to take the whole business to the next level.'
Malcolm sighed.
'Yes. The common leader and his followers work mainly off of the desire to end isolation, but the fanatical leader and his disciples incorporate the second primal fear, the fear of death, into the equation. And by death I mean annihilation — the utter obliteration of any and every bit of a person's earthly existence and legacy. The leader who promises his people that adherence to his laws and teachings will not only relieve the pain of their isolation but also allow them to defy death, to achieve some kind of spiritual immortality through worthy deeds, that type of leader achieves a supreme control that the first type can't match — and creates an entirely different kind of follower in the process. Such a follower is likely to disregard most generally accepted rules of social behavior for the simple reason that to him or her, there is no obscenity save what the leader labels obscene. And such a leader's definition of obscene is likely to be very specific, because he doesn't want to limit the range of possible actions to which he can order his followers.'
'All right,' Malcolm agreed, his fingers beginning to tap on the arms of his chair. 'But who is it, then? Who's the leader who's telling Eshkol what to do?'
'I don't think anyone's telling him, in the way that you mean. But he does have leaders — the worst kind. You said it yourself, Malcolm, when we first found out about him — it's his family, specifically the victims who died almost a century ago.'
Malcolm looked momentarily confused. 'But — they're dead. And they weren't leaders.'
'Not in the obvious way,' I said. 'And that makes them even more dangerous. They embody all the virtues of Eshkol's ethnic and religious heritage — in fact, being so long dead, they have no flaws of any kind. They demand, in his mind, unquestioning faith — and complete vengeance, to be achieved with the same brutality that caused their deaths. They offer him the promise of welcoming arms, of eternal community, should he die as a result of his efforts. And most of all, the viciousness he embodies, the viciousness that's inherent in all fanaticism, takes on the gender trappings of love because it serves their memory. Eshkol's the consummate lone wolf, and even the Israelis know it — he answers to only one voice, the collective voice he imagines to be coming from his murdered ancestors.'
'And so,' Malcolm said, taking up the train of thought, 'when he saw the Stalin images he never questioned them.'
I nodded. 'By now Eshkol is almost certainly paranoid. He's had enough time to obsess over an unequaled cataclysm, to link it to events in his own family and personal life and decide that it's ongoing and requires an active response from him personally. Based on his activities, it's safe to say that he suspects the entire world is involved in a plot to exterminate Jews — indeed, Jews themselves, at least some Jews, are apparently not above suspicion in his mind. Paranoia creates fantastic tension, which can never be relieved through disproof — only through vindication. So when he saw the Stalin images, he saw exactly what he'd always wanted to see — proof that he was right and that all his actions had been justified.'
Still staring at the drones, Malcolm began to murmur,
'I'm not telling you anything you didn't already know — or suspect. What bothers me now is, how can we possibly hope to catch him? If I'm right — if he in fact answers to no one living and if he can move through modern society like a phantom — then where's our advantage?'
Malcolm balled his hands into fists, but he kept his voice low. 'Our advantage is ourselves. It's up to us. No one else can get to him before—'
Malcolm apparently didn't want to finish the thought; but I, wishing to be absolutely sure that we did indeed understand both each other and the situation, looked at him and said, ' 'Before…'?'
A sudden flurry of movement outside the window distracted us both: in loose formation the drones began to move away from our ship and head back in the direction from which they'd come. Though immensely relieved, I was initially at a loss as to why it was happening. But then I heard Eli's voice coming over the address system:
'It's all right — I've initiated the new signature, they don't have anything to lock onto anymore. We should be safe.'
Malcolm turned and touched a keypad by his bed. 'Well done, Eli. Julien — let's get back up to speed. I want to be over France within the hour.' Putting his hands on the wheels of his chair, Malcolm gave me one more critical look. 'I think we both have a very good idea of what we need to get to Eshkol 'before,' Gideon — and I suggest that, however horrifying it seems, we both try to impress that idea on the others.' He turned his chair around and headed for the door. 'This man's mind may be full of vengeful fantasies, as you say — but they will die with him.'
CHAPTER 34
With our ability to move at full speed restored, we were able to reach the English Channel, if not France itself, within the hour's time called for by Malcolm. Our path of descent from the stratosphere ended above the channel just north of Le Havre, and after once again engaging the holographic projector we flew directly over that city at cruising altitude, following the Seine River as it snaked its way through one of the most congested areas of French suburban sprawl. This sprawl, like all things French, had over the years become steadily more American in its details and trappings, yet because it cut through one of the finest and most historic areas of Normandy, it was in some way even more grotesque to look at than its American counterparts.
Most disturbing about the scene was its eerie illumination. In suburban areas of the United States one had long since grown accustomed to the sterile, flickering light that oozed out of homes every night into the dark streets and yards: the emanations of hundreds of thousands of Internet and computer monitors. The French, on the other hand, enjoyed a lower crime rate than the Americans and could therefore afford to be more subtle with their street lighting and more indulgent of their characteristic aversion to window furnishings, all of which made the glow of those same monitors — as ubiquitous in France as in the United States or indeed anywhere else in the digital world — more than simply apparent: it was dominant.
As we got closer to Paris, the residential congestion beneath us thickened and the incandescence of the countless monitors intensified. Malcolm and I, watching it all roll by from the nose of the ship, were soon joined by Julien, who of course had the greatest reason to be disheartened by what he was seeing. Fouche professed to have accepted long ago that his native country, whatever its pretenses and protestations, was as susceptible to the afflictions of the information age as any other; indeed, it was the ongoing denials of this fact by his fellow academics and intellectuals that had, he said, provoked his emigration. But such statements didn't seem to help him face that endless, bright testament to his homeland's secure place in the community of modern technostates.
'One attempts to be philosophical about it,' he said, crossing his arms and running one hand through his beard. 'And yet philosophy only sharpens the indictment. You have read Camus? 'A single sentence will suffice for modern man: He fornicated and read the papers.' We must now change this sentence a bit, I think: 'He masturbated and logged on to the Internet.' ' Fouche's bushy brows arched high. 'But perhaps the order of activity in that statement is wrong, eh?' He tried to at least chuckle at what, under other circumstances, might have been an amusing thought; but just then neither he nor I — nor, certainly, Malcolm — could quite muster the enthusiasm.
Several silent minutes later Larissa entered, bearing news that, if not uplifting, was at least somewhat encouraging: Tarbell had been able to identify a man in the general vicinity of Paris who regularly sold stolen technological secrets and advanced weaponry to the Israeli government through the Mossad. It seemed more than likely that, as Eshkol's flying destination had been Paris, he intended to contact this man, who, according to Leon's research, was capable of laying hands on almost any sort of hardware — including miniaturized nuclear devices. The dealer lived in and conducted his business out of an expansive lakefront estate near the medieval city of Troyes, southeast of Paris in the Champagne province. So we maintained our heading and increased our pace, perfectly aware that the likelihood of the dealer surviving any encounter with Eshkol was slim.
Swift as we were, though, we were not swift enough. Our ship had barely reached the rolling landscape
