit. Then he pulled up the hood of his parka again and began to dismantle his microphone, quite as if nothing