Morton angrily pounds the keys on his typewriter, writing, “But I want to win.”
The computer’s voice responds almost immediately, “Humans never win.”
With Colonel Farris at his side, General Corrigan leaves a cluster of officers and approaches the wheelchair. He watches over the professor’s shoulder as the computer sets up another game. Without looking up, Morton says, “William the Conqueror was once so enraged at losing a game that he broke his chess board over his opponent’s head. Then there was the French knight, Renaud de Montauban, who succeeded in killing an opponent with a heavy wooden chess board.”
The general doesn’t respond, and Morton looks up. “Hugh, could we speak privately a moment?”
The general nods, and Colonel Farris slips off to one side. Morton hits a button and clears the chess game from his computer screen. “It’s amazing how closely chess resembles war, isn’t it Hugh?”
“It’s been said before, but personally, I prefer poker.”
Morton goes on, “Even the terminology of chess sounds like a session at National Military Command. Attacks and double attacks, blockades and decoys, strategic defenses and escapes and, of course, my favorite, the end game.”
“War’s not a game, Lionel, just because we make it sound like one.”
“Humor me a moment, Hugh, and let’s play out the analogy. The pawns are the infantry, slogging it out in the trenches, even more valuable if they breach the other’s line. The knights are the airborne, vaulting over the enemy. The bishops are powerful artillery, but clumsy in closed positions, while the rooks combine might and mobility like the armored cavalry. In both war and chess, you must out-think the enemy, always planning two steps ahead. You must box in the enemy, limit his choices until you have achieved what the Germans call zugzwang, where any move worsens his position. You want to force him to either surrender or die.”
“What’s your point, Lionel?”
“They think I’m crazy,” he says, gesturing toward the ensemble of officers, “but you know I’m not. I’m the last of the objectivists. I can separate all elements of external cognition from internal feelings.”
“Then I feel sorry for you.”
“Don’t. I meant it before when I said you should let the bird fly for purely strategic reasons.”
“I’m sure you did.”
“No one can make the hard choices anymore. In the last fifty years, we’ve become a nation of weaklings. Not since Hiroshima and Nagasaki has an American president shown any real guts. They’re too worried about the polls and the Sunday morning interview shows. We wimped out in Korea and Cuba and Vietnam and everywhere else where we’ve been seriously challenged. A couple of nuclear payloads over Hanoi, and Ho Chi Minh would have surrendered in a week.”
“Would he, or would the Russians have responded in kind against Saigon, and then would we hit the missile fields at Yedrovo, Kartala and Kostroma, and then would they hit Cheyenne Mountain? Where would it end?”
“Those are precisely the chances you have to take,” Morton says, looking off into space. “It’s ironic, Hugh. You’re a general who never believed in military solutions, and I’m a scientist who always did.”
“You put too much faith in your machines,” the general replies.
“The weak link is man, not the machine. All my creations work just the way I designed them.”
General Corrigan turns away. “That’s the damned scary truth.”
James continues to work at the computer while Brother David watches over his shoulder. “Davy, I can see your reflection in the monitor.”
“So?”
“So, it bothers me.”
“Would it be better if I gave off no reflection, like a ghost in one of those horror films.”
“It would be better if you just let me alone.”
David turns away, seemingly bored. Behind him, Susan Burns has been dozing. Slowly, her eyes open, and she stifles a yawn.
“Ah, the doctor is in,” David says. “Shall we resume our discussion?”
“You want to talk more about yourself?”
“It is a subject of which I never tire. Tell me more about my charming personality.”
“It’s true that psychopaths often have a certain beguiling charm. It’s used to manipulate others. Underneath the veneer, they are unsocialized. You, for example, are grossly selfish, callous, irresponsible, and unable to feel guilt or to learn from experience and punishment. Your frustration tolerance is low. You blame others or offer seemingly rational reasons for your anti-social behavior. You manifest aggressive-sadistic tendencies and exhibit what used to be called a ‘moral insanity.’”
“Is that all?”
“And you probably have a very small penis.”
That gets a chuckle from James, who doesn’t look up from the computer. If the remark wounded David, he doesn’t show it. “I have a new job for you, doctor.”
That causes Rachel to stir. “David… ”
“I believe Dr. Burns would make an excellent deputy at the console. When Brother James has retrieved the S.L.C., the good doctor’s job will be to turn the second key.”
“Not a chance,” Susan says.
“Not even to save your own life.”
“I couldn’t live with myself.”
“You can live with me. Forever.”
Furious, Rachel stands and stomps to the rear of the capsule.
“Do you think you can convert me to your cause?” Susan asks, eyes wide in disbelief.
“Yes, and to me,” David says, confidently. “But that can wait, at least for a while.” A small smile plays on his lips. “But enough about you. Now, tell me about my father.”
“You hate him,” she says, “but you admire him, too. The contradiction, the cognitive dissonance, makes you loathe yourself.”
David barks out a laugh and moves closer to Susan, leaning over her. She doesn’t flinch. “I think you understand what makes you tick, and you know the mechanism is broken. But your revel in your own knowing insanity.”
“I’m just doing Daddy’s work, like any loving son. As it is written in John, ‘Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do.’”
“Only because you want to. You willed yourself to become your father, only more so. He built the bomb but couldn’t use it. You took the bomb and—”
“And will light the fuse to it,” he says with a grin.
Lieutenant Colonel Charlie Griggs despises Commander Elwood (Woody) Waller.
Always has. Always will.
Friggin’ Navy Seals.
Sure, they’re tough. Hell, all the Special Ops are tough. Green Berets, Night Stalkers, Air Force Commandos, and the friggin’ SEALs with their Trident insignia that always looked like the Budweiser logo to Griggs.
He never doubted his own personal toughness. He led operations in Central America that never made the newspapers or the Congressional Record. Tougher than he looked, they said about Charlie Griggs. He didn’t have the brahma bull neck and rocky ledge jaw of the recruiting posters. With the thin mustache and pale hair going gray, with the slightly receding chin, Charlie Griggs looked like an accountant. If you noticed the size of his pole-ax wrists, though, if you watched the way he walked, bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet, aware of all movement around him, you might have a clue.