New York City, May, 2038
Chapter One
Quayle heard the horsemen of the Brigades before he saw them, the iron shoes of their mounts clattering behind him as the riders slowed to cross the cobblestones of the same Central Park bridge he had just traversed. The lead horseman launched his mount into a gallop off the bridge, and Quayle leapt aside to allow the squad of a half-dozen uniformed men to gallop past. The riders' apparent quarry, a balding middle-aged man in a running suit, forged on with arms pumping, headed toward the safety of the traffic of the West Side. The lead horseman overtook him and, wheeling his horse into the man's path, shouted a command across the grassy plain that separated him from the runner: "Stay where you are, Kidman! We've got you now!"
The man swerved down a steep embankment, then reappeared on the far slope of the next grassy rise. Scrambling up to its crest, he let out a groan. He had blundered into the center of a second tightening noose of riders. He was surrounded.
Quayle moved ahead, then stepped under the cover of a towering oak's low branches.
It was always dangerous to be conspicuous at interventions, the security cameras everywhere. Even innocent observers were vulnerable to roundup, their own backgrounds subject to checks, their faces broadcast if the Brigades found their behavior even slightly suspicious. As chief publicist for the Enterprise, one of the most powerful corporations in the world, Quayle could ill afford negative notoriety.
Along nearby walkways, strollers slunk off. A foreign-looking woman in flowing black skirts and a white caftan suddenly passed him. She halted, took in the scene, and drifted back beside him, glancing at Quayle, her face uncovered for a moment.
"That poor fool," she whispered under her breath. She tightened her scarf below her eyes. "He's actually thinking of standing up to them."
"He'll be lost if he does," Quayle said. "They'll make quick work of him."
"You are police?" Her dark eyes fixed on him.
Quayle shook his head.
The woman's face was smooth, cheekbones angular, sharply defined. She appeared Arab, her accent possibly French, her age around thirty-five, although appearance-enhancers now made anyone's true age hard to gauge. She seemed an unlikely ally of the police, although ever since passage of the Emergency Decrees, foreign-looking strangers could not be ruled out as preying on their own kind; there was money to be made in such complicity.
"News reports this morning called him some sort of dangerous agitator," Quayle said.
"Sometimes the harmless-looking ones turn out to be most difficult," she said.
"So it is you who are with the police then?"
She smiled -- ironically, he guessed -- such tests of allegiances common in this climate of suspicion. " I have nothing to do with them. I offer healing services to people who are in distress--deep meditation and massage, holistic medicines, natural lotions." She nodded. "Perhaps a prosperous-looking man such as yourself would require such services? You seem familiar to me. I have seen you someplace before?"
Before he could respond, the lead horseman, a helmeted, fair-skinned youth with wire-rimmed spectacles, smiled an unnatural smile and spurred his roan forward. Jaw thrust out, he leaned forward. "Speak up, Kidman. Save yourself! You know it's useless to resist."
The fugitives lips quivered. He shook his head. "I demand to know the charge."
Onlookers ahead and behind surged forward, bypassing the ravine and moving to the grassy plain where the circle of horsemen now stood; Quayle and the woman felt themselves drawn forward with the crowd.
The commander of the brigade pulled a folded sheet of yellow paper from his uniform and declared in an officious tone: "You know the charge. It's been announced. It concerns the playwright John Dalton Bright."
The fugitive's eyes widened. "You dare confront me with him? His play was an attack on all immigrants, vilifying all who seek refuge here, simply for the crime of breathing. I merely gave it a truthful review."
"You misunderstand. It has become a criminal matter."
Kidman's mouth fell open. "Is it now a crime to criticize a poisonous play? I tell you, as I informed my readers, the play was a crime against truth, not to mention an affront to the audience's kidneys. At four hours and five acts, the idea that this man might sit in judgment of what is admirable in our nation and what is not is insane."
The horseman rose in his saddle, held up the damning document and calmly spoke so all could hear: "Do you deny, citizen Kidman, these are your words: 'Mr. Bright's play, A Season of Peace, is the spring season's most shining example of shallowness, its subject matter grotesquely sentimental, its premise childish--pure rubbish--the very length of the work a deplorable, unendurable insult.'" The Brigadesman lifted his eyes from the document. "Are these not your exact words?"
"If you read the full review, you'll see I also made several positive points. I wrote that the special effects were imaginative and that the view of the stage was adequate even from the cheap seats."
"You dare mock me?" the Brigadesman snapped. "Do you not know the truth?"
"What more is there to know?"
"Citizen Bright has killed himself; his suicide note has blamed you."
Kidman stared, his gaze slowly assessing the ragged perimeter of the encirclement; all avenues of retreat were gone.
The fugitive finally answered: "I am aware only that last night the rest of the media called the show a triumph--hardly a surprise, given the fact this dismal work was financed by those who so profusely praise him. Why would it matter so much to him what one negative review said unless he knew I wrote the truth?"
The Brigadesman brandished his yellow sheet. "You are not appreciating the severity of this."
Kidman shook his head. "What can one say about such an absurd response to a mere theater review. You have trumped all this up for some reason I do not understand."
"This is no trivial matter," the Brigadesman repeated. "Your sympathies for enclave appeasers and certain indigent factions opposed to the Emergency Decrees are well known. The evidence is clear; the polls have been taken. Unless you can convince us there are mitigating circumstances, we will have no choice but to pronounce you guilty of provocative acts leading to the death of an innocent man. That is your crime, sir."
Kidman trembled, his face an angry crimson. "Provocation? Is it now unlawful for a theater critic to condemn the fascist propaganda of a half-witted playwright? Are you saying the decrees should extend to criticism of art? Or perhaps it is all thin cover for ridding yourselves of a Jew who has taken up the rights of immigrants and other indigent people inside the enclaves, including Islamists, for whom you and your Directorate appear to have disgraceful, racist contempt."
The Brigadesman wheeled his mount. Quayle grabbed the woman by one arm and forced her back, sparing her from being trampled.
The Brigadesman shook his head. Facing the crowd, he began to shout his response to this verbal attack: "You see this man's deception? He turns this into a political matter, when his own reckless acts are solely to blame. In the Directorate we care nothing about politics. Public safety--the public order--that is our charge. Homicide is a crime--a crime against order." He dropped his eyes back to the yellow sheet, then slowly raised them again; the lenses of his glasses flashing in the sunlight. "The Emergency Decrees declare that the use of incendiary words are the same as detonated bombs. Citizen Kidman cannot deny that his words have led to the death of an innocent man; no reasonable citizen could. You, the public, agrees, as the morning polls confirm; this man has committed a crime and must confess to it or automatically pay the extreme penalty. So the decrees have proscribed."
"I will not confess," the fugitive repeated. "I have committed no crime."
Quayle and the woman exchanged glances. Since the Christmas bombings, the Directorate and its Brigades, the security arm of the city's largest corporations, had received extraordinary new powers. The same thought seemed to pass between Quayle and the woman: the fugitive was defying the Directorate; he appeared to be inviting his own death.
The Brigades commander reined in his mount. Rocking back, he again spoke directly to the crowd:
"As always, we are prepared to consider mitigating circumstances. A temporary insanity. An impairment of judgment. Divorce, alcoholism, illness, some similarly serious mitigating circumstance to explain the commission of a grievous libel against an innocent man." He looked down at Kidman as if addressing a child. "Do you understand?"
"I make no such claim," Kidman retorted. "The thought is absurd. I merely wrote what I thought about a bad play, nothing more. A bad writer who saw the world through a twisted lens has chosen to kill himself-- an act proving the depths of his self-delusion. I do not consider his death my responsibility. It would make more sense for you to condemn him as his own killer."
"You would mock me?" cried the horseman, pointing a finger at Kidman. "With freedom comes responsibility; that is the point, and you know it. You have killed a worthy citizen as surely as if you had held the gun to his head. Incendiary words or incendiary bombs, it makes no difference, you have committed murder."
"I repeat: I emphatically deny it."
"A pity," the horseman said, with a look as cold as Quayle had ever seen in any corporate boardroom.
Word of the fugitive's predicament was traveling fast, people converging from all corners of the park.
"There being no statement from the accused," the Brigadesman interjected, returning to his officious manner, "it is our conclusion, and the conclusion of public opinion, that you, Israel Kidman, must be held accountable for the untimely death of the aforementioned John Dalton Bright." He motioned a cameraman closer. "As required by law, I hereby notify you that we will now document everything, cognizant of the fact that we are publicly accountable for all charges filed and all sentences meted out. Israel Aaron Kidman, I ask you again: Do you have anything to say in your own defense before final judgment is passed?"
The accused raised his head: "I will not be an accomplice to injustice; I will not participate in my own condemnation. You wish me to confess to a crime I have not committed, and to absolve yourselves of a crime you yourselves are about to commit. So let the record show I refuse...." He pointed a finger at the film crew drawing up to the encirclement and spoke directly into the camera's red eye. "Citizens, this man's words are a sham, only spoken for public effect. You must not believe any of this. These are all lies."
"This defense you choose to offer is no defense," the horseman answered back. "The decrees declare this unlawful, the equivalent of an admission of guilt. Do you not know this?"
"I insist on an authentic defense, not a charade." Kidman shouted, then lowered his head. The rush of midday traffic on the West Side could be heard, the occasional laughter of children in the distance. Slowly, he lifted his eyes. "I have nothing more to say."
The head horseman began reading from the scripted charge. "You have the right to appeal for clemency. You have the right to cite mitigating circumstances. You have the right to express remorse."
Quayle knew how the body would be disposed of; the newly-enacted Emergency Decrees had proscribed this well, evoking pity in him for this stranger. The corpse would be dumped in a potter's field in an unmarked grave, his survivors denied his pension. On every television channel nightly-news loops would play, then replay, selected segments of the Kidman intervention, until his face and carefully edited responses were imprinted on millions of minds, fair warning to all why the emergency decrees' recent curbs on dissent must be obeyed. How much less extreme for Kidman to confess publicly to his breach of decorum, then accept whatever lesser penalty the Brigades' tribunal might impose, fair warning enough in its own right.
From the yellow sheet, the Brigadesman read the final interlocutory:
"Are you Israel Aaron Kidman, of 2019 Avenue of the Americas, City of New York, Borough of Manhattan, son of Spellman and Constantine Kidman, both deceased?" The horseman paused. "Let the record note the accused has failed or refused to answer. "Do you admit to having authored the damaging article, appearing on page 13 of the 'Theater-in-New York' section of The New York Spectator, dated May 6, 2038, which has been found to have led to the untimely death of one playwright, John Dalton Bright, of 42 Spring Street, Soho, New York, N.Y., found deceased of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head on the 14th of May in this year of 2038?"
Kidman again refused to respond.
"There being a note discovered in the deceased's own hand blaming the accused, Israel Aaron Kidman, whose long-standing malicious contempt for the deceased has been confirmed by the wife of the aforementioned Kidman....flash polls also having identified these inflammatory words as crimes against the public order... and there being no statement of mitigating circumstances on the part of the accused, despite repeated efforts to afford him that right, it is my duty to exercise the completion of the warrant as proscribed by paragraph 3, subparagraph (b) of the Emergency Decrees of December last, in the year 2037, by administering the proscribed sentence."
He raised his pistol. The fugitive raised his head. For an instant their eyes met, the fugitive's still wide in apparent disbelief that this could happen, Then the shot cut Kidman's skull in two. His body tumbled to the grass, blood pooling around his splintered head on the bright green grass.
Beside him, Quayle noticed the woman in the caftan. She was writing something in a small black notebook.
Two riders dismounted and lifted Kidman's remains into a zippered rubber bag. Closing it, they lifted the corpse over the first Brigadesman's horse, remounted their own, and trotted swiftly away. The intervention had taken less than thirty minutes.
Quayle attempted to move back to the path, but the woman stopped him, staring directly into his face. "I know you," she exclaimed.
Quayle, still stunned by the circumstances of the intervention, stared back blankly.
"You are Benjamin Quayle of the Enterprise," she insisted. "I have seen you on television as a corporate spokesman. You are an important man. Please take this." She pressed a business card into his hand. "I wish to be of service to you."
Quayle looked at the card without expression: "De-Stress, Inc.," it read. "Raisa Amin, Doctor of Meditation." Below the elaborate gold script was a Park Avenue address and a communicator number.
He tried to hand the card back.
"You do not understand," she insisted again. "I must speak with you in private. It's very urgent."
Before he could refuse a second time, she turned away. Swiftly, she walked up the path, away from the departing Brigadesmen, her long skirts billowing. In seconds, she was gone.
Chapter Two
Smoke rose from the morning cook fires of the sprawling tent city that had sprung up overnight along the East River embankments of the Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn enclaves. Quayle watched from the rooftop squash courts of the Roosevelt Island Racquet Club as hundreds of plumes spindled high above the river, then drifted eastward into a blood-red sunrise. The sliver of urban island where Quayle stood marked the invisible line between Manhattan and the immigrant high-rises erected inside the most destitute sections of the three easternmost boroughs. The granite towers, a dozen in all, were now bursting at the seams with new arrivals.
The security crackdowns had assured the relentless overcrowding. Since enactment of the Emergency Decrees, Directorate spies were everywhere, watchful for signs of anyone in the enclaves planning to export more violence into Manhattan. On the list: anyone associating with banned groups; any artist or writer expressing public sympathy for such groups; anyone suspected of fomenting violence inside the enclaves themselves; anyone, foreign or native-born, regardless of locale, known to be harboring or assisting agitators.
Longtime residents of the three boroughs had bitterly protested the enclave designation,
taking to the streets to shake their fists at the Directorate's armed trucks invading their neighborhoods, the waves of suspects being trucked in to the overcrowded towers--Middle Easterners at first, soon all colors and nationalities, plucked from every corner of the city for the slightest infractions--suspects whose cases could be sealed unless grounds were found for the Directorate's main tribunal to order a public trial. These borough protests had no more swayed the wider public opinion than they had in 2020, when the first enclave designations had been announced and the Patriot Acts reenacted.
Now, Quayle watched the squalor of tent cities emerge before his eyes and knew just what a power shift had been unleashed in yet another cyclical swing of the pendulum from the renewal of hope under Obama to the rebirth of suspicion and fear.
Jack Flyte, president, founder, and chief executive officer of the Enterprise, stepped to his side. The two were opposites, Jack impeccable in his squash-playing whites, tall and lean and darkly somber in his demeanor, Quayle fair-skinned and sandy-haired, even-tempered and politic to Jack's unpolitical impulsiveness. Both took in the scene with an identical intensity.
Bulldozers were starting to clear the last of the Queens waterfront. As they watched, a phalanx of earth movers burst through the remaining warehouses, sending clouds of dust billowing up over what remained of the once-reclaimed commercial river front.
Flyte shook his head. "This wasn't what we bargained for," he said, and slipped his
racquet from his shoulder. Removing the cover, he cast a wary eye back at the embankments.
"We should have refused to get involved from the start. It was wrong to let that damn chief of
security talk us into it. I've decided it's time to tell the board to reconsider. I don't care what
Thompson says about our vulnerability."
Quayle nodded in agreement. Flyte had just returned from Hong Kong; Quayle had not had time to describe the intervention he'd seen the day before, or the woman who had asked to speak to him. He felt sure it would confirm Jack's own growing concerns about having been so quick to buy into the Directorate's consortium. They moved into the more predictable arena of the squash court. Jack closed the door, shutting out the outside noise. Quayle palmed the hard rubber ball, pausing before taking his drop "I witnessed an intervention yesterday. I was there."
Flyte nodded. "I saw the news reports on the plane back. I thought I caught a glimpse of you in the crowd. The usual lies and distortions, I expect?"
"The accounts were mostly accurate, actually. I monitored them all. They kept most of it in the broadcasts, including Kidman's final defiance. Fair warning, I suppose. Convenient of Kidman to give them the pretext."
"I knew that man. Israel Kidman. A thorny one, all right, always spouting about some cause. I'm not surprised he incited them. But he was a harmless type. What they did was a disgrace. We should wash our hands of the whole apparatus."
The ball rocketed off Quayle's racquet and Flyte stepped back, preparing to launch a return. At that instant, the back door to the court swung open. Two uniformed men faced them. The taller, with red sideburns trimmed down to his jaw line, demanded, "Is one of you Jack Flyte of the Enterprise?"
"I am Jack Flyte."
"This entire building must be evacuated, Mr. Flyte. We've had a report of a bomb. Both of you must come with us."
Quayle stepped forward to retrieve the ball.
"At once, sir!" the officer exclaimed.
Quayle nodded and turned quickly to accompany Jack to the exit.
Outside, the rooftops of the sprawling Racquet Club stood bathed in yellow haze. Across the river, the growl of earth-movers continued, the din even louder than before.
The Brigadesmen escorted them to the rooftop elevators. At the basement level, they brought them through a corridor into the racquet Club's brightly-lit men's locker room. There, a tiny, olive-skinned woman, long strands of colored beads clicking in her tangle of coal-black hair, sat on a bench; both hands lay clasped uneasily in her lap. Standing over her was a heavyset, balding man in a rumpled suit. One fleshy hand held a notebook, the other a pen. He snapped the pen open and shut noisily as he spoke. "I will learn your name soon enough," he said. "You might as well tell us what it is now."
The young woman kept her eyes down. Her skin was weathered, but Quayle guessed she was not more than twenty years old. When she raised her dark eyes, they shone with a strange black luminescence.
"How long have you been employed by this club?" the inquisitor demanded.
She shook her head.
"You know exactly what I am saying; don't pretend you don't." Bending low, he peered into her eyes. "Listen to me. You are lying. I know you spoke with the watchman before. I want you to tell us what you know."
"She has no papers," the shorter Brigadesman said. Leaning close to her blank face, he
said, "If you do not answer this officer, you will be deported. Do you understand?"
Quayle stood motionless just inside the doorway. Jack's locker door stood wide open, a
small black airline bag imprinted with Air Algérie inside. Jack was staring at it, too.
"Is this your property, sir?" the plainclothesman asked and pointed to the bag.
"I have never seen it before," Jack said.
"This gypsy told the night watchman the door to your locker was closed when she started cleaning this section earlier this morning. She said she had nothing to do with this. Yet, not ten minutes ago, the watchman says he saw her return. He said she used a key to unlock the door and place the bag inside. " He turned back to the woman. "When he demanded to know what she was doing, she ran. She was caught at the elevators attempting to escape. The Directorate's bomb disposal team has disarmed the device and is now examining it." The interrogator narrowed his eyes at her. "What was in the bag, gypsy? Who instructed you to place it in this particular locker? You will have to confess eventually. If you do not, this will go badly for you."
The woman did not speak. Quayle could see her trembling. Her green dress and matching apron were standard fare for the club's janitorial staff. Her cleaning materials stood in one corner in a plastic bucket, along with a a half empty jug of pink solvent beside it. Her small hands twisted and turned in her lap. Quayle could not remember if he had seen her before; he and Jack had been coming here for a year for their daily morning exercise.
Jack took a step toward her and spoke to her firmly. "You must tell them what they want to know. Do you understand? If you do this, I will see to it you are released. I am a powerful man. Without the support of my company, these men are powerless. They do not
want you, only the people who have paid you. If you help them, I promise you will not be
harmed."
The gypsy sat motionless on the bench, silent.
"I am not like these people you fear," Jack pressed. "My word is good. One word from me and I promise you they will have to free you."
"That's not exactly the case, Mr. Flyte," the interrogator interrupted. "As you well
know, we are authorized to act independently of the consortium. Our mission is security, nothing can supersede that. We shall see what this gypsy has been up to. There will be no talk of bargains just yet."
Flyte looked at the gypsy. "You've frightened her again."
"I knew gadji word no good," the young woman spat, meeting the interrogator's angry glare with defiance.
At that moment, the door to the room flew open. One of the club's watchman strode in, his uniform distinct. "They've disarmed the device. As we thought, it's a communicator-triggered bomb, identical to the architecture of the Christmas bombs on the Flatbush, Asbury Park, and Fulton Street trains."
"Is this the woman you saw place that bag in the locker, officer?" the interrogator demanded.
The watchman nodded.
"What do you have to say for yourself now, gypsy?" the interrogator demanded.
The gypsy looked up, trembling again. "He know I catch him stealing stuff. He just want me fired so I not tell. He the one telling lies so I don't tell."
"That will be all, officer, " the interrogator said. He turned to Flyte. "You see what we
have here? These types have their people everywhere. If this bomb had gone off, you and your
colleague would most certainly have died; it was lucky we found you during our evacuation; we almost didn't come to the roof." His eyes narrowed. "I have heard it said within the Directorate, Mr. Flyte, you do not fully support the Emergency Decrees. Now, sir, here is an example of why we must have them. Violence must be contained. You and the city and your corporate community have declared it. We have been authorized to do what is necessary to keep the city secure. As you can see, we are only doing our duty."
"Where will this young woman be brought?" Flyte demanded.
The interrogator shrugged. "That is up to the Directorate's special tribunal. If she does not tell us who has paid her, and she turns out to be an illegal, of course it will then become a simple matter of deportation." The interrogator addressed Quayle. "I understand you are the publicist for the Enterprise. You must understand, sir, the media aren't to be informed of this incident, unless and until we find that the case warrants advancement to the courts. We can't have groundless alarms sounded about supposed holes in security before we have fully investigated. I will be filing a confidential report about the tribunal's recommendation soon enough. Perhaps, you and Mr. Flyte will be so good as to inform them yourselves how efficiently you have seen us work. Perhaps you will even say how you owe your lives to the Directorate, and how very grateful you are."
"And if the tribunal does not turn this woman's case over to the courts?" Flyte asked, ignoring what the interrogator had just called for.
"As I said, I will file a confidential report detailing the tribunal's findings and recommendations in triplicate, one for the mayor's office, the second for your consortium--of which, if I am not mistaken, Mr. Flyte, you are an executive board member--and the third will go to the courts. If you will recall, this is the procedure that was decided by the mayor's office under the December decrees. I believe you signed on to it yourself as a member of the consortium."
"You needn't remind me, sir." He glared at the man. "I take it from your answer, then, anything the tribunal decides not to take to trial can be indefinitely sealed."
"That is correct."
Quayle saw the gypsy shift her position on the bench. One of the Brigadesman placed his big hands on her shoulders.
She shook her head violently, then suddenly leaped up, lunging toward the bucket of cleaning materials.
"A cagey bird," scoffed the Brigadesman meanly. "You think you can fly away?"
She dropped to her knees, brought her face close to the bucket. She appeared about to be sick.
"Watch out, you fools," snapped the interrogator, "she's up to something." Before any of them could act, she twisted off the cap of the cleaning fluid, put the jug to her lips, and drank.
The two Brigadesman tried to wrench the jug away, but she kept swallowing, then choking, before a Brigadesman's hand could knock the jug away. She fell back with a crash and erupted in a coughing fit against the lockers. Her eyes began rolling.
The interrogator grabbed her arm, rolled her onto her stomach, and pounded her back. "Damn it, I told you you should have tied her hands. Get an EMT in here! Fast!"
The young woman moaned, her small feet kicking. The Brigadesman turned her back over, slapped her cheek, then reached into her mouth and freed her tongue.
An EMT team arrived, one member kneeling over her, the other two holding her flat
on the floor. A bilious stream of pink liquid gushed from her mouth. Her small body shook and twitched before she let out a wail and began violently vomiting.
"Romani trash," the interrogator said, and tossed a wash rag from the bucket to the EMT. "Even Arabs despise these damn gypsies. No loyalty to anyone but their own kind."
Flyte stared. Quayle knew that look. It came whenever Jack saw a line being crossed. "I plan to file a report about this," he said. "In my opinion, this entire matter has been mishandled from beginning to end."
"You may file any complaint you wish," the interrogator said calmly,. "but I guarantee this is not the end. I have no time for you now. If there is a wider plot under way, we must discover it. Now, move away, sir, or I will have you arrested for impeding this investigation. I assure you, we have the full support of the city's most senior elected officials. Don't bother filing any complaints there."
"We'll see about that," Flyte said.
Quayle knew the interrogator spoke the truth; the city's corporate community had bought the mayor's people a long time ago. Still, there was something about the gypsy's story Quayle could tell Jack was inclined to believe.
Flyte motioned to Quayle to use his communicator to film the scene. Immediately, the interrogator seized it, removed the disk, and thrust the device back into Quayle's hands. "This is an official investigation. Filming is not permitted." He stepped back. "I will have my officers
escort you and your associate to the funicular at once for your return to Manhattan. If you refuse, we will be obliged to use force."
"That won't be necessary," Flyte said calmly.
Preparing to leave, the EMTs lifted the gypsy, now motionless, onto a gurney. She opened her eyes and raised her head; with great effort she tried to speak to Jack in her strange language.
Jack leaned down and touched her hand. "Listen to me. You must reveal what you know; your life will depend on it. If you have done nothing wrong, the decrees say you must be freed. That remains the law no matter what this man says." He retrieved the rag from the EMT. Gently, he wiped disinfectant from her chin.
The interrogator opened the door to the hallway and ushered them both out behind the rolling gurney.
"They think us fools for our compassion, Mr. Flyte," the interrogator said. "It's mother's milk to them. If I were you, I would leave dangerous matters like this to us. I am sure you will see the truth of that good advice soon enough."
***
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