Dan Simmons - Hard Freeze

"Go ahead, Mr. Kurtz."

"I've seen your files. All of your files. Arlene pulled information off the Net that's usually kept confidential."

"Ah," said Frears, "the cancer. You want to know about the cancer."

"No. I'm curious about the two tours in Vietnam back in nineteen sixty-eight."

Frears blinked at this and then smiled. "Why on earth are you curious about that, Mr. Kurtz? There was a war on. I was a young man. Hundreds of thousands of young men served."

"Hundreds of thousands of guys were drafted. You volunteered for the army, were trained as an engineer, specialized in disarming booby traps over there. Why for Christ's sake?"

Frears was still smiling slightly. "Why did I specialize in that area?"

"No. Why volunteer at all? You'd already gone to Princeton for a couple of years, graduated from Juilliard. You had a high draft number, I checked. You didn't have to go at all. And you volunteered. You risked your life."

"And my hands," said Frears, holding those hands in the beam of light from the halogen spot. "Which were much more important to me than my life in those days."

"Why did you go?"

Frears scratched his short, curly beard. "If I try to explain, Mr. Kurtz, I do so at the real risk of boring you."

"I've got some time."

"All right I entered Princeton with the idea of studying philosophy and ethics. One of my teachers there was Dr. Frederick."

"Pruno."

Frears made a pained face. "Yes. During my junior year at Princeton, Dr. Frederick shared some early research he was doing with a Harvard professor named Lawrence Kohlberg. Have you heard of him?"

"No."

"Most people haven't Professors Kohlberg and Frederick were just beginning their research to test Kohlberg's theory that human beings pass through stages of moral development just as they have to pass through the Piagetian stages of development. Have you heard of Jean Piaget?"

"No."

"It doesn't matter. Piaget had proved that all children pass through various stages of development—being able to cooperate with others, say, which happens for most children around the age of kindergarten—and Lawrence Kohlberg reasoned that people—not just children, but all people—pass through discrete stages of moral development as well. Since Professor Frederick taught both philosophy and ethics, he was very interested in Kohlberg's early research, and that was what our class was about."

"All right."

Frears took a breath, glanced at the obscene photographs lying on the ottoman, scooped them into the briefcase, and closed the briefcase. "Kohlberg had classified six stages of moral development. Level One was simple avoidance of punishment Moral boundaries are set only to avoid pain. Essentially the moral development of an earthworm. We've all known adults who stop at Level One."

"Yes," said Kurtz.

"Level Two was a crude form of moral judgment motivated by the need to satisfy one's own desires," said Frears. "Level Three was sometimes called the 'Good Boy/Good Girl' orientation—a need to avoid rejection or the disapproval of others."

Kurtz nodded and shifted his weight slightly. The.40 Smith & Wesson was cutting into his hip.

"Stage Four was the Law and Order level," said Frears. "People had evolved to the moral degree that they had an absolute imperative not to be criticized by a duly recognized authority figure. Sometimes entire national populations appear to be made up of Stage Four and lower citizens."

"Nazi Germany," said Kurtz.

"Exactly. Stage Five individuals seem motivated by an overwhelming need to respect the social order and to uphold legally determined laws. The law becomes a touchstone, a moral imperative unto itself."

"ACLU types who allow the Nazis to march in Skokie," said Kurtz.

John Wellington Frears rubbed his chin through his beard and looked at Kurtz for a long minute, as if reappraising him. "Yes."

"Is Stage Five the top floor?" asked Kurtz.

Frears shook his head. "Not according to the research that Professors Kohlberg and Frederick were carrying out. A Level Six individual makes his moral decisions based on his own conscience in attempts to resonate with certain universal ethical considerations… even when those decisions fly in the face of existing laws. Say, Henry David Thoreau's opposition to the war with Mexico, or the civil-rights marchers in the South in the nineteen sixties."

Kurtz nodded.

"Professor Frederick used to say that the United States was founded by Level Six minds," said Frears, "protected and preserved by Level Fives, and populated by Level Fours and below. Does this make any sense, Mr. Kurtz?"

"Sure. But it hasn't done a damned thing toward telling me why you left Juilliard and went to the Vietnam War."

Frears smiled. "At the time, this idea of moral development was very important to me, Mr. Kurtz. Lawrence Kohlberg's dream was to find a Level Seven personality."

"Who would that be?" said Kurtz. "Jesus Christ?"

"Precisely," Frears said with no hint of irony. "Or Gandhi. Or Socrates. Or Buddha. Someone who can only respond to universal ethical imperatives. They have no choice in the matter. Usually the rest of us respond by putting them to death."

"Hemlock," said Kurtz. Pruno had made Plato's dialogues required reading for him in Attica.

"Yes." Frears set his long, elegant fingers on the metal briefcase. "Lawrence Kohlberg never found a Stage Seven personality."

Surprise , thought Kurtz.

"But he did find something else, Mr. Kurtz. His testing showed that there were many people walking the street who can only be classified as Level Zeroes. Their moral development has not even evolved to the point where they will avoid pain and punishment if their whim dictates otherwise. Other human beings' suffering means absolutely nothing to them. The clinical term is 'sociopath, but the real word is 'monster. "

Kurtz looked at Frears's fingers tensed against the lid of the briefcase as if trying to keep it closed. "This Kohlberg and Pruno had to do university research to find this out? I could have told them that when I was five years old."

Frears nodded. "Kohlberg committed suicide in nineteen eighty-seven—walked into a marsh and drowned. Some of his disciples say that he couldn't reconcile himself to the knowledge that such creatures walk among us."

"So you went to Vietnam to find out what rung of Kohlberg's ladder you were on," said Kurtz.

John Wellington Frears looked him in the eye. "Yes."

"And what did you find out?"

Frears smiled. "I discovered that a young violinist's fingers were very good at disarming bombs and booby traps." He leaned forward. "What else did you want to talk to me about, Mr. Kurtz?"

"Hansen."

"Yes?" The violinist was completely attentive.

"I don't think Hansen has cut and run yet, but he's close to doing that. Very close. Right now I think he's waiting a few hours just because I've been a factor he doesn't understand. The miserable son of a bitch is so smart that he's stupid… he thinks he understands everything. As long as we appear to be one step ahead of him, he hangs around to see what the fuck is going to happen—but not much longer. A few hours maybe."

"Yes."

"So, Mr. Frears, the way I see it, we can play this endgame one of three ways. I think you should decide."

Frears nodded silently at this.

"First," said Kurtz, "we hand over this briefcase to the authorities and let them chase down Mr. James B. Hansen. His modus operandi is shot to hell, so he won't be repeating his imposter kill-the-kids routine in the same way. He'll be on the run, pure and simple."

"Yes," said Frears.

"But he might stay on the run and ahead of the cops for months, even years," said Kurtz. "And after he's arrested, the trial will take months, or years. And after the trial, the appeals can take more years. And you don't have those months and years. It doesn't sound like the cancer's going to give you very many weeks."