"I think he was lying, though, since he looked like a cross between a Hell's Angel and a member of the Rolling Stones. He looked like you'd expect a terrorist to look, which is what makes me think he wasn't."
"Exactly," said Gerald. "They're businessmen, really.”
Karen gave Gerald the eye. “What are you talking about?”
“Terrorists. They’re the new capitalists.”
Karen sighed.
Gerald said, "Gangsters and terrorists are what’s left of the mediaeval version of competition for market share. They figure they’ve hit on a winning formula – or at least a formula that refuses to lose – and they have too much at stake to change strategies now. They’re halfway between the old butchery and the new thuggery. They represent part of the culture that’s stalled in transition."
Karen looked at Thomas. “Do you understand what he’s saying?”
“Not a word.”
Gerald snorted, “Oh, you will.”
Karen said to Thomas, “What happened next?”
“I was alone in the booth with this guy, and he opened his suitcase and showed me a hand grenade. He said he was going to France on his way home to see Van Morrison. He said he couldn't see him in Ireland because the security forces would be looking for him."
"Definitely a freelancer," Gerald proclaimed. He stood up. "More ice?"
Thomas nodded. "Yes, please." Gerald slipped into the kitchen.
"What happened?" Karen asked.
"With the I.R.A. man?"
"Yes."
"Nothing. We came to our destination and c'est fini. That's it."
Karen leaned forward and lit a candle on the coffee table between them. She said, "Strange how that happens, isn't it? You cross paths with people, they leave an impression, you're touched, but then you never see them again."

***

“Barbarism is all around us,” Daniel said. “It is in us. In all of us right there” – he pointed to Thomas’s chest – “not even just under the surface, not hidden in any way, but right there. Immediately accessible. Immediately available. Twenty-one centuries since Christ, and still the world is full of Spartans. Was Hobbes right? Maybe so, maybe so. But as a Christian I believe that transformation is possible. Transformation of the heart can lead to transformation of the soul. The transformed individual can transform others and whole communities can be led away from suicide.
“You,” the priest said, pointing at Thomas. “You can be one of these transformed souls.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No,” Thomas said. “I’m dead.”