‘I work alone,’ said Lom
‘You’re one of Savinkov’s experiments, I think?’ said Kistler. ‘That I can see for myself.’
Lom’s hand went to his forehead, reaching for the indentation in his skull where the angel piece had been before Chazia gouged it out. It was an involuntary movement. He caught himself and pulled his hand away. Too late. It was a weakness shown, but there was nothing to be done.
‘That’s gone now too,’ he said.
‘I see,’ said Kistler. ‘OK. Let’s say I accept all this. Let’s say I take you for what you say you are. Let’s say you’re a good fellow and your heart’s in the right place. My advice to you is to destroy these proofs of yours. Burn them. Forget it. Get on with your life and find something else to do.’
‘You’re not interested then. You will do nothing. You will not take my proofs.’
‘Nobody will take them, man! What you have is useless. Worthless. Rubbish. It is no good, no good at all. Oh it’s good police work, surely, but police work will not bring Rizhin down.’
‘But—’
‘Listen. I’ll tell you something about Rizhin—’
‘Kantor. Josef Kantor.’
Kistler shrugged.
‘Rizhin or Kantor,’ he said. ‘It makes no difference. It’s just a name.’
‘No!’
‘Listen to me. I sympathise with you, Lom. I should not say so, but I do. Osip Rizhin is a terrible man. He bullies, he intimidates, he kills. He diverts resources to the military and to idiotic pet projects like the fucking space programme. He sells our grain to our enemies while our people starve by the million. The ordinary economy is collapsing and he has no idea at all. Industrially the Archipelago walks all over us. We have no chance. You can’t run a modern nation on the labour of convicts and slaves, for fuck’s sake. It’s not sustainable. In ten years this Vlast of Rizhin’s will be history’s forgotten dust. I see this and it pains me. I do what I can—’
‘You do nothing,’ said Lom.
‘I do what I can. Here’s the truth about Rizhin. Not the story, the truth. The public fiction is maintained that Papa Rizhin runs his New Vlast alone. He sits in his plain office and smiles, bluff and avuncular, and through the haze of his pipe smoke he sees everything that happens. He intervenes everywhere. Nothing is done without Rizhin’s permission and every decision is his. He is the authority on all subjects. Politics. Culture. History. Philosophy. Science. Works in his name are published in their millions and studied by millions. That is the fiction for the people. Recognise it?’
Lom said nothing.
‘It’s shit,’ Kistler continued. ‘Of course it’s shit. The New Vlast is huge, complex and technical. One man couldn’t possibly direct the government, the armed forces, the security services and the economy. Rizhin needs support. He needs lieutenants. People with the expertise and competence to make decisions of their own. Yes?’
‘Go on,’ said Lom.
‘Have you never wondered,’ said Kistler, ‘what kind of person works for Rizhin? Does it not astonish you that people will do this, knowing what they do? They tolerate the bullying and the humiliation and worse; they accept terror and purges; they know the fate of their predecessors and still they step forward, still they accept appointment to the Central Committee, still they do Rizhin’s work, assiduously and as well as they can. Don’t you wonder why?’
‘You should know. You’re one of them.’
‘Not really. You do not know me yet. Rizhin’s lieutenants are a special sort of person. Iron discipline and faithful adherence to the norms of thought. They continuously adapt their morality, their very consciousness, to the requirements of the New Vlast. Without reservation, Lom. Absolutely without reservation. But above all–you must understand this, it is the key–they are ambitious. For themselves. They don’t support Rizhin because they believe in him, but because they believe in themselves. They want the power and prestige he gives them, and the gratification of their nasty little needs. Half of them will be imprisoned or dead within the year, but everyone thinks it won’t happen to them. They all believe, in the face of all the evidence, that they’re different from the rest, that they can hang on and survive the purges and arrests. Blind ambition. They support Rizhin because he is their security, their leader and the feeder of their desires. It’s a very distinctive cast of mind.
‘And Rizhin understands this. Perfectly. He is the greatest ever player of the game. In the early days, when he was still fighting the civil war against Fohn and Khazar, he used to shoot his commanders at a rate of one a week, but he learned he couldn’t shoot everyone. The people around the President-Commander must be effective, not paralysed. Terror is still the most powerful tool but he’s more subtle now. He purges sparingly. He lets others do the intimidation for him. I’ve watched him learn. It’s been a masterclass.’
Kistler paused to light another cigarette.
‘So you see why your plan won’t work?’ he continued. ‘To bring down Rizhin, you must win the Central Committee. There’s no other way. But if you tell the Central Committee he’s not Rizhin but Josef Kantor, they’ll say–like I do–what’s in a name? Tell them he killed the Novozhd and owes his position to Lavrentina Chazia, and they’ll say–like I do–where are the Novozhd and Chazia now?
‘You see, Lom? You can’t shake the Central Committee’s faith in Rizhin’s integrity of purpose, because they’ve no thought of it anyway. They simply couldn’t give a flying fuck. Everyone has skeletons in the cupboard, and personal ambition is everything. Nobody in Rizhin’s New Vlast wants to rake up memories. What’s past is nothing here.’
‘You’re saying, do nothing, then,’ said Lom, ‘because nothing can be done. This is the counsel of despair. Like I said, you’re one of them. You are ambitious too.’
‘Perhaps. But my ambitions are of a different quality. I see further. I want more. I want better.’
‘It makes no difference.’
‘You know,’ said Kistler carefully. ‘A man like you might dispose of Rizhin if he wanted to. Nothing could be more straightforward. A bomb under his car. Seven grams of lead in the head. No Rizhin, no problem.’
‘No good,’ said Lom. ‘Someone else would take his place. It’s not the man that must be destroyed, it’s the idea of him. The very possibility has to be erased.’
Kistler’s eyes widened. He studied Lom carefully.
‘This isn’t just squeamishness?’ he said. ‘It’s not that you’re afraid.’
‘I’ve killed,’ said Lom, ‘and I don’t want to kill again, not unless I have to. But it’s not squeamishness. Call it historical necessity if you like. It doesn’t matter what you think.’
‘I see. You really are more than a disgruntled policeman with a grudge.’
Lom stood to go. ‘I made a mistake,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t have come. You’re not the man I was told you might be. I’ll find another way.’
‘Wait,’ said Kistler. ‘Please. Sit down. I have a proposition for you. Perhaps I could use a fellow like you.’
‘I’m not interested in being used.’
‘Sorry,’ said Kistler. ‘Bad choice of word. But please hear me out.’
Lom said nothing.
‘I share your analysis,’ said Kistler. ‘To put it crudely, Rizhin’s way of running the show is a bad idea. It’s effective but not efficient. History is against it. Frankly, I believe I could do better myself, and I want to try, but for this I need a weapon to bring him down. You have the right idea, Lom, but the wrong weapon. To make my colleagues on the Central Committee abandon Rizhin and come across to me, I need something that convinces them that his continued existence is against their personal interests now. If you can make them believe it’ll go worse for them with him than without him, then he’ll fall. But they all have to believe it, all of them at once, and they have to strike together; if not, Rizhin will just purge the traitors and his position will be stronger than ever. I need to convince them he’s a present danger. A terrible weakness. A desperate threat. That’s what I need evidence of, not your tale of forgotten misdemeanours and peccadilloes in the distant past.’