Dead and Gone (40 page)

“What are you saying? That you and me, we’re the same?” I asked, pushing a little button on the side of the oxygen mask I was still holding in my lap.

“Oh, but we
are
, Mr. Burke. We’re both predators. And we both prey on the same victims, albeit in different ways. There
is
no Darcadia. And there never will be. Of all the congenital defectives ever birthed on this godforsaken earth, those pathetic little wannabe Nazis have to be the most extreme example. Who else would believe such a fairy tale? And pedophiles? Perhaps even easier to gull. Ah, how they
dream
of such a place! And I am making their dreams come true.”

“Nazis and child molesters on the same little island?”

“Please! Spare me your incompetent attempts at political analysis. Hitler marched Jews into the ovens because … why? They were
defectives
. As were Gypsies, homosexuals … a long list. But you never saw pedophiles on that list, did you?

“Extremists don’t fit themselves along a continuum, Mr. Burke. They don’t form lines; they form a circle. And the ‘sexual liberation’ frauds who include children among their ‘causes’ eventually met the Nazis who think incest preserves the race. Pedophiles don’t have politics,” he said, contemptuously. “They only have … preferences. This is
business
, pure and simple.”

He took a long, deep refueling breath and went on: “Any businessman understands it’s not enough to know your product; you also have to know your market. And I have been
successfully
marketing information to pedophiles for years. There are states where sex with a child under eleven can get you twenty-five years in prison … unless it’s your
own
child. Then, if the DA can be persuaded to charge ‘incest’ instead of ‘sexual assault of a child,’ the offender can
expect
probation. Do you know which states have the loosest requirements for running a day-care center? Which organizations don’t do background checks for those who volunteer to work with kids? Which jurisdictions make it easiest to get a foster child? Which won’t prosecute polygamy?”

I didn’t answer him. Truth is, I didn’t know the answers.

“I didn’t think so,” he said, after a pause. “But I do. And do you know how to package a pedophile for probation? Or for early release if sentenced? Do you know how to teach these sickening men how to avoid mouthing their cognitive distortions when they’re interviewed?”

“Cognitive distortions?” I asked, stalling—I needed time to deal with the info-overload.

“The classic example,” he answered, “goes something like this. People are primarily motivated by desire for pleasure. Children are people. Children seek pleasure. Sex is pleasure. Children seek what they want by communicating their desires. That is why so many children are deliberately seductive—they are seeking pleasure, for themselves.”

“And people
buy
that crap?”

“Law enforcement doesn’t. Just the treatment centers that make a living from it.
My
task is to make sure the … client doesn’t
repeat
any of it, regardless of his personal belief system.”

“So you sell them the keys?”

“Certainly. And each client subset is different. With the incest offenders, we have to eliminate their expressions of a profound sense of ‘entitlement’ to their own children. Learning to feign remorse is critical to their survival, once apprehended.”

“Christ!”

“Of course, the worst are the ‘true believers.’ You’re familiar with their rhetoric, I’m sure.” His voice switched to a singsong parody of a memorized litany: “ ‘Those children who
later
claim to have been harmed by a loving sexual experience with a caring adult are not victims of sex, they are victims of
programming
, playing the victim role as dictated by self-interested therapists, and exploited by greedy lawyers. The media never report that there are numerous studies which show that the child participants themselves, interviewed later as adults, did not consider their earlier experiences to be harmful in any way at all. The only “perversion” going on is the perversion of love.’ ”

“Nice.”

“Be honest, if only with yourself. I sell these people images—pictures and videotapes. And if they are later
caught
with such product, I sell them information on how to minimize the consequences. And, of course, if their status warrants, I sell their names to certain foreign governments
before
there are any consequences. In short, I prey upon them. Are your own operations any different?”

“I promise them kiddie porn, sure. But I never deliver.”

“And so you are better than I, somehow? Morally superior? I don’t
produce
the pornography, I procure it. Do you think the people from whom I obtain the product would go out of business if I stopped buying? Parents sell their children all the time. All over the world.”

“What’s all this got to do with Nazis?”

“Are you really this dense? If you want to preserve the bloodlines, you do what the royals always did. Keep it in the family. It’s called inbreeding. Or, if you prefer, incest.

“Anyway, the whole ‘Nazi’ concept is nothing more than a marketing tool. It isn’t about politics, it’s about packaging. A skillful profiteer always tailors his product to the market. Does the phrase
‘National
Socialism’ register with you? Hitler was all about
German
dominance. Do you think he would have welcomed Greeks or Poles or Italians as ‘Aryan’? They might have been at the end of the line for the ovens, but, rest assured, they would certainly be
on
that line.

“Modern merchants understand that young people are where the money is. So, instead of limiting their pitch to the genetically correct, they simply change the definitions. Today, any kid who could conceivably call himself ‘white’ can qualify … even a good number of Hispanics.”

He was right. And tapping a deep vein, too. Even when I was a kid, the dark-skinned Puerto Rican kids they brought into the lockup would only speak Spanish, making certain the cops didn’t take them for blacks.

“Am I really telling you anything you don’t know, Burke?” he went on, completely composed. “How many crates of nonexistent weapons have
you
sold to these imbeciles? I’m selling them a nonexistent Valhalla-on-earth where they can practice whatever perversion suits their disorders. Only I operate on a grander scale than you could ever have conceptualized.”

“Then why have me killed?”

“Because, until this very moment, you didn’t know one single word of what I just told you. No, you thought I was some sort of super-pedophile. And you wanted to kill
me
, didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” I admitted, way past gaming now.

“I acknowledge that the scheme you hatched—that phony ‘immunity’ I was fool enough to purchase—was a clever one, although I suspect the woman was the real instigator.”

“You never went after her, though.”

“Why should I? She’s a stupid policewoman in her heart. She did her job. I went to prison. She’s done with her work. Besides, I know what happened to her. What good’s a prosecutor without a jurisdiction? She’s out of business, permanently. But you … in a way, you represented the last impediment to me acquiring enough money to disappear and live, literally, as a king. With you alive, I’d be looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life.”

“How long—?”

“Was I planning this? I hatched the final plans for Darcadia in my prison cell. They took my freedom, but not my resources—my government friends saw to that, too. I thought it would be a perfect irony for you to be murdered by one of the children who appear to mean so much to you.”

“That kid … he was one of—?”

“He
became
one of them. His parents sold him.… Well, more accurately, I should say his mother sold him. She wanted her child to grow up as a warrior for his race. Despite the money she garnered from the transaction, I believe she was quite sincere in her Nietzschean politics. In fact,” he said, somewhere between a laugh and a sneer, “she plans to join us on Darcadia someday. The boy’s father was not a factor. A weak, ineffectual man. He told himself his child was going to some sort of military school. But he knew.

“In any event, the child was sold, for a considerable sum, I may add, to what I call a ‘fusion’ group—one that merges its pedophilia with whatever ideology seems to permit or promote it. Nazis seem to make ideal candidates. Although I assume that pedophiles without the correct racial credentials find some other ways to band together,” he said, contempt heavy in his voice.

“In this case, the buyer was an assembly of warrior pedophiles who desire to emulate the Spartans in all ways important to
them
. The child was ‘kidnapped,’ as you know. By the time he was a teenager, his indoctrination was complete. And, I was told, his skills were excellent. That plan should have worked.”

“It did. He put a few rounds in me. They just didn’t do the job.”

“I see. In any event, it was I who arranged the sale. And, in so doing, discovered this ‘fusion’ principle. I investigated further, and learned that there are many such groups. That, in turn, eventually gave birth to Darcadia. And,” he said calmly, “to the reason to have you taken out.”

I
let the silence sit there, building. Then I said, “You don’t need me dead anymore,” so still inside myself I wouldn’t have bounced a polygraph needle.

“Because …?”

“Because more fucking power to you, pal. This whole Darcadia thing is nothing but a whale-scale scam, right?”

“What else
would
it be?”

“I get it. I get it now, anyway. Besides, you want to hear something funny? I wasn’t ever after you. I didn’t know where you were, and I didn’t care. I thought you were doing a long jolt, and that you’d get protection from the Israelis again once you got out. I’d done all I wanted to do when I Pearl Harbored you with that immunity thing. I wasn’t going to risk Mossad on my ass just for the fun of blowing you away.”

“So we were both mistaken, it seems.”

“Yeah. I
did
think you were a baby-raper. But if I went around killing every one of
those
 …”

“Point taken. But I assumed you had some personal stake, after going to all that trouble just to get me into a brief prison sentence.”

“Personal? I hate them
all
. And that’s no secret, right? Look, what’s the point? It looks like we both have to gamble here. You’ve got a crew of halfass Nazis who think you’re the next Führer waiting on you in that boat. They’re ready to blow us all into dust if you don’t come back. Sure. But I still get to decide
if
you come back. You go back there and give the order to total us, they’ll do it. So, if I think that’s what you
are
going to do, we might as well just sit here and wait for it … together. No way I’m going to let you snuff us all and live to laugh about it.”

“And if I give you my word—?”

“You know what?” I said, leaning forward. “I’d take it. What’s in it for me to blow the whistle on you? The freaks aren’t going to pay me—even if they believed me, and fat fucking chance of
that
. Besides, if the feds knew what you were
really
up to, they’d probably pay
you
to keep tabs on your own suckers.

“And the way you play things, I know you’ve got your back covered. I’m sure you’ve got a few of them in on it with you. I mean, even some of the Nazis themselves know it’s a scam, too, right?”

“Obviously. In fact, two of them are on my ship right now. They have been very helpful,” he said, voice heavy with contempt for his stooges. “There were three of them originally, but one didn’t survive that little encounter with you. The dog was a surprise.”

“So there’s nothing I could do to screw up your play,” I told him, my voice calm even as my mind screamed to Pansy that I’d finally found the puppets who killed her. “And I couldn’t find you again even if I wanted to. You go back to stealing from them your way, and I’ll go back to mine. Besides, even with those machine guns, you can’t kill us so easy as you think.”

“I don’t understand that last part.”

“You can’t board us from that Zodiac—you’d be mowed down like wheat. And if you get back to your ship and tell your storm troopers to blast away at long range, it’s going to take a while. You’re not packing anything that could make a whole boat just go boom! But
we
are …” I said softly, letting the bluff float gently in the air between us.

“There’s going to be wreckage in the water,” I promised him. “Maybe even survivors. And the second anyone starts shooting, a full description of your boat goes out to the Coast Guard, together with our GPS. The message’ll say that we were attacked by terrorists on a ‘training mission.’ How many fucking Zhuks are floating around out here? Sure, I know, we’re out past the twelve-mile limit. You trust the feds enough to think they’re going to turn back at the border? Especially with no one watching …?”

His face was all the answer I needed.

“You know what?” I told him. “It might make
you
feel good to kill me, but it wouldn’t do a thing for anyone else on your boat. All it could do is get them Life-Without or a needle in the arm. And no matter what you say about them, they can’t be
that
fucking stupid. Go out on deck. Signal them to pick you up, get in your boat, and go your own way. I promise you, we’ll never see each other again.”

I didn’t offer to shake hands—that would’ve been too much. He sat back in his chair. I could see him thinking it over. And I let
him
see I was doing the same math.

“I don’t trust you,” he finally said. “Not personally. But I do trust you to be a lot smarter than the dimwits I’ve been using. Exposing Darcadia wouldn’t do a thing for you. In fact, I expect you’ll make some little forays of your own, trying to poach on my territory.”

“The flock’s big enough for us both to fleece.”