The Trial
Most personal diaries are found by relatives years later and are pretty uninteresting on the whole. Yes, their descendants may find something they didn't know about before, but usually what is written about is every day happenstance. Every day emotions. Usually we are just surprised at how like our own Iives theirs were.
But then, every so often someone finds one of the dusty volumes, and, flicking through it, has something catch their attention and they find themselves sat, cross-legged, two hours later, still reading.
This is one of those diaries.
It is written by a man called Jack Harper.
There was nothing special about Jack or where his diary was found. It is in an old box of clutter that has been put in an old Emporium, or what you and I would call a junk shop; the diary had been originally bound for the incinerator but had been carelessly thrown into the wrong pile of rubbish.
The diary did not start its life as a journal; it was a plain ruled hardback notebook in which Jack inscribed the dates himself. Neither is every day included, but towards the middle there is a solid block of seven days each with an entry, and this is what has caught the reader's interest. They have never heard of Jack Harper. No one has. His story isn't a great one; it is more how he has written it, how he realised that in those seven days he learnt something about himself that he didn't know before.
We only have his name to go on. There is no address, we are not even sure if England was his home country. This is the short tale he told from his own point of view.
*
Day Zero:
Well diary, do I have a surprise for you. Knocked me off my feet! I received a package today which was a surprise enough but inside was the strangest mobile phone I've ever seen and a letter. I, me, Jack Harper - non-extraordinaire - have been chosen to serve on the jury of the trial of that Barnes bloke. What do you think of that! Impressed?
Problem is, I don't know if I want to. At first I thought, yeah, why not. Then I thought, hang on, Jack you need to think carefully. A man's life is in the balance here. That sounds dramatic doesn't it? I mean like everyone else I only really know a little bit about the case. American soldier sold his country out to a Russian organisation, worked as an assassin for them, and now they are holding him accountable for his crimes. I mean come on, it's not that hard. The guy's guilty! Got to be! So what do I do? Give it a shot, I guess. I have to say I am a little intrigued because it sounds a bit like a science fiction movie. In between his missions as they called them they kept him frozen – yeah that's right, like a bag of peas in the freezer. Wouldn't mind finding out how they did that!
Later.
Okay. So I've done it. I phoned the telephone number they gave and said yes I would serve. Hey, I'm not working at the moment so what else am I going to do? It'll stave off the hours of not knowing what to do with myself anyway.
There are conditions though. I mustn't tell anyone. Who am I going to tell, huh? Valerie's been dead two years now, I haven't seen my son in all that time. I don't even know where he is. In truth I don't even know why I'm here sometimes. Anyway, Jack stop being so maudlin and concentrate. They will broadcast the information and I'll watch it on the telly I think, bigger screen. We also have our own catch-up channel should we need to see one of the blocks again. That is what they call them. Blocks of information, good and bad. Oh, and, get this, we also have our own telephone number should we need help of any kind! Ha, I don't think I'm the one who needs help – it's more like this bloody American is the one who needs help. I can see him swinging from the gallows already!
Day One:
It's actually three days since day zero but nothing of interest has happened. It's rained a lot, next door neighbour parked his goddamn car over the edge of my lawn again! Why doesn't he just fuck off! Stupid arse.
Anyway back to THE TRIAL. It starts today. I have my favourite chair ready, a few drinks beside me. They're screening it after the watershed. I guess so the kiddies don't see it (as if that would stop some of them!). I thought I would write my diary after each session, you know get a feel for what is happening and so there is stuff I don't forget.
Later.
First off we were told a lot of the information we will be seeing are documents, files, photos and films hidden inside this Hydra organisation by people who worked for them but didn't agree with what they were doing. Must have been either bloody brave or bloody stupid.
Okay so let me get this down whilst it is still fresh in my mind.
Guys name, the American, is James Barnes. He was born in 1917 and I swear he doesn't look a day over 32! Showed us a photograph of him today. Bloody amazing! We were given a kind of short history of his life up until the Second World War. Regular guy, born in Brooklyn, New York (always wanted to go there you know), but get this, when he was 13 he met another guy called Steve Rogers and diary do you know who that was? Only Captain bloody America, God I used to play at being him when I was a little boy. Those were the days!
Anyway, back to this Barnes guy. After they left school, him and Rogers enrolled in art college but then came the war. Barnes ended up with the 107th Regiment and as we know from history Rogers ended up becoming Captain America. Then Barnes' unit was captured by the Nazis and Rogers went in and rescued them. We had a bit of narrative then from Rogers (he doesn't sound like an old man either). Said his pal came back a changed man, the Nazis had used him for experimentation in their Hydra division (something to do with scientific research). But Barnes now often had bouts of depression and pain. It wasn't known exactly what had been done to him but Rogers said Hydra had been working on a super soldier serum similar to the one that was used on him. Maybe we can have two Captain Americas now?!
The history continued with information on a unit formed by Rogers called The Howling Commandos and then pinpointed the mission where Barnes was lost, presumed dead. We were told that the Commandos continued under Rogers and then later under an English lass called Peggy Carter. Yada, yada, yada.
We were then given a break for an hour and when it resumed we were told more about this organisation called Hydra. Started by some Nazis Johann Schmidt and an scientist Armin Zola (I think that was their names). Nasty looking couple of guys. Anyway, they ran us through their history from the Second World War until last year. They were the guys responsible for all that fuss across the globe, you know, the day everything seemed as if it was going to go tits up, people were going to be killed yada, yada, yada. Looks like we had a near miss when you hear what they had in store for us! (I should say for the sake of history thank god for the Avengers who seemed to have fucked this Hydra up good and proper!).
To be honest up to this point I was trying to concentrate too much, my head hurt and I was getting a little bored. History never was my strong suit. I tell you what though, I said Barnes doesn't look over 32 but, I don't know, you look in his eyes in the photo and you get this feeling. I don't know how to describe it, you get this feeling he has lived forever and is tired, doesn't want to go on. Has maybe seen enough you know?
Day Two:
All the normal warnings were given – don't know why they bother. I know what to expect for christ's sake. I'm not a child!
Okay so move on Jack. We heard what happened next to Barnes. I didn't realise at first but it was his voice that was speaking. He sounded like a regular guy and yet there in his voice was a softness you wouldn't expect from a soldier. I even remember thinking, 'Hey you're a soldier, suck it up man, its what they paid you for' – but then I realised I had forgotten something - many of these soldiers in that war didn't have a choice, they didn't choose to be there being used as cannon fodder. He reminded me. And then he started his story. I'll try and remember what he said:
"When I woke up after falling, I was lying in snow. It was so cold and I hurt all over. In the fall I had broken bones, punctured organs, lost a lot of blood. I couldn't believe I wasn't dead. The lower part of my left arm had...been ripped off and a wolf was trying to make a meal of the rest of it."
(A goddamn wolf was eating him, shit!). He then went on to say a Russian patrol had found him. But it wasn't a rescue, more like the opposite. They made him try and crawl along the ground for a simple drink of water, decided to take him with them though and he was dragged along the ground with no thought or help with his injuries. When they got to where they were going they stripped him naked, tied him to a tree and used him for goddamn target practice. He said he thought he was going to die, he said he prayed he would.
We only heard him speak for maybe ten minutes. He told us of how he lost consciousness and then the narrative swapped over and we heard a lady. She turned out to be a nurse at the hospital camp, that is where they had taken him, not to get help though, instead it was to sell his blood and organs on to the doctors.
We got to see a photo of the lady, her name is Freya Bowman. (Afterwards I looked her up because it sounded familiar, she was the one who gave evidence at Barnes' first trial). She told us how his body had been brought into the camp, how she had assumed he was dead but had then realised he wasn't. When she told us that a few days later he was forcefully taken by Russian soldiers she came close to crying. Guess being a nurse in one of those camps would fuck you up big time.
We then went back to the voice that has given a lot of the narrative so far, don't know who he is but he told us that Barnes was taken to a Russian interrogation camp but not a lot was known about his time there. They know he was tortured but then the Hydra people heard about him and rescued him from there. Next we were shown files written by two people within this Hydra. A doctor at the place where Barnes was taken next, Eric Jakobs, and an orderly Stefan Yegorov (I think thats how you spell it). We were told that they would be 'narrating' their part of the story by their written word. I get the feeling we will be hearing a lot from them.
I should say as well through it all we have been shown files etc. but that translation was given for those of us who don't speak Russian! There were a few faded photographs and it took me a few seconds to realise what I was looking at. It was Barnes' broken body, it was a mess, the interrogators had all but taken him apart. The doctor included a list of the injuries and things no man should have to go through (and no woman either). It made me feel I was going to puke.
But I guess at this point in the story he is safe now so I'm guessing things turned out okay for him in the long run. We'll find out more tomorrow.
Day Three:
I am so goddamn angry I could, I don't know I could spit. It's lucky that Barnes isn't here right now because I think I would put the noose around his neck myself and watch him gladly hang from it.
The evidence given today was something called Mission Reports.
A voice we had not heard before explained that Hydra turned Barnes into an assassin who operated for over seventy years. In between missions he would be kept in cryo freeze until needed. Okay, so I know I knew that going into this but this...this told me about the people he murdered in cold blood.
They had that voice read out the mission reports. Some were sketchy, a few words here and there, others were backed up by newspaper reports of the time that they showed us on the screen. Civilian casualties were few but they said but they still mattered, those were people, lives that mattered to someone. The list seemed to go on forever. I felt at one point I was drowning. So many names, such destruction and all caused by this one bloody man.
I thought Barnes was guilty before this started but maybe what had happened to him had done something to his mind...but then they showed me this and now I hate him. He had been rescued by Hydra, they gave him a new arm, made into a super soldier, and he killed for them. How? How can someone do that? Did he feel grateful to them? Was that his way of repaying their kindness? Did he want what they wanted?
Listening to those reports you could tell some of the people who died by his hand did not die easily. At one point he had even admitted to killing some of Hydra's own men and women, people he was working with. Anyway - I know I'm going off topic, come on Jack pull yourself together!
They sent him on his first mission on March 10th 1948 (they told us that would have been Barnes 32nd birthday). The first mission was a general that the guy called Zola had fallen out with . They showed us a military photograph of the murder scene, and even in black and white you can see there is so much blood. The general's eyes are open and I swear I could see terror in them.
Barnes' last mission was supposed to be the assassination of Steve Rogers in 2015 when everything kicked off. His own childhood friend! Thank God he failed that one. How can Rogers forgive him for all that he has done? I know they were best pals but even so. Makes me wonder at what I thought Rogers was, what I thought Captain America was.
67 years of these missions, of murder, of mayhem. May Barnes rot in hell. I was glad that the session ended. For the first time since I've started watching all of this I was glad to switch off and leave the names of all those murdered people behind.
Day Four:
What do I write? All of my anger for Barnes that I had yesterday has gone. I have heard of people having emotions like swings and roundabouts and never known quite what they mean. Yesterday I hated this guy, I mean I really hated him. Today? Well decide for yourself.
When I sat down to watch today I had already made my decision and I thought, why carry on? I nearly phoned the number and told them that, told them just to put him down as guilty and throw the switch! But then during the night I was thinking, you know like you do when you can't sleep? They said Hydra rescued Barnes in 1944, his first mission was in 1948, and I thought, why does it take that long to train a super soldier, I mean he was already a soldier so what took so long?
So even though part of me didn't want to because I thought Barnes should hang or burn and nothing would change that, I sat down for todays block.
The block jumped to the end of 1945 and we were given back into the hands of the woman, Freya Bowman. She sounds so English but I know she's Russian. As I said, I knew a little about her from the first trial, from when the guy prosecuting had questioned her. Like with Barnes, it is hard to look at her photo and think of how old she really is. Her voice told the story whilst more files of typed reports and photos were shown on the screen.
She told us about the day she was kidnapped from her parents home and forcibly brought to the Hydra facility and was reunited with Barnes. I thought here we go, a bloody love story because the papers had said how she had fallen in love with Barnes when she had met him at the field camp. Instead, we got a nightmare.
I'll tell it as best as I can but I can't do it justice in the way she did. She described the conditions that she found Barnes in. There was me thinking he was sitting in clover with Hydra but it wasn't the case. They were still experimenting on him trying to find this super soldier serum. She told us about the injections, the radiation, the treatment by the other nurses. And all of her testimony is backed up by the two men they told us about at the beginning, the doctor and the orderly Stefan someone or other. I'll have to look up their names again. Barnes had been starved, beaten, raped, tortured. His body was a mass of open sores and broken bones....it was pretty sickening, no, it was more than that but I don't want to think about it. I don't want to know that there is a word that exists to describe this kind of horror.
But do you know what I keep forgetting?
I keep forgetting this is a trial, that I'm a juror. That this isn't a book I'm reading, or a tv series, it is real. These people are becoming real to me, I don't know if that makes sense. I've never served as a juror before, maybe this is how everyone feels? I think after I've written this I'm going to sit and read about the trial they began with. I don't remember them saying anything about what we are seeing now. Why is that? Why weren't people as horrified as I am? But I'm wandering off course again aren't I?
Before it went on we were introduced to some more of the Hydra personnel and reminded of what it was they wanted to do, what they were planning for the world. How? How can that have been happening? How can we have allowed it to happen? Why didn't someone know? Why hadn't our governments realised or had they and they just rolled over?
Bowman tells us that Hydra had thought they had finally perfected the serum and the only thing holding them back was James Barnes' mind. HE didn't want any of this. She said he just wanted to go home, how sad is that? She tells us about a Hydra propaganda film that was shown to James Barnes to 'lower his defences' she said. We then got to see it. It was like one of those old movietone reels they used to show in cinemas back during the Second World War. You know the ones, all in black and white, and the people in them walk a bit funny. Well this one was sad, it shows his parent's reaction to his death, and it shows the death of Steve Rogers. We know now that the information was doctored but he didn't know that. I wondered why they showed it to him. What bearing did it have? What 'defences' were they trying to lower.
And then she told us and they showed the second film.
Before it was shown new warnings were given. There would be a 'shortened' version shown first, then if you wanted to see the full version you kept watching. God, I wish I could say I only watched the shortened version.
Freya Bowman's voice narrates in the places it is not possible to see or understand what is happening. But first she begins by telling us how James had begged her to kill him and how she couldn't, how she had failed him. I thought about that you know. They said she loved him, could you kill someone you loved? Could I have killed Valerie if it had meant she wouldn't of suffered with the cancer that took her in the end? Do you know, I don't think I could have, I don't think I could of been that brave and yet it would have been the kindest thing I could have done.
The film started and we were in an operating room. We see Freya and the orderly bring James Barnes in. He looks drugged but you can still see such fear in his eyes. He looks so young. It made me feel sick to see him, made me feel like I was in that room with him. That fear kind of infected me, you know?
Another nurse is preparing tools for an operation. We got to see later what those tools did. How am I suppose to forget things like that?
There are armed guards in the room. The room is filthy, the light poor, the instruments horrifying. I began to get an idea of what was going to happen but I kept telling myself that no human would do this to another. I was still to stupid not to watch. The original sound track is barely non existent but you do hear some things. You hear later on the noise those tools made.
We were given one more chance not to watch. I kept the screen on.
Freya stays next to James, who is now on the table, you see him reach for her hand and she tells us he was asking her not to leave him alone with them, there are tears in her voice, you can hear them and I found myself tearing up but I couldn't stop watching. I saw her visibly jump when the door opens and two men come in. One I recognised as the director of the facility, the project leader, we'd been show his photo before. The other man was older, well muscled, but he looked sick. It was so obvious he did not want to be there.
There is mumbled conversation between Freya and the nurse and Freya goes to give an injection to James but stops. She shakes her head no and steps away. Instead the other nurse gives it to him and Freya's voice breaks in to say it is not an anaesthetic. It is a drug to stop James from being able to move but he will still be able to feel, he will feel everything that is going to be done to him, he will be awake for the entire operation. She tells us that the two men who came in are the director (Lehmann) and a specialist doctor but then adds that after the operation she is told the man was not a doctor - he was a butcher from the local slaughterhouse. You can hear real pain in her voice. She says that afterwards the butcher was shot. He agreed to do the work because the director was holding his wife and child hostage. She doesn't know what happened to them. More victims of Hydra's.
And I'm going to stop here. I can't do it, I can't write down what they did, what we were shown. Anyone who wants to see it for themselves can, its out there but god take heed of the warnings whatever you do.
Do you know what was the worst thing though? With all the horror? I saw...I saw the moment James Barnes lost his mind. I saw it. I saw it.
Freya gives no excuses whenever she talks about how she says she failed James, how she did nothing. She does herself a injustice, I know that now. There was nothing she could have done. I wish I could tell her that because afterwards you see her eyes as well. You hear it in her voice even now. She will never forgive herself.
The channel stopped then for the day. Although the block for today was shorter I can understand why. I wonder how many people across the world sat shocked as I did. I know they gave us warnings, I know what they said but....still....I saw a man lose himself today. It's was as if he lost his soul.
And it makes me think. How do you come back from something like that? I guess you don't, not all of you anyway. In the final moments of the block we get to see a photograph of Barnes after the operation. It is 48 hours later. We get to see him 'placid', no light in his eyes. Freya goes on to say that for the following few days they teach him how to eat, walk but he doesn't speak. He is not able to do anything but sit and sleep. I remember Freya using that saying, 'The light is on but nobody's home'. I think she was right. James Barnes body may have been there but his mind was gone. She finished by saying the doctors still worked on him because they wanted to move on to the next phase – that famous left arm.
Day Five:
There was so much information to take in today. I am sure some of it I have forgotten. I'll add it as I think of it. Maybe that way it will seem better.
I went in to today dreading what I was going to see. You know in all the warnings they gave us they told us a telephone line had been set up should we need to talk to someone. For the first time I understand why and I was tempted to ring it last night. I just wanted to ask someone....why are we doing this? and then I stopped. What was done to James Barnes was tragic but he is not the only person in this story is he? That is why I think they showed us those mission reports first. There are all of those people killed by him, they matter just a much as he does and if we are not careful we will lose sight of that. But by me thinking that does it make me a bad person? At the moment I don't know. I don't know what to think any more.
And so what charming part did they have for us today? Ah yes the famous left arm. Surely all we needed to know was that they made him a new arm, fitted it and sent him on his way.
How simple that would have been.
They did get technical. Now I can just about change the fuse in a plug. Mechanics is not my thing. The arm was impressive yes, and no, I didn't know two had to be fitted. Why two? They just had to tell us didn't they?
Why two? Because the Patient (that is what they call him now, Barnes that is) tore the first one off. He systematically took it apart bit by bit, tore his own skin to shreds getting it off, tore muscles, blood vessels, and all the while do you know what he said (Freya told us): "I don't want this. Take it off, please take it off." And we got to see the photographs of the patient and the room afterwards. If you want to see take a look at the photos yourself, I don't want to think about them anymore.
The long and the short. They fitted a new arm.
We were then introduced to another Hydra affiliate – Johann Fennhoff who Jakobs explains will be responsible for the programming of the Winter Soldier. This is the first time we hear Barnes called by that name.
Programming? Do I really want to know?
We were given back to Freya. Her narrative again is given with details of files and photographs. There is a problem she told us, with the Patient and this is becoming evident more and more. His mind has split between two personalities. A gentle, placid side and a side that is insane, violent.
No shit, Sherlock.
And they were surprised? These Hydra people, scientists, doctors are surprised by what they have caused, what they have wrought? Have they never heard of the Frankenstein monster?
We saw for the first time something referred to as the Master Chair. It is grim. Imagine if you will a dentist's chair (if you can get past the restraints on this one that is) but one that can change from being a chair to being a flat surface. Around and attached to this chair are what looked like computer panels and plates of metal. We were told this is where they will 'wipe' the mind of the Soldier and a similar chair is to be found in the programming suite. But those are only glimpses we are given of future things we can look forward to.
During this time there were also details of the cryo freezing which will hold the Soldier in stasis for the times when he is not needed. Although they gave us further details I didn't understand them, or maybe I didn't want to understand them. We were shown the pod he slept in. You wouldn't get me anywhere near one of those yet alone in one.
And we heard about The Constant for the first time – that is what Freya Bowman becomes. I thought at first I had missed something because I had heard the phrase before, and then I remembered. In the first trial Bayer had covered this. I seem to remember though Bayer said that is how she 'controlled' Barnes, he had made it sound seedy, dirty. But now we heard from Jakobs and Stefan again.
She wasn't there to control him as Bayer had said. It is not as simple as saying she controlled him. Jakobs explained that she seemed to provide a stability that the Soldier needed because there were times when the Patient, or the Soldier, I don't know how to refer to him so from now on I will say the Soldier, would wake from cryo extremely violent. Several staff members and guards were killed, but when she was there then the sight of her seemed to calm whatever the panic was in him, the brutality of that 'dark side'. Those are not my words I am not some all-seeing all-dancing Yoda! They were Jakobs' words and if you had heard them as I did you would see they were no joking matter either.
Do you know, I don't know when this became such a serious thing. I just know that in my whole 52 years I have never experienced anything like the details I'm hearing and seeing now and it makes my blood run cold. Have I been going around with my eyes closed all of this time?
Stefan told us that Zola, who was a frequent visitor, called them Beauty and The Beast. He doesn't think Zola was trying to be poetic either. But if only it was that easy. Jakobs gives a list of Freya's injuries which she suffered at the hands of the Soldier, and it includes rape. The Beast was learning to hurt, learning exactly what it could do and it was his Constant that was suffering. At this point in the file we are hearing from Stefan who had grown close to Freya and he tells us she was offered a way out – death. But he says she made a promise to James Barnes and she would keep it." She promised she would never leave him alone. She loved him, it was that simple," he says.
Didn't I read somewhere they wanted to prosecute her next? What for? For loving a man?
The broadcast came to an end at that point and we were advised that the next one would be the day after tomorrow – they were giving us a day off from the horror. Or, are they just giving us the chance to prepare ourselves for whatever comes next?
The Day Off:
Today I woke early. I feel like I haven't left the house in days and I deliberately went for a walk in the park so that I could see someone, anyone. Breathe in fresh air, be normal. I sat on a bench and watched people walk by. And then I looked down at the ground. I could see the beauty of the planet but whilst I was doing that, what was going on beneath my feet, hidden in the dark? I'm not trying to be dramatic and as I read back through what I've written I can see how just these few days have changed me. How? It's a trial, they go on all the time. You see what the person did, you see who suffered, who is in the wrong and then you decide. How the hell do I decide?
I arranged to meet up with friends this afternoon. That was a disaster. I hadn't seen them in ages and I thought we would have a lot to talk about, you know every day things but all they were talking about was the trial and I didn't want to listen to their arguments.
I needed a break, I needed normality. God I thought, if this is how I felt just watching these things happen what must James Barnes have been going through. And do you know what I did? I went to the movies. I ignored the war films, the adult films and I brought a ticket for the children's film, some cartoon about animals and for an hour and a half I forget about people.
Day Six:
Hydra was no longer just some science department of the old German Third Reich you could see that. It was becoming so much more. It is frightening, do you know how close we came to losing our freedom?
When the station came back on it was obvious from the many warnings that we were moving on to the big guns and when Freya tried to explain the mind wipe I felt sick. She explained it as best as she could, as it was explained to her. Seemed to make sense, but why I thought, do they need to do it at all?
Jakobs at this point adds more victims to the list. He gave us details on how long they had been working to perfect the mind wipe. The many lives already put through that chair – the ones who had to be silenced afterwards with a bullet. The brains that literally exploded within the skulls.
There was another set of warnings.
Freya then talked for about fifteen minutes. She told us how the first wipe brought his personality back to one (or so they had thought). How it turned him into the super soldier they wanted. How their lives became as they would be for the next seventy years.
Both of them would be asleep in those cryo pods until needed. They would then be woken for a mission. The Soldier would be programmed. Sent on the mission. Arrive back and give his mission report and then be wiped and put back into cryo again ready for the next one.
She explained the difference between the mind wipe and the programming.
Only it did not always go according to plan. But before she proceeded with any more details a film was to be played of the Soldier being mind wiped. It had been filmed in glorious technicolour after all technology was getting better the more time moved on. Why not use it?
It is not a pretty sight. You see him strapped into the chair. Bands of steel hold him around both his arms and his legs so he cannot escape. Someone shoves a mouthguard into his mouth. People in the background are talking but I can't explain it, I couldn't look away from Barnes, from the Soldier. He looked so different to the Barnes we saw in the photos at the beginning but I knew it was the same man.
A whining sound began and you see him jerk in the chair, you see him try to pull away as they bring down two metal plates onto his face and a huge circle of metal moves into place above him. His breathing was so fast, its as if he is trying to prepare for the pain. Can you do that? Can you make your body ready for that much agony? And then we watched as his mind was torn apart, as he screamed, the cords in his neck stand out, his body convulsed and you can see the nervousness but also excitement of the scientists around him. It is truly sickening. They were truly sickening. I would like to have sat them in the chair to have a go in their wonderful machine.
Whilst I watched I could swear I could hear his bones snap, I could smell his flesh burn, and I watched as blood started to trickle from his ears and nose.
I bolted.
Hand on heart I couldn't finish watching it. Even after I had watched the horror of the operation with the butcher. I snapped the television off, grabbed my jacket and I bolted out of the house. Ended up back at the cinema, paid for a ticket and sat in front of that idiotic children's film again. I'm sure when I laughed it was more of a hysterical noise and I was aware of the woman two seats down looking at me. By the end of the film I was crying.
When I finally got home I phoned the number they gave me. Someone on the other end listened to me, talked to me, brought me back down to earth.
"Do you want to leave the jury service?" they asked and I wanted to say yes. I so nearly did. But I said no, said I would stay because by now these people mean something to me. No one helped them, no one even tried. The least I can do is watch their story to the end.
Day Seven:
And now we are finally at the end.
Hydra now had their Winter Soldier. There was not a lot left to tell us. Once the Soldier had become who he was then the mission reports became the story.
Hit after hit, a long explanation of what the assassinations meant for the rest of the world. Thousands of people dying because Hydra decided to cause chaos within their countries, within our countries.
The home stretch became more personal. We were treated to photographs of the programming room but no film was ever taken of that part of the process. Freya told of how the Soldier would come out of there barely able to stand, blood trickling from his ears and nose. She then explained other problems he was experiencing. The first lot of serum was faulty and she told us about the problems it caused, we saw more photos. Bones that grew incorrectly, marrow that rotted, teeth and nails that would grow under current ones and through it all he suffered and each time they took the suffering away by using the mind wipe. Only they didn't take it away did they? They replaced it with more pain that is all. She said how sometimes he would start to remember, start to question and then the migraines would come. We heard about how sometimes he would beat his head against the wall to try and stop the pain, stop those migraines. There were a thousand stories she could tell. He would weep, be unable to get clean after long hot showers, still convinced he had blood on his hands. He would suffer nightmares. Fits. He was told lies about her in programming, they made him paranoid, made him think she was going to leave him alone.
She told us that how, unknown to her at the time, whilst they slept in their cryo pods, people she had known had died, the world still turned and those brave new people within Hydra carried on the task of hiding the information.
She told of a mission where the programming had failed. James Barnes regained part of himself but instead of running, instead of getting away from them he chose to stay, chose to try and warn the person who was to be assassinated. But fate was against him, his handler at that time was high up in the US government, knew the victim concerned, stopped Barnes in his tracks. And although the assassination of Kennedy did not take place that day it was rescheduled. It did not happen though only because someone else beat them to it several months later.
This last day of the trial was a bittersweet one. I felt I had come on such a long journey. I was glad to be at the end. The world out there has changed and not just for me. I now understood the warning they were trying to give but the last message was a poignant one. At the end of the trial someone gives a talk. They say that the trial was to be the warning being laid down to prevent organisations like Hydra taking hold again in the future. If I heard that before I would not have understood what they meant.
I do now.
A list of all the known victims of Hydra were given on the screen and it contained thousands and thousands of names but it is the last one on that list that concerned me – James Buchanan 'Bucky' Barnes. After all, that was why I was here. That is why I was chosen along with the others. It is James Barnes' trial.
We were told that the last words would be his and then we saw him. Still looking like a young man but his eyes truly do give his age away. He is sat at a table, hands clasped together, metal against flesh. I could even see that now famous red star high up on his left arm.
And when he speaks you know it comes from the heart.
"What you have seen is the story of the Winter Soldier – it is my story. You must decide now whether or not I am guilty. For those of you who find it difficult to make that choice, let me tell you something. Let me help you. I am guilty. I killed everyone of those people. Do not feel sorry for me. I don't want your pity. I want justice for those victims. That is all I ask for."
Then someone off camera asked him a question. "Do you even remember them?"
"I remember all of them, " he said, his eyes brighter because of the tears in them. And then the camera faded out. We were at the end. There would be no more information.
*
We were given forty-eight hours to make up our minds and then told to place the relevant call. Mistakes could not be made. There were two telephone numbers, one for Guilty, one for Not Guilty. Even when you got through they asked you to verbally give your answer. None of us can say they took our vote down wrong.
Making that call was the hardest thing I ever did. Do I think I was right? Yes I do.
I sit now with the rest of the world to wait for the final result.
Will James Barnes live or die? Will he be found Guilty or Not Guilty? In my heart of hearts I hoped I knew the right answer because when I saw him in those last minutes I saw in his eyes. He wants to die. He believes he should. He believes he is guilty.
And do you know what I am going to do tomorrow?
I'm going to find my son.
And when I find him I am going to hold onto him and never let him go.
How did I ever lose him in the first place?