"Mack Reynolds - Pacifist" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reynolds Mack)

The other’s eyes narrowed. “How do you know I’ll stick to my promise? A contract made under duress has
no validity.”


Casey said impatiently, “Having Fredric in our hands now is a minor matter, an immediate bargaining point to
emphasize our position. Senator, we have investigated you thoroughly. You have a wife of whom you are
moderately fond, and a mistress whom you love. You have three adult children by your first wife, and four
grandchildren. You have two children by your second wife, Fredric and Janie. You have a living uncle and two
aunts, and five first cousins. Being a politician, you have many surface friends, which we shall largely ignore,
but you also know some thirty persons who mean much to you.”


McGivern was beginning to adjust to this abnormal conversation. He growled, “What’s all this got to do with
it?”


Warren Casey looked into the other’s eyes. “We shall kill them, one by one. Shot at a distance with a rifle
with telescopic sights. Blown up by bomb. Machine gunned, possibly as they walk down the front steps of
their homes.”


“You’re insane! The police. The . . .”


Casey went on, ignoring the interruption. “We are in no hurry. Some of your children, your relatives, your
friends, your mistress, may take to hiding in their- panic. But there is no hiding—nowhere on all this world.
Our organization is in no hurry, and we are rich in resources. Perhaps in the doing some of us will be
captured or dispatched. It’s beside the point. We are dedicated. That’s all we’ll be living for, killing the people
whom you love. When they are all gone, we will kill you. Believe me, by that time it will be as though we’re-
motivated by compassion. All your friends, your loved ones, your near-of-kin, will be gone.”


“We will kill, kill, kill—but in all it will be less than a hundred people. It will not be thousands and millions of
people. It will only be your closest friends, your relatives, your children and finally you. At the end, Senator,
you will have some idea of the meaning of war.”


By the end of this, although it was delivered in an almost emotionless voice, Phil McGivern was pushed
back in his swivel chair as though from physical attack. No repeated, hoarsely, “You’re insane.”


Warren Casey shook his head. “No, it is really you, you and those like you, who are insane. Wrapped up in
your positions of power, in your greed for wealth in the preservation of your privileges, you would bring us into
a conflagration which would destroy us all. You are the ones who are insane.”


The Pacifist agent leaned forward. “Throughout history, Senator, there have been pacifists. But never such
pacifists as we. Always, in the past, they have been laughed at or sneered at in times of peace, and
imprisoned or worse in time of war.”