“Why would you have to lie to me?”
“To preserve operational security.”
“You mean this operation? It’s got something to do with Phil?”
“Yes.”
“Then Phil is…He’s alive? He’s OK?”
“He’s alive.”
I must have blanked out for a minute, because suddenly Jane the waitress was back with our breakfasts. When she started talking to Wise about syrup flavors, I gave her the eyes of death and said: “Fuck off. Now.” She did, and I turned back to True: “Tell me everything.”
True prodded one of the eggs on his plate with a fork, dimpling the yolk. “Omnes mundum facimus,” he said. “We all make the world…And we, the organization, try to make it better. Have you asked yourself yet whether there might be another organization, devoted to the opposite goal?”
“What, a bunch of people trying to make the world worse? No. It wouldn’t make sense.”
The yolk broke and started bleeding over True’s plate. “Why not?”
“What would they get out of it? I mean, OK, it can be fun to cause trouble, and there are people who get off on destruction in a big way, but you can’t build an organization around that. When bad people work as a team, it’s for something like money, or power.”
“You’re saying that evil is a means to an end, never an end in itself. But what if evil was more than just a label for antisocial behavior? What if evil was a real force working in the world, capable of drawing people to its service?”
“I already told you, I don’t believe in God.” Then, anxious to get to the point, I said: “But what do I know, right? You’re saying this anti-organization exists?”
“It exists,” True said. “We believe it has always existed, in one form or another. In its most recent incarnation, it styles itself the Troop.”
“The Troop? Like a monkey troop?” I started to laugh, but then I remembered: “Arlo Dexter’s notebook.”
“Yes. Until we recovered the briefcase, we couldn’t be sure it wasn’t a coincidence, but it’s clear now the Troop recruited Dexter.”
“OK…But what does this have to do with my brother?”
“Not everyone who joins the Troop does so willingly,” True said. “The foot soldiers and support staff are volunteers, but in every case where we’ve positively identified a Troop leader, that person has turned out to have been abducted as a child.”
“Hold on…”
“The Bible says that if you train up a child in the way he should go, when he is old, he will not depart from it. It may be that the Troop shares that philosophy, and crafts its leadership from an early age in order to ensure loyalty. But we think the real reason they steal children and turn them into monsters is because it is such an awful thing to do.”
“You’re telling me my brother’s a bad monkey? That’s bullshit! Phil was a good kid.”
“Of course he was. Corrupting a bad child wouldn’t be nearly as evil an accomplishment…Your brother is a high-level Troop member, working for their equivalent of Cost-Benefits.”
“Well first of all, I don’t believe you,” I said. “And second of all, I haven’t forgotten my job description. If you think I’m going to kill my own brother…”
“We don’t want you to kill him. We want you to help us find him.”
“Right, so somebody else can kill him? Sorry, I pass.”
“Your brother has grown up to be a very dangerous individual, Jane. The Ozymandias operation—the murder of the clients, the sabotage of the facility—that was his handiwork.”
“No it wasn’t! That was your guy, Carlton.”
“Jacob Carlton was seduced by the Troop,” True said, “and perhaps we do share some responsibility for allowing that to happen. But he took his final orders from your brother.”
“Right. But you don’t want to kill Phil for that, you just—”
“We want him stopped. Your brother is one of the Troop’s most effective strategists. Depriving them of his services would be a major achievement. But we—I—would like to accomplish something more. I’d like to try to save him.”
“Save him…You mean like deprogram him?”
True nodded. “I have to tell you up front that the odds of success are slim. What we know of Troop indoctrination methods suggests that they are very thorough and very difficult to break. Your brother may prefer death to redemption. But because he didn’t choose the path he is on, redemption is still a possibility. I’d like to give him the chance.”
“What if he doesn’t go for it, though? Let’s say I bring him in alive, and he tells you to stick your redemption. What then? You let him walk?”
“No. If he’s truly beyond saving, we obviously couldn’t let him go. But we don’t have to execute him, either. We can keep him contained, indefinitely.”
“You mean lock him up somewhere? I thought you didn’t—”
“It’s not our usual policy with irredeemables. It ties up resources and creates a security issue. But we can do it, if circumstances warrant. So what do you say, Jane? Will you help us try to save Phil?”
Of course I was going to say yes. I just needed a minute to let my brain catch up, to process everything I’d been told. But I guess True read my hesitation as uncertainty.
“There is another factor you may want to consider,” he said. “We chose you for this operation because we believe you are uniquely suited to draw your brother out into the open.”
“You think I’ll make good bait, you mean.”
“Yes. And there’s already evidence that your brother is moving to take that bait.”
“What evidence?”
“The Ozymandias operation. I understand you were upset about the script.”
“That business about Wise and me having a son named Phil? Yeah, I was upset.”
“Yes, well, we didn’t write that. The two of you were meant to pose as man and wife, but the script we composed in Cost-Benefits said nothing about a dying son or a disobedient daughter.”
“So someone rewrote the script before Wise got it…And you think that someone was Phil?”
“More likely a deep-cover agent working on his behalf.”
“And what’s his point? What’s he trying to tell me?”
“Obviously he’s aware you’re working for us. This could be his way of letting you know that he knows. Perhaps he hopes to recruit you. Or…”
“Or?”
“You understand, the indoctrination process your brother was subjected to would have been extremely unpleasant. So while he may be a committed Troop member now, that doesn’t mean he’s grateful for being delivered into the Troop’s hands in the first place.”
“You’re saying Phil’s mad at me?”
“If he is, can you blame him?”
“I…No. No. But if he wants revenge, why wait until now?”
“Perhaps he felt the life you were living before you joined the organization was revenge enough. The point is this: we can’t force you to accept this mission. But saying no to your brother, whatever he has planned, may not be so easy.”
“Well, that works out just great for you, doesn’t it?”
“Don’t misunderstand. We’re not going to abandon you to the Troop if you turn us down. But your best and safest course is to work with us on this…There’s also the matter of atonement. I don’t know how much you care about that, but—”
“Atonement? I let Bad Monkeys Incorporated steal my brother, True. How do I atone for that?”
“By stealing him back. Will you do it?”
Like I even had a choice. “Where do we start?”
“With the man who took him. John Doyle.”
“He’s still alive?”
“Not for lack of trying on our part,” True said. “In the weeks before he kidnapped your brother, Doyle was the target of a Bad Monkeys operation. He survived one execution attempt, and then, after abducting Phil, he disappeared completely. That was our first clue that he was more than just a lone predator. In the decades since, he’s popped up periodically—usually on some mission for the Troop—only to vanish again before we could get to him. Then, a few days ago, Doyle checked into the Venetian Hotel on the Vegas Strip…” True set a wrinkled newspaper, the Las Vegas Tipster, on the table. Under the headline CASINO GUEST AIDS IN MANHUNT was a face I’d last seen in a police mug shot twenty-three years ago. Doyle’s hair was white now, and he’d lost some teeth, but there was no question it was him.