“For what? To tell her that I’d just gotten my best friends killed? That with my help, the president of the United States had colluded with a foreign government to get rid of the richest man in the world? What would be the point? Chism was dead. Ward was in the hands of Gideon Auma. And you and the guys were gone.” He started pacing. “The world we’ve been fighting for is gone, Mitch. We collapsed the Soviet Union and killed damn near every Islamic terrorist who’s ever even looked at us sideways. The era of wars between superpowers is over—it has to be or none of us survive. Your friend Nicholas Ward thinks that’s going to bring in a golden age. But you know that’s bullshit even better than I do. People need hardship. They need something to struggle against. Someone to hate and feel superior to. Without those things they lose their identity and sense of purpose. And they can’t handle it. Without a real enemy, they start turning on each other. That video of Irene you just watched? One of the president’s people made it in less than a day with software you can get for free online. In another few years, half the videos people see on the Internet will be fake. Served up by right-wing nuts, left-wing nuts, foreign powers, and anyone else with a laptop and a sixth-grade education. If we don’t take control of that, we’ll end up in a civil war. But instead of the North against the South, it’ll be four hundred different factions all swinging in the dark. Flat-earthers. Anti-vaxxers. Nazis. Communists. Antifa. The gluten intolerant—”

“And the Cooks are going to fix all that.”

“I think they have a better shot than most,” Nash responded. “They don’t have any illusions about humanity. They know that ninety-five percent of people are going to fight tooth and nail against the utopia that Nicholas Ward wants to force on them. And more important, they understand that they’ll drag the other five percent down with them. The Cooks just want to give people the leadership they need. They want to make their lives simple. Focus their energy. Give them something to belong to.”

“And that other five percent? I assume they get what they want too, too?”

“Yeah. Wealth, power, and a nice tall wall between us and them.”

“What a beautiful vision.”