Zantoroland. What a dump. Dictatorship. Poverty. The whole country of 4.5 million people was like one giant AfricTown. It was complicated, having AfricTown right on the southern edge of Clarkson, the capital city and crown jewel of Freedom State. Demonstrators insisted on mass arrests. They said the government should put anybody who couldn’t prove citizenship on a boat home. If only it were that easy! Where could the government send them? Zantoroland was already bursting at the seams and would never accept a hundred thousand down-and-outers from Freedom State. Rocco was learning that you could only deport so many people. One of his briefing notes explained that Zantoroland, officially, was only willing to take five thousand “returnees” per year. Even arresting Illegals was complicated. You had to detain them, feed them and deal with all the negative publicity related to imprisoning them as if they were ordinary criminals. The only solution was to show the public that the government was dead serious about carrying through on its campaign promises—but to be strategic about it.
The hill was finally flattening out. Rocco had to concentrate on keeping his pace. He had bet five friends that in this, his first marathon, he could beat 3:15. Riding on the bet: a 750-millilitre bottle of eighteen-year-old, single-malt Macallan scotch worth two hundred and fifty dollars. He had to buy one for every friend if he ran slower than 3:15. And if he made the time, he would receive one from each friend. Scotch. Now that was the drink. It left the slightest burn in his gut. Well, scotch would be for another day. Now he had to batten down the hatches and keep the kilometres clicking and hope that his cellphone didn’t ring again. Wait. Who was this lovely lady pulling up beside him? What a sight. How did he get to be so lucky? Fit and fifty and out running on a sunny day beside this fine specimen of womanhood.
SERGEANT CANDACE FREIXA WAS DOING THIS JUST FOR FUN. And for training. She was primarily a five-kilometre and ten-kilometre woman, and the two-time reigning champ in both events at the Freedom State Police Games. She had never tried out for an Olympic team or tested herself against elite runners. She was merely faster than any other distance-running female officer in the country—and faster than most of the male officers too. Police bigwigs liked having a few female jocks on the force. Her bosses bragged to their counterparts in other cities that Candace could whip any cop in their shop—woman or man. Sometimes, they put down money. But it was all in good fun, and it came with great perks. They had sent her to race against cops in track and cross-country meets in Dublin, Amsterdam and New York. It was fun to hang out with fit cops and to get it on once in a blue moon when she knew she would never have to see the guy in Freedom State.
Candace had persuaded her captain to fly her to Buttersby—a good eight hundred kilometres from Clarkson—as a fitness test, in advance of the Freedom State Police Games. She figured she could run 3:10 without too much pain, so she planned to run at that pace or a little faster until the halfway mark and then pick it up if the spirit moved her. She would spend the weekend in Buttersby, go out dancing and if the right guy happened to come along—hot and clean and good about using condoms and all that—and if he didn’t open his big fat mouth and say something negative about Illegals in Freedom State, he might just get lucky.
Candace had come from AfricTown, and she had no intention of moving back. Among her fellow cops, she didn’t advertise where she came from. She didn’t want to have to fend off the inevitable questions. When was she born? How had she gained citizenship? Had she forged her papers? Candace was born and raised in AfricTown, and, yes, so was her mother. Not every person in the community was illegal, although Candace had tired years ago of making that point.
Candace was running down the hill at the seventeen-kilometre mark when the lead marathoners began approaching her from the bottom of the hill. She had the whole hill to watch them coming. The guy up front was an object of beauty. He charged up as if on flat land. His race bib said he was Roger Bannister. She held out her hand for him, just on a whim, and he high-fived her, which made the whole race worthwhile. He was her age. More or less. She glanced over her shoulder to catch another glimpse of him. His ass looked hard, like a fine apple. Sculpted legs. If only hers were that firm. As he ran, he sang. Some corny country song. Candace recognized it.
In the instant that she high-fived the leader and moved past him, she noticed the second-place runner. A white guy. Hurting on the hill. She passed him. What? Had she heard that right? Did he call her a nigger? She couldn’t believe it. Of course, she had been called a nigger a thousand times in Freedom State, and a thousand times people had assumed she was from away, not born in the country, not a native citizen with a university degree and a job as a police sergeant. But to be called a nigger by a fellow marathoner?
“Fuck you,” she said.
At the bottom of the hill, Candace decided to not wait for the halfway mark to increase her speed. She pulled even with a big man ahead of her. About fifty. Good looking. Moving very well, considering his age, although he seemed flat-footed. She ran beside him for a while. Most guys in marathons were cool. He said something, and she looked over. His eyes were roving. This guy was checking her out, in the middle of a marathon.
Curvaceous. Who used that word anymore? It wasn’t necessarily even a compliment, although he seemed to intend it so. He mumbled something about his yacht, Macallan single-malt scotch, and what was her number? She took a good look at him. She was on high alert now and not going to take any bullshit.
Just as she was going to let loose the most colourful AfricTown tongue-lashing the man had ever heard, she realized that he was Rocco Calder. Federal minister of immigration. He also happened to be one of the dudes she was ordered to protect, when she was assigned—among dozens of other cops—to do security detail on horseback at demonstrations. The police force used her as a public face. Why not kill two birds with one stone and have a black woman cop highly visible at public events? And Candace used it, for sure. Anything to get ahead. On the police force’s tab, she had taken three years of riding lessons. Thousands of dollars of training, for free! So now she wasn’t just a cop but also a horsewoman. Anything to get ahead. She wanted to make staff sergeant before she turned twenty-eight.
She pulled ahead of him. Wait till she told her girlfriends that the man known across the country as the Rock had tried to pick her up during the Buttersby Marathon. And that she had brushed hands with the cutest guy in the world, a slender, tight-cheeked black man who had charged like a locomotive up the Buttersby Mountain, singing a country song and flashing a gorgeous smile.
THE RUNNER TO WATCH IN THE BUTTERSBY MARATHON WAS probably from Zantoroland. But who he really was, Viola had no idea. Who in his right mind would register for the race under the alias Roger Bannister? Clearly he was an elite athlete, but Viola had already heard, mid-race, that he had not been registered as such. He had had to push his way close to the front of the crowd of regular runners, starting perhaps a hundred people and twenty metres behind the elite runners on the starting line.
On an international scale, this was a minor marathon that did not attract the fastest runners. What did you expect? It was only offering two thousand dollars for first prize, and an additional two thousand if the winner beat 2:10. Still, the fastest marathoners from Freedom State were entered in this race.
Viola wheeled close to the cordoned finishing line, in the area reserved for media. She positioned herself so that with her camera she could shoot the winner approaching and breaking the finishing tape. Thankfully, she saw no TV cameras. Viola hated TV crews. They showed no respect. TV cameramen and the so-called journalists who went out with them thought they owned exclusive visual access to any and every story. They would just plant themselves right in front of any newspaper person. But Viola had a strategy for that. A whistle hung around her neck right now, and if any smug sonofabitch with TV equipment on his shoulder situated himself in front of her, Viola would blow that whistle until he moved.
Earlier in the competition, when Mitch Hitchcock—who directed the Buttersb
y Marathon, and virtually every other major road race in the country—gave her a lift to the big hill, Viola had taken a few shots of the lead runner. In one photo, as he ran up, he high-fived Rocco Calder, the federal minister of immigration, who was running down. Viola made a mental note to look for the minister later. She’d try to catch him after the race, in the tent where they handed out bananas and bagels. He’d be on his runner’s high, and she could slip in a question about Yvette Peters.
When Viola had snapped his photo, the minister was already running several kilometres behind the leaders. The lead runner had looked easy and in control, even though some crazy-assed competitor was jawing away at him, calling him a nigger. And worse. Honestly, Viola’s country was going to the dogs. What did you expect, with a government elected on a “boot out the refugees” platform? If the country’s leaders were going to talk about blacks that way, it only stood to reason that the insanity would trickle down to the population, even to some of its elite marathon runners. This was one reason why she despised the Family Party. In her opinion, it gave Freedom Statonians licence to hate refugees. And her own government fed the prejudice.
Just six months before the Freedom Party was elected, a boatload of refugees had come to shore near the village of Pender’s Mill on the southwest coast of Freedom State. They had not been given enough food or water when they were on board, and some had been beaten at sea. No news there. But after they arrived, some of the refugees murdered the captain of the boat. Then they went on a rampage, looting and pillaging in the town. Pender’s Mill was hours by car from the nearest police station. Some of the refugees stormed a restaurant to demand food and drink that they could not pay for. There had been fights. Two local men died, as did six refugees. The others were held at gunpoint in a barn until the cops showed up. The incident made national and international news and led even more voters toward the Family Party, which milked the event for all it was worth.
Viola thought she had seen it all. Covered every sport, gone to every game, seen every conceivable thing there was to write about in the sporting world. But never before had she seen a white guy calling a black guy a nigger, mid-race. And what was the black guy doing? Racing up a steep hill as if gravity weren’t a factor. Singing.
“Did you see that?” she had said to Hitchcock, who had accompanied her to the mid-race point.
Hitchcock had shaken his head and said only, “That guy in second is such a prick. He’s a talented ten-thousand-metre runner, but he’ll die somewhere beyond the top of this hill. Bet you he doesn’t finish in the top three. But let’s get you back to the finish line.” He called for the wheelchair van and travelled back with Viola.
Some of the media thought Hitchcock was prickly and arrogant, and called him Bitch Pisscock, but he was a good man. You followed his rules and respected his races, and he treated you decently. Viola had no problem with Mitch Hitchcock.
And here she was, waiting at the finish line. Viola wondered if the lead runner had heard the insult. She had so much to ask that African, or whatever he was, if she could get to him.
Normally, Viola considered long-distance running a major yawn. On a day off, she would rather watch a cricket game, because at least at a cricket game you could have a beer and not worry about missing a thing if you fell asleep and napped for an hour. But this race was different. There was something mysterious about this runner, and Viola was going to find the story.
She was ready, hands on her camera. Hitchcock was standing on the other side of the finishing chute, talking to Anton Hamm, the marathon agent. The guy was about two heads taller and a hundred pounds heavier than Hitchcock. Built like a banyan fig tree. Hands like hams. The man looked like his own name. She shot them twice with her camera, testing the flash. Never a bad idea to have the race director’s photo. Why was Hamm here? Did he represent the lead runner?
A boy wandered in front of her. He looked to be about twelve years old, and he had media ID hanging from his neck. This would be the day of strangeness. She waited for a moment, but he parked himself right in front of her, so she had no choice but to let him have it with the whistle. The kid jumped a foot straight up, and then he turned around, looking terrified. It was John Falconer. The whiz kid who had won the essay contest.
“Hey, kid, you’ve got to move,” she said.
“I have to take a photo,” he said.
She blasted him with the whistle again. “Move.”
“Okay, okay,” he said, and he stepped a metre away. “Good enough?” he said.
“More. I can’t have you in my field of vision.”
“I have to take a photo too.”
She raised the whistle to her lips once more.
“All right, already.” He gave her another metre or two.
She liked this kid; he had attitude to burn. “How’d you get the media accreditation?”
“Wrote to the race director,” he said. He stared at her chair.
“What you looking at?” she asked.
“I was wondering how you get around so well,” he said.
“Don’t patronize me,” she said. “I’ve never seen a kid covering a marathon before.”
“And I’ve never seen a bald black woman whistling in a wheelchair, but I wasn’t planning to get all dramatic about it,” he said. “Anyway, I remember you from the essay prize ceremony.”
“So why are you interested in this marathon?”
“The lead runner. I want to put him in my documentary.”
“Really,” Viola said. “He interests me too.”
He said, “Who do you think is going to win this race? A white guy or the black guy?”
“Black.”
“How come?”
“Did you see him running up the hill earlier? He was charging uphill, and he wasn’t even hurting. The guy who owns the marathon is the one who hurts the least.”
“I’ve already got three hours of footage for my documentary,” he said.
“Sounds like it’s about more than just the race,” she said.
“Maybe I could interview you too,” he said.
“Fuck you,” she said with a laugh.
“You said before that you were from AfricTown.” He turned the camera on her.
“Don’t point that thing at me. I’m not your story, fool. I’m your competition!”
“You lost your legs in AfricTown? When you were a child?”
“Later. Shouldn’t you be in school or something?”
“I’m excused from class to film my documentary.”
“Travelling all on your own?”
“You did, and your legs don’t work,” John said. “So why can’t I?”
“Mouthy little fucker, aren’t you?”
He took a few photos of the big man who appeared to be arguing with the race director.
“Who’s the giant?” John asked.
“Anton Hamm.”
“Who’s he?”
“Human trafficker,” Viola said.
“Get out!” he said.
“He’s an agent for Zantoroland marathoners.”
“That’s right, I read about him,” John said. “The ex-shot-putter. The one with the temper who won two Olympic gold medals.”
“You did read about him,” Viola said.
“We should collaborate,” he said. “I could tell you a few things, and you could answer some of my questions.”
“I’m a reporter,” Viola said, “and I don’t answer questions.”
“Guess you won’t be getting any scoops from me.”
The kid was too smartassed for Viola’s liking. And he really needed to grow.
“There’s just one thing I want to know,” the boy said.
“What?”
“You’re a reporter and all, so you follow politics, right?”
“You bet.”
“Well, about the prime minister?”
“Graeme Wellington. What about him? Spit it out. Not much time, now.”
“Does he have some sort
of assistant, somebody in his inner circle named Whoa-Boy?”
“I don’t know any Whoa-Boy, but he has an EA named Geoffrey Moore.”
“EA. What’s that?”
“Executive assistant. Okay, lesson is over, Johnny. Move right over. More. More. More. Good. See? The winner is coming, four blocks away. See him? I gotta get set.”
The leader looked, well, how would she describe him? Thin, muscular, early twenties. Boyish face. Made running look like an art form. Smooth, effortless, his legs churning, and he was moving faster than a boy like John here could sprint for a hundred metres. What was his real name? What was his story? Not another runner in sight.
Roger Bannister, or whoever he was, crossed the line in 2:09:36. There was a cash prize for winning and another for finishing in under 2:10. She caught him with her camera as he crossed the finish line. Got the look on this face, his arms up, waist breaking the tape. Happy? No. Exhausted? Neither. He looked worried.
She wheeled off to interview him.
LITTLE GUYS DIDN’T LIKE GIANTS TOWERING OVER THEM, SO Anton Hamm gave the fellow some breathing room. In anger management, they had emphasized spatial needs. They had told Anton to visualize a three-metre radius around every person who irritated him. “Do not breach their radius,” he had been told. Anger-management people talked like that. With a straight face. Do not breach their radius. Anyway, he did have something of a problem. He could admit that. He could easily blow a gasket, only to feel remorseful later. So now, he tried to follow the counselling advice he had received.
Stepping back, he said once again, “Mr. Hitchcock.”
Hitchcock did not even turn his head. He kept his eyes on the finishing line and said with false cheer, “Busy just now.”
Anton stared at the man. The chain-smoking race director was fifty-something and long-haired and skinny as a fence pole. His strained, pseudo-polite British falsetto really meant, Screw off.