Episode 159 · Half a Turn

The younger agent came back from the gatehouse with a policeman. Behind them, a guard blocked the path from the front offices. Three employees waited on the steps. One held a stack of folders against his stomach.

— That’s the last office, the agent told his colleague. We need them through.

The guard raised a hand when the policeman approached. He wore no coat. A ring of keys hung from his belt, and he had a short black baton in his other hand.

— Passes first, he said.

The woman from records turned away from the shelter.

— They’ve already checked us.

— Then you can show them again.

Tarn went to the gate. Soles followed, stopping outside it. Tesa stayed beside him. Krista and Maxim remained at the shelter. The guard was several steps inside the yard, between the office steps and the gatehouse.

The policeman spoke quietly to him. The man shook his head. Behind him, the employee with the folders lowered them to show the pass hanging from his neck.

— Not around your neck. In your hand.

The employee obeyed. A sheet slipped from between the folders. He left it on the ground.

— Does he normally check them here? Soles asked.

— At the office door, the woman said. Nobody stops us at this gate when we leave.

Tarn called the guard over. He did not move.

— I can’t abandon the exit.

— You’re being relieved. Come outside.

— Who by?

The policeman showed his identification. The guard glanced at it, then looked past him into the yard.

— You don’t know who’s come through.

The younger agent stepped aside so the employees could see the gate. He beckoned to the man with the folders. The guard put the baton across his path.

— One at a time.

The employee stopped. The guard studied his pass, turning it over while the folders shook in the man’s hands.

Soles could see the open office door beyond them. A woman stood just inside it, holding her own pass ready. Nobody was trying to force a way out. The guard kept looking behind each person as though somebody else might come with them.

— Let him finish checking, Soles said quietly.

Tarn weighed that for a second, then told the others to wait.

The guard handed back the pass. The employee took a step toward the gate. Before he had taken another, the baton came across him again.

— Wait. How many?

— Three, the younger agent said. Those three.

— There were four.

— One came out before I went in.

— Then bring that one back.

The man with the folders pressed his lips together. Each time someone spoke, the guard’s empty hand went to the keys on his belt. Soles had seen men touch a pocket like that when they were afraid of losing what was in it. The guard’s lips were moving too. Three, four, three, under his breath, the way a man checks a sum that will not come out. He was not guarding the gate. He was guarding the count.

— They need you outside, Soles said. You can hand over the keys there.

The guard looked at him for the first time.

— Who said anything about my keys?

His hand closed around the ring.

Well done, Soles thought. Now he’s guarding the keys too.

The man had been afraid of leaving his post; now he was watching the gate as though they had arranged to take something from him.

— Keep them, Tarn said. Just let these people out.

The younger man approached from the guard’s left. He kept his hands visible.

— You can walk with me. Nobody’s asking you to leave alone.

The guard moved to block him. The man with the folders edged past on the other side. Tesa pointed him toward the gap beside the gatehouse, and he came through it with his papers still held against his chest.

The guard turned after him. The younger agent touched his elbow.

— Let him go.

The baton came up.

It was going to come down on the younger agent’s head, and the agent was still looking at the guard’s face. Soles had one idea and no time to like it: get between them, shove the guard back through the gate, take the blow on anything but a skull.

He went past Tesa and through the gate, aiming for the arm above the baton. His hip punished the first step. By the time his left palm met the guard’s forearm, the blow was already carrying both their hands toward the agent’s head.

He could not stop it. Beside the guard, though, there was space to turn with it. For an instant he knew the movement from another body: both arms free, weight already on the other foot. He tried it with the feet he had.

He drew on the strength he had used in the washroom and turned with the arm instead of trying to hold it still. The arm did not turn like an arm. It came on like a gate in a high wind, heavier than the man it belonged to, as if something under the yard were leaning into it with him. Against Soles’s ear the guard was still counting. Part of the blow went past the agent: the baton brushed his cheek and struck the iron gate.

Soles’s left foot had scraped around on the paving. His right had stayed planted behind him. The guard kept turning, and Soles tried to drag the foot after him too late. Something in the front of his left shoulder gave, a small, wrong slide, and came back. Pain ran down to his elbow; his grip opened, and the guard’s arm knocked him aside. His injured right elbow struck his ribs as he stumbled.

For a heartbeat the guard’s side was open to him, ribs and kidney, the whole length of it.

Not him. He thinks he’s keeping them.

Soles let it go.

A crack sounded from the offices.

The woman in the doorway cried out. Dust dropped from the top corner of the door. Soles saw the crack above it widen; the door scraped the paving as it swung farther open.

— Move! Tarn shouted.

The two remaining employees ran for the gate. The guard reached after them, then swung back at the younger agent. Soles’s left arm would not rise high enough to try again.

Tesa caught the agent’s coat with her sound hand and pulled him toward the gap beside the gatehouse. The baton hit the gate a second time. The policeman pushed the iron leaf between them and the guard.

— Back, Tesa told Soles.

He stepped against the gatepost instead. His heel caught its base. She pointed down, and he looked before moving this time. The agent got through. Soles followed him, keeping his left arm close to his side.

— Keep coming, Maxim called.

He stood beside the shelter’s table, one hand on it. He pointed the employees past the chairs, toward the road. Krista moved the empty chair out of their way and went with them. The man talking to his daughter tried to stand.

— Stay with me, the medic told him. We’re moving together.

Tarn called for help. Another policeman came from the gatehouse. Through the bars, Soles could see the guard trying to pull the gate open while the first policeman held it.

— You can’t just let them walk off, the guard said.

The guard let go of the gate and looked back toward the office steps. Tarn called to him.

— They’ve all shown their passes. You saw them.

— Where’s the fourth?

— Outside. Come and check.

The policeman eased the gate open. He stayed between the guard and the road. The second policeman waited on the other side. Soles wanted to warn them, but Tarn was already pointing toward the people beyond the shelter.

The guard came through, still holding the baton.

— Put that down first, the policeman said.

He did not. He tried to pass between them. The first policeman caught the guard’s wrist; the second took his other arm. The baton fell against the gatepost. The guard struggled, shouting that someone had to watch the exit.

Soles took another step back. Tesa stayed with him. It took both policemen to bring the guard away from the gate, and they had to stop once when he tried to turn back.

Tarn picked up the baton. He carried it with the handle down.