Read Online We Are Now Beginning Our Descent by James Meek - Free Book Online

and took out a pistol.
    ‘Never seen a reporter with one of those before,’ said Kellas.
    ‘I bought it just now from the bodyguard. He wanted five hundred for it but I beat him down to one-twenty. Don’t worry, the clip’s not in. Here. Move to one side a second.’
    She held the chunky L-shape by the grip, ran the action back and forth, squinted down the bore, held the gun up with both hands, pointed it out of the open door at the rockface, closed an eye, sighted and pulled the trigger till the hammer fell with a sharp tap that rang in the empty chamber. ‘What a crummy piece of Soviet crap,’ she said. ‘They must’ve pressed these out like tin kettles back in the day.’ She unzipped a pocket, took out a pair of ski gloves, put the gun inside and stuffed the gloves back on top. ‘Get in, Adam, let’s get moving. Don’t look at me that way. You can guess what kind of sanctimonious garbage I was getting from the Swiss guys. More of it now because they know they can’t be taking advantage of me. What you see in that car up ahead is Nietzsche in action. “TrulyI’ve laughed at those who think they’re virtuous ’cause their claws are blunt.”’
    ‘I told you!’ said Rustum, slapping his knee with one hand and pinching his moustache with the other.
    ‘There’s no law here,’ said Astrid. ‘Single girl needs protection.’
    ‘I’m tired of guns,’ said Kellas. ‘There are too many in this country.’
    ‘That’s one out of circulation.’ She grinned at him and patted her pocket. She was energised by the purchase. Kellas’s conscience impelled him to tell her that he disapproved, while some other force within him made him dizzy and blinking, as if he’d come out into the bright light of the present after a long time in a dark room. He believed it was foolish for a journalist to carry a gun. Guns attracted guns. But he had no righteous indignation left. He didn’t care. He asked Astrid if she’d be able to claim it on expenses.
    ‘They paid for a helmet and a flak jacket, which I left behind,’ she said. ‘They must be dropping a thousand a week on the insurance. They can pony up a hundred and twenty bucks for one of the Kremlin’s Saturday night specials.’
    ‘It makes you a combatant,’ said Kellas.
    ‘Oh, and you’re not a combatant?’ Astrid laughed. ‘What do you think you’re doing here? You’re looking for where the war’s at. You’re selling it. That’s enough. You’re in it. You’ve joined.’
    ‘You gun nuts, you’re bad comedians,’ said Alex, the Slovenian producer. He didn’t turn round. He lifted his head and they saw the blurred trace of his eyes in the rear-view mirror as the road of boulders shook the Uazik.
    ‘I’m not a gun nut,’ said Astrid.
    ‘Maybe,’ said Alex. He was shouting over the noise of their travelling. ‘You’re not a man. Maybe that makes a difference. I used to think men loved guns because they made them seem serious. It’s death in a tube, and death’s serious, right? Carrying death around, it makes you a serious person. I saw what happened to friends of mine who joined up and went into elite units, you know, the special forces bullshit. Isaw what happened. These were the guys who really wanted to be able to make people laugh, but they were so dumb, they couldn’t tell a joke. They couldn’t even tell a funny story. And all jokes in the world are variations on one joke: man walks along the street, slips on a banana skin, falls over, looks like a fool. That’s the only thing that the gun nut understands about comedy. They understand that death’s the greatest banana skin joke of all. It’s the most ridiculous thing that happens to anybody. One moment you’re walking along, hey hey hey, king of the world, the proud guy, centre of the universe. Then bang! The comedian pulls the trigger and the proud guy’s eighty kilos of meat. Much funnier than a pie in the face. The gun nuts are terrible comedians, and they’re always