“Betrayal.” Demarest’s eyes narrowed. “You thought you could destroy me. But they needed me. They always need men like me. Just like they’ve always needed men like you. I did what I had to do—what had to be done. I always did what had to be done. Sometimes people like me are seen as an embarrassment, and then actions are taken. I became an embarrassment to you. I embarrassed you because you looked at me and saw yourself. So much of you was me. How could it be otherwise? I taught you everything you knew. I gave you the skills that saved your life a dozen times over. What made you think you had the right to judge me?” At last, a diamond-hard flash of anger pierced his eerie calm.

“You forfeited any rights you had by your own actions,” Janson said. “I saw what you did. I saw who you were. A monster.”

“Oh please. I showed you what you were, and you didn’t like what you saw.”

“No.”

“We were the same, you and I, and that’s what you couldn’t accept.”

“We weren’t the same.”

“Oh, we were. In many ways, we still are. Don’t think I didn’t keep tabs on what you got up to in later years. They called you ‘the machine.’ You know what that was short for, of course: ‘the killing machine.’ Because that’s what you were. Oh yes. And you presumed to judge me? Oh, Paul, don’t you know why you took it on yourself to destroy me? Are you that devoid of selfinsight? How comforting it must be to tell yourself that I’m the monster and you’re the saint. You’re afraid of what I showed you.”

“Yes—a profoundly disturbed individual.”

“Don’t delude yourself, Paul. I’m talking about what I showed you about yourself. Whatever I was, you were.”

“No!” Janson flushed with rage and horror. Violence was indeed something he excelled at: he could no longer run from that truth. But for him it was never an end in itself: rather, violence was a last resort to minimize further violence.

“As I used to tell you, we know more than we know. Have you forgotten what you yourself did in Vietnam? Have you magically repressed the memories?”

“You don’t fool me with your goddamn mind games,” Janson growled.

“I read the depositions you filed about me,” Demarest continued airily. “Somehow they neglected to mention what you’d got up to.”

“So you’re the one who’s been spreading that bilge about me—those twisted stories.”

Demarest’s gaze was steady. “Your victims are still out there, some of them still crippled but still alive. Send an agent out there to interview them. They remember you. They remember with horror.”

“It’s a lie! It’s a goddamn lie!”