Time of the Octopus: Based on the True Story of Whistleblower Edward Snowden

11:35 P.M._

“But the presence in Iraq of weapons of mass destruction wasn’t proved,” the Lawyer noted.

Kold nodded:

“Of course. The performance of Powell can be considered as a typical model of ‘so-called lies’, and although the world would like to believe them, and be guided by their good intentions, in the case of Iraq, the road down which we moved on this unfortunate country was paved with such intentions and, as you can see on the news everyday, it was a road to hell.”

The Lawyer wanted to say something, but Kold interrupted him with a raised finger:

“But! Then, in the spring of the 2003, we didn’t even guess anything. The war on terror had been declared two years earlier, and the enemy pure and simple wasn’t pure and simple: the blue corner of the ring was empty. And suddenly condensed into it was the dark shadow of the bloody dictator, moustached and degenerate, ready to lay waste to the whole world with anthrax. The referee hardly had time to cry out ‘Boxing!’ as all America spoiled for the fight.”

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“On one not so fine day I came to the Garage and came across a half-naked Neolani and Pincher rolling under a cover on the stove bench in Central Station. I didn’t know if they’d done anything or not, but boy was I mad. I completely lost it. I kicked over a plastic barrel full of paint, smashed a bunch of bottles and made one hell of a mess.

I think neither of them knew I could be that crazy. I didn’t even know it myself.

Finally, my rage spent, I asked Neo:

‘Are you with him or with me?’

She just smiled. Pincher stretched and lowered his lean hairy legs on to the dirty floor.

‘What’s up, Joshua-boy?’ he asked lazily. ‘Property rights on people were cancelled by Honest Abe. She is a free person. If she wants to sleep with you, she can. If she wants, she can sleep with me. And if she wants, she can sleep with Sparki.’

Sparki was the mangy dog that lived in thickets near the Garage. We fed him up and sometimes for fun we added magic mushrooms to the pieces of pizza or hamburgers we gave him.

Sparki had a bad trip and howled long and terribly. I imagined Neo on all fours, behind the twitching, howling Sparki, and I felt totally revolted.

‘Why are you silent?’ I asked Neolani.

She continued to smile. Still smiling, she rolled on her back, and I couldn’t see her face behind Pincher’s thin torso. He also smiled his usual wry douchebag smile, ready at any moment to stab you in the back.

‘Have a rest, Joshua-boy,’ Pincher said. ‘Go, find yourself a girlfriend firing on fewer cylinders. Little Liu is always ready, and she has a redhot uterus. And live in the present! There is no past, you forget. That’s my advice for you.’

‘I don’t need the advice of a motherfucking kid like you,’ I replied. He burst out laughing and thrust up his middle finger.

I left Central Station, determined to leave the Garage forever. But I hardly managed to reach the door before Neolani caught me up wrapped in the cover like a toga. She silently grasped me by the hand, turned me and embraced me, then stuck a kiss on my lips. But as she did the cover fell. She was completely naked…

Of course, I survived, but something changed, broke up, cracked, and it wasn’t the same any more. I sat down at the computer, and plunged into cryptographic programs. Enciphering data by transfer to networks began to interest me wildly. Indeed, I was hooked on it as strongly as I had been on the Garage. Once, we had discussed the freedom problem on the internet there and someone – Black Rick, I think, he always was nuts about such affairs – made this short speech:

‘The internet should have a program or special plug-ins that makes every user anonymous automatically. You need to prevent a targeted registration with data computation. This is the only way the internet can become a truly free territory, a place where no one owes anything to anybody and no one is afraid of anybody.’

Of course, what he spoke about was impossible. But maybe you could encrypt data to hide it all from the government, from hackers, and from the ubiquitous businessmen. That was a real possibility, and I became deeply engaged in it, partly to fill the vacuum left by Neolani’s treachery.

I visited Mr. Thewlis’s club too. At first it was interesting there, but soon I hit a ceiling. Mr. Thewlis and the college computers just couldn’t go where I wanted to go. And so my studies there came to an end, even though in theory I had another two years to go.

One day I talked to Mr. Thewlis about it. He took off his glasses, chewed a handle, looked at me thoughtfully and said:

‘As a teacher, I hate to hear this, but as a scientist I am flattered that you, Mr. Kold, were my disciple. You will go far, I assure you, and I… I will do my best to promote it.’

‘How?’ I didn’t understand.

‘You see, one person, the representative of a very reputable corporation engaged in developing products of the same kind as you, has asked me to acquaint him with prospective candidates. Do you think, Mr. Kold, that you would be interested in making such an acquaintance?’

As you probably guessed, I’m a bit of a sociopath and reluctant to meet strangers. They frighten me – not by their appearance, of course, but the potential threat introduced into my life. The threat alone was enough. Besides, after the break up with Neo I didn’t want to communicate with anybody at all, especially a stranger.

‘Thanks, Mr. Thewlis,’ I said. ‘But no need. Goodbye.’

We said goodbye, and I went to the hostel. I probably would have forgotten this conversation as I forgot many other things. But the next day as I was walking along the Ring Road by the Humanities campus building, a big, black Mercedes stopped right next to me. I glanced towards it – good car, powerful and beautiful, though made in Europe – and walked on. But the Mercedes began to glide along beside me. It was a wet day, and little drops of rain shivered on the tinted glass of the passenger door then started to trickle down.

‘Maybe he’s lost and wants to ask the way,’ I thought, stopping, though standing in the rain wasn’t much fun. ‘Number’s not local’.

From the leather belly of the car I heard my name:

‘Mr. Kold! Would you be so kind as to give me a shred of your attention, dear sir?

Nobody had ever yet called me ‘dear sir’, and I, of course, stopped, bent down and glanced in the window. A white man of forty years had one hand on the wheel. He had a friendly face, a short crewcut of fair hair, the reddish weather-beaten skin of a yachtsman and cheerful eyes the color of summer sky.

‘Are you talking to me?’ I asked a little foolishly, trying to guess what he wanted from me.

‘Yes, Mr. Kold. My name is Jenkins. Ed Jenkins, at your service,’ he smiled kindly. ‘I represent… However why are you getting wet in the rain? Get into the car. It is very comfortable.’

I looked around. It was broad daylight, people were going, cars were going. Of course, since we were children we’ve been told not to get into the cars of strangers, but… I haven’t been a child for a long time! Besides, this Jenkins doesn’t seem like someone who even in the long term could threaten my safety. Of course, the circumstances were a little strange, but…

Curiosity, as we know, killed the cat. I opened the door and got in.

Jenkins pressed my hand. He had a strong handshake, mannish, like my Pa’s. ‘Of course!’ I suddenly realized. Pa! ‘This is one of his acquaintances, a friend or a colleague. That’s where he knows me from, why he has weather-beaten skin.’

‘Mr. Kold, you are undoubtedly surprised, and possibly having other, not very positive feelings toward the stranger who stopped you on the street. So to quickly establish a rapport between us, I will not beat about the bush.’ Jenkins sat half-turned to me and said, still smiling. ‘I’m not a Baptist preacher, nor a salesman, and not an army recruiter. I’ve been told about you by your teacher, Mr. Thewlis…’

I sighed with disappointment. So that’s what was going on!

“I see that my explanation hasn’t met your expectations,’ he smiled even more broadly. ‘But believe me, my proposal won’t leave you indifferent, and in a positive sense.’

He spoke very softly, modulating his voice at the end of each phrase. His way of talking was full, pleasant and gave you no desire to interrupt him.

‘Your researches in the field of cryptography and encryption of information messages when sending them to the network made a favorable impression on our staff.’

‘On your – who are they?’ For the first time since I got into the car, I stared open mouthed.

‘Speaking simply, Josh’ he changed his tone and at once turned into a simple guy ‘I want to offer you a collaboration. A job, you know? Not so very complex and skilled at first; you have a lot to learn. But later…

‘Who is the employer?’ I asked.

He came straight out with it:

‘The government.’

I laughed. The situation reminded me of a cheap HBO series.

‘Sorry, Mr. Jenkins, but I won’t work for the government. It contradicts my beliefs.’

He laughed, but when he started talking, his voice became serious.

‘Beliefs? You are a joker, Mr. Kold! What beliefs are you talking about? You grew up in a good American family, your father is a respectable person and it is not his fault that your parents broke up. When I say the government, I mean the United States. The values practiced in your family are the values of the United States.’

‘I haven’t lived with my family for a long time!’ I said challengingly, even though that ‘for a long time’ was a very small part of my life.

‘So be it,’ he didn’t argue. ‘Beliefs are not socks, you can’t change them every day. Do you agree?’

I shrugged. To agree meant to recognize his correctness – and what psychologists call ‘youthful maximalism’ was boiling in me. I very much wanted to prove to this Mr. Jenkins that the main thing in life was freedom and…

‘The main thing in life is freedom,’ he said, and I shrank my head back in fear.

Had he read my mind? Who was he, damnit?!

‘I love baseball very much,’ Mr. Jenkins continued. ‘But what attracts me is not the beauty of a blow or the flight of a ball, nor the account of matches, nor the passion of the fan or even the odds at the bookmaker. No, Joshua, what I appreciate in baseball is the teamwork. They focus on a result, they work in tandem, and win victory because they understand each other well. Tell me, is there the same understanding between us?’

I shrugged my shoulders again, not knowing what to answer. He nodded.

‘Well, I will continue. Freedom is the basic value of our society. Or, speaking simply, it is for freedom’s sake that thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of Americans gave their lives. Do you remember the text of the Declaration of Independence, Joshua?

‘Well, in general…’

He closed his eyes and loudly recited by heart:

‘‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security’ This fragment is exactly about freedom, Joshua. Do you understand me?’

“’Yes, but I…’

‘You are in an unenviable position, boy. On the one hand, you have such abilities and talent that you will decorate any team. On the other hand, your life path is under threat,’ Mr. Jenkins said softly. ‘I wouldn’t like to look like a mentor, but the people you communicate with now won’t lead you to success, but the opposite…

‘And how do you know who I talk to?!’ I felt anger boiling in me. ‘You spoke absolutely correctly about freedom. So who allows you to tell me, a free person in a free country, damnit, what I do and who I talk to?!’

‘Knowing is part of my work,’ he answered, without changing tone. ‘As for freedom of choice… You probably know that the freest beings in the ocean are dolphins. But after the birth of a dolphin baby, the other dolphins surround it and don’t let it swim to the side or too deep, pushing it to the surface with their noses so it takes a sip of air and begins to breathe. Of course, they could give him freedom to choose and where to move, but there is a 75% chance the baby dolphin will die. You’re not going to argue that nature is stupid, are you?’

‘No…’

‘Every freedom has its symbols and traditions. One of the main symbols of our freedom is the national flag. You need considerable courage, Joshua, not just to know that it is a piece of fabric with strips and stars, but to defend its honour in very difficult circumstances. Our platoon sergeant, a veteran of the Korean War, often used to say: ‘Eddie, remember, it is always easier to spit, than to clean spittle up, but look around and you will see that our world is not spittle.’ Do you still want to say something?

‘N-no… s-sir,’ I really was a little confused. This Mr. Jenkins somehow easily and simply turns everything upside down – or, maybe, puts everything in place?

‘Then let’s postpone our conversation; I can see that you need to think.’

‘Yes, yes…’ I jumped out of the car and almost ran away, feeling like a hedgehog or a porcupine which has lost all its needles.

I went to the Garage because I didn’t know else to do. On the one hand, everything Mr. Jenkins told me was true. On the other hand, isn’t this just what the garagers were fighting, and didn’t all of us mock it?

I say ‘us’ but was it them? I, Joshua Kold, who am I, when it comes down to it? Which of the camps do I belong to? All my life, except for the last one and a half years, I had passed on the other side of a fence. My father was one hundred per cent American, ready to die for the sake of our country. And my sister and I grew in his civil paradigm, we were the same and didn’t even imagine otherwise – until a certain time.

And here for the first time I thought, what is America for me? No, it is clear that there is a set of ideological clichés, some ‘hallmarks’ of the country, both for external, and internal, consumption.

There is a history, there is culture and celebrated persons. There are The Golden Age and ‘the American dream’. There are, damnit, Longfellow, Hawthorne, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Updike, Charlie Chaplin, Paul Newman, Clint Eastwood, and Tarantino. There are Frank Sinatra, Amstrong, Elvis, Janis Joplin, Bee-Bee King and hundreds more, and even thousands of people who are known by the whole world, and all of them are America!

But how one is connected with another? Pincher, wiping his bum with the American flag and the same flag on a soldier’s coffin brought by plane from Somalia or Libya. What is more important here: to have the freedom to wipe with a symbol of the country or the freedom to die for it?

I was overflowing with feelings and thoughts, My hands shivered like an old man’s. I suddenly felt like a freak, an abnormal turncoat, a troubled teenager throwing dirt on the newly washed windows of the Sunday school just because of an uncontrollable feeling of contradiction.

I will tell you frankly Mr. Jenkins had been able to prise open my soul and heart, to sew seeds of doubt about how I live, and had done it with mastery. In the language of the game that he had praised highly, Mr. Jenkins had delivered the ball precisely for the catcher’s trap and earned a strike, and the hapless batter flailed his bat in the air.

Reaching the Garage, I tapped in the code on the entrance door, went to lock it carefully (the first rule!), but came face to face with Frisbee, and the door remained half-closed.

Frisbee was sitting on the floor of the Waiting room and drawing on pieces of wet cardboard with a paint brush. She drew very well, probably better than all the garagers. I could not help staring at her quick, precise strokes, but I couldn’t understand the plot of her picture at all.

Bach came in with more pieces of cardboard, watered them and spread them out to dry.

‘What are you doing?’ I asked, coming closer.

‘‘Unknown’ paintings by Andy Warhol,’ Frisbee said cheerfully without turning around. “Pincher had the cool idea of selling pictures through online auctions. You hang a lot out, set the starting price, write in comments that you found this picture in the attic in your beloved grandmother’s house. Grandma was a journalist in her youth, lived in the Big Apple and was on friendly terms with mad Andy. So, he gave her this masterpiece. And that’s it, after that you sit on your bum and wait for suckers around the world to throw you green stuff.’

‘But the painting isn’t real!’

‘And where did we write that it is real?’ Frisbee grinned. ‘This not our problem, but the young journalist’s, Lord rest her guilty soul. Let them learn the ropes.’

‘Pincher is a genius!’ Bach said with conviction.

‘And how many have you done so far?’

‘Over there, have a look in the Vernissage.

I pulled back a curtain and saw three ‘pictures’ on a long table – and on one of them there was the notorious can of Campbell’s soup, only instead of ‘Tomato soup’ Frisbee had written ‘Yamato soup’, with a circle in the center to represent the Japanese flag, and instead of vignettes at the bottom, skulls in army helmets.

The next cloth represented Marilyn Monroe sucking the dick of President Kennedy with a target on his breast.

The last was a sobbing Statue of Liberty from which the toga had been torn off. It looked at me, as she tried cover herself with her torch.

‘So, how is it?’ Frisbee was standing with a brush in her hands behind her back. ‘The real Warhol, no kidding!’

‘But…’ I tried to find the words, but I could only think of educational terms which were wrong here in the Garage. ‘It’s… mean!’

“What do you mean ‘mean’?’ Frisbee was struck dumb.

‘All of these. It’s not right.’

‘Du-ude!’ Frisbee relaxed, grinning broadly. ‘Understand: there are no rules; there is no boredom!’

‘Are you sure that boredom is the main thing you need to fight against in life?’ I asked.

‘What else? With enemies?’ Bach came in to the Vernissage and shrugged his shoulders. ‘Do you have lots of enemies?’

‘Me personally – no. But our country has enemies.’

They laughed as if they had just smoked Mexican. They just began to neigh like horses.

‘So you’re a patriot, Joshua-boy! Frisbee mocked. ‘Sing the anthem, boy, and we will salute you! Right down to the ground! How do you prefer to gain somebody’s honour – orally, anally or vaginally?’

Finally, I spat on these clowns and went to the Dispatching Office, from where I could hear music. I was hoping to find Neolani there. I made my way past pyramids of old boxes, bypassed racks of dusty old spares for plane and boat motors, faltered over old tyres… and, as I approached my target, the music – in the R’n’B style, such sad music – was overlain by a hoarse female voice – and then another voice joined that voice, a woman’s too, very familiar, and it was moaning, sighing, rhythmically, with unfeigned pleasure.

I knew very well when, and under what circumstances, Neolani groaned that way. Yet for some reason I went to see with my own eyes…

They were doing it on a sofa, in the doggy position, with Pincher thrusting his fingers into Neolani’s mouth and pulling her lips back. It seemed disgusting to me, though, probably they thought differently.

Both of them saw me and didn’t really react in any way, continuing unabashed. With us in the Garage, things were pretty free, and anyone could fuck with someone in full public view, although people tried to go behind curtains, behind boxes, to secluded corners…

‘Hi!’ Pincher winked at me, continuing to move his bum rhythmically.

‘Jo-o-osh’ Neolani moaned and hoarsely laughed in the tone of the singer. ‘Come join u-us…’

For a second I imagined, wondered how it would be – Neo, Pincher and me – and I nearly threw up.

And then I did something I did not expect of myself. I slapped a palm on the table so hard the player jumped up and became silent.

‘Hey!’ I told them ‘Separate. I’m on business.’

Silence hung. Pincher slid out of Neolani and flopped on the sofa. She stretched out nearby, brazenly staring at me through bleary, half-drunk eyes.

‘Killjoy,’ Pincher muttered.

‘I’m leaving,’ I said, trying not to look at Neolani. ‘Altogether.’

‘Where?’ Pincher asked yawning. ‘Come on, dude, what happened, happened. There is no past, you forgot? If it is because of Neo, she wanted it. She has the right.’

‘Jo-o-osh!’ Neolani drawled. ‘Are you jealous, you little fool? Well, I simply… I just wanted, but you weren’t near, understand? We drank some whiskey with Tina and I…’

‘I’m leaving for good,’ I interrupted. ‘The Garage has turned into garbage. And into a whorehouse. I don’t fit in here.’

There was dead silence. Neolani pursed her lips.

‘Well get out, you rat!’ Pincher exploded. He went deep red, jumped up and began to hastily yank his jeans on. ‘Get out of here, sucker, neatnik, nerd, shitass!’

‘Neo, will you come with me?’ I had to ask this question though I already knew the answer.

‘Jo-o-osh… Well why are you so-o complica-ated?’ Neolani sang, rolling up her eyes.

I turned and spat on the floor. I don’t know why. I never spit, even on the street when nobody’s looking, but here I spat. Perhaps, in my subconscious the words of Mr. Jenkins emerged, well, about the Baseball player, about the spat world. Or I was just pissed off.

Pincher rose up at once:

‘Stop, asshole! Wipe this fucking spittle with your fucking muzzle!’

I looked at him already absolutely quiet. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that Neolani was wrapped in that same red tarp that she had once caught up with me in.

Pincher rushed at me, swinging his hands. He was certainly much more skilled in such affairs, In fact I’d never fought, except as a little child, in the sandbox, in the Galaxy Star cargo space ship with the Makflinov brothers.

But Pincher was furious, and I – no, Lao Tzu – said knowingly: ‘You are controlled by someone who makes you angry.’

So I quietly waited for the moment when he ran up to me and punched him in the bare stomach. He gasped and fell to his knees, his eyes bulging, his face becoming even redder. Neolani screamed, huddled on a corner of the sofa.

There was a clatter in the Control Room. Bach and Frisbee fell in.

‘What happened?’

‘Grab him…!’ Pincher croaked, jabbing his thumb at me. ‘Quickly… if he runs away!’

Bach immediately grabbed me by the elbow.

‘Back off.’ I told him. ‘Back off, or else…’

‘Or else what?’ Bach said between narrowing his eyes and wringing my hand.

I hit him in the face with my free hand, somewhere on his thick cheek, but it really hurt my hand.

Bach jumped away from me, snarled and, raising his fists, advanced to attack. Frisbee stupidly jumped aside and shouted something. Neolani screamed. Pincher tried to rise from his knees.

I tried to dodge but Bach struck my jaw, and then my chest, knocking all the air from my lungs. It became clear that it was time to get out, and reeling, I staggered to the door, feebly waving away the punches of my former friends. But Pincher finally got up and decided a different approach. He launched himself on my back and clung to me like a tick, pulling me to the floor. Then Frisbee kicked me in the face…

Maybe they would have killed me if Sparky hadn’t appeared – for the not-locked door played a dirty trick on the garagers. With a wild bark, the dog flew into the Control Room and began to bite all and sundry, probably maddened by hallucinogens again. Guys were rushing in every direction, beating off the enraged dog, and in the chaos I managed to get out of the Garage.

With a broken face dripping with blood, I went down the street past the neat American lodges of respectable American families with American values who would reject all we created in the Garage.

You could call what occurred that day a fight for these values. I had battled for the Homeland against people who ate its garbage and tried to spoil everything they could reach.

They identified rats all around, and actually they were rats themselves – pathetic, greedy, stupid rats whose whole life revolved around satisfying their desire to have a good time by all available methods.

They lived at the expense of society – and spoiled society.

They spat on everything: on morals, on tradition, on the country which had given them the chance to do things, which had brought them up and presented them with the chance to live as they wanted.

They were asked little – to become worthy citizens of this country. Instead they preferred to live as animals – to guzzle drugs, copulate and crawl in their own sewage, feebly forgetting in the morning, according to the hollow ‘there is no past’ doctrine, their yesterday’s shame.

You remember, I spoke about rats at the beginning? In the Garage I nearly became one of them…

I didn’t win, but I also didn’t lose. Now I had no friends, no girlfriend, but there was my Homeland…

‘Hey, guy!’ some man called to me. ‘Is everything all right? Do you need any help?’

My heart warmed at once. If the garagers had seen a guy on the street with a bloodstained face, at best they would have mocked the poor fellow.

I wanted to scream with delight ‘Do I need help, of course. I do!’ I was so made up I wanted to cry – to ask a stranger on the street if he needs help – that is our, real, primordial America, we are strong with it, we are strong with the fact that we are together…

And for this reason I turned to him slow and dignified, and saw the elderly lieutenant with his veteran stripes and medals, and shook my head:

‘No, sir, I’m ok. Everything is all right. I just squabbled a little with some scum.’

‘What was the dispute?’ he asked without a suggestion of a smile.

‘They don’t love our country,’ I answered honestly.

‘Then, sir, you protected the United States. What is your name, and how old are you?’

I answered. He gave me his hand.

‘Joshua Kold, I have the honour to invite you into the armed forces of the USA! Such guys as you are very necessary to us. Here is my business card, the address of the recruiting point in Arnold is specified there. Have a good time!’

I saluted him and started wandering further, and the one and only thought which seemed to solve everything sat down firmly in my head: Army!.

…So I had lost what always attracted me to the Garage. More precisely, I had lost the one – Neolani. And without her the entire purpose of going into that hell-hole had gone. Maybe I could reconcile with Bach, Frisbee and even with that douchebag Pincher, but with Neolani there could be no reconciliation. This became the grain of sand that started an avalanche.

I had passed the Rubicon and wasn’t going to change my decision. The Army was exactly the place for me to forget about everything. And if someone has to protect our country, why shouldn’t this someone be me?

When I declared at home that I was going to go to serve, and in the marines, Pa sat down silently for a long time. When he started talking, his voice trembled strangely.

‘You know,’ he said. ‘As a man I will shake your hand. But as a father…’

Mr. Jenkins met me once again, just approaching me as I sat on a bench in the park, looking through the papers they gave me at the recruiting point.

‘It’s a small world!’ he said with such sincere joy that for a moment I truly believed we were meeting accidentally.

I asked him to sit down out of, well, elementary politeness, no more, and he took seat, crossed his legs and began to talk about baseball. The Baltimore Orioles had lost their last game. Everything was down to the fact that they had to ‘pull’ their rivals, but the Orioles messed up, and now they’ve lost the champion’s title.’

I nodded, glancing over pages of the recruitment papers because I had no idea how to keep that going.

‘Joining the army?’ Mr. Jenkins unexpectedly asked.

‘Something like that.’

‘You are running from problems, right?’ he stared at me like a cat at a mouse. ‘Squabbled with your mad friends at the Garage, huh?’

‘I am not running anywhere!’ I became angry. ‘Just now there is war occurring and I… I have to be there!’

‘Ah really?!’ again he appeared sincerely surprised. ‘So it turns out you are a good guy, Joshua Kold! A real American, huh? Well, I am glad that we are familiar, only…’

‘Only what?’ I muttered.

‘Are you sure that you will bring any benefit to the war?’ he narrowed his eyes like a snake. He often did so, as if looking into your soul. ‘What do you know about war, boy?’

‘No less than you!’ I became angry. ‘It’s clear that people kill there and so on. But if no one will fight, these freaks, like those that blew up the twin towers in New York, will appear here with increasing frequency, and then settle here and begin to kill everyone.

‘All this is so,’ Mr. Jenkins inclined his head. ‘But this is not war in any way. This is a war on terror, you know. The other side of the same coin so to speak. And war… This is not a spectacular raid, not firing at enemies from behind a beautiful and reliable rock, nor forced marches and not even pulling your wounded commander out from under enemy fire. War, first of all is a very dirty and, I would even say, smelly life in such disgusting conditions that it’d give you one hundred points in your Garage. There’s a lot of hard manual labour. Real marines or G-I’s are like camels always carrying a burden: weapons, munitions, products, equipment… And all this under a scorching fifty-five degrees Celsius sun and however many it will be in Fahrenheit, Joshua. You’d better not know if you want to sleep peacefully today. There are no toilets, no proper food, or normal water, and there is no mobile communication and television – just nothing at all! And in all this time you may never see the enemy for your entire round of combat operations, or ever shoot from an M-16, or ever have the magic feeling of satisfaction of a day well lived. Not once, for all your time of service, you understand me, boy?

‘Everyone has his own experience,’ I muttered under my breath.

‘Scepticism is peculiar to youth,’ he parried, hitting me with this phrase. ‘But to become a hero, you don’t have to go into the army and march to the end of the world. You can protect your country here. Remember, Joshua: the front is everywhere. Do you understand what I’m talking about?’

I silently shook my head, getting a grasp of the contract in mind. This Mr. Jenkins was little by little beginning to irritate me with his mentoring, cheesy metaphors and vague hints.

‘You are a very promising boy as regards computers, an ace,’ he was switching back into the role of Baseball player again. ‘We need people like you!’

‘Do you – to whom am I promising?’ I asked, barely restraining myself from telling him where to get off.

‘To us – the organization that protects the United States,’ he became serious. ‘We don’t shoot from rifles and machine guns, we don’t fly fighters. But our contribution to state security is no less, and maybe more, powerful than the armed forces or navy.

“So you’re FBI!’ I turned my head to him, interested. ‘Did I guess?’

Mr. Jenkins smiled.

‘The FBI, Joshua are only our journeymen. Look higher.’

‘CIA?’

‘Even higher!’

This time I smiled:

‘And what’s above? The State Department?’

‘The State Department often follows our guidance and recommendations.’

I was already amused. Mr. Jenkins, it seemed, was a commonplace schizophrenic, living in his own invented world.

‘So who are you? Mossad? KGB? MI6?’

‘National Security Agency,’ he said simply.

‘Ah, No Such Agency!’ I continued to laugh. ‘Never Say Anything… Mister Jenkins, I have to go. All the best.’”