Face/Mask, page 17
“I think we should only worry about one thing,” Janus said, “and that’s what to do about Uncle Joe.”
Terry rested her head on his shoulder and sniffled softly. He leaned toward her and kissed her wet cheek. He told himself that there was a positive side to the way things had turned out. His family depended on him now more than ever. Even Joe. It had been a long time since Janus had felt so needed.
Chapter nine
Canadian Illegal Alien Enforcement Act 79-12-1466. Detention or arrest -- Determination of citizenship status: 113 (1) (a)... any law enforcement officer, acting in the enforcement of any provincial or federal law, may conduct any stop, detention, or arrest of a person based upon a reasonable suspicion that an offence was or may have been committed, and if the said person is unable to provide to the law enforcement officer a document listed in Subsection 76-9-1004(1) (known hereunder as a “cit-card”) and the officer is otherwise unable to verify the citizenship of the person, the officer shall detain such a person and have him brought before a verification tribunal, as established under Subsection 78-11-1955(3).
September 15, 2039:
Sahar sat on the sofa in her sparsely furnished living room. She’d just showered, leaving her wet hair wrapped in a towel.
“Towel head,” she thought to herself wryly, and not for the first time.
Allen Janus had rushed out of her apartment an hour earlier, his desire to help his wife’s uncle as confusing to her as it was to him. She shook her head, and put him and his unhappy family life out of her mind. She had other concerns just then, things she’d intended to discuss with him tonight, before his wife’s call had sent him off in a panic.
Just as well. This is something I’m going to have to deal with myself.
She reached into the top drawer in her night table and her hand clasped the chip that Tony had given her the day before. She breathed in deeply, telling herself that the longer she delayed opening it the harder it would be.
She slipped the chip into her P-screen, worrying as the ancient device’s auto-play whirred and clicked, before several file folders finally appeared.
What Tony had implied seemed impossible to her. As it was he admitted that he hardly understood the technical terminology. Part of her hoped that he’d simply misread the contents of the chip. She’d made peace with the events of 21 years earlier, the loss of so many lives including her own beloved family. She didn’t want to find out that there had been any lies behind that awful night.
The never-ending war against shadowy Jihadist enemies, the rounding up of Muslims across the western world; penned in like cattle, deprived of the very freedoms they’d left their homes to find. Would any of that really come to an end just because so much of the world’s hatred was born of a lie? And was she really about to become a crusader for the freedom of her people?
She decided that her fear of the truth wouldn’t stop her from opening the files and reading the reports. The information they contained wouldn’t be any less true just because she hadn’t read it. Lies didn’t become truth just because everybody believed them.
So she slid the reports open on the screen, and took a deep breath. The things people kept records of amazed her. Was it to remind themselves of the horrors they perpetrated? Or were they simply obsessively organized?
The first few pages listed so many parts on manifests, chemicals that were illicitly transferred, and equipment that was shipped with false identification numbers. These were the ingredients that went into making a small, portable nuclear bomb, spread out in front of her. She didn’t have to know what each word meant to understand that Tony had correctly grasped its meaning. Beyond the technical jargon were reports and recommendations made by organizations with acronyms that she didn’t recognize.
There had been an alphabet soup of intelligence, military and espionage agencies when she was growing up. Every time a new one was revealed on the news, Rafik used to tell her, there were two others which slipped deeper into the shadows. Nobody knew who they were, nor what they were up to.
Twenty-one years earlier somebody in one of these organizations, had worried that the public was tiring of the never-ending war on terror. The redeployment to Afghanistan in 2017 had barely lasted a year, before Western forces withdrew rather than confront an increasingly restive, and nuclear-armed, Pakistan. Nobody believed there was any point to all these wars; it wasn’t like the problems plaguing the Middle East were ever going to be resolved, so why should the West bother?
But a small a nuclear attack would get everybody back on board. Nobody would dare sit out that war. The outrage that such an attack would cause, not to mention the sheer terror, would rekindle fires of war across the globe. It would make the coalition that had jumped to America’s defense after Nine-Eleven look like a private club.
And so for the first time in history, an otherwise non-descript homegrown terrorist group, which until then had done nothing more than post anti-Zionist rants on various websites, was allowed to purchase a bomb.
Sahar’s reading was broken by the sound of her com whistling softly. She passed her hand over the P-screen and saw the face of Walid Kadri. Her old friend was a man who specialized in getting those things that were otherwise impossible to obtain.
“Bonsoir, ma chère,” he said, sounding as jovial as ever. “I hope I’m not disturbing you, but I wanted to be sure you were able to get the antibiotics I’d told you about.”
“Yes, Walid. Thank you. Everything worked out just as you said it would.”
“You know I’m always glad to help. I do have some potential leads for those rubber boots you’d asked me for.”
As he spoke Sahar found herself wondering if it was serendipity that he should call her just then. Walid was someone who knew a lot of people, both inside Laval and out. People that she could never get to on her own, but who could help her use the information that she’d been given. He had the kinds of connections that Tony had spoken to her about.
She just wasn’t sure she could trust him.
September 16, 2039:
Richard, who was growing into the position of responsibility that events had thrust him into, was up before seven, despite sleeping only four hours. His brothers had to be woken by seven-fifteen, and their breakfast had to be made. Uncle Joe always got up early to make everybody a fresh, hearty breakfast, but Richard realized that this would no longer be part of the family’s routine.
With his parents sleeping the sleep of exhaustion he limped into their room and turned off the alarm. Since the car accident he’d gotten quite agile with a single crutch and was happy to see that he could move around without disturbing them. He let his parents sleep while he prepared breakfast for Frankie and Rollie. It wouldn’t be very fresh or very hearty, but they could make do with pre-cooked waffles for today.
After he pulled the package out of the freezer he went online, using the mini P-screen on the kitchen counter, and checked the courthouse schedule: detainees had their first arraignments at 2:30 in the afternoon. This meant his parents could get some more sleep before having to head out, and he knew they needed it. He’d never seen his mom cry the way she had last night. In fact he hadn’t been able to keep his own tears in check in the face of Uncle Joe’s arrest.
Once his dad had come home, even though he had no good news, Richard began feeling calmer, the rush of events slowing down. Strange how his dad’s presence, something he’d both taken for granted and mostly ignored in recent years, calmed the panic he’d been feeling. It never occurred to him that his father didn’t know any criminal lawyers. He’d been a Director for so long Richard assumed he knew everyone.
Either way, Richard was confident that his father wouldn’t let the Cons get away with what they’d done to Uncle Joe.
He went into Frankie’s room to wake him. He wasn’t sure how he would tell his brothers that their beloved great-uncle had been arrested and taken away during the night. He could leave it to his parents to tell their two younger sons, but he felt that taking on this most serious and unpleasant task was something he had to do. It was scary, this new-found sense of responsibility, but strangely enjoyable as well.
The Palais de Justice de Montréal was one of the few major administration buildings in town that Janus had never entered. Although he had a general idea of where it was located, it was Richard who’d looked up the courthouse’s exact address. Terry sat quietly in the passenger seat next to Janus, large dark glasses hiding her puffy and bloodshot eyes. Several tissues were wadded up at her feet.
It was eleven o’clock, well before the scheduled time for arraignments. Janus still had no idea how he was going to go about finding a lawyer. The traffic crawled around the large black building that housed the criminal courts, its modern design standing out among the antiquated buildings of Old Montreal. It had been refurbished and expanded in the years following Quebec City, as had so many of the administration’s most important sites. Little else in the neighbourhood had been repaired or renovated for decades.
A spot opened up less than two blocks from the courthouse and Janus pulled in quickly. They got out of the car and hooked their unneeded air-masks on the shoulder straps of their coats. They made their way into the courthouse where they saw a large round information desk in the middle of the crowded lobby.
Grabbing Terry’s hand he pushed forward through the crowd until he was in line for the clerk behind the desk. The man was in his late sixties, thin and quite bald. He smiled and spoke with each person with an easy familiarity that indicated he’d held that position for many years, knew everyone there was to know and had seen everything there was to see.
Janus managed to control his impatience while waiting the few minutes it took until it was their turn. Terry was silent and compliant, letting herself be led wherever Janus took her. He’d never seen her like this, and he hoped she’d snap out of it soon.
Leaning across the desk, Janus spoke in a half-whisper to the clerk.
“Excuse me. My name is Allen Janus. This is my wife, Teresa,” he began, having no idea why he was bothering with introductions to this man. “Her uncle...he was arrested last night. I think...maybe he’s passing in court this afternoon?” He tried to sound in control of the situation but knew that his words had come out timidly, like a hopeful-sounding question.
The clerk wordlessly made his P-screen translucent, so that Janus could view a long list of names from his side of the desk. There were several dozen of them. Janus scrolled down the list, but didn’t find Joe’s name among them.
“His name’s not there,” he said.
The clerk looked carefully at the list, as if trying to find the name himself, although Janus had never told him what it was.
“You sure he’s supposed to appear this afternoon?”
“What do you mean? Aren’t all arraignments this afternoon?”
“Only criminal. What was he arrested for?”
“Well, he was arrested for…,” Janus wanted to say “for buying food on the black market,” but realized there was no point in maintaining that illusion. “Conspiracy…against the administration,” he forced the words out in a hoarse whisper.
“Sedition cases have their own schedule, and it’s never published ahead of time. For security reasons, you understand? What’s his name?”
“Joe...Giuseppe Pizzi. With two Z’s.”
The clerk slid his finger across the top of his desk and the list on the P-screen changed. This time there were twice as many names as the previous list. About two thirds of the way down, in the middle of a half a dozen P’s, Joe’s name glowed red.
“Here he is,” the clerk said. “Arraigned this morning.”
“He was already arraigned? I can’t believe we missed him.”
“Doesn’t matter. It was huis clos; that means behind closed doors. These kinds of cases always are.”
“These kind of cases?”
“Security proceedings.”
“But he isn’t a terrorist, for crying out loud!”
“There’s a zero-three next to his name,” the clerk answered with a shrug, as if this settled any question about the kind of person Giuseppe Pizzi was.
“So what happened?” Janus asked. “Where is he now?”
“Held over until next Friday. Bail hearing’s at 9:30, Room 3.07.”
“I can’t believe all this happened without any of us there for him. We didn’t even have time to find him a lawyer.”
The clerk pointed over Janus’s shoulder toward a harried-looking young man, hurrying toward an escalator and carrying a briefcase that was bursting at the seams.
“That’s Jean Larochelle. Legal Aid. He probably appeared for your uncle if there was no other lawyer in the file already.”
“Thanks,” Janus answered. He pulled on Terry's hand and rushed to catch up with the lawyer who was already half-way up to the next floor. As Janus approached the bottom of the escalator he yelled out his name, the growing feeling of panic overcoming his earlier concern for discretion. The lawyer got off at the second floor and turned to see who was yelling for him.
Janus pulled Terry onto the escalator and tried to catch his breath as he moved toward the waiting lawyer who, as they got closer, looked barely older than Richard.
“I'm sorry; you’re Mr. Larochelle, right?”
“Maitre Jean Larochelle, oui. Can I help you?”
“It’s my wife’s uncle,” Janus said, pulling Terry closer to him and holding their clasped hands up as if to prove their married status. “He appeared this morning. Maybe you represented him.”
“Probably. I appeared for close to a hundred people this morning.”
Janus was stunned at the thought that the lawyer had time to represent so many accused and it was barely past eleven o’clock.
“How…” he began to ask, but was unable to put his question into words.
“These arraignments are mere formalities,” the lawyer said, having guessed the unasked question. “They last less than a minute each, because virtually every suspect is detained until bail hearings which are scheduled in the coming days.”
“His name was Pizzi,” Janus said, trying not to think about the implications of the lawyer’s words. “Is Pizzi. Giuseppe. Like I said, he’s my wife’s uncle.”
Larochelle eyed Terry, surely wondering about this woman who stood wordlessly beside her husband, her expressionless face partially hidden by her large sunglasses. He set his briefcase down in the middle of the corridor and squatted next to it. Opening it he began rifling through the many files found inside. After a long search he stood up, holding a thin brown folder in one hand. Opening it he showed them a single silver-coloured disc in a clear plastic sleeve with a typed sticker on it.
“Here he is. Pizzi, Giuseppe. Charged with the whole gamut of sedition offences. Referred directly to the citizenship court for potential deportation. Bail hearing set for next Friday morning.”
At the words “potential deportation” Terry had sucked in her breath and squeezed her husband’s hand tighter. Janus turned to her and was surprised to see her remove her dark glasses.
She began to speak, had to clear her throat against a sob that was building there, then tried again.
“Are you any good at this?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Are you any good? As a lawyer I mean. You seem quite young and I want to make sure that my uncle is represented by someone who has experience in these security cases.”
Janus felt embarrassed by the harshness of her tone, but he was so surprised at her sudden revival that he said nothing. Larochelle blushed furiously at her question, but when he answered he was candid.
“I've been out of Bar School for two months, madame. That’s why they have me doing these arraignments. Because there’s nothing to be done for anyone, so there’s nothing for me to screw up. So, no, I have very little experience in security or any other cases. If you want to find a lawyer with experience, for whatever that’s worth, you can have your uncle’s file.”
He held out the folder and Terry eagerly grabbed it as if she feared he might change his mind.
“I don’t know all the lawyers around here very well yet,” Larochelle continued. “The man who can help you is Pascal, at the information desk. If anyone knows all the lawyers, it’ll be him.”
Larochelle proved as prophetic as he was honest about his own limited abilities. The clerk, Pascal, was unsurprised to see them back in line, Terry clasping her uncle’s file to her breast. When Janus explained to him what the young lawyer had told them Pascal smiled and reached into the front pocket of his shirt. He pulled out the business card of a lawyer named Jeff Silver whose office was across the street from the courthouse. The card was yellowing and bent around the edges, and the writing was partially faded.
“He’s a bit of a character,” Pascal said, “but he knows more about security proceedings than most people in the administration.”
“Security proceedings?” Terry cried, while Janus took her by the arm as they crossed the street. “They’re treating him like he’s some kind of terrorist over some goddamn lamb? Are they crazy?”
Janus said nothing. He was awestruck at the flood of misery he’d unleashed in his anger at Joe. He should have known that Joe’s arrest would convert his status to that of an illegal alien. And even without the trumped-up sedition charges, there were still minimum jail sentences for anybody who trafficked in any kind of contraband.
These were the very real consequences that Janus had turned a blind eye to in the days leading up to Joe’s arrest. Those were the days when he’d thought of nothing but how he was going to hurt him, whether Joe truly deserved those consequences or not. Now the situation was more serious than he’d ever dreamed it would be, and the consequences out of all proportion to Janus’s wounded feelings.
