Judgement

by Fergus Bannon

  He had lost many useful friends in the massacre, and had used the Guardador to attack the Indians with crusading zeal. He had not been alone; others who controlled the media had similar business interests. So great had been the resulting public outrage that the government had obligingly suspended squatters rights and ordered a clearance of the Indians from the area.

  He could not remember specifically ordering Barcelos to run another special on the massacre, so this was a nice surprise. On reflection, his editor had probably been right: a couple of weeks had elapsed and perhaps public anger at the Indians was beginning to subside.

  He read the caption beneath the picture. 'Innocent Indians slaughtered by 'Agricultural Workers.'' His smile locked into a rictus.

  Calisto's finely manicured hands clenched around the cheap paper as his eyes scanned the text. The first three pages listed a series of so-called massacres on Amazonian Indian tribes and gave casualty figures as well as describing some of the more grisly deaths. Interspersed with the text were pictures of soldiers bayonetting or shooting helpless Indians. The following pages listed the dead ranchers and Agricultural Workers, or mercenaries as the paper now called them. Beside each it detailed their parts in the Indian deaths.

  His eyes flicked down the alphabetical list, searching, until he found: Mosero, Luco. Rancher. Responsible for the decimation of Indians in the Maraca region. Hired mercenaries through Lisi Manual on four separate occasions to scour the region on—

  Just for a fraction of a second, he thought of trying to stop it. Then he remembered the earlier editions, and the thousands of street urchins still aching from their nights sleeping on pavements and park benches, queuing at dawn for the hundred or so papers that were their meagre living. Too late, already far too late.

  Still holding the paper with one hand, Calisto reached across to pick up the mobile phone that lay on the tabletop.

  'Get the car ready. Now!'

  The final page of the eight page segment was a single picture of a dead Indian child, the body so mutilated it was impossible to ascertain its sex or age. There was a heavy line under the article marking its end, but under that were twelve column inches of text with the heading, 'Orpheus Calisto: The Facts'.

  Suddenly, the rose's perfume seemed oppressive, choking. Gasping for breath, Calisto read the choicer details of his own life story. He read of his humble origins in the Rio favelas, the shantytowns high on the hills, of his recruitment by some displaced Colombians, of the money that boosted him to power and respectability. He read of his corruption and intimidation of officials, and then worst of all in this macho country, of his homosexual predilections. The article even listed the bank accounts in false names, describing in detail the final resting places of those he had had disappeared during his years of struggle.

  His mind reeled with incomprehension. How could anybody possibly know all this? Then he saw the one small picture nestling in the poisonous text. It was a side-view of Calisto, his dark-skinned stomach pressed into the back of a small crying boy. Both were naked. Even though the photo had been cropped so that neither could be seen below the waist, it was clear from the expression of ecstasy and anguish on Calisto's face exactly what was happening.

  The paper dropped from his fingers and he sat hunched and shaking for several seconds as the anger boiled in his guts like acid. Sweeping the breakfast crockery off the table, he rose and strode quickly into his bedroom. The gun was in his bedside drawer. He paused for a second, trying to remember where he kept his shoulder holster, finally remembering through the white heat of his anger that he had not worn one for years. Roughly shrugging on his white wool Armani jacket, he thrust the heavy gun clumsily into the inside pocket.

  He took his private elevator the twenty floors down to the lobby. Moving so fast that the doorman and chauffeur could barely get the doors open in time, he was through the five metres of unconditioned Rio air and into the bulletproof Mercedes before Broca his bodyguard, had even put down his paper.

  'Move, you fat cunt!' Broca looked startled and meekly avoided the blazing hatred in Calisto's eyes as he scrambled into the car beside his boss.

  'Sorry!'

  'The paper. Fast!' Calisto yelled at the chauffeur.

  Calisto glared furiously out of the car's window but saw nothing of the streets as the Mercedes sped through them. The building was only a few blocks away. Styled on many North American newspaper offices which Calisto had so admired, the bottom floors had big windows all round so that the public could stare in at the mighty presses at work. But as they pulled up, the print run was finished and the presses were still.

  The chauffeur got out to open the passenger door but Calisto was already out of the car and heading fast towards the building, Broca running after him. Calisto, not bothering with the elevator, took the stairs two at a time until he got to the third floor. He raced down the corridor ignoring the respectful bows of the staff, and into the pressroom. The place was noisy already filling up with the day staff at their terminals, but the noise faded as he crossed the floor. He made for the editor's office set against the far wall.

  He could see Barcelos on the phone, and as he drew closer he watched as the fat little man glanced up, no doubt tipped off by security about his arrival. Barcelos scurried out from behind his desk rubbing his hands together very rapidly, back bent and neck low in a posture of submission.

  'Please, ' he was saying, 'please, this was not my fault. Let me explain.'

  Calisto was now barely five metres from his editor. As he took the last few steps he yanked the gun out, tearing the thousand-dollar jacket.

  'You’ve ruined me,' he roared, bringing the gun to bear on the centre of Barcelos' head and jerking the trigger, all gun lore washed away by his fury.

  Broca cannoned into Calisto's shoulder and gun arm in the split second before the gun discharged. A wave of fire and flesh washed across Barcelos's left cheek as the muzzle flash and blast caught him. The bullet scorched by his ear, shattering the glass in his office door and dislodging several files from a shelf on the far wall. Barcelos staggered back clutching his cheek as Broca wrestled Calisto to the ground.

  'Hey boss, calm down!' Broca kept his arm locked tightly about Calisto's head until Barcelos recovered his senses enough to kick the gun under a desk. Barcelos knelt down so that he was looking into the publisher's eyes. His cheek was black and red from the powder burns and his brow was creased with pain. Calisto stopped struggling. Broca loosened his grip but did not relinquish it entirely. Calisto realised through his fury, now cold and subterranean, that the man was not as dumb as he looked.

  Barcelos was talking '... and we checked the paper like we've always done. I checked it, Benjamin checked it, the four line supervisors checked it. Those two centre sheets just weren't there. We've checked the plates, there aren't any for those pages. Look ...' he stood up and rushed to his desk and returned with a brown clipboard, '... the press bookings.' He held the clipboard up so that he could read it but Calisto kept his unwavering gaze on the editor's face.

  'I'm going to slaughter you,' he whispered.

  'But we just didn't have the time,' Barcelos' voice was rising into a wail. 'I can account for each press for the entire run. We just didn't have time to print the damned things. Here, look for yourself.'

  Calisto spat a gob of yellowing phlegm onto the worksheet.

  Barcelos put the clipboard down and brought his hands together in a pleading gesture. 'I swear to God this newspaper did not print those pages. I know it sounds impossible, but we did not do it.'

  Calisto's voice was getting very hoarse. 'And I'm going to torture, rape and kill every single member of your family!'

  Calisto saw Broca look across at the editor. He shook his head and raised his eyes towards the exit. That will cost you dear, Calisto thought. Barcelos gave one last pleading look at Calisto then made off as fast as he could on his thick little legs.

  Broca waited a little longer before letting the publisher go, then quickly
stepped back, hands clasped together in front of his groin.

  'I couldn't let you shoot him, boss. Not in front of all those witnesses.'

  Calisto had not got up from the floor. Instead he just sat with his head resting on his knees, his hands against his temples, his anger suddenly abating.

  'What would it have mattered?' he whispered.

  CHAPTER 5

  Washington DC

  The Grindstone squatted like some huge toad in the middle of an acre of grey-walled parking lot. Apart from a few tufts of grass that had breached the pitted tar-macadam, the place looked devoid of life. There were no windows in The Grindstone and its only sensory organ, a satellite dish, was painted the same fading green as the building.

  Headed by Leith's MGB, the cars entered the lot like a funereal motorcade. As they peeled off to park DeMarco gunned his sparky little Toyota, managing to produce a spray of gravel as he skidded it into a bay.

  Leith felt mortified. Leaving Langley the MGB hadn't been too bad, but they'd barely gone a mile when its speed plummeted. He was the guest of honour, so the others must have felt duty bound to hang back, unwilling to overtake him as the three-mile drive had stretched into an odyssey.

  Leaving the car unlocked in the forlorn hope that some crazy would torch it during the night, he walked over to the entrance where the others were waiting for him.

  'Deader'n a witches tit,' he said with a shrug.

  'Wow! I guess I must be psychic after all!' They turned to look at Morgan who'd brought his left hand up, three fingers touching his forehead. 'I mean a while back, months ago at least, I just knew this was going to happen.'

  'Yeah, why don't you just trash the damn thing and be done with it? Why'd you buy it in the first place?' DeMarco's irritability was becoming trying. Leith opened his mouth to reply but Morgan beat him to it.

  'He didn't. It was a graduation gift from his parents. But you're going to get a charge out of his rationale for keeping it.' Morgan’s voice went gruff in what Leith was sure was a poor imitation of his own tones, and he began to wag a forefinger. ''More fossil fuel goes into the production of a car than it will ever use in its lifetime.' In other words he suffers all this embarrassment and inconvenience for the sake of the environment!'

  Slattery was smiling wryly. 'Yeah, but think of all the tow trucks they've had to make because of him.'

  'Look,' Leith opened the door, 'are you going to buy me a drink or what?'

  Inside, the bar was cold and Spartan and deserted of customers. A thickset, balding barman regarded them balefully across a filthy bar top as he wiped desultorily at a glass with a grey dishcloth. As they got nearer the man suddenly smiled in recognition and nodded.

  Following Nevis, they veered off towards a side door which had a sign saying ‘Private Function Suite. Guests Only.’ Once through this they were into the warm, noisy atmosphere of another, larger bar. Fitted out with wooden panels in walls and ceiling, it had a huge gas-effect fireplace at one end. Around this were all the traditional irons for stoking, loading and ashing the thing out. The owner had sprayed these and the fireplace with carbon-effect paint in a determined effort to further the disguise: big black moulded plastic beams ran across the ceiling and down the walls, which were decorated with nineteenth century hunting prints.

  Nevis took their orders and went to the bar. The Grindstone's favoured customers preferred not to have waitresses hovering around. Leith and the others found seats round one of the big, thick oaken tables that looked like the only genuine article in the place.

  The Grindstone was one of two unofficial Langley watering holes and was run by an ex-agent. Its exterior and the bar at the entrance had been designed to discourage casual clientele. The owner periodically swept the bar for listening devices and made sure people he didn't recognise remained in the front bar. Company people still wouldn't risk talking about really classified material, but at least they didn’t have to pretend they were something they weren't. That could be unbelievably wearing when an acquaintance came across a spook in a huddle with other spooks: group lying quickly became an absurdity.

  Nevis brought a tray of martinis to the table then went back to get Leith's beer. When he returned, he raised his glass.

  'To Bob, for a fine piece of work!'

  'To Bob.' Only DeMarco wasn't smiling.

  There was a meditative silence as they took their first sips. Drinks after work were Nevis' idea: he seemed to look on it as a way of building a sense of cohesion into his workers. They came out for a drink once a month, and also occasionally to mark individual or group triumphs. Leith's coup had been a really big deal.

  Shouldering responsibility as ever, Nevis was the first to break the awkward silence.

  'Well, Bob, I never expected these kind of results when I sent you out into the field.'

  DeMarco looked surprised. 'So you were out playing Dick Tracy I thought you were just...look, what's going on here?' He'd been told Leith had predicted the aircraft where the five bombs would be found, but perhaps he'd assumed that had come through standard searches. Leith had said nothing about what had happened at the weekend.

  'Yeah. I thought Bo was getting a little too loose there for a while. Guess I was wrong.' Nevis held his glass up again.

  DeMarco looked up quickly from his drink. 'Oh no, you were right about that!'

  'Come on, Bob. Tell us about it!' Slattery was sitting next to him. She leaned across and rubbed her shoulder against his.

  'Yeah, and don't leave out the bit about the jeep,' added Morgan.

  Leith told them of his trip to New York, carefully avoiding details about the state of the leapers or the debacle in the morgue. Two days had passed since he had seen the shattered body, but any thought of it still made his stomach churn.

  'You lucked out,' said DeMarco at last, 'that's what it comes down to, right?'

  Morgan shook his head vigorously. 'Sounds pretty smart to me.'

  'Yeah,' Slattery held up a hand and began to tick the points off on her fingers. 'Bo recognises the microwave set up amongst all the junk they used for camouflage, he finds the disguised cabling which showed it could be powered up, he checks out Guin's work record and makes a connection with the apartment's proximity to the Kennedy flight path. And saves maybe a thousand lives in the process. Not bad for a day's work.'

  DeMarco shook his head. 'Without Guin and the others, who was going to activate the other devices? You only stumbled across this because they all died!'

  'Cole may have the full details of the operation. He could have started it up again whenever he liked,' said Morgan.

  'No way. Middleton was the cut-out. Cole was just the international messenger boy. If these guys were pros only Middleton and Garner would have known about Guin and his bombs. The secret would have died with them and the bombs not found 'til the day the planes were trashed.'

  'Do I detect a hint of sour grapes, Jim?' Nevis raised his eyebrows.

  DeMarco was looking pretty steamed up. 'Well, I don't get it, Stan. How come Bo gets the chance to do field work? I'm the most senior. I've been in this Section for nearly six years now and you've never given me that kind of opportunity.'

  'I never thought you needed it. Besides, I think you're overstating things calling this little episode 'field work.' I sent Bo out to get an idea of the real street level implications of his work; it wasn't as if he were running a string of agents or checking out a military base. I felt he needed the experience and I didn't expect anything concrete to come out of it.'

  Nevis took another sip of his martini. ' But it's been such a spectacularly successful exercise that it may be worth trying again. Not that I'd expect this level of results, because, all due respect here, Bob,' he looked across at Leith and smiled, 'there was an element of luck.'

  Leith nodded and spread his hands. 'I agree. I never said otherwise,' he looked at DeMarco, 'but perhaps we make our own luck.'

  DeMarco grimaced. 'You mean like keeping the MGB. How much luck has that brought y
ou?'

  Leith gave him a big smile.

  'And Telenetto, Vancouver,' DeMarco seemed determined not to let it go. He was looking at Nevis. 'He gets away with it, right?'

  Nevis shook his head. 'Not quite. I had to reprimand him. Officially. But it won't look too bad, not in the circumstances. And he's promised never to do anything like that again, right Bob?'

  'Right, Stan.' He'd sailed too close to the wind before but what he'd done at Telenetto was a whole new ballgame. Looking back, now he'd had some sleep and the Woodhaven memories where becoming less sharp, less intrusive, he realised just how crazy he'd been. He'd tried to explain how he'd felt to Nevis and the man had seemed understanding, even forgiving. He'd always be grateful for that.

  Slattery stirred at her drink with a cocktail stick which had an olive impaled on the end. 'What now, oh environmentally friendly one? I assume you've done in-depths on all three cell members.'

  He nodded. 'Yeah. I've already found the point of connection between Garner and Guin. They shared an apartment when they started college in Ohio. I still haven't worked out where Middleton fits into the picture, so clearing up the loose ends may take a day or two.'

  'Frigger'll probably stumble across the Yellow Brick Road and find Jimmy Hoffa's body buried under it,' DeMarco muttered.

  'Well, in fact I think there may be more to this than just the bombings.'

  Slattery's eyebrows rose. 'Like what?'

  Leith winked but said nothing.

  'Robert Leith. Man of Mystery,' Morgan intoned.

  'And how is Robert Leith, Man with no Wheels going to make it home?' asked Slattery.'How can we possibly lever his cojones into one of our little cars?'

  Morgan dropped Leith off at the restaurant in Alexandria. The sky was overcast and it was already getting distinctly cool.

  Alexandria had been a tobacco port in the old days, and many of the buildings were original. He kidded himself he could smell the waters of the Potomac though he knew it lay a couple of hundred metres to the East.