<<< Back Table of Contents Next >>> 18 Destroyed Teen Anton had crossed a fatal threshold. He'd become the intimate confidant of Colonel Reinhold. He'd penetrated the Citadel and glimpsed its secrets. He knew better than to believe he could learn all there was to know about its operations, but he'd become too linked, too responsible to walk away freely. What impressed him about the Citadel was that it was immune to doubt. Nothing got in its way. Its plans ran seamlessly to their conclusion. Unfortunately, in the real world everything was more complicated. He wished he could negotiate the pitfalls of this world without error or hesitation, but even with Reinhold's backing, he had to deal with people who resisted his agenda. It occurred to him that the solution would be to live his life as if it were the Citadel. He would ignore all obstacles, and discard anyone who stood in his path. He would expect perfection, and reality would have no choice but to fall into line. He knew that people called him a prick, and he liked the image. His prick was smaller than average, easily multiplied, impulsively probing, always erect, and just about to come—or to shoot, his favorite word for it. He liked to hold himself back, keep himself hard, all anticipation, no release. His goal was to be master of his prick, storing it up until the moment of total orgasm, which was death. Only then would he shoot his soul into the void and travel far, far away. It gave him awesome shivers just thinking about it. His soul trembled and ached for death, but he wouldn't do it, not yet. His innocent good looks made him desirable no matter what he did. He wore jewelry and when he walked, his hair flashed in the breeze. Something in the pit of his stomach grew tight and warm at the thought of parading in the street in this way. He was master of his tastes, which made him master of everything. He was astonished at the open lust with which people approached him. "Like I was a jewel just sitting around in nature, waiting to be plucked. Like I was a maiden, for chrissake." Huddled in blankets, he sat in the back of a low, dark car as it prowled the streets of Zombieland, past tattoo parlors, head shops, and falafel joints. Two young toughs sat up front, in streetfighter regalia. They treated him like a prince, attending to his every need. The car, an aging sedan, stopped in front of Club Omaha. "There is no tragedy in my life," he thought as he stepped from the car. In fact he was lifted out, blankets and all, and carried inside. They gave him a table by the stage and left him alone. Already at twenty-one, he was showing the brittle arrogance, the fussy behavior of the very old. He'd come to audition musicians for his latest album, Destroyed Teen. As the musicians were led out one by one, he would decide their fate. A word from him would admit them to the glory of his presence, or banish them once again to oblivion. The first youth stood on stage blinking, his shiny blue bass set off by multicolored hair. His pale skin and soft features marked him as the product of suburban bedrooms. Worse yet, he had the bad taste to be wearing a Psychic Rangers T-shirt. "Department store punk," Anton said. He jerked his head and the boy was led off. "Aren't you even gonna hear me plaay-y-y?" the boy cried as he fell into the shaft. "I've made up my mind to judge entirely from surfaces," Anton laughed. The next contestant was shown in. She was a farm girl with freckles and ponytails, a gingham dress, work boots, and socks bunched around her ankles. She carried a flute. "Play a few notes," he said, and she tootled obligingly. She was like Becky only prettier, livelier, and therefore more ordinary. "Send her to the workshops for a makeover. I need someone with panache and style!" He clapped his hands and she was whisked away. This was such superb theater that despite all the clichés about the hollowness of power, it was turning out to be great fun. When it was all over, a couple of musicians had managed to play a complete song, but none had inspired Anton's confidence or awakened his hopes. He was looking around for his handlers to take him home, when a scruffy young man approached his table, scratching his belly. The boy reminded him of Dario from the Citadel, only not as well cared for. His hair was matted and he had an unhealthy complexion. When he saw that he had Anton's attention, he shifted his stance provocatively and said, "What do you think?" "Turn around." Anton gestured with one finger as if stirring a drink. Taking his time, he looked the boy over. The boy lost his temper. "Do you think I'm some kind of monkey?" "Sit down, relax." Anton gestured to the chair beside him. The boy flopped onto the seat with legs spread wide. "Want a cigarette?" He offered one and lit it. "We could get to know each other, but I'm pretty demanding. I'm not sure you're into that." They went upstairs to a private room. It had been a dressing room for Club Omaha's mud-wrestling women, but now that Anton was famous, Zombieland was changing to suit his tastes. The mirrored vanity table was still there, but now there were cushions and hookahs, velvet wallpaper, and a bed with scarlet sheets. The boy shucked off his clothes and dived onto the bed. Anton stood in the middle of the room, trying to stimulate his desire. "We famous people have to keep to ourselves," he muttered, not caring if the boy could hear him or not. "Mingling with the rest of you is too dangerous. No matter which one of you we choose, we make everyone else jealous." The boy sneered, and was captivated by the sight of his own sneering face in the mirror. This excited him further, so he began to squirm in the sheets on his belly, imitating a lizard. Anton shook his head in dismay and left the room. He just wasn't feeling it. Back in his studio, he took out his notebook and brooded over the distant creature he'd become. He wanted the world to be obsessed with him, but at the same time, he wanted to disappear. He was using his fame as something to hide behind, a veil. Trapped in a world that seems irredeemably altered by the misguided efforts of men, or the efforts of misguided men, the best I can do is to live as if I wasn't here, and hope to become invisible. I'm looking for a kind of anonymity. I prefer diners, bus stations, public parks, and old movie theaters to the close quarters of the family table, or the company of friends. I'm always pulling away from my friends and going off to places where I can be alone. I meet new people soon enough, and then I pull away again. Does that make me a sociopath, or what? Someday I'll run out of new places to go, and then I'll have to return home—another new place. • • • It was time to send Becky the money to buy Timmins' house. Anton wrote her a letter that brought them into contact for the first time since he'd left Iowa. He asked her to do what she could to help Timmins settle into his new home, and he expressed regret at not being there himself. She replied with her usual politeness, avoiding any criticism of him for neglecting them until then. Once Timmins had moved in, she continued to write to let Anton know that all was going well. Timmins lived more than an hour from her college campus, but that didn't stop her from driving to see him each weekend. She brought him paints, groceries, and supplies. She always found some cooking or cleaning to do, but she could see that he was learning to take care of himself. For the first time since he was a child, Timmins had no problem relating to ordinary objects. They stayed clean, they didn't break, they let him know where to find them. Perhaps it was because he was alone, so he no longer had to explain himself to others. His space was airy and simple, and the only decoration was his art. There were his paintings of crucified superheroes, and a series of exploding buildings in minutely detailed cameos along the stairs to the second floor. To Becky's surprise, Anton stayed in touch after that. He sent her press clippings to show that he was being taken seriously as an artist. He seemed to be trying to impress her. "Chaotic, frenzied, violent," the clippings said. "Trippy, sonic. Ominous drums and wailing." And her favorite, "His music is like being taken over by spirits. So many voices! Sooner or later you act without thinking, as if the voices inside you were your own." He told her that he'd kept his silence all this time because he wasn't ready yet to show her what he'd accomplished. Now that he'd finally reached a level where he wasn't embarrassed, he hoped she would come to Portland to see for herself. He was hard at work on a new album, but once it was finished, he would be honored to have her as a guest. After her visit, perhaps she would no longer think that his years away from home had been wasted ones. • • • Kliff moved in with Anton after their visit to the Citadel, and his presence in the studio changed it in many ways. Originally, the studio had been a bare-bones work space, with the same raw simplicity that Anton had known at Trashtown. Later, as people started coming over for parties, recording sessions, and one-night stands, it had acquired a more lived-in feel. Each layer of activity had left its mark, and Kliff's involvement changed it once again. Kliff awakened Anton's sense of luxury, and now he indulged it fully. He'd developed a taste for exotic objects, such as inlaid wooden tables, vases with peacock feathers, and African masks. Tasseled and brocaded fabrics hung everywhere in the space. He'd redone the kitchen because Kliff liked to cook. There was a fancy oven, a butcher block on wheels, and copper pans on an overhead rack. He'd built a library in one corner with hundreds of books. There were volumes on alchemy and magic, mythology and pagan rites. In another corner was his media center, with a collection of rare music and films. In the center of the room was a claw-footed bathtub surrounded by a gauzy curtain. To show it all off to dramatic effect, he'd installed a remote-controlled lighting system. He and Kliff would still get lost in each other for days at a time, but they were young, and restlessness was part of the deal. If Anton wanted to be alone to work on his music, Kliff would take the hint and vanish for a few days. If a swirl of emotions sent Anton to the clubs in search of adventure, Kliff wouldn't be there when he returned with his latest conquest. The same thing worked in reverse. There were nights when Kliff didn't come home because he was tending to his clients. In a few cases, he felt an emotional bond and serviced the client himself, but his usual role was behind the scenes. He would recruit the talent, provide drugs and booze, and arrange for private rooms if required. None of this bothered Anton if it stayed within bounds. In fact, he admired Kliff's entrepreneurial spirit. They were drawn together by a mix of pleasure and profit. They taught each other useful skills. Kliff taught Anton the language of seduction: glances and gestures, presentation and timing, how to make people desire him without realizing it. Of course Anton was already a natural at this, but Kliff felt that a little coaching would help him to reach his true potential. Meanwhile, Anton taught Kliff about the political control mechanism and how it worked. From Wall Street to Hollywood to Washington, powerful forces were at work in the lives of ordinary people, manipulating them to serve a hidden purpose. Reinhold was merely one link in a long chain. Kliff was rich in knowledge gained from a life on the streets, but he lacked a critical analysis of his situation. It was a rivalry and a collaboration, a tug-of-war. Though Anton had been to the Citadel, a lot of things about it were still a mystery to him. It was the control point for a global network of assassins, and an intelligence center with seemingly unlimited capabilities. It was also a pleasure palace, a harem where invited guests could realize their fantasies. But it seemed to exist outside of time and space, as if it were on another spiritual plane. So how had he been transported there? Was it the drugs, or the mantra he'd recited with Kliff while making love? Could he do it again without Kliff's help? He resolved to find out. He waited for a night when Kliff was out making the rounds, and he prepared himself as best he could. He used a combination of weed, speed, and mescaline to disorder his senses, and he repeated the phrases he'd memorized from the "Pathway to the Citadel." Once he felt ready, he took a flashlight down to the basement. The rooms and passages were the same as before, only the illuminated manuscripts, the clockwork model of the universe, the statues in onyx and porphyry were gone. He found only exposed pipes, stacks of old magazines, and broken tiles from a long-ago repair job. After a series of false turns, he came at last to the room that Kliff had called the "takeoff point." He switched on the red ceiling light. With a sense of relief, he saw that the stiff-backed wooden chair was still there. He sat down, closed his eyes, and centered his thoughts. He waited a minute or two, but nothing happened. He was expecting a hum and a flash of light, but the only sensation was his head spinning from the drugs he'd taken. He got up, fished through the cassettes scattered on a nearby shelf, and popped one into the old tape player. Returning to the chair, he emptied his mind and focused on an imaginary point in space. The only result was growing boredom. As the minutes passed, his heart rate slowed to normal and his anxiety turned to disgust. He wondered if Reinhold, who could see everything from the Citadel, was laughing now. • • • Destroyed Teen was Anton's first album since the breakup of the Psychic Rangers, and it felt to him like a comeback of sorts. It was a dark album, his most intimate yet. Its music was unsettled, its lyrics evasive. He didn't shy away from expressing his doubts about the hollowness of fame, or the unreality of what was happening to him. He mixed his voice so it would sound uncomfortably close, as if it were coming from inside the listener's own head. He played all the instruments himself, and recorded at a leisurely pace, so the album could evolve as a whole rather than as a collection of songs. To promote the album's release, he and Kliff launched a guerilla marketing campaign. He did a meet-and-greet session with his fans at a suburban shopping mall, which made it onto the TV news. He didn't see the report, but Kliff and others told him about it. "What we need is a good martyr, and I'm not gonna be first in line." That's what rock prodigy Anton Dupree said today during a visit to Oakdale Mall in Beaverton. Portland's favorite rebel spent about an hour greeting his fans, passing out revolutionary flyers, and "taking volunteers" as he put it. His fans prevented our camera crew from filming the event, because his dislike for television is well known. But one of our reporters was able to slip through the crowd with a tape recorder hidden under her coat. Footage from Anton's concerts, and photos of him in gaudy poses, flashed on the screen as an accompaniment to his voice. "You know what I hate about the media? The way they report atrocities as if they were thinkable—as if a sane person could understand them. Now, I'm as capable of mass murder or baby rape as anyone, probably a lot more than most. But it's not my sanity, my detached reason that leads me to it, just the opposite! I have nothing but contempt for reporters who keep their distance from such things as if they were happening on some other planet. They say, 'Oh no, not me!' like it was some other species that acts that way." Even without video footage, the frenzy of the crowd was obvious. Anton was caught in a dangerous swirl of protection and possession, and it was all he could do to master the situation, to channel his fans' longing without being torn apart by it. "I think sex is mostly for making babies, and making babies can be cool, but sex isn't for everyday, and it's not for everyone. We have plenty of ways to express our erotic impulse without going so far as sex. I love the sun, it gets me off, but I don't have sex with it. The same goes for trees, clouds, the river. Instead I sing, I beat on metal with a stick, I dance. I think the importance of sex in our society is exaggerated, the product of media hype. As I'm sure you've heard, sex sells. Well, I've had sex and it was fine, but I'm celibate now, and if I'm celibate until I die, I think I'll die fulfilled!" The anchorwoman came back on screen to chat with a psychiatrist. After bantering for a minute or two about the American culture of violence, young people's search for meaning, and the likelihood that strong family values were the answer, she summed up. "Anton Dupree's views may be controversial, but he seems to be striking a chord with young people. For better or worse, he's put Portland on the map." Anton hated it when the media tried to flatter him in this way, because he knew it wasn't sincere. In conditions like these, how could he be sincere in return? He had the right to take any position he chose, no matter how wrongheaded it was, or whether he actually believed it. He'd been catapulted into a position no one would envy, that of mascot or spokesdog for his generation, and he resolved to make the most of it. What mattered was to make himself an object of controversy, so he would be in everyone's thoughts. As he lay in bed one morning, Kliff reminded him that he had an interview in one hour. Spark, an alternative weekly, was sending a reporter to the studio. They wanted something colorful to write about, the eccentric home life of the young rock star. "You might want to put on some clothes," Kliff prompted. "What if I go to the door naked? It might add to the legend." "Do what you like, I'm going shopping." He left for the farmers' market, his mind on yellow peppers and Japanese eggplants. When Anton opened the door, the reporter found herself face to face with her idol. She froze for a moment before putting out her hand to introduce herself. He took it nonchalantly. "You were expecting an entourage? Well, I'm here all alone." Her eyes grew wide as they took in the space. "You live here? This is so cool!" He let her look around for a while, going up to things without daring to touch them. It occurred to him that unless he kept an eye on her, she might not be able to resist pocketing some memento: a postcard, an earring, a polished stone. He beckoned her to a couch and poured coffee for both of them. She set a recorder on the table between them and turned it on. "This place is amazing," she said. "It must be so full of memories. I'm not sure if you realize how lucky you are, to be the person who's done what you've done." He shrugged. "To be honest, I wouldn't wish it on anyone." Her eyes grew wide. "How can you say that? You're a hero to a lot of people. Your music has a huge following, and your ideas too. When you didn't have money, they said you couldn't be bought because you were one of us. Now that you have money, they say you're too rich to be bought, and you're still one of us. With money and such loyal fans, don't you think of yourself as successful?" "I wish it was that simple. You say I'm not a sellout, but I am. I used to tell myself it would never happen, but it did. Ask the people who knew me before. Ask Blake or Vince. Why do you think the Psychic Rangers broke up?" He decided to try once again to disillusion someone, in this case a hero-worshipping young journalist. "When I was just getting started, I offered myself for grooming to the closest thing I could find to the universal mentor I was looking for. I joined the only movement pathetic enough to have me as its figurehead and mascot. People started to think of me as going places, and I began to feel the magnetism, the inflationary gloat and buzz of ego that happen when other people think you're cool. They think you're the guardian of some kind of hipster wisdom, and they come swarming to you knowing nothing about you really, except that there's this tidal pull, this whirlpool drawing them, trancelike and infatuated, into your fucked-up hole." "Exactly! With all that energy, all that power to change lives, don't you feel like a god?" "I'm not a god, I'm a person. Don't put your burdens on me. Walk your own road." Intimidated, she changed the subject. "We're all wondering how you keep one step ahead of fashion. How do you manage to stay on the cutting edge?" "I was born on the edge. The edge is wherever I am." He massaged his forehead with his fingertips, and pulled them away as if they'd come unstuck. "What you need to know is, I represent an entirely different reality from yours. Every day I'm thrust into your world, confronted with it, forced to acknowledge it. But your values aren't my values. I'm not from here." He could guess what she was thinking. Why this antagonism? Weren't they on the same team? Didn't he know she worked for Spark? But Spark was part of the Reinhold network, along with Pulse, Crave, and Excite. How ironic that the cool kids working to overthrow America had no idea who was using them, or to what ends. "Ever since I was a kid," he went on, "I've understood that I was an alien being, a prisoner in this world. If that strikes you as an egoistic stance, an attitude I project to add to my own glamor—and I'm sure it does, in your heart you think I'm just like you—well, that only serves to illustrate the narrow, cheap complacency that saturates this world, from which I feel excluded by my very nature. If you had a poet in front of you right now, and you understood what it means to be a poet, you'd kill him in self-defense, despite all your talk about art and alternative living. Even Reinhold, the closest thing we have to a modern monarch, the God of This World, would do the same. But Reinhold knows the value of a poet. He'd only do it as a last resort." No doubt it was risky to mention Reinhold in an interview, but he'd been feeling bold lately, so he decided to toss her a bone and see what she would do with it. Unfortunately she ignored it completely, checking her notes for what to say next. "Tell me about your efforts to help Portland's homeless children," she said. "We're partnering with the Clean Kids Initiative to get them into loving homes." Clean Kids had been his enemy for years, but he no longer cared if what he said made sense. She grew enthusiastic as they returned to the script. "I heard you did a peace concert in the West Bank. That must have been quite an adventure!" "The Palestinian people are fabulous, really warm and genuine." Of course there hadn't been a concert. It was just a rumor they'd invented to polish his image. It went on like this for half an hour. She'd been commissioned to write a puff piece, and she was eager to do a good job. Finally she stood up and smoothed her slacks. She took another tour of the space before leaving, asking questions about whatever objects caught her eye. Despite his best efforts, he could see that her awe of him was undiminished. He was still brooding about this when Kliff returned. "How'd it go?" Kliff asked. "I couldn't persuade her I'm a fake." "And that's a bad thing?" "She wasn't trying to understand me. She just wanted my image. Next time, I think it would be easier to hire an actor to pose as me." A few weeks later, seeing himself on the cover of Spark, Anton bought a copy and read the interview. There was no mention of Reinhold in six pages of chatter about Bengali temples, Yoruba drummers, and fabulous hats. • • • Early one evening, Anton found himself transported back to the Citadel without any warning. Reinhold sat in a high-backed leather chair in a wood-paneled office, with a curved console behind him and an array of video screens. Anton hadn't seen this room on his last visit, but he had the distinct impression that he'd been there before. The Colonel rose from his seat, extending his hand, and invited him to pull up one of the chairs scattered nearby. He realized that this was the room from his long-ago dream, the dream that had made him leave Iowa. It came back to him now in every detail. He'd been working for Reinhold in a strange city, planning a riot. Once the riot was underway, he'd been smuggled out of town. Arriving in Portland late at night, he'd visited the House of Mysticism where he'd met its charismatic guru, Harry Mellow. The guru had asked about Reinhold, and he'd been unable to reply. Under the guru's questioning, he'd had flashbacks to this very room. The telescoping of fantasy and reality were a shock to him. He must have looked pale, because Reinhold offered him a glass of water and asked if he was all right. He rubbed his eyes and stared hard at the Colonel. "I'm not sure I believe you exist." Reinhold laughed easily. "Lots of people don't believe I exist. They don't know I exist." "That's not what I mean." "What do you mean? Are you doubting we're here, having this conversation?" "That's right." "So I'm in your head? I'm something you invented to give logic to your hallucinations?" "Something like that." "What's wrong with the more obvious explanation? Does a global conspiracy to micromanage political events seem impossible to you?" "Of course not. I just don't know if I'm sitting here, having a chat with its mastermind." "I'm real, Anton. If you threw water in my face, it would make me wet. I'd wipe it off with my handkerchief, and later I'd change my shirt. I have nerves and flesh just like any other person. Surely that's not what you mean." "Maybe I'm still back in Iowa. Maybe I never left high school." "It's been a long, elaborate dream, don't you think?" "Then explain this. The first time I came here, Kliff strapped me in a chair and slit my throat. The next thing I knew, I was in a high-tech fortress that seemed to be monitoring everything from Senator Kaley's bowel movements to the squash crop in central China. Kliff was here too, and Sabrina—only she wasn't Sabrina, and I wasn't the 'hottest rock poet of the slacker generation,' like they said in Extreme, but some kind of pawn in a vast scheme run by you. When I finally got out of here, I woke up in own my bed like nothing had happened. Later, when I tried to get back here, the pathway I'd used before was gone. I went through the same motions, the same series of steps, but nothing happened. What's up with that?" "I think you're upset." "You bet I'm upset! A few minutes ago I was sitting at home minding my own business, and now here I am again. I must be losing my fucking mind." "They're drugs, Anton, just drugs. Surely you've used mind-altering drugs before?" "You're saying this is a hallucination, some kind of sick trip?" "What's happening now is one hundred percent real." "So it's my other life that's the delusion. I'm really a recruit in your private army, who dreams about being a rock star in a world that doesn't exist, because the global holocaust has already happened and we all live here underground, at the Citadel." "Wrong again. You're getting warm, though." "What is it then?" "They're both real. But they're mutually exclusive, and we aim to keep it that way. The Citadel is a real place, but it's hidden away in a different reality than the one you live in every day. To keep it hidden, whoever comes here has to put himself under the influence of a mind-altering drug. We trigger that drug here at the Citadel. You need the drug to come across, and you also need the trigger. Either on its own isn't enough. But you don't need to take the drug each time, because its effects are long lasting. When we set off the trigger, a pathway opens that lasts just as long as the journey itself. Each time you come here, you use a different path, and without the trigger, there's no path at all. As you've probably figured out by now, it isn't a physical journey. Both ends of the line are real. It's the journey itself that fools the senses. Are you getting the picture?" "It sounds awfully complicated. Why did you bring me here in the first place?" "Isn't that what you wanted? Isn't that what you kept pestering Kliff about? 'Who is this guy Reinhold? Where does he get his power? What are his goals?'" Anton flushed. "I should have known you'd spy on my intimate conversations!" Reinhold chuckled. "Spies are just one more weapon in the arsenal. From the point of view of the spymaster, there's nothing immoral about spies." "It's a betrayal of trust." "Spies don't betray anyone. They're just doing their job. The victim is betrayed, but there is no betrayer. The spy remains loyal to his master." "You mean it's our fault if we're spied on?" "Exactly. People's gullibility is what makes spying work." He brought out a bottle of scotch and poured a glass for each of them. Their conversation turned to the media and how it could be manipulated. "I've noticed that you like to be a magnet for controversy, and that's good. My advice to you is, use the media before they use you. For them you're a story, a way to expand their audience. For you, they're a way to communicate with your base. When you create controversy, they can't help but take an interest, but they'll try to twist your message to fit their agenda. The answer to that is to speak in code. That way, even when they try to manipulate what you're saying, they won't know how." He tossed back a shot and went on. "There are media barons out there who say, 'Let's sell sex through the spokespeople of youth. That way, we'll destroy their idealism and undermine their revolution.' Here at the Citadel, we've got another angle. We like to make revolution itself sexy. Luckily for us, that's easy to do. Nothing is sexier to young people than setting things on fire, manning the barricades, a hero's death. Television shows us the menace of our society—the Citadel creates it. We tap into the destabilizing forces around us to give them a focus, a goal. We help young people to accomplish what they were meant to accomplish, but would never have managed without our help. We're the actualizers of chaos. We're people of conscience in a world of disorder." Anton felt a thrill run through him. He was convinced that anyone who would say these words must be righteous and just. As he was about to reply, a light flashed on the console, and Reinhold switched on the intercom. "Reinhold," he barked. "What is it?" "You have an appointment. Trainees from Group Seven." "Send them in." He winked at Anton. "Everyone wants their time with the Colonel." Three young recruits entered the room. They had a video they wanted Reinhold to see, a documentary by a French couple on the life of a Cambodian tribe. It was an homage to the simple ways of people living in solidarity with the land. They'd come to warn him of a potential humanitarian disaster. The tribe lived in a remote valley where the Citadel was experimenting with biotoxins. After a sequence that showed a young father teaching his boy to fish with a pointed stick, Reinhold ordered them to switch it off. "If those journalists love the jungle so much, I want them to meet a gruesome death. Something appropriate, like being eaten by crocodiles. Once you're done with the journalists, get rid of the tribe. You don't have to kill them, just make them go away. Capture every last one of them and ship them to Libya." The trainees stared at him in shock. "They're a rain forest culture. They'll die in the desert." "That's their problem, isn't it? If they want to survive, they'll have to adapt. Isn't that nature's way?" Eyes downcast, the recruits left the room. The Colonel turned to Anton. "Idealism. The shoots we trim to make the tree stronger." He got up. "Let's go for a walk, get some air." They walked down a corridor and onto a balcony. It was the first time Anton had seen the Citadel from the outside. For the moment it resembled a medieval fortress, nestled in a high valley sheltered on all sides by mountains. Above them, a rocky outcrop rose to a small waterfall. The stream was narrow and thick with pines, but the land opened out below them to form a lake, along whose margins orchards grew. "Idealism may feel good," Reinhold said, "but results are what matter. Che Guevara died for his beliefs, but does he earn a percentage on those T-shirts with his face on them? How about Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain? What use is marketing to a dead superstar? You want to get a piece of the action while you're still alive. You want to be paid in cash for the work you've done, so you can get a nice little compound on the water. One with an airplane or a speedboat that lets you make a quick getaway, in case it all comes crashing down on you." His arm swept the valley. "Take this place, for example. We've got some really good weed growing here, some of the best in the world. This isn't my only estate, of course. I like to visit them each in turn. With places like this all over the world, it was inevitable that we'd find one ideal for growing weed. It's the kind of labor-intensive agriculture that seems to do well here. We have pecans, apricots, olives—all specialized crops like marijuana. The strain we grow here was brought from the Far East originally, thanks to our boys in Vietnam." He went off on a tangent about the role of the CIA in drug and weapons smuggling, a subject he seemed to know about from personal experience. He reminisced about past missions involving Israeli intelligence, the Russian mafia, and the toppling of an uncooperative dictator. He ended with the remark, "and that man is now President of the United States." Anton felt the thrill of being part of a vast conspiracy. Reinhold had infiltrated the media, religious organizations, and political parties worldwide. He had major corporations in his pocket. The thought of it made Anton's head spin. He realized that he wanted a more active role in the organization, not just as a symbol of rebellion, but as an agent performing missions. He felt special, provided for, and he wanted to give something back. He told Reinhold this, and received a fatherly pat on the back. "An agent's life is hardly glamorous. It's made up of tiny, discreet actions that build slowly to a common purpose. A few words exchanged, a package picked up and delivered, can make all the difference. What matters are the details, connecting the dots. If you understand this and it appeals to you, of course we can use you. You might even find it refreshing to get out of the spotlight for a change. You can be anonymous and slip through the cracks like ordinary people do." He paused to consider. "I should warn you, though, that not everyone is cut out for this line of work. Subtlety is required, and special skill. After all, the Citadel isn't a mass movement. Your music is an example of what I mean. For the crowd, it's an invitation to passion and mayhem, but a few in the crowd respond to it in a special way. Those are the ones we want as volunteers. When they respond, they'll find leaders, and those leaders will work for me. We don't want the world to come to our door, we want the self-selected few." He told Anton there was a mission ready for him if he wanted it. It would make the best use of his skills. It wasn't physically dangerous, but it required poise, tact, and a refusal to be intimidated by power. It required clarity of purpose, because there was only one acceptable outcome. "You'll be negotiating with a man I want to say yes." After explaining the mission in detail, he gave Anton a parting gift. From now on, he would be able to visit the Citadel without waiting for the trigger. Only the referees and favorites like Kliff had this privilege. "But don't get cocky, because I can revoke it at any time." This had the added advantage of letting Anton travel from place to place instantly, using the Citadel as a transfer point. "Airplanes are so tiresome. Can you imagine me sitting in one for eight hours just to get from New York to Paris?" After wishing him luck, he clapped Anton on the back and sent him on his way. <<< Back Table of Contents Next >>>