“Didn’t know that about the body language. But makes sense.”
“Now I want to do something else, and I’m going to tell you exactly what that is. No tricks.”
“Shoot. I’m game.”
Dance had decided that traditional analysis and interrogation wouldn’t work with someone like Wayne Keplar. His lack of affect, his fanatic’s belief in the righteousness of his cause made kinesics useless. Content-based analysis wouldn’t do much good either; this is body language’s poor cousin, seeking to learn whether a suspect is telling the truth by considering if what he says makes sense. But Keplar was too much in control to let slip anything that she might parse for clues about deception and truth.
So she was doing something radical.
Dance now said, “I want to prove to you that your beliefs—what’s motivating you and your group to perform this attack—they’re wrong.”
He lifted an eyebrow. Intrigued.
This was a ludicrous idea for an interrogator. One should never argue substance with a suspect. If a man is accused of killing his wife, your job is to determine the facts and, if it appears that he did indeed commit murder, get a confession or at least gather enough information to help investigators secure his conviction.
There’s no point in discussing the right or wrong of what he did, much less the broader philosophical questions of taking lives in general or violence against women, say.
But that was exactly what she was going to do now.
Poking the inside of his cheek with his tongue once more, thoughtful, Keplar said, “Do you even know what our beliefs are?”
“I read the Brothers of Liberty website. I—”
“You like the graphics? Cost a pretty penny.”
A glance at the wall. 3:14.
Dance continued. “You advocate smaller government, virtually no taxes, decentralized banking, no large corporations, reduced military, religion in public schools. And that you have the right to violent civil disobedience. Along with some racial and ethnic theories that went out of fashion in the 1860s.”
“Well, ‘bout that last one—truth is, we just throw that in to get checks from rednecks and border control nuts. Lot of us don’t really feel that way. But, Ms. Firecracker, you done your homework, sounds like. We’ve got more positions than you can shake a stick at but those’ll do for a start… So, argue away. This’s gonna be as much fun as Twenty Questions. But just remember, maybe I’ll talk you into my way of thinking, hanging up that tin star of yours and coming over to the good guys. What do you think about that?”
“I’ll stay open-minded, if you will.”
“Deal.”
She thought back to what she’d read on the group’s website. “You talk about the righteousness of the individual. Agree up to a point, but we can’t survive as individuals alone. We need government. And the more people we have, with more economic and social activity, the more we need a strong central government to make sure we’re safe to go about our lives.”
“That’s sad, Kathryn.”
“Sad?”
“Sure. I have more faith in humankind than you do, sounds like. We’re pretty capable of taking care of ourselves. Let me ask you: You go to the doctor from time to time, right?”
“Yes.”
“But not very often, right? Pretty rare, hmm? More often with the kids, I’ll bet.Sure, you have kids. I can tell.”
She let this go with no reaction.
3:17.
“But what does the doctor do? Short of broken bone to set, the doctor tells you pretty much to do what your instinct told you. Take some aspirin, go to bed, drink plenty of fluids, eat fiber, go to sleep. Let the body take care of itself. And 99 percent of the time, those ideas work.” His eyes lit up. “That’s what government should do: Leave us alone 99 percent of the time.”
“And what about the other 1 percent?” Dance asked.
“I’ll give you that we need, let’s see, highways, airports, national defense… Ah, but what’s that last word? ‘Defense.’ You know, they used to call it the ‘War Department.’ Well, then some public relations fellas got involved and ‘War’ wouldn’t do anymore, so they changed it. But that’s a lie. See, it’s not just defense. We go poking our noses into places that we have no business being.”
“The government regulates corporations that would exploit people.”
He scoffed. “The government helps ‘em do it. How many congressmen go to Washington poor and come back rich? Most of them.”
“But you’re okay with some taxes?”
He shrugged. “To pay for roads, air traffic control and defense.”
3:20.
“The SEC for regulating stocks?”
“We don’t need stocks. Ask your average Joe what the stock market is and they’ll tell ya it’s a way to make money or put something away for your retirement fund. They don’t realize that that’s not what it’s for. The stock market’s there to let people buy a company, like you’d go to a used car lot to buy a car. And why do you want to buy a company? Beats me. Maybe a few people’d buy stock because they like what the company does or they want to support a certain kind of business. That’s not what people want them for. Do away with stocks altogether. Learn to live off the land.”
“You’re wrong, Wayne. Look at all the innovations corporations have created: the life-saving drugs, the medical supplies, the computers… that’s what companies have done.”
“Sure, and iPhones and BlackBerrys and laptops have replaced parents, and kids learn their family values at porn sites.”
“What about government providing education?”
“Ha! That’s another racket. Professors making a few hundred thousand dollars a year for working eight months, and not working very hard at that. Teachers who can hardly put a sentence together themselves. Tell me, Kathryn, are you happy handing over your youngsters to somebody you see at one or two PTA meetings a year? Who knows what the hell they’re poisoning their minds with.”
She said nothing, but hoped her face wasn’t revealing that from time to time she did indeed have those thoughts.
Keplar continued, “No, I got two words for you there. ‘Home schooling.’ ”
“You don’t like the police, you claim. But we’re here to make sure you and your family’re safe. We’ll even make sure the Brothers of Liberty is free to go about your business and won’t be discriminated against and won’t be the victim of hate crimes.”
“Police state… Think on this, Ms. Firecracker. I don’t know what you do exactly here in this fancy building, but tell me true. You put your life on the line every day and for what? Oh, maybe you stop some crazy serial killer from time to time or save somebody in a kidnapping. But mostly cops just put on their fancy cop outfits and go bust some poor kids with drugs but never get to why of it. What’s the reason they were scoring pot or coke in the first place? Because the government and the institutions of this country failed them.”
3:26.
“So you don’t like the federal government. But it’s all relative, isn’t it? Go back to the eighteenth century. We weren’t just a mass of individuals. There was state government and they were powerful. People had to pay taxes, they were subject to laws, they couldn’t take their neighbors’ property, they couldn’t commit incest, they couldn’t steal. Everybody accepted that. The federal government today is just a bigger version of the state governments in the 1700s.”
“Ah, good, Kathryn. I’ll give you that.” He nodded agreeably. “But we think state and even local laws are too much.”
“So you’re in favor of no laws?”
“Let’s just say a lot, lot less.”
Dance leaned forward, with her hands together. “Then let’s talk about your one belief that’s the most critical now: violence to achieve your ends. I’ll grant you that you have the right to hold whatever beliefs you want—and not get arrested for it. Which, by the way, isn’t true in a lot of countries.”