The Road to Hell (13 page)
Authors: Peter Cawdron
Tags: #science fiction dark, #detective, #cyber punk, #thriller action, #detective crime, #sci fi drama, #political adventure fiction book, #science fiction adventure, #cyberpunk books, #science fiction action adventure, #sci fi thriller, #science fiction time travel, #cyberpunk, #sci fi action, #sci fi, #science fiction action, #futuristic action thriller, #sci fi action adventure, #political authority, #political conspiracy
“
You sick bastard.”
“
Your sister died for a reason,” Harrison said in his defense, rubbing the welt quickly forming on his cheek. Defending himself, he continued, saying, “You dragged me into this, remember. I never came to you. You brought this to me. So do you want to know? Well, do you?”
Tears welled up in Susan’s eyes before running slowly down her cheeks.
“
Your sister was betrayed by someone she loved and trusted, probably a woman, and I had to know if that was you.”
Harrison grabbed the flashlight from the dresser. Crouching down, he swept aside the dust on the carpet.
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You see this,” he said, lighting up the floor. “The blood here is from one of the fallen police officers. I know this, because it’s mingled with the debris from the blast. That means it fell after the breeching charge had been fired.”
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But this, this over here,” he said, dusting away the fibres with his gloved hand. “These stains are below the debris. The blood had already coagulated and had started drying when the blast occurred. So these stains occurred earlier, several hours earlier.”
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Why a woman,” Susan demanded, her arms folded across her chest.
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She died here,” replied Harrison ignoring her, not intentionally, he was just so absorbed in recounting the events of that night that he missed her question altogether.
He focused the beam of light, pointing it at a dark stain on the carpet, saying, “The knife wound punctured a lung and possibly one of the main arteries leading back to the heart. In any regard, death came quick. She didn’t move around a lot after she was stabbed, which, in itself tells us the wound was severe. She pretty much died where she fell. And the blood is thick. It’s rich arterial blood, not the sort that comes from a shallow cut. Its severed, ruptured the flow to major organs. Probably the heart and lungs.”
He moved around, stepping carefully over the blood pattern and crouched down again, looking intently at it from all angles with his flashlight.
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I’d say she was dead inside ten minutes, if not unconscious by then and close to death. From the patterns, it looks like she rolled over on her back to face her attacker. She tried to reach out for the wall but couldn’t get to it. She couldn't get back to her feet.”
He choked up a little as he described the scene. It surprised him how much this affected him, but he couldn't help it. It had been a long time since he'd seen a murder scene first hand and he'd lost his calloused edge.
Staggered flashes of lightning lit up the inside of the room, breaking in a stutter before the rolling thunder savaged their ears.
“
That doesn’t make the murderer a woman.”
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There are no secondary attacks,” replied Harrison. “So this isn’t a crime of passion. Whoever did this knew exactly what they were doing. And they were content to watch her die. Everything about this is methodical. Your sister knew the person, and knew them well enough to trust them. The strike was lethal, pinpoint accurate, not frenzied like you'd see from a man. We tend to be more clumsy. They probably even talked for a few minutes after the attack before your sister lost consciousness with the bleeding.”
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And there’s no remorse or regret on behalf of the assailant, no bitterness that led to the attack, no sorrow afterwards. It was personal, but not out of frustration or a sense of rage, or there would be repeated knife strikes, especially to the face and chest.”
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No, this is cold and calculated, without pity. This is brutal. Whoever did this thought about it a lot, and when the time came, they knew exactly what they were going to do. And they did it quickly, swiftly, with a minimum of fuss. They just wanted to get it over with. It's revenge, but not the revenge of a scorned lover, it's revenge fuelled by hatred and resentment, and that troubles me.”
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Why?”
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Remember, your sister has been on the run for decades, she knows how to take care of herself and yet she turned her back on this woman, she turned without a care in the world because she trusted her, and I don't know why.”
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And you think all this makes the murderer a woman?” repeated Susan.
Harrison pulled the picture from his pocket as he stood up, shining the flashlight on it.
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Look at the body. We know she died where she fell, but the body ends up on the bed. Your sister was fully dressed when she was murdered. And yet the body’s been stripped naked to make it look like a rape. But it’s not. There’s no bruising. No marks around the throat or the wrists, no deep tissue discolouration on the abdomen or the thighs. The body was placed on the bed to disguise what had actually happen. It’s staged, faked. A man wouldn’t do that. Only a woman would do that, a woman that wanted to make it look like a man had committed the crime.”
“
How can you be sure?”
Picking up the dress, Harrison added, “Look at the blood. Her clothes were stripped off her after she died. It’s all very artistic and convenient. On the surface, it looks like she was killed violently by a man but, in reality, she was murdered in cold blood by a woman. From what I can tell, judging from the timestamp on the photos, I’d say she died about one in the morning. Then there’s a couple of hours during which the body is moved before Artemis arrives on the scene and the wall is blown.”
Susan was quiet.
“
Now how the hell Artemis raised her from the dead, I have no idea. That’s where the science ends and the supernatural takes over.”
Another flash of lightning broke outside, only this time it was a single flash. At first Harrison didn’t think anything of it, but there was no thunder. That wasn’t all that unusual, he realised, because light tended to travel much further than the crash of the thunder and, in this heavily industrialised area, even the sounds of a storm could be muffled unless the thunderclap was right on top of them. But a single flash. Lightning always comes in pulses of two or three, he thought, staggered as the charge makes its way to the ground.
“
Get back against the wall.”
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What,” said Susan, seeing the look on his face and almost leaping out of her skin.
With his back up hard against the wall, Harrison moved slowly over toward the corner window, his eyes glued on the abandoned factory across the alleyway. By sticking to the wall he reduced the angle between them and the darkened factory. He pulled out his blaster, switching on the charge. A light hum resonated in the air as the charge LED on the side of the blaster switched from red to green, indicating the weapon was ready to fire. Standing in the shadows, away from the glow of the flickering neon light, his eyes peered into the distance, trying to resolve the grainy image across the alley.
“
We need to get out of here, now.”
Susan didn’t have to be told twice. She scurried quickly out into the hallway.
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We’re being followed,” said Harrison.
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By who?” asked Susan, running after Harrison as he headed for the stair well at the far end of the hall.
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I don’t know,” he yelled back. “But I intend to find out. Wait for me in the lobby.”
“
Will there ever be a return to free elections?” asked Kane, his arms spreading out across the top of the plush leather couch.
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I didn’t know you were interested in politics,” the ageing senator replied, swirling warm brandy in an oversized glass, savouring the bouquet before sipping the sweet liquor. An artificial fire raged in the hearth, a holographic projection every bit as lifelike as the real thing, throwing out warmth and heat as the burning logs crackled.
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But I suspect,” the senator continued, standing by the floor-to-ceiling windows that wrapped around the lounge, “that your interest doesn’t lie so much in political freedoms as in the security of the state.”
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The stability we enjoy today has come at a great cost,” replied Kane, sipping whiskey on the rocks, the ice clinking as it rolled around the glass.
The broken bones in his hand had already mended, but even the marvel of nano-bots accelerating the body’s own regenerative process couldn’t mask the pain or take away the sense of shame. He shifted the glass to his left hand, flexing his stiff right hand a little, trying to shake off a twinge.
The muscles across his sternum ached. Under his shirt, beneath the bandages wrapped around his ribs, dark purple bruises had formed; a clear reminder of his encounter with the daemon. But the senator didn’t want to talk about that. Kane wasn’t sure quite why the senator had invited him to come up to the penthouse apartment, but it clearly wasn’t to talk about what had just happened.
After the medics had administered some nano-biotics to repair the tissue damage around Kane’s heart and had cleared him of any serious injury, all he’d wanted to do was to go home and collapse on the couch with a bottle of booze. Not something to get rotten drunk, just an anaesthetic to numb the pain. A couple of drinks would distract him from the mental anguish he felt inside. It was late, or was it early, he wondered, surely it was well past midnight by now.
For now, at least, that would have to wait. For now, he was shooting the breeze with a senator, someone that sat at the top of political life. Sure, they known each other for years, but only ever in a professional capacity. Kane had only ever known him at arm’s length, as a subordinate and not as an equal, never as a friend.
It was funny, he thought, how life-threatening situations levelled the playing field. For now, the senator wanted to talk, so he’d oblige. The conversation was a little too formal for Kane’s liking, though, he’d rather be bullshitting about whether the Jets could pick up another title. Somehow he felt like he was on show and had to make a good impression, which was somewhat of a curious emotion for someone that made a living by not giving a damn about anything or anyone else other than the mission. Being gentle with his words didn’t come easy to Kane.
“
The senate has not made any formal announcements, but the next quarter marks the fifteenth anniversary of the Suspension, fifteen long years since the moratorium was put in place on executive power and twenty years since the start of the war. The senate has no stomach to retain the executive. I expect something concrete will emerge soon.”
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But the stability of the nation, the economy,” began Kane. “It has all stemmed from the stability of the government.”
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Stability is not a political ideal,” replied the senator softly, cutting Kane off. “It's an outcome, a goal, but not a policy. We have no more control over the stability of the country than we do over the rain.”
He stared out across the city, looking at the myriad of lights glimmering through the rain.
A forest of light stretched as far as the eye could see, lighting up the dark night surrounding them. Streams of smaller lights weaved their way between the various complexes that made up the mega polis as people moved around the city in various aerial transits, taxis and air buses. Larger, slower, commercial vehicles lumbered below them, dipping in and out of the clouds, their flight lights lighting up the cloud banks, a supply chain constantly on the move like an army of neon ants.
“
Change does not represent instability. If anything, political stability is dependent on change so in that regard, stability comes from what some would see as the instability of democracy.”
Returning to the decanter, the senator poured some more warm brandy, just enough to cover the bottom of the glass, enough to cause the sweet aroma to build inside the bowl.
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It is in the nature of man to become fat and lazy, entrenched, corrupt, to institutionalise inertia. Political competition keeps governments lean. When a party wins a third or fourth term, they celebrate a victory where I mourn. The lack of change causes apathy, complacency, decay. No, my friend, elections are not an obstacle to stability; they’re the vanguard of freedom, and with freedom comes stability.”
My friend. Kane was startled to hear that. In fact, he couldn’t recall anything else in that sentence at all. It was as though that one short phrase was all that had been said. Kane wasn’t sure if the senator was playing with him, baiting him, turning on some of that golden-tongued charm or whether this was sincere and heart-felt. On the eight or nine other occasions he’d worked directly with this senator neither of them had ever spoken in anything other than an official capacity. If it was charm, Kane thought, it’s working.
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Do you know what the most dangerous thing in the world is?” asked the senator in his soft, gravel voice.
Kane smiled. Although he didn’t know what the senator was getting at, he knew he wasn’t describing a literal weapon, like a sub-atomic disrupter or an ion razor.
“
No,” he replied. “I could guess at a few things, but I’m sure you have something else in mind.”
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Knowledge,” said the senator. “And specifically, just a little bit of knowledge is the most dangerous thing in the world. It is the nature of man to assume he’s right. It’s in our genes. Give a man a little bit of knowledge, make him think he's in the right and he’ll defend that to the death regardless. So long as he thinks it’s right, he’ll lay down his life to support his beliefs.”
Walking back to the vast floor-to-ceiling window and looking out at the rain lashing the glass, he continued. “That’s where the battle lies. Either knowingly or unknowingly, religious and political leaders have used this principle for centuries to control the masses. And all that is done, be it in a church or on Capitol Hill, all is done in the name of God as though it were sanctioned by the Almighty Himself, when in reality it's just the power struggles of men manipulating a little knowledge to their own devious ends.”
He paused and sipped his brandy, thinking deeply before continuing.
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Power stems from tapping this loophole in human nature, exploiting the naive, the sincere. A little knowledge inspires devotion, inspires loyalty, and that's what every king needs to rule.”
“
And you’re lecturing me, because?” asked Kane, somewhat surprised by the ramblings of the senator.
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Because you need to understand. You don't get it, do you? Your greatest strength is your loyalty. It’s unquestioning. But therein lies your weakness. You don’t see loyalty for what it really is?”
“
Loyalty?”
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Loyalty is not a virtue, my dear friend, it is a vice,” said the senator, his hand resting softly on Kane's shoulder, like a father talking with his son. “Loyalty is rarely an issue in religion or politics. Oh, people posture about it, demand it, set up oaths to enforce it, but that’s all just a cover.”
Kane looked at the senator's hand, resting on his shoulder. He wore an ornate ring with a golden star set in a large, regal-blue sapphire. Normally, the symbol of government was an eagle, a declaration of power and strength, not a star, the symbol of hope. The senator noticed Kane's interest, recognising his curiosity he shifted the topic.
“
It's a signet ring,” said the senator, holding it out before Kane so he could see it clearly. “One of a kind. A presidential award for defending civil rights during the foreign nationals dispute, given to me by President Laver himself, just one year before the Overthrow.”
The senator smiled.
“
Awarded to me for my loyalty. You see, we're not so different, Agent Kane.”
The senator patted him gently on the shoulder. He walked back to the window. He was restless, still upset about the attack, still trying to reconcile what had happened, trying to talk through the rationale behind his position to see of it was justified.
“
It is in the nature of man to be loyal, as loyal as a Doberman Pincer, and yet loyalty is an affliction not a virtue. Loyalty is a disease. Loyalty blinds the eyes. It demands we subordinate our own views to what we suppose is a higher calling.”
He was lecturing Kane but he didn't care. He needed to express himself. He needed to be heard, to work this out of his system for his own conscience sake.
“
To be loyal is to suspend your own concerns, your own interests and values for another, greater. And so be it our country, our race, our religion or even our sports team, that entity then takes on all our pride, all our esteem, all our energy and all our conviction in its defense. Loyalty acts without a moment's thought as to whether it is right or wrong.”
The old man sipped his brandy.
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Loyalty is the great justifier, the noble reason for sacrifice. It never questions. It never doubts. It is just to do and die.”
Kane was silent.
“
Think about Artemis for a moment. Don’t you see that you and I are no different to him? That the side we have chosen chose us. We are here through little of our own doing. We are here because of providence, because someone had to fill the vacuum, and if it wasn’t you and I here today, it would be someone else playing out these roles, following them through like an actor on the stage.”
“
I don’t mean to be rude, senator-”
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Oh, but you are,” the senator replied smiling, again cutting Kane off. “And that’s why I asked you up here, because you’re not swayed by degrees. You speak with action. A little over an hour ago, that young man literally held your life in his hand. You came within a whisper of dying, and yet still no emotion. You’re a bulldog, a Rottweiler. I place greater confidence in your loyalty than I would in a robot that would obey my every command. And yet it baffles me. How can a man stare death in the eye and not feel his icy touch?”
Kane knocked back the last of his whiskey. Immediately, a robotic serf glided over to refill his glass, as if reinforcing the senator's point about loyal servitude.
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I guess it’ll hit me afterwards. It generally does.”
Kane paused, looking at the whiskey in his glass, thinking before continuing. The senator could see the machinations of his mind at work and waited patiently, silently for his reply.
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In the heat of the moment, there’s just too much happening, just too much to focus on.”
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What did you feel?”
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I felt naked,” replied Kane being honest with his feelings. “Helpless and in pain. It felt if he were not only tearing out my heart, but also my own soul.”
The alcohol was getting to him, loosening his tongue. As much as he didn’t want to be open like this, Kane knew he had to or the old man would see right through him. Where the hell is this going, he wondered.
“
And death,” asked the senator. “Do you fear death?”
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I don’t fear dying. I fear not having lived. I fear having no one there to mourn the loss, at least, no one that really cares. Of having no one that’s there out of love and not out of duty or obligation.”
Kane’s eyes moved around the room, without realising it he was avoiding eye contact with the senator.
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I’m not afraid of dying. I’m afraid of being forgotten.”
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We will all be forgotten,” replied the senator, smelling the bouquet rising up from his warm brandy. “Sooner or later, to one degree or another, it is the fate of man to slip away into obscurity.”
The senator sipped his brandy, allowing the flavour to fill his mouth before swallowing slowly.
“
You’re a complex man, Special Agent Kane. I appreciate your candour.”
