Exile Hunter

by Preston Fleming

  After a dozen or more interrogation sessions while relegated to the punishment cell, the guards woke Linder one evening and led him to a nearby guard’s lavatory. There they tossed him a tiny bar of soap and allowed him enough time to clean up thoroughly before handing him a fresh pair of orange prison coveralls. Standing naked before the guards, Linder examined his own emaciated body: the atrophied limbs, with muscles now reduced to sinew, the pallid leathery skin, the sagging cheeks and dark bags under his eyes, the dark hair turning a dull gray and falling out in clumps.

  Linder’s mind recoiled at the signs of his premature physical decline and the threat it posed to his chances of survival. Yet, at some deeper level, he knew that, if this were to be his only punishment, he was getting off lightly. If his interrogation ended in death, the victims whose faces had haunted him in his nightmares would be cruelly cheated. To even the score for all the suffering he had inflicted upon enemies of the state while serving his government, ten such interrogations would not be enough.

  After he had washed, the guards led Linder to a large and brightly lit interrogation room he had never seen before. Behind the steel table stood the troll, glaring at Linder with a contempt bordering on hatred.

  “You have a visitor,” the troll scowled. “You may sit opposite each other at the table. If either of you stands or leaves your seat, the visit will be terminated. You have ten minutes.”

  The troll left the room and two guards arrived a moment later with a woman following close behind. The guards took up positions a few paces behind each seat at the steel table and moved aside for the woman to sit. Linder’s heart sank. It was his sister, April.

  Linder had seen April last nearly a year before. He had gone to Cleveland to visit his father in the hospital and April had joined him in the crowded cardiac ward, keeping their father company until the time came for his bypass surgery. Linder recalled that April had looked older than her thirty-three years. She had been a strikingly attractive girl in her youth, with alluring dark eyes, an eye-catching figure and a capable, confident manner. But time had not been kind to her since moving in with her father upon their mother’s death two years ago.

  Now April seemed to be fighting a losing battle against premature middle age. Her face was pale and puffy and frown lines had appeared around her forehead, eyes, and lips. Judging from the dark crescents under her eyes, the burdens of caring for an ailing parent and the worry and shame of having a brother accused of national security crimes had doubtless cost her many a sleepless night and possibly her job. Linder observed that April’s sweater, blouse, and slacks were faded and shapeless from too many washings. His sister had always been a gentle soul who saw the best in everyone and was capable of tireless effort to care for those in need. But he could see that even she had reached the limits of her strength.

  Linder bristled at recalling how the Unionist regime persecuted families of prisoners charged with crimes against the state. Though Linder's father and sister had both been Unionist Party members, their membership would almost certainly have been suspended by now, along with the substantial privileges it brought, and bureaucratic obstacles would be raised to their collecting even ordinary government benefits like social security or Medicare. The DSS would have ordered a meticulous background check of both in hope of uncovering some past offense that would sweep them into the same net as the accused family member. And, once the investigators began grilling Linder’s relatives, neighbors, classmates, and former coworkers, April’s friends and fellow schoolteachers would shun her for fear of being associated to a dangerous public enemy.

  April’s presence in the interrogation room could mean only one thing: that the DSS had beaten her down far enough that she would urge him to confess. She reached her slender pale hands across the tabletop and Linder took them up and held them to his lips. Momentarily losing their awareness of the guards standing a few paces behind them, brother and sister rose at once as if to embrace across the table.

  “No standing allowed,” barked one of the guards.

  They froze, still holding each other’s hands, before sinking to their seats. Aware that anything they said could be used against them, their eyes and fingertips conveyed in an instant the most important message that each had to convey: that their loyalty to one another remained supreme, and that neither would take the side of state or party against the other.

  “Are you…?” Both attempted to speak at once.

  “…well?” April continued when her brother stopped with a faint smile.

  “Better than I look,” Linder replied, forcing a brave smile.

  “You’ve lost weight.” April’s red-rimmed eyes held back tears.

  “I could spare it,” he said with a self-deprecating smile. “Listen, I’m sorry you have to see me looking like this...”

  “No, no, it’s okay!” she exclaimed. “Really, I insisted on coming to see you as soon as I heard you’d been detained. But it took them weeks to tell me where you were.” She looked over Linder’s shoulder at the guard behind him, then continued in a voice barely above a whisper. “And even then they wouldn’t permit visitors for the longest time.”

  “Listen, April,” he urged, “I don’t want you or Dad to worry about me. “Whatever happens, you and Dad need to take care of each other. There’s nothing you can do to help me. It seems the fix is in.”

  “Warren, I’m so afraid for you. They told me…”

  “Don’t believe anything they say,” he warned. “They’ll tell you whatever it takes to have what they want. The only way to get the truth out of them is to challenge them on every point and demand documents to back it up.”

  “But what about your trial, Warren? They told me that if you don’t reach a plea agreement, you could be shot for treason!”

  “And I could also be acquitted,” he assured her. “The DSS doesn’t like going to trial if they think they might lose. That’s why they always seek a plea bargain, and it’s why I demanded a trial.”

  “But if you plead guilty to a lesser charge, they said you might go free in as little as five or ten years. You could still have a life…” A tear streaked down April’s cheek and Linder reached out to erase it with his thumb.

  “After admitting to having aided the insurgency?” Linder scoffed. “Not a bloody chance. I’d never get out.”

  April swallowed hard and looked down at her trembling hands.

  “You mentioned Dad. I’m afraid I have some bad news.”

  Linder felt all his muscles go slack at once and slumped in his chair.

  “He died two weeks ago,” April continued. “In his sleep. They said he was too old to qualify for another heart operation.”

  “I was afraid that might happen,” Linder replied, struggling to maintain self-mastery. “Tell me, April: when he died, had he heard about my…” Now it was Linder’s turn to peer over his sister’s shoulder at the guard.

  April nodded. “Some people from Washington came by the house while I was at work. They told Dad you were under arrest and asked him a lot of questions. He told them to go pound salt. You know Dad…”

  Linder brightened and April smiled back while dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief. “Don’t beat yourself up over Dad,” she went on. “He could see the end coming for a long time. After forty years of smoking, it almost seemed like…”

  “Yeah,” Linder interrupted. “He knew exactly what he was doing. But how about you, April? How are you coping all by yourself?”

  “Oh, I get by,” she said without conviction.

  “How is your job? Did you get the promotion to assistant principal?”

  April lowered her eyes.

  “Yes, but I’m on leave without pay till after your trial,” she replied. “The Party suspended my membership and the principal told me to stay home.”

  “How are you covering the bills?” Linder asked with pain in his voice.

  “I had some savings tucked away. And Dad left a little something for each of us when he died…” />
  “Please take my share,” Linder insisted. “All of it. I’d give you more, but I’ve lost access to my accounts. If they let me, I’ll send you a list and you can try to gain access to whatever’s there. I’ve designated you as co-owner or beneficiary wherever I could…”

  “That’s all right, Warren. You keep what you have,” April replied, giving her brother’s hand a squeeze. I put the house up for sale. That ought to cover things for a while.”

  Linder bowed his head in shame.

  “I’m so sorry to leave you alone like this, April,” he declared. “If I had known, I might have…”

  “No, don’t say it. There’s no point in beating yourself up. None of us can see the future,” his sister replied. “All I ask is that you do your best to save yourself. You’re all I have left, Warren. Promise me you won’t stay away a minute longer than you have to. Will you do that?”

  Linder nodded rather than speak, for his eyes filled with tears and he feared losing control.

  “One minute warning,” the guard announced.

  “How will I find you again?” April asked with urgency when the guard retreated. “They said you’d be transferred after the trial. Where will you be?”

  Now Linder lowered his voice to just above a whisper.

  “You can inquire at the District DSS office but they probably won’t tell you anything. I’ll try to get a message out to you somehow. But not at the house. I’ll write to you through one of our relatives.”

  “I’ll be watching for it,” his sister replied softly. “But please find a way to come back, Warren. If anyone can do it, it's you. I don’t know how I could go on if you...”

  “Don’t think that way,” Linder broke in. “I’ll get out. Till then, keep praying for me.”

  Brother and sister rose in the same instant and embraced before the guards rushed forward and pulled April away.

  After his sister’s visit, Linder was led back to his original cell, the one he had occupied before his stint in the punishment block. There he collapsed onto the cot, mentally and emotionally drained, and sank into a dreamless sleep. After what seemed like many hours, the guards rousted him from bed and brought him to one of the usual interrogation cells, where the troll awaited him.

  “You’ve wasted enough of my time, Linder,” the interrogator snarled, his eyes smoldering with malice. “I’ve signed you over for trial.”

  The troll drew a stack of legal-size documents out of a battered aluminum briefcase and slapped them down on the table before continuing.

  “We’ve prepared a confession based on the material covered during your interrogation. If you sign it and help pursue your co-conspirators, I can guarantee you’ll get no more than ten years at hard labor. If you go to trial and are convicted, you could face a firing squad.”

  “Or the judge could laugh your phony evidence out of court,” Linder replied.

  “You don’t know our judges,” the troll answered with a smirk.

  “I’ll take my chances.”

  “I wouldn't be so optimistic if I were in your shoes,” the troll replied. “The trial is set for tomorrow. There’s still time to change your mind. Allow me to present my closing argument.”

  With that, the troll stepped behind Linder and suddenly kicked the chair out from under him. Before he could right himself the tip of a heavy boot struck Linder in the cheek and filled his mouth with the taste of blood.

  Blow upon blow fell from the troll’s rubber truncheon upon Linder's back, ribs, shoulders, and arms. He curled into a ball and protected the nape of his neck with his hands, but the blows fell on his knuckles and wrists with agonizing pain. When the blows stopped, the guards lifted Linder onto a chair. He slumped forward with his chest on his knees and noticed that the salty taste wouldn’t go away. There was an object in his mouth, something jagged and superfluous. He spit it onto the floor. It was a tooth.

  The troll waved a copy of the printed confession in Linder’s face.

  “Sign it.”

  “I haven’t even read it,” Linder responded through the swelling pain.

  “You don’t need to. Just sign it and I’ll leave you alone.”

  Linder’s tongue probed the gap where his tooth had been while his mind methodically assessed the damage to the rest of his body.

  The guards pulled him upright and deposited him on the chair, where he sat while the troll circled, occasionally whacking him on a shoulder or an exposed elbow with a well-aimed truncheon blow. Before long, the muscles of Linder’s lower back and legs seized up in a series of agonizing cramps. He teetered on the edge of the chair until the troll once more kicked it out from under him. Linder’s tailbone hit the concrete floor and sent a spasm of pain up his spine.

  “Had enough?” the interrogator breathed inches from Linder’s face as he lay stunned on the concrete.

  Linder made no reply.

  “Sign it!” the troll bellowed into his ear.

  Linder was at the edge of his endurance but one small defiant part of his consciousness clung to the knowledge that confession meant almost certain death. So long as he retained the will to live and could raise an ounce of resistance, he would not sign a document that could legalize his execution.

  “Never,” Linder whispered.

  The beating continued. How much pain could his body tolerate? The limit was far beyond what Linder had imagined. He passed out and reawakened. The beating resumed. He passed out again. When he returned to consciousness, he saw the troll hovering above him with a hypodermic needle in his hand. One of the guards held Linder’s arms in an iron grip while the troll injected him.

  They hoisted him onto the chair and prodded him in the ribs to make him sit upright. Seconds passed, then minutes, while the pain ebbed and an odd mental clarity took hold of Linder. All at once, it entered his mind that the injection might be some sadistic innovation to prolong the torture by preventing him from passing out when the pain became intolerable. But the thought passed quickly and Linder thought it odd that it no longer worried him.

  The guards seized hold of the chair on either side and dragged Linder forward to the steel table. The printed confession lay before him, folded back to the signature page.

  “Now sign,” the troll ordered.

  Linder raised his hand with difficulty and pushed the papers aside.

  “Take the pen and sign it,” the troll repeated through clenched teeth. He seized Linder’s right hand and formed it around the pen.

  “Sign!”

  Linder felt another jab in the ribs but didn’t flinch. Both pain and anxiety had receded now and the cramped muscles in his legs and back were relaxing. He welcomed the sense of comfort and ease that suffused his awareness. As he stared at the pen in his hand, he became unsure what to do with it. Whatever it was didn’t seem important any more.

  * * *

  Linder awoke once again to the sound of the cell door clanging open. His eyes seemed glued shut and his mouth filled with cotton. He sensed a chill dampness at his hips and groin and realized that he had wet himself while sleeping.

  Linder rolled over to search for his water bottle. The movement triggered a series of hammer blows inside his head and a strong urge to retch. He tried to remember what had happened to him just before he passed out but recalled only the beating and the injection. Apart from the nausea and pain, a sense of indefinable dread enveloped him like a cloud of poison gas.

  At that moment, his cell door rolled open and a guard tossed him a pair of cheap plastic flip-flops.

  “Up on your feet,” the guard barked before stepping inside to shackle him. “Time to get moving.”

  Once safely shackled and hooded, Linder shuffled down the corridor between his two guards. After making several unexpected turns and passing through doors never before encountered, Linder entered a section of the building that seemed completely unfamiliar. He heard the whir of an approaching elevator. When it stopped, the guards shoved him inside. He counted to twelve until it bumped to a stop
, the door rolled open and his guards led him out again through a sliding steel door and down a few steps.

  They were outdoors. Linder felt the cool, moist air on his face and imagined how a foggy November morning in Northern Virginia might look. The air smelled of burning leaves. It had been mid-September when he arrived in Beirut. By now, he thought, it must be November or December.

  As they crossed a paved yard, a chill breeze penetrated Linder’s thin prison coveralls and made him shiver. They climbed a few stairs to the entrance of another building, where Linder was searched for contraband, then led up a stairway to an overheated room that smelled of stale cigarette smoke and coffee. His hood was removed.

  The room was long, narrow, and windowless. Along three of its four sides stood battered oaken tables arranged in a horseshoe formation. At the far end sat three middle-aged judges, two men and one woman, in black robes, while on the left sat a pair of young prosecutors in immaculate gray DSS uniforms. All eyes were on him as he entered the room, and not one face showed any sign of warmth, understanding or even curiosity. On the right sat a gray-bearded black male of about sixty wearing wire-rimmed bifocals and a shabby tweed sport jacket, whom Linder guessed to be his court-appointed defense attorney. Each person seated around the horseshoe-shaped table arrangement had a thick orange file-folder opened before him or her.

  The guards held Linder a few paces from the door, awaiting further instructions. Linder jangled his waist chain to draw attention and the guards loosened their grip while another uniformed DSS officer, perhaps a prosecutor, leaned across the table at the rear of the room, conferring with one of the judges. Each of the judges and attorneys sipped coffee; the two male judges alternated sips with deep drags on their cigarettes. Every one of them wore a bored expression, as if their work had been reduced to mind-numbing routine.

  At last, the uniformed DSS official took a seat behind Linder and the buzz of conversation subsided. The chief judge, a heavy-set man in his sixties, cleared his throat and called for the defendant to come forward. Suddenly all eyes turned to Linder again. His guards led him to the center of the room and retreated two steps. At a signal from the chief judge, the guards shacked Linder to the steel chair, which was bolted to the floor, and withdrew to a row of seats along the back wall.