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by Ivanol on Fri Nov 26, 2010 12:18 am
Supervisory Special Agent Natalie E. Schultz
Special Agent Alderson Morris
J. Edgar Hoover Building
Washington DC
The look in Kaori's eyes would not leave her. Natalie stared for a moment before blinking, her palm moist, her fingers stiff around her pen. Her mouth had gone slack. Almost unaware of the woman beside her, she did not move, standing still before the elevator doors now closed behind her and Morgan. She swallowed. What the hell was she supposed to do now? Maybe she should help Kaori back to her wheelchair, she thought, but just as she thought it, one of the security people had done so.
She opened her mouth to say something to the brother, but before any words came to mind, he stormed out. Natalie fumbled over a thousand unspoken words. Did Kaori hate her? Did she hate her brother? Was she to blame? Was Kaori still upset or only mildly annoyed? This wasn't an interrogation, dammit! She had no frame of reference, no emotional detachment. This was her coworker, a woman she ought to have known better. She hadn't even realized Kaori was capable of walking.
Then the doors opened, and Alderson stepped in. "ALDERSON PLEASE GO AND INTERVIEW ALI," Natalie said stiffly, in an unnecessarily loud voice, the tone strained. "The military may hinder you but go anyway. Now. NOW, PLEASE."
Alderson hadn't even finished scanning his workplace surroundings when Natalie's command struck him. It did not diminish the momentum of his movements, nor did it visibly affect him in any ways. Rather, the words simply seeped into him as though he were a sponge, sloshing through his head like slurry. He felt heavy today, as though his blood had turned to lead. "Yeah", he responded automatically even though he knew Natalie wasn't listening.
Alderson grabbed a few things from his orderly desk, giving a warm but superficial greeting to those who crossed his path. He then strode right back to his car, finding the seat was still warm, and the slight chinking of the engine cooling had not yet gone silent. He did not know what he was supposed to do with Ali, only that she was imprisoned in USP Lee, a federal prison he had studied awhile back. And, of course, that he was to drive all the way there in hopes that his phone would ring, preceding some sort of direction or further instruction. He had called Joan thirty times this morning from a pay phone. From now on, his cell phone was only an instrument of counterterrorism.
Special Agent Alderson Morris
Tahira Ali
United States Penitentiary Lee
Jonesville, Virginia
Sometime later, Alderson waited in the administration building of the prison for someone to take him to Ali. He leaned against the wall by a corner, appearing composed and casual. On the inside, he could hardly stand to think about anything other than his job. Not after his would-be meeting with his sisters so-called friend. It was a very bright room; to bright for him, as though someone had torn off chunks of the sun, molded them into spheres then fixed them onto the paneled ceiling. The rug was dark and blue in contrast, like a textured sheet of ice. He swung his briefcase idly, drumming his fingers against the holster of his gun.
The receptionist looked up, clearing her throat. "Excuse me, sir. Is there something I can do for you?" Clearly, Alderson was not expected.
"I need to see Tahira Ali", Alderson responded halfway through her sentence.
"You have ID?" she replied in a bored tone, her eyes trawling up to his face. He flashed his certification.
"I'll have someone take you to her, just a moment." The receptionist motioned for Alderson to step back as she picked up the phone, saying something to someone in a hushed tone. She slid a clipboard with a sign-in sheet towards him over the counter, still speaking on the phone. Alderson's signature was nearly illegible, as though someone had taken the letter A and M and filled in all the other space for a name with scribbles. "Thanks." The receptionist hung up and took the clipboard back with a smile. "Have a seat, someone will be here shortly."
Alderson sat complacently on a plastic chair. A few minutes later, a corrections officer appeared, motioning for Alderson. "Agent Morris?"
Alderson stood and nodded. "I am", he replied, extending a hand.
The officer shook his hand. "Moses Kent," he said, gesturing for Alderson to follow him. "Ali is in room two. Someone else came by to see her earlier today. I'm guessing there hasn't been a lot of communication."
"Not with me at least", he responded with a strange affable tone, starting towards room two.
"She's inside. Someone will be in the observation room, and everything is recorded. I'm sure you know the drill. Knock if you need anything, okay? I'll be around." Moses opened the door. Inside, Tahira Ali was seated at the same table, handcuffed and shackled, alone, almost dwarfed despite the room's rather small size. Moses closed the door behind Alderson, leaving him with the prisoner. She looked up, and then averted her eyes, the slightest of frowns etched upon her face.
Alderson sat, pushing his chair back as far as he could manage without appearing ridiculous. To say he was irritated with Natalie would be an understatement. Not only had she sent him up against a living, breathing icon of his greatest fears, but she had also failed to give him any directions at all. He sent her an angry text asking for further direction. Then, he cracked his briefcase, preparing to do the only thing he could think of for the situation.
For a long moment, Alderson simply looked at the small woman across from him. Her life was notorious. Her actions were detrimental, cruel and unjust. As the familiar shell of fear and anxiety began to harden his insides, he wondered how so many horrible things could fit inside one small woman. He hated her, and was hopelessly frightened by her, but these emotions were the perfect fuel for determination. "I'm not going to mince words. December 1968, Germany. The deaths of both the T-Tanzanian President-elect and the American Ambassador." He paused to gauge her reaction.
Ali blinked, glancing at Alderson for a moment before her gaze dropped to the table, interlacing her fingers on her lap. "Yes," she said softly in the accented English familiar to anyone who had listened to the tapes of her ultimatums in the past. "That was mine."
Alderson was quiet for a moment. "Are you confessing to killing them?"
"It is the truth," Ali replied.
"That's uh... quite a quick confession. But I suppose there isn't much room left for you to dig yourself deeper, is there?"
"What is done is already done," Ali said, her eyes still on the table. "I cannot go back and change it. The least I can do is tell the truth. Perhaps it is the only thing I can do."
Alderson nodded, scooting back a bit further. He disguised the motion as a forceful yawn accompanied by a stretch. After checking his phone and finding no messages, he decided to harvest some details. "What was the model you used to unjustly kill these two people?"
"It were a new M16 rifle I used to kill President-elect Ntamuhanga," Ali said, her voice growing softer. "The Ambassador, though, him I killed with C4 explosives, and not bullets."
Alderson's reply was instant. "What type of rounds?"
"I do not remember," Ali answered, after a slight pause. "I used what I had been given."
Alderson responded again, sharply. "Why did you murder these two people?"
"They were," Ali began, and then faltered. She swallowed. "They were chosen because of their positions."
"Have you anything... uh... else to say?" Alderson's voice continued with the same hard edge that he used to bash through the fear, paranoia and anger that had recently been threatening to strangle him to death.
"If you have anything else to ask, sayyid," Ali replied, seeming to shrink in her seat. She flushed slightly, her eyes not moving from the table's surface.
Suddenly Alderson's complexion softened, another enigmatic emotion flickering across his face for only a moment. "How do you feel when you kill?" he asked softly, a question entirely bent on feeding his ravenous curiosity. "How can you help destroy so many lives? How can you live with the fact that, because of what you and Hataf do, so many innocent people are forced to live in fear?" The question was highly unprofessional, and he would probably be spoken to by administrators for asking it, but for a moment Alderson didn't really care.
There was silence for a long moment. "I cannot," Ali finally answered, her voice almost a whisper. "I cannot live with that knowledge. That is why I came. I want no more of any of it. But every choice comes with a price."
Alderson didn't expect this response, and was therefore lacking an answer. He studied her for a moment, then finally said "You'll always live with it. Always..." Alderson figured he might as well branch off with another question from here. "Why did you do these things?"
"I had much hatred, burning inside, like a Norouz fire," Ali said, fingering the chain linking her handcuffs. "I wanted to cause the worst kind of pain. To kill innocents, ana siddiqa, it was the worst. What I wanted, I received. That is why."
"Some people see therapists to deal with their anger problems instead of killing people by the masses." For a moment, Alderson's fear was gone, enveloped in a cloak of spite, anger and frustration with the woman before him. And then, it all came rushing back.
"Therapist?" Ali repeated slowly, frowning as she butchered the pronunciation. "Forgive me, I do not know this word."
"Forget it", Alderson responded meekly. He checked his phone again. Nothing from Natalie. He was starting to think Natalie just wanted him gone. Alderson jammed the papers back in his briefcase, and pulled out something else -- a manila folder. He opened it, sifting through the papers like a panhandler searching for gold. All the while the ever-present feeling of dread clung to the back of his skull like parasite.
"Saint L-lawrence Hospital," he said after finally finding the correct paper. "I'm sure you are familiar with the name." He knew every detail of the incident anyway. Once again, he awaited her reaction.
Ali blinked, shifted her weight, the chains clinking, glancing up at the papers in Alderson's hands before dropping her gaze again. "Yes, I have heard of it," she said, nodding once.
"Can you claim any involvement?"
"No," Ali answered. "I had no hand in that event."
"The FBI realizes action was taken mostly by Lisa Karim, but there were many others involved, and there are plenty of reasons to hold you in suspicion." Alderson's usually reserved voice was still fractured with contempt.
"I know," Ali said softly. "You also have no reason to believe me. But it does not change the truth."
"Someone like you knows very little about TRUTH."
Ali paused then, looking up for the first time. She met Alderson's eyes, could hear the hatred in his voice. She did not know this man. She did not know his name. But she knew too many like him. She knew exactly the kind of person he was. "I know the truth of the things I have done," she replied, her voice conveying worlds of unspeakable things. "I know the truth of the things I have seen. I know the truth when it becomes a dagger to the heart, and I know it when it creeps uninvited. What do I know of truth? I know it convicts me, sayyid Agent. That I know." There was a biting sense of bitterness to her words, and once she had spoken, Ali seemed to notice she had made eye contact, and, as if embarrassed, looked away, staring at the floor.
"Why did you turn yourself in? You know you'll be executed, right?" Alderson wasn't sure why he said this. He suddenly realized he was simply venting after years of people like her forcing him to the final fraying threads of his mind. "Tell me the truth here, if you are so honest, did you know you would be killed as a result of turning yourself in?"
"Yes," Ali answered, nodding. "Yes, I knew it would be so. But if I did not do it, thousands more would die. If I can do any good in this life, then let it be this: let me keep them from killing again."
Alderson had been drumming his fingers against the table. When his subject mentioned thousands of more deaths, the drumming stopped for a moment, and then resumed faster as his mind began to race. "Are you saying you know of a large attack the FBI doesn't?" His voice was suddenly strung higher than ever.
"That is why I came," Ali said, her frown deepening, her blank gaze growing distant.
"Well what is it?" he snapped suddenly, on the verge of a panic attack. "why have you not yet disclosed this information?" His melodic drumming fingers ceased once more, stifled by their transformation into a tight fist.
"But I did," Ali answered, blinking in confusion. "I told the soldier, Nathaniel, whose rank and family name were not told me, and to Allison Moore, from the FBI. Did they not tell you also, sayyid Agent?"
Alderson's fist loosened, and his expression softened into something that could have been sheer confusion, hurt, or both. Information about a massive attack had been disclosed, and he hadn't been told about it? "What..." he began, "what are you talking about? What has been planned?"
"They call it Rahah Almarfud," Ali replied, enunciating the Arabic slowly. She continued to stare at the floor, almost unmoving. "It is to be far worse, more devastating, than anything that has yet been done. It is to overshadow September 11." She fumbled a bit with the English, but the point was clear.
Alderson's mouth went dry, and he felt a pang of anger for not being notified earlier. His mind raced through the possible implications of what she was saying, and only one thought completely enveloped his mind. He felt dizzy, and for a moment feared he would be sick. "You don't mean... nuclear weapons?" His voice was nearly a whisper.
"Yes, that is what they are called," Ali said, nodding. Glancing up, she caught sight of Alderson's unsettled composure. Tilting her head to the side, her brow furrowed in concern, she leaned forward. "Sayyid Agent, are you all right?"
Alderson didn't reply, if only because he felt like his throat was closing up. "Targets?" he managed to choke out.
"There are twelve," Ali said and listed the cities.
Alderson had a panic attack and fled the room, accidentally tipping his chair. It clattered to the floor with a dreadful noise. Ali flinched, looking up as Alderson disappeared. So she was alone again. At that moment Alderson hated Natalie for not telling him anything. He hated her for sending him here with no direction too. He stood for a moment in the hall to catch his breath, then dialed her number.
A moment later, Natalie's familiar voice answered. "Natalie Schultz," she said.
"RAHAH ALMARFUD", Alderson yelled into the phone.
"Why are you speaking Arabic to me, Alderson; you're not even making any sense, and please calm down; you are shouting."
"Twelve cities", he replied, voice still near yelling. "And NOBODY tells me a damn thing!" He paced back and forth rapidly. "Its the--" He cut himself off, having forgotten what he was about to say.
"You are still shouting Alderson! I haven't the faintest idea of what you are speaking; has the entire world gone mad? What the hell did you ask Tahira?"
"I had to hear from a terrorist about a nuclear attack, a TERRORIST, how long have you known?"
"I've known nothing until the past thirty seconds when you continued shouting after I asked politely for you to cease said shouting." Natalie's tone seemed almost calm, though the ratcheted-up speed of her words told a different story.
Alderson stopped pacing, running his fingers through his hair. "Wh- huh?" this was the result of several novels' worth of responses diffusing each other.
"Alderson, I demand to know precisely what is going on this instant! And sans shouting, please."
Alderson recited everything Ali had told him, word for word, in the same order.
There was silence for several moments. "That's... disconcerting," Natalie finally said. "Does anyone else know?"
Alderson repeated the names Ali had told him. "I thought you knew", he explained somewhat sheepishly.
"I was informed within the past five minutes," Natalie answered. "You should extract as many details as possible, Alderson. This is going to be a public relations nightmare."
"I think some details have already been extracted. I suggest we talk to those morons who've been silent." He paused for a moment, took a deep breath and said, "Sorry. For that and for yelling. I've had a lot on my mind."
"Extract everything you can; I will attempt to find both of the others you mentioned. That's your current assignment. I need to go."
Alderson nodded, even though Natalie couldn't see him. "Okay", he said mellowly, taking comfort in the fact that he'd be seeing his therapist tomorrow. His phone clapped shut, and he made his way back towards Ali.
Last edited by
Ylanne on Fri Nov 26, 2010 12:24 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Added headers to clarify confusion.
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