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?”