The next stage – and again completely legally and lawfully! – is a more serious punishment with use of special measures. The detainee is transferred to a tiny – one metre by one metre – cage and completely undressed. They don’t turn the light off for days to keep him constantly awake. And they show him so-called ‘educational films’ in which pictures of violence and aesthetically unbearable scenes are interwoven with sudden sounds and bright, colorful combinations of geometric figures. It’s called ‘dissonance therapy’.
Drained this way psychologically and physically, the man falls into a state similar to a trance and his brain loses the ability to comprehend reality. At the same time, the zones responsible for the long and short-term memory slacken. To put it simply, the detainee begins to rave. That is when specially trained psychologists enter the game, and pull the information they need out of the man using leading questions.
The notorious ‘truth serum’ gives the same effects. But after using the ‘serum’ there is a high chance a man will turn into a vegetable – and how can you show someone like that in court? Modern techniques don’t leave such obvious traces and the fact that the detainee may forget that he was a man or lose the last twenty years of his memory – well, that is a small side effect, a triviality, which doesn’t bother anyone. I will tell you more!” Kold lowered his voice to a whisper. “Nobody knows what they do to the man, when he falls into a trance. Maybe Bannings was raped in order to develop his feminine side? Maybe he was forced to have oral sex and drink urine while he, in a changed state of consciousness, took it all for granted. In Guantanamo even worse things are being done to the detainees…”
Kold went silent as if regretting saying too much, then sharply burst out:
“Damn it! I won’t go to prison. It’s better to have asylum in Ecuador, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba, here or even in North Korea – or let the killer with a poison stiletto come for me.”
“Trust me, Russia is far from being the worst option.” the Lawyer said. “And you shouldn’t treat us with such distrust. There is another option for the development of your odyssey. I have some insider information that during the negotiations, the Russian side received an offer in regards to your future from unnamed but quite influential international organizations. Under the pretext that you have no documents, it’s suggested that you are returned to Hong Kong, where you came from, and where official representatives of the National Security Agency of the USA are waiting. They’ll meet you on the runway and might even board the plane. Then you’ll be transported to the United States and put on trial – but not in Fort Meade like Banning, but in Washington. Moreover, the trial won’t be just open but it’ll be extra open – journalists will be allowed to the hearings, and there’ll be internet streaming, etc. During the hearing, the court will hear about unlawful actions by the NSA and CIA against governments and citizens of sovereign countries and also against the USA’s NATO allies and even against Americans themselves, including prominent politicians, top officials, senators, congressmen and members of the president’s administration and even the president himself. The result will be to turn the process against you into a kind of new Nuremberg Tribunal, during which it’s not Joshua Kold who is being judged but the National Security Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency and those members of the United States government who contributed to the creation of this situation. The main blow will be inflicted on the President of the USA, his team and his politics. What if the system was created long before Obama? It’s very simple – he, when taking up his role, couldn’t know about all these actions, but he’s done nothing to stop them. The result could be impeachment, a scandal worse than Watergate, the coming to power of the Republicans’ most conservative wing, the Tea Party, and the halt of behind-the-scenes political powers.
“And what… what will happen to me?” Kold’s voice cracked.
The Lawyer shrugged his shoulders.
“In my childhood, I watched a movie directed by Sydney Pollack several times. Jane Fonda and Michael Sarrazin played in it. In my opinion, the name of this movie expresses some kind of principle often used in politics for people who serve no purpose to the elite, quite well. Do you know what film I am talking about?
“They Shoot Horses, Don’t They”, Kold whispered.
“Neither me, nor the Russian leadership approves of these principles,” the Lawyer spread his arms and quoted the Bible: “But am I my brother’s keeper? I think, Mr. Kold you should change your attitude towards Russia. The empire of evil has long gone. To be more precise, it never existed.”
“Yes, I guessed that everything is not so one sided,” Kold nodded. “And after that book by Dostoevsky you gave me, I thought, how little we know about each other. But Orwell wrote this for a reason: ‘…men in the mass were frail, cowardly creatures who could not endure liberty or face the truth, and must be ruled over and systematically deceived by others who were stronger than themselves”. You know, he visited me before I left.
“Who did?” the Lawyer didn’t understand.
“Mr. Jenkins.”
03:55 A.M._
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“I was just preparing to pass the folder with documents to Greywold to be published and I was convinced that everything was progressing as it should be. Middy was away – she’d left to visit her mother in Honolulu for a couple of days.
I don’t know how the Baseball player managed to get to the island at such a late hour, although I think I might’ve heard the motor of the Coast Guard cutter.
He showed up in his usual manner – just appeared at the door and that’s it. I concealed my surprise in order not to give him any trumps, invited him to come in and turned the coffee maker on.
As first, our conversation meandered, although I guessed straight away that he had come to pressure me to return to the mainland and to Fort Meade.
I can’t remember exactly what I told him and I had an awful headache – the weather was changing – but I said something along the lines that two and two always makes four and I am a free man.
He laughed and he stretched out his hand with his fingers spread:
‘How many fingers am I showing, Josh?’
‘Four.’
‘But what if America says that there are not four but five, then how many?’
I stopped short and went silent. I felt like ice cold water had washed over me. I recognised this dialogue, I recognised this quote, and I understood where it came from.
Damn! They know everything!
Or is it yet another improvization by Mr. Jenkins, another genius psychological move by him? This man with a perpetually weather-beaten face and white-teeth smile – the most wily and cunning man I’ve ever met. Even the Serpent Tempter in paradise wasn’t as deceptive and cunning when he lured Eve.
In the meantime, he took a peach from the dish, bit off a piece greedily, wiped the juice off his lips with the back of his land and quoted Orwell again:
‘‘The war is waged by each ruling group against its own subjects, and the object of the war is not to make or prevent conquests of territory, but to keep the structure of society intact’. As I understand our conversation will go quicker in this form, eh, Josh?’
‘I don’t like your tone, Mr. Jenkins,’ I muttered, trying to appear offended.
I finished the peach, put the wet stone on the polished surface of the side table and spun it round. The wrinkled stone looked like a human brain, spinning on its axis according to someone else’s will.
We stayed silent for about ten minutes. The wind, which had been blowing fiercely since morning, had died down. The Baseball player got up and smiled, but his smile looked sad.