State Of Fear (2004) by Michael Crichton

Author:Michael Crichton [Crichton, Michael]
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2010-12-19T00:40:07.281000+00:00

"I don't understand," Evans said. "On the news report it said they were hunters. A hunting accident or an argument of some kind."

"That's right," Kenner said.

"But you're telling me you guys shot them?" Evans looked from Kenner to Sanjong.

"They shot first," Kenner said.

"Jesus," Evans said. "Three deaths?" He bit his lip.

But in truth, he was feeling a contradictory reaction. He would have expected his native caution to take over--a series of killings, possibly murders, he was an accomplice or at the very least a material witness, he could be tied up in court, disgraced, disbarred.... That was the path his mind usually followed. That was what his legal training had emphasized.

But at this moment he felt no anxiety at all. Extremists had been discovered and they had been killed. He was neither surprised nor disturbed by the news. On the contrary, he felt quite satisfied to hear it.

He realized then that his experience in the crevasse had changed him--and changed him permanently. Someone had tried to kill him. He could never have imagined such a thing growing up in suburban Cleveland, or in college, or law school. He could never have imagined such a thing while living his daily life, going to work at his firm in Los Angeles.

And so he could not have predicted the way that he felt changed by it now. He felt as if he had been physically moved--as if someone had picked him up and shifted him ten feet to one side. He was no longer standing in the same place. But he had also been changed internally. He felt a kind of solid impassivity he had not known before. There were unpleasant realities in the world, and previously he had averted his eyes from them, or changed the subject, or made excuses for what had occurred. He had imagined that this was an acceptable strategy in life--in fact, that it was a more humane strategy. He no longer believed that.

If someone tried to kill you, you did not have the option of averting your eyes or changing the subject. You were forced to deal with that person's behavior. The experience was, in the end, a loss of certain illusions.

The world was not how you wanted it to be.

The world was how it was.

There were bad people in the world. They had to be stopped.

"That's right," Kenner was saying, nodding slowly. "Three deaths. Isn't that right, Sanjong?"

"That's right," Sanjong said.

"Screw 'em," Evans said.

Sanjong nodded.

Kenner said nothing.

The jet flew back to Los Angeles at six o'clock. Sarah sat in the front, staring out the window. She listened to the men in the back. Kenner was talking about what would happen next. The dead men were being ID'd. Their guns and trucks and clothes were being traced. And the television film crew had already been found: it was a truck from KBBD, a cable station in Sedona. They'd gotten an anonymous call saying that the highway patrol had been derelict and had allowed a picnic to proceed despite flash flood warnings, and disaster was probable.

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