Крис Бекетт - The Turing Test

Tell the truth whenever possible, Karel told himself. The less lies the better. But he’d need to choose his words carefully.

“I believe that their use of violence is in principle justified by the cause. Most Christians for the last two thousand years – including all the Christian members of the present government – have believed that violence in some circumstances is justified. It’s the traditional doctrine of the Just War. If Christians can legitimately invoke that doctrine to justify war in defence of purely national interests then they are certainly entitled to invoke it when it comes to defending the integrity of the human person. But that’s an intellectual and theological position. It doesn’t mean that…”

“You are a member of the strategic command of the SHG,” Mr Occam said. “Not intellectual position. Not theological position. Fact. You know that. We know that. We’re not even going to discuss it. You’ve been actively involved in funding and planning attacks on laboratories and laboratory staff for the past five years at least. What we want from you are names, code words, bank accounts, structures and systems. And you’re going to tell us all of them, Mr Slade. One way or the other you’re going to tell us the whole lot.”

“No I’m not, because I don’t know them.”

“Oh for Christ’s sake man,” grumbled Mr Occam, rising wearily from his chair and hitting Karel very hard across his face.

“You can’t do that!” Karel yelled at him.

It had hurt. It had frightened him. But more than anything he was shaken by his own baby-like helplessness. He was a man who liked to be in charge of his own life.

Mr Occam hit him again, this time so hard that the entire chair toppled sideways and crashed to the floor.

Help me God, prayed Karel, shackled to the fallen chair. He could feel blood running down his cheek. He could taste the rusty tang of it in his mouth. Help me remember that this is just pain. It’s essentially trivial. It’s just something that’s happening for a very short time indeed to the most temporary part of me.

They’d had a training course in the SHG – ‘Using Faith to Withstand Torture’ – and a set of guidelines that they’d instilled into all their members. But they also knew very well that, faced with the agony of the Cross, even the Son of God had lost faith for a moment. So they’d set themselves a limited goal: you can’t hold out forever but try at least to hold out for one day to give the rest of the organisation time to go underground.

One day , Karel thought, just one day. That had to be manageable.

The guidelines proposed two stages. Stage A was to stonewall as long as possible, denying all knowledge. Stage B, when the torture got too much to bear, was to give false information. There were various fake addresses and phone numbers which would keep the enemy busy for a few hours, and tip off the people outside that they were under threat…

But for now Karel needed to try and stick to Stage A. Actually, as long as they stuck to hitting him, he felt quite confident he could cope. Hitting just hurt after all. It was only if they got onto needles and blades that he would start to be vulnerable because, brave though he was about most things in life, he was absolutely terrified of being pierced or cut. He always had been. Ever since he sliced open his knee when he was a kid and had looked inside before the blood came, and seen his own white bone.

“Names, code words, bank accounts, structures and systems,” repeated Mr Occam. “Starting, now , with the names of the other four members of the strategic command group. The real names, not the crappy fake ones that you and your pathetic friends have dreamed up. We know all about Mr French of Dawson Street. We know about Mr Gray of Oldham Road.”

Parallel to the floor in his toppled throne, like the fallen king at the end of a game of chess, Karel quailed. Telling them about the fictitious Mr French and Mr Gray had been Stage B. So now there was nothing pre-prepared to fall back on.

“I told you,” he said, “I don’t know any names. I don’t even know what the strategic command group is .”

Wham. Intense pain and nausea. Bright lights in his eyes. Mr Occam had kicked him in the stomach.

“Don’t lie to us you murderous piece of shit. We aren’t just guessing here. We know you’re high up in the SHG. We know that since the death of Leon Schultz, there’s no one senior to you in the whole gang.”

A sour strand of vomit, mixed with blood, dribbled from the corner of Karel’s mouth. The mention of Leon Schultz had shocked him. A wealthy hotelier who had died suddenly and unexpectedly of a heart attack three weeks ago, Schultz had indeed been the leader of the SHG, but Karel had thought this was known only to himself and his four colleagues in the strategic command group.

“Names,” said Mr Occam, “ now !”

He kicked Karel again.

“Hey!” protested Mr Thomas, standing up. “Easy Mr Occam now. Easy! You’re letting it get to you again. Maybe you should take five while I have a quiet word with Mr Slade here?”

“Quiet fucking word be damned,” grumbled the black man. “Let’s stop pussyfooting around.”

It was hard for Karel to see what Mr Occam was doing because he had moved into a part of the room which was nearly above his head, but there was some kind of cabinet there against the wall, like one of those cabinets with many narrow drawers that you get in museums, holding fossils or sea-shells or pressed flowers. Mr Occam was opening and closing drawers, muttering. And then something silvery glittered in his hand and he turned and advanced across the room.

Oh shit God, Karel prayed. Help me please. If you love me God, make him put that back.

“Come on Mr Occam,” said the fat man, standing in front of his colleague and reaching up to lay his hands on his shoulders. “You know it’s not time for that yet. We need to give Mr Slade a little space. A man takes a few minutes to figure out how he’s going to get round his entire system of belief.”

Mr Occam made a disgruntled noise.

“Come on man, take five,” said Mr Thomas. “You know I’m talking sense.”

Mr Occam hesitated and then, to Karel’s surprise and huge relief, he nodded. Returning the blade to the cabinet, he strode across the room, opened a door and went out, out into the mythical world which lay beyond these four white walls, its existence almost as hard to believe in now as that of the Kingdom of Heaven itself. The door slammed.

Ten minutes must have gone by already, Karel told himself. Just six times that and I’ll already have done one hour.

“Mr Occam’s got all kinds of nasty things in that cabinet there,” said Mr Thomas, returning to his seat and leaning forward to peer down concernedly into his prisoner’s face. “Knives, razors, pliers, even a blow torch. You know, like one of those little ones people use to make that crunchy caramel crust on a crème brulée? Nice in a kitchen but, man, it hurts when you use it like he does, with the vinegar splashed on afterwards and all. But I think those sort of things should be the very last resort. I’m not a sadist. Maybe I’m in the wrong job but I honestly don’t like causing pain.”

Karel, the fallen chessman in his sideways throne, said nothing. Of course he had heard of the good-cop bad-cop routine and he understood that a game was being played. But he desperately desperately wanted to keep the good will of the reasonable Mr Thomas and to keep the ruthless Mr Occam at bay.

“Actually,” said Mr Thomas, “Mr Occam isn’t a sadist either. You should see him with his grandchildren. He’s gentleness itself. But he’s an angry man, that’s the thing. His little brother was maimed by your people, you see. Bomb went off at the lab where he worked. Concrete beam fell on top of him. Legs mashed to a pulp. Had to have them both off at the hip. Girl beside him – nice girl, Gloria: as a matter of fact they were talking about getting married – she was decapitated by the blast. He was trapped in there for an hour and a half next to her headless corpse. Well, need I go on? Just imagine it was your little brother Mr Slade.”