“Then let me speak to the British Ambassador,” said Helene.
“In good time,” he said smoothly. “Tell me what you learned from those computer geeks,” he said.
“Nothing useful,” said Helene.
“We can decide what’s useful,” he said, the smile beginning to look rather strained.
“Really, nothing at all,” said Helene.
It sounded lame even to her own ears.
“Don’t treat me like a fucking moron,” he said, the smile vanishing like mist.
“I’ll tell you everything – what little there is,” said Helene, shivering slightly, “once I’ve been released and have met with the British Ambassador.”
“You know,” said Smiling Clive, leaning back in his chair, “I’ve met women like you before. You hear a bit of rumour or gossip and suddenly you’re trying to make it into something it’s not. You goddam fucking journalists. But if you start peddling your gossip to the newspapers, Ms La Borde, then it’s going to undermine our efforts to continue building the economy, to continue protecting ourselves against our enemies. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”
Helene was silent.
Smiling Clive sighed, as if he were genuinely sorry the conversation hadn’t gone better.
“Well, Ms La Borde, you can’t say I didn’t give you a chance. You see the problem is I really can’t let you spread your lies in the tabloids. I really believed I’d find you a reasonable woman, but I guess if you spend all your time in the gutter, sooner or later you start acting like the scum you find there. Good day, Ms La Borde.”
He stood up, fastened one button on his jacket and strode from the room.
“I know what happens at Warm Creek!” she called after him.
He turned, looked at her briefly, muttered something to the tall woman, and left.
A tingle of apprehension ran down Helene’s spine. Then the tall woman walked forward and forced the blindfold back over Helene’s eyes. Her arms and legs were re-tied tightly. Too tightly. Helene began to lose sensation in her hands and feet.
“No-one will hear you if you scream,” repeated the voice quietly. “A polygraph is being fitted to you – a lie detector: we will know if you try to deceive us. You will cooperate with us.”
Soft, dry hands attached wires to Helene’s upper chest. She recoiled at the touch but her body had nowhere to hide.
“I don’t know anything,” said Helene again.
To her own ears, her voice sounded shrill and agitated. How was anyone supposed to sound sincere with this machine strapped on to them? Just the thought of it made perspiration leak from her armpits and back, and her heart began to race painfully.
“We will start with two control questions: you will answer with ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers. Is your name Helene La Borde?”
“Yes.”
“Have you ever climbed Mount Everest?”
“No,” said Helene. “I’m a British journalist and I have rights.”
“You have no rights here,” said the voice.
“What about my right to Counsel?” said Helene. “What about the Fifth bloody Amendment?”
More silence.
“Who were the two men in the bunker?” said the voice.
Helene was surprised. Was this a trick question or did they really not know?
“Look,” she said. “I’m still dehydrated and my eyes are stinging from the tear gas you used. I need more water.”
“Answer the question,” said the voice.
Helene wasn’t sure how to answer without implicating the Gene Genies, but then inspiration came to her.
“The tall, thin man was Charles Paget, a British citizen, like me; the other man was... Wally Manfred.”
More silence as if the questioner was weighing the value of the answer: either that or waiting for instructions from someone else. Then the voice spoke:
“You’re lying. Not a smart move, Ms La Borde.”
“Please can I have some more water?” said Helene, her only reply.
“Tell us about Charles Paget,” said the voice.
“Who’s ‘us’?” said Helene.
The blow when it came, whipped Helene’s head to one side. The sharp crack echoed around the room along with her cry.
“Tell us about Charles Paget.”
“Okay! I’ll tell you.” Helene’s eyes were watering. At least it’s washing out the residue of tear gas, she told herself. “He told me he was in the military. In Britain: either the regular army or the marines, I’m not sure. Maybe the SAS. He’d been freelance for at least three years – but you know that already.”
The voice came closer.
“There is no record of anyone with that name in British Ministry of Defence records.”
Helene was stunned.
“Of course there is: your records must be wrong!” she cried out. “I don’t know which regiment – he never told me. But he’s ex-military.”
“There is no record of anyone with that name,” said the voice. “You are lying.”
“I’m not! Look at your damned machine! I’m not lying.”
Helene was confused: was there really no trace of Charlie or were they trying to break her down, make her mistrust what she knew – or thought she knew? Anyway, how could they have not known Charlie’s name if they’d been followed, as he’d intimated, since leaving the UK? She recognised the interrogation as one of the nine steps in the Reid interrogation technique that she’d learned about during her training: confrontation, theme development, stopping denials, overcoming objections… Christ! What were the others? The ninth step was confession.
“Tell us about the second man in the bunker,” said the voice.
“His name is Wally Manfred,” said Helene. “At least that was the name he used with me.”
“You’re lying,” said the voice.
“I’m not. I mean, I don’t know,” said Helene. “He contacted me and told me he had information about your government, the US government. I was interested so I went to talk to him. And then you people arrived.”
“How did he contact you?” said the voice.
“Via my website,” said Helene.
The second blow made her left eyeball feel as if it were about to explode out of her cheek.
“How did he contact you?” said the voice.
“Via my website, I swear it! I erased the messages after I’d read them,” said Helene desperately. “I thought that was safer. The website is the only way anyone can contact me at the moment. You must know that!”
“The man you met was not Wally Manfred. Who was he?” said the voice.
“I don’t know! I don’t know! That’s the name he used. But I don’t think he was really Wally Manfred because I came across a man with that name in the Warm Creek Nursing Home. He’d been there for two years: the nurse told me his daughter had visited there. So I don’t know who the man I met in the bunker really was. He called himself ‘Wally’.”
“Don’t lie to us!” said the voice, with a slight edge. “We can make this far more unpleasant for you. And if you lie again, I’d really like to have an excuse to do just that.”
Helene swallowed, a lump of fear sticking like a pebble in her throat.
“I’m finding it really hard to believe, Ms La Borde,” the voice continued, “that you’re just an innocent bystander in all this.”
“I didn’t say I was a bystander,” said Helene quickly, “I’m a journalist. You must have heard of the freedom of the press? The right to…”
“ ‘…the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference, and impart information and ideas through any media regardless of frontiers’. Don’t you use your filthy mouth to speak about those things,” spat the voice. “They weren’t meant for sewer rats like you to hide behind.”
“I... I don’t know what you mean,” said Helene, panting slightly.
The voice was close now: Helene could feel the breath on h
er neck, smell that the voice had been drinking strong coffee.
“People like you make me sick,” said the voice neutrally. “A journalist hiding behind rights that were designed to protect patriots. You’re one of those people who despises anyone who has more than them, aren’t you? You’re not even a very successful journalist, are you? Fifty-two and down to your last nickel.” The voice began to rise again. “You’re pathetic. If it weren’t for us your little piss-ant country would have sunk without trace by now. We tolerate your liberal whining because it suits us to do so, but you’re pathetic. And you try to tell us how to run our country.”
“At least we don’t kidnap innocent people and send them to concentration camps,” snapped Helene.
The voice laughed.
“Don’t be naïve. Your government does exactly that when it suits them. You live in this fantasy world that your government is a democratic one. Bullshit! At best it’s a benign dictatorship but you’d rather believe in fairytales. Well, I’m going to use my magic wand, Ms La Borde, and you’ll tell me everything you know.”
Suddenly the most appalling pain sliced through the wires attached to her and Helene screamed. She thought she was having a heart attack as a band of pain wrapped itself around her chest. The lie-detector, unmasked, clearly had another, darker purpose.
“We really need to talk about trust, Ms La Borde,” continued the voice almost conversationally. “We need to be able to trust your answers and right now, I have to say you’re making that difficult.”
Helene was still gasping with pain.
“ ‘The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable’,” said the voice. “Another fucking liberal, just like you, said those words. But this country stays stable because of economics: because of trust in the machinery of government. You’ve been trying to play in a game where you don’t understand the rules. Well, the rules are going to be explained to you very carefully, but for now you’re going to tell me everything you know – and everything you think you know, aren’t you?”
The pain shot through her again and Helene’s scream burst out. Something inside her broke and all her defiance fell away, fell into the chasm she had sensed before her but could not see.
“Alright, I’ll tell you! Please don’t – I can’t take it! I’ll tell you everything,” she cried.
“I know you will,” said the voice.
Helene told the voice about Bill Bailey, about Kazuma and about Hassan Ali. She explained how she’d followed the thread of Wally Manfred to the bunker. But she didn’t mention what she’d found out about Barbara Manfred or that she knew Hank’s name – or what the Gene Genies had been planning.
“And that’s everything, I swear it,” she gasped. “If Charlie has another name, I don’t know what it is: both Bill Bailey and Kazuma knew him as ‘Charlie’ so that’s all I can tell you.”
By now Helene was pleading.
“We’ll see,” said the voice, once more unemotional.
The pain came again, fast and hot.
Helene screamed again. Then she lost control of her bodily functions: she wept as the smell of urine soaking through her jeans filled the room.
“God!” said the voice in a tone of disgust. “Take this bitch away and clean her up.”
Helene’s legs crumbled as she was dragged from the room. Somewhere nearby she was laid down on a sloping table, something like a dentist’s chair, but hard and cold. A piece of cloth was placed over her mouth and water cascaded down, icy cold, making her gag.
Water forced itself into her mouth and nose and lungs. Helene desperately tried to turn her head but she was held too firmly. She was coughing, choking, gasping for air.
You’re drowning, her body said. Fight, you have to fight!
She tried to kick out, to swim free, but she was held down.
Unconsciousness took her brief seconds before her heart broke.
When she came to, she was sitting back in the hard chair: she couldn’t tell if minutes had passed or hours. It was like some cruel game the gods had decided to play on her. Her jeans were still wet and her shirt was soaked through. Liquid was dribbling from her nose and mouth and she could feel wet hair hanging on her forehead. Her ribs ached and every breath reeked of pain.
The voice was still there.
“What else did the man in the bunker tell you?”
Helene tried to speak but spat out water instead. She shook her head weakly. The voice was relentless, a machine programmed to ask questions that she couldn’t answer.
“What else did the man in the bunker tell you?”
“Nothing,” whispered Helene. “He didn’t have time.”
“Don’t lie,” said the voice coldly. “You were in there for at least 24 hours. What did he tell you?”
“Nothing else. I’ve told you everything,” I swear,” said Helene humbly. “He had some crazy story about the US gold reserves. He was checking mining quotas against bullion sold by the US government. It didn’t make much sense. I thought I was wasting my time.”
Helene felt numb. It was hard to know what was real anymore: only this room, this voice.
“Do you know what will happen if your nasty little fiction comes out?” said the voice stiffly. “Well, I’ll tell you: first of all the world markets will collapse; trade will come to a standstill; inflation will soar in every developed country and most of the developing ones; there’ll be war; governments will fall; millions, maybe billions will die. Is that what you want, Ms La Borde? Are you one of those naive end-timers who think that the chaos of resetting the clock to zero will save the world?”
Helene shook her head, still too dazed to speak.
“Well, if that’s your little anarchist’s dream, you’re even more naïve than you pretend, because it won’t happen, Ms La Borde. And I’ll tell you why: because no-one will believe you.”
Helene’s brain flickered with recognition.
“It was you: you sent me that message to my website. It was you, wasn’t it?”
The voice ignored her.
“Women of your age are often prone to breakdowns, Ms La Borde, did you know that?” The voice was almost conversational again. “It’s not just the hormones – or lack of them – it’s the realisation that you’re superfluous to society – that you have nothing left to offer. You’re extinct as far as procreation is concerned and functionally you’re a washed up has-been with a bitterness brought on by your lack of success in the world. It’s not unusual, it’s almost a stereotype. It’s a shame: the breakdown of what was a fine mind, but these days all sorts of medicines are available to help you. How long have you been bipoloar, Ms La Borde?”
“I… I’m not!”
“Denial is a common symptom, of course. How long have you had voices in your head telling you to bring down the government?”
“W-what?”
“You must recognise that your thought processes are illogical? How long have you been feeling suicidal?”
Helene was silent.
“One of the most common ways for a woman your age to kill herself is an overdose of sleeping pills and anti-depressants,” continued the voice. “Of course coming off Prozac so suddenly was bound to disrupt the balance of your mind.”
“What do you want?” said Helene in a low voice.
“I want to be sure that you’re not holding back information. Where had you arranged to meet your accomplices?”
At last the voice had made a mistake. And the mistake was to give Helene hope: Charlie and Hank hadn’t been captured… unless, of course, the voice was trying to trip her up again.
“We hadn’t arranged anything,” said Helene. “We were taken by surprise – that’s the truth.”
“I don’t think you have any conception of the truth,” said the voice, much nearer to Helene now. “You’re a lying bitch and I’m going to laugh my ass off when I see you sitting in the Warm Creek Nursing Home wallowing in piss and shit.”
The loathing in the v
oice, coupled with the delight in the punishment it planned, was more terrifying than anything else Helene had ever heard.
“I can’t tell you what I don’t know,” she said, trying and failing to suppress the tremble of fear.
The cell door opened again and Helene felt the voice move away. A mutter of several people talking reached her ears. The voices became louder, clearly disagreeing about something of importance.
“This is fucking ridiculous!” shouted the voice Helene feared the most. Footsteps returned and the voice swore at her once, then used the machine to send a jet of pain through her. Her heart exploded, the agony almost merciful as she blacked out.
No part of her was aware as her carcass was untied and dragged, inert, from the concrete cell.
Chapter 23
The glare was so bright that it hurt her eyes, even though they were still closed; two punctures of needle sharp light pressed their way into her brain. Was she lying in the sun, baking in the Californian desert? Or maybe she was back in Bahrain and the cormorants would start pecking out her eyes…
Helene’s eyelids fluttered open a fraction then. She caught a glimpse of a white room which made her think of Heaven, but nothing in the tales from childhood had ever described Heaven as being so damned painful. Every muscle, joint and bone in her body throbbed. From which Helene concluded that most of her was alive.
She opened her eyes again, blinking rapidly as they began to water, her pupils contracting to pinheads. She tried to speak but her throat had closed up. She licked her lips but her tongue was dry and the skin around her mouth cracked. She tried to clear her throat and, at last, a sound came out: inarticulate, inhuman even, but a sound, nevertheless.
“She’s waking up,” said a distant voice.
It wasn’t the voice.
Thank God.
A ghostly face loomed over her: a man in a white coat. “Back in the land of the living?”
What a stupid, bloody question. Not even the doctors could tell if you were alive or dead it seemed.
Helene tried to get the word ‘water’ past her dried lips but failed. Instead she tried to mime picking up a glass of water, but her own hand was too heavy to lift and she lay, blinking like a dying fish.
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