Nemesis(22)

A silver lighter bursts into flame at the end of the cigarillo.





'…and continues to read. So I say: Aren't you going to make a move? I watch his hand scribbling away with my pen as he answers: I don't need to. I'm writing down how this game will finish, move for move. You will knock over your king. I explain that it is impossible for him to know how the game will develop after just one move. Shall we have a bet? he says. I try to laugh it off, but he is insistent. So I agree to bet a hundred to put him into a benevolent frame of mind for my interview. He demands to see the note and I have to place it beside the board where he can see it. He raises his hand as if to make his move, then things happen very fast.'





'Lightning chess?'





Aune smiled and, deep in thought, exhaled a ring of smoke towards the ceiling. 'The next moment I was held in a vice-like grip with my head forced backwards so that I was looking up at the ceiling, and a voice whispered into my ear: Can you feel the blade, Gadjo? Of course I could feel it, the sharp, razor-thin steel pressed against my larynx, straining to cut through the skin. Have you ever experienced that feeling, Harry?'





Harry's brain raced through the register of related experiences, but failed to find anything altogether identical. He shook his head.





'It felt, to quote a number of my patients, rank. I was so frightened I was on the point of urinating in my trousers. Then he whispered in my ear: Knock over the king, Aune. He slackened his grip a little so that I could raise my arm and I sent my pieces flying. Then, equally abruptly, he let me go. He returned to his side of the table and waited for me to get on my feet and regain control of my breathing. What the hell was that? I groaned. That was a bank robbery, he answered. First the plan and then the execution. Then he showed me what he had written in the book. All I could see was my solitary move and White king capitulates. Then he asked: Does that answer your questions, Aune?'





'What did you say?'





'Nothing. I yelled for the guard to come. However, before he came, I asked Raskol one last question because I knew I would drive myself crazy thinking about it if I didn't get an answer there and then. I said: Would you have done it? Would you have cut my throat if I hadn't capitulated? Just to win an idiotic bet?'





'And what did he answer?'





'He smiled and asked if I knew what pre-programming was.'





'Yes?'





'That was all. The door opened and I left.'





'But what did he mean by pre-programming?'





Aune pushed his mug away. 'You can pre-programme your brain to follow a particular pattern of behaviour. The brain will overrule other impulses and follow the predetermined rules, come what may. Useful in situations when the brain's natural impulse is to panic. Such as when the parachute doesn't open. Then, I hope, parachutists have pre-programmed emergency procedures.'





'Or soldiers fighting.'





'Precisely. There are, however, methods which can programme humans to such a degree that they go into a kind of trance, unaffected by even extreme external influences, and they become living robots. The fact is that this is every general's wet dream, frighteningly easy, provided you know the necessary techniques.'





'Are you talking about hypnosis?'





'I like to call it pre-programming. There is less mystification. It is a matter of opening and closing routes for impulses. If you're clever, you can easily pre-programme yourself, so-called self-hypnosis. If Raskol had pre-programmed himself to kill me if I hadn't capitulated, he would have prevented himself from changing his mind.'





'But he didn't kill you, did he.'





'All programs have an escape button, a password which brings you out of the trance. In this case, it may have been knocking down the white king.'





'Mm. Fascinating.'





'And now I've come to my point…'





'I think I know it,' Harry said. 'The bank robber in the photo may have pre-programmed himself to shoot if the branch manager didn't keep to the time limit.'





'The rules of pre-programming have to be simple,' Aune said, dropping the cigarillo in the mug and putting the saucer on top. 'In order for you to fall into a trance they have to form a small yet logical closed system which rejects other thoughts.'





Harry put a fifty-kroner note beside the coffee mug and stood up. Aune watched in silence as Harry gathered up all the photographs before saying: 'You don't believe a word I've said, do you.'





'No.'





Aune stood up and buttoned up his jacket over his stomach. 'So, what do you believe?'





'I believe what experience has taught me,' Harry said. 'That villains by and large are as stupid as I am, go for easy options and have uncomplicated motives. In a nutshell, that things are very much what they seem to be. I would bet this robber was either out of his skull or panic-stricken. What he did was senseless and from that I conclude he is stupid. Take the gypsy whom you clearly consider to be very smart. How much time did he get in the slammer for attacking you with a knife?'