by Henry Hack
“You think, Chris?” asked June Wayland, a husky five-foot, ten-inch redhead, to a chorus of laughter.
He laughed along with them and said, “I know none of you do the hard stuff or you wouldn’t be here, but don’t carry any weed on this mission, or use it if you come across the chance to do so. A couple of brews are fine, just don’t go over the limit. The only ID you will carry is the one driver’s license we provided you with. Leave everything else back here in your room. Now, someone tell me what you do if you get collared by the cops.”
They all raised their hand which increased Chris’s confidence level. He pointed to Jeremy Riggins, a young brown-skinned man who Chris had pegged for a very high intelligence level. Jeremy said, “I identify myself as the person on the license and say nothing else other than I wish to speak with a lawyer.”
“Perfect. Now, are there any last questions?”
When no hands were raised, he said, “Okay, let’s all get a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow is our first test and I know we will all pass with flying colors. See you in the morning.”
The field troops performed perfectly. The targets were killed cleanly and swiftly with no collateral damage – no family members, friends or beloved pets were killed or injured. Chris and the Committee deemed these results to be of utmost importance. They wanted the average American citizen to be on their side, or at least have their sympathy. They did not want to be branded terrorists. Their case would have to be made by targeting only those who were a definite threat to the future of America and the American way of life.
* * *
Whether you agreed with or despised the ACLU, you had to give them one thing – they were consistent in their defense of freedom of speech regardless of the cause being advocated. So when they filed suit to protest the failure of several municipalities to grant demonstration and parade permits to groups of neo-Nazis, Skinheads and White Supremacists many in their membership recoiled and rebelled. They assailed the leadership for supporting this particular type of free speech and demanded a change in policy. When the leadership stood firm citing the famous statement, I may disagree with all you say, but I will defend with my life your right to say it, many dissidents resigned from the union and eventually formed their own civil rights group based on their own particular left-wing interpretation of the Bill of Rights.
And for them free speech was only good for ultra left-wing causes. Social justice must be legislated for all. The National Rifle Association must be disbanded. The Second Amendment must be revised or eliminated. Any member of a minority group who voted for a candidate other than a liberal Democrat was suspect and should be ostracized from society and the political process. In short the LFFJ – The League for Freedom, Fairness and Justice – was in reality a left-wing group of Nazis bent on imposing their ideals on Americans using lawsuits, verbal threats and intimidation.
The LFFJ hated the US military, particularly the Marine Corps, and when they heckled Colonel O’Grady at several of his speeches near the end of his long career of service, it took every ounce of his patience and restraint from finding an automatic weapon and blasting them all to kingdom come where God could sort them out.
Although not tempestuous by nature, the kindly, soft-spoken Charles Knorland, renowned and respected lecturer in the social sciences, was the subject of virulent abuse whenever and wherever he publicly spoke. The members of the LFFJ in his audiences would yell out slurs of the most despicable racial nature, the least of which were, “traitor to your race!” “Uncle Tom!” and “Step-and-fetchit!” As Colonel O’Grady had admirably done, Charles Knorland took it all in calmly and did his best to ignore his detractors.
Both men, however, seethed on the inside and wondered how this group could eventually be neutralized or put out of business. And when they joined Chris Steadman’s Committee and learned the other members had similar experiences with the LFFJ, a germ of an idea began in O’Grady’s mind and he said to Knorland, “One day Charlie, my good friend, I’ll take care of those bastards for all of us.”
Charlie had smiled and said, “And just how do you propose to do that, my good Colonel?”
“I don’t know yet, but I’ve moved them up to a high priority. After we make our first strike – I don’t want to interfere with that – it will be their turn. I guarantee it.”
That time had arrived. It was now the LFFJ’s turn to feel the wrath of the Minutemen.
* * *
When Security Officer George Hollis entered the lobby of the building at 217 Water Street in Manhattan at seven a.m. he wondered where the graveyard shift officer, Willy Madson, was. He was not behind the desk at his assigned post, that was for sure. George removed his coat and hung it on the coat tree in the corner and went behind the desk. The event book was in order and there were only two entries: Willy signing on duty at eleven the night before, relieving Paul Horton, and the usual entry which read, “0600 – unlocked the front door.” Then George spotted a hand-printed note which said, “Had to leave early for a family emergency. Please sign me out when you sign in. Thanks, Willy”
Willy was very reliable and leaving his post uncovered was unusual, but nothing seemed amiss and George had no problem covering for the lapse. Just then, Morton Weinstein, the head of the New York Chapter of the LFFJ said good morning to George as he headed to the elevator. George responded, as he did almost every morning, with a smile and a “Good morning to you, Mr. Weinstein. First in again, as usual.”
“Busy times, George,” he said as he pushed the button and entered the elevator for his trip to the tenth floor. As more and more employees entered the building for their first day of the new work week, the nation’s police chiefs slept soundly, and the gagged and bound body of Security Officer Willy Madson, tucked behind two big storage boxes in the basement of the building lay quietly awaiting rescue and release.
On the eleventh floor, which housed the national headquarters of the LFFJ, National Director Kenneth Farber had finally gotten all the major chapter chairmen hooked up on the conference call. Mort Weinstein had come up from the floor below to join him in the conference room along with Farber’s national administrative staff and board of directors. Farber said, “I’ll get right to the point. The ten recent murders of liberal politicians and supporters of liberal causes have me concerned for all our safety.”
“Why are you concerned?” asked Ted McKeon the Los Angeles area chapter chairman. “We are on the side of justice.”
“Of course we are,” Weinstein said, “but when we file lawsuits against organized religious practices, insist on separation of church and state, and hound the NRA we generate a lot of hostility from the right.”
“Yes,” Farber said, “I can attest to that by the volume of hate mail we receive because of our actions. And the biggest pile came in recently when we filed suit to remove the Christian crosses, Stars of David, and crescent moons from the gravestones of deceased members of the military buried in national cemeteries.”
“I still disagree with that lawsuit – vehemently disagree,” said David Goodman the Chicago area chapter chairman. “My son gave his life for our country in a war I didn’t agree with, but he died a hero – a Jewish hero – and I want the Star of David to be seen by all who visit his grave or nearby graves.”
“You’re missing the point, Dave. Despite your personal…”
Ken Farber’s rejoinder was cut short by eight huge explosions, four in the offices of the LFFJ on this floor and four in their offices on the floor below. The suitcase bombs which had been planted in the dark early morning hours by the Minutemen were strategically placed in key offices and rooms, none more so than the one taped under the granite-topped conference table which wiped out the entire national leadership of the LFFJ, along with its New York City chapter chairman, in one huge devastating explosion.
Dave Goodman never got to hear Ken Farber’s reply to his complaint not only because Farber was now dead, but because Dave Goodman was also dead at the hands of the Minutemen�
��s deadly bombs. Along with those in New York and Chicago, LFFJ offices on South Street in San Francisco, M Street in D.C., Palmetto Blvd. in Los Angeles, and Legal Avenue in St. Louis, suffered the same fate as the suitcase bombs did their work with deadly precision. Ten minutes later telephones in police chief’s homes began to ring. Another shoe had dropped.
Chapter Eleven
On Tuesday morning June 1, the day after the Memorial Day weekend, New York Sentinel columnist Thomas “Red” Baker returned to his Manhattan office to a mountain of unopened mail which had recently been dumped on his desk.
Baker’s twice-weekly column in the Sentinel was syndicated nationwide to over 200 papers and generated a lot of mail, mostly of the type that could never be printed in the paper. People hated Red Baker, despised Red Baker, threatened to kill, maim, spit upon, shit upon and dismember Red Baker – and, for the most part, their feelings were justified. Red Baker was not a nice person; he was a nasty, foul-mouthed, sacrilegious old man. He did, however, have a gift of gab, and was able to translate that gift into two 800-word columns a week, each sure to stir controversy, and each sure to sell papers.
Red had started out as a crime reporter for the Daily News, hanging around One Police Plaza looking for the murder of the day. He found the murders, and the rapes, and the sodomies and duly reported them. And then one day he found corruption, and did a brilliant series of articles that stretched from the cop on the beat all the way to the Mayor’s office. When the Pulitzer Prize came his way for that series, the Sentinel enticed him away from the News with an offer of much more money and Baker jumped ship, loyalty to his employer, or to anyone else for that matter, not being his strong suit. Although he didn’t win a second Pulitzer, he drew readers to the paper and then went to the two columns a week format where he was free to comment on anything he desired. And comment he did, as the mountains of mail attested. He was described by a fellow journalist as a combination of the vitriolic columnist Jimmy Breslin, who railed against dogs, children and the Catholic Church, and the late Andy Rooney, the grouchy, self-styled curmudgeon on 60 Minutes. “But,” the journalist remarked, “Jimmy and Andy are angelic choir boys compared to this mean drunken son-of-a-bitch.”
Red yelled out to one of the office boys shared by the reporters and when he came over he said, “Kid, open this pile of crap and let me know if anything in there is worth my while.”
“Sure thing, Red,” the obliging lad said eager to please – and terrified to displease – the moody columnist.
Red’s column that appeared in today’s paper had been written well before the weekend, but now he had to think of something for Friday’s column and he was drawing a blank. Maybe that dumb kid would find something for him to write about in the pile of mail. He made a few phone calls and drummed his fingers on the desk staring at the blank sheet of paper in the typewriter. Maybe he could write about the ten murders or the bombings at the LFFJ offices, but what could he say other than the sons-of bitches got what they deserved. He bet those sanctimonious bastards over at Fox News were thrilled with all the dead liberals, and he hoped they would be bombed to shit, too. Yeah, old Red was an equal opportunity hater, all right. He glanced at his watch and despaired. Not even eleven o’clock and already he needed his pre-lunch drink bad. His introspection was disturbed by the return of the office boy who said, “This may be interesting, Red. Probably the only thing so far that I found.”
“Yeah? Give it here. Go finish the rest of it, okay?”
Red looked at the mailing envelope and noticed it was postmarked in Manhattan with no return address. His name and address at the paper were neatly typed and correct right down to the zip code. He read the single sheet:
Dear Mr. Baker,
You have been chosen by our organization to convey our message to the people of our great country. We chose you because your column is read in major newspapers throughout America and we would like to do our part to encourage the disappearing art of reading by not sharing our message with the network cable news channels. We trust you to write a fair column and know that you are not partial to any one person or any one group. If you criticize us reasonably you have no fear of any consequences to you or your publisher.
A believer in conciseness Red mumbled, “Get to the fucking point already, will ya?”
We are responsible for the death of the ten liberal left-wing would-be destroyers of America, and for the bombings at the offices of LFFJ around the nation.
Well, they sure did get to the point he mused, sitting up straighter in his chair and adjusting his glasses slightly.
We sincerely hope that we will not have to take any further actions to achieve our goal and you can help in that regard by conveying our message to America. It is a message of hope, a message of stating exactly how our nation can avoid future bloodshed and prevent its evident decline into the dustbin of history. The Sentinel is the only fair paper in a sea of left-wing, biased ones in your great city. Please convince your publisher, Mr. Brennan, to carry our messages as we send them. I’m sure you both realize the economic rewards that will be yours if you do.
You should receive our next letter in a day or two and it will contain proof that we were indeed responsible as we stated. Further instructions will also be included. We suggest you wait to read and evaluate that letter before going to print. We would be pleased if you could report on us in your Friday column. Thank you, the Minutemen.
Red re-read the letter and decided to do as these so-called Minutemen suggested – wait for the next letter. Their English was good and it had a note of believability in it, but he had read a lot of crazy shit that also was well-written. He’d wait before going to Brennan, but now, thank God, it was time for lunch.
* * *
When the mail arrived at ten-thirty the next morning, Red Baker went through it rapidly opening any envelopes that looked similar to the one he had received in yesterday’s mail from the Minutemen. Those he scanned were not from them, but a large manila envelope had the same Manhattan postmark. He slit it open and dumped its contents on his desk. There were ten smaller envelopes resembling dime bags of marijuana. They were sealed and each had the name of one of the victims written on its front. Also enclosed was a white 3x5 index card with a small amount of a gray-colored powdery substance on it covered with cellophane tape.
He picked up the letter and read –
Dear Mr. Baker
In each small envelope is a sample of hair taken from the heads of the ten victims at the time of their murder. Feel free to distribute them to the appropriate authorities. As you are aware, hair samples are routinely taken by the police in homicide cases and retained for possible future comparison. There should be no need to exhume any bodies if the police did their jobs correctly. When the comparisons are completed, the authorities will know the Minutemen were indeed responsible for all ten deaths.
The gray powder adhering to the index card is a sample of a chemical tracer that we placed in each of the explosive devices detonated at the six LFFJ offices. It is a combination of three relatively rare elements – iridium, strontium, and cesium – in a 30, 50, 20 percent proportion. An analysis of the bomb residue should find this tracer without much difficulty.
The reason the ten people were killed is simple and obvious – they were ten of the strongest supporters of the left-wing causes in the Nation. And I’m sure we need not explain the destruction of the Godless, Communist organization brazenly calling themselves the LFFJ.
Our objective is also simple – the complete neutralization of the left-wing fanatics, politicians and their supporters who are driving our great Nation into socialism and to its ultimate destruction. We believe this can be accomplished without further bloodshed and we will tell you exactly how we plan to do that in our next letter which will come after we read your column.
Please inform the authorities that the ten weapons used in the murders are brand-new and no comparison bullets will be found in their databases, so they should not waste thei
r time on them. And if the authorities prevent you from printing our message, the killings will resume immediately. God Bless America. God Bless our Military Forces and God Bless our Founding Fathers. The Minutemen.
Red picked up the phone and dialed Brennan’s office. He told his secretary that he needed to speak to him immediately. “Tell him it’s urgent, Betty. No bullshit.”
* * *
When William Brennan, the aggressive sixty-six year old owner and publisher of the Sentinel hired Red Baker away from the Daily News, he had also opened his checkbook to entice editors, sportswriters and critics away from most of the other major New York dailies. Circulation had improved year after year where now it was just 100,000 below the Post. And Brennan would not be content until he caught, and surpassed, not only the Post but The Long Islander and the Daily News as well. And though catching the New York Times and Wall Street Journal seemed unattainable goals, Brennan’s ambition knew no bounds; he would tackle those two behemoths at the appropriate time.
Brennan was now certain he would taste circulation victory in the not too distant future assuming what Red Baker had just showed him was the real deal, because if it was, he had just been handed the exclusive keys to the story of the decade, maybe of the century. What had prompted Brennan’s elation were two typewritten letters received by Baker, which Red had just brought to his office. Recently, Brennan had been concerned that his star money-making columnist was on his final descent into alcoholism, but the Red Baker who stood straight before him, and who had just given him the letters and the alleged evidence with steady hands, without a trace of whiskey on his breath, looked ready to run with this all the way.
“Who do we go to with these letters, Red?” Brennan asked wiping sweat from his balding forehead. Who do you trust in the NYMPD?”