Read Games of the Hangman Online
Authors: Victor O'Reilly
"Consider
me confused," said Fitzduane.
"Apart from no unemployment, virtually no inflation, and the
highest standard of living of any European nation, what other problems haven't
you got?
Who exactly is rioting, and
what are they breaking windows about?"
"They are
not just breaking windows," said Guido.
"Thousands of young people also paraded through the streets of
Fitzduane
grinned.
"It's
very difficult to say precisely what they are protesting about," continued
Guido.
"Basically, it's a rather
ill-defined reaction against much of the Swiss system by a certain percentage
of Swiss youth.
Whatever the merits of
this country, there is no denying that there is tremendous social pressure to
conform.
Most of the rules make sense by
themselves.
Put them all together, and
you have a free Western democracy without a lot of freedom — or at least that
is what they say."
"It
sounds not unlike the 1968 protests in
"There
are similarities," said Guido, "but 1968 was much more organized and
structured.
There were leaders like
Daniel Cohn-Bendit, and specific demands made.
This is much more anarchistic and aimless.
There are few precise demands.
There is no one to negotiate with.
The authorities don't know who to talk to or
what to do, so they respond with overreaction and the riot police:
clubs, tear gas, and water cannon instead of
thought."
"Is the
youth movement throughout
asked Fitzduane.
"In
various forms it is throughout
said Guido.
"Here in
that is concentrated in the cities."
"
too?"
"A
little," said Guido, "but not so much.
The Bernese
have
their own ways of doing things.
They
don't like confrontation.
I think,
perhaps, the authorities in
"I
thought you were suggesting that the Bernese were a little stupid,"
Fitzduane, recalling an earlier remark by Guido.
"Slow; I
didn't say they weren't smart.
But I'd
like to show you something."
He
smiled, then stood up and went over to a closet and removed a bulky
object.
He placed the assault rifle on
the dining room table against a backdrop of cheese and empty wine bottles.
The weapon glistened dully in the candlelight.
The bipod was in place.
"The
SG-57," said Fitzduane.
"Caliber 7.5 millimeter, magazine capacity twenty-four rounds,
self-loading or fully automatic, effective range up to four hundred and fifty
meters.
No dinner table is
complete without one."
"Always
the weapons expert," said Guido.
Fitzduane
shrugged.
"About
six hundred thousand Swiss homes contain one of these rifles," said Guido,
"together with a sealed container of twenty-four rounds of
ammunition.
Just about every male
between the ages of twenty and fifty is in the army.
Over six hundred and fifty thousand men can
be fully mobilized within hours.
We are
prepared to fight to stay at peace.
The
army is the one major social organization that binds the Swiss together."
"Supposing you don't want to join?"
"Provided
you are in good health," said Guido, "at twenty years of age, in you
go.
If you refuse, it's prison for six
months or so — and afterward there can be problems in getting a federal job,
and other penalties.
But there are more
important things to know about the army.
It's not just an experience common to all Swiss males between the ages
of twenty and fifty.
It is also one of
the main meeting grounds of the power elite.
"You
start off in the army as an ordinary soldier.
You do your seventeen weeks of basic training and then you return to
civilian life with your uniform and rifle — until next year, when you do a
couple of week's refresher course, and so on, until you are fifty.
"However,
the best of the recruits are invited to become corporals and then officers, and
later, conceivably, they end of on the general staff.
There are about fifty thousand officers, and
only two thousand of these are general staff — and it is officers of the
general staff who dominate the power structure in this country.
The higher you go in the Swiss Army, they
more time you have to put in away from your civilian job.
We call it ‘paying your grade.’
That's especially difficult for an ordinary
worker or a self-employed businessman.
As a result, the general staff and, to a lesser extent, the officer
corps as a whole
are
dominated by senior executives of
the large banks, industrial corporations, and the government."
"In
Eisenhower's phrase, ‘the military-industrial complex,’" said Fitzduane.
"He was
talking about
said Guido, "and collusion between the military and big business.
Here it is not just collusion.
The senior army officers and the senior
corporate executives are the same people.
They don't just make the weapons; they buy them and use them."
"But only
for practice," said Fitzduane.
"That's
the good part."
Later, when
the exhausted Guido had retired, Christina showed Fitzduane to his room.
By the window there was a huge potted plant
that was making a serious attempt to reach up and strangle the light bulb.
"It's
doing well," Christina said proudly.
"It came from
"A
two-meter-high milk bottle?" said Fitzduane.
"It grew
since then."
"What's
it called?"
"It's a
papyrus," said Christina.
"The same thing that's at the head of your bed."
"Jesus!"
exclaimed Fitzduane.
"How fast do
these things grow?"
*
*
*
*
*
Kadar did not
speak.
He was remembering.
He wondered if
he should have felt remorse.
In truth he
hadn't felt much of anything immediately after the event except an overwhelming
feeling of fatigue mixed with a quiet satisfaction that he had been able to do
it.
He had passed the test.
He had an inner strength possessed by few
people.
He was born to control.
He tried not
to remember how he had felt one day later.
From the time he had woken he had been unable to stop shaking, and the
spasms had continued for most of that day.
"Classic reaction to shock," the doctor had said
sympathetically.
Kadar had lain there in
quiet despair while his body betrayed him.
In later years he had undergone training in a variety of Eastern combat
disciplines to fuse his mental and physical strength, and the post-action shock
had not manifested
itself
again.
Very occasionally he wondered if such stress
symptoms were nonetheless there, but in a more insidious, invisible way,
like
the hairline cracks of metal fatigue in an aircraft.
The silence
continued for several minutes.
Kadar was
caught up in the excitement of that time and the almost unremitting stimulation
offered by his new life in the States.
The greatest surprise of that period had not been the luxury of his new
home, or access to all the material goods he could reasonably want, or the
effect of an environment in which almost anything seemed to be possible.
It had been the attitude of his father.
At their first
meeting in
Henry Bridgenorth Lodge had been cold, hard, and cynical — almost
dispassionate.
He needed a son to
satisfy his wife.
So be it.
Subsequently, although his manner remained
superficially distant and though the hardness and cynicism proved to be real
enough, Lodge displayed a concern for and attention to his son's well-being
that almost made Kadar drop his guard and develop an affection for him.
Kadar had to
exert all his formidable sense of purpose and self-discipline to resist an
emotion that threatened to overwhelm his sixteen-year-old frame.
He reminded himself again and again that to
be in control, truly in control, he must remain above conventional
emotions.
He repeated this constantly in
the privacy of his room at night even while the tears trickled down his cheeks
and his body was suffused by feelings he could not, or would not, begin to
understand.
Shortly after
he had settled into his new home — a comfortable twenty-minute drive from
subjected to what seemed like a barrage of examinations and tests to help
determine how the next phase of his education might best be carried out.
It emerged
that he was unusually gifted.
His IQ was
in the top 0.1 percent of the population.
He had an ear for languages.
He
showed considerable artistic promise.
His physical coordination was excellent.
He was an impressive if to outstanding athlete.
It was clear
that a conventional school would not be adequate.
For the first year he was tutored
privately.
Lodge tapped into the immense
pool of highly qualified academics and analysts that were part of the CIA
community, and Kadar was exposed to a quality of mind and a sharpness of
intellect that up until then he had only read about.
It was exciting.
And he flourished both intellectually and
physically.
For his second
academic year he was sent to a special school for the gifted, supplemented by
private tutoring, a routine that was to remain constant until he left
Harvard.
It was during this second year
that he discovered he had charm and a naturally magnetic personality — and that
he could use these qualities to manipulate people to his own ends.
He was
conscious that his experience in dealing with people was inadequate and that
such a deficiency could be a weakness.
He studied other people's reactions to him and worked hard to improve
his overt personality.
The public
persona became further divorced from the inner reality.
He became one of the most popular boys in his
class.
Lodge had some
instinctive understanding of the nature of the son he was nurturing.
He knew there were risks, yet his perception
was counterbalanced by a weakness:
Lodge
was excited by talent.
To such a man,
Kadar, who responded to intellectual and other stimuli in such an attractive,
dynamic way, was irresistible.
It was
like having a garden where every seed germinated and flourished.
Educating, training, and encouraging this
astonishing young stranger who was his son became an obsession.
Henry
Bridgenorth Lodge came from a family that had been so wealthy for so long that
career satisfaction could not be achieved by something as mundane as making
money.
The Bridgenorth Lodges did make
money, a great deal of it — more than they could comfortably use, a talent that
seemed to survive generation after generation — but they channeled their
foremost endeavors toward higher things, principally service to their
country.
The Bridgenorth Lodges worked
to advance the interests of the
States
zealousness and ruthlessness of Jesuits.
To the Family — as they thought of themselves — the
ends did justify the means.
Many people go
through their lives without ever being lucky enough to come under the influence
of a really great teacher.
In this
respect Kadar was doubly fortunate.
unintentionally — given him a consummate grounding in the fundamentals of power
grabbing, violence, manipulation, and extortion.
Lodge and his colleagues taught Kadar to
think in a more strategic way, set him up with a network of connections in high
places, taught him the social graces, and gave him numerous specific skills
from languages to project planning, cultural appreciation to combat pistol
shooting.