The Illegal (34 page)

I
NEED TO SPEAK TO THE MINISTER.
”

June Hawkins had been the immigration minister’s executive secretary for only two years, and in that time she had turned away hundreds of people.

“I’m sorry,” June said, “but the minister is not available.”

He leaned over her desk. If he wanted to kill her, he could wring her neck on the spot.

“It’s important,” he said. “Vitally important.” He had a huge bandage on his left hand.

“I could schedule you in next week,” June said.

“No time. Please give him this”—he passed her a letter—“and tell him that Anton Hamm will be back to see him soon.”

June opened it, as she did all the minister’s correspondence.

Dear Minister Calder,

I’m sorry about threatening you. I was wrong. It wasn’t you. I have been screwed now over and over by someone dealing with deportations. Man named Saunders has been paying me to . . .

June skipped over the details. Minister Calder could absorb them later. But her eyes were drawn to the last part of the letter.

. . . I want out. Can’t do this anymore. Motherfucker shot me up, and I can’t handle it. I didn’t pay my taxes, and I’m screwed but I don’t care. You need to know what is going on right under your nose. Tell Saunders and his people to leave me alone. I hope you arrest all those bastards.

June walked into Rocco’s office and dropped the letter into his inbox. As she turned to leave, her pen slipped out of her hand. She stooped to retrieve it and saw, attached to the undersurface of the minister’s desk, a strange object. Half the length of her index finger. As thin as a pencil. Hard plastic shell. Wires inside.

It was the first time she’d seen one, but June was quite sure it was an electronic listening device.

R
OCCO
C
ALDER TOOK A TAXI TO THE
C
LARKSON
Academy for the Gifted. The century-old brick building was located on the University of Clarkson campus and was world-renowned. If you graduated with good marks from the Academy, the rest of your life was set. Or so it was said.

Rocco noticed the headmistress’s office stank of Limburger cheese.

“Can I help you?” a receptionist said. Middle-aged. Grey-haired. Little makeup. Brown bag on her desk. Thirty thousand bucks a year, max.

“I’d like to have a word with John Falconer,” Rocco said.

“I’m afraid he’s in class, sir.”

“It’s urgent.”

“Are you his father?”

Rocco hesitated. “No, I’m—”

The headmistress came out of her office. She was suave, attractive, mid-thirties, dressed in a black suit, with red pumps and red lipstick. Good looking, and probably brainy too. He wondered if she had voted for the Family Party. In the last election, the party had captured more votes than expected from young, professional women.

“Why hello, Minister Calder, I’m Brenda Tolmer. And to what do we owe the honour?”

“I’d like a word with one of your students, John Falconer, please.”

“Is there a problem?”

“No. None. He has been, um, interviewing me recently, and I need to make an important correction.”

“Highly impressive that one of our Grade 9 students got to you,” the headmistress said. “He must have been persuasive.”

“Yes.”

“We’ve been finding him, if I may say so, a wee bit distracted lately.”

“How so?” Rocco asked.

“Head in the clouds. Seems constantly to be reviewing film in his video camera. We’d hate to see him get off track. Kid’s as smart as a whip, considering his background.” She stepped in a little closer. “First student we’ve ever had from AfricTown. Full scholarship too.”

“He definitely has potential. And so, may I have a word with him?”

“Let me page him.”

T
HEY MET IN THE OFFICE OF THE VICE-HEADMASTER, WHO
left the room but kept the door open.

“Just checking to see if you really study here,” Rocco said.

The boy smiled. “So what brings you here? Do you want to see my private bathroom and rowing machine?”

“Very funny.”

John brought out his video camera.

“No,” Rocco said. “Not this time. No taping, nothing.”

John stretched his feet out on the couch. “Okay, then. What’s up, bro?”

“I have reason to believe that my office is being bugged. I have no doubt who is behind this. And I need your help.”

The boy was paying attention now. He liked to be asked to help.

“The PM and his sidekick will know, thanks to their bug, that I plan to meet Keita Ali on June 21. And they’ve been asking me about him. Repeatedly.”

“They’ll try to deport him straight away.”

“If Keita gives me what is promised, I will give him a temporary residence permit allowing him to stay here while applying for refugee status.”

“Still seems dangerous,” John said.

“It’s more dangerous if he does not come to get it.”

“So, where do I fit in?”

“The PM will turn up at the meeting, I know it. Do you think you could videotape the whole thing? In a . . . clandestine manner?”

“Now you’re talking.”

M
ILE 1.
S
EVEN RUNNERS IN THE LEAD PACK.
Keita was tucked in at the very back of the group. It was a windy day, and he didn’t want to do any more work than necessary. They’d covered the first mile in 4:34. Keita hoped that nobody picked up the pace. It was too fast to maintain. There were two Zantorolanders, three Kenyans, Billy Deeds—the lone white guy from Freedom State—and Keita.

Deeds was full of bravado. “Come on, you pussies,” he shouted. “Don’t tell me this is the best you got. Put on a show for Roger Bannister.”

Keita ignored the taunt. True, Deeds had beaten him in the half-marathon because Keita passed out. But now the problem was under control, and Deeds was the least of his concerns. Just looking at the way he ran, Keita was sure Deeds did not have more than five more miles in him at that pace. 4:34 was fast.

Keita had tested his blood early in the morning, and again two hours after eating and one more time right before the race. Each time, his glucose levels were normal. DeNorval had been coaching him well about how to manage diabetes. DeNorval had also told him to drink fluids with electrolytes and carbohydrates at the race’s five-mile mark. A low blood sugar level, DeNorval warned, would feel even worse than a high one. But the latter was unlikely, now that he was injecting twenty units of insulin a day.

Keita’s legs felt loose and easy. He hoped they stayed that way until
the seven-mile point. After that, it would be pure guts. Twenty-five thousand dollars for winning, and an extra five thousand for breaking the course record of 46:04. That’s what he needed. Placing second would be almost as good, because it came with fifteen thousand.

Mile 2. 9:13. He could hear Deeds, whose breathing was already laboured. That was a good sign. The three Kenyans ran in a tight bunch at the front. Keita still sat at the back of the pack. Hamm waited a little way past the mile 2 marker. Keita noticed that he had a huge bandage on his left hand.

“Run hard,” Hamm shouted.

“Nice to have fans,” one of the Zantorolander runners mumbled to Keita.

“I take all the love I can get,” Keita said.

“The guy’s fixated on you,” the runner said, “but he tells me he is quitting.”

“Quitting?”

“Getting out of the business. After this race.”

Keita glanced at the name on the runner’s bib:
Moses Patterson
. “You in his stable?”

“Yup,” Moses said.

“Your first race for him?” Keita said.

“First and last.”

Mile 3. Mitch, on the back of a police motorcycle and carrying a loudspeaker, pulled even with the runners. “Gentlemen, a reminder that at mile five, you will turn 180 degrees, keeping the orange cones to your left. There is to be no pushing or shoving. If you break the rules, you will be disqualified.”

Keita knew the rules. Mitch was not allowed to single out any particular runner for encouragement or to offer advice. Keita thought about the USB stick strapped to a tiny belt at the small of his back. He barely felt it.

Moses noticed, though. “Is that thing a heart monitor?”

“No,” Keita said.

“What is it, then?”

“Makes me run faster,” Keita said. He accelerated, stepping it up to a 4:20-mile pace for just over a minute. Moses fell off the pace. So did two of the Kenyans. That told Keita that Kenya had not sent its best runners to the race. Not by a long shot. A good thing or he’d need to keep up this quicker pace for the whole race.

Surprisingly, Deeds stayed with him. So did the other Zantorolander. With the remaining Kenyan and Keita, that left four in the lead pack.

He had told Maxwell yesterday, by email, that he would send the money today. He had asked for a reassurance that his sister was still alive: a photo of her that showed the date. And the photo came back: a grainy shot of his sister, with a blackened eye and a cut on her forehead, holding up a sheet of paper that said
June 20, 2018
. Maxwell added, by way of a P.S., that Charity had met a certain friend of his recently.

Mile 4. 18:24. Exactly the pace that Keita would need to run the fastest ten miles of his life. Lula DiStefano stood by the side of the road near the four-mile marker, with a personal assistant and a man to hold her purse. She smiled, but her smile was not one that suggested she was proud to see him racing. It was a smile that told him he had run out of places to hide.

At mile 5, the clock read 23:01. A hundred children from AfricTown had come out and were chanting: “
Champion of AfricTown! Run those boys into the ground!
”

Many children had come up to him in the past few weeks, when he was running on AfricTown Road.

“Mr. Keita, Mr. Keita, let us watch you run.”

“You are seeing me run now,” he would reply.

“We want to see you run properly. In a race. Win for us, Mr. Keita. Run those other men into the ground! You are the champion of AfricTown!”

Keita grabbed a sports drink from the refreshment table and forced down a few sips, spilling most of it on his shirt. It didn’t matter if his shirt got soaked: the USB stick on his back was wrapped in
plastic. Children tried to run alongside the pack, sprinting to keep up with the racers. No child was able to stay with them for more than ten seconds.

Keita would have to wear down the rest of the field. One of the runners might be much stronger than he was, and he had to find out. But would there be more than one? The only way was to surge again and see who followed. A minute after the five-mile marker, Keita threw down the gauntlet. He brought the pace up to 4:25-mile speed. And then, for about an eighth of a mile, 4:20 speed. The fourth-place fellow dropped back. Deeds stayed right with him, as did the Kenyan, so Keita settled back into a 4:36-mile pace. He had to test this out. He could not afford to finish third. He imagined his sister’s voice:
You could save my life if you ran a little faster!
Within a minute of easing off, he sped up again, increasing his speed to a 4:20 pace. He heard the Kenyan breathing heavily, so he decided to keep it up for a quarter-mile. The Kenyan finally cracked and fell back, and Keita continued the fast pace for yet another eighth of a mile. Deeds was still on his shoulder. Keita slowed back down to 4:36.

“Is that all you got?” Deeds said.

Keita said nothing but made sure that he kept pushing the pace.

They hit mile 6 and the clock read 27:35.

A group of police motorcycles pulled up behind the leaders, came even with them and advanced just a few metres ahead. Keita’s feet almost collided with their tires. One of the uniformed men kept looking back at him. Keita heard the police radio crackle.

“Runner identified,” came a voice from the radio.

“Shall I make the arrest?” the officer asked.

Another motorcycle pulled up beside the police. Keita could hear Mitch’s voice.

“No! Do not interfere with the runners. They will be at the finish line in less than twenty minutes. Please. Speak to your commanding officer. Your business can wait!”

More voices crackled, and then the cop who had been staring at him sped ahead and away.

“Jail time for Roger, is it?” Deeds was mouthing off again.

Keita believed he could outrun Deeds. But he didn’t want to pull away from him too soon. If he were alone in the lead, it might be easier for an overexcited police officer to jump him. Running beside Deeds gave Keita a measure of protection.

“While you give interviews to dyke reporters, I train on the track, buddy-boy. So why don’t you just go back home?”

Keita had no breath for singing now, and Deeds knew it. Keita’s legs were growing heavy. His thighs ached so intensely that he looked down, wondering if something was wrong with them. They hurt like the blazes, and the last three miles would be about who could tolerate the pain more.

At the eight-mile mark, the time was 36:48. Keita looked over his shoulder. The Kenyan was holding on to the pace, just thirty yards back. One could make up thirty yards quite easily in the last two miles of a road race like this.

In his pain, Keita thought again of his nightmare: being brought sweets and drinks while his father was tortured in the Pink Palace in Yagwa. He thought of what the authorities had done to his father and of hauling the naked corpse home. He thought of his sister now, and he decided that he would rather die of a heart attack than not spend every ounce of energy winning this race for her.

It was now too risky to run alongside Deeds. The Kenyan might overtake them both, and Keita did not have a strong finishing kick. Keita glanced over and saw that Deeds’ head was tilting to the side. He was hurting! Keita picked up his pace again and ran as hard as he could for a quarter-mile. Finally, Deeds cracked. Keita tried with all he had to pull ahead of him. Thousands of spectators lined the side of the road, and he was faintly aware that they were shouting and pointing. He got to the nine-mile marker in 41:24. He was having trouble breathing and hearing, but Keita knew he needed more than a strong finish. He glanced back. The Kenyan was a few yards back and smiling, as if to say,
You’re toast, and we both know it.
Keita knew this might be true, but he took comfort in noting that Deeds had
been broken. He was more than a hundred yards back. The Kenyan caught Keita with a third of a mile to go. A fifth of a mile before the finish line, he took off in a sprint that Keita could not match. Keita didn’t even try. He had second place in the bag. Second was all he needed.
Hang on, Charity. Just hang on a little longer.

Keita crossed the finish line in 45:58, nearly knocked over a race official and kept going.

It was crowded up ahead. Two men waited by the metal gate designed to herd runners toward the recovery area. One wore a jacket with the word
Immigration
on it. Another held handcuffs.

“Keita Ali,” one of them shouted. “You’re under—”

Keita hurdled the barrier and kept running.

“Stop!” someone called from behind, so Keita ran faster. He had just one hope, and just one place to go, so he darted among pedestrians and raced toward the Freedom Gates. A siren wailed behind him. Keita glanced back. Two officials were chasing him on foot, and a police car was after him too. The officials wouldn’t be able to keep it up for more than a hundred metres, so it was the car he had to worry about. He couldn’t let them catch him.

He knew the way; John had given him directions. Keita pulled out of sight into a grassy field and then onto a street facing traffic. He ran out Freedom Gates and into the traffic circle, darting away from cars. The siren kept blaring, a reminder of everything that he had fled in Zantoroland and in Freedom State. He ran along the boardwalk by Ten-Mile Inlet on his left, passed three government buildings on his right, and then darted through a fourth office building, from front to back, emerging and doubling around on side streets until he was able to enter the Freedom Building without any police officers or cruisers in sight.

He knew the office he was looking for was one floor up. He took the stairs in threes. There, at the end of the hallway, was a door marked
The Honourable Rocco Calder, Federal Minister of Immigration
. He opened it and tore through the outer office, past a black woman sitting at a desk and into the room behind.

The minister stood up from his desk, and the black woman came in behind Keita.

“Excuse me,” she said. “It’s about Viola Hill. And it concerns this gentleman, too.”

“Not now, June,” the minister said.

“It’s an emergency,” June said.

“Just take care of it,” the minister said.

“I’ll be a few doors down,” she said. “In the lunch room. Going to make some calls on your behalf.”

“OK, later,” Calder said.

“Congratulations,” June said to Keita, “and good luck.” And then she was gone.

“Keita Ali,” the minister said. “You sure got here fast.”

Without a word, Keita shook his hand, slid off his tiny belt, pulled out the USB stick and reached to hand it over. Then he hesitated.

“Don’t you have something for me?” Keita said.

The minister brought out a form and signed it. He gave it to Keita along with the pen. “Sign this. It gives you the temporary right to be in the country. The next step will be to get you permanent refugee status.”

Keita signed and released the USB stick into the minister’s hand. It was hard to believe that the process was so simple. In fact, Keita did not yet believe that he was safe.

“Fine run, by the way. I was watching it on TV. I saw you ran under forty-six minutes. That is smoking, for ten miles. Pity you lost.”

“About coming in second, it doesn’t matter—”

“No, it doesn’t,” said a voice behind Keita. “Turn that stick over to me. And that’s an order.”

Keita spun around. He was still gasping. His hamstrings were cramping. Standing there was a young man with pimples on his forehead and a tie that needed straightening.

“Who are you?” Keita asked.

“The only one who can get anything done here. Keita Ali, you’re about to be deported.”

“Geoffrey, get out of my office,” Calder said.

“Make me,” Geoffrey said.

“I’d be glad to,” Calder said.

Keita considered running. But where? And how? He was out of breath. His legs felt like tree stumps: heavy, lifeless, useless. He looked toward the door again, but it was too late. A copper-toned black man with shades and a baseball cap had stepped into the doorway. He was pointing a purple pistol with a silencer.

“You,” the man with the gun said to Keita, “get in the corner and sit down.”

“There is no need to harm anyone,” Keita said.

“Shut the fuck up, and do what I say.”

Keita lurched to the corner. Glancing out the window, he could see the finish line less than a kilometre away, and runners who had already crossed the line were walking up the street, eating doughnuts and ice cream bars. It was just one floor down. Could he pull open the window and jump?

“Keita,” the minister said. “Could you humour him? We will get through this. Here.” He walked over to Keita and helped him to a chair.