Lewis Perdue: Perfect killer

Braxton turned to his small audience. Again, I know you're familiar with these facts. But it is critical to maintain focus on the problem." His laser pointer lingered on

1945. The heart of our new initiative has roots during World War Two. You're all familiar with the pivotal study by General S.L.A. Marshall, who found that only about fifteen percent of American troops actually fired their weapons at the enemy, even when attacked.

Fortunately for us, the German and Japanese troops exhibited identical firing rates, otherwise the conflict would have had a far darker outcome.

"We all know that Marshall has had his detractors over the years, but his conclusions have been verified over and over," Braxton continued. "We know that humans innately hesitate to kill other humans. This is good for the overall survival of the species, but awfully bad when you're trying to win a war."

He nodded and looked around the room to make sure he had every attendee's total attention. "It's critical to remember that heroism is not just about killing," Braxton continued. "We should remember that the vast, vast majority of those soldiers who did not shoot their own weapons nevertheless performed bravely. Some rescued wounded comrades, others valiantly transported ammunition for the fifteen percent who pulled their triggers.

"New infantry training instituted after WW Two tried to address this firing-rate issue. But while we increased the firing rate dramatically by Vietnam, we did not improve the kill rate because soldiers shot to miss." He shook his head. "The majority of average infantry troops still shoot to miss. I'm not, repeat, not talking Special Ops here or firstwave invasion forces like Marines or Airborne, but the average grunt who constitutes a vast majority of military personnel. Think about it: if we can produce a grunt who shoots to kill every time, we'd need only about one-fourth of the number of troops." Gabriel nodded. This metric was well-known among those assembled and thus drew no reaction.

The General paused for effect. "Do the math: it means we can deploy an efficient killing machine and need only one-fourth the tents, supplies, meals, hospitals, helicopters, doctors, and other logistical supply-chain expenses. A one hundred percent shoot-to-kill ratio will save billions!" He sipped from his cup. Then in a far softer voice he said, "I also don't need to tell you how much that decreases the political costs of war here at home.

Fewer bodies mean less opposition.

"But to enhance the killing power of this leaner force, we need something else."

Braxton nodded; the slide changed. "Call it battle fatigue or something more scientific, but in a modern ground war, some forty to fifty percent of casualties will be the psychiatric.

Only about two percent of troops are psychologically built to withstand sustained combat beyond about three weeks." He looked at Gabriel and nodded with a faint smile. "Today, thanks to some significant research and testing pioneered by Dr. LaHaye and her staff, we're pretty good at determining who those people are and steering them into one Special

Forces unit or another.

"The armed forces are thus faced with the seemingly impossible task of turning the other ninety-eight percent of ground troops into a smaller, more lethal Special Forces operation."

The screen went blank. "I say 'seemingly' because over the past ten years, Drs.

LaHaye and McGovern have focused their considerable intellectual power on the human pharmacological and psychological engineering aspect of this issue and have produced surprising results. Significantly Wim's laboratory has been able to develop the final pieces which will allow us to fully implement Laura and Greg's discoveries on a combat operations level."

The slide projector went dark.

"A new era of combat effectiveness will begin in just a handful of days," Braxton said as he walked back to his table. "We have found the formula for creating the perfect killing machine."

When the General seated himself, Laura LaHaye and Greg McGovern took up positions by the overhead projector. LaHaye turned it on, filling the screen with a map showing the Central Russian steppes. McGovern then stepped into the projected light and held a small glass jar sloshing with yellow liquid.

"About two millennia before the rise of Rome, the Kayak and Wires tribes of the steppes found an extract of Amanita muscaria- mushroom very closely related to the socalled angel of death-produced a powerful combat-enhancing effect which almost totally eliminated pain, generated phenomenal stamina and bravery, and did it all without reducing mental alertness."

McGovern waved the liquid-filled jar over his head. "The shamans of the tribe fed the mushrooms to their reindeer to concentrate the important psychoactive ingredients in the animals' urine." He shook the jar again. "Warriors who drank reindeer urine were unstoppable in battle." McGovern smiled, sloshed the yellow liquid again, and looked at his small audience.

"This is one of the more effective chemical concoctions in the history of attempts to enhance the combat performance of troops," McGovern continued. "The Crusaders were terrified by the stealthy fearlessness of the Muslim hashshashin, who smoked hashish before killing. And let's not forget Pizarro, whose men were nearly overwhelmed by Inca warriors chewing on coca leaves. More recently, the British gave their soldiers rum and the Russians got vodka and the soldiers from our teetotaling nation, amphetamines."

He nodded toward LaHaye, who stepped up to the overhead projector, replaced the slide of the steppes with a clear sheet of acetate, and began to write on it.

"The psychochemical mood alterants Dr. McGovern mentioned have two functions: decrease anxiety and increase stamina. Our new, smaller, deadlier military must have these because frightened, tired soldiers don't kill well. Conversely, if we control anxiety in three-quarters of the troops on the battlefield, killing efficiency soars by at least four hundred percent!" She sketched a bar chart in red and colored it in.

"But controlling anxiety by itself can't do it all because the sustained use of today's drugs eventually impairs other functions like stamina or mental acuity," she explained. "Some cause psychotic or toxic side effects, and most produce a hangover once the dosage wears off. Harris Lieberman's team at the Army's Research Institute of Environmental Medicine studied Navy Seals and Army Rangers and found that combat stress and lack of sleep made them perform worse than if they had been drunk or blitzed on narcotics."

"Contrary to those effects, the ideal pharmaceutical, which we call the nondepleting neurotrop, produces a warfighter resistant to out-of-control emotions, who will kill on command, logically, methodically and without hesitation-perfect killers.

"We have seen this behavior in natural two-percenters and, on a rare basis, in people who have made dramatic personality shifts following specific and limited combat head wounds. The study of those personality-altering head wounds eventually grew into a pharmaceutical-based program as surgical intervention to produce better warfighters was abandoned as too imprecise and, of course, too permanent.

"Thus, as becomes clear, the search for a perfect, controllable, and totally reversible pharmaceutical enhancement to produce the perfect killer is the Holy Grail of combat psychiatry. My operations command and Dr. McGovern's laboratory in cooperation with Defense Therapeutics down in Los Angeles have achieved those goals with Xantaeus. We have succeeded where others failed because we have created a drug which functions more like a subtle hallucinogen, reshaping the patient's perception of reality rather than overloading them with crude compounds which eventually overwhelm the brain's natural chemical environment."