Chapter 19
“GO!!” shouted Chief Rulgers, head of the National Drug Police. “This is a Level 3 drill!!”
Ten men moved forward to storm into the small house. It was built without a roof because the NDP had a very important guest today. None other than Senator Hutherton, who insisted on witnessing every last detail of the agents’ training drills. And they could properly be called agents too because the cut had been last week. Thirty highly qualified men had been let go, most of whom were soldiers and thus returned to the Seleganian Army.
Seventy men had remained and were sworn in the following day in a private ceremony witnessed only by the president and a few select senators. They were the best of the best. The remnant of both the brutal interview cuts and the even-more brutal training-based cuts. So close were many of those cut to meeting the necessary mark that many of them were congratulated personally by Senator Hutherton for their heroic exertions and told that they would be more than welcome to apply again if the NDP received more funding.
Hutherton’s gut had proved its acuteness when Frederick Manhausen and Robert Machendale rose to the top of the pile, Freddie just slightly excelling the latter, as this had been Hutherton’s private prediction after conducting the interviews. President Beldenshire had remained so pleased with Hutherton’s sponsorship of The Safer Streets Act that he had spoken to Chief Rulgers and made sure he was aware that he was to defer to Hutherton privately, without exception, in all instructions regarding the NDP, although Rulgers was to publicly report directly only to the attorney general.
Hutherton had instructed Rulgers to keep a close look out for leadership and dominant personalities and select the seven best leaders, each of whom would be part of, and lead, a unit of ten men. He further asked him to assign the most elite agents to the two most skilled leaders. This led to Manhausen leading the most elite unit in the NDP, followed by Machendale’s unit.
Hutherton did not show up to micromanage. He found Rulgers to be a kindred spirit on most matters, and Hutherton only showed up occasionally to not let his shadowy influence to be forgotten. But today Hutherton had far more specific aims than that.
Two men smashed down the door with a large battering ram, while others knocked out the windows. As the men moved throughout the house, the weight of their footsteps pulled levers causing life-size images painted onto paper to pop up rapidly. The men coolly disregarded unarmed women and children, but occasionally sliced the head off of a man with a malicious expression.
Anyone carrying a weapon of any kind was immediately cut down. Every agent had already been given a small portrait of potential targets that might be in the house, and when the initial sweep failed to yield any captured targets they began destroying the walls and floorboards in a ferocious search for hidden compartments.
Several times, this resulted in a human image quickly popping out—sometimes horizontally, other times vertically or at varied angles—all of which were quickly cut to shreds. This distinguished the drill from a Level 1 or Level 2 drill, in which even those individuals found in hidden compartments were to be individually evaluated for threat assessment. At Level 3, anyone found in a hidden compartment was to be deemed a fatal threat unless painted in an image of unequivocal terror and surrender.
Hutherton was more than pleased as he watched the surgical precision of Manhausen’s unit as it discovered and dispatched various threats with such unity that the ten men seemed to be tentacles of one body. Several minutes later, the unit had discovered all the targets planted in this particular house.
Hutherton stood and gave the men an ovation from his lofty chair with all the enthusiasm of a man who has witnessed a moving play. He then walked down the stairs and warmly congratulated each of the men in Manhausen’s unit before requesting a private audience with him.
Moments later, Hutherton was seated in Chief Rulger’s leather chair in his private office across from Manhausen.
“Do you prefer Agent Manhausen or Sergeant Manhausen?” Hutherton asked him with the sincere concern the best of hosts might employ when inquiring into the comfort of an important guest.
Freddie was elated at such a fantastic dilemma, having gone so many years without the honor of any title whatsoever, but “Agent” had a certain freshness about it that “Sergeant” never could, given his painful memories of the dishonorable conclusion of his military service.
“I would be most honored, senator, if you addressed me with either, but given the importance of my current mission, I believe ‘Agent’ might be the most fitting.”
“‘Agent’ it is then,” Hutherton said smiling. Then, he became gravely serious and slightly lowered his volume, though not quite to a whisper.
“Agent Manhausen, you’re the best agent in the NDP. In many ways, that is an objective conclusion anyone who has reviewed your record so far in the NDP would have to reach. But there is more to you than just your performance on physical and mental examinations. Something those cold instruments can never fully appraise. You have something special on the inside.”
Hutherton watched his subject carefully with the studious precision of an engineer examining a complex contraption. Manhausen’s face would have been inscrutable to anyone else, but Hutherton noticed the ever-so-slight blush that came over his face. Then, he proceeded.
“I knew that about you from the moment I interviewed you, but my confidence in you has grown exponentially over the last few months while I have observed you. You are the kind of man who can see the big picture.” Hutherton’s scrutiny intensified. “The kind of man who can focus on the end goal without getting fussy over how it is reached.”
Hutherton paused. “Would you agree with that assessment?”
“A soldier’s only end goal should be full obedience with his orders. It is the burden of politicians to debate morality.”
“Yes, Agent Manhausen, personally I agree with you, both on your conclusion and your classification of morale debates as being burdensome, which they most truly are. But you’re more than just a soldier now, Agent Manhausen. You are a leader, and I need to know if you agree that a noble aim must be achieved whatever the cost.”
Manhausen paused for a moment. He had never been high enough in the military to deem his mind worthy of moral reflection, and thus, he found the invitation to thus reflect simultaneously intriguing and terrifying.
“A leader who has a noble aim should seek to achieve it in the least injurious manner possible,” he began, before taking a lengthy pause, “but far too often, I believe, a noble end is not achieved due to an excessive concern about the means used.” He paused again and then said, “I think most people are far too inclined to shortchange the importance of reaching the goal, no matter what the cost.”
Hutherton was satisfied with the response. He looked at Manhausen now more carefully than ever, ready to abort the ensuing conversation at the first moment he detected the slightest qualms in Manhausen’s words, tone, or expression.
“Agent Manhausen, there is something of great importance that needs to be done very soon.”
Freddie looked at him with the excitement and determination of a zealous hound dog that sees its master readying the instruments of the hunt.
The International Businessman Page 21
