‘So,’ Kate said — snorting in disgust — ‘you search the world for the best ethnic cleansers, do you?’
He shook his head. ‘No. They come to us. I estimate the pool of potential recruits to number well over ten million. We couldn’t possibly use them all. We don’t accept, for instance, some who might have led productive lives had war not destroyed their schools, formal worship systems, communities and families during the formative years of their youth. They’re too readily gathered back into the civilizing structures of society. We also reject the patriots — men who fought for ethnic or religious causes, believers in national superiority or endangerment, people who suffered tragic losses of family and loved ones. They’re the easiest of all to reintegrate into society, especially if their experience with violence was brief. They’re also the most individualized psychologically, which complicates our handling of them.’
‘So… who do you accept?’ Kate asked.
‘Two types, really. The largest group is from the underclass. No education,’ he bent his fingers back as he counted their characteristics, ‘no earning power, no abiding attractiveness to women, no future. For them, the half-understood rhetoric of a cause gives them some pretense of personal dignity. But — even more importantly — the end of the fighting for these men means the end of good times. It’s really a “Catch-22” for them, because the longer the fighting continues, the more irredeemable they become.
‘But men of the second type are the most dangerous of all,’ Kartsev said — again leaning forward. ‘Dispossessed military men. Cashiered officers. Soldiers with failed careers. They bring with them the military art. Their skills heighten the level of the killing to a different order of magnitude. Their only problem is that many have been inoculated with the moral and behavioral codes of Euro-American armies. They’ve learned a highly stylized, almost ritualistic form of warfare with rules and customs and traditions. Soldiers are trained to fight other soldiers. They learn to expect and deliver a symmetrical response. We teach them to respond а-symmetrically. To confound organized soldieries and police with unorthodox methods. It’s like the British Redcoats fighting American Indians. Or American Rangers in the streets of Mogadishu. They snipe, ambush, mislead and betray. It’s quite amazing what just a few thousand of such men can do. The science of complexity offers a scientific demonstration of how seemingly inconsequential variables can spark immensely disproportionate reactions.’
‘Meaning what?’
‘Meaning it doesn’t take that much violence to change the course of history.’
Kate’s gaze rose to him now. ‘Are we still talking about terrorists’ training? Or… or are you talking about something else?’
Kartsev just smiled. ‘I believe we are entering a new age. An age of shattered belief systems like what last occurred in the sixteenth century. That sociopolitical earthquake led directly to the Thirty Years’ War — the greatest trauma of modern Europe. It annihilated an entire moral and social order. For a generation after, the remnants of disbanded imperial armies spread syphilis and banditry across continental Europe.’
Kate swallowed again. ‘What is it you’re taking me to see?’ she asked in a quiet voice.
He grimaced, slightly. ‘We let these men live the way they want. We feed them… in whatever way they want to be fed. And what they need most is not bullets, or drugs, or food, but the raw material they value most — people. Women, mostly, but… whatever. In their world, they reign supreme. They do…’,
‘Stop it!’ Kate said finally — clamping her hands over her ears.
When she raised her head, he apologized. ‘But, you see,’ he said softly, ‘it serves a purpose.’
‘Sure! You feed human beings to these… monsters! It’s like a Club Med for the sick and depraved! No wonder they beat a path to your door!’
‘You’re missing the psychological dimension entirely. Even the most depraved of these men still has an identity, a self, an ego. A fantasy about who he really is. That self is what these camps are designed to destroy. You see, once you so betray that idealized image of who you are, that self stands like the grand inquisitor — constantly tormenting you with accusations. “And you say you’re so brave!” ’ Kartsev mimicked in a theatrical voice. “ ‘You think you’re irresistible to women? You’re made of superior stuff? But you’re none of those things! You’re a thug! A punk! The slime of the earth! Look what you did! Look at it! Look at it!” ’
Kate felt carsick.
‘You become “self-destructive”,’ he said — smiling in amusement at his turn of phrase. ‘In these camps, the trainees do things that their fantasy “selves” would never do. Things so hideous — so far beyond the pale — that their behavior cannot possibly be rationalized. We take their souls, and in the end they readily go off on their missions. It puts an end to their mental torment, you see. We have quite a lot of “spoilage,” I call it. Suicide rates run as high as fifteen percent.’
‘You’re evil,’ Kate said in a low voice.
The car pulled to a stop.
‘Ah!’ Kartsev said. ‘We’re here.’
He opened the door. Outside was a dimly-lit building. The cinder block walls were painted white. They were unbroken by windows or doors.
Kate didn’t budge, leaving Kartsev poised in the open door. ‘Well then, Miss Dunn,’ he said — holding out his hand — ‘I guess this is goodbye, then. The car will take you back to the airstrip, and the jet back to Moscow.’
Kate looked down at his outstretched hand but didn’t move. ‘Till we meet again then, Miss Dunn.’ After two crunching steps in gravel, the door was closed in her face. Kartsev said something to the driver in Russian. Kate opened the door on the opposite side and vomited onto the ground.
When the limousine pulled off the road abruptly, Kate thought her worst fears were coming true. She could hear the car doors open. The horror ran wild through her imagination. But then she heard something more… thunder. Flashes of lightning pulsed through the blinds.
Despite the tension of the moment — or perhaps because of it — Kate sensed that something was amiss. The men from the front of the car were talking. The night was totally clear! Kate realized. There wasn’t a cloud in the starry Siberian sky. And, there was something more. The lightning came in regular strings of popping lights, and the noise was less a rumble than a series of distant booms.
The doors closed again, and the car tore off at high speed.
Elaine Davis sat at the breakfast table of the plush hotel suite — staring at the newspaper in which Gordon had buried his face. ‘Fifteen French Soldiers Killed’ the New York Times headline read. Underneath was a picture of President Marshall warning the Anarchists against such perfidies.
‘What do you think he’s going to do?’ Elaine asked. It was rare that they got any time together other than late at night when they were both tired to the bone.
‘I don’t know,’ Gordon mumbled, reading an article about their rise in the polls. Eight points back, he thought. That’s still in landslide territory for the Democrats unless Undecideds break our way four-to-one.
‘What would you do?’ Elaine asked, not minding that her mouth was half full.
Gordon looked up. It was precisely the type of exchange that he and Daryl Shavers used to have. Gordon would be preoccupied with something else, and Daryl would challenge him on an issue he hadn’t considered. It had sharpened Gordon’s views. Gordon looked at Elaine and shrugged. He moved on to another story. It was the silence that alerted Gordon he might be in trouble. He lowered the newspaper, and found Elaine staring at him.