McGivern was beginning to adjust to this abnormal conversation. He growled, “What’s all this got to do with it?”

Warren Casey looked into the other’s eyes. “We shall kill them, one by one. Shot at a distance with a rifle with telescopic sights. Blown up by bomb. Machine gunned, possibly as they walk down the front steps of their homes.”

“You’re insane! The police. The…”

Casey went on, ignoring the interruption. “We are in no hurry. Some of your children, your relatives, your friends, your mistress, may take to hiding in their panic. But there is no hiding—nowhere on all this world. Our organization is in no hurry, and we are rich in resources. Perhaps in the doing some of us will be captured or dispatched. It’s beside the point. We are dedicated. That’s all we’ll be living for, killing the people whom you love. When they are all gone, we will kill you. Believe me, by that time it will be as though we’re motivated by compassion. All your friends, your loved ones, your near-of-kin, will be gone.”

“We will kill, kill, kill—but in all it will be less than a hundred people. It will not be thousands and millions of people. It will only be your closest friends, your relatives, your children and finally you. At the end, Senator, you will have some idea of the meaning of war.”

By the end of this, although it was delivered in an almost emotionless voice, Phil McGivern was pushed back in his swivel chair as though from physical attack. No repeated, hoarsely, “You’re insane.”

Warren Casey shook his head. “No, it is really you, you and those like you, who are insane. Wrapped up in your positions of power, in your greed for wealth in the preservation of your privileges, you would bring us into a conflagration which would destroy us all. You are the ones who are insane.”