by Henry Porter
‘What the hell are you doing?’ she said to Naji.
‘Everything’s here,’ he said. ‘I copied it two nights ago when you were sleeping on the boat.’
‘It seems we have another witness, Chair,’ drawled Speight. ‘In any case, I yield my time. The questions I suggested can be asked by anyone.’
Lucas now bore down on Naji. ‘Who, sir, are you?’
‘Mrs Hisami’s adviser, Mr Chair,’ replied Naji, pleased that he had some of the protocol right and smiling idiotically.
Lucas shook his head and blinked several times. ‘You’re younger than my grandchildren. You don’t look like you have any advice to give Mrs Hisami.’
‘But I do,’ said Naji, bridling. ‘I am Naji Touma, and I am the only person here that has seen the Kurdish people fight ISIS.’
‘Is he your adviser?’ Lucas asked Anastasia.
‘He is who he says he is, but he’s not my adviser and he needs to return to his seat right now.’
Naji got up.
Samson glanced over at Daus, who for the first time was beginning to look concerned. He kept watching as Lucas turned to his right and called on Abigail Hunter, the Democrat representing Nevada’s fourth district.
In her late thirties, with blonde hair, small, polygon-shaped glasses and an earnest manner, Hunter looked surprised to be called but quickly recovered and said, ‘I’ll follow the Ranking Member’s suggestion. Why were Homeland Security here and what is on that computer?’
Anastasia paused. She didn’t know where to start.
‘You may answer now,’ said Hunter.
‘My husband, together with many others, but chiefly a former senior intelligence officer named Robert Harland who was murdered on the day of the attack here, was investigating a very large network of influence within the government, agencies and business. I believed that computer held the only copy of the dossier they had been compiling for the past two years.’
‘Have you entered evidence into the record? I have seen nothing.’
‘No, but I can certainly do so now. I was expecting to be asked and have prepared copies of my statement. They’re right here,’ she said, hefting the bundle in front of her. ‘More will be made available.’
A brash young congressman from Arizona named Daniel K. Nolan, who she had noticed was never still, put up a finger and said, ‘Point of order, Chairman! Why are we listening to this? What conceivable relevance does all this have to America’s relations with the Kurdish people? Secret networks, computer dossiers – I mean, I am lost. Motion to dismiss.’
Lucas turned to him with a withering look. ‘This is not a legal case and there’s nothing to dismiss. We are the legislature, not your courtroom, Congressman and, yes, you are overruled.’
Nolan didn’t take the putdown well and sat with his arms folded, looking furious, thus attracting the attention of the cameras. But it was plain that some members thought he had a point, particularly an old congressman from Pennsylvania who was nodding vigorously, and another from Idaho named Ed Riven, who turned from the row below the dais to shake Nolan’s hand.
Samson received a message from Zillah, who had scrambled back into 2172 just before Harry Lucas’s lockdown. ‘We need to speed up. Those two guys are in Daus’s pocket. She donates to their campaigns in Pennsylvania and Idaho. Mobius is texting the whole time. They are going to play rough. We don’t have much time, especially when they see the papers. BTW the fingerprints on the compact match. She can’t deny who she is.’
The tension in the room was palpable. A member of the clerk’s staff, a heavy white guy with a paunch and an audible wheeze, took his time collecting the papers, and counting them. He indicated that there weren’t enough. Zillah went to Samson and gave him the freshly printed copies, plus a zip-lock clear plastic envelope. Samson nodded to her. She was right. It was time. He took the papers to Anastasia and placed the envelope and the bag he had carried into Congress on the seat beside her. ‘It’s all there when you need it,’ he said. He didn’t care whether Mila Daus saw him because she couldn’t leave, but her attention was focused on the papers being distributed and she seemed to be urging Mobius to get hold of a copy.
‘Who is this?’ Lucas called out to Anastasia.
‘He works for me, Mr Chairman. Just an employee, no one important.’ Even now she had time to have a dig at him. That was a good sign.
Many of the representatives now had the papers and were reading, some flipping through skimming the contents, others reading from page one.
‘Is it still my time, Chair?’ asked Abigail Hunter.
Lucas nodded.
‘Mrs Hisami,’ she began, ‘I have just spent a few minutes with this, but these are astonishing allegations.’ She looked down. ‘You are naming four individuals as running key networks in Washington, London, New York and on the West Coast with a fifth in charge. You accuse two highly placed individuals in the National Security Council and in the Office of the Director of Intelligence and, in the UK, you suggest the Prime Minister’s right-hand man is a Russian spy.’ She looked up. ‘There are very well-known people on these lists. I won’t name them but, honestly, how can you make these allegations that they are part of a vast network servicing a foreign power?’
‘Because it is true.’ She kept her voice low and controlled. ‘These days the public and media focus on cyberattacks and hacking, but Denis and Robert Harland knew that what matters is real people who have access to the highest councils of the land.’
‘You are saying that this is a huge network of spies feeding information to the Kremlin? There are scores of Americans involved!’
‘Yes, and Britons as well,’ said Anastasia. ‘You want to know why a man shoved papers covered in nerve agent into my husband’s hands? This is the reason. They believed he had this evidence with him on that day. He didn’t. You want to know why one of the greatest intelligence officers of the Cold War was shot in cold blood on the same day? This is the reason. People have died to bring this information to your attention. My husband was as good a person as a man with his past can be. He gave his life for it because he believed in this country. You want to know why Homeland Security entered this room, against all constitutional norms, and seized that computer? This is the reason.’
‘Are you suggesting Homeland Security is working for the Russians?’
‘I am suggesting that the administration does not want this information to come out, which is different. I am suggesting . . .’
But she was silenced out by several members waving the papers and shouting. Lucas was looking left to the Republicans and right to his own party, and didn’t see Jonathan Mobius approach the dais and speak with Riven and Nolan. They nodded and consulted with three other colleagues. Mobius returned to his seat, Samson craned to see Mila Daus, who glanced at the door, where three large USCP officers stood barring the way. Then she clasped her hands between her knees and looked down. Mobius whispered to her and she nodded without looking up. They were trapped, but they weren’t beaten. They had a last throw of the dice.
Nolan was shouting the loudest and eventually got Lucas’s attention. ‘Chair, I believe the congresswoman is out of time.’
‘She has a minute to go.’
‘Nevertheless,’ said Nolan, ‘I have to remind the Chair of this committee’s rules.’ He put on his glasses and held up a book handed to him by a staffer. ‘I’ll read two sections from the Committee Rules. “The majority may vote to close the hearing for the sole purpose of discussing whether evidence to be received would endanger national security, would compromise sensitive law enforcement information or violate Paragraph Two.” And, sir, I am going to read you Paragraph Two. “The Committee may vote to close a hearing whenever it is asserted by a Member of the Committee that the evidence or testimony at a hearing may tend to defame, degrade, or incriminate any person.”’ He looked up. ‘What I have in front of me
, Chairman, fulfils all those requirements, to say nothing about the risks to national security if you continue on this course. You have to take a vote. The rules require it.’
‘I will take advice,’ said Lucas, closing his hand over his microphone and leaning towards the unreadable face of Warren Speight.
‘May I continue while you do that?’ asked Nolan. He didn’t wait for an answer because he was clearly out of order. ‘Mrs Hisami, is it true that you have recently suffered serious mental-health issues – a complete nervous breakdown – and that after treatment failed you engaged in a controversial therapy involving the party drug MDMA, otherwise known as ecstasy?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It was a controlled medical trial.’
‘Is it fair to suggest that you have made these allegations while you’re not only grieving for your husband but also under the influence of this drug?’
‘Absolutely not! I finished treatment two years ago. And I didn’t make these allegations, my husband did.’
‘Your husband, the war criminal,’ he said, and sat back. ‘I yield.’
Lucas looked around. ‘I think the representative has a good argument for a vote on the grounds that this hearing risks defaming or denigrating people who cannot defend themselves. We’ll leave the National Security aspect out of it because none of us is in a position to say what impact these papers may have.’
‘I may be able to help in that regard,’ said Speight, waggling a pen between his index and middle finger.
‘Would you mind if we just take the vote, Mr Speight?’ asked Lucas, now very much at the end of his patience.
‘Nope, you go ahead, Mr Lucas.’ He lounged in his chair and, unlike everyone else present, appeared completely relaxed.
Anastasia watched him and for one infinitesimal moment she thought she saw some encouragement directed at her. Before she had time to consider her next action, she was on her feet. ‘I have some things to say before you take your vote. I don’t wish to talk about myself, or my pain, but it is true that Denis and I have been through a rough time these past few years, and now my husband is dead. He didn’t survive the struggle with an immensely powerful enemy, an enemy that threatens us all. That enemy is in this room, sitting with us now, quietly and patiently working out her escape route with the man who is her stepson, but also her lover and fellow traitor. The vote you are about to take is their escape route.’
She picked up the two bags and pulled out the jam jar stolen by Herr Frick from the display in Leipzig and turned to face the back of the room. ‘Over there sits Mila Daus, a self-made billionaire, although it is fair to say she did have some help in acquiring her wealth from two rich husbands, named Muller and Mobius. Mila Daus started life in the German Democratic Republic as a member of the Stasi secret police and was the organisation’s most terrifying and cruel servant. She destroyed people’s minds for the cause. The lives of literally thousands of political prisoners were wrecked by this woman before she was even thirty-five years of age.’
‘What is that you are holding?’ snapped Lucas.
Without turning, she replied. ‘Proof that the woman sitting over there is the same person who committed these crimes. It contains a hair from a young student the Stasi arrested because she had been talent-spotted. That was the way the Stasi got to know people. The hair was an accident, but the DNA in this sample matches hairs collected by my associates at her home at Seneca Ridge just four days ago. They acquired two samples and the match was perfect in both cases.’ She held up the bag containing the woman’s razor and comb. ‘But that’s not all. As a matter of course, the Stasi fingerprinted everyone they arrested.’ She held up the arrest sheet. ‘Here are the fingerprints of that young woman.’ She picked up the zip-lock bag. ‘And here are her fingerprints, taken from a woman’s compact Mila Daus handled less than two hours ago in this room. They are a match and, lest there be any doubt about that, I believe we have mobile footage of her handling that compact.’
Daus sat with her head down and did not react, but Mobius rose and shouted, ‘You are defaming an innocent woman and an American patriot! Shame on you! Mr Chairman, you cannot lock us in here and subject us to these slurs. This isn’t justice.’ He looked down at his phone. ‘We both need to leave right now. We are dealing with a serious data breach of our companies’ servers and closed data. I demand that we are allowed to pass without being obstructed, or else you will be hearing from our lawyers.’
‘I have no idea who you are,’ said Lucas, ‘but you have no right to speak unless asked, still less to threaten Congress in that manner.’ He looked down at Anastasia. ‘All right, Mrs Hisami, I think we have heard quite enough. Please take your seat while I hold the vote.’
‘I will not,’ she said. Samson saw the flash of aggression that occasionally showed itself in their fights and had undoubtedly got her through her kidnap and incarceration in Russia. She was in command and the room was hers. ‘People are here today who were broken by this woman and can identify her.’ She turned. ‘Would you all please make yourselves known?’
Led by Ulrike, the five elderly Germans who had been sitting around Mila Daus, and, in one case, in the chair next to her, rose to their feet.
‘The lady at the front is Ulrike Harland,’ continued Anastasia. ‘She is the widow of Robert Harland, killed two weeks ago by a gunman. Her first husband was murdered by Daus’s Stasi associates in the nineties. She will introduce the others.’
Lucas was muttering his disapproval but, caught up in the drama of the moment, was too slow to intervene.
Ulrike began to speak. ‘This is Frau Lauerbach. Lilly was held in Hohenschönhausen prison then in Bautzen prison. She was released after four years of mental torture overseen by Mila Daus.’ She indicated another woman, a fragile, bird-like creature who stood with the aid of a cane. ‘Johanna Feldman was accused of crimes against the state. She was imprisoned for five years and has suffered numerous breakdowns since her release. She never married because of her mental-health problems.’ She pointed to Frick, who had come spruced up in a three-piece suit and bow tie. This is Bruno Frick. His wife killed herself a year before the Wall came down.’ She touched the shoulder of a tall man in a checked sports jacket. ‘This is Tobias Nest, a musician who was prosecuted for antisocial activities and imprisoned for four years. His wife divorced him after Mila Daus, in the guise of a social worker, informed her that Herr Nest was a paedophile. And finally, this is Ben Rugal.’ She turned and smiled at a man with a cap mark on his forehead and a deeply tanned faced below. ‘Herr Rugal is a farmer. One night he gave shelter to a young student who was on the run from the Stasi. He was sentenced to three years for aiding and abetting the student. His wife died of cancer while he was in prison, for which reason she was denied all treatment.’
The room had fallen silent. No one moved. The six German citizens looked at each other, slightly at a loss to know what to do. Then all turned to Daus and each spoke the words agreed on beforehand.
‘Ich identifiziere Sie hiermit als die Stasi-Offizierin Mila Daus.’ Ulrike explained to the room that this was a formal identification.
Daus looked up uncomprehendingly and, without the slightest recognition, although she knew exactly who Ulrike was and darted a brief venomous look at her.
‘Okay, that’s enough,’ said Lucas. ‘We will now have our vote on whether to suspend hearing the evidence of this witness. Does anyone want to speak before I take the vote? The issue is simple enough. Does the continuation of Mrs Hisami’s evidence unfairly defame, degrade or incriminate those named in these papers?’
No one spoke and forty-seven representatives voted. Warren Speight was among the first to indicate that he agreed with the motion. It was carried with an overwhelming majority.
‘That seems to settle things,’ said Lucas. ‘Mrs Hisami, we are grateful for your attendance this morning. Thank you. I hereby end the session.’
Anasta
sia looked round to Samson. He shrugged. There was nothing to be done. Then her eyes came to rest on Naji, who was looking down at his phone with a broad grin, completely unaware of what was going on around him. Daus and Mobius had got up and were moving to the door. Anastasia turned to get her things together then became aware that Warren Speight was speaking.
‘Excuse me, Chairman,’ he was saying. ‘I have a note of what we just voted on. We voted to suspend hearing the evidence of the witness, not to suspend the session.’
The room went silent again. Lucas looked at his notes and glanced at the clerk, who nodded.
‘And at the bottom of the schedule I see that it expressly states that more witnesses may be added.’ He held up the schedule and pointed to the words. ‘And I do have two more witnesses for this session. They have only just emerged, but they are relevant to the subject under discussion.’
Lucas sighed. ‘Very well. We’ll take a vote on the principle of whether we should consider the evidence of two further witnesses. But it will have to be brief. We only have forty-five minutes remaining.’ Seeing that the Ranking Member had been tough on Anastasia and had voted for a cessation of her evidence, his side were inclined to support him, as were a majority of Democrats, who did so out of curiosity, because Speight refused to name the witnesses until he had the endorsement of his colleagues. The motion to hear two more witnesses was carried. Anastasia saw Speight’s aide, Matthew Corner, disappear behind the curtain. She sat down, but Lucas suggested she leave the witness table and, if there weren’t a chair available, an officer would move one of the witness chairs to a suitable position. She saw no reason why she shouldn’t now sit beside Samson on the aisle and pointed to the spot. Before sitting, she smiled at Ulrike, who, like the other five victims, remained standing – a living memorial to the thousands of people who had passed through the Stasi’s prisons, she thought.
In the time it took the man to move the chair and satisfy himself that it would not obstruct the aisle, two men had come through the door on the far-right-hand side of the dais, walked to the table and taken their seats.
