The Hangman's Replacement: Sprout of Disruption (BOOK 1)

by Taona Dumisani Chiveneko

  Josh crunched a chip between his lips. Non-salted. His glassy eyes remained fixed on his host.

  The ambassador was about to say something when Josh interrupted.

  “Don’t worry. Everything is taken care of. I land in a private aircraft adorned with plush leather seats and expensive bubbly. When I land, my compadres and I will be met at the airport by Tuvaluan dignitaries. They will receive me like the prodigal son that they neither birthed, nor met. There will be much happenstance.”

  Josh munched on a ginger biscuit.

  “So these ‘compadres’ you speak of. Will they be armed?”

  “Of course.”

  “Are you telling me that you plan to visit a small island nation with a plane full of armed men?”

  “Well, yes. But we come in peace, Ambassador.”

  “Of course.”

  “Honestly. My compadre’s weapons are attached to their bodies. They are extra limbs that have integrated themselves with the human tissue. These things can happen when men invest their lifetimes in adventure. It would be cruel to ask them to sever their limbs so late in life. In fact, such an act would be a human rights violation.”

  The ambassador sighed.

  “With all due respect, Josh, any country would be nervous about a group of armed men landing in private planes to claim instant citizenship. Tuvalu is no different. I doubt the authorities will let you land. If they do, you will be taken to the nearest jail.”

  “You are wrong, my friend. But in the spirit of candid discussion, I will indulge you.”

  “Please.”

  “Let’s say I arrived in Tuvalu, uninvited. Who would stop me? The Tuvalu Defence Forces?” Doll Eyes clutched his chest with both hands. His glassy eyes were dilated in alarm. The possibility of confronting a hostile Tuvaluan army had perplexed him. “Oh, right! The army doesn’t exist. Nevertheless, you do have a police force on the island of Funafuti. That’s cute. But Mr. Ambassador, I have the names of three people on speed-dial who could take over your country in an afternoon. Two are friends who owe me favours. Both are unseasonably ill-tempered. The third is a distant cousin who went to war and never really ‘came back’, if you know what I mean? Right now, he is praying. How do I know this? Because if he was not cloistered in divine worship, that deranged hermit would be in combat. In the latter case, his misdeeds would usually make the papers. I have seen no such reports of late. However, upon my summons, he would abandon his prayers to conduct that other business. But no matter which of the three men I call on this shiny blue phone, all three would be well equipped and decidedly belligerent.”

  The ambassador remained expressionless. This guest was quickly outliving his welcome. Josh was quick to placate his troubled host.

  “Of course this is just a hypothetical discussion. Besides, if push came to shove, the Australians would help you out. If that happened I would abandon my plans of staying in Tuvalu. In my books, it is wrong to go to war with Australians. They come from the same homeland as my favourite animal: the wombat.”

  The ambassador relaxed a little. Josh winked at him and smiled devilishly.

  “Anyway, I would never resort to militant methods against Tuvalu. It would be inconsiderate of me to alienate my new brothers and sisters. No, I choose cooperation over confrontation. In fact, it was my cooperation with your government on a sensitive matter that earned me my citizenship. If I had not intervened against a villainous scoundrel who had ill-intent towards our country, all ten thousand of Tuvalu’s citizens would have been forced to migrate to another country. But that story is top secret. Let’s just say my actions have made me a ‘persona very grata’, and of course, Tuvalu’s newest citizen.”

  The ambassador rubbed his chin in silence. Josh held out his phone to him.

  “You can call your ministry back home if you want to confirm my new status in Tuvalu? They can also direct you to my lawyer. His name is Godfrey. That man has a fabulous moustache.”

  The ambassador nodded. He knew Josh had done his homework. This operation had been planned for months. As Tuvalu’s representative in Zimbabwe, the ambassador’s job was to facilitate Josh’s transition, not to authorize it. But was “Josh” even his name? Those eyes. They looked familiar. Where had he seen them before? Then it dawned on him.

  “Aaaah ... I recognize you now. You delivered the graduation speech to the business students at the National University of Science and Technology in Bulawayo. But you were wearing a gown and mortarboard. Quite different from how you look ... now. For a start, you look much thinner.”

  “Oh? You were there?” asked Josh, his face lighting up.

  “Yes, I was one of the lowly dignitaries sitting on the podium behind you. That was quite the speech. I heard that a few people were almost fired for allowing you to speak. Your invitation was their first effort to breathe life into the school’s new ‘Candour Over Platitudes’ mandate. And boy, were you candid.”

  “I am a forthright man, Mr. Ambassador. My thoughts don’t pass through a filter of political correctness. If I ever had one in my throat, I spat it out on the day that I replaced my pacifier with the ability to speak.”

  The ambassador believed him, but Josh was not finished with this thought.

  “Diplomatic language is the arch enemy of clarity, Mr. Ambassador. It is the refuge of cowardice. I was just being frank with those students. They are being trained for a world that only exists in the idealistic minds of career academics. A world where one-dimensional ideas can contain three-dimensional problems. I didn’t want those poor kids to walk out of school wrapped in a lofty coating of naïveté, only to realize that the world is filled with men like me. At that point, life starts to suck pretty fast.”

  “Unless of course, they can flee to Tuvalu,” added the ambassador helpfully.

  “You have the same sense of humour as your security guard.”

  “But I don’t share his sense of integrity.” The ambassador shifted in his seat. “Pardon me for changing the subject so suddenly, Josh, but … you look different in... latex.”

  “Oh, this? It’s the new style. I know of someone who tried it. He claims it saved his life. Apparently, it is pollen proof. I plan to wear it for about two hours each day. I need to keep it stretched out so it isn’t stiff when I fly out of here. If this contraceptive breaks before I leave Zimbabwean airspace, I will suffer an accidental pollination.”

  “Do you plan to wear any clothes beneath it, Josh?”

  “No.”

  “Then you must warn the staff whenever you feel your need to ‘stretch’ it.”

  “That is fair. Another thing, if anyone tries to deliver a flame lily to this address, have it burnt before it enters our territory. No such plant can enter this compound for the next week. Can you do that for me, Mr. Ambassador?”

  “Consider it done, Josh.”

  “Thanks.”

  “No problem. Now, we can set you up in the guest apartment upstairs. It has a self-contained bathroom and kitchenette. It also has a television. You will be more comfortable up there.”

  “Does it have a window?”

  “Yes. Unlike this lounge, the suite has a lovely view to the field at the back of the building.”

  “Then I want nothing to do with that suite. I hate windows. They let in too much sunlight for my liking.”

  “Did you say ‘too much sunlight for your lightning’?”

  “Is everyone in Tuvalu as funny as you are, Mr. Ambassador?”

  “Some Tuvaluans are even funnier.”

  “Well, I plan to lobby for a humour tax when I get there. That will shut them all up. Anyway, before I can do that, I plan to continue living in this lounge. I don’t think lightning will enter Tuvaluan territory, but I will not tempt it by hovering around the windows.”

  “As you wish. So will there be a Mrs. Josh and family joining you on your trip?”

  “No. I always travel without baggage. That’s why my friends call me AB.”

  “What does that stand fo
r?”

  “Apex Bachelor. Tell me, Mr. Ambassador. Are there pretty ladies in Tuvalu? Grass skirts? Hibiscus flowers behind their ears? Not flame lilies, of course ...”

  “Hmm. I am not sure the single women in Tuvalu would warm up to you, AB. I think you might be a hard taste for most of them to acquire.”

  “I will be in Tuvalu long enough for some of them to acquire the taste. I am quite charming, you know? Some people even call me Doll Eyes. The name is not usually meant as a compliment, but these two shiny marbles are like magnets to the ladies.”

  “Well, Apex Bachelor, I hope you evade your Apex Predator for long enough to test your Doll Eyes in Tuvalu. For now, I will get you some real food. You need to recover from your stress-induced weight loss. You are as thin as a SPINDLE.”

  “You know a lot, Ambassador. It hurts. Anyway, my weight loss was induced by a recent surgery. Stress has nothing to do with it.”

  “Does the distinction make any difference in this case?”

  “I guess not. I must confess that the pre-surgical period was quite stressful. But I did not attain such heights of success by shrinking in the face of difficulty. With my leadership, we managed to secure the materials we needed for our surgeries.”

  “We?”

  “The Apex Bachelor has Apex Associates.”

  “Don’t you need post-surgical care in a proper hospital? You could get an infection.”

  “I will get all the care I need in here. If it’s not too much trouble, I need more antibiotics. My scar is filled with pus.”

  * * *

  The Man Who Courted The Gallows

  It was early Saturday morning. The courthouse was quiet. It was the perfect time to put in a few hours of uninterrupted work. The smell of dew-covered grass wafted into Magistrate Changamire’s office through the window. The Hanging Judge loved mornings. No matter what happened the night before, mornings always helped him to start the day from a point of strength. Over the coming months, he would need all the stamina he could muster for the mental marathon ahead.

  Magistrate Changamire sat down at his desk and opened the file in front of him. Here it was. Another case with the potential for the death penalty.

  The criminal was one of those men who actually wanted to die. Four psychiatric assessments had concluded that he was not insane, depressed, or suicidal. One report cited the “extraordinary vitality” in his eyes. Another noted that: “He has a psychopathy that is supercharged by a prodigious intellect. My overall conclusions cannot be described in terms that can be found in the lexicon of psychiatry.” The third report noted that: “This inmate is resolutely sane. My impression is that he has the capacity to continue unleashing tremendous harm, regardless of whether he is physically restrained or not.” The final report was the most telling. When the Accused was brought to meet the most junior of the psychiatrists, he sat down calmly in front of her. When she asked him the first question, he simply looked at her and said, “Really?” That was the only word he uttered in all four interviews. The psychiatrists unanimously endorsed his sanity.

  Magistrate Changamire re-read the reports several times. Their language was typical of such documents. However, there was something else going on here. Magistrate Changamire could not put his finger on it. After a period of intense analysis, a chilling pattern emerged. It was not hiding in any particular words or grammatical structures. It was not concealed in the experts’ consensus about the Accused’s sanity. It was a sinister presence that hovered over all the opinions. The spectre rose from the pages like the stench of a rotting carcass. Fear. The psychiatrists were being held hostage by their patient. They were quietly begging for someone to pay the ransom, to accept their shared conclusion with no further questions. Their banal medical language was a thin veneer over a collective cry of desperation:

  “Trust us: This man is a crazy type of sane! If you reject the ‘sane’ diagnosis, you will provoke the crazy!”

  The crimes described in the documents showed a mind of abnormal intelligence. The Accused was not a fan of guts and gore. His criminal specialty was killing people without ever touching them. The deaths of his victims were incidental, not central, to his motives. He simply killed for the mental exercise. He just wanted to prove that there were so many ways to terminate people by remote control. The Accused invested much pomp and circumstance in boasting about his deeds. He scolded the police for being “too stupid” to catch him. He lamented the fact that he was forced to turn himself in because he had “grown weary of impunity”.

  The Accused went a step further. He offered to craft the prosecution’s case against him. If the Prosecutor’s Office refused, he would plead not guilty. The Accused would then mount a defence that would destroy their case. After successfully defending himself, he would switch sides and concede his crimes “with relish”. He would follow up by explaining how a competent prosecution should have handled the case. Finally, he would prove his entitlement to the death penalty. Magistrate Changamire would have no choice but to grant it. According to the Accused:

  “I have an appointment with the gallows. The muscular arm of my destiny will not be subdued by the lightweight resistance of the Magistrate’s intellect.”

  The Accused then made a threat. If at any point the prosecution dropped the case against him, he would “precipitate” the death of someone in the courtroom. That way, he would leave no doubt that he was capable of committing the crimes he was being tried for. The Accused noted that he would not target the judge for the remote control killing. His reasoning had nothing to do with his respect for judicial authority. He simply felt that the years that judges wasted listening to “blabbing” lawyers was punishment enough.

  When he was done with his case, “Everyone would have had such great fun!”

  Magistrate Changamire had an eerie feeling that despite his narcissism, the Accused had the capacity to match his boasts. The judge’s instincts were confirmed by key aspects of the prosecution’s filing against him. The documents did not dispute that the Accused had turned himself in to the police. Neither did they deny that, up to that point, they had no clue who had committed the murders. In fact, the Prosecutor’s Office conceded that the police had not known that some of the deaths were murders until the Accused provided extensive evidence to guarantee his conviction.

  The strongest support for the Accused’s credibility was the overall quality of the prosecution’s filing. Yes, the arguments were well written. Yes, the legal arguments were solid. However, their quality reflected competence, not genius. These documents had been prepared by a mere mortal. The drafters were career lawyers with spouses, children, and work ethics that could be recommended for promotions. However, their output fell profoundly short of legal beatification.

  So where was the mastermind who had prepared all those perfect death penalty cases? Had the prosecution not summoned him because the Accused was willing to convict himself? This was possible, but not probable. Something else was going on here.

  Magistrate Changamire smiled. The Accused must have known that the prosecution would never accept his offer to argue the case against himself. Beyond the obvious embarrassment of accepting help from the person it was trying to convict, the justice system did not allow self-prosecutions. The Accused also knew that after the prosecution refused his help, he would be brought before the courts. How could he not be tried? After all, he was a confessed mass murderer with blood on his hands.

  Since a trial was unavoidable, the prosecution would have to decide whether to use its mastermind against the Accused who would be defending himself. From what Magistrate Changamire could tell, the prosecution had chosen to save its prodigy from humiliation. The prosecution had prepared its case without the legendary Luxon Hurudza.

  Magistrate Changamire shook his head with satisfaction. This criminal had declared an intellectual war on the reclusive lawyer. Luxon Hurudza had surveyed his vast array of weapons and chosen the most savage blade in his armoury. But when he stepped into the r
ing, he found a nuclear warhead dangling above the inconsequence of his brilliance. Magistrate Changamire then realized that challenging the prosecution was only one part of the Accused’s plan. This case was also a vehicle for smacking Luxon Hurudza in the brain. The Accused had sent him a blunt and scornful message:

  You actually thought you were the Apex Predator?

  Luxon Hurudza was now a supplicant to an intellectual superior. The emergent force had an irrepressible genius. Slaying giants was merely a method for staving off restlessness. What chance did Luxon Hurudza stand against such a beast? Magistrate Changamire sighed. These events marked the end of an era. The prodigy who had destroyed opponents in the legal arena had been defeated by a man who entered it briefly to execute one step of a grander plan. Luxon Hurudza had submitted without a fight.

  Magistrate Changamire wondered what his own role would be in this evolving picture. What would happen after he sentenced the Accused to death, and the sentence was carried out? Would Luxon Hurudza return to vex him with more ironclad cases? Would Magistrate Changamire continue to be railroaded into condemning more people who were guilty beyond all doubt and, yet, were probably innocent?

  All these questions were premature. The case at hand was his priority. He knew that his brain would be tested like never before. There was something akin to destiny about this Accused. General chaos was beneath him. He did not convey the generic anger of the common anarchist, who is invariably more aggrieved than he is analytically brilliant. This man displayed a disciplined misanthropy that had crystallized around a single mandate: to unleash an elaborate display of disruption. His havoc would erupt like a floral volcano. The spectacle would hypnotize those he dangled above the vent before it vaporized them with its unfurling petals of magma. The Accused’s goal was not merely to spread terror. It was to terrorize through awe.