not expect me to think like a citizen of Kraftsville.”
No, not a citizen of Kraftsville. Looking into his eyes was like looking into the bottomless pit. “If you don’t mind dying,” I said, “why go to all this trouble?”
He smiled again. “I have said that I desire to live. It gives me pleasure; also there are plans to be fulfilled before I die. Therefore I take certain precautions. But when I am dead, I shall not remember these things. Only the living can suffer.”
“That’s a matter of opinion.”
“I urge you to believe that it is my opinion.” He cocked his head. “I have a question for you also, sir. Why are you not afraid of me?”
“Because I can’t afford to be.” I’d no sooner said it than I felt my insides jerked by a cold convulsion. He must have seen it in my face, because he exploded suddenly into a laugh, gay and contemptuous. That made me hot again. “I’ve got a bad stomach,” I said steadily. “If I got upset, it would interfere with my work.”
“And exactly what is your work, sir?”
“I’m responsible for my school. If you don’t know what that means, I can’t tell you.”
He studied me. “I can make you afraid.”
“Maybe so, General. But why bother to try? I can’t do you any good if I’m disabled.”
He nodded agreeably. He finished his cigarette in silence, crushed out the butt between his thumb and fingers—he could be very careful, I noticed, when it suited him—and flipped it onto the road. “Now, sir, we shall show each other something. I shall show that I mean what I say; and you will show whether you have understood.” For the first time since he stopped the car his eyes left my face, as he unholstered his pistol. He took it loosely by the barrel and held it out to me.
I had to lick my lips before I could speak, and I could barely hear my own voice through the blood singing in my ears. What made him think he could play games with me? “You wouldn’t offer it to me, except you’re sure I won’t take it.”
“Ah, no,” he said quickly. “There is always risk. In every battle there is risk of death—even when victory is sure.” He smiled. “It is loaded, sir; with live ammunition.”
I thought that when I reached for the gun, or at least when I touched it, he would simply jerk it back. But he didn’t. For just an instant we both had hold of it, and I felt the solidity of that casual-looking grasp. And then it was all mine. It was years since I’d held a handgun, a lot of years. It felt very effective.
He wasn’t smiling any more, but his whole air was too comfortable. I could well imagine the gun wasn’t loaded, or was loaded with blanks. It was the sort of joke that might tickle his fancy. And if I fired a trial shot at something else, the report—if there was one—would bring his men down on me as fast as if I’d really killed him. No doubt the woods and fields were full of them already. But he was right about one thing—I couldn’t afford to pass up any chance.
“Start the car.”
“No,” he said. “You are not my master; I am yours.”
I had hit him—as hard as I could, lefthanded and backhanded in that cramped space—literally before I knew what I was doing. He took it full in the face without flinching, and it knocked him back against the frame. But as I struck, his hand came up and touched my left wrist—not a grab or a blow, just a touch like a cat’s playful pat.
He straightened up and leaned on the wheel again. Still, that had gotten to him. It took a minute for his eyes to clear—ten seconds, anyway—and when they did, he looked really hard for the first time, like a man fighting. “It is not your fault,” he went on smoothly. “You have the strength, and the courage, and the brain, and now the gun. You lack only the army.” I could see he was swallowing blood. “If my troops were not occupying your town, I should act differently. Perhaps I should even start the car. But now, sir, if you kill me'—he smiled thinly, swallowed again, and shrugged—'it is the end for me, but it is the beginning of very bad things for you and for Kraftsville, and for many other places.”
“Your little Turkistani wolf pack looks pretty small in the middle of the United States of America, General.”
His mouth pursed with amusement or a good imitation of it. “Do not forget, sir, that I command the armed forces of the United States of America.”
“You can’t tell me they’d fight for you.”
Another shrug. “Was it necessary for the armed forces of Vichy France to fight for Hitler? Do not deceive yourself with false hopes, sir. There is no United States government to help you. There is no Soviet government. There is no government in Canada, in England, in France, in Germany, in Egypt, in Israel, in Turkey, in India, in China, in Japan, in Australia. I am the government. I am the leash that holds my wolf packs. If you kill me now, sir'—he smiled a real smile—'hell breaks loose.”
“As far as I can see, it already has.”
He shook his head gently at me. “Then you have not seen war.”
“What happens if I don’t kill you now?”
He turned and spat over his shoulder, and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “You will not be punished. You have asked how I can prevent others from killing me. There is no certain method. But you, sir, can help. Do you understand?”
“You mean spread the word that you’re worse dead than alive?”
“Exactly.”
“Before I did that, I’d have to believe it. And I’m not about to believe anything till I know a whole lot more about the situation. Just what the hell have you done, General? What the hell are you planning to do?”
He said nothing. He looked at me, cool and level. The gun felt warm and heavy in my hand. “Do you think I am some politician,” he said at last, “to feed upon power and praise?”
“I think you’re a devil. I think you’re a barbarian Hitler. Your idea of fun is raping children in front of their mothers.”
“Fun, yes,” he agreed comfortably. “If you cannot endure this, sir, shoot—and let my soldiers have their turn. But I have not conquered the world for … fun.”
Up the back of my neck I felt my scalp prickling. “There’s a lot of world not covered in that list you reeled off.”
An empty smile flitted across his face. He looked very thoughtfully at the pistol in my hand. “Well, I am a soldier. I do not pretend that I would have let the chance go by, once I saw it. But also I saw another chance.” He met my eyes suddenly. “More difficult, sir. But if I work quickly, it is conceivable that I can do it.”
I had to wet my lips again. “Do what?”
“Make the world a good place in which to live.”
I heard myself make a snorting noise. Somehow I had expected better from him.
He smiled innocently. “Or I could say, ‘destroy civilization,’ if you prefer that I should be … diabolical. But what is that civilization, sir? Is it so worthy of preservation? Tell me, what was wrong with the world, sir?”
“I’ll tell you exactly what
His eyebrows went up. “Christianity has had its chance. Now I have mine. No, sir; the two great curses of mankind are very simple: hunger and crowding. Crowd human beings together, and all miseries multiply. And there is no greater misery—believe me, sir—than hunger. Therefore there are two great needs: more food, more land. And this has always been true, even when food and land were absolutely plentiful. It is a problem of distribution.”
I stared at him, amazed as much as disgusted. It was incredible that a two-bit warlord from nowhere, infected with some outmoded Middle Eastern strain of agrarian socialism, could be kinging it over my town—let alone my whole country. I had it in my hand, if the gun was loaded, to end it right now. And if he was as crazy as he must be, it might really be loaded, and we might really be alone. I didn’t think it would take two weeks for this country to shake off Arslan’s wolf packs. If the gun was loaded.
And I would have the gun and the Land Rover, and maybe a little time. My hand was slippery with sweat. Good God, I had thought of the noise—why hadn’t I thought of silencing it? But with what?
“So you’re going to redistribute the wealth,” I said. “It’s been tried.” I scooted back as far away from him on the seat as I could get.
“No, sir. I am going to redistribute the people.” I flipped the chamber open, flipped it shut. It was loaded. Arslan watched, but he didn’t move. “And I am cutting lines of communication,” he said. “I intend that every
