"But we fight for a good that is greater than any one of us," Byrant continued. "We fight for the very survival of our species. The world is on the brink."
"Has the world ever not been on the brink?"
"Rogue states on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons capability. Zealot leaders, religious maniacs itching to use them. A world economy so delicate, so susceptible to financial shock, debt crises, bubbles, revolution, natural disasters, supply disruptions. A multiplying population, increasing the demand for dwindling resources."
"Nothing new there."
"If history tells us one thing, it's that when we fall on hard times, we have a greater tendency to turn to maniac rulers who promise to lead us out of darkness. The electorates of our precious democracies sit ever poised on the edge of willingness to hand power to madmen who promise to deliver us from evil. We must stop the next Hitlers before they take root. There is no time for the soft approach, Nathaniel."
Don't call me Nathaniel, you slack-jawed bastard, Arkin thought, guessing Bryant was doing it for some sort of manipulative psychological effect. "Ah, yes. The Hitler justification again."
"You don't hold with it. I know. But I know the human race. And I know evil."
Arkin's facade began to crumble in the face of Bryant's grandiosity. "Well I clearly don't know as much as you, but I know that I don't hold with murder."
"Evil is a relentless, remorseless force."
"Your murder of Pratt helped save the world from a greater evil, right? You’re one of these ‘ends justify the means’ people. I’ve heard all those great arguments before, you know. That it’s okay to kill innocents, to have collateral damage, because you’re on a greater mission to save humanity," he said, his words drenched with sarcasm.
"A few are sacrificed to spare the many."
"And you're different from all the other murderous fanatics in world history who’ve said the same thing because your intentions are good, right? There's no survival instinct-driven, subconscious, self-serving desire for victory over mortality in your case. No."
"You know this isn't the same thing."
"Do I? Then you’re the second true altruist in world history, after Mother Theresa."
"You see the logic of our mission."
"The logic." Arkin gave a sarcastic half chuckle. "Did you know that Pratt had four children? What do you think watching their father's brains get blown out will do to them in the long term? When you do that, when you leave someone’s children fatherless, when you fill their minds with indelible, horrible memory, are you really combating evil, or are you just opening the portal and unleashing new evil upon the world? Evil born in the fear you’ve planted in the minds of those children. Evil that might multiply down through generations and spread over the world. Will the evil of what they witnessed grow within their little impressionable minds, only to emerge to horrific magnitude later in life? Perhaps all you've really done is sow the seeds of tomorrow's Hitlers and bin Ladens."
"It’s horrible. But deep down, you know there is no other way."
"No, I don't know that. And neither do you. The truth is that you don't know what your targets will become. And deep down, I think, just like me and every other driven, type-A overachiever in the world, just like all the greatest monsters in human history, the Hitlers and bin Ladens and everyone else, you’re just trying to satisfy your own psychological deficiency needs. Trying to quell your own existential demons with feelings of power or control or importance in the universe. Just like all of them, you’re trying to fill a bottomless hole in your heart, left there, in your case, maybe by the devastating early childhood loss of your sister, or maybe by the still painful, still depleting early childhood absence of the father who was never there for you, or who never told you he loved you, or whatever. Just like every other political maniac or religious lunatic. You’ve become what you seek to destroy." Arkin waited as Bryant furiously typed his response.
"If our group had been around and had adopted the use of lethal force, there would never have been a Hitler or a bin Laden. Think of it, Nathaniel. Your own grandparents, your own blood—they would never have been sent to die in the camps. They were only a few years younger than you are now. Can you imagine their horror at realizing their fate? At bearing witness to such inconceivable savagery? Picture your mother’s mother, being rounded up after entrusting her children to a Dutch dairyman’s family, being shipped to Sobibor Camp, stripped of her clothes in the bitter cold, and marched off, naked and freezing, to her efficiently engineered death and cremation."
Arkin did picture it. He placed himself within the scene, being ushered off a crowded, feces and urine stinking boxcar inside the guarded fence line of the camp, the air freezing, gargoyle-faced guards holding bayoneted rifles, channeling terrified passengers toward a large and ominous brick building, everything black and white, everything dead silent. No sound at all. And no way out. A one-way walk with no chance of escape.
Bryant went on. "Picture your maternal grandfather, hunched over with pain and exhaustion, lice-ridden and skeletal, head shaved, pushing iron ore carts in one of der Fuhrer’s steel mills before finally succumbing to starvation and exposure on a sub-freezing January day. Picture your paternal grandfather nearly meeting the same fate at Dachau."
If Bryant was trying to soften Arkin up by framing the debate in more personal terms, it was backfiring. If anything, it offended Arkin that Bryant would use his family's story like a tool. Fueled Arkin’s rage. But Bryant didn't stop.
"So much suffering. So much horror and death. Sixty-two million people killed worldwide. Sixty-two million, Nathaniel. Six million Jewish men, women and children. Twenty-three million Soviets. Four-hundred-eighteen-thousand Americans. People who could have lived good and happy lives, slaughtered. And why? Because nobody tried to stop a madman until it was too late. If only we had been there before he rose to power."
"Because you would have killed him."
"Of course, we would have. If you don't think we'd have been able to predict, in sufficiently certain terms, the murderous if not genocidal desires of Hitler before he sprouted horns and assumed the throne, then you are hopelessly naive. And if you really think it's possible to divert meaningful numbers of future Hitlers from their evil paths, then you, Nathaniel, are a fool."
Arkin looked up, looked Bryant straight in the eye, dying to say, And you, Father Bryant, are a murderer. But knowing that it might blow things, he didn't.
An oppressive quiet settled on the room. The air suddenly felt closer. And though his flushed skin radiated heat, Arkin swore the air temperature dropped appreciably.
Bryant sat staring at Arkin, the hand on his keypad immobile, his paralyzed grin unreadable. Once again, Arkin got the feeling that Bryant could see right through him. Could read his mind. Knew that Arkin thought of him as a murderer. Arkin grew alarmed.
Was Bryant thinking of something else to say? Was he angry? Arkin stared back, noticing a glisten of drool emerging from the corner of Bryant's mouth. Could he not feel the drool? Or if he could, was he physically incapable of doing anything about it?
Bryant's hand moved to a small joystick on the wheelchair, and with a jerk, the chair turned and rolled toward the big, heavy metal outer door. He rammed his wheelchair into the door with a loud crash, backed up, and waited for the guard to open it. A moment later, the door slammed home with a deep, reverberating clang. The Priest was gone.
FIFTY-SIX
For more than three weeks, Arkin was left alone. The growing weight of his solitude began taking a toll, and the daily exercise with his trio of mute guards did little to alleviate it. He began to crave conversation. Perhaps that was part of their plan for winning him over. Using solitude to soften him up, make him more receptive. Whatever the case, after three weeks alone in his own troubled head, Arkin was ready to listen to just about anyone—Sheffield, the Priest, anyone.
One evening as it began to get dark outside, Sheffield at last reappeared, chess set in hand.
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"Good evening."
"Roland, how are you?"
"It's supposed to be a full moon. But it's overcast. I can't get used to how dark it gets down here when the moon and stars aren't out. So very dark."
He was as polite as ever, yet seemed entirely uninterested in resuming any debate on the merits of the group's cause. In fact, he made no attempt to further indoctrinate Arkin. Perhaps they were going to lay off for a while.
They talked about the weather. They talked about the local flora and fauna Arkin observed on his daily walks. They even traded a couple of Naval Academy stories. They discussed nothing of consequence.
Sheffield seemed far off much of the time. Distant and unreachable. To Arkin's amazement, Sheffield, playing white, was once again lured into the overly aggressive four pawns attack. Move for move, he was making the same mistakes he'd made in their most recent game.
Something about Sheffield's manner troubled Arkin such that he felt suddenly and desperately compelled to test the waters by engaging him on the issue of the group’s philosophy.
"You know, Roland, I was wondering."
"Yes?"
"What were the best ideas the group could come up with for non-lethal methods?"
"Methods?"
"I mean, I know you said that the broad approach to pushing philosophy through academic, media, and political channels just isn't quick enough. And I can see that. But what about approaching your fearmonger targets directly? Even abducting and indoctrinating them. Removing them from society until you could deter them from their destructive course. In other words, something short of just simply killing them."
"Those are interesting ideas," Sheffield said in a placating tone that was altogether out of character. "Anything is possible, I suppose."
"That's all you have to say? You are the Priest's high chamberlain, yes?"
"That's one way of describing it."
"So?"
"What do you want me to tell you? It sounds impractical, but it merits consideration."
Arkin could see that he wasn’t going to get anywhere. All the more disconcerted, he took another white pawn.
"Well, look, since you apparently aren't in any rush to let me out of here, you could at least get me some decent bedding to replace the prison rack," Arkin said, nodding toward his cot.
"Yes. Yes, I suppose we could do that." Sheffield was staring down at the chessboard, as if contemplating a move. But as Arkin watched him, he realized that Sheffield wasn't studying the board at all. He was lost in thought. After a few seconds he regained his focus, then hastily moved his queen's bishop. It was a terrible move, leaving his flank utterly and obviously exposed. Yet he seemed not to notice. And it occurred to Arkin that Sheffield was avoiding eye contact. Arkin studied Sheffield's face for some sign as to his state of mind. A picture began to form. He saw discomfort. Conflict. Regret. Then it hit Arkin: They were going to kill him. And Sheffield knew it. Not only did he know it—he approved of it.
Arkin squeezed his eyes shut, then doubled over as if punched in the gut, revisiting the same painful truths he'd confronted after Sheffield shot him back in Oregon. That after all their years together, Sheffield didn’t think Arkin’s life was worth the trouble. That perhaps all Sheffield had ever done to make Arkin think of him as a friend and father figure was nothing more than contrived agent handling—giving Arkin what he needed in order to manipulate and control him. That Sheffield now saw him as nothing more than a tool that didn't fit the job. A disposable tool.
"Are you alright?" Sheffield asked.
Arkin nodded, still doubled over. "Lactose." He righted himself, doing his best to slip into the old field agent mindset: icy and controlled. But before he’d mastered himself, in his rush to re-erect a facade of casualness and unconcern, he moved a chess piece. It was as bad a move as Sheffield's had been. It was such a bad move that it caused Sheffield to look up at him with a questioning expression. Their eyes met. In that moment, Sheffield knew that Arkin knew. Arkin could read the realization in his face.
In two seconds that stretched out into a lifetime, Arkin saw himself sitting before the DCI disciplinary board in Washington, D.C., knowing his career was ruined. Knowing, with hindsight, that it was Sheffield who'd ruined it. He pictured Pratt's bloody corpse lying on the floor in front of his terrified children. He saw the frightened expression on Hannah's face while she lay in her hospital bed as he abandoned her.
All at once, the levee broke. All his frustration, his sorrow, his fear, his anger, shot through all corners of his body. His adrenaline surged. He became hyper-aware, visualizing windows of opportunity closing all around him. Options disintegrating before his eyes. This was his last chance. And all paths went through Sheffield.
In a blink, as Sheffield turned to run, Arkin dove over the chessboard and locked his hands around Sheffield's throat. Sheffield was a Marine and former field agent, and still had skills in defensive tactics. But he was old. Arkin was stronger, his strength supplemented by his rage, and he knew how to counter Sheffield's moves. He wrestled Sheffield to the floor, never letting go of his throat, and slid up into Sheffield's guard, sitting on his upper chest, in the ideal position to exert force and minimize resistance. He pressed his thumbs into Sheffield's windpipe, first to keep him from yelling out, but then with lethal purpose. He felt the rings of cartilage in Sheffield's throat bend, crack, and collapse. Sheffield flailed from side to side, his eyes bulging, his face turning deep red, then purple, as he fought to pull Arkin's hands away. His mouth popped open to reveal a swelling tongue. The capillaries in his eyes began to burst, red subconjunctival hemorrhages appearing here and there, until the whites began to disappear behind the dark blood. Still Sheffield struggled. And still Arkin held tight, crushing his old friend, mentor, and father figure's throat. Slowly, torturously choking the life out of him.
Eventually Sheffield stopped struggling. Stopped moving altogether. But still Arkin held tight, staring down at Sheffield's inanimate face, wary of a trick. Finally, satisfied that Sheffield's heart had stopped, he let go and stood up as though recoiling from something repulsive. He looked all around, taking stock of his situation as he pondered what to do next. He rearranged Sheffield's body so that it looked like he'd fallen backwards in his chair as they played chess, perhaps after having a heart attack, his splayed hands pressed to his upper left chest. Then he shouted to the guard. "Help! He is ill! Hello! Help!" He heard the bar being removed from the outer door and then watched it open. The alarmed guard popped his head in to take a look. Arkin did his best to feign distress over the condition of his good friend, crouching over him and commencing a version of CPR that was, by design, just bad enough to indicate that he didn't know what he was doing and needed assistance.
This was the critical moment. Did the guard take time to call for backup, or did he unlock the inner door to provide immediate help? Arkin did his best, situated as he was for his CPR act, to watch the guard's face. The guard was deeply conflicted, no doubt aware that Arkin possessed considerable hand-to-hand skills, yet also keenly aware that Sheffield might die if he didn't render help now. The guard frowned, pulled his handgun from a hip holster, took a key from his jacket pocket and opened the door. He motioned for Arkin to get back as he haphazardly aimed the gun at Arkin's abdomen with one hand while fumbling to switch on a two-way radio clipped to his belt with the other. Arkin waited for the guard to crouch down over Sheffield. Then, before the man could register the meaning of the deep red marks all around Sheffield's throat, Arkin pounced forward, shoved the gun aside with one hand and severed the man’s spinal cord by chopping the side of his neck with the other. The guard dropped to the floor face down over the top of Sheffield, his last breath leaking from his body in a weak groan as his paralyzed lungs slowly collapsed.
Arkin rolled the guard onto his back, stripped him, stripped himself, and put on the guard's clothes. As expected, he found a cigarette lighter in the guard's pocket. He dragged Sheffield's body under the cot. Then he
lifted the guard up onto it, turned the guard's body so that he faced away from the outer door, and did his best to cover both bodies with his blanket by draping it over the side that would be in view of anyone else who came in.
He put on the guard's holster and gun, locked the door of the cell, peeked out the cracked outer door, then stepped out into the night, closing, then barring the door behind him. As his eyes adjusted, it became clear that there was nobody else moving in the compound. For a moment, his mind drifted from the immediate to consider the crossroads where he stood. Killing Sheffield and the guard had been a matter of survival. But his desire to stop the group, his desire for revenge, and his anger were all tempting him further. Tempting him to cross the line. Tempting him to kill in cold blood. A few sacrificed to spare the many, Arkin thought, his lips breaking into a sneer.
Before he knew it, as inconspicuously as he could, he was strolling over to the building behind which he'd seen gas cans so many days earlier, praying they'd still be there, then praying they had fuel in them. For once, his prayers were answered on both counts, as he found two full 5-gallon gas cans. Doing his best to stay in the shadows, he made his way around the outer edge of the compound to one of the two doors through the wall. He doused the door in gasoline and poured a wide pool on the grassy earth around the base of it. Then he dribbled a gasoline trail over to the house he guessed was the Priest's residence, sloshed gas over each window, then tipped the can over on the porch and let it run all over the stairs and under the front and only door. Taking the second can, he dribbled a gasoline trail all the way across the courtyard, first over to the only hose he'd ever noticed in the compound, dousing it, and then over and into the house that held his cell. There, he poured gas onto the floor until the pool spread to surround the guard and Sheffield’s bodies. Finally, he dribbled a trail to the one other door through the high wall of the compound and poured the remaining gallons at its base, doing his best to create a wide half circle with a good 10-foot radius with what was left. He opened the door, took one look back through the wall of the compound toward the building that held Sheffield's body, then toward the house that probably held the still-living Priest, bent over, and held the lighter to the gasoline. Roaring flames raced across the compound, to the two houses, to the hose, and to the far door.
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