Convicted

by Kim Fielding

  Des had just gone back to the book when the lock clanked open on the outer door of his cell. Startled, he leapt to his feet and hurried to the bars that separated him from the door. Maybe it was time for his annual visit to the prison doctor, a fragile-looking man with a Hungarian accent so thick he was nearly unintelligible. Des knew his hair wasn’t yet long enough for the barber’s yearly ministrations, and that was the only other reason he left his cell through the hallways.

  Four burly guards crowded into the shallow area between the open outer door and the bars. They had impersonal numbers rather than names on their puke-green uniforms. “Wrists!” barked the bald one, who was apparently in charge.

  Des obediently maneuvered both hands through a gap in the bars. One of the guards slapped on a set of cuffs and tugged hard to make sure they were tight.

  “Feet!”

  Des pressed himself to the bars so the guard could chain his ankles together and then fasten a chain around Des’s waist, attaching the handcuffs to the front of it. Funny how all these chains meant he was about to temporarily gain a bit more freedom. “It’s a topsy-turvy world sometimes,” he said, and the guards shot him a collective scowl.

  The bald guard pulled a stun baton from a holster and pointed the end at Des. “Behave, now.” As if Des were a disobedient dog.

  But Des nodded, and his heart raced as the bars slid open. Probably a dozen locks lay between him and escape, not to mention a host of heavily armed men, but it was pleasant to imagine himself running down the corridors, out of the building, and into the wide open desert. Where the sun and the rattlesnakes could have him if they wanted. At least he’d no longer be in a cage.

  He didn’t run, though. He shuffled down the hallway surrounded by his phalanx of guards. The one behind Des nudged him with his baton whenever he raised his head, so Des stared at the worn floor tile instead. He caught glimpses of cell doors from the corner of his eyes but couldn’t see who—or what—was inside. No sounds met his ears aside from the jangle of chains, the swish of his feet on the floor, and the clomp of the guards’ boots. He sometimes caught an odd, musky scent like the odor of a wild animal. One of his fellow inmates, perhaps.

  “Am I due for the doctor, then?” Des had so few opportunities to speak to anyone but himself. “I thought that was in summer, and I reckon it’s late autumn now. Has the schedule changed?”

  “Quiet!”

  Well, that had gone about as he’d expected. He’d get to talk to the doctor at least—if that’s where he was going. But instead of the familiar right turn he’d expected, down a wider hallway that led to the tiny medical room, the guards led him to the left.

  For the first time in many years, Des felt fear. It tightened his throat and turned his breathing ragged. It swirled like ice water in his bowels. It made his limbs heavy, dragging at his feet until his steps faltered and he nearly fell.

  “Please,” he whispered. “Why now? I’ve followed all the rules. I’ve—”

  “I said quiet!”

  Shaking his head like a bull in the ring, Des came to a halt. He tried to raise his hands in supplication but the cuffs and belly chain prevented him. “I don’t want to die.” Which was stupid, really. After all, what did he have to live for? Long days and nights in his lonely cell, his body slowly failing him, his last memories of freedom and happiness dimming. But he had his books and the star-filled sky, and somehow those things were enough to make him value his life.

  One of the guards had raised his stun baton and was pointing it at Des, but the bald one waved at him to lower it. Des was surprised to find something like gentleness in the bald guard’s eyes. “Nobody’s going to kill you. Not unless you’re a threat.”

  Breathing hard, Des stared at the man. He could have been lying. It could be a trick to lure him docilely to his execution. But not everyone was a liar—Des vaguely remembered that. Not everyone meant him harm.

  Des inhaled and exhaled deeply and gave a quick nod. The guards fell into formation again, and they all resumed their trek down the corridor, which seemed to stretch for miles.

  Although Des’s cell had seemed modern when he was first locked into it, he’d always had the sense that the prison itself was quite old. The current corridor had stone walls and floors, vaulted ceilings, and lightbulbs hanging on chains like an afterthought. Ancient, he thought, like the ruined castles in Northern Ireland; yet that couldn’t be right. His grasp of American history was poor since school hadn’t held his interest, but he knew white people had first arrived in the desert fewer than two centuries ago, and the Indians didn’t build vast stone prisons.

  He was still trying to puzzle this out when they reached a wide wooden door with an arched top. The bald guard unlocked it with a large key and pulled it open. Curiosity and fear mingling, Des stepped inside.

  The room proved entirely unremarkable. Perhaps ten feet square, it had bare concrete walls and two fluorescent lights attached to the ceiling. The floor was scuffed linoleum, like the hallway outside of Des’s cell. A heavy wooden table was bolted to the floor dead center, with a pair of plain wooden chairs facing each other across the scarred and gouged top.

  “Sit,” the bald guard ordered, pointing at one chair.

  After a brief hesitation, Des obeyed. The guards quickly fastened his ankle cuffs to bolts set into the floor, giving his feet a scant few inches of movement. Then they detached the handcuffs from the chain at his waist, only to fasten them to a chunk of metal in the tabletop. He could move his hands, but not much. He couldn’t even scratch his nose without bending awkwardly, which of course meant it began to itch.

  “Why am I here?”

  Nobody answered.

  After so much monotony, he should have been grateful for a bit of novelty; he knew that. But he was used to routines, and even though he was now reasonably sure he wasn’t about to be put to death, the uncertainty made him feel shaky. A little queasy even. He was glad he was sitting down.

  The guards slumped against the walls. Des shifted in his chair. Nothing else happened for a very long time.

  Then footsteps echoed in the corridor outside, and two men entered the room. One of them was another guard in the familiar ugly green uniform. But the other one… he didn’t look like a guard at all.

  He wore a black suit, crisp white shirt, and navy-and-gray-striped tie. He was tall and quite slender, with white sprinkled among the black of his closely-shorn curls. His face was on the narrow side, with a strong nose and chin. He would have been entirely average-looking if it weren’t for his hazel eyes. They glittered with intelligence and life, and they made him almost beautiful.

  He paused just inside the door and stared at Des, who became suddenly self-conscious about his unkempt appearance and perhaps offensive body odor.

  “Wait outside, please,” the man said to the guards. Not at all loudly, but in a tone that suggested he was used to being obeyed.

  The guard who’d accompanied him appeared alarmed. “But Agent Powell, we can’t leave you—”

  “He’s chained in place and I’m handy with my gun. We’ll be fine. Please wait outside.”

  What kind of agent? And what did he want? Des considered those questions while all five guards reluctantly left. Agent Powell slammed the door shut, strode across the room, and settled in the other chair. He moved easily, a man confident in his ability to control his own body. He said nothing to Des, instead keeping his expression neutral while he stared at Des’s face.

  Des considered remaining silent too, cultivating an air of brooding mystery, perhaps. Except this man undoubtedly knew a great deal more about what was going on than Des did. Besides, Des wasn’t about to lose a chance for conversation—and to stay out of his monotonous cell a little longer.

  “Are you going to tell me who you are, or do I have to guess? They called you Agent and you’re not dressed like a guard, so you’re not an employee of this fine establishment. But you’re a Fed of some sort. Could be INS, but I’ve been a US citizen since I wa
s a teen, and I can’t imagine anyone suddenly getting the notion to deport me now. FBI? Maybe. But my guess is you’re with the Bureau of Trans-Species Affairs.” He tried to pretend that the Bureau didn’t terrify him.

  Powell leaned back in his chair. He had a scar on his face, a fine line that snaked across one cheekbone and past the corner of his eye before disappearing into his hairline. His fingers were long and thin, and although the nails were immaculately clean, they were a trifle ragged, as if he bit them sometimes. For some reason, that made Des want to like him—and Des had never felt kindly toward law enforcement.

  “It’s a funny way to interrogate a man, Agent Powell. Just staring at him. Unless you’re some sort of psychic who’s reading my mind. Does the Bureau have those? It’d be handy. My mind, though, is probably a nasty place. Asking me might be more pleasant.”

  Still no word in response. Des huffed and tipped his head back. The ceiling in this room was arched like an old church, with dusty spiderwebs hanging in the uppermost reaches. It was cold in here too, even though it was the middle of the day. Thick walls. Good for keeping heat out and prisoners in.

  With a sigh, Des looked at Powell again. “If you won’t ask me anything, will you tell me things? I’d like to know what’s been going on in the world. I watch a few programs on the telly, but it’s hard to tell from that what’s real.”

  “Nothing on television is real.”

  Des smiled because Powell had finally spoken. “Then tell me what is.”

  After a brief pause, Powell leaned forward over the table. Des caught a whiff of him—coffee and another scent that might have been shampoo or cologne. Good smells. They made Des extra conscious of his own body odor; but if Powell found him offensive, he didn’t show it.

  “I’m Agent Kurt Powell. From the Bureau, as you so astutely deduced. For the record, tell me your name.”

  “Desmond Hughes. I go by Des, if that matters.”

  Without breaking eye contact, Powell pulled a small black notebook out of his inside pocket, along with a cheap ballpoint pen. He set them both on the table. “Birthdate?”

  “April fifth, nineteen fifty-three. How old does that make me now?”

  “Birthplace?”

  “Belfast, Northern Ireland. A long way from here, yeah?” He hadn’t been back since he was ten, but he still missed the soft dampness of the air.

  Powell picked up the pen and opened his notebook. Illegible scribbles filled the left-hand page, but the right was blank. He wrote for a moment. Des had a hunch that he wouldn’t be able to decipher the words even if he weren’t reading at a distance and upside-down. Powell looked at him again. “You were an associate of Lawrence Krane.”

  Des’s stupid heart clenched into a tight knot. “Larry. We were lovers.”

  He’d hoped to shock Powell with that bald admission—or at least elicit a disgusted expression—but Powell remained stone-faced. “I have some questions about your activities with him. Outside the bedroom.” Was that a glint of amusement in those beautiful eyes? Maybe, but Des assumed that a sense of humor was distinctly missing from most Bureau agents’ skill sets.

  His history with Larry, however, was no laughing matter.

  “What difference does it make?” Des growled. “He’s dead and I’m locked up.” He rattled his chains for emphasis.

  “It makes a difference.”

  Shit. The one thing in all the world that Des didn’t want to talk about was what happened with Larry. He’d rather have been back in his cell with his tattered books and tedious routine. But the Bureau owned him—mind, body, and whatever was left of his soul—and if their agent wanted to discuss something, there wasn’t much Des could do about it.

  “What do you want to know?” he asked wearily.

  Chapter Six

  Kurt hated prisons. They reminded him too much of his own poor decisions and near misses with disaster, and they triggered bouts of claustrophobia that brought bad dreams for many nights afterward. Fortunately he rarely had to enter them, but sometimes investigating a case meant talking to an inmate. It was bad enough when that meant spending a day in a state or federal facility, but the Bureau’s special supermax prison in Nevada was the worst of all. As soon as he drove through the heavily guarded gate, the world seemed to close in on him, pressing at his head and shoulders. It took a great deal of strength to maintain his cool as he walked the corridors that smelled like a zoo but were always eerily quiet.

  Now he sat in a cave-like room and considered the chained prisoner sitting across from him.

  He’d read the extensive files on Desmond Hughes, so he had a good idea of what to expect. Or so he thought. He hadn’t known, though, that Hughes would be handsome despite his lack of grooming opportunities. Or that instead of menace, he’d exude an air of mingled despair and surrender.

  God, Kurt wanted a drink.

  Not for the first time that day, he gave an envious thought to Edge and Terry, who were no doubt frolicking in the forest. He wondered why Townsend had chosen this particular assignment for him.

  Kurt reminded himself that the sooner he got the answers he needed, the sooner he could get the hell out of here. Time to stop dicking around and get his work done.

  “When and where did you meet Krane?” he asked, pen poised. That wasn’t really the important point but he had to begin somewhere.

  Hughes screwed up his face as if the memory were painful. “Nineteen seventy-two. Late spring or early summer; I can’t remember which. I was sitting at a dime-store lunch counter in Portland when the fellow next to me started grumbling about the news article he was reading. Antiwar demonstrations, if I remember right. He was against them. We started talking. That was Larry.”

  Hughes’s voice was pleasant to listen to, with more than a hint of his Northern Irish roots. He had the cadence of a natural storyteller, the type who’d enjoy entertaining friends over a lazy meal or around a crackling fire. Except Hughes’s friend had been a murderer and, as his accomplice, so was Hughes.

  “Why did you become close to him?” Kurt asked, more out of curiosity than need to know. Prior to meeting Krane, Hughes had been a drifter with a string of petty crimes; he hadn’t seemed destined for true infamy.

  “Well, he was pretty enough, wasn’t he? I was young and it didn’t take much to get me randy.” Hughes paused, eyebrows raised, as if he expected some response. But Kurt simply waited, and eventually Hughes went on. “He had some money he was willing to spend on me, and I was flat broke. And he was interesting. Smartest person I ever met, always going on about things I didn’t understand, but that was all right. I liked to listen to him.”

  “What did he see in you?”

  Hughes shrugged, making the chains clank softly. “I reckon I was pretty too. And I was big. Larry, he was just a tiny thing. He liked having someone around who could lift things and move them, and who could protect him when needed. It made him feel powerful too, I think, ordering a big man around.” He gave a bitter chuckle.

  “When did you find out what he was up to?”

  “Not for a long time. I don’t know if his plans were already settled when we first met. He was young—twenty-seven, I think—and still doing his medical residency. It took over a year before he let me in on his secret.”

  Yes, Krane had been young, but Hughes had been even younger—only nineteen when they met. And from what Kurt had gleaned from the files, Krane had done an excellent job of grooming a lonely, lost boy into becoming his henchman. Nineteen-year-olds made all sorts of stupid decisions. Like fucking up the opportunities their parents had worked so hard to give them and then ending up drafted into a vicious war.

  Kurt tried to tamp down the pity that welled in him for young Hughes. Sure, kids did dumb things. But most of them didn’t spend four years sleeping with—and assisting—monsters.

  “Tell me what you and Krane intended to do.”

  Hughes shook his head, more in disgust than negation, Kurt thought. “You know. You people questioned me f
or days before you dragged me here. I told you everything a hundred times over.” He sighed. “And I didn’t ‘intend’ much at all. It was his plan; I was only along for the ride.”

  “That doesn’t absolve you of responsibility.”

  For a few moments, Hughes stared up at the high ceiling. His nose twitched as if it were itchy, and he raised his hands as far as the cuffs allowed, but that was nowhere near close enough to scratch.

  The orange prison jumpsuit didn’t fit him well. His shoulders seemed hunched uncomfortably and the sleeves were too short. He’d been wearing that jumpsuit—or ones exactly like it—for seventeen years, so maybe he was used to it. But was he used to his confinement? If Kurt were locked up in a tiny cell, unable to run laps, he’d quickly lose his sanity. He’d be like one of those pathetic predators he’d seen in the zoo, pacing their cages endlessly, blank-eyed with hopelessness.

  With another clink of metal, Hughes shifted in his seat. “Larry told me that Vietnam wasn’t the only war going on. Wasn’t even the most important war. He said that it was only a symptom of something bigger, like a little cough is a sign that someone’s got tumors in his lungs. The real fight was between good and evil, and angels and demons were the soldiers.”

  “You accepted this?” After years of working for the Bureau, Kurt was accustomed to the fact that humans were not the only sentient beings in the world. Most people, however, went around happily oblivious to the creatures the Bureau dealt with.

  “I told you, Larry was the smartest person I’d met. A lot smarter than me. He was right about everything. And anyway, what he said wasn’t so different from what Father Burke used to tell us in church. Are you a religious man, Agent Powell?”

  Kurt didn’t bother answering. His parents hadn’t had an easy time finding a congregation that would accept a mixed-race couple, even after they moved to Los Angeles. So although they were both devout, they hadn’t sent Kurt to church or Sunday school, and they hadn’t spoken much about the topic at home. “Be good to others and do what’s right,” his father used to say. “That’s what it all boils down to. You do those things and you won’t face trouble from the man upstairs.”