‘But… the army will never let that happen!’
‘The army, my dear, is the first target. Have you not wondered where they are? Why they have not put down my Black Shirts? They are experiencing entropy. The first signs of that decay will be seen quite soon now. Quite soon. The army is an institution, after all, and one that is very rigid. Its discipline threatens to maintain some semblance of order in society at large. A skeletal structure from which the sagging flesh of state will hang. We cannot allow that. Oh, no! Not at all.’
‘Why are you telling me all this?’ Kate asked — almost whispering despite the fact that the bodyguards were well out of earshot.
‘Because I want you, Miss Dunn, to spread the word. I want you to watch it happen, and to tell our story.’ He held out his hands as if to include his predecessors buried under the dark soil. ‘Anarchy, you see, is an idea. A thought. I want to do nothing more than spread that thought — the seeds of that idea — far and wide. When the seed lands on fertile soil, it will sprout shoots and grow. That’s all. I don’t even know what it will grow into, but there are minds out there that are ripe for this idea.’
‘Like National Socialism in 1930s Germany?’ she asked — sneering.
‘Exactly!’ he said. ‘I spread the idea of anarchy to the four corners of the earth and see if it grows. Consider it my small contribution to the social sciences.’
‘I don’t know how much good I’m going to do for your cause, Mr Kartsev. I’m sorry to tell you this, but even with the deployment of U.S. troops to Siberia what’s going on in Russia isn’t going to get much air time when there are terrorist attacks and riots in American cities.’
‘But they’re all part of a single process,’ Kartsev replied.
Kate stared at him. ‘How long have you been watching me?’ she asked without knowing why.
‘For a while. You’re very good at what you do.’
‘And you’ve been feeding me anonymous tips so that I can scoop the other correspondents?’
‘Simply do your job, Miss Dunn, and report the news as you see it. If it is in my interest to assist you, then, well… it’s a free country,’ Kartsev said with a wry grin.
‘I will not be manipulated.’
‘You would not be alive if it were not for the helping hands of a random stranger who caught you during the Red Square massacre,’ Kartsev said. He stared back at her — letting what he’d said sink in. ‘I need your skill, your insights, your way with words. Plus, you have a high “Q” factor, I believe the networks call it. You’re an attractive, appealing messenger. Viewers like you.’
‘So you want me to incite the restive inner-city underclass with stirring reports of anarchist violence so they will storm into the streets and get slaughtered by tanks?’
‘No, no. That’s not what I want at all. The audience I have in mind for your reports is that great middle class of your country. I need for you to scare the hell out of them. It’s easy, you see, for those rioters to pour out onto the streets and get slaughtered. It’s far more difficult, however, to motivate the people who actually do the slaughtering.’
PART II
‘ “For every action, there is an opposite and equal reaction ” — Newton’s Third Law of Motion. The behavioral sciences have laws as well “For every action, there is an opposite and unequal overreaction” — Kartsev’s First Law of Man.’
Chapter Five
The shot was so easy he didn’t even need the night vision device. From the light of street lamps and two burning cars, the mounted policeman’s chest filled the crosshairs of the optical sniper scope. The horse underneath the cop was the only problem.
The animal was spooked by the noisy crowd and the occasional stone hurled over the police barricades. It stepped this way and that — taking its rider in and out of the sights. ‘Chyort vozmi!’ the sniper cursed under his breath from the rooftop four blocks away from the demonstration.
At that range, the angry shouts of the residents who protested the beating of three high school students sounded more like the distant roar of a stadium crowd.
The next time the horse took a few nervous steps, the mounted cop steadied the animal with a firm tug on the reins. The sniper exhaled half a breath. The rider lay squarely behind the crosshairs. He squeezed the trigger almost involuntarily.
A single crack echoed among the buildings. The sniper quickly cycled the bolt, chambering a fresh round. But when he surveyed the scene, he saw what he had hoped for. The horse was out of control now — its rider barely hanging on and probably mortally wounded from the high-velocity round. He found another officer who’d turned his back to the mob to look at the commotion. His riot shield was out of place. Another squeeze, and another sharp recoil and crack.
The officer went down like a sack of potatoes. The bolt clacked again, but a third shot proved unnecessary. Someone in the police line opened fire. Then one of the rioters returned fire. Within seconds, blazing muzzles began to pop like flash bulbs from both sides. Before the man had packed his rifle, a war had consumed the street.
Evelyn Faulk and her son Andre trudged their way to the south through the noise and commotion. The light was dim under the thick smoke rising from hundreds of fires all around the Bronx. It was two dozen blocks to the police lines. Neither the subway nor the buses were running. The few other people out that day headed furtively down sidewalks toward Manhattan like refugees from a war zone.
Evelyn’s legs and back ached. It was slow going. Every few intersections they had to zig one block over or zag back the other way to avoid the unopposed looting of the city.
‘Where we goin’?’ Andre asked again.
‘Just you shush!’ she snapped back. She was doubly, triply angry. Angry at the thieves that ran loose like animals on the streets around her home. Angry at the police for running away and hiding behind barricades that did little more than protect rich whites from poor blacks. And angry at her own son. When the sun had risen after a sleepless night of shouts and gunfire, Evelyn had seen the look of anticipation in the seventeen-year-old’s eyes. He was dressed and ready to hook up with his ‘crew’ — children who’d grown up to be called a gang. She had seen all in Andre’s eyes. To him, this was an exciting new world filled with adventure. To her, it was that trip to the morgue she lay awake imagining during the hours her son was on the street.
‘Look at that’ Andre said.
Evelyn followed Andre’s outstretched finger. There was trash strewn all about the entrance to Mr Cantu’s bodega. Empty soda cans, boxes of donuts only half eaten… but no people. Evelyn and Andre crossed the street to peer inside.
The power was off all over the Bronx, and the store was dark. All they could see from the doorway was disarray. Flies buzzed about the spoiling food. The tiny bodega had been ransacked. Everything was overpriced, but the residents of Evelyn’s neighborhood nevertheless cherished the store because its brave owners had not been chased away by crime. They had put bars on the windows and had guns behind the counter and…