Our Last Echo

15

Washington DC

The senate hearings that followed the destruction of Metropolis largely exonerated Kovalan from blame, at least on the legal level. While it was clear he was the focus of the invasion, the committee accepted that he was not to blame for a situation effectively created when he was a baby. He had, after all, turned himself in to the custody of the US after Scyro's threat was broadcast to the world. The deaths in Metropolis and the damage to the city were officially deemed the result of a war declared by Scyro. Kovalan accepted the responsibility for his part in the battle, but almost everyone believed that if Kovalan had held back, the outcome would have been far worse.

But there was another side to the public hearings: the backroom deal that ensured the favourable public report. It wasn't what anyone really wanted, but Kovalan, faced with so much evidence of the damage he had caused, not just to buildings but to lives, accepted the terms the group eventually presented. It seemed, at the time, a reasonable compromise. On the face of it, Kovalan conceded very little.

He agreed to respect the constitution and laws of the United States, which was something he had already stated publicly. In return, the authorities agreed to the same standard, meaning Kovalan couldn't be held to account for something he might do in the future, only for something he had actually done. Since he refused to confirm where in the US he lived, that gave the committee chaired by Senator Finch effective oversight over his activities, if and when she chose to exercise it. Kovalan had agreed to accept that authority, while warning that their agreement wouldn't last if it were abused.

In return for agreeing to help should disaster strike in the US - again, something he would have done anyway - the committee recognised that he was not a tool of the US government to be used against their enemies: they could ask for his help, but he wasn't obligated to follow orders. It was suggested that in the event of a worldwide emergency, such as the invasion, that might not apply, but everyone knew that Kovalan could not be forced to do anything. He was simply too powerful.

It seemed like a good deal until the incident in the Nairomi desert. Kovalan hadn't broken any laws, and nothing in the agreement forbade him from acting as he did. But the stories being told about the incident painted a very different picture. The committee had no choice but to act.

He knew, now, that it had been a well-planned ambush, designed to make him react just as he had. Bill Centron, of course, was one of the committee that negotiated the terms, so he knew - possibly even wrote - the fine print. But Kovalan couldn't prove that Centron engineered the Nairomi incident. He couldn't even prove it was engineered. Diana testified that Amajagh's security were white men, but she had seen almost none of the battle and couldn't testify to who Kovalan did or did not kill. Mark testified that he was given the tracker by someone he believed to be CIA, but the CIA declined to confirm or deny involvement, and Jimmy's story came across as a fabrication.

Most damning of all was the physical evidence from the scene. Kovalan had burned the weapons, yes, but he had been careful to make sure no one was trapped or harmed in the fires he started. Yet there was no question people died there. Not one man of Amajagh's rebel army survived. But no body of a white man was found among the dead to support Diana's testimony. Worse, the government convoy Kovalan had seen from the air - with hindsight, he knew those troops had killed everyone in the compound - had also attacked the nearby villages. The reason wasn't clear, and the Nairomi government denied the army had been there. So that, too, was blamed on Kovalan.

And Kovalan could not in all honesty deny he was responsible. He had been naïve to think he could leave the compound without consequences. He didn't regret putting Diana and Jimmy's safety first, but he should have gone back when they were safe. He should have helped the villages, at the very least. He killed none of them directly, but he could not escape his share of the blame for those deaths. He could have prevented the massacre. He had let it happen.