A Rage for Revenge

22 "You are going to die"

I stood on the platform next to Foreman. I was still holding the red card in my hand. The woman with the other card was named Marisov. She looked Russian; maybe she was. Not everybody in the class was American.

Marisov stood on the other side of Foreman; she was trembling. She looked like she was in her mid-forties and a career officer. Her hair was clipped very short and she wore a single tiny gold skull earring. United Nations Marine Corps? Maybe-but the trembling was out of character.

Of course, then again, the marines only had to deal with rebels, terrorists, insurrectionists and occasional bands of mercenaries. This was not them. This was Daniel Jeffrey Foreman, one of the source-workers of The Mode Training.

Given a roomful of United Nations Marines and one Reverend Foreman, I'd bet on Foreman. He'd have them surrounded in no time.

Three assistants came up on the stage carrying folding canvas chairs. They set up one behind me, one behind Foreman and one behind Marisov. They looked like the kind of chairs movie directors sit in. They were tall and surprisingly comfortable.

The assistants took the red card from my hands; Foreman told us to sit down. We sat.

Foreman sat down in his chair and nodded to one of the assistants at the back of the room. On the screen behind us appeared a copy of a document. The seal of the president of the United States was on the document.

Foreman began. He put on his glasses and began to read quietly from the manual in front of him, "The first part of The Survival Process is this. We are going to review the charter of this training and the circumstances under which it is conducted. We do this in order to establish the legality of the circumstances you are in. We do this now, because later on some of you are going to raise this issue. You will raise the issue in an attempt to negotiate a loophole for yourselves. There are no loopholes. We will handle the issue of legality now. Nonetheless, I am certain that the issue will be raised. When it is, I will refer you to the document that has just been flashed on the screen behind us. If necessary, we will put it back on the screen behind us and review it again."

Foreman looked up, he looked out over the room, he peered over his glasses. "We have seen this document before. I don't mind showing it to you again. I will show it to you as often as you need to see it. This is the written permission of the president of the United States to take any actions I deem appropriate-up to and including the termination of any trainee in the room. Please notice the date on the document; it was signed the day that this training began. We have, on file, a separate document for every training. The president is aware of the circumstances of this particular procedure and has elected to authorize it only on a case by case basis. Are there any questions, so far?"

There were none.

"Good. So, then I may assume that everybody in the room is satisfied as to the legality of this procedure?" He waited.

A fat man in the back of the room raised his hand. Foreman pointed. The man stood up and said, "You're laying down a lot of preparation for something, but we don't know what it is; so how can we question any of this appropriately?"

"Good point. Obviously, you can't. However, this is not the first time we've done this process, and we do know what kinds of questions always come up. We are answering those questions first to minimize the amount of time we will have to spend on them later: Anything else?"

The man shook his head and sat down.

Foreman turned the page of the manual. He looked to the back of the room again. "All right, now we're going to show you the entire procedure of putting the cards in the envelopes, shuffling them and taping them to the bottoms of the chairs. We always record it, we always show it; this is so that you can be absolutely certain there was no chicanery in the process of selecting the two volunteers. "

Impishly, Foreman looked at me and grinned. "Getting a little worried, aren't you, Jim?"

"Uh-yes," I admitted. I glanced over at Marisov. She looked like she was ready to faint. Foreman looked at her too and patted her hand. "Relax. I'm right here."

She muttered something in Russian, then translated, "That's why I'm nervous."

The room went dark and the video started then. Most of it was shown at triple speed, which produced a few chuckles from the audience. Everybody in the pictures moved in quick jerky steps.

First we saw the assistants holding up a deck of blank cards and a stack of empty envelopes. They all sat down within camera range and began quickly, jerkily stuffing the cards into the envelopes. When that task was completed, Foreman stepped into the camera angle and held up two red cards for everyone to see. He slid the cards into the last two envelopes and then slid the envelopes randomly into the middle of the stack.

The stack of envelopes was then put into a transparent rotating drum with a clock mounted next to it. The drum was set turning; the clock sped up and we watched fifteen minutes of furious churning pass by in ninety seconds.

Then the camera pulled back-this was all done in one take-to a very wide angle; the entire room was included. The drum was opened, the assistants each took a handful of envelopes and we watched as they taped them under the chairs at super-speed.

When they finished, the doors were opened and the screen showed us filing into the room. The video was slowed down to one-and-a-half-times normal speed for this. I saw myself enter the room and sit down, and I felt anger and fear and betrayal in my gut without knowing why.

Foreman touched my arm. "What's all that about, Jim?"

"What?"

"That look on your face."

I met his eyes. "You know what I've been through. I think that you or the universe or God or whoever's in charge is a goddamned practical joker with the morals of a malignant thug."

Foreman nodded. "You don't know the half of it." And then he turned away to Marisov, leaving me even more frustrated and angry and afraid than before.

The screens went dark and the lights came back up.

"This record was made to verify that the selection process was not influenced or controlled by any human agency. The entire running of this process will be recorded and a copy of the recording will be submitted to the office of the president for review. That is your guarantee that this process will be conducted as fairly as is humanly possible."

Foreman closed the manual. He stood up.

He looked at me. He looked at Marisov. He looked out over the room.

He nodded to the Course Manager.

She strode to the front of the room, carrying a small wooden box. She handed the box to Foreman.

He opened the box and showed what was in it to Marisov, then he showed me. There was a gun in the box. And two bullets. He held up the box for the roomful of trainees to see. The screens behind us showed a close-up of the gun.

Foreman took the gun out of the box and handed it to Marisov. "Marisov, will you please examine that weapon and verify that it is indeed a standard-issue device? Thank you."

She nodded.

Foreman took the gun from her and handed it to me. "Now, McCarthy, will you please examine the gun and verify that it is indeed a standard-issue weapon? Thank you."

It was a real gun. I handed it back to Foreman.

Foreman handed the two bullets to Marisov. "Will you please examine these bullets and verify that they are, in fact, two real bullets, identical in every way? Thank you."

He handed the bullets to me.

"McCarthy, will you please examine the bullets and verify that they are real bullets? Thank you."

They were real. I handed them back.

"Thank you. Now, pick one of them, either one." He held them out in the palm of his hand.

I pointed at a bullet. "Hand it to Marisov." I did so.

"Good. "

Foreman handed the gun to Marisov. "Will you please load the gun?"

She did so. To give the lady her due, the first thing she did was check that the safety was on. Then she loaded the bullet into the chamber. Her hands were trembling, but Foreman waited patiently. When she finished, he took the gun from her carefully.

"Are you satisfied that this is a real gun with a real bullet?" She nodded. She looked pale.

Foreman turned to me. "McCarthy, are you satisfied?" I nodded.

"Good. Thank you both."

Foreman stepped to the edge of the stage. He clicked the safety off, then held the gun up for everybody to see. "This gun is loaded. You all watched the process in close-up on those two screens. Does anyone doubt that this gun is a lethal weapon?"

No one did.

"Just to verify . . . " Foreman turned abruptly, pointed the gun at the far wall and fired. The bullet thwocked into the wall, spattering a small shower of plaster.

"Anyone who would like to verify for himself that there is a bullet imbedded in that wall is free to go over and look. We'll wait. No talking. Just go and look, then return to your seats."

Quite a few people went to look. I wanted to go and look, but I knew what I would see.

For some reason, I wasn't wondering any more what we were building up to. Somehow, I knew.

When everyone was back in his or her seat, Foreman handed me the gun and the remaining bullet.

"Reload it, please."

Funny. My hands trembled too. I checked the safety six times and handed the gun back to Foreman.

"Thank you." The man was remarkably calm.

He put the gun on the small table behind him. Then he produced a gold American Eagle coin from his pocket. He held it up for everybody to see, turning it this way and that, so the camera could show both its head and its tail. He asked Marisov to examine the coin; he asked me to examine the coin.

"Call it," he said. "Heads," I said.

He caught the coin in his hand and-slapped it down on the back of his wrist.

"Heads. You win, McCarthy."

I grinned weakly. I didn't like the sound of that.

"Here. You can keep the coin. Obviously, it's your lucky coin."

It felt heavy in my fingers. I started to pocket it.

"Wait-" said Foreman. He handed me a second Eagle. "You're going to need two. Hang onto them."

Two coins? I didn't get it, but I slid them both into the pocket of my jumpsuit.

"All right," said the Honorable Reverend Dr. Daniel Jeffrey Foreman. He stepped to the edge of the platfonn and addressed the entire room. "We have established the following: We have the legal authority of the president of the United States. We have selected our two volunteers by an entirely random procedure, first by cards under your chairs, and second by the toss of a coin. We have produced a gun and loaded it and demonstrated to the satisfaction of everyone in the room that this is a lethal weapon. We have recorded all of this in nondestructible memory, two copies. Neither copy is on the premises and neither copy can be altered. Both copies are available for review by appropriately authorized personnel, including the president of the United States of America."

Foreman stopped.

He looked at me. He looked at Marisov. He looked at the room. "Are there any questions?"

He waited.

From the back of the room, someone called, "Yes! What is the goddamn Survival Process anyway?"

Foreman looked at his watch. He looked at the assistants in the back of the room and grinned. "Right on schedule. Did I call it or did I call it? Who wins the pool?"

The Course Manager answered. "You do. Again."

Foreman looked satisfied with himself. He turned his attention back to the roomful of trainees.

"All right," he said. His voice was oddly calm. "The process is this. I am going to tell Colonel Marisov of the United Nations Marine Corps to shoot Captain McCarthy of the United States Special Forces Warrant Agency. This process will continue until Captain McCarthy is dead."

"Excuse me?" I said. "It sounded like you said . . . "

"I will repeat it." Again, he spoke in that very odd tone. I listened as hard as I could. I was certain I was missing something. "I am going to tell Colonel Marisov to shoot Captain McCarthy. If Colonel Marisov refuses, I will begin selecting people at random until we find someone who is willing to shoot Captain McCarthy. The Survival Process will continue until Captain McCarthy is dead."

I hadn't missed a thing.

There was an incredible drumming in my ears. I heard myself saying, "That's what I thought you said- "

And then I passed out.