‘What’s going on?’ she’d asked
‘They’re attacking the Kremlin,’ he’d informed her as the jet’s door had been slammed closed behind Kate. ‘To kill me,’ he’d said as they sat. ‘The last scene of Act One,’ Kartsev had said, but never explained.
He had talked, however — non-stop, for hours. Never in direct reply to Kate’s questions. Instead, he’d told her stories. The history of ancient dynasties of which she’d never heard. He was brimming with obscure details about the darkest eras of man.
Kate had fallen into a fitful sleep.
The change in the engines’ tone caused Kate to awaken with a start. ‘Where are we?’ she asked as she looked out the small window.
‘Tyumen Oblast, just east of the Urals,’ Kartsev replied.
The jet descended between two strips of parallel lights. The tires squealed. They slowed and stopped, not turning off the runway. The door was opened from the outside. Kartsev rose.
The engines wound down to a low whine. Kate stared out through the window at the runway lights. In the few moments before they fell dark she saw the dark outline of a limousine. Then they were replaced by the reflection of her face in the glass.
She followed Kartsev into chilly blackness. The sky overhead was clear and filled with stars. Wind whipped at her in the short walk to the car. They took the same seats as they’d had on the jet — facing each other. An aide climbed into the limousine’s rear in a crouch. The man lowered small blinds over the windows by their strings. He then slammed the doors, and they were alone again.
Always alone. Kartsev never seemed to have people around.
The roads were deplorable. The car rocked back and forth as they periodically traversed major potholes or ruts. There would be no paving in this part of the world. They were hundreds of miles from anywhere. They might as well have been millions.
Kate’s eyelids began to droop. The swaying motion, the warmth of the heater, the late hour — all conspired to leave her craving rest. Craving respite from her worries. Refuge from the sickening sense of danger that she felt.
She said nothing lest her voice quiver. Self-assured people, she’d always thought, were less likely to make stupid mistakes. Like pretending to let Woody talk her out of going to the Kremlin, she thought, then going straight there when he was out scrounging up food. Stupid mistakes like following a madman into the middle of nowhere! she tortured herself behind closed eyelids.
Her head fell back. She awoke with a start. Kartsev was watching her.
She was instantly alert.
‘We’re going to visit the training camps,’ he said — answering the question she’d repeatedly asked.
‘Wha-at?’ she blurted out. She sat upright. ‘To the terrorist training camps?’ Kartsev nodded. Calm, she thought to herself. Calm-calm-calm-calm. ‘I assume,’ she began in an even but too-high tone, ‘you’re going to show me the… the standard stuff.’ She had no idea what that was. ‘You know, rifle ranges, obstacle courses, that sort of thing?’
Kartsev shrugged. ‘If you’d like. But I thought you’d be more interested in the… psychological dimension.’
She swallowed — twice — then asked, ‘Where are we — exactly?’
‘For your own protection, Miss Dunn, it’s really best if you don’t know. Let’s just call this… “the end of the earth”.’ Kate felt her lower lip twitch — the beginning of a quiver. She smiled reflexively and ducked her chin to hide it. She tucked her cold hands under the seat of her blue jeans. ‘You won’t be harmed,’ Kartsev said in what sounded almost like alarm. ‘I can assure you of that.’ She looked up. He stared at her openly — wearing a concerned expression. ‘You can go whenever you wish. You’re… free.’
Kate took a deep breath and broke eye contact. But he kept staring, she could feel it. Everything about his manner was unobjectionable. He kept a distance from the ugliness. It was a luxury — a perk of his high station.
‘What… psychological dimension?’ she asked without looking up.
‘Do you know who these terrorists are?’ Kartsev asked. ‘These men who do unspeakable things?’ She stared into her lap and shook her head. ‘They are Armenian Fidayeen from Nagorno-Karabakh, their Azeri enemies, Afghan Mujahedeen, Hamas, Hezbollah and IRA. Tamil rebels from Sri Lanka, Khmer Rouge from Kampuchea, Philippine Communists, Angolan UNITA rebels, Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian Muslims, Georgians, Kurds, Tajiks, Lebanese, even gang members from your own country. They’re freedom fighters and bandits and criminals. They come from every mountain pass and urban alley which lies just beyond the edge of civilization. They’re erratic primitives with shifting allegiances. They’re habituated to violence. They have no stake in civil order.’
Kate heard the rustle of his jacket as he leaned forward. Her eyes remained fixed on her knees.
‘The primary function of civilization, you know, is to restrain man from horrible excess. We’re not the children of Rousseau, Miss Dunn. It isn’t the evil government which keeps us from living in peace and harmony together like some Benetton advertisement. Homo sapiens are killing animals. We organize into the disciplinary structures of civilization out of fear of the alternative. With your Western social conditioning, you probably have little insight into the sullen world of our recruits. They live in very dark places. I’m going to give you a glimpse of the alternative to civilization, Miss Dunn. A peek into an anarchic world. I couldn’t possibly make you believe with mere words what you’re about to see with your own eyes. They’re in the middle of their night, now.’
She looked up at him then. She closed her dry mouth and swallowed. For the first time, questions did not fill her head. There was nothing more that she wanted to know.
‘The one thing, Miss Dunn, that all these men have in common is that they’re impossible to reconcile to civilized order. For them, peace is not a desirable state of affairs. They were pathetic misfits before their wars. But when their societies collapsed, they led fantasy lives as action superheros as they killed women, children and old men. So what do you think such men do when their war comes to an end? Their broken countries offer them no assistance. Would they get a laborer’s job for minimum wage? These are men who rousted villagers from their beds to dig latrines, and then shot them because it was more convenient than returning them home.
They murdered the men who’d slighted them before the war. They plundered from the weak what they could never have owned. They raped the women who’d spumed them. Unlike the soldiers in the great armies, Miss Dunn, who experience only war’s sacrifices, these men developed a taste for the spoils. Imagine… for the very first time growing to like life amid the world’s greatest horrors. While whole societies immolate themselves in ethnic, nationalistic or religious civil war, these men’s talent for violence blossoms.’
She steadied herself by thinking of a question. This was an interview. She should lead Kartsev. She was in control. ‘So, you provide a home for all the heros of ethnic cleansing?’
‘Ethnic cleansing works very well, Miss Dunn. Roman legionnaires dispersed troublesome Jews. The U.S. Army virtually exterminated the Plains Indians. After World War One, ethnic Greeks were kicked out of Anatolia. After World War Two, ethnic Germans were brutally expelled from East Prussia, Pomerania, Silesia and Czechoslovakia — killing millions. In each case, the violence was very effective in stabilizing an ethnically volatile region.’