The senior security officer looked nervous. Toreth was used to talking to nervous people, and this seemed to him like someone about to broach a subject they thought the audience wouldn't want to hear.
"Of course you can. Sara, can you get a couple of coffees?"
Once in his office he sat down and offered Adams a chair. "Go on."
"It's the prisoners, Para. I appreciate your confidence in us, but I don't think we'll be able to cope."
He felt as though he'd walked into a conversation halfway through. "What's changed? Have more of the systems gone down?"
"No, Para. I mean the new prisoners. They're arriving now, and we —" Adams stopped dead. "I'm sorry, Para. I assumed you knew."
Bloody Bell — it had to be.
"I don't know anything about any new prisoners and I'd appreciate it if you could fill me in." And then I'll go fill
her
in.
"There are fifty to arrive today and more scheduled. I'm afraid we can't accommodate them, never mind start the interrogations."
Interrogations as well. "Are they from Justice?"
"I don't think so, Para. There are Service troopers with them."
"Right. Don't take any prisoners — leave them in the transports, tell whoever's bringing them that you won't process them unless you see properly authorised transfer documents and arrest records, which they won't have. I'm going to sort it out."
On the way out of the office, he nearly collided with Sara. She took one look at his face, and said, "No coffee, then."
"Give it to Payne and B-C, if the lazy swine are in yet."
By the time he reached Carnac's office, his temper had reached a nice simmering point. He ignored the protests of Carnac's admin, and the numbers of waiting visitors, and went straight into the office.
Carnac sat at his desk, discussing something with Major Bell. Whether that was good or bad, Toreth wasn't sure. They both looked up as the door opened.
"I need to speak to you. Now," Toreth said, making an effort not to slam the door behind him.
Carnac frowned, then shrugged. "Very well. If you would excuse us, Major. We can finish this later."
Bell stood, but made no move to leave. "If there is a problem, perhaps I might be able — "
"I hear there are prisoners arriving," Toreth said, ignoring her.
Carnac nodded. "You hear correctly."
"Why wasn't I told?"
"The decision was made by the Administrative Council yesterday." His eyes flicked briefly towards Bell. "I wasn't informed until this morning — I left a message for you immediately I knew."
Toreth didn't believe a word of it, except possibly the implication that Bell had been behind it. "You're telling me you didn't know?"
Carnac smiled fleetingly. "Even I am not omniscient. Or omnipresent."
"Well, whether you knew or not, the decision will have to be unmade, because since you're not omnipotent either, it's not possible. And certainly not if you want us to do anything more than lock them up." Maybe Adams had been mistaken about the interrogations.
"It has to be done." Carnac glanced at Bell, who shrugged slightly. "Confidentially, there are still elements within the various resister factions who are not satisfied with the current progress of reform, and want to see more, and even more radical, action. The Council is nervous — justifiably so, perhaps, but the arrests are somewhat precipitous and against my advice."
Bell shook her head. "They are necessary," she said, with the calm confidence of someone who is supporting the official position.
Toreth addressed Carnac directly. "
If
we had the equipment and parts for all the systems, and
if
half the staff weren't dead or in hiding, and
if
people didn't keep interfering in things outside their authority — " he looked at Bell, who remained impassive, " —
then
we might be able to provide an interrogation service. We can't do it now."
Carnac frowned. "I thought that the interrogation levels were virtually ready?"
"That was the impression I was given," Bell added, sounding surprised.
After you manoeuvred me into it. Toreth kept a firm grip on his temper, because the woman was trying to provoke him. "The levels might be ready, just, in a day or two. That won't give me the extra cells to keep the prisoners in, or the qualified staff to run the interrogations properly."
"Then run them any way you can," Bell said. "But the information must be obtained."
Carnac nodded agreement.
Toreth looked between them, judging his chances of succeeding in changing their minds with a reasoned argument, then said, "No."
Carnac stared at him. "I beg your pardon?"
"No." Toreth looked at Bell again, including her in the refusal. "If you want it done, one of you two can tell them to do it. SSO Adams is in charge down in Detention, and I've told him not to accept any prisoners without the proper paperwork. I'm not changing that order."
"
Paperwork
?" Bell paced across the office and turned. "They're to be interrogated. They're resisters suspected of performing sabotage or otherwise trying to destabilise the new regime. What more do you need?"
Toreth sat down and crossed his legs. "How long a list would you like?"
Bell merely glared at him, so he carried on. "Prisoners brought in here ought to have been arrested by a warranted investigator or para, or arrested and processed by Justice. Then they need to be assigned Justice reps; some of them might have the right to independent representation, although not if they're political. Let's say not, to keep it simple. If, after assessment, there's a case for interrogation above level two, then we need a damage waiver from Justice."
All the paperwork which normally frustrated him so much, and he suddenly appreciated its value as a symbol of I&I's legality. This was what differentiated them from the mob that had been tearing interrogators limb from limb.
"Interrogations have to be carried out according to the P&P — that's the 'Protocols and Procedures for Interrogation', if you didn't know. They need to be recorded, and assessed for evidential value by qualified staff, and then sent back to Justice with the prisoner for trial, assuming the rep doesn't object."
Bell snorted. "I think, in this case, we can dispense with all that. There won't be any trials — all we require is information."
Toreth shook his head, secure in his own territory. "If you want
information
, then you're looking at witness interrogation authorisation and that's a whole different game. You'll need to —"
Carnac lifted his hand sharply to cut him off. "I have no interest in further legal discussions. Take the prisoners, interrogate them. That is an order."
He'd changed his fucking tune, Toreth thought sourly, from when interrogations were a regrettable necessity.
"No." Toreth took a deep breath, realising that his preparations with Daedra might not be needed now. "Sack me, have me arrested for mutiny or whatever the hell you want to call it, but I'm not doing it. Because if I do, then I'm breaking the law."
"The
law
?" Carnac's voice rose, for the first time Toreth could ever remember. Even the imperturbable Bell stared at the socioanalyst. "For
torture
?"
"Interrogation. The technical definition is, 'Using legally sanctioned methods, including but not limited to verbal, pharmacological and physical persuasion, to obtain proof of guilt or innocence by questioning'. It's at the front of the P&P if you'd ever bothered to look."
Carnac paled, then flushed, his hands clenching. The outrage, Toreth was convinced, was utterly genuine, which made it all the more interesting that Carnac was so keen to accede to the Council's demands to have interrogations started up again. Yet another glaring contradiction in Carnac's behaviour — Toreth wished to hell he knew what it meant.
"If you don't want to sack me," Toreth said, "calm down and we can talk about it sensibly."
Bell was clearly hoping Carnac would accept Toreth's implicit offer to resign, but after a moment, Carnac nodded. "Do you have anything sensible to say?"
"I want I&I back on its feet as much as you do," or almost certainly more, "but I'm not going to turn it into something else."
He turned to Bell. "You want unlawful interrogations, let your troopers have a crack at it and you can find out why it takes so long to train an interrogator. Or take your prisoners over to Justice. I'm sure they'd love to help. There's nothing they like more than holding someone's head under water until he confesses to something he didn't do."
Why was it always that example that sprang to mind? He could see the scene in his mind's eye, as clear as the day he'd stood aside and let them do it. And, earlier memory, he could feel the water filling his lungs as he struggled; he could hear the I&I instructors and other trainees laughing in the endless few seconds before he blacked out and it stopped being funny. He swallowed down the feeling, the cold panic. Not now.
Fortunately, Carnac didn't seem to notice. He waited for Toreth to continue, then said, "You are a member of a professional, legal body. I understand this. Nevertheless, as the major says, present circumstances make the matter urgent."
He sounded serious about that, anyway. "It can be done, and it can all be done legally, if you release the paras and interrogators."
Bell started to protest, but Carnac beat her to it. "No. Out of the question."
"It'll free up the cells for the new prisoners, and there'll be the staff to handle the interrogations. God knows, they won't all stay, but a lot of them will, if you'll let me offer them the same incentives we're giving at the tribunals."
"The Administrative Council made the tribunals a condition of I&I's continued existence," Bell said.
"We all know that," Toreth said. "And we know that you can get round it with provisional pardons. You can still run the tribunals retroactively, because we simply don't have the staff spare for you to execute in order to keep the rabble happy. So far they've passed everyone, including a few of the interrogators who
I'd
happily see dead. There's no damn point keeping people in cells until there's a slot free to rubber-stamp their release."
After a moment, Carnac said, "It is politically impossible for me to do that."
It's all in the phrasing. "I'll do it on my authority. I'll take responsibility for it."
Carnac steepled his hands, considering. "On your authority?"
"Yes."
Bell leaned down to Carnac. "Socioanalyst, I urge you to consider the consequences of this. I cannot recommend this course of action to my superiors."
Carnac looked up at her, his expression suddenly cold. "No? You recommended to the Council that the interrogation service could be resumed. Without consulting either myself or Para-investigator Toreth."
"I —" Bell stared. Obviously, she'd thought that her name had been kept out of it. "Yes, I did. That was the impression I had been given."
"Well, it appears that your impression was incorrect. I realise, of course, that it was merely a careless mistake and not an attempt to embarrass myself or the para-investigator."
"Of course not."
Carnac continued as if he hadn't heard her. "Nevertheless, embarrassment will result if we cannot complete the required interrogations. Unless you wish to take up Toreth's suggestion that your men familiarize themselves with the P&P, then I'm sure you would wish to do everything you can in order to correct your error, yes?"
She nodded, reluctantly.
"Then you will support my decision, whatever it is?"
A moment while she looked for a way out, then she nodded again.
"Excellent."
It was nice, Toreth thought, to see someone else in Carnac's field of fire for once. Another few seconds' thought, then Carnac looked back at him. "Very well, Toreth. I agree to your proposal."
Bell stepped back a little, distancing herself from the decision, but said nothing. That was the beauty of the Service — for ninety-nine point nine percent of the time, they did what they were told.
Of course, in the other point one percent, the treacherous bastards jumped into bed with fucking resisters.
Toreth sat up straighter. "For the first batch of prisoners, you can look at the charges — or whatever the hell kind of information they've got with them — and set an interrogation level. Then make a special Director's order for each one and I'll get the processing done retrospectively by Justice. They'll make a fuss but they always do. But from tomorrow onwards, they go through Justice first, okay?"
"Very well."
"The Council will have to be told about this," Bell said, clearly hoping to get to do the job herself.
Carnac shook his head, answering her unspoken question. "I will explain the legal necessity to the Council in person. I'm sure they will be delighted by our adherence to the letter of the law."
Toreth ignored the sarcasm. "Great. And you can make out release orders for all the paras and interrogators. Individual clearance, so they can walk out of the cells and go wherever the hell they want to."
Carnac frowned. "That will all take time and I have other things to do."
"I'll help. Do it this way and I guarantee I'll have the place running smoothly by the end of next week." When Carnac still hesitated, he added, "Do you want these bloody prisoners interrogated or not?"
Carnac closed his eyes briefly, then nodded. "Bell, you may deal with anyone waiting who absolutely cannot delay seeing me."
Toreth smiled, thinking about the busy room outside.
"Of course." Bell saluted, immaculately, and left.
Carnac moved aside to let Toreth sit next to him at the screen. "Let's get started."
As Carnac called through to his admin and cancelled his appointments for the morning, Toreth reflected that it had been surprisingly — worryingly — easy. All along, he'd assumed that Carnac's real motivation was to stop I&I recovering. And now he had simply handed the interrogators and paras over to him on a plate. It was possible that Carnac might have seen the virtues of interrogation if his own neck was somehow on the block. He wasn't sure he believed that — it felt wrong, for no reason he could put his finger on.