EXILE

Behind the departing car, two telephone linesmen finished cleaning their tools, and began to dismantle their work tent. Across the road, an old, blind beggar stood up from where he had sat for most of the morning, and for the previous two weeks. He turned, and shambled off down the avenue towards the industrial lake area. No-one in the Lake Precinct saw him again, although he saw them.

In an anonymous brown sedan, heading with its surrounding traffic towards the older, central part of the city, Abraham Stein sat between two satisfied agents of the Central Security Agency. The agents were satisfied in the knowledge that, despite the lack of material evidence, the circumstantial evidence would strongly support their arrest. The man on the back seat had no identification on him at all, which itself was an offence. The CSA’s intelligence, some of it bought, some stolen, some given, had led the surveillance initiative on the State Hotel, and three others.

Most important, the leader was certain that Stone, as he was known to the agents, was the author of certain pages found after a Freedom-cell bust. Knowing that they had probably captured a leader of the seditious Freedom Movement, and to have also stopped an attempt on the life of one of the ten Committee members, had given the agents cause to be relatively relaxed, and almost cocky in their own reflections of the glory that would come to them.

Knowing that the assassination would now succeed comforted Stein, causing him to be as relaxed as the agents were. He knew as well as the agents did that he would be booked, interrogated, held indefinitely on remand, and successfully tried on a charge of treason, before being either deported for life, or publicly executed. It was as certain as the sun rising in the morning. After all, people had been executed for less, despite the lack of hard evidence.

The Committee always had their way, which was the problem. Because the Committee held absolute power over the Earth, they continually sought to maintain their unfaltering authority. But in the last several years, that authority had begun to falter. As it began, a groundswell of public discontent began to make its first murmurs heard. Starting out of vague, spontaneous outbursts of personal doubt regarding the intentions of the Committee’s Government for the People, the Freedom Movement was born. An organised, committed force, it worked with the support of the world’s breadline masses to erode the quasi-military government that maintained the Central Committee’s hold on the world and it’s people. The marvel of the Freedom Movement was that it was both highly popular and extremely secretive. No members ever admitted to their membership, or even much knowledge of the Movement itself. Members were recruited by invitation; people wanting to join had no way of knowing how, or who, to approach.

Extremely careful and meticulous planning was the trademark of the Movement’s activities, and the key to its survival. Despite this, the Movement did have a history of taking severe and unpredictable risks. This morning was one of them. The agents had received sufficiently correct information to lead them to Stein, who they correctly suspected as being sent to try to kill some of the Committee members. Half of the Committee were booked to make a public appearance at the dock area, to commission the new spaceport.

Located at the old steel docks, the spaceport was to be the new link between Chicago and the orbiting platforms that served as transit points for the shipments of lunar ore. In ages past, the docks had received shipments of steel ore from the far shores of Lake Superior. The lake’s ore reserves were long since exhausted. To satisfy the hunger for industrial steel, the low-grade ore reserves below the lunar surface were now being exploited. To lower the costs of recovering the ore, convict labour was used, eliminating wages from the balance sheet. The Chicago area had the facilities for receiving ore, and the virtually unusable water of the dead lakes offered a near-inexhaustible source of hydrogen for the fusion thrusters of the super-orbital cargo shuttles.

The plan of the Freedom Movement was meticulous, and near-impossible to fail. It was assumed that some of the six assassins would be uncovered, but it would take only one to succeed. Only two members knew that there would be more than one; Stein was one of them. He was certain, then, that the information given to the CSA would be incomplete. Perhaps, even, it would contain certain elements of disinformation. If that was the case, then the informant would be identified by the information that he or she sold.

Stein was pleased, despite his rather straightened circumstances. It was clear to him that the agents, and the CSA in general, were sure that Stein was the only assassin. Having him in custody would lead them to relax the inevitable “hunter” security measures that would have been in place in the spaceport if he had not been arrested. His arrest make his colleagues’ jobs both easier and safer, and only serve to ensure their success. Quietly, cuffed and wedged between the CSA agents on his way to his less than favourable fate, Stein smiled to himself at the irony of the situation. The success of the agents ensured the Movement’s success, and the agents’ ultimate failure.

As the sedan left the freeway, Stein looked out of the window at the city. Many different shades of brown and grey, the sprawling acres of concrete and brick gleamed dully through the steam and yellow-brown clouds of polluted air that rose from the streets and factories. From above, the city looked to be devoid of sound, to have lost its character somewhere in the decades of social collapse and the neglect of the city’s people. It was the people within that was the soul of the city, the living pulse that kept it alive, no matter how scarred its skins appeared to have become.

The air inside the car was warming quickly, with four men inside. Stein looked through the gap between the seats to the dash, where he could see the digital clock above the map display. Approaching eleven o’clock, he quickly calculated the time difference remaining. The CSA building would have already been informed of his arrest, and confirmation would come within fifteen minutes, when he would arrive at the booking office. Only then would the security be notified at the spaceport, giving them a further three hours to relax and redeploy many of the agents to other assignments. The other Movement operators would have, then, a very easy time succeeding.

The freeway off-ramp peeled away from the exposed, elevated freeway, and the sedan drove down it to the city as if descending into an anonymous abyss. Within seconds, the crumbling city blocks swallowed them, and they entered a world of perpetual shade, where most of the natural light that made it to the ground did so only when eddies in the air currents around the buildings blew open holes in the thick mantle of scummy cloud. Amber street lights remained on continuously, lighting the cracked pavement. People were everywhere, most of them working for some part of the vast administrative machine that controlled their lives. The CSA regional headquarters was in the heart of the district, surrounded by buildings that housed other government departments. Some felt that it was to offer security to the Committee’s minions, but the truth was that it was so that the CSA could monitor their colleagues more efficiently.

The sedan moved through the streets smoothly, with little fuss. Traffic was limited to essential services only, with commuters using the underground trains. At this time of the morning, most of the cars on the road were heading out, not in. A couple of turns and three kilometres later, the sedan turned to head down into a basement carpark. The building was an unappealing, featureless brown block with shaded windows. The CSA building. All windows were double-glazed with vacuum insulation, to prevent laser-pulse systems being used to eavesdrop. In all probability, it was the most secure building in Chicago.

The sedan drove slowly down to the second basement level, and pulled up outside a well-lit entrance that had a guarded window booth inside the bulletproof glass door. Stein had no doubt where he was. The booking hall of the CSA was not open to the public. The only people to pass through here were new arrests. Like a valve, it let people through one way only. No-one ever left by this door. With the motor still running, the lead agent opened his door and got out, pulling Stein out behind him. A uniformed guard approached from the door, and took Stein by the arm, pulling him away from the car. Stephens got out of his side of the car, and pulled open the trunk. The driver had already unlatched it. He reached inside, and took out the sack with the evidence bags. Closing the trunk, he followed Stein and the other agent into the booking hall, while the driver pulled out to park the car elsewhere.

As Stein passed through the doors, which swept shut behind him with a low, hushing hiss. A woman guard came up to him and passed a hand-held metal detector over him - he was clean. He was then escorted to a small, restricted booth for personal identification. The agent pushed him gently down onto a stool, while the woman guard then swung out from the wall a padded head clamp, and secured Stein’s head. In front of his face was a small, high-resolution digital camera that automatically approached to within ten centimetres of his face. Lit by a low-power laser, it spent the next five seconds scanning his eyes, taking a definitive retinal image. The camera sent the image as a stream of digital information to the CSA population index computer centre in Maryland.

For the last fifty years, skin-graft technology and gene manipulation had made the traditional fingerprint identification rules obsolete. For thousands of years fingerprints had been an indelible, unique pattern for each individual that they carried for life. Developed originally to replace lost skin on burns victims, synthetic skin cultured to duplicate a patient’s DNA became not only the passport to a disfigurement-free future for some, but also a major problem for the police force. Although the synskin was guaranteed to take, and to replace full-thickness skin without the characteristic smooth buckling of scar tissue, it had no discernible wrinkle pattern. Original attempts to superimpose a permanent replica of a skin-template proved to be unpractically expensive for all but the well-insured. This relatively minor flaw was soon exploited by those wishing to become anonymous to the State. All that was required was a synskin graft to each fingertip. It soon became fashionable, and within a generation had become a ritual operation performed on new-born infants.

The chaos that confronted the State was obvious. For a period of five years arrests dropped, until the new technology was fully operational. As infants had their fingerprints removed, so their retinas were photographed at birth. So done, the State swiftly regained its hold on the population. After all, no-one would risk altering their retinal map out of fear of blindness. Least of all when the State refused all pension and social security-related benefits for what it considered to be self-inflicted handicaps.

The coded images were stored, along with many details of each person’s life and activities, at the Maryland complex, housed in a bomb-proof underground bunker with its own dedicated power supply. Sifting through millions of codes, the retina-ID bank worked along program structures that were based on telephone exchanges. Comparing codes, the machine reduced the possible likely matches from several million to several thousand, to hundreds, tens, and then one.

As he sat, with the Agent and the guard behind him, Stein saw the booth terminal flash as it filled with words. He knew what it contained. The Agent read it with interest. “Stein, Abraham. Not exactly Stone, is it?” He placed his hand on Stein’s shoulder. “Looks like we’ve got you good and proper, now, doesn’t it?” His face twisted into a snarled grimace, probably the closest thing that he ever came to a full-on smile. Stein knew that his future was secure. Admitting false identity was a charge that he would have difficulty defending, even if he did claim that he was known by the anglicised version of his true name.

Watching the screen fill with the summarise plot of his life story, Stein couldn’t help letting a small chuckle escape from his throat. With the text being scrolled down the left-hand side of the screen, the right-hand side was being filled in with the digital image of an early i.d. photograph. Very early. He recognised it as being from his final year at high school, shortly after his eighteenth birthday. Officially an adult, the image that looked out of the screen at him had an unruly mass of black curls framing a chubby, zit-scarred face with skin that was decidedly tighter and more elastic than what it had since become.

Stein gazed briefly at the youth that faced him, regretting what innocence the boy had lost, but not what he had become. Reduced to a statistic with a name, the boy had been confronted with the moral choice that every other person had been given - to comply with the State directives, to do what he was told, to learn what was shown, to go where directed, to speak to only the right people, to toe the line, or the alternative. Few chose to assert their rights as people, as individuals. Few who did remained at large for long. Stein was not so much lucky as very clever, calculating the risks and choices for every move that he made. Long ago people had done much the same, but as a game, and called it chess. Abraham Stein called it his life.

The screen stopped scrolling new information, and a single sheet of paper was pushed out from a printer slot. On it there was a copy of Stein’s photo, and his identification - name, number, retina code, in case his record was to be accessed again. The guard took the paper, and released Stein’s head from the clamp. Stein stood up, and the guard took him by the arm and led him back out of the booth. The Agent had already moved into the corridor, and was chatting to another agent. When he saw Stein he stopped talking, and followed Stein and the guard down to the interrogation rooms. The corridor was busy with guards, agents and the latest round of arrests. As they walked down the hall, Stein could see briefly into some of the rooms through the small windows set at head height in the doors. Some were empty, others being used. Half-way down, Stein glanced into a room on his left, and saw a man whom he knew. The recognition came first, but not the name. The man was about five feet and four inches tall, with a stocky, muscular build. His most distinguishing feature was his shoulder-length mane of flame-red hair. He was in discussion with two agents, one of whom was relatively senior in the hierarchy - Stein recognised this by the purple i.d. card pinned to the agent’s lapel. All agents were colour-coded in order of rank. A standard visual reminder of who was who’s boss.

Stein spent the next several paces trying desperately to think of who the man was. By the time that he was escorted into an empty room, all that his memory had come up with was the G4 cell of the Freedom Movement. G4 was made up of a Movement veteran with two new recruits. The cell leader was one of Stein’s oldest friends, so the man in the interrogation room was a recent recruit, in the Movement for a little over six months. Too short a time to become much involved, or to know too much. Stein was confident that he would give away very little useful information, as he probably knew very little. Still, that didn’t explain the brass who was questioning him.

As he sat down, the guard closed the door while the lead agent sat across from him on the other side of the table. Stein remained silent. The less that he said, the better. Placing the print-out on the table before him, the Agent looked up at Stein. “Needless to say, Mister Stein, you will not be leaving here in a hurry. Giving a false i.d. is bad enough, and together with not carrying any i.d. at all compounds matters.” He leaned back, and began to tap his index finger on the table. “Highly suspicious, really, from a security point of view. After all, Stein, what possible reason could anyone have for not wanting to be known? Are you a criminal, Mister Stein?” Stein remained silent, impassive. “You have no real criminal record, just a parking fine from ten years ago. So, why were you at the State Hotel, of all places?”

Stein shrugged. “Holiday. You know, walking tour.”

“Really. Working holiday?” The Agent sneered. “Getting to the point, we have reason to believe that you are involved in activities against the State.”

Stein laughed. “Who, me?”

“Yes, you. Our intelligence led us to your room at the hotel, not to you in particular. As you were the only person in there, you are now under suspicion.”

“Of what?”

“Treason.” The word hit Stein square on. Having expected to hear it in these circumstances for the last several years didn’t lessen the impact.

“I want my...”

“Solicitor. He has been notified, and is on his way down. As luck would have it, he was attending a debrief session on the fourth floor.” Stein was unsuitably impressed with the efficiency of the CSA. The name of his brother-in-law had been listed long ago as his legal brief. The retrieval of his file in the retinal booth automatically sent a signal to the lawyer’s CSA pager, which he was obliged to carry as a duty of his profession.

“I presume this is being recorded.”

“Since you entered the car, actually.” The Agent paused to pick his nose. He began to lazily roll the booger as he continued. “Standard practice. Perps often say odd things when they think that they’re safe.” He yawned. “Bit of a jigsaw puzzle, really. You know, odd pieces, remarks, here and there. All part of the big picture. Like you, really.”

“Come again?”

“Well, let’s face it. Information given to us lead us to believe that the Freedom Movement was going to try something today at the spaceport. We follow our leads, followed the trail, and found you.”

“Am I what you were after?”

“Time will tell. Needless to say, the little question of i.d. certainly suggests something, doesn’t it?” The Agent smiled thinly at Stein. Before Stein had time to reply, there was a knock at the door. The guard opened it, and a short, middle-aged man entered. Balding, with round wire-framed spectacles and a trim but quiet suit, he wore a visitor’s tag. His escort closed the door and remained outside. Stein smiled.

“Abe, I came as soon as I could.” He glanced at the Agent, and at Stein’s cuffed hands. “Looks serious.” He placed his briefcase on the floor, and turned to the Agent. “Paul Roth, Mister Stein’s solicitor. Are you the arresting officer?” The Agent sat up straighter than he had been, but didn’t bother with a handshake, or any other courtesies.

“Section Leader Graham Steadman. We arrested Mister Stein two hours ago on suspicion of treason.” Paul gave little reaction, other than a raised eyebrow. He was thoroughly familiar with the CSA and its methods.

“Doubtless. But what are the charges?”

“Not carrying i.d., giving false identification.”

“That’s it?”

“For now.”

“For now? Isn’t that a bit ambitious?”

“Not at all.”

“Please elaborate. I hardly see how questionable identification is the same as treason.”

“Not at this stage. We’re still building our own case. But what I can tell you is that we followed a line of enquiry, and Mister Stein, here, was at the end of it.”

Paul looked at Stein, and back at Steadman. “Okay. Currently, the only charges that you have on my client are relatively minor ones. Grannies with Alzheimers are guilty of more. I request that my client be released on bail. Under my own supervision, of course.”

The guard shuffled, while Steadman merely stretched back, placing his hands behind his head. “No can do. Denied.” He smiled. Paul felt as if he was looking at a human crocodile. “Our enquiries prior to, and since Mister Stein’s arrest have produced sufficient evidence to warrant his remand.”

“What evidence?” Stein asked. “You know as well as I do that all that I had on me were my clothes.”

“Oh, physical evidence may be a little thin right now, but the circumstantial evidence isn’t.”

“But you could have arrested anyone,” Paul asked. “My client’s only problem was that he was at the wrong place at the wrong time. Hell, you don’t even have any witnesses.”

“As a matter of fact, we do,” Steadman countered. “A very reliable source. One of our junior field operators, as it happens.” Paul’s face fell. The CSA field operators were essentially moles, covert infiltrators of any group of people. It was an accepted fact that every business with more than ten employees had one. Not even scout groups and knitting circles were exempt. Social settings where gossip could be shared were rich sources of information for the CSA. Stein felt uncomfortable. He remembered the recruit in the other room. The Freedom Movement’s policy on recruitment by invitation was specifically to prevent moles getting inside. Still, he knew that anything was possible, including the recruitment of CSA operators. The hierarchical cell structure was a safety check against infiltration - at worst, only two, maybe three at most cell members would be identified and arrested. Despite this, Stein knew that although he would recognise the other man as a cell member, it would not be mutual.

Steadman turned to the guard. “Will you see if Mister Franklin is free.” The guard left the room, and was replaced by the guard who was waiting outside. After a short wait, the door opened, and the red-headed man entered. Stein controlled his anger well, not changing his facial expression, nor his body. His body language was silent. He thought backwards, and realised that when he had seen Franklin earlier, it was not interrogation, but a debrief. He mentally kicked himself for not realising it earlier.

“Mister Franklin, good to see you. Have you finished your debrief?” Steadman began to tense visibly, in much the same way that a tiger prepares to pounce for the kill.

“Yes, thank you, Sir.” Franklin sat, and brushed some hair back over his shoulder. “I think that we have this episode wrapped up.”

“Good. Franklin, do you know this gentleman?” He nodded towards Stein.

“No, sir. Is he the one?”

“Yes.” He turned to Stein. “Have you seen this man before, or know who he is?”

“We passed him earlier, in the corridor. Other than that, no.” He lied smoothly - he had to. A lot was riding on these next few minutes. Throughout the interview, he kept an eye on the battery-run clock on the wall above the door. Not long to go, then he should be safe. He hoped.

“Is this your field operator?” Paul asked.

“Yes,” Steadman replied. “JFO Franklin, Mister Paul Roth. Mister Roth, JFO Franklin.” The two men acknowledged each other. No hands were shaken. Steadman continued. “Mister Roth is the legal counsel for Mister Stein. Would you be so kind as to, as far as you are permitted, outline the circumstances that led us to the State Hotel.” As he spoke, he half-turned to look at Stein and Roth with mild amusement, bordering on contempt. Franklin started straight in, with no build-up. Short and sweet.

“Twelve months ago I went into deep-cover. Six months later I was invited to join the seditious Freedom Movement. As a junior cell member I was privy to limited information up front, but I was able to glean odd, unrelated intelligence from some individuals. Held alone, or even together, the intelligence would not have made sense. But, when compared to the public schedule of the Committee, and by conjoint analysis of people, movements, and releases of admittedly highly-polished disinformation, I was drawn to the conclusion that some plan of action was in progress for the spaceport dedication ceremony.”

At this point, Stein and Roth remained unmoved. Roth was ignorant, as were all but three other people, of Stein’s involvement with the Movement. As for Abe Stein, he now knew exactly what information Franklin had been purposefully told. His problem was that he didn’t know what, or how much Franklin had been told that he shouldn’t have been told. Or by whom, although Stein had a good idea, from the personnel in contact with Franklin. Franklin continued.

“On the assumption that I was correct, a hypo-surv team was formed.” The hypothetical and surveillance teams of the CSA did much of the dull dog-work. Taking a situation, they would model all likely paths of action that could be taken if the hypothesis was correct. The models were then used to develop a continuous surveillance program to monitor all paths. The surveillance techniques were many and varied, as were the levels of technology used. Everything from personally following and shadowing a suspect to state-of-the-art electronic bugging, with microscopic radio location beacons tied into dedicated satellite global-position systems thrown in for good measure. The field teams were normally undercover, as an agent dressed as an agent would always be cause for suspicion.

“The team used known intelligence and history of FM operations and methods to determine how an FM operative would get near to the spaceport without leaving a trail. We assumed that they would be prepared to blow their cover during the act, but that they would not want their history discovered. We would obviously want to speak to all people that they were in contact with during the days leading up to their action.

“We presumed that the operative would go to ground somewhere anonymous - there are several dives that call themselves hotels that would be suitable. We knew that the operative would be on foot, so the hotel would have to be within walking distance of the spaceport. Our ground team at the State hotel reported a new guest - the first non-regular guest for a few weeks. The rest, you know.”

“So,” asked Roth, “You went to this effort, and arrested my client, on the basis of some tell-tales and supposition on your part. These are hardly grounds for holding him here, under suspicion of treason!”

“Remember, Mister Roth,” Steadman countered, “What Mister Franklin has told you is only what he is at liberty to release. Much of it is public knowledge. Now, obviously Mister Franklin is a witness to people and events. Other evidence now held is sufficient grounds for us to hold Mister Stein.” He sat up. “Particularly Mister Stein.” And smiled.