The Dying Game

by Asa Avdic

“Yes, I did, and I knew that it was successful.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Secretary Nordquist. And it was evident in the report, as well.”

  The second interrogator jotted down another note and then went on.

  “What made you eventually accept that FLL would be planted in the medical room?”

  “The secretary explained how incredibly important it was for us to find out whether she was sufficiently rehabilitated not to have a relapse of ab . . . of use, no matter how pressing the situation. He felt that we couldn’t afford to bet on the wrong horse when it came to this job.”

  The second interrogator looked up from her papers.

  “Were those his words? ‘Bet on the wrong horse’?”

  “As I recall, yes.”

  The second interrogator continued to take notes. Katja wondered what she was writing.

  “So in the end, you went along with placing FLL on the island, like a sort of test of character?”

  “Yes. Wasn’t the whole thing a sort of test of character?” Katja said, immediately regretting her words.

  THE SECRETARY

  “WHOSE IDEA WAS it to place FLL on the island?”

  This was the woman, the second interrogator, speaking. He would have preferred to speak with the lead interrogator. It was always easier to talk to men. Maybe they knew he felt this way; maybe that was why they were letting her handle his interrogation. He decided not to let it affect him. But he had absolutely no desire to talk to a nagging bitch in uniform.

  “What do you mean, ‘whose idea’?”

  “I mean just that. Whose idea was it to place FLL on Isola?”

  “I’d have to go back and look through my notes if you want an answer to that. I don’t remember offhand.”

  She gave him a disarming smile, as if this was exactly what she had hoped he would say.

  “That’s no problem! We have all the background material right here. We can take a short break so you can check.”

  The secretary shook his head. Shit.

  “No, it would take too long to find it. I don’t even recall where that note might be.”

  Her smile grew even wider. He thought she looked like a snake about to swallow her prey whole.

  “We can take a break. So you have time to look up what you need to know to answer these questions. After all, they’re your own meeting minutes, so I’m sure it won’t take that long. Besides, we have all the time in the world. So . . .” She looked at her colleague, who gave a brief nod.

  “Okay, pausing the tape at 16:49 . . .”

  The secretary shook his head and waved his hand.

  “No, no . . . that won’t be necessary. We can continue.”

  She looked at him, her head at an angle, and appeared to arrive at a decision.

  “Then I will ask the question for a third time: Whose idea was it?”

  He had to say something. He cleared his throat.

  “There was a meeting that included a discussion of which weaknesses we needed to test our candidate for. And this came up as a particular worry, that there had been a history of addiction. It was important to find out how serious it was. And then someone suggested we could make the drug available and see if she would misappropriate it in a high-stress situation.”

  She persisted.

  “So it was your idea?”

  “I don’t remember whose idea it was.”

  With the same amused smile she had kept on her lips all along, she picked up a few sheets of paper in front of her, appeared to find what she was looking for, flipped to the correct page, and began to read out loud.

  “‘The secretary therefore suggests that we should make FLL accessible on the island to see if AF will suffer a relapse of abuse during an extremely stressful situation.’ Meeting minutes from the sixteenth of January. Is this familiar to you?”

  “Like I said, it was a discussion,” the secretary said acidly. “I don’t remember if it was me or someone else who came up with the suggestion.”

  “Is there any reason to doubt the accuracy of the minutes?”

  He muttered something under his breath. She continued to stare at him with those goddamn well-groomed eyebrows raised high on her forehead. He looked at her colleague, but he appeared to be thinking about something else, his eyes drifting far beyond the secretary’s head. Apparently there was no help to be found there.

  “Please answer the question.”

  She wouldn’t give up.

  “No. There isn’t,” the secretary responded curtly.

  The lead interrogator appeared to wake from his trance. He began to sift through the documents before him. The second interrogator bent over and whispered something to him, and he gave a short nod before speaking. “I’d like to talk a bit about the selection of Anna Francis. Isn’t it true that you were against her as a candidate? That the Chairman was the one who wanted her?”

  “It’s true that the Chairman suggested her.”

  “Were you of a different opinion?”

  “There were other candidates with other qualities.”

  “And what did you see as Anna Francis’s weaknesses?”

  “In an organization like the RAN group, it is important for people to be goal oriented. Pragmatic. To see the bigger picture.”

  The secretary felt like he was on safer ground here. He could hear it in his own voice. It sounded more like normal, more confident.

  “And that wasn’t true of Anna Francis?”

  Now it was back to the bitch with the eyebrows. The secretary pretended she wasn’t there; instead he continued to look at the lead interrogator as he answered.

  “Let’s just say that she’d had certain problems with those things earlier.”

  “What are you referring to?”

  She wouldn’t give up.

  “This Socratic method you’re using is rather annoying,” the secretary snapped. “Can’t you just ask me what you want to know?”

  She was still smiling. He wished she would wipe off that goddamn sneering smile.

  “I’d be glad to, if you’d go into a little more detail,” she said, then continued: “What did you have against Anna Francis?”

  “She was too obsessed with ethics.”

  The second interrogator’s eyebrows went up even farther, if that was possible.

  “Goodness, isn’t that an unusual objection? Too obsessed with ethics? You don’t believe that ethics are useful in the RAN group?”

  “There’s a difference between being ethical and having a Jesus complex. Sometimes you have to make tough decisions and it’s no use getting sentimental.” He shot the lead interrogator a pleading look, since he had gotten the impression that the man understood him better. But the man said nothing; he allowed his colleague to continue.

  “And did she?”

  “Well, it was pretty obvious that she took far too sentimental an outlook during certain sensitive situations in Kyzyl Kum, wasn’t it?”

  “Which situations are you referring to?”

  The secretary was suddenly tired of this whole situation.

  “For Christ’s sake, don’t just sit there grinning and pretend you don’t know what happened when she stopped obeying orders.”

  He immediately regretted his outburst when he saw the second interrogator’s smile broaden further.

  “I do know what happened, but I’m mostly curious about what you consider examples of her excessive sentimentality.”

  The secretary sat quietly and didn’t respond. He found it disturbing that she had caused him to lose his footing. The lead interrogator took the floor again.

  “Wasn’t it the case that the catastrophe itself occurred because no one listened to her?”

  The secretary gave a deep sigh.

  “No, that is not my understanding.
She was the problem. A civilian aid worker in the field is not supposed to be in charge. She is supposed to obey her military superiors.”

  “Even if they’re wrong?”

  The secretary crossed his arms over his chest and said nothing. The first interrogator looked down at his papers again before he went on:

  “So it sounds like you were never that fond of Anna Francis as a candidate, after all?”

  “She had her strengths and her weaknesses. That was true of everyone we looked at,” the secretary responded.

  He pursed his lips and looked away.

  KATJA

  “YOU WERE THE first to disappear from the house after Anna. Can you walk us through it?”

  The lead interrogator put down his coffee cup, which the uniformed guard had brought in a moment before. They had just returned from a short break; Katja had gone to the bathroom while the second interrogator left the room to order coffee for all of them. Katja thought they looked tired, both the lead and the second interrogator. She wondered who they had spoken with already and who they had left on their list. She still didn’t quite know why it was so important for them to get a clear picture of every detail, and above all she didn’t know why the interrogations were taking place here, and performed by security officials. She understood that it meant something had gone wrong, but she didn’t know what. Now here she was again, trying to remind herself to just answer the questions. It was harder than she’d expected; it seemed like extra information kept slipping out alongside what she meant to say. But this was a question she could answer.

  “It was a fairly simple plan. We had a camera down on the Strategic Level; the images were sent to the screen of Henry’s watch. The quality wasn’t very good, of course, but we could at least keep track of where Anna was. Henry prepared the pier when he was searching that part of the island along with Franziska and Jon. They were occupied in the boathouse. I sneaked in before him and he came after me as soon as he had the chance. We staged a little fight together, and when Anna started to come up I lay down on the floor in a puddle of blood.”

  The lead interrogator nodded in agreement, as if these were facts he already knew, which he probably did.

  “And what happened when she came up?”

  “The hope was that she would turn around in the hatch and go right back down as soon as she saw me lying there, that she would assume I was dead. The point was for her to see me. That was all.”

  “But?” The lead interrogator urged her on in her story.

  “Instead she came over to examine me. Henry had to take her out.”

  “Take her out?”

  This was the second interrogator’s question, and she put emphasis on each syllable. Katja cleared her throat.

  “Yes, with a blow to the temple. There was no danger to her; he’s a professional.”

  “You weren’t worried about what consequences this might have to her health?”

  The tone was mild, but her gaze had hardened.

  “Like I said, he’s a professional, and I’m a doctor. We were aware, of course, that this sort of situation might arise, and that this was a potential solution that wouldn’t put Anna in any immediate danger.”

  The second interrogator bent over her papers and made a note. Those notes. What is she writing? Katja wondered again. The second interrogator went on, her eyes still on her papers.

  “And once you had ‘taken her out’?”

  “We cleaned up, and I stopped to keep an eye on her until she showed the first signs of coming to. Then Henry left, I hid near the kitchen door, and when the others ran up from behind the house I left that way and made my way down to the underground shelter. And then I was out of play.”

  “Interesting. I would like to move on to another topic. Let’s go back to the report you received earlier, before you arrived on the island. What more did you read about Anna Francis?”

  “Well, there had been some sort of problem where she didn’t obey orders.”

  “Can you expand on that?” the lead interrogator asked.

  “She was ordered to stop negotiating with the military.”

  “And what happened?”

  “She continued to negotiate, if I’m not mistaken. Behind the backs of her superiors. And they found out. And then there was some trouble.”

  “Trouble?”

  “She was ordered to give in and stop negotiating once and for all. And then that situation arose . . .”

  The lead interrogator nodded in encouragement. “Go on.”

  “When they went in to put a stop to the negotiations, in her place, the military attacked the medical transports. A lot of people died there in a short amount of time.”

  “And how do you know all of this?”

  This was the second interrogator, intervening. For some reason, she made Katja more nervous than the lead interrogator. Her techniques were more difficult to defend oneself against.

  “Anna’s version of the incident is in the report. And so are her superiors’.”

  “What were the consequences?”

  “It was probably around that point that she began to break down, and her use of FLL grew more serious, if I have understood it correctly. She just couldn’t deal with it all, after that.”

  The second interrogator made another note and appeared to be pondering her next move; then she asked, “Would you say it was right or wrong of her to disobey orders?”

  “That’s not up to me to evaluate,” Katja said quickly. No speculation; just answer the questions.

  “They wanted to put her in front of a military tribunal. Send her home, even then, did you know that?”

  “No.”

  Katja was about to say that perhaps they ought to have done so, so that Anna would have been spared all of this, but she pressed her lips together to stop herself from saying any more. The second interrogator held her gaze for a moment to see if she planned to expand upon her answer. Then she conferred in whispers with the lead interrogator as he paged through the papers in front of them, found what he was looking for, and handed it to her. The second interrogator took up the line of questioning again.

  “Now I’d like to talk some more about what happened on the island. You were there to be in charge of the medical side of things. Would you say that your medical resources would have been sufficient to deal with severe trauma, such as gunshot wounds?”

  “No.”

  “Did you know that there was a gun on the island?”

  Katja had not anticipated this question.

  “No, I didn’t know that.”

  “I see,” said the second interrogator, without taking her eyes from Katja. “What would you have thought of this, had you been asked?”

  “I would have said that it was profoundly inappropriate.”

  “What do you think about the fact that you weren’t asked?”

  Katja hesitated to answer. She was surprised to learn about the gun, but she tried once again to remind herself not to speculate about things that didn’t pertain to her part of the narrative. At the same time, she knew she wouldn’t get away with saying nothing. She tried to choose her words carefully.

  “I was responsible for the medical situation on the island, as you yourself pointed out. I suppose I don’t consider it within my area of responsibility to make that decision. But if you want my opinion, it sounds like it was a very bad idea.”

  “Why?” The second interrogator kept staring at her as if she were trying to hypnotize her.

  “Well, you can never be certain what a person might do under extreme stress and isolation, can you? What anyone might do?”

  “But if you were medically responsible, wouldn’t you think it was your responsibility to make sure that the medical resources were sufficient to treat any injuries that might occur? Shouldn’t you have known more?”

  “One mig
ht think so.”

  “Do you think so?”

  “I don’t want to answer that question.”

  The second interrogator finally looked away from her and leaned back in her chair. At the same instant, the lead interrogator suddenly bent forward. He no longer looked as friendly. They’re good at this, Katja thought. They’ve had practice.

  “Okay. Let’s return to what sort of information about Anna Francis you were given in advance. Is there anything else worth mentioning?”

  Katja thought about what she should say. These constant jumps through time and changes of subject made her feel uncertain about what they were trying to get at with their questions, and what she had actually said. Presumably, she thought, that was the point.

  “Yes.”

  “And what is that?”

  “Well, it was that . . . I’m sorry, I find this very uncomfortable to talk about.”

  Katja took a breath. The lead interrogator urged her on.

  “I understand, but we have to get to the bottom of what happened.”

  “Yes. Okay, it was about that shooting.”

  “Tell us what you knew.”

  “Well, she had fired a gun at a civilian in the hospital. I’m guessing that was why they sent her home, in the end.”

  “Who was this civilian?”

  The lead interrogator’s voice was low and neutral, but his body language revealed that he was focusing intensely. The second interrogator’s eyes were fixed on her too.

  “It was a boy from the village.”

  “What were the circumstances?”

  “He had broken into the hospital that night. She thought it was someone trying to steal medicine.”

  “Medicine? Not FLL?” asked the second interrogator, who was also leaning across the table by this point.

  “Well, it was probably all in the same place,” Katja said, trying to remember what she had read in the report. Why do I want to defend her? she asked herself.

  “But it wasn’t true?”

  “No, not as far as I know. He was looking for food. She shot the head off a ten-year-old boy who stole an apple.”

  The first interrogator gave her an ingratiating smile.