HARM (4 page)

He could not recall how he had arrived in this place. All was uncertainty. In his befuddled brain, he wondered if all men were made of stone.

A
LARGE, HEAVY MAN
entered the room by a rear door, accompanied by a small, scurrying type of lackey. The big man walked to a chair and stood waiting, staring ahead as blankly as the bust behind him, while his inferior placed a cushion on the seat, officiously adjusting it. The big man sat himself down, placing a book on the table before him.

He looked across at Prisoner B with a toadlike, expressionless stare. He began to speak in a deep voice, with elaborate politeness.

“Good morning. My name is Abraham Ramson. I hold the rank of Paramount Government Inspector of the Western Armed Alliance and occupy a senior position in the American Punishment Section investigating hostile activities in the world. I am well known on both sides of the Atlantic as a military judge, famed for holding the lives of many villains in my hands. My aim is to function as a terror of the terrorists. I have prosecuted many famous cases and, although justice interests me, over and above justice I value the continued survival of Western civilization as of maximum import for the culture of this world, as the greatest bastion of enlightened law and behavior on this planet, certainly in comparison with the degenerate and superstitious tribalism prevalent in the Middle East. As a Muslim, you will be aware that we in the West—”

Here the prisoner interrupted to protest that he was not of the Muslim faith.

“You will shut the fuck up, you scumbag, while I am speaking!

“—we in the West have a distaste for Sharia law as well as for many Islamic rules of behavior, from the circumcision of women to the indoctrination of ignorant youths into a form of religion which is in most respects long obsolete and degrading.

“You know what Wahhabism is, Prisoner B?”

B was startled to be suddenly expected to speak. “Wahhabism? Yes, I have heard of it…”

“It is a hateful, archaic creed which destroys relationships and withers everything creative. We must fight it before it destroys us, like deathwatch beetles destroy sturdy oak beams. The slaves of Wahhab have the deathwatch habit of infiltrating and endeavoring to destroy the decent and law-abiding cultures into which you have inserted yourselves; together with the cowardly resort of suicide bombing.

“All this I tell you to make my position clear. You must understand, before I question you, that if your answers are unsatisfactory in any way, you will receive a series of electric shocks of increasing severity. So, Prisoner B, question number one: What were your motives when you wrote this subversive novel entitled
Pied Piper of Hament
?”

All of this speech, designed to be deliberately offensive, was spoken rapidly without pause in a deep, cultured, American voice.

Prisoner B, disconcerted, hesitated.

“I have to explain, sir, that I was born in London, in the borough of Ealing, and I have always considered myself an Englishman, even to the extent of—”

“I will remind you that I asked you why you wrote this pernicious novel.”

“Sir, I was under the impression I was English and so I wrote this novel in a comical satiric style, hoping to amuse people.”

“And what sort of people did you hope it would amuse?”

“Ordinary literate people, I suppose.”

“You suppose?” A frown creased the broad brow of Abraham Ramson. “You mean Muslims, naturally?”

“No, sir, the British reading public in general.”

“You are contradicting me?” Abraham Ramson gestured with his right hand. A man working beyond Prisoner B’s limited line of sight threw a small lever. The electric shock burned between Prisoner B’s temples, a flash of lightning, of unbearable pain. Then it was gone, leaving the prisoner fearing that some part of his brain had been burned out. He was immediately craven.

“Oh, sir, no more of that, I beg. I do not intend to contradict. I admit I did it. I didn’t realize it. I have every respect…I’m confused. I’m starved of sleep. I don’t even know what country I’m in. I wrote my novel in good faith. You see, I admire the comic novels of P. G. Wodehouse, that most—”

“You are in Uzbekistan, prisoner, for special interrogation. Now, question number two: Why was your novel translated into a foreign tongue and published in Tehran, an indication of its subversive pro-Islamic nature?”

“Uzbekistan, sir? I don’t understand. I—”

The hand gesture again. Again the searing pain, more intense this time, as the world filled with an agonizing blindness.

“Answer the question. Why was your stinking, corrupt novel published in Tehran?”

“Sir, I had no control over where my novel was published. It was also published in the United States of America, and—”

Again the hand gesture. Again the shock. Again he heard his own screams.

“Why in Tehran, prisoner?”

“No more shocks, no more, I beg you. I am trying—trying to answer…Really…I can’t…I was told that my novel was published by a small dissenting company in Tehran, to prove that writings by a Muslim could be published in a Western country.”

“You are saying you are or are not a Muslim?”

“Well, sir, please, sir—” He heard his own voice blubbering like a schoolchild. “My name is Paul Fadhil Abbas Ali, but I am not a believer.”

“You lie, you scumbag! Tell me what fine line divides a Muslim from a pro-Muslim? Are you not pro-Muslim?”

“Well, yes. No. No, in many cases not, but of course—”

Again the hand gesture. Again the blaze at the temples. Again the screams. The tongue burning in the mouth.

Ramson was saying in a casual manner that the prisoner had planned to kill the British prime minister.

“I could never bring myself to kill another person…”

Abraham Ramson ignored the remark. Spreading open the prisoner’s novel on the table, he flattened its pages with a meaty hand.

Ramson’s eyebrows came together as he spoke. “I shall read a passage on page fifty-three of your poisonous creation. ‘They were laughing together as they walked through the park, where no one could overhear their jokes. Harry said, “What we need to do is blow up the prime minister. That would solve our problems.” “I can see it now,” Celina said, laughing. “Bits of him spread all over Downing Street.” ’

“Is that or is that not an incitement to murder?”

The prisoner was aghast. “How can you take it seriously? They’re pretty drunk, these characters, Lina and the others. They’re fooling around. Many of my friends just found that passage funny.”

“Funny?” The question exploded from his lips. “Bits of the prime minister spread all over Downing Street? Funny? A cause for amusement? You regard that as funny? To me it suggests a preparation for assassination, a suicide bombing, doesn’t it?”

“No, really, it is funny, a British sort of a joke. A Monty Python sort of joke…”

“You are a traitor, prisoner. A bastard and an asshole.”

“Yes, sir, oh yes, I am a fool, but—but really no traitor—and I regret I wrote that passage since things have become so bad. I mean the recent—well, the recent terrorist attacks getting worse. But an innocent fool, sir, please believe—Ohhhhh!”

Again, the gesture, the shock, the agony, the blindness.

“No one is innocent in this world. You abused the privilege of living in a civilized country. Take this wretch away, guards,” said Abraham Ramson.

As they dragged the prisoner off, he called back, “Please, sir, please repatriate me to England. I don’t deserve this punishment!”

“Shut up, you prick,” said one of the guards. But in a good-humored way.

A
FTER CONDUCTING THIS BRIEF INTERROGATION,
Inspector Abraham Ramson walked at his steady pace down the corridor to the washroom. He fitted tightly into his neat suit. His leather shoes shone. On the way to the washroom, passing a pile of rubbish, he was met by Algernon Gibbs, the controller of the establishment, a wispy little man with designer stubble and rimless eyeglasses. His dyed dark hair was parted exactly in the middle of his skull.

“Er, everything going well, Inspector?” he asked, with a forced smile.

Without pausing in his stride, Ramson said, “Prisoner B says he is a fool and I believe him. He
is
a fool.”

Gibbs gave an uncertain titter. He did not like the burly Ramson and regretted that higher authorities had sent him here to interfere with the working of the organization. He followed Ramson into the washroom.

White tiles and mirrors on the walls. Stains on the floor. Controller Gibbs slyly regarded himself in the mirrors. He approved of what he saw, contrasting his own pale hands—“refined,” as he thought of them—with the big, brutish knuckles of his visitor.

“Who’ve we got next?” Ramson asked, as he removed his jacket and hung it on a hook. “Someone worthy of a proper interrogation, I hope. Someone with a heap more nastiness in him, eh?” As he rolled up his sleeves, Gibbs brought out a packet of cigarettes and offered one to the American.

“You’re not still smoking those filthy things?” Ramson said, by way of refusal.

“The burden of office, you know. Sometimes the prisoners…”

His voice was drowned as Ramson turned on the tap and water came gushing forth. Repeatedly jabbing the liquid soap button, he worked up a fine lather, energetically turning his hands about and about, soaping them up to his hairy wrists.

“I’ll take a look at the records. I have concluded that you are wasting your time on this guy B, Algy.”

“The records are of course available, Inspector.” Gibbs spoke stiffly, irritated by the familiarity of the abbreviation—even the use—of his first name.

Ramson grabbed two paper towels and dried himself vigorously, ignoring the smaller man. “Help me on with my jacket, will you?”

In the record room, he sat down in front of a computer and tapped in the coded password.

“Would you care for a drink? A lager, or something stronger?” Gibbs inquired.

“I don’t drink, Algy. I would have thought you knew that well enough.”

“A glass of mineral water, then? Or something even stronger? A lemonade?” A thin smile.

“Mineral water’s fine. Fizzy. With ice, if you have it. Plenty of ice.”

Going to the door, Gibbs summoned an assistant, saying quietly, “A glass of mineral water for our guest. No ice.”

Ramson pulled up Prisoner B’s file.

The screen revealed an extensive record of Prisoner B’s antecedents.

His grandfather had left the state of Hyderabad in India to serve as an indentured laborer in British-held Uganda. He worked in a copper mine. He had married, and his wife delivered three sons and a daughter. One of these sons became B’s father.

This son was clever. He established a small grocery store in Kampala, the Ugandan capital. The store catered not just to the 18 percent of the population that was Muslim but to all Ugandans, irrespective of their faith. He was successful and moved to a larger store at a better site, on Gladstone Street. There he attracted wealthy white patronage.

Still a young man, he part-funded the building of a local mosque, thus incurring the enmity of a British official with conflicting property interests. B’s father soon moved to Britain, where he was again successful, founding the store Beezue in Queensway. His racehorse Thark won the 1997 Derby. In his forties, he married an Englishwoman, Gloriana Harbottle, by whom he had a son (B) and a daughter.

Gloriana had written children’s stories, which influenced B. His father maltreated him. Beating, shutting in cupboards were recorded.

Abraham Ramson gave a grim chortle. “So they called him ‘Insane Hussein’ at school…It says here that while shut in one of these cupboards he renounced the Muslim faith.

“Ever been shut in a cupboard for a week, Algy? It makes a difference, let me tell you.”

Gibbs sighed. “No doubt. What else?”

Ramson turned to the screen again.

“In his teens, B left home and lived for some time with a woman hairdresser, Janet Stevens. He underwent psychoanalysis for his various insecurities. The course was funded by a league to help recent immigrants. His first story, ‘Eve in the Evening,’ was published in
Granta
and he was taken up by a literary crowd. He married Doris McGinty, an Irishwoman with literary ambitions. It is claimed that she helped him write his comic novel,
Pied Piper of Hament.
The novel betrays little of B’s origins.”

Having read these notes and checked the dates, Ramson looked up from the screen.

“Well, it’s a British story. You Brits were too lenient on these guys. You see, you let the shits in, then they betray us.”

Gibbs, standing behind him smoking, agreed. “We’ve been too liberal by half.”

Glaring up from his chair, Ramson looked at a point over Gibbs’s shoulder to deliver his next comment. “You do a lot of things by halves, Algy. Interrogation methods are strictly amateur—nothing improved since World War Two—”

“The gov’ment is extremely parsimonious with our finances—”

“Not enough psychological leverage used. It leaves no mark on the suspect. You should read up about our various methods. Fake drowning. The waterboard. That’s excellent—fake drowning. Then again, you don’t have properly trained staff here, men who like the work and know how to apply it.”

Ramson rose from his chair. He had left his mineral water untouched. “However, this guy, he’s nothing. All flimflam. Let him go. Kick him out. You’re wasting your time with him, Algy.”

But Gibbs was pursuing his own line of thought. He dropped the stub of his cigarette and crushed it out on the floor with his boot. “I’d nuke the lot of them, given the chance.”

As they made for the door together, Ramson said, with the usual note of contempt in his voice, “Yeah, I’d certainly nuke a good many of ’em. Trouble is, nuking is not very selective. It’s not WAA policy, okay? It’s all or nothing with nuking, Algy.”

“So much the better.”

I
T WAS STILL DARK.
His head still ached. He listened to his own sobbing, wondering where it came from.

“Shut up, will you?” said one of the four guards, shaking Fremant’s shoulder. “What’s wrong with you? Yelling in your sleep, you woke me up.” His name was Tunderkin and he lay on his palliasse next to Fremant. His face was broad and honest, with a scar on the left cheek. He had long blond hair and big muscles. He was in his teens.