GORDON REEVE HAD BECOME INTERESTED in anarchism because he needed to understand the minds of terrorists. He had worked in the Counter-Revolutionary Warfare Unit of the SAS. They were happy to have him-he wasn’t the only one among them who’d specialized in languages during his early training, but he was the only one with so many.

“Including Scots,” one wag said. “Could come in handy if the Tartan Army flares up again.”

“I’ve got Gaelic, too,” Reeve had countered with a smile.

After he left the SAS, he retained his interest in anarchism because of its truths and its paradoxes. The word anarchy had Greek roots and meant “without a ruler.” The Paris students in ‘68 had sprayed “It is forbidden to forbid” on the street walls. Anarchists, true anarchists, wanted society without government and promoted voluntary organization over rule by an elected body. The real anarchist joke was: “It doesn’t matter who you vote for, the government always gets in.”

Reeve liked to play the anarchist thinkers off against Nietz-sche. Kropotkin, for example, with his theory of “mutual aid,” was advocating the opposite of Nietzsche’s “will to power.” Evolution, in Kropotkin’s view, was not about competitiveness, about survival of the strongest individual, but about cooperation. A species which cooperated would thrive, and grow stronger collectively. Nietzsche on the other hand saw competitiveness everywhere, and advocated self-reliance and self-absorption. Reeve saw merit to both assertions. In fact, they were not separate, distinct arguments but parts of the same equation. Reeve had little time for government, for bureaucracy, but he knew the individual could go only so far, could endure only so much. Isolation was fine sometimes, but if you had a problem it was wise to form bonds. War created bizarre allies, while peace itself could be divisive.

Nietzsche, of course, could convince almost no one of his philosophy-give or take a tyrant or two who chose to misunderstand the whole. And the anarchists… well, one of the things Reeve found so interesting about the anarchists was that their cause was doomed from its philosophical outset. To grow, to influence opinion, the anarchist movement had to organize, had to take on a strong political structure-which meant taking on a hierarchy, making decisions. Everyone, from players of children’s games to the company boardroom, knew that if you took decisions by committee you came up with compromise. Anarchism was not about compromising. The anarchists’ mistrust of rigid organizations caused their groupings to splinter and splinter again, until only the individual was left, and some of those individuals felt that the only possible road to power left to them was the bullet and the bomb. Joseph Conrad’s image of the anarchist with the bomb in his pocket was not so wide of the mark.

And what of Nietzsche? Reeve had been one of “Nietzsche’s gentlemen.” Nietzsche had carried on the work of Descartes and others-men who needed to dominate, to control, to eliminate chance. But while Nietzsche wanted supermen, controllers, he also wanted people to live dangerously. Reeve felt he was fulfilling this criterion if no other. He was living dangerously. He just wondered if he needed some mutual aid along the way…

He was on a hillside, no noise except the wind, the distant bleating of sheep, and his own breathing. He was sitting, resting, after the long walk from his home. He’d told Joan he needed to clear his head. Allan was at a friend’s house, but would be back in time for supper. Reeve would be back by then, too. All he needed was a walk. Joan had offered to keep him company, an offer he’d refused with a shake of his head. He’d touched her cheek, but she’d slapped his hand away.

“I’ll only be a couple of hours.”

“You’re never here,” she complained. “And even when you’re here, you’re not really here.”

It was a valid complaint, and he hadn’t argued. He’d just tied his boots and set out for the hills.

It was Sunday, a full week since he’d had the telephone call telling him Jim had killed himself. Joan knew there was something he wasn’t telling her, something he was bottling up. She knew it wasn’t just grief.

Reeve got to his feet. Looking down the steep hillside, he was momentarily afraid. Nothing to do with the “abyss” this time; it was just that he had no real plan, and without a plan there would be a temptation to rashness, there would be miscalculation. He needed proper planning and preparation. He’d been in the dark for a while, feeling his way. Now he thought he knew most of what Jim had known, but he was still stuck. He felt like a spider who has crawled its way along the pipes and into the bath, only to find it can’t scale the smooth, sheer sides. There was a bird of prey overhead, a kestrel probably. It glided on the air currents, its line straight, dipping its wings to maintain stability. From that height, it could probably still pick out the movements of a mouse in the tangle of grass and gorse. Reeve thought of the wings on the SAS cap badge. Wings and a dagger. The wings told you that Special Forces would travel anywhere at any notice. And the dagger… the dagger told an essential truth about the regiment: they were trained in close-combat situations. They favored stealth and the knife over distance and a sniper’s accuracy. Hand-to-hand fighting, that was their strength. Get close to your prey, close enough to slide a hand over its mouth and stab the dagger into its throat, and twist and twist, ripping the voice box. Maximum damage, minimum dying time.

Reeve felt the blood rush to his head and closed his eyes for a moment, clearing them of the fog. He checked his watch and found he’d been resting longer than he’d meant to. His legs had stiffened. It was time to start back down the hill and across the wide gully. It was time to go home.

“Jackie’s got this really good new game,” Allan said.

Reeve looked to Joan. “Jackie?”

“A girl in his class.”

He turned to his son. “Playing with the girls, eh? Not in her bedroom, I hope.”

Allan screwed up his face. “She’s not like a girl, Dad. She has all these games…”

“On her computer.”

“Yes.”

“And her computer is where in the house?”

“In her room.”

“Her bedroom?”

Allan’s ears had reddened. Reeve tried winking at Joan, but she wasn’t watching.

“It’s like Doom,” Allan said, ignoring his father, “but with more secret passages, and you don’t just pick up ammo and stuff, you can warp yourself into these amazing creatures with loads of new weapons and stuff. You can fry the bad guys’ eyeballs so they’re blind and then you-”

“Allan, enough,” his mother said.

“But I’m just telling Dad-”

“Enough.”

“But, Dad-”

“Enough!”

Allan looked down at his plate. He’d eaten all the fries and only had the cold ham and baked beans left. “But Dad wanted to know,” he said under his breath. Joan looked at her husband.

“Tell me later, pal, okay? Some things aren’t for the dinner table.” He watched Joan lift a sliver of ham to her mouth. “Especially fried alien eyeballs.”

Joan glared at him, but Allan and Gordon were laughing. The rest of the meal was carried off in peace.

Afterwards, Allan made instant coffee for his parents-one of his latest jobs around the house. Reeve wasn’t so sure of letting an eleven-year-old near a boiling kettle.

“But you don’t mind fried aliens, right?” Joan said.

“Aliens never hurt anyone,” Reeve said. “I’ve seen what scalding can do.”

“He’s got to learn.”

“Okay, okay.” They were in the living room. Reeve kept an ear attuned to sounds from the kitchen. The first clatter or shriek and he’d be in there. But Allan appeared with the two mugs. The coffee was strong.