Betrayal

"The warrior, the warrior. I don't want the warrior in my life, that's all. I don't want the warrior in the world."

"Ah, but there's the crux of it. Of course it would be wonderful if there didn't need to be warriors. Just like it would be great if there were no evil in the world. But here's the thing-there is evil. And without warriors, evil would triumph."

"How 'bout this, Ron: Without warriors, evil couldn't attack."

"So it's chicken and egg, is that it? Which came first? No"-he put his hand on hers, took it away as though it burned him-"listen. My point is this: There is always going to be evil and, yes, it will attract evil warriors. You buy that so far?"

She managed a small nod.

"Okay," he went on. "So evil and its minions are a given, right? Right. Come on, you admit that. You've just admitted it. And, P.S., it's true."

She hesitated, then said, "Okay. Yes. So?"

"So once evil's on the march, what's going to stop it except a greater force for good?"

She sat back and folded her arms. "The greater force doesn't always have to be physical. It can be spiritual. Look at Gandhi, or Martin Luther King. Fighting should be a last resort. I think a lot of so-called warriors are really warmongers picking fights to justify their own existence."

"Sometimes they are, yeah. And Gandhi and King, great men, both of them, no question. And both assassinated, I might point out. And neither used their nonviolence in an actual war. Okay, they fought evil, but it wasn't on the march. It wasn't to the warrior stage yet. But even so, for every King or Gandhi, you've got a Neville Chamberlain or somebody who doesn't want to fight. It's not till you get yourself a warrior-like, say, Churchill-that you really can stop active evil. You think Hitler would have stopped by himself? Ever? Or Saddam Hussein, for that matter?"

"We did stop him, Hussein," she said. "He wasn't a threat."

Nolan let his shoulders relax. His face took on a peaceful neutrality. His voice went soft. " Tara, please, you've got it backward. If he wasn't a threat, it was because we did already stop him once. Our warriors stopped him in Kuwait. That's the only thing he understood."

Tara was twirling her cup around in its saucer, biting on her lower lip. Eventually she raised her eyes. "I don't like to think about this, Ron. About evil's place in the world."

He kept his voice low, met her eyes, again put his hand over hers and this time left it there. "I don't blame you, Tara. Nobody likes to think about it. And some places, like here in the U.S., and on a gorgeous afternoon in this great city, it can seem so far away as to be nonexistent. Thank God. I mean, thank God there are islands where the beast is kept mostly at bay. It's in its cage. But the thing to remember is that somebody, sometime, had to put the beast in there, and has to keep it there. And that's why we need-we all need, the world needs-warriors. How did you feel about Evan being a cop?"

Her frown deepened, her head moving from side to side. "I don't think I was exactly thrilled, but that was different."

"How?"

She worried her lip for another moment. "Soldiers, their job is to kill. Cops, they mostly protect."

"And sometimes to protect, don't they have to kill?"

"But it's not the main job."

"Could that be because individual bad guys don't need an army to defeat them?" He took his hand away from hers and sat up straighter, lifted his cup to his mouth, put it back down. Looking at her, he saw that her eyes had gone glassy and tears hung in their corners. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to ruin your day and make you cry. We can stop talking about this."

One tear fell, leaving its streak on her face. "I don't know what I'm going to do. It's so hard."

"It is," he said. "I know."

"I'm trying to do the right thing."

"I can see that."

"I should at least read his letters."

"That might be nice."

"But I'm still…" She stopped, looked at him, shook her head again. "I don't have any answers. I don't know what I should do."

"You don't have to decide anything today. How's that?"

She gave him a grateful smile. "Better."

"Okay, then," he said. "I think that's about enough philosophy for one day. Why don't we blow this pop stand?"

***

ONE OF THE LANDMARKS of old San Francisco was Trader Vic's, the restaurant where the mai tai was purportedly invented and a favorite hangout for the famous columnist Herb Caen and his pals. The original Vic's had gone out of business decades ago, but a couple of years back, they'd opened a new one near City Hall. It had a great buzz and was the same kind of place-a Pacific-island-themed destination spot serving enormous "pu-pu" platters of vaguely Asian appetizers that could be washed down with mai tais or any other number of generous rum drinks, many of them served for two out of hollowed coconut shells.