Пол Кавана - The Triumph of Evil

... Romanian ancestry, original name Teodorescu. Theodore’s moderate right-centrist stance and his extraordinary success at focusing white middle-class discontent make his termination a quintessential ingredient in movement policy...

But didn’t they know how easy it was? Didn’t everyone know? It seemed to him that Dallas should have taught them that much. Not the assassination of Kennedy. But the assassination of Oswald, when one man with a gun walked through everyone and committed the world’s first televised murder.

One man with a gun.

(“Sweet old Theodorable... Oh, God, I hate that man. When I see him on television I want to kick the screen in. Somebody ought to put a bullet through that head of his... That man is tearing the country apart, and the more he does it the more the idiots applaud. I think he’s a dangerous man.”)

What was Jocelyn doing now? She was at the commune with the Land People, and it bothered him that he could not picture the place in his mind. Perhaps she was working in the garden. Or putting up preserves for the winter. Or talking with someone, or sitting around high on marijuana. Or making love.

(“I’ll always love you, Miles. Always.”)

Will you, Jocelyn? Will you? I am going to believe that you will. Permit me a little self-deception. Permit me to believe this. I will not have to believe it for very much longer.

.... It should be scheduled at least one and no more than three months after Guthrie’s termination. Terminal thrust must be unmistakably via large-scale leftist conspiracy. Involvement should extend to both black and white radicals...

One man with a gun. One man with a gun, in the right place at the right time. One man with a gun at the Capitol steps as the presidential limousine approaches.

N.B. — It is imperative that the terminal cover be wholly opaque. Not only must there be no official or unofficial suspicion of movement involvement, but there can be no evidence of any involvement that is not absolutely identifiable as leftist and/or black.

One man with a gun. In one pocket, a key to a room at the Holiday Inn. In another pocket, Heidigger’s coded address and memorandum book. In his mouth, tucked in a cheek, a plastic-coated capsule filled with cyanide. A capsule that would not dissolve in the mouth or in the stomach. A capsule that had to be crushed between the teeth.

(“I will not kill myself. I will not leave the country.”)

One man with a gun. One man with a gun in the waistband of his trousers, moving forward as the presidential limousine disgorges its contents. One man with a gun in his hand, moving through the crowd like a ghost through walls.

(“But didn’t they know how easy it was? Didn’t everyone know?”)

One man with a gun. One man with a gun in his hand.

(“If you are not part of the solution, then you must be part of the problem.”)

One man emptying that gun point-blank into the chest of the President of the United States.

And turning even as the last bullet hit home. Turning, empty gun in hand, cyanide capsule still tucked between cheek and gum.

(“I will not kill myself.”)

One man with a gun, turning to point the empty gun at the Vice-President of the United States.

(“Sweet old Theodorable...”)

One man with a gun. One man with an empty gun that no one else knew was empty. One man with a gun pointed at the Vice-President of the United States while Secret Service men threw themselves over the president’s body.

Fools! Do you think I could miss?

One man with a gun, welcoming the bullets that pierced his flesh.

It took so long to die. La grande mort. He fell so slowly. Whoever would have thought the ground would be so far away? The ground was miles away. (Miles from Croatia.) The feel of the plastic capsule against his gum. (I will not—) How odd it felt, this business of dying.

I die in your arms, Jocelyn.

“I’ll always love you, Miles. Always.”

Jocelyn—