“It just seems so inconsequential,” Ryan said as the event got under way.
“It is not! The world will learn from this,” Prince Ali said solemnly. “Many will learn. This is justice happening. That is the lesson.”
“Some lesson.” Ryan turned to look at his companions atop the building. He’d had time to reflect, and all he saw was—what ? Ryan didn’t know. He’d done his job, but what had it all meant? “The deaths of sixty thousand people who never should have died put an end to wars that need never have been? Is that how history is made, Ali?”
“All men die, Jack. Insh-Allah, never again in numbers so great. You stopped it, you prevented something worse. What you did, my friend ... the blessings of God go with you.”
“I would have confirmed the launch order,” Avi said, his voice uncomfortable in its frankness. “And then? I would have blown my brains out, perhaps? Who can say? Of this I am certain: I would not have had the courage to say no.”
“Nor I,” Golovko said.
Ryan said nothing as he looked back down at the square. He’d missed the first one, but that was all right.
Even though Qati knew it was coming, it didn’t matter. As with so many things in life, it was all controlled by reflex. A soldier prodded his side with a sword, barely enough to break the skin. Instantly, Qati’s back arched, his neck extended itself in an involuntary flinch. The Captain of the Saudi Special Forces already had his sword moving. He must have practiced, Jack realized a moment later, because the head was removed with a single stroke as deceptively powerful as a ballet master’s. Qati’s head landed a meter or so away, and then the body flopped down, blood spraying from the severed vessels. He could see the arms and legs tightening against the restraints, but that, too, was mere reflex. The blood pumped out in a steady rhythm as Qati’s heart continued to work, striving to preserve a life already departed. Finally that, too, stopped, and all that was left of Qati were separated parts and a dark stain on the ground. The Saudi Captain wiped the sword clean on what looked like a bolt of silk, replaced it in the golden scabbard, and walked into a path the crowd made for him.
The crowd did not exult. In fact, there was no noise at all. Perhaps a collective intake of breath, a few murmured prayers from the more devout among those present; for whose souls the prayers were offered only they and their God could say. At once those in the front row began to depart. A few from inside the crowd who’d been denied a view came to the fence line, but they stayed there for only a moment before going about their business. After the prescribed interval, the body parts would be collected and given a proper burial in accordance with the religion that each of them had defiled.
Jack didn’t know what emotion he was supposed to feel. He’d seen enough death. He knew that much. But these deaths did not touch his heart at all, and now he wondered and worried a little about that.
“You asked me how history is made, Jack,” Ali said. “You have just seen it.”
“What do you mean?”
“You do not need us to tell you,” Golovko said.
The men who started a war, or tried to, executed like criminals in the market square, Jack thought. Not a bad precedent.
“Maybe you’re right, maybe it will make people think twice before the next time.” That’s an idea whose time has come.
“In all our countries,” Ali said, “the sword is the symbol of justice ... an anachronism, perhaps, from a time when men acted as men. But a sword still has a use.”
“Certainly it is precise,” Golovko observed.
“So, Jack, you have fully left government service?” Ali asked after a moment. Ryan turned away from the scene, just as everyone else had done.
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“And those foolish ‘ethics’ laws no longer apply. Good.” Ali turned. The Special Forces officer appeared as though by magic. The salute he gave Prince Ali was the sort to impress Kipling. The sword came next. The scabbard was wrought gold encrusted with jewels. The hilt was gold and ivory, and you could see where parts of it had been worn down by generations of strong hands. Manifestly the weapon of a king.
“This is three hundred years old,” Ali said, turning to Ryan. “It has been carried in peace and war by my ancestors. It even has a name—Breeze of Evening is the best I can do in English. It means more than that, of course. We wish you to have it, Dr. Ryan, as a reminder of those who died—and those who did not, because of you. It has killed many times. His Majesty believes that the sword has killed enough.”
Ryan took the scimitar from the Prince’s hand. The gold scabbard was nicked and abraded by generations of sand-storms and battles, but Ryan saw that his reflection was not so terribly distorted as he might have feared. The blade, he saw, on drawing it partway, was mirror-bright, still rippled from the Damascus smith who’d shaped the steel into its fearful and effective purpose. Such a dichotomy, Ryan thought, smiling without knowing it, that something so beautiful could have so terrible a purpose. Such irony. And yet—
He’d keep the sword, hang it in a place of honor, look at it from time to time to remind himself of what it and he had done. And just maybe—
“Killed enough?” Ryan slid the sword back into its sheath and let it fall to his side. “Yes, Your Highness. I think we all have.”
Afterword
Now that the tale is told, a few things need to be made clear. All of the material in this novel relating to weapons technology and fabrication is readily available in any one of dozens of books. For reasons which I hope will be obvious to the reader, certain technical details have been altered, sacrificing plausibility in the interests of obscurity. This was done to salve my conscience, not in any reasonable expectation that it matters a damn.
The Manhattan Project of World War II still represents the most remarkable congregation of scientific talent in human history, never equaled, and perhaps never to be exceeded. The vastly expensive project broke new scientific ground and produced numerous additional discoveries. Modern computer theory, for example, largely grew from bomb-related research, and the first huge mainframe computers were mainly used for bomb design.
I was first bemused, then stunned, as my research revealed just how easy such a project might be today. It is generally known that nuclear secrets are not as secure as we would like—in fact the situation is worse than even well-informed people appreciate. What required billions of dollars in the 1940s is much less expensive today. A modern personal computer has far more power and reliability than the first Eniac, and the “hydrocodes” which enable a computer to test and validate a weapon’s design are easily duplicated. The exquisite machine tools used to fabricate parts can be had for the asking. When I asked explicitly for specifications for the very machines used at Oak Ridge and elsewhere, they arrived Federal Express the next day. Some highly specialized items designed specifically for bomb manufacture may now be found in stereo speakers. The fact of the matter is that a sufficiently wealthy individual could, over a period of from five to ten years, produce a multistage thermonuclear device. Science is all in the public domain, and allows few secrets.
Delivery of such a device is child’s play. I could base that statement on “extensive conversations” with various police and security agencies, but it doesn’t take long for a person to say, “Are you kidding?” I heard that phrase more than once. Probably no country—certainly no liberal democracy—can secure its borders against such a threat.
So that’s the problem. What might be the solution? For starters, international controls over the traffic in nuclear materials and technology ought to be made something more than the joke they currently are. Nuclear weapons cannot be un-invented, and I personally think that nuclear power is a safe and environmentally benign alternative to the use of fossil fuels, but any tool must be used with care, and this tool admits of abuses too fearful for us to ignore.
—Peregrine Cliff, February 1991
Tom Clancy, The Sum of All Fea
rs
(Series: # )
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