... Continues the Book of Valten:
She told him an arms contractor in the UKSB sold laser weapons illegally off its parts inventory. She named the factory. It was owned by a company that built weapons for the government. She told them Sir’s money came from financiers, deconstructionists like himself, enemies of ITAN.
At the end of the day, Val and Libing sat with the task force agents and ITAN officials. Bromley was elated, his spirit mirrored by others in the room, many of whom organized seizures and arrests through hand-helds.
“We’ll get most of them on CAA,” the attorney general, Finlay, was telling Libing. “We won’t use a warrant. A jurisdictional transfer to homeland affairs will get everyone netted today.”
Libing nodded and asked about the contractor’s assets, how the UKSB handled seizures of that magnitude.
Val didn’t remember what a CAA was, but he knew how jurisdictional transfers worked. When the task force was satisfied she had no more information, it would transfer Katherin out of homeland affairs and into ITAN custody. Volodya wanted her but Volodya wanted ITAN membership more and had backed away from its extradition request. Katherin was charged under the international code against the procurement of weapons to further insurgency. ITAN would execute her as a terrorist and it would do so on UKSB soil. Libing said Katherin would receive a lethal injection in about fourteen days. Terror cases in just about all nations had limited access to the appellate courts, and Katherin had confessed.
There was one last meeting with Bromley and Tomalsi, the task force chief. Tomalsi produced a transcript of the interview and asked Val to flesh out those instances when the dialogue went on below the range of the microphones.
“For the record,” Tomalsi insisted.
As he went over the computer file, Val remembered the significance of the CAA, or Conspiracy and Abetting Act. Under the Conspiracy and Abetting Act talking to blacklisted individuals and entities was a federal violation. A sleeper agent required activation, orders, and so CAA made sense in theory. The UKSB attorney general had helped Volodya amend its National Security Act with the CAA, which met only token resistance in Parliament. Anyone making prohibited contact with a blacklisted risked execution. The amendment had never, in Volodya, been used. The UKSB used it all the time.
While Val and Tomalsi spoke in low voices over the file, Val became aware of Bromley’s scrutiny. The ITAN official beamed pleasantly.
Libing checked his watch, a distraction. The airjet was due to lift off in an hour.
Bromley stared across the conference table, a slim man with waves of silver hair.
… I hope I’m not wasting my time … I’m not … If you can’t understand me but you know what I’m doing move your water glass to the left side of your keypad.
Val said to Tomalsi, “Right here, this span, she was not speaking. I was telling her to be calm.”
Tomalsi frowned and made the notation to the file.
Libing checked his watch again.
… Do you hear me … Is hear the right word? … Either we are communicating perfectly or I am communicating with myself … If you can sort out my thoughts you are an extraordinary being and of great value to my organization … We will sponsor your defection for the sum of one million International Union Credits. Your defection will be to the UKSB but you will report to ITAN. Have I got your attention?
Tomalsi said, “Review my notation, please.”
Val said, “It’s correct.”
Bromley, staring, murmured softly some words to his colleague, seated on his right. It was a brief and meaningless exchange. As soon as he was able, Bromley reordered his thoughts.
… One million does not excite you, my friend? We are prepared to offer more. If this satisfies you, move your water glass to the other side of your keypad. Extraction would be after your return to Volodya. We wouldn’t create a fuss here, as we are very good hosts. Will you consider two million International Union Credits?
Tomalsi said, “I think that will do it.”
Val glanced at Libing. “Are we on schedule?”
Libing said, “We’re doing well.”
Bromley nodded in Val’s direction, his mouth pulling a smile that did not reach his eyes.
Val stroked his water glass, then got up, leaving it where it was.
When Val returned to Bhavaja, he called Dr. Sandor. The doctor clucked with relief and said he was glad Val had not stranded them indefinitely in such a time of need. Val felt genuinely sorry.
Maria met him in her penthouse, to which he possessed an access card. She kissed him without speaking, her body molded to his, her fingers on either side of his face. They made love right away, so that he grew quiet within himself, able to listen to his voice as well as hers.
Maria made a light dinner. From the window of Maria’s penthouse Val looked over uptown. The debris that used to be Karsbrasova Square had been cleared. A vast yard within a barricade fence represented the killing ground. People hung wreaths and lay flowers, left letters of remembrance.
The next day Val visited a girl on the wards but was prevented from touching her by the unexpected appearance of her mother. Charmed by Val’s smile, the girl’s mother offered her candy bar. He told the mother he was assigned to Dr. Sandor’s staff and wanted to wish the child his best thoughts as she faced her treatment. The girl was scheduled for the therapy called the Sandor Process about which Val knew nothing, and which, Val knew, did nothing. Yet the success ratio of the Sandor Process was phenomenal. The Bhavaja International Children’s Center had a waiting list for beds. Dr. Sandor was one of the most celebrated research physicians in children’s health.
Val met Maria a block from her building. They held hands, walked the rest of the way together.
Maria made a quick meal of roasted garlic chicken and salad and ate while Val showered. She put on a local situation comedy show and followed it start to finish on the kitchen television. She smiled once or twice at the inanity but it was television, what did one expect?
Val appeared in the kitchen in a tee, dark hair in his eyes, the way she liked it. He was familiar, so familiar. Her shoulders burned a little. Without speaking, he kneaded them. He picked at his plate, reaching around her waist, looking now and then at the telie. He really wasn’t interested in comedy, she knew. He ate a little more. He was patient but aroused, his breath soft. Twenty minutes went by. Since he left the shower they had not spoken. It was always this way, so quiet. Maria relaxed into his arms. Whatever she wanted touched, he touched. It was never a question of Val doing the wrong thing. Her eyes closed. She found the bedroom in the dark, as ever.
He got up, the way he always did, when she fell to sleep, and put on his clothes. The curfew kept him from leaving. He stood at the window, watched the city with its eastward traffic lights going from green to red. The boulevards passed their traffic to the highway, busses and emergency vehicles only, and the connected elite who could buy the curfew passes.
Around 0400, Val left. He had a hospital ID, which let him ride the city motor coach after 0400 in the morning. He got off a block early and walked the rest of the way home. The sun pinked the sky over the waterfront. It was spring. The days were getting longer. A breeze floated in with the salt of the sea.
He let himself into his flat. The phone was ringing. He tried to move quickly but he missed the call. It was Maria, he thought. Who else? She was strong, yes, in her way, but she was understandably sensitive to his movements after his trip to the UKSB.
The phone rang again. He saw right away that like the first call this one was only audio. There was nothing on the call prompter, no caller identification, but he did not know that until later, when he checked. His call prompter volume was off, its default setting, which he, never needing it, had not bothered to adjust. He pushed REL on the wall remote to open the line, slipped on the hands-free device, which he always left on the kitchenette counter, and bent down to undo his shoelaces. He said, smiling a little, “I didn’t mean to wake you. I always do that. I should have put the air up before I left. You would have rested better.”
“Val.”
His fingers on his shoelaces froze and his head turned sharply to one side. Curiously, there was no alarm, not really.
“Val,” the line repeated. “Where is Val? Where is he?”
It was a man’s voice and there was a Goraneg lilt. Val supposed the man would always have it, living among Goraneg adults.
“Val,” said the voice.
Val lifted up his gaze and caught the flush of pre-dawn light between the blinds. He blinked, and stood up. Went rather calmly to his computer terminal, sat down. He knew right away something was wrong and he knew what it was and he wondered if his computer could demonstrate the defect, demonstrate it well enough the first person he showed it to would recognize straightaway there was an anomaly.
“Who is this?” he said, somewhat indifferently. He knew that who did not matter. He just needed the line alive a bit longer.
“Arnulf,” the caller said.
That was easy. Val said, matter-of-factly, “Arnulf, it’s extremely absurd for you to call. Have I the privilege of a warning then? Tell me what you are going to do to me. Tell me the name of your mother, Arnulf. Tell me the name of your first pony.” He had already started a trace. His screen was returning unsatisfactory data. Shit. The call was routed through an encrypted server. “Arnulf, are you still there? I was expecting a dramatic abduction or a knifing on the street. What street am I on, Arnulf?” Val had begun to work on the encryption. It was high level work but not elaborate. Banking institutions used better.
“Happy Birthday, Val.” Amarite polytheists did not celebrate birthdays. It was a nice touch.
The line died.
Val looked at his screen. He did not have the software at his flat to probe further. If he had a few hours, he could do it, finish the trace, but then, he was sure, he’d be at the first of a platform of ghost servers. The caller was not much of a genius. There were probably only three or four ghost servers but without specialized software each ghost would take time.
He did not have time.
He sat still, his mind overtaken by a convergence of possibilities. Blown apart by logic, scenarios fell away one by one. When he could no longer keep still, he decided he ought to clean up. A difficult day lay ahead, a day that promised to change everything.
Somehow, he managed to get himself showered. The authorities had not yet come. His nerves got heavy, tight. He found a bottle of brandy and poured. Overcome by inertia, he froze in the window. By then he had begun to sob. It wasn’t as hard or strange to weep as he thought. He had never cried like this, with his whole body, with his soul. His nostrils clogged. Sounds broke in his throat. Across an ocean, in a prison, his sister Katherin felt as now he did, trapped while time ran out, while time ran down to nothing. He put aside the brandy and checked himself in the mirror. He wore the suit this time, the one he put on to meet Maria’s aunt.
He left his flat and climbed slowly, heavily to the train ramp. He waited among strangers, his face pale, his eyes bruised with grief. He rode the train to the hospital, greeted the security guard with his identification card, and took the elevator directly to the patient floors. He supposed he had just moments, maybe a half hour.
It was early, and the little girl was asleep. Her name was Leronia. He never wanted to forget the last one, the way he had forgotten the first. He touched her forehead and tossed her bangs. What would her mother have thought, finding him standing so early in the dark over her daughter? A bubble of blood in his right nostril, warm and stingy. A last light, his last life saved. He wished many daughters and sons for Leronia, and birthdays, a lot of birthdays, with a kind face beside her, some man’s, reverent with love. He went into the lavatory to clean up. He took the elevator to the third floor, started to walk to his office, but down the corridor, where the glass wall opened over the lobby several flights down, he saw police and federal agents. He squeezed his jaw with his fingertips, hoping to mold his features into some sort of composure. He could do this, he supposed. Others had. Katherin, too, had been forced to face censure and outrage. It was only one more thing and then he would know if it was to be sorted out.
Call Maria, he thought. But he couldn’t. Anyone he spoke to after the phone call at his flat would take on, publicly, the stain of suspicion. The spirit of the Conspiracy and Abetting Act was the exposition of sleeper cells, assuming such persons must be communicated with to receive orders. He could not call Maria.
He hoped Maria would be sensible.
He got into the elevator, and when the elevator opened the policemen and agents turned to look at him.
He lifted up his hands. He didn’t want to excite anyone.
They swarmed him, so he made his limbs loose, to minimize the damage. The handcuffs were heavy and tight. They manhandled him outside to a police van, and then sat beside him, their hands on his arms in the dark, wet heat. The van finished its journey down a concrete tunnel under Zoran Station, a detention facility adjacent the new federal courthouse. He was brought up through the prisoner elevator under heavy guard and pushed and pulled into the reception center.
They removed the handcuffs and surrounded him with stun batons while detention facility staff removed his clothes. They searched him everywhere and for a long time. He saw his clothes go into a plastic bag for evidence. He was given a white overall, no underthings or socks. He stepped into the uniform of a prisoner. There was a flap that lifted across the chest and adhered to the cloth for a snug fit. His hands were cuffed behind his back and he was taken barefoot to a concrete room with recessed lights, a table, and two plastic chairs.
When they left him there he was not afraid. He was furious. He felt the imprint of hands all over his skin, the roughness of the prison uniform. The cloth smelled of industrial solvent. His blood began to move rather quickly, filling his ears.
When the door opened, he stood up.
The detention facility staff, two men in guard uniforms and a woman in a maroon medical technician outfit, surrounded a much older man with a knob of a head, moist lips, and large round eyes. He was well dressed, the older man. His skin was soft with good living, and his fingernails were manicured.
Val sampled this man’s mind and wondered, after, what it would feel like to smash the prune face with his fist.
“Sit down,” the guard ordered. Val’s anger was palpable. The guard was wary.
The older man stepped forward and said he was Val’s advocate, his counsel. He continued to the table, took out of his suit pocket a photograph and held it at eye level. “They want you to sit down,” the advocate said, conversationally. “The medic here wants to give you an injection of Endo-Vezdrin. You will let her. We will wait five or so minutes for you to recover your equilibrium.” The advocate slipped inside his tailored suit the photograph of Maria on her morning walk to the hospital. The image could have been taken that morning, or the morning before. She’d been holding a café purchased at the corner shop, a special blend. Val could taste the café now, as though he had just kissed her.
Val sat. The woman sidled up to him and pressed the med injector to his throat. He soon felt as though the chair was swept from beneath him. His shoulders slumped and relaxed. His brain was submerged in opaque liquid.
There was a five-minute interval. He overcame the nausea, picked up his shoulders, and glared at the advocate with unfiltered contempt.
The advocate dismissed the guards and the medic and slipped his hands into his slacks. “We should begin. You’re due across the street in court shortly.”
Val continued to stare, his face so compressed with rage he was hardly recognizable.
The advocate went on indifferently. “Note where you are. And where you are not. The Sarika facility is normally the first stop for National Security offenders. The drugs they give there are not so gentle as the one we use here. The drugs at Sarika are part of a comprehensive policy of torture, after which it is customary to shoot prisoners in the head. I mention this because you may feel disposed to discuss with the judge such inconveniences as immunity agreements and protection programs. I’d stay away from remembrances of liaisons with federal officials. Think of it this way. You have transferred your immunity protection to Miss Zakarij. I think we can wrap up a CAA offense against her in a half-hour, after which I guarantee she will go to Sarika. Do I have your attention?”
Val glared.
“Good. When we go across the street our plea will be not guilty. Since we are a National Security case and the charge falls under the CAA, the next step will be a find hearing. In a few days, probably by Friday, the procurator will present his case supporting the elements of the offense. The find will of course go against you. I will move for a trial. The judge will deny us. I will ask to be heard on mitigation. The judge will say we can only be heard on mitigation if we change our plea to guilty, which we will. My presentation will last forty or fifty seconds, after which the judge will hear us on sentencing. Have we any questions?”
Val said, “Are you a licensed advocate?”
“I meant, have you any questions you’re entitled to ask?”
“Am I permitted to call anyone?”
“No.”
“Oh that’s fine then. No, I’m perfectly settled. I’m great.”
“Good, you’re letting go. That’s smart, it’s easier for everyone. Oh, and twice a day a med tech will give you an injection. The prevailing belief is you’re a mindwalker. Frankly these days I expect Goraneg gypsies to sprout wings, a tail, a third leg, and breathe fire, so one of you bastards looking through my head doesn’t surprise me. We’ll be keeping you suppressed, I hope you don’t mind. Well, actually I hope you do.” The advocate signaled the camera and the door opened from outside. He left.
Within an hour, they had Val in an armor-reinforced van shuttling down the underground tunnel between the Zoran Station and the federal courthouse. The courthouse was closed to spectators. Only credentialed journalists were permitted.
Val stood behind the defendant’s table in shackles. A federal judge, a long-faced, black-haired man in robes, announced the charge, entering a single violation of the CAA.
The advocate shifted forward, addressed the judge. “Not guilty, your honor.”
The procurator, a tall man with gray wires of hair circling a shiny scalp, locked hands in front and thrust out his chin. “Your honor, the government wishes to present a find. We are confident we can save the court some time if we are allowed to do this.”
The judge lowered his gaze and then raised it. He was annoyed. “The defense has entered a plea of not guilty and therefore requests trial.”
“This is a National Security case,” the procurator reminded. “Adjudication by trial is not automatic.”
“In my court,” the judge elaborated, “individual rights are not swept aside for convenience.”
“Your honor,” the procurator said in a tone generally used by a parent on a child, “at the find the government intends to show the defendant Stephen Kessler was born John Manegold. This terrorist has lived in Bhavaja eight years.”
The judge was silent. Val had turned his head to look with curiosity at the procurator. He had not expected a total cleansing.
The judge pointed his nose at Val. “Have you presented this court a false identity, sir?”
Val looked at his advocate. “My options, please.”
The advocate: “Answer him.”
Not good enough. Val leaned back on his heels and spoke at a whisper. “I know the truth today if we hit upon it will be in short supply, so kindly inform which brand of shit I should be serving up. I confess I am out of my depth.”
“We’ll be serving the full dose of shit,” said his advocate, quietly, “beginning with your true name.”
Val turned his head to the judge. “My name is John Valten Manegold.”
The judge wrinkled his brow, perplexed. “I don’t like where this is going, not one bit. What is your connection to Burgolt Manegold?”
“Do I answer?” Val queried his advocate in a harsh, wretched voice.
“You’re doing very well. Please continue.”
“Burgolt Manegold is my sire.”
Several journalists, pushing and shoving at colleagues, hastened from the courtroom to file reports. The judge frowned at this impropriety, and he frowned at Val. “And you have been living with a manufactured identity in Bhavaja?”
“The address in my file is authentic. I am a Harespar graduate, I am employed, and have nothing whatsoever to do with Manegold enterprises.”
“Enterprises, is that what you call it? And you were among us eight years illegally and with an assumed identity?”
“Yes.”
“ ‘Yes, your honor,’ ” the advocate corrected.
“Yes, your honor,” Val repeated, stiffly.
The judge snapped backward in his chair as though disgusted. “The court will hear the government in a find two days from now. I expect both parties to be prepared to speak on sentencing. If the defense intends to present mitigation, be prepared to do that as well. We adjourn.”
In the intervening day, seeing no one but the medical technician, Val curled on a metal pallet in a cell the size of a closet. Shock had found him, penetrating pores, bones, and vessels. If he had his special senses, he might have attempted to connect with his inner strength. He felt unbalanced, violated, and helpless. Hunger visited him. His power was busy with the toxin, and so he slept too, about five hours in the night. He chose not to eat and woke with a light head, swollen eyes, and a sore stomach. He drank café when the morning tray came. He never saw the guard that brought it. The tray appeared through a slot.
Soon four guards took him to clean up and gave him a laundered uniform. For his feet he got canvas slip-ons. Then he was handcuffed and shackled and delivered to the van for transport.
The courthouse had quadrupled its contingent of journalists. He saw placards announcing representatives of international news agencies and Volod nationals from distant prefectures. He tried to imagine what was going on in televised news and on GateKeeper Global and supposed he had been thoroughly vilified. The fact that he had been living in Bhavaja when the Needle fell would be exposed and twisted. The detail of his employment would be hard to mist over since the authorities had started with the name of Stephen Kessler. Work at the hospital would be disrupted while the story was bandied about and municipal authorities, pursuing breadcrumbs conjured by deliberate omissions, snooped for evidence of participation in terror acts. His image likely accompanied every story. How many people outside of work had seen him with Maria? The various doormen at her building, her aunt, the counter people at the corner shop, the grocer. Shackled, he looked back over the courtroom gallery full of riveted faces, felt sick in his stomach, and settled into the defendant’s wooden box.
The procurator’s find took twenty minutes of the morning. The procurator concluded with a recording. The journalists gasped, some of them, when on the tape he spoke Arnulf’s name. They heard code in his attempt to authenticate the call and its author, not desperation and certainly they misunderstood his attempt to stall. Would it have gone differently if he had remained Stephen Kessler? Was the name Manegold like bane, to them, a signpost to mass hysteria? Val supposed it was. Even without his power the gathering hostility was detectable. He guessed that outside the courthouse the mood was a great deal more intense, less rational. At the end of the find, the judge retired to consider the government’s case. Val stayed put, distractedly studying the patched carpet, the scraped wooden paneling. He had gone past being afraid but understood that his fear was only around some corner of the psyche, waiting for him to discover the means to cope. By contrast, he was almost overwhelmed by anxiety about Maria. Where could she be but at home, since she had most assuredly been labeled publicly John Manegold’s mistress? The hospital would banish her. The public news agencies would without regard for her dignity ridicule and belittle her for sleeping with the enemy. How would she survive the crisis if she could not for a moment get away from it? Perhaps her family would rescue her, get her help that she needed, drug therapy first, and later someone to talk to. Wouldn’t she eventually tell someone her Val was a government informant? Wouldn’t she commit some effort to unraveling the mystery of his arrest and abandonment by the Federal Authority? What if she did? Would she get a visit from some smiling old man claiming to be an advocate? Would she be given a photograph of herself, an image taken when her world and her love were intact? How would she respond to such a threat, his Maria?
The judge, settling on his pedestal, calling his court to order, first addressed the procurator. “The court rules the find has satisfied the elements of the offense.” He rotated his head toward Val. “Young man, please stand.”
Val got up, his advocate, the bastard, rising beside him. Almost immediately Val lowered his head. He felt as though a hot, hard wind battered him. His balance was precarious, not at all guaranteed. He felt that the next moments should be experienced with as little engagement of his faculties as possible. Instead he concentrated on his legs, keeping them steady.
The judge said, “National Security defendants are not guaranteed right to trial and in few cases is trial granted. My ruling is the find has proven the case elements. If you wish to change your plea to guilty, son, I will hear your advocate on mitigation.”
“The defendant will change his plea, you honor,” the advocate said in a booming voice.
The judge waved this aside. “Young man, do you wish to plead guilty?”
Val felt his throat liquefy and burn. He had no idea what his voice would sound like if he tried to use it. He wondered why he should. If he did nothing, and said nothing, what matter?
“Son, I asked, do you plead guilty?”
The advocate said, a bit uneasily, “We wish to plead guilty, your honor.”
The judge grunted and sat back in his chair. “Very well. Present your items of mitigation, counselor.”
The advocate spoke for minute and, predictably, said nothing useful.
The judge gestured. “What does the government have to say about the sentence?”
“The government insists the court impose the compulsory penalty as stipulated by the Conspiracy and Abetting Act.”
“The defense?”
“The defense requests leniency, your honor.”
The judge said, “The court accepts the defendant’s plea of guilty and sentences John Valten Manegold to the mandatory penalty as stipulated by the Conspiracy and Abetting Act of seven fifty-one, death by hanging. Is the Zoran superintendent present?”
“I am, your honor,” answered a man from the officials’ table. The table with its suited men from various agencies and disciplines stood against the wall behind the procurator’s box.
“Give me a date, sir.”
“Friday next, your honor.”
The judge responded with a decisive shake of his head. “We’re not carrying on till Friday next. I want this over with. What’s wrong with Tuesday?”
“We’ve scheduled five executions for Tuesday, your honor. It’s hard on the men when we do more than five.”
“Move one you’re doing on Tuesday to Friday. And I want the first slot, top of the hour.”
“Yes, your honor.”
“Mr. Manegold?”
Val raised his head but not his gaze.
The judge sat forward. “Mr. Manegold.”
There was an interminable stillness, and then Val lifted his eyes, unfocused and glassy.
“You’re scheduled to die on three twenty-two at twenty-one hundred hours. With regard to appellate review, this court must have on file by seventeen hundred hours on three twenty-two a certification of intention to review by an authorized body or you are ineligible for a stay of execution. Mr. Manegold, do you understand what I have said?”
Val was silent.
“Mr. Manegold?”
“I ... understand ...”
“Mr. Manegold, I commend you to the Zoran superintendent’s custody. Session is closed.”
Val began the first hours under sentence of death on Cube 6, which was the prefecture’s holding facility for condemned National Security prisoners. He was struck right away by the utter silence of the place. The thick walls between cells and passages were proof against sound.
He saw no one but the med technician. An escort to the bathing facility occurred once in four days. He was due to visit the showers the day before his execution, which was typical. Otherwise, he lay on the metal pallet and instructed the lights to off, then on, depending on the stage of his derangement. His head pulsed mercilessly. The Endo-Vezdrin was designed to cause euphoria but he raged against its intended side effect, the submergence of his gift, and he existed, when awake, in constant agitation. The dosage, too, exceeded the medical safety standard. The medical doctor in charge of Val’s case, influenced by a phobia of mindwalkers and Val’s imminent death, ordered the larger dose, to make sure. Without his power Val felt weak and hungry but the drug interfered with his appetite and his internal war against its effects interfered with sleep. His thoughts became disorganized and highly emotional. By the weekend he was in constant pain, starving, and unkempt.
When the cell opened and men in the white shirt and bloused, black tactical trousers of the Federal Authority guards came through, Val supposed he had made it to Monday and it was time to have his last shower. He leveraged his torso off the pallet and sat swaying on the edge while the guards flanked him. They lifted him slightly, getting no help from him, to handcuff his wrists behind his back. Then they unlocked a plate in the cement floor and revealed a metal ring. The guards fed a length of chain through the ring and fixed the chain to shackles they put on Val’s ankles. They left without speaking.
Caspar Libing strolled in. The cell door shut.
Val identified Libing through unfocused eyes and then attempted to shift backward onto his pallet. Firmly, cruelly, the chain running through his shackles held him seated at the pallet edge, face forward. He stared down at the shackles and his bare feet as though astonished and wounded the restraints and his own flesh, his bones would conspire against him. It was one more indignity, this. Why should he face Libing when he did not want to? Why should he engage a man in whom he saw the stranger, the agenda of his enemy, and an executioner?
After licking his lips, frustrated, “Go back out and fuck yourself,” Val uttered. The words that dribbled from his mouth were out of character, uniquely so, but managed to convey perfectly, from Val’s perspective, the despair overtaking his senses. Also, from Val’s perspective, the cell had retained the dimensions of a closet but Libing, near the door, seemed at the end of an immense tunnel. Val considered the possibility he was lethally dosed, or toxic to the point of hallucination. The elder federal agent struck a chord similar to the note that had brought Val to do physical harm to his father. The comparison was perplexing and dangerous-- also ludicrous. Were Libing guilty of every scintilla of sin Val heaped upon the agent’s soul, even so Libing’s crimes would not cover the first page of the prologue of the book of Burgolt Manegold. So it was personal, in the way Sir’s murder of Val’s mother after so very many casual murders had felt. And how did one communicate the pain of breach, so intimate, to one who had by action demonstrated such profound indifference? The answer was plain. Val wanted his hands-- his mind had been disabled by drugs --tight around Libing’s throat. The flame of this desire (for violence) surged and ebbed, surged and ebbed in the steam and funk of anguish.
Libing began speaking. Val heard a series of stops and starts, broken, he thought at first, by his own diminished faculties. Only later did he realize Libing was speaking brokenly, and with emotion, struggling no less than he was. “ … And so I gather you knew your incriminating phone call was a digital compilation? It, uh, it came to us from a record of Arnulf Manegold’s voice on your sister’s, uh, on her flex computer, I don’t know if you … if you realized. From the Moukib raid, yes. She stored his calls, your brother’s … she saved his calls, some of … some of them. Probably out of affection.”
Libing and Val, gazing at each other, came briefly to silence. Val thought he heard noise, something improbable within the walls or just outside them, and this turned his head, for he was convinced the stillness of the place was absolute as death.
With difficulty, Libing lifted his arms over his chest, pushed on. “… You knew Arnulf was never really … wasn’t really, uh, there, am I right? Is that the trouble between us?”
“The trouble between us.” The words, taking on significance, struck at Val’s wounded psyche, and he sat straight.
“I said you knew, I told them that part, at least, was sham.”
Val was sure he misunderstood. His awareness of the forged call was both obvious and irrelevant. “Good for you,” he answered. “How wonderful to have everything I know and believe in betrayed like that.”
Libing’s face contorted with emotion, a shocking and hastily corrected display. “John, don’t talk to me like that, like I am your enemy.” He was more forthcoming now and anxious, it seemed, to change the tone of the conversation. Libing launched plaintively,into a narrative: One of ITAN’s priority two airjets-- the code priority one, priority two, Val had learned, had to do with the aircraft’s autonomy under diplomatic protocol --had landed at Tolna-Kraj International outside Bhavaja. Intelligence reports said the airjet brought a tactical team from the UKSB. The Federal Authority believed the team was within Volodyan borders to abduct Val. By the time the FA began tracking it the team had dispersed into the city.
Libing’s information failed to soften Val’s anger. The opposite occurred.
“Me part of someone else’s bag of tricks, you couldn’t have that, could you?”
“It’s more complicated than that.”
Val wrenched his feet against the shackles and stiffened further. “Not from where I’m sitting.”
Libing mumbled something and nudged a small skeleton key from his pocket. He knelt at Val’s feet.
Val realized Libing intended to unlock the chain and clenched his muscles, not to kick the agent but to steady himself against the urge to kick him.
“I don’t agree with what’s been done, John, so I’m hardly the person to stand here and defend it. It’s not fair to make me out to be part of this.”
“It’s better I’m dead, do you disagree with that?” An unfair challenge, and at some level Val knew it. “Why like this? Explain it to me. Why do I have to die like this?”
Libing worked the key into the lock on the shackles and looked up. His eyes were the eyes of an old man, which they had never seemed before. When Libing looked at him, Val felt the stone of his anger shift as though it would slip from some precipice and be gone but for his holding on. And he knew he should let go but he was afraid the look in Libing’s eyes was a lie, like the lie that Val was a terrorist.
“-- Hold still, John.” Libing put his hand on the shackles to expose the lock, unlocked them, and removed the weighted bands.
Val lifted up his haunches, presented his wrists.
Libing uncuffed him.
Val sank back, drew his hands together. He pinched the reddened skin and inhaled roughly.
Libing passed a hand over Val’s shoulder. “You want to know how they came to it, the ones who came to it?”
“Yes!”
Libing gathered the chain, shackles, and handcuffs into his arms. “This was what Prime Minister Barta foresaw. The instant Prime Minister Hovsep opened your complete file, the special file, to the task force, that was the instant our government lost control of you.”
“Because I am a mindwalker.”
“How did you try to kill your father, John? Do you remember what you told me?” Libing asked, depositing the restraints with a clang near the door.
“With a thought, as I told you.”
“Yes, with a thought. I didn’t believe you, did you know that?”
“Of course I knew.”
“You are so very accustomed to knowing every bloody thing, how helpless you must feel now. I’m very, very sorry.”
“I’m not asking for pity. Am I going to die then? They mean to let it happen?”
“Oh yes.”
“ ‘Oh yes.’ ” Val attempted to reach backward in his mind to a place in the darkness where death was not something he feared especially. He failed, and laughed bitterly at himself. “It’s so easy to be sure when you’re sure.” He flopped his head back against the wall, listening idly to the clunk of his heart. “I’m having difficulty adjusting.”
Libing flattened a hand to the middle of his face, so his features’ sudden crinkling and trembling went largely unseen, although Val was now paying attention to these episodes. Val canted his head, watching as Libing pulled himself together.
“John, our government wants ITAN membership, it’s always wanted it. The UKSB is the world’s superpower. In the middle somewhere, there’s you and this ability of yours, and I think it goes way deeper than you know, what you’re capable of, what you have inside. I think the UKSB believes there’s more to you and they feel driven to find out what it is. The problem is, if they want you badly enough to kidnap you, after they do it, what do we do, how do we get you back? Shouldn’t we be worried if they want you that much? They can ask for you formally, you know. Simply say, Transfer the Manegold to our task force. Why the hell not? How do we refuse? It was not a risk some in government were willing to take. As soon as the reports crossed the desk of my superintendent, on the evening before your arrest, certain persons in our government became convinced they had to remove you as an asset and liability. This had to happen, of course, with ITAN concerned on a global scale, politically, that stepping in to demand you was, shall we say, unwise. You are Burgolt Manegold’s son. No one had to work at that. You were part of a criminal enterprise aimed at destabilizing the world’s economies. You did live in Bhavaja eight years under an untraceable assumed identity. Under the worst and best circumstances no one would believe you worked for the Federal Authority. They had to manufacture a reason for your arrest, and it was a simple construct, really. With a nudge here and there, my superiors let men outside the know do their jobs. They finished the circle, so to speak, while certain officials looked on and did nothing. That is how they came to it.”
“And you, my friend, where was your seat at the theater while the production of Kill John Manegold played without a hitch?”
“That’s got to wear off,” Libing interrupted, “very quickly. I am referring to your anger at me. You can’t sustain it, number one, in your situation, and you can’t get ready for what you have to do as long as you’re trying to. Would it help if I got your medication reduced?”
Val glared.
Libing said, “Oh come on. If you want to shout at me, have at it. But it’s me you’re talking to. I didn’t do this to you. Do you think I was there when they planned this? Do you think anyone would speak to me when I called up after I saw you’d been arrested? I am only here today because they want it done quickly and they want you to take it and be quiet. They think your … affection for me will serve their needs. How could you believe I’d support this, what was done, the way it was done?” When there was no response, Libing scratched his temple. “All right. I’m with you the next few days. I have direct influence over your guards, it will be all right. No one will trouble you. Will you allow me to purchase trousers and some other clothing items? I’ll need your size, of course.”
“For my funeral?”
“Not for that. But yes, if you like, I can manage clothing for the funeral too.”
Val set his teeth and hissed. “Don’t bother.”
“I will bother, though, because we’re here days and hours before you’re ready, and I don’t know if I can make the purchases after you’ve settled down. Which means I’ll buy clothes for you to wear on Tuesday even if you won’t help me …” Libing’s voice caught. He coughed softly to clear it. “But perhaps the clothes won’t fit. The clothes should fit, I think. You’ll need that, whatever dignity you can muster.”
Val, spine erect, face knotted, returned to silence, in which he seemed to find some sort of shelter. Libing lowered his hands. He looked off at the walls, at Val, frequently at Val. The minutes crawled. Val watched Libing only in those instances Libing’s glances touched him. He endured the silence.
“This is what it’s like to be you,” Val said in a moment, “always doubting, always unsure of everyone, even the ones close to you, always on edge.”
Libing nodded and shrugged. “We get by.”
“Do you?”
“Yes, we get by. So will you. I’ll make them stop issuing the drugs, I can do that.”
“How can you?”
“We’ll say we’re giving them to you but we won’t. The captain of Cube Six, he’s a good fellow. I know him. Why do you think his guards have all been fair? I’ll stop the injections.”
“I suppose I should be grateful.”
“I’ll take what I can get. Now tell me your sizes, so I can do well by you.”
Val gave Libing what he asked for and added that he had lost weight in confinement.
Libing asked his shoe size.
Val told him.
“You haven’t mentioned Maria.”
“I am afraid to.”
“We’re watching her, that’s all …” Libing paused. “What is it?”
“She knows what the government is trying to sweep under the house.”
“She’ll be a good girl, it will be all right.”
“The agency sent someone to her. They upset her.”
“It’s all right, John, I give my word. May I confer with her for funeral details?”
“If they’ll let you speak to her, please do so but don’t bring up funeral arrangements. She’s not going to do well on that subject. Will you tell her to go to her mother’s? If you could drive her there--”
“Of course I would.”
“Caspar, that would mean the world to me.”
“Is there a message?”
“Ah, yes, yes, tell her when you saw me I was all right, only I worried for her, and I was worried she might harm herself or do something irrational but she mustn’t, tell her, because I couldn’t bear it. Tell her that.”
“Of course.”
“It isn’t love, tell her that also, what I feel for her, it’s deeper than love, it’s like we’re one person. So I’m not leaving her, not really. I can’t while she lives.”
“I’ll tell her.”
“Make sure she doesn’t watch the television. Perhaps you could stay with her next Tuesday night.”
“I rather thought I’d be here with you.”
“She’s the one who has to go on, she’s got the harder road.”
“I’ll take care of her, John.”
“John is my formal name but in the Goraneg we have something called a gift name, which we offer to ones we trust. I have never trusted blindly. I have always known my way. I am giving you my Maria, you may call me Val.”
--- Next Chapter
She told him an arms contractor in the UKSB sold laser weapons illegally off its parts inventory. She named the factory. It was owned by a company that built weapons for the government. She told them Sir’s money came from financiers, deconstructionists like himself, enemies of ITAN.
At the end of the day, Val and Libing sat with the task force agents and ITAN officials. Bromley was elated, his spirit mirrored by others in the room, many of whom organized seizures and arrests through hand-helds.
“We’ll get most of them on CAA,” the attorney general, Finlay, was telling Libing. “We won’t use a warrant. A jurisdictional transfer to homeland affairs will get everyone netted today.”
Libing nodded and asked about the contractor’s assets, how the UKSB handled seizures of that magnitude.
Val didn’t remember what a CAA was, but he knew how jurisdictional transfers worked. When the task force was satisfied she had no more information, it would transfer Katherin out of homeland affairs and into ITAN custody. Volodya wanted her but Volodya wanted ITAN membership more and had backed away from its extradition request. Katherin was charged under the international code against the procurement of weapons to further insurgency. ITAN would execute her as a terrorist and it would do so on UKSB soil. Libing said Katherin would receive a lethal injection in about fourteen days. Terror cases in just about all nations had limited access to the appellate courts, and Katherin had confessed.
There was one last meeting with Bromley and Tomalsi, the task force chief. Tomalsi produced a transcript of the interview and asked Val to flesh out those instances when the dialogue went on below the range of the microphones.
“For the record,” Tomalsi insisted.
As he went over the computer file, Val remembered the significance of the CAA, or Conspiracy and Abetting Act. Under the Conspiracy and Abetting Act talking to blacklisted individuals and entities was a federal violation. A sleeper agent required activation, orders, and so CAA made sense in theory. The UKSB attorney general had helped Volodya amend its National Security Act with the CAA, which met only token resistance in Parliament. Anyone making prohibited contact with a blacklisted risked execution. The amendment had never, in Volodya, been used. The UKSB used it all the time.
While Val and Tomalsi spoke in low voices over the file, Val became aware of Bromley’s scrutiny. The ITAN official beamed pleasantly.
Libing checked his watch, a distraction. The airjet was due to lift off in an hour.
Bromley stared across the conference table, a slim man with waves of silver hair.
… I hope I’m not wasting my time … I’m not … If you can’t understand me but you know what I’m doing move your water glass to the left side of your keypad.
Val said to Tomalsi, “Right here, this span, she was not speaking. I was telling her to be calm.”
Tomalsi frowned and made the notation to the file.
Libing checked his watch again.
… Do you hear me … Is hear the right word? … Either we are communicating perfectly or I am communicating with myself … If you can sort out my thoughts you are an extraordinary being and of great value to my organization … We will sponsor your defection for the sum of one million International Union Credits. Your defection will be to the UKSB but you will report to ITAN. Have I got your attention?
Tomalsi said, “Review my notation, please.”
Val said, “It’s correct.”
Bromley, staring, murmured softly some words to his colleague, seated on his right. It was a brief and meaningless exchange. As soon as he was able, Bromley reordered his thoughts.
… One million does not excite you, my friend? We are prepared to offer more. If this satisfies you, move your water glass to the other side of your keypad. Extraction would be after your return to Volodya. We wouldn’t create a fuss here, as we are very good hosts. Will you consider two million International Union Credits?
Tomalsi said, “I think that will do it.”
Val glanced at Libing. “Are we on schedule?”
Libing said, “We’re doing well.”
Bromley nodded in Val’s direction, his mouth pulling a smile that did not reach his eyes.
Val stroked his water glass, then got up, leaving it where it was.
When Val returned to Bhavaja, he called Dr. Sandor. The doctor clucked with relief and said he was glad Val had not stranded them indefinitely in such a time of need. Val felt genuinely sorry.
Maria met him in her penthouse, to which he possessed an access card. She kissed him without speaking, her body molded to his, her fingers on either side of his face. They made love right away, so that he grew quiet within himself, able to listen to his voice as well as hers.
Maria made a light dinner. From the window of Maria’s penthouse Val looked over uptown. The debris that used to be Karsbrasova Square had been cleared. A vast yard within a barricade fence represented the killing ground. People hung wreaths and lay flowers, left letters of remembrance.
The next day Val visited a girl on the wards but was prevented from touching her by the unexpected appearance of her mother. Charmed by Val’s smile, the girl’s mother offered her candy bar. He told the mother he was assigned to Dr. Sandor’s staff and wanted to wish the child his best thoughts as she faced her treatment. The girl was scheduled for the therapy called the Sandor Process about which Val knew nothing, and which, Val knew, did nothing. Yet the success ratio of the Sandor Process was phenomenal. The Bhavaja International Children’s Center had a waiting list for beds. Dr. Sandor was one of the most celebrated research physicians in children’s health.
Val met Maria a block from her building. They held hands, walked the rest of the way together.
Maria made a quick meal of roasted garlic chicken and salad and ate while Val showered. She put on a local situation comedy show and followed it start to finish on the kitchen television. She smiled once or twice at the inanity but it was television, what did one expect?
Val appeared in the kitchen in a tee, dark hair in his eyes, the way she liked it. He was familiar, so familiar. Her shoulders burned a little. Without speaking, he kneaded them. He picked at his plate, reaching around her waist, looking now and then at the telie. He really wasn’t interested in comedy, she knew. He ate a little more. He was patient but aroused, his breath soft. Twenty minutes went by. Since he left the shower they had not spoken. It was always this way, so quiet. Maria relaxed into his arms. Whatever she wanted touched, he touched. It was never a question of Val doing the wrong thing. Her eyes closed. She found the bedroom in the dark, as ever.
He got up, the way he always did, when she fell to sleep, and put on his clothes. The curfew kept him from leaving. He stood at the window, watched the city with its eastward traffic lights going from green to red. The boulevards passed their traffic to the highway, busses and emergency vehicles only, and the connected elite who could buy the curfew passes.
Around 0400, Val left. He had a hospital ID, which let him ride the city motor coach after 0400 in the morning. He got off a block early and walked the rest of the way home. The sun pinked the sky over the waterfront. It was spring. The days were getting longer. A breeze floated in with the salt of the sea.
He let himself into his flat. The phone was ringing. He tried to move quickly but he missed the call. It was Maria, he thought. Who else? She was strong, yes, in her way, but she was understandably sensitive to his movements after his trip to the UKSB.
The phone rang again. He saw right away that like the first call this one was only audio. There was nothing on the call prompter, no caller identification, but he did not know that until later, when he checked. His call prompter volume was off, its default setting, which he, never needing it, had not bothered to adjust. He pushed REL on the wall remote to open the line, slipped on the hands-free device, which he always left on the kitchenette counter, and bent down to undo his shoelaces. He said, smiling a little, “I didn’t mean to wake you. I always do that. I should have put the air up before I left. You would have rested better.”
“Val.”
His fingers on his shoelaces froze and his head turned sharply to one side. Curiously, there was no alarm, not really.
“Val,” the line repeated. “Where is Val? Where is he?”
It was a man’s voice and there was a Goraneg lilt. Val supposed the man would always have it, living among Goraneg adults.
“Val,” said the voice.
Val lifted up his gaze and caught the flush of pre-dawn light between the blinds. He blinked, and stood up. Went rather calmly to his computer terminal, sat down. He knew right away something was wrong and he knew what it was and he wondered if his computer could demonstrate the defect, demonstrate it well enough the first person he showed it to would recognize straightaway there was an anomaly.
“Who is this?” he said, somewhat indifferently. He knew that who did not matter. He just needed the line alive a bit longer.
“Arnulf,” the caller said.
That was easy. Val said, matter-of-factly, “Arnulf, it’s extremely absurd for you to call. Have I the privilege of a warning then? Tell me what you are going to do to me. Tell me the name of your mother, Arnulf. Tell me the name of your first pony.” He had already started a trace. His screen was returning unsatisfactory data. Shit. The call was routed through an encrypted server. “Arnulf, are you still there? I was expecting a dramatic abduction or a knifing on the street. What street am I on, Arnulf?” Val had begun to work on the encryption. It was high level work but not elaborate. Banking institutions used better.
“Happy Birthday, Val.” Amarite polytheists did not celebrate birthdays. It was a nice touch.
The line died.
Val looked at his screen. He did not have the software at his flat to probe further. If he had a few hours, he could do it, finish the trace, but then, he was sure, he’d be at the first of a platform of ghost servers. The caller was not much of a genius. There were probably only three or four ghost servers but without specialized software each ghost would take time.
He did not have time.
He sat still, his mind overtaken by a convergence of possibilities. Blown apart by logic, scenarios fell away one by one. When he could no longer keep still, he decided he ought to clean up. A difficult day lay ahead, a day that promised to change everything.
Somehow, he managed to get himself showered. The authorities had not yet come. His nerves got heavy, tight. He found a bottle of brandy and poured. Overcome by inertia, he froze in the window. By then he had begun to sob. It wasn’t as hard or strange to weep as he thought. He had never cried like this, with his whole body, with his soul. His nostrils clogged. Sounds broke in his throat. Across an ocean, in a prison, his sister Katherin felt as now he did, trapped while time ran out, while time ran down to nothing. He put aside the brandy and checked himself in the mirror. He wore the suit this time, the one he put on to meet Maria’s aunt.
He left his flat and climbed slowly, heavily to the train ramp. He waited among strangers, his face pale, his eyes bruised with grief. He rode the train to the hospital, greeted the security guard with his identification card, and took the elevator directly to the patient floors. He supposed he had just moments, maybe a half hour.
It was early, and the little girl was asleep. Her name was Leronia. He never wanted to forget the last one, the way he had forgotten the first. He touched her forehead and tossed her bangs. What would her mother have thought, finding him standing so early in the dark over her daughter? A bubble of blood in his right nostril, warm and stingy. A last light, his last life saved. He wished many daughters and sons for Leronia, and birthdays, a lot of birthdays, with a kind face beside her, some man’s, reverent with love. He went into the lavatory to clean up. He took the elevator to the third floor, started to walk to his office, but down the corridor, where the glass wall opened over the lobby several flights down, he saw police and federal agents. He squeezed his jaw with his fingertips, hoping to mold his features into some sort of composure. He could do this, he supposed. Others had. Katherin, too, had been forced to face censure and outrage. It was only one more thing and then he would know if it was to be sorted out.
Call Maria, he thought. But he couldn’t. Anyone he spoke to after the phone call at his flat would take on, publicly, the stain of suspicion. The spirit of the Conspiracy and Abetting Act was the exposition of sleeper cells, assuming such persons must be communicated with to receive orders. He could not call Maria.
He hoped Maria would be sensible.
He got into the elevator, and when the elevator opened the policemen and agents turned to look at him.
He lifted up his hands. He didn’t want to excite anyone.
They swarmed him, so he made his limbs loose, to minimize the damage. The handcuffs were heavy and tight. They manhandled him outside to a police van, and then sat beside him, their hands on his arms in the dark, wet heat. The van finished its journey down a concrete tunnel under Zoran Station, a detention facility adjacent the new federal courthouse. He was brought up through the prisoner elevator under heavy guard and pushed and pulled into the reception center.
They removed the handcuffs and surrounded him with stun batons while detention facility staff removed his clothes. They searched him everywhere and for a long time. He saw his clothes go into a plastic bag for evidence. He was given a white overall, no underthings or socks. He stepped into the uniform of a prisoner. There was a flap that lifted across the chest and adhered to the cloth for a snug fit. His hands were cuffed behind his back and he was taken barefoot to a concrete room with recessed lights, a table, and two plastic chairs.
When they left him there he was not afraid. He was furious. He felt the imprint of hands all over his skin, the roughness of the prison uniform. The cloth smelled of industrial solvent. His blood began to move rather quickly, filling his ears.
When the door opened, he stood up.
The detention facility staff, two men in guard uniforms and a woman in a maroon medical technician outfit, surrounded a much older man with a knob of a head, moist lips, and large round eyes. He was well dressed, the older man. His skin was soft with good living, and his fingernails were manicured.
Val sampled this man’s mind and wondered, after, what it would feel like to smash the prune face with his fist.
“Sit down,” the guard ordered. Val’s anger was palpable. The guard was wary.
The older man stepped forward and said he was Val’s advocate, his counsel. He continued to the table, took out of his suit pocket a photograph and held it at eye level. “They want you to sit down,” the advocate said, conversationally. “The medic here wants to give you an injection of Endo-Vezdrin. You will let her. We will wait five or so minutes for you to recover your equilibrium.” The advocate slipped inside his tailored suit the photograph of Maria on her morning walk to the hospital. The image could have been taken that morning, or the morning before. She’d been holding a café purchased at the corner shop, a special blend. Val could taste the café now, as though he had just kissed her.
Val sat. The woman sidled up to him and pressed the med injector to his throat. He soon felt as though the chair was swept from beneath him. His shoulders slumped and relaxed. His brain was submerged in opaque liquid.
There was a five-minute interval. He overcame the nausea, picked up his shoulders, and glared at the advocate with unfiltered contempt.
The advocate dismissed the guards and the medic and slipped his hands into his slacks. “We should begin. You’re due across the street in court shortly.”
Val continued to stare, his face so compressed with rage he was hardly recognizable.
The advocate went on indifferently. “Note where you are. And where you are not. The Sarika facility is normally the first stop for National Security offenders. The drugs they give there are not so gentle as the one we use here. The drugs at Sarika are part of a comprehensive policy of torture, after which it is customary to shoot prisoners in the head. I mention this because you may feel disposed to discuss with the judge such inconveniences as immunity agreements and protection programs. I’d stay away from remembrances of liaisons with federal officials. Think of it this way. You have transferred your immunity protection to Miss Zakarij. I think we can wrap up a CAA offense against her in a half-hour, after which I guarantee she will go to Sarika. Do I have your attention?”
Val glared.
“Good. When we go across the street our plea will be not guilty. Since we are a National Security case and the charge falls under the CAA, the next step will be a find hearing. In a few days, probably by Friday, the procurator will present his case supporting the elements of the offense. The find will of course go against you. I will move for a trial. The judge will deny us. I will ask to be heard on mitigation. The judge will say we can only be heard on mitigation if we change our plea to guilty, which we will. My presentation will last forty or fifty seconds, after which the judge will hear us on sentencing. Have we any questions?”
Val said, “Are you a licensed advocate?”
“I meant, have you any questions you’re entitled to ask?”
“Am I permitted to call anyone?”
“No.”
“Oh that’s fine then. No, I’m perfectly settled. I’m great.”
“Good, you’re letting go. That’s smart, it’s easier for everyone. Oh, and twice a day a med tech will give you an injection. The prevailing belief is you’re a mindwalker. Frankly these days I expect Goraneg gypsies to sprout wings, a tail, a third leg, and breathe fire, so one of you bastards looking through my head doesn’t surprise me. We’ll be keeping you suppressed, I hope you don’t mind. Well, actually I hope you do.” The advocate signaled the camera and the door opened from outside. He left.
Within an hour, they had Val in an armor-reinforced van shuttling down the underground tunnel between the Zoran Station and the federal courthouse. The courthouse was closed to spectators. Only credentialed journalists were permitted.
Val stood behind the defendant’s table in shackles. A federal judge, a long-faced, black-haired man in robes, announced the charge, entering a single violation of the CAA.
The advocate shifted forward, addressed the judge. “Not guilty, your honor.”
The procurator, a tall man with gray wires of hair circling a shiny scalp, locked hands in front and thrust out his chin. “Your honor, the government wishes to present a find. We are confident we can save the court some time if we are allowed to do this.”
The judge lowered his gaze and then raised it. He was annoyed. “The defense has entered a plea of not guilty and therefore requests trial.”
“This is a National Security case,” the procurator reminded. “Adjudication by trial is not automatic.”
“In my court,” the judge elaborated, “individual rights are not swept aside for convenience.”
“Your honor,” the procurator said in a tone generally used by a parent on a child, “at the find the government intends to show the defendant Stephen Kessler was born John Manegold. This terrorist has lived in Bhavaja eight years.”
The judge was silent. Val had turned his head to look with curiosity at the procurator. He had not expected a total cleansing.
The judge pointed his nose at Val. “Have you presented this court a false identity, sir?”
Val looked at his advocate. “My options, please.”
The advocate: “Answer him.”
Not good enough. Val leaned back on his heels and spoke at a whisper. “I know the truth today if we hit upon it will be in short supply, so kindly inform which brand of shit I should be serving up. I confess I am out of my depth.”
“We’ll be serving the full dose of shit,” said his advocate, quietly, “beginning with your true name.”
Val turned his head to the judge. “My name is John Valten Manegold.”
The judge wrinkled his brow, perplexed. “I don’t like where this is going, not one bit. What is your connection to Burgolt Manegold?”
“Do I answer?” Val queried his advocate in a harsh, wretched voice.
“You’re doing very well. Please continue.”
“Burgolt Manegold is my sire.”
Several journalists, pushing and shoving at colleagues, hastened from the courtroom to file reports. The judge frowned at this impropriety, and he frowned at Val. “And you have been living with a manufactured identity in Bhavaja?”
“The address in my file is authentic. I am a Harespar graduate, I am employed, and have nothing whatsoever to do with Manegold enterprises.”
“Enterprises, is that what you call it? And you were among us eight years illegally and with an assumed identity?”
“Yes.”
“ ‘Yes, your honor,’ ” the advocate corrected.
“Yes, your honor,” Val repeated, stiffly.
The judge snapped backward in his chair as though disgusted. “The court will hear the government in a find two days from now. I expect both parties to be prepared to speak on sentencing. If the defense intends to present mitigation, be prepared to do that as well. We adjourn.”
In the intervening day, seeing no one but the medical technician, Val curled on a metal pallet in a cell the size of a closet. Shock had found him, penetrating pores, bones, and vessels. If he had his special senses, he might have attempted to connect with his inner strength. He felt unbalanced, violated, and helpless. Hunger visited him. His power was busy with the toxin, and so he slept too, about five hours in the night. He chose not to eat and woke with a light head, swollen eyes, and a sore stomach. He drank café when the morning tray came. He never saw the guard that brought it. The tray appeared through a slot.
Soon four guards took him to clean up and gave him a laundered uniform. For his feet he got canvas slip-ons. Then he was handcuffed and shackled and delivered to the van for transport.
The courthouse had quadrupled its contingent of journalists. He saw placards announcing representatives of international news agencies and Volod nationals from distant prefectures. He tried to imagine what was going on in televised news and on GateKeeper Global and supposed he had been thoroughly vilified. The fact that he had been living in Bhavaja when the Needle fell would be exposed and twisted. The detail of his employment would be hard to mist over since the authorities had started with the name of Stephen Kessler. Work at the hospital would be disrupted while the story was bandied about and municipal authorities, pursuing breadcrumbs conjured by deliberate omissions, snooped for evidence of participation in terror acts. His image likely accompanied every story. How many people outside of work had seen him with Maria? The various doormen at her building, her aunt, the counter people at the corner shop, the grocer. Shackled, he looked back over the courtroom gallery full of riveted faces, felt sick in his stomach, and settled into the defendant’s wooden box.
The procurator’s find took twenty minutes of the morning. The procurator concluded with a recording. The journalists gasped, some of them, when on the tape he spoke Arnulf’s name. They heard code in his attempt to authenticate the call and its author, not desperation and certainly they misunderstood his attempt to stall. Would it have gone differently if he had remained Stephen Kessler? Was the name Manegold like bane, to them, a signpost to mass hysteria? Val supposed it was. Even without his power the gathering hostility was detectable. He guessed that outside the courthouse the mood was a great deal more intense, less rational. At the end of the find, the judge retired to consider the government’s case. Val stayed put, distractedly studying the patched carpet, the scraped wooden paneling. He had gone past being afraid but understood that his fear was only around some corner of the psyche, waiting for him to discover the means to cope. By contrast, he was almost overwhelmed by anxiety about Maria. Where could she be but at home, since she had most assuredly been labeled publicly John Manegold’s mistress? The hospital would banish her. The public news agencies would without regard for her dignity ridicule and belittle her for sleeping with the enemy. How would she survive the crisis if she could not for a moment get away from it? Perhaps her family would rescue her, get her help that she needed, drug therapy first, and later someone to talk to. Wouldn’t she eventually tell someone her Val was a government informant? Wouldn’t she commit some effort to unraveling the mystery of his arrest and abandonment by the Federal Authority? What if she did? Would she get a visit from some smiling old man claiming to be an advocate? Would she be given a photograph of herself, an image taken when her world and her love were intact? How would she respond to such a threat, his Maria?
The judge, settling on his pedestal, calling his court to order, first addressed the procurator. “The court rules the find has satisfied the elements of the offense.” He rotated his head toward Val. “Young man, please stand.”
Val got up, his advocate, the bastard, rising beside him. Almost immediately Val lowered his head. He felt as though a hot, hard wind battered him. His balance was precarious, not at all guaranteed. He felt that the next moments should be experienced with as little engagement of his faculties as possible. Instead he concentrated on his legs, keeping them steady.
The judge said, “National Security defendants are not guaranteed right to trial and in few cases is trial granted. My ruling is the find has proven the case elements. If you wish to change your plea to guilty, son, I will hear your advocate on mitigation.”
“The defendant will change his plea, you honor,” the advocate said in a booming voice.
The judge waved this aside. “Young man, do you wish to plead guilty?”
Val felt his throat liquefy and burn. He had no idea what his voice would sound like if he tried to use it. He wondered why he should. If he did nothing, and said nothing, what matter?
“Son, I asked, do you plead guilty?”
The advocate said, a bit uneasily, “We wish to plead guilty, your honor.”
The judge grunted and sat back in his chair. “Very well. Present your items of mitigation, counselor.”
The advocate spoke for minute and, predictably, said nothing useful.
The judge gestured. “What does the government have to say about the sentence?”
“The government insists the court impose the compulsory penalty as stipulated by the Conspiracy and Abetting Act.”
“The defense?”
“The defense requests leniency, your honor.”
The judge said, “The court accepts the defendant’s plea of guilty and sentences John Valten Manegold to the mandatory penalty as stipulated by the Conspiracy and Abetting Act of seven fifty-one, death by hanging. Is the Zoran superintendent present?”
“I am, your honor,” answered a man from the officials’ table. The table with its suited men from various agencies and disciplines stood against the wall behind the procurator’s box.
“Give me a date, sir.”
“Friday next, your honor.”
The judge responded with a decisive shake of his head. “We’re not carrying on till Friday next. I want this over with. What’s wrong with Tuesday?”
“We’ve scheduled five executions for Tuesday, your honor. It’s hard on the men when we do more than five.”
“Move one you’re doing on Tuesday to Friday. And I want the first slot, top of the hour.”
“Yes, your honor.”
“Mr. Manegold?”
Val raised his head but not his gaze.
The judge sat forward. “Mr. Manegold.”
There was an interminable stillness, and then Val lifted his eyes, unfocused and glassy.
“You’re scheduled to die on three twenty-two at twenty-one hundred hours. With regard to appellate review, this court must have on file by seventeen hundred hours on three twenty-two a certification of intention to review by an authorized body or you are ineligible for a stay of execution. Mr. Manegold, do you understand what I have said?”
Val was silent.
“Mr. Manegold?”
“I ... understand ...”
“Mr. Manegold, I commend you to the Zoran superintendent’s custody. Session is closed.”
Val began the first hours under sentence of death on Cube 6, which was the prefecture’s holding facility for condemned National Security prisoners. He was struck right away by the utter silence of the place. The thick walls between cells and passages were proof against sound.
He saw no one but the med technician. An escort to the bathing facility occurred once in four days. He was due to visit the showers the day before his execution, which was typical. Otherwise, he lay on the metal pallet and instructed the lights to off, then on, depending on the stage of his derangement. His head pulsed mercilessly. The Endo-Vezdrin was designed to cause euphoria but he raged against its intended side effect, the submergence of his gift, and he existed, when awake, in constant agitation. The dosage, too, exceeded the medical safety standard. The medical doctor in charge of Val’s case, influenced by a phobia of mindwalkers and Val’s imminent death, ordered the larger dose, to make sure. Without his power Val felt weak and hungry but the drug interfered with his appetite and his internal war against its effects interfered with sleep. His thoughts became disorganized and highly emotional. By the weekend he was in constant pain, starving, and unkempt.
When the cell opened and men in the white shirt and bloused, black tactical trousers of the Federal Authority guards came through, Val supposed he had made it to Monday and it was time to have his last shower. He leveraged his torso off the pallet and sat swaying on the edge while the guards flanked him. They lifted him slightly, getting no help from him, to handcuff his wrists behind his back. Then they unlocked a plate in the cement floor and revealed a metal ring. The guards fed a length of chain through the ring and fixed the chain to shackles they put on Val’s ankles. They left without speaking.
Caspar Libing strolled in. The cell door shut.
Val identified Libing through unfocused eyes and then attempted to shift backward onto his pallet. Firmly, cruelly, the chain running through his shackles held him seated at the pallet edge, face forward. He stared down at the shackles and his bare feet as though astonished and wounded the restraints and his own flesh, his bones would conspire against him. It was one more indignity, this. Why should he face Libing when he did not want to? Why should he engage a man in whom he saw the stranger, the agenda of his enemy, and an executioner?
After licking his lips, frustrated, “Go back out and fuck yourself,” Val uttered. The words that dribbled from his mouth were out of character, uniquely so, but managed to convey perfectly, from Val’s perspective, the despair overtaking his senses. Also, from Val’s perspective, the cell had retained the dimensions of a closet but Libing, near the door, seemed at the end of an immense tunnel. Val considered the possibility he was lethally dosed, or toxic to the point of hallucination. The elder federal agent struck a chord similar to the note that had brought Val to do physical harm to his father. The comparison was perplexing and dangerous-- also ludicrous. Were Libing guilty of every scintilla of sin Val heaped upon the agent’s soul, even so Libing’s crimes would not cover the first page of the prologue of the book of Burgolt Manegold. So it was personal, in the way Sir’s murder of Val’s mother after so very many casual murders had felt. And how did one communicate the pain of breach, so intimate, to one who had by action demonstrated such profound indifference? The answer was plain. Val wanted his hands-- his mind had been disabled by drugs --tight around Libing’s throat. The flame of this desire (for violence) surged and ebbed, surged and ebbed in the steam and funk of anguish.
Libing began speaking. Val heard a series of stops and starts, broken, he thought at first, by his own diminished faculties. Only later did he realize Libing was speaking brokenly, and with emotion, struggling no less than he was. “ … And so I gather you knew your incriminating phone call was a digital compilation? It, uh, it came to us from a record of Arnulf Manegold’s voice on your sister’s, uh, on her flex computer, I don’t know if you … if you realized. From the Moukib raid, yes. She stored his calls, your brother’s … she saved his calls, some of … some of them. Probably out of affection.”
Libing and Val, gazing at each other, came briefly to silence. Val thought he heard noise, something improbable within the walls or just outside them, and this turned his head, for he was convinced the stillness of the place was absolute as death.
With difficulty, Libing lifted his arms over his chest, pushed on. “… You knew Arnulf was never really … wasn’t really, uh, there, am I right? Is that the trouble between us?”
“The trouble between us.” The words, taking on significance, struck at Val’s wounded psyche, and he sat straight.
“I said you knew, I told them that part, at least, was sham.”
Val was sure he misunderstood. His awareness of the forged call was both obvious and irrelevant. “Good for you,” he answered. “How wonderful to have everything I know and believe in betrayed like that.”
Libing’s face contorted with emotion, a shocking and hastily corrected display. “John, don’t talk to me like that, like I am your enemy.” He was more forthcoming now and anxious, it seemed, to change the tone of the conversation. Libing launched plaintively,into a narrative: One of ITAN’s priority two airjets-- the code priority one, priority two, Val had learned, had to do with the aircraft’s autonomy under diplomatic protocol --had landed at Tolna-Kraj International outside Bhavaja. Intelligence reports said the airjet brought a tactical team from the UKSB. The Federal Authority believed the team was within Volodyan borders to abduct Val. By the time the FA began tracking it the team had dispersed into the city.
Libing’s information failed to soften Val’s anger. The opposite occurred.
“Me part of someone else’s bag of tricks, you couldn’t have that, could you?”
“It’s more complicated than that.”
Val wrenched his feet against the shackles and stiffened further. “Not from where I’m sitting.”
Libing mumbled something and nudged a small skeleton key from his pocket. He knelt at Val’s feet.
Val realized Libing intended to unlock the chain and clenched his muscles, not to kick the agent but to steady himself against the urge to kick him.
“I don’t agree with what’s been done, John, so I’m hardly the person to stand here and defend it. It’s not fair to make me out to be part of this.”
“It’s better I’m dead, do you disagree with that?” An unfair challenge, and at some level Val knew it. “Why like this? Explain it to me. Why do I have to die like this?”
Libing worked the key into the lock on the shackles and looked up. His eyes were the eyes of an old man, which they had never seemed before. When Libing looked at him, Val felt the stone of his anger shift as though it would slip from some precipice and be gone but for his holding on. And he knew he should let go but he was afraid the look in Libing’s eyes was a lie, like the lie that Val was a terrorist.
“-- Hold still, John.” Libing put his hand on the shackles to expose the lock, unlocked them, and removed the weighted bands.
Val lifted up his haunches, presented his wrists.
Libing uncuffed him.
Val sank back, drew his hands together. He pinched the reddened skin and inhaled roughly.
Libing passed a hand over Val’s shoulder. “You want to know how they came to it, the ones who came to it?”
“Yes!”
Libing gathered the chain, shackles, and handcuffs into his arms. “This was what Prime Minister Barta foresaw. The instant Prime Minister Hovsep opened your complete file, the special file, to the task force, that was the instant our government lost control of you.”
“Because I am a mindwalker.”
“How did you try to kill your father, John? Do you remember what you told me?” Libing asked, depositing the restraints with a clang near the door.
“With a thought, as I told you.”
“Yes, with a thought. I didn’t believe you, did you know that?”
“Of course I knew.”
“You are so very accustomed to knowing every bloody thing, how helpless you must feel now. I’m very, very sorry.”
“I’m not asking for pity. Am I going to die then? They mean to let it happen?”
“Oh yes.”
“ ‘Oh yes.’ ” Val attempted to reach backward in his mind to a place in the darkness where death was not something he feared especially. He failed, and laughed bitterly at himself. “It’s so easy to be sure when you’re sure.” He flopped his head back against the wall, listening idly to the clunk of his heart. “I’m having difficulty adjusting.”
Libing flattened a hand to the middle of his face, so his features’ sudden crinkling and trembling went largely unseen, although Val was now paying attention to these episodes. Val canted his head, watching as Libing pulled himself together.
“John, our government wants ITAN membership, it’s always wanted it. The UKSB is the world’s superpower. In the middle somewhere, there’s you and this ability of yours, and I think it goes way deeper than you know, what you’re capable of, what you have inside. I think the UKSB believes there’s more to you and they feel driven to find out what it is. The problem is, if they want you badly enough to kidnap you, after they do it, what do we do, how do we get you back? Shouldn’t we be worried if they want you that much? They can ask for you formally, you know. Simply say, Transfer the Manegold to our task force. Why the hell not? How do we refuse? It was not a risk some in government were willing to take. As soon as the reports crossed the desk of my superintendent, on the evening before your arrest, certain persons in our government became convinced they had to remove you as an asset and liability. This had to happen, of course, with ITAN concerned on a global scale, politically, that stepping in to demand you was, shall we say, unwise. You are Burgolt Manegold’s son. No one had to work at that. You were part of a criminal enterprise aimed at destabilizing the world’s economies. You did live in Bhavaja eight years under an untraceable assumed identity. Under the worst and best circumstances no one would believe you worked for the Federal Authority. They had to manufacture a reason for your arrest, and it was a simple construct, really. With a nudge here and there, my superiors let men outside the know do their jobs. They finished the circle, so to speak, while certain officials looked on and did nothing. That is how they came to it.”
“And you, my friend, where was your seat at the theater while the production of Kill John Manegold played without a hitch?”
“That’s got to wear off,” Libing interrupted, “very quickly. I am referring to your anger at me. You can’t sustain it, number one, in your situation, and you can’t get ready for what you have to do as long as you’re trying to. Would it help if I got your medication reduced?”
Val glared.
Libing said, “Oh come on. If you want to shout at me, have at it. But it’s me you’re talking to. I didn’t do this to you. Do you think I was there when they planned this? Do you think anyone would speak to me when I called up after I saw you’d been arrested? I am only here today because they want it done quickly and they want you to take it and be quiet. They think your … affection for me will serve their needs. How could you believe I’d support this, what was done, the way it was done?” When there was no response, Libing scratched his temple. “All right. I’m with you the next few days. I have direct influence over your guards, it will be all right. No one will trouble you. Will you allow me to purchase trousers and some other clothing items? I’ll need your size, of course.”
“For my funeral?”
“Not for that. But yes, if you like, I can manage clothing for the funeral too.”
Val set his teeth and hissed. “Don’t bother.”
“I will bother, though, because we’re here days and hours before you’re ready, and I don’t know if I can make the purchases after you’ve settled down. Which means I’ll buy clothes for you to wear on Tuesday even if you won’t help me …” Libing’s voice caught. He coughed softly to clear it. “But perhaps the clothes won’t fit. The clothes should fit, I think. You’ll need that, whatever dignity you can muster.”
Val, spine erect, face knotted, returned to silence, in which he seemed to find some sort of shelter. Libing lowered his hands. He looked off at the walls, at Val, frequently at Val. The minutes crawled. Val watched Libing only in those instances Libing’s glances touched him. He endured the silence.
“This is what it’s like to be you,” Val said in a moment, “always doubting, always unsure of everyone, even the ones close to you, always on edge.”
Libing nodded and shrugged. “We get by.”
“Do you?”
“Yes, we get by. So will you. I’ll make them stop issuing the drugs, I can do that.”
“How can you?”
“We’ll say we’re giving them to you but we won’t. The captain of Cube Six, he’s a good fellow. I know him. Why do you think his guards have all been fair? I’ll stop the injections.”
“I suppose I should be grateful.”
“I’ll take what I can get. Now tell me your sizes, so I can do well by you.”
Val gave Libing what he asked for and added that he had lost weight in confinement.
Libing asked his shoe size.
Val told him.
“You haven’t mentioned Maria.”
“I am afraid to.”
“We’re watching her, that’s all …” Libing paused. “What is it?”
“She knows what the government is trying to sweep under the house.”
“She’ll be a good girl, it will be all right.”
“The agency sent someone to her. They upset her.”
“It’s all right, John, I give my word. May I confer with her for funeral details?”
“If they’ll let you speak to her, please do so but don’t bring up funeral arrangements. She’s not going to do well on that subject. Will you tell her to go to her mother’s? If you could drive her there--”
“Of course I would.”
“Caspar, that would mean the world to me.”
“Is there a message?”
“Ah, yes, yes, tell her when you saw me I was all right, only I worried for her, and I was worried she might harm herself or do something irrational but she mustn’t, tell her, because I couldn’t bear it. Tell her that.”
“Of course.”
“It isn’t love, tell her that also, what I feel for her, it’s deeper than love, it’s like we’re one person. So I’m not leaving her, not really. I can’t while she lives.”
“I’ll tell her.”
“Make sure she doesn’t watch the television. Perhaps you could stay with her next Tuesday night.”
“I rather thought I’d be here with you.”
“She’s the one who has to go on, she’s got the harder road.”
“I’ll take care of her, John.”
“John is my formal name but in the Goraneg we have something called a gift name, which we offer to ones we trust. I have never trusted blindly. I have always known my way. I am giving you my Maria, you may call me Val.”
--- Next Chapter
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