Face/Mask (26 page)

She finally got up and went to the kitchen to make lunch for the men in her life. She pulled a bag of dry, sliced bread from the fridge and held it in her hand. It occurred to her that scarce products bought on the black market should cost more than the lower-quality food sold at “official” retailers, yet this wasn’t the case at all. Even with inferior products, the administration’s taxes drove the price of everything up.

The low rumble of thunder rolled across the sky.

Maybe one day they’ll use all that tax money to fix the air,
she thought, letting out a small sob as she was reminded of her uncle.

September 28, 2039:

The weekend came and went, and Janus went to work as he always had. But traffic lights and blown transformers were far from his thoughts. He’d promised Terry that he would find a way to get the money to get Joe out of jail, but had yet to take any steps toward that goal. In fact, he’d done everything possible to avoid thinking about this impossible situation. Terry, ever trusting, said nothing more about the money, although the questioning look was always there in her eyes.

Toward the middle of the week he sat in his office at the Department of Municipal Infrastructure, skimming through the reports of the many power failures in the city, hardly paying attention to what was flashing before his eyes. Leblanc was still avoiding his office, not wanting to give the administration auditors even more reason to question his honesty. Janus didn’t blame him for being worried, but he could have used a friendly ear.

He rubbed his eyes and gave up on reading the updates. They would just have to wait until he cleared his mind. He touched the news page link, bringing up a report about an insurgent attack in Pakistan. As Leblanc had once told him, there was no point worrying so much about a war that had been going on for close to forty years now.

He swiped the screen to check out the local news. The first report had the administration bragging about the latest economic upswing: the third straight month that unemployment was under 12%. He passed on that and read a headline about expected improvements to the air quality.

I’ll believe that when I see it
.

A headline about the arrests of a group of enviro-activists caught his eye. Over a hundred had been rounded up across the province in the past few days. He had no idea where they came from, or what they had done that made them so dangerous to the administration. Until Joe’s arrest, he hadn’t cared much either.

The update contained a bright red link that read,
Comparutions détenus
:
court appearances for suspects who’d been held overnight. He touched the red letters with a forefinger and the P-screen went blank for several seconds, followed by a brief flickering, before the words
Palais de Justice de Montréal
appeared.

Beneath this heading there were several bright blue links and Janus scanned them until he came across
Tribunal de la citoyenneté:
the citizenship court that had jurisdiction over Joe’s case
.
His finger felt a little damp as he touched the link, and he cleared his throat nervously.

The page was arranged like a weekly calendar, listing the cases that were scheduled on each day. Janus expanded the previous Friday’s image and saw that it was a copy of the court docket, with a long list of names with a courtroom number next to each one.

So many people arrested
,
but I never hear about anyone actually blowing anything up. Is the RCMP that good at catching them before they can do anything?

He shook his head at how nonsensical the system was, then ran his finger down the list until he found Giuseppe Pizzi. Gently he touched Joe’s name and a green-box appeared next to it, containing the words: Canadian Illegal Alien Enforcement Act and a long series of section numbers. The numbers meant little to Janus, but it looked like they’d thrown everything they could think of at Joe.

Below the various sub-headings, in red letters again, was written the single word: “
Détenu
.” Joe’s status as a detainee was unlikely to change any time soon.

Janus sighed, feeling helpless. He was going to turn the page off, but changed his mind. Instead he touched the first name on the list: Antonov, Grigori. The green-box appeared next to the name and it held the same notation: “
Détenu.
”

Janus touched the next name down, Antoine, Stéphane. Again, the word “
Détenu
” appeared. Quickly, barely touching the screen, Janus slid his finger down the list of names. As quickly as the green-boxes popped open, they closed to be replaced by the next one. In each case, Janus read “
Détenu,
” meaning that virtually nobody was being released on bail.

He’d gone through over two dozen names, and was well into the G’s, when he had to stop and go back. Georges, Lionel, had “
Libéré
” in the green-box next to his name.

The section numbers were the same as Joe’s, which meant little to Janus. But at least he was out on bail. He continued running his finger down the list and had checked maybe fifty names before he came upon someone else who’d been released.

Two out of fifty detainees got bail. Janus wondered if they’d resorted to Silver’s “tried and true” method. If so, they were clearly among the few who could afford such exorbitant payments.

Bribes
.
You’re still talking about bribing cops and prosecutors
.

Maybe for these two lucky men bribes had worked, at least to get them out on bail. He didn’t know what would eventually happen to the charges against them, but if Silver was telling the truth, they would be dropped. But the great majority of people who were arrested went to jail and didn’t come out again for a long time. And that was the fate he’d be condemning Joe to unless he did something soon.

He considered broaching the topic with Leblanc, figuring that maybe they could go back to the people who ran the dog-fights for a loan, even if it meant paying outlandish interest rates. It occurred to him that if he was going to risk getting the money from an underground source it didn’t really matter who he dealt with. He’d be just as exposed, and just as likely to get into trouble, whether he borrowed money from one of Leblanc’s money lenders or if he went back to Walid.

He decided that if he really was going to borrow this money, if he was going to risk everything he had and go along with Silver’s cockamamie plan to get Joe out, then he might as well go with the lender who didn’t believe in usury.

Sahar sat in her apartment, trying to control her rising impatience at Walid’s habit of making people wait. A mutual friend of theirs had once intentionally shown up an hour late for a lunch date with Walid, and yet still found herself waiting another twenty minutes before he showed.

Sahar took a deep haul on her cigarette, trying to calm her nerves. She stubbed it out in an over-flowing ashtray and lit another one. It had taken her several weeks of agonizing over who to call, before going back to her first and most logical choice. Walid was one of the few “connected” people she knew. He had a hand in everything that went on in their community, and his relationships with administration officials were an open secret.

Despite their long history together she didn’t entirely trust him, aware that the profit motive was what drove him above everything else. But the weight of the tiny chip had become too heavy for her to bear alone and, after weeks of indecision, she’d given in and reached out to him. Now if he would only show up.

She looked down at the Arabic script on a small compact, containing a make-up mirror, that Rafik had given her in another life. On the cover of the silver-plated case her name was spelled in curling, faded letters. The case itself was chipped now, and had turned green years earlier.

She’d placed the electronic chip that Tony Cirillo had given her in this case, and hid it in the back of her underwear drawer. She’d only taken it out once since then, on the day she’d finally worked up the courage read its contents. Then she had put it away again, although she thought about it every day.

Today, after calling Walid, she’d placed the case, with the chip inside it, on her coffee table and sat staring at it, dreaming of how many lives the small piece of plastic could change, for the better or for the worse. She hadn’t been brave enough to take it to any of the local media outlets herself, lest the administration’s many spies and informers had her arrested. Besides, who’d pay attention to a news report coming from an internment camp? It would be censored anyway, and those few who learned of it would dismiss it as so much false propaganda.

That was why she’d called Walid: he had connections that could get this information out to the Canadian and, especially, American public. She knew he’d be careful in whom he approached, in how he proceeded. This was how he’d survived so long.       

The buzzer from downstairs made her jump. A quick glance on the com-screen confirmed that Walid had arrived. She buzzed him in and waited, unsure how to broach the subject. She lit another cigarette with shaking hands, before realizing that her previous cigarette still sat smoldering on the edge of the ashtray.

She smoked the second one for a minute or two until there was a gentle knock on the apartment door. The unlocked doorknob turned slowly and Walid Kadri stepped in, wearing an expression of mixed concern and curiosity.

“
Sahar, ma chére
. How are you today?”

“Please lock the door behind you, Walid. Then come and sit down.”

“You are being very mysterious, my dear. Even your call had me a bit worried.”

“Which is why you rushed over here as soon as you said you would,” she said with a sarcastic tone.

Walid ignored the jibe, having heard its like many times before. After pushing the door’s three deadbolts into place behind him he sauntered over and sat beside Sahar on the sofa. Instinctively she reached for the coffee pot that sat beside the ashtray.

“Would you like some coffee?”

“
Oui, merci
.”

She poured him some in a small cup then sat back to take a sip of her own. Her mind and heart were racing as she struggled to find the words she needed.

“There’s something on your mind,” Walid said, stating the obvious.

“Yes,” she answered after some hesitation. “I needed to speak to someone who, you know, knows people. Important people.”

Walid smiled, and nodded in appreciation at the compliment.

“I have come into possession of some information,” she continued, “that I think must be made known to the public.”

  “By ‘public’ you mean…”

  “Outside Laval. Canadians. And Americans. Everyone, in fact.”

“My goodness, this does sound important. It isn’t the date of the Second Coming, by any chance?”

“Please, this isn’t funny. I have not slept well for weeks thinking about this…this information. I didn’t know who else to turn to.”

“You have a connection in the administration, don’t you?”

“Who…?”

“Allen Janus. You haven’t forgotten him, have you?”

“No, of course not.”

“You sent him to me just the other day, did you not? He seemed very nervous, very…tense.”

“I did think of him. But he has many problems of his own. And I don’t think he has the kind of connections that you do.”

“Your continued flattery is always appreciated,
ma chère
. But I do hope you will satisfy my curiosity, now that you’ve so ably piqued it.”

Sahar took a deep breath then reached for the case and opened it, holding it up in front of Walid’s face. He leaned his head back slightly so that his eyes could focus on the chip that lay on the mirror. His expression showed that he was puzzled by it, but the sarcastic smile he’d been wearing had faded.

“What is it?”

“I can’t tell you where I got it.”

He reached out and picked the chip up with the tips of his thumb and forefinger, holding it closer to his right eye and closing the left as if he were inspecting a diamond for flaws. Then he repeated his question.

“What is it, Sahar?”

“It has information on it.”

“Yes…?”

“About the bomb that was used in eighteen.”

“The
bomb
?”

“It was an American bomb. Manufactured in the United States by their military.”

“What are you talking about, Sahar?”

“You heard me:
the
bomb.”

“And you say it was an American bomb?”

“An agent, or operative of some sort…I’m afraid I don’t understand all their governmental organizations.”

“What did this agent or operative do?”

“He provided them with this bomb-” She had to stop mid-sentence to compose herself. Then she reached out and held her hand open, palm up, next to his. He placed the chip into it, then closed her fingers around it, like he’d just given her a token of his love. She pulled her hand away from his and opened it again, looking at the chip in wonder.