7
September 26th
Lawrence Henderson:
“I know you got a shitty first impression of Colonel Richards—blame that on me: I was jerking him, and he got irritable, and he’s been taking it out on both of us ever since. He can be an ass, especially when he’s sure he’s right and everybody else is wrong. But he’s a good soldier, a good officer. He’s got decades of experience in places even you can’t imagine. And he takes care of his people. And I think that, when it’s all said and done, he does believe in the viability of this program, or at least he wants to believe in a better future. He’s just not too crazy about who he has to play with.”
Ram raises an eyebrow at me from across the desk: that unsettling “I’m looking at an interesting insect” look. Still, he’s willing to come upstairs, sit in my office and drink my good bourbon.
“Why are you telling me this?” he asks like it’s not important at all.
“It’s about the future,” I try not to be too melodramatic. “His. Yours. I need to bridge a gap.”
“He doesn’t respect me,” he simply states. “He can’t. He knows what I am.”
“Don’t make too many assumptions about what Colonel Richards knows and doesn’t know, Captain,” I offer as I top off his drink. “Your friend Major Burke, too. They don’t believe you are what you really are. They can’t wrap their minds around it. It’s interesting: both of them, on their own, harbor the same conclusion: that you’re really a Company assassin. Somehow. Secretly. Maybe even you don’t know it. ‘Manchurian Candidate’ bullshit.”
He grins, chuckles quietly, sips. Swirls the ice in his glass. It seems to please him: the idea that the trained professional soldiers might actually think he’s a trained professional too, that he’s somehow succeeded in “passing”.
“I need to know something, Captain,” I press in, taking advantage of the bourbon. “I need to know what you want.”
He gets dark on me. “Isn’t it more about what you can make me want?”
I shake my head, making myself look sloppier with the booze than I am. The veracity of alcohol…
“Do you believe in this?”
He thinks about it, considers his answer—I can almost see him rehearsing it in his head.
“I don’t know. Not yet. It’s certainly better than what we’ve been doing. Much better. Potentially, at least.” Interesting: he said “we”.
“But you don’t trust it? Us?”
“Back to that first-impression issue,” he says with remarkable spontaneity.
“Fair enough. Is there anyone you do trust?”
“Burke,” he starts with the obvious. “My team. Even Richards—I don’t get that he’s got an agenda. Doc Becker—his heart’s in the right place.”
“Datascan?” I push it, knowing it was Dee and not me who sold him. He seems to process his answer, sips his drink.
“In so far as I don’t think any of you can keep your reins on it for long. It’s too big, too smart, too fast. And I think those dirt-simple directives you gave it will wind up keeping you all… honest.”
I get a chill at what he’s implying, but I don’t think he’s wrong—I’ve had enough of those nightmares myself since this started.
“I’m sure Becker would appreciate your confidence in his life’s work,” I allow, then get back on topic: “So: What do you want?”
“What do you want me to want?” he enjoys throwing back. So I put it on the table:
“How about more, Captain?” And I let him consider possibilities before I give him some options. I watch his eyes play, watch his dissociated personality have a conversation with itself in there while he works on his drink. “More than being just another grunt on a CT crash team?”
“Which would be…?” he probes, enough to let me know I’ve got his attention.
“You have presence, Captain. People have been watching you. I’d think you’d be surprised to know who, but I’ll let you get there on your own. I’ve told you what Richards can do with his connections, his personality. What I’m thinking about now is what you can do.”
“You mean besides kill people?” he goes dark again.
“We are trying to win a war, Captain,” I push back against the darkness. “You’ll find the killing has remarkably little to do with securing real victories. So what I’m asking you, Captain, is what do you want? Do you just want to kill? Or would you rather actually win a war?”
He’s polite. He doesn’t just laugh me off. But he’s very precise about putting his glass down, almost like a ritual gesture.
“Are you offering me a way out?” he ticks off the words very evenly.
“A way up,” I try to match his pacing. “If you’ll play, Captain Ram. There’s a reason that your Team One is made up entirely of commissioned officers. We’ll be breaking you up, of course. Each of you off to their own command, passing on your training, your experience. That could mean leading a team, commanding a company, a battalion, coordinating a theater…”
“And you’re offering me—what?—more than that?” Still cool.
I just smile, shrug, offer the bottle again. He waves his hand over his glass to decline. But then he drains what’s left in it. He gets up, heavily, like he’s still in his armor.
“I guess we’ll have to see what that means,” he allows me.
I smile and salute him with my glass. He lets himself out.
Grayman Book One: Acts of War Page 39