Louise Berker was one of those rarest of young women. She was a beautiful, brilliant nerd, socially isolated, but unconsciously charismatic at the same time. Her back story was a teeming tangle of family dysfunction, energies, impulses and influences; a psychological crèche where idealism, mood swings, episodes of brooding resentment and happy expectation each fought for a dominant place on the stage of her mind. Berker’s mind was a nursery from which something magnificently malignant or startlingly generous was sure to emerge.
The only constant was her hunger for consequence. Hers was the sort of background that a good biographer could mine long after the fact for intimations of her great accomplishments. After the story was told, the result of her potential for doing great good or great evil would seem inevitable. The course of history often turns on such pivot moments. The difference in Louise Berker’s case was the power of a singular set of ideas falling into a hungry and vulnerable mind at just the right moment.
As it happened, Louise Berker’s fall began during her frustrating, protracted work on a doctoral dissertation: an exploration of the toxic effects of modern technology. The pivot event was the collapse of a long distance romance with a revered icon of the environmental cause, a famous American professor and her dissertation advisor. When Louise discovered her lover’s shameful secret, the professor was in flagrante delicto. He had wired his brain into a cloud-based virtual reality – choosing his techno-addiction over her. It was a double betrayal of Berker personally, and of her ideals. Her fury quickly gave way to calculated revenge. Knowing that a quick disconnect from the apparatus would be fatal, Louise simply unplugged her lover from his game, killing him instantly. She covered her tracks at the murder scene, and left the country. A coroner would later rule the death as accidental. Campus rumors that the environmentalist icon had died of a techno-addiction would be squelched by a university spokesperson.
In the calmer, more deliberate aftermath of the killing, Berker’s revenge sought a grander canvas, something less personal and more revolutionary. Berker’s transformation took place under the psychological camouflage of a new environmental religion: the most potent toxin of the post technological age. Her first glimpse of a life engulfing purpose evolved from her desire to save humanity from their machines mutated into something much more malevolent: she would save the earth from humanity. The notion that humans were, in effect, a pathogen to be reduced and even exterminated became a quasi-religious fever with her, something carefully shared only among a small, like-minded cult of wealthy and powerful people.
Several years later, Louise—still an arrestingly attractive woman with short black hair and intense blue eyes—was sitting in an abandoned tavern in Hamburg, Germany. She sat quietly in a dark room facing an old man. A single candle lit the room. This was to be her final in-person briefing for a major operation in the United States.
“I understand that we will be killing some US Senators?” Louise sat calmly and waited for the confirmation. The old man she referred to only as the Baron smiled at her. He was dressed in pressed trousers and a rumpled white shirt, and slouched in his chair across from her. A formerly prominent public man, the Baron now worked in the shadowy world of the European Green Underground, using an assumed name like many others who had crossed over into eco-terrorism.
This evening was Berker’s sendoff, her graduation. There were just the two of them, the guards stayed near the entrance, well outside hearing range. This would be her last formal contact with any of her European handlers. The parent terror organization, the G-A-N, would soon have a robust North American presence and enough power to carry out their mission, and any formal links to the European network would be severed. Berker’s G-A-N team was ready. The assignation lists had been prepared and discussed; the passports and identity papers—some legal—had all been cleared.
“Why are we targeting U.S. Senators, exactly?” Berker asked.
“It’s only a few Senators,” the Baron said, “and certainly not right away. It all depends on the political situation.”
“Meaning what, exactly?”
“Louise, this is all part of the Longworthy plan. We have a Trojan Horse. A seemingly innocuous environmental protection treaty is to be signed by the American President and submitted to the U.S. Senate for ratification. It will exploit a loophole in the American constitution. Through this means, and with your help, we will be able to stage a coup d’état. The stupid American politicians will never realize the takeover has even occurred until everything is well past a point of no return. When you leave here, you will take a detailed briefing paper. Study it carefully in private; then burn it. Longworthy and some other legal scholars believe that this ratified treaty will override any conflicting provisions in the US constitution. But in America, a treaty ratification vote takes place only in their Senate and only by a two thirds vote.”
“I think I now understand quite clearly,” Louise said. “The Trojan Horse must get inside the Senate’s gate.”
“Exactly. No one will be allowed to get in the way of the ratification process. No. One.” The Baron spoke with quiet emphasis. “No senator, no public official, no citizen will be permitted to get in the way.”
The Baron was a calm, aristocratic presence. He sat across from Berker at the rough-hewn table, a bland, civilized presence that concealed the utter cruelty of his character. The air was stale. The flickering yellow light exaggerated the lines in the Baron’s face.
Outside, a town clock struck four. As the Baron spoke, his pale eyes gleamed in the candlelight. Each word was as measured and dry as a teaspoon of cold ash.
“You are to leave tomorrow afternoon.”
“We are packed. The identity papers and passports are ready. We can go to the airport at a moment’s notice,” Berker said.
The Baron regarded her carefully. “I see that you have a question about one of the profiles?”
“Yes. Why is Senator Gabriel Standing Bear Lindstrom on your list?”
“You wonder perhaps because he is a Native American?”
“Partly. But more so because he is an ally to the environmental cause.”
“But that may turn out to be a problem. Gabriel Standing Bear is a charismatic leader on the rise. Even though he is only a Senator from a small state, he has attracted a national following.”
Louise still looked puzzled. “Forgive me, but why target a leader sympathetic to our cause?”
The Baron looked at her as he would a small child. “He is a target for two reasons, Louise. Some environmentalists will object to our ultimate aims and he could be one of them. And, more to the point, we prefer followers to leaders.”
“So—”
“He has a bad case of integrity, Louise. His growing prominence and popularity will make him dangerous.”
“But only if he turns on us…”
“When he turns on us, Louise, when. We cannot conceal our real objectives forever.”
Berker thought it through for a second and sat up straighter in her chair. “Then better to kill him while he still is an asset. Frame the enemies of the environment. Make this Indian a martyr.”
The Baron smiled. “Too clever by half, my dear. Why prematurely discard our assets? We’ll just take out some insurance. Virtuous men like Gabriel can likely be controlled through their children. He has a daughter, a student in Seattle, Helen Snowfeather Lindstrom. She is vulnerable to recruitment.”
“Then we will try to exploit her. Thank you for the guidance and your patience.” Berker attempted to hide her embarrassment.
“Very well, then.” The Baron got to his feet. “We are done here. At the end of the day, remember that not all of the targets will be obstacles, particularly as we begin to succeed in shaping public opinion. But some will eventually need to be removed with prejudice. Like your example, that Indian Senator. The trick is always to kill them in compromising locations, places that have the smell of scandal about them. And to take out one or two unrelated victims in the same area. It is possible to create such a bizarre crime signature that it overshadows even a celebrity’s death.” His thin smile appeared briefly. “There is an art to this.”
“Political killing must never seem political, unless and until that is the whole point of the exercise.”
“Louise Berker, you were always my very best student. I will miss you.”