Hunter

by Andrew Macdonald

  He built a scenario in his mind: Keller’s organization publishing materials like the 1920 newspaper article on the Jews by Churchill he had found so illuminating, using its channels of distribution to get its materials to the public and its organizational apparatus to recruit new writers and printers and activists from among those persons awakened by its publishing efforts — while he dealt with the problems raised by the Horowitz Act, relaying warnings of possible police actions from Ryan, liquidating informers, and performing other extraordinary chores necessary to the viability of an illegal, underground educational organization.

  But more was needed — much more. No power as solidly entrenched as that which ruled America could be uprooted by any mob of outsiders howling at the gate. To have any hope of making real changes of sufficient magnitude to reverse the tide of decay, one had to have insiders as well, people with their hands on at least some of the levers of power.

  He got up and began pacing the floor, his hands clasped behind him. What were the levers of power which might be accessible? There was the government itself, of course. Any organization which could get one or more of its members into the Congress would have both a national forum and a means for protecting itself, even if it were able to exert no significant influence on the legislative process. Then there was the executive branch, where Ryan’s new agency might hold possibilities — at least as a listening post, perhaps even as a base for launching a coup d’etat some day, if Ryan’s predictions that it eventually would become a real Praetorian Guard proved accurate. That certainly was a factor to consider in deciding the terms on which he would collaborate with Ryan in the future.

  There were other levers too: the big labor unions, the established churches, some of the biggest banks and other capital-based institutions. But there was nothing, in the government or elsewhere, to rival the power of the mass media. He did not see how any group could hope to gain and hold a significant share of power if it were vigorously and solidly opposed by the mass media. On the other hand, if an organization or an individual had the backing of even a fraction of the media, it would have an enormous advantage in the quest for power. There had to be a way to break into the media, but Oscar hadn’t the faintest idea what it might be. Keller had told him that the National League was developing its own media, which eventually would rival the ones controlled by the Jews, but that seemed to Oscar an unrealistically optimistic forecast. How long would such a development take? Thirty years, perhaps? Would there he anything left to salvage then?

  Oscar’s thoughts were interrupted by the telephone. He wondered who would be calling so early. Even as he picked up the handset, however, a flash of intuition told him who the caller was. The sound of the voice confirmed his intuition: “Good morning. We need to talk again. I called early so I’d be sure of catching you and so you’d be able to plan on spending about an hour with me, between ten and 11 tonight. The metro station is no longer a satisfactory spot, in view of my new prominence; some newsman might spot us. Meet me in the south parking lot at the Pentagon. I’ll be parked in a black Ford sedan in the extreme southwest corner of the lot.”

  XX

  Oscar pulled into the south parking lot an hour before the appointed time and chose a parking slot a good hundred yards from the southwest corner, where he could wait inconspicuously in a row of other cars yet still have a clear view of both the designated corner and the most probable avenue of approach to it. Being farthest from the Pentagon, the corner and the area around it were vacant at this time of night, except for the trash which had piled up even more densely there than on the rest of the vast expanse of cracked and litter-strewn asphalt. A light drizzle had begun, and he had to keep his side window down in order to prevent the inside of the windshield from fogging.

  He spotted Ryan’s car driving down the outside lane of the lot at ten minutes before ten. He picked up the binoculars which had been beside him on the seat and focused on the moving vehicle as it passed between him and the pole-mounted floodlight at the edge of the asphalt. The car had only one occupant. Ryan drove past the corner and slowly made a full circuit of the lot. Evidently he failed to spot Oscar’s car, because he returned to the southwest corner, turned off his lights and waited. He was being cautious too, it seemed.

  Oscar had no way of knowing what was on Ryan’s mind tonight, but the uncharacteristically friendly tone of the man’s telephone call this morning had put him on his guard. He waited another five minutes, checked his pistol to make sure that it was free in its holster, then silently left his car and walked toward Ryan’s, remaining concealed by other parked cars as long as possible. Ryan saw him coming when he was 50 feet away and leaned over to open the passenger door. Before Oscar entered the car he took a quick look into the space behind the front seat to make sure no one was hiding there.

  Ryan’s trained eye caught the movement. “What do you think, Yeager — that I invited you here to take you for a one-way ride?” He chuckled. “Actually, I’m quite pleased with you. If it weren’t for your very professional work, the President’s appointee to head the Committee for Public Security would undoubtedly be someone of the Hebrew persuasion, instead of yours truly.”

  “Was that just an unconscious slip on your part, Ryan, when you used the word ‘committee’ just now instead of ‘agency’?”

  “Jesus! Did I say that? I’m really going to have to watch myself. You know, I had nothing to do with the choice of the name, and I was amazed when they picked something which was so suggestive of the Soviets’ Committee for State Security, better known by its Russian initials, KGB. It’s been on my mind all day.”

  Ryan’s fleeting frown disappeared, and his barely contained exhilaration returned. “The similarity in names is appropriate, believe me. I’ve been in conferences with the big shots in the Congress, with the Director of the Bureau, and with the President’s staff all week. This new agency is going to be a doozy, and the big boys have been planning it for a long time. Did you know that I’m going to have what amounts to Cabinet rank? That won’t be announced for another couple of months, but I’ll still be present at all Cabinet meetings from now on, and I’ll be reporting directly to the President himself. In other words, despite what the papers said today, my agency is going to be pulled out from under the jurisdiction of the Department of Justice altogether.”

  “So you really are going to be the commander of the Praetorian Guard?”

  “It looks like that’s what it amounts to, although no one will quite come out and say that. There’s been pressure from several directions to move this way. When the Palestinians started picking off prominent Hebes and blowing up Zionist offices in the United States last year, the Jews wanted the Bureau to drop everything else and catch Palestinians. We grabbed a couple of them, but it wasn’t enough for the Jews, and they were complaining at the highest levels that the Bureau was too cumbersome and inefficient to deal effectively with Arab terrorism in this country. They wanted to bring the Mossad in and give them free rein here. Everybody balked at that, but just by coincidence some of the President’s people already had been working with a group in the Congress — the leading figure there being Senator Herman — to form a new agency to deal with civil disorder when the economy bottoms out next time.

  “They’ve been holding unemployment under eight per cent with smoke and mirrors for the past two years. All the paper shuffling in the world won’t let them get away with that much longer. They’re figuring on an extended period of rising unemployment, starting this summer. It may last five years or longer — during which the rate may hit 15 per cent, perhaps even higher. That’s the consequence of failing to control our borders and letting the Japs take away half our basic industry.

  “They’ve got all sorts of long-range schemes worked out for stabilizing things at a lower average standard of living for Americans, but they’re afraid of civil disorder before all of the dust settles.”

  “You mean food riots, like in Argentina and Brazil?”

  �
�Worse than that, actually. They can control food riots by sending in the National Guard and using tear gas or shooting a few rioters. What they’re really afraid of is revolution: not just spontaneous riots, but planned disturbances by people who want to overturn the government. They want a single government agency which can serve both as a secret police force to keep tabs on subversive activity and as a counter-revolutionary strike force. They didn’t want to give that job to the Bureau because, for one thing, they haven’t been very happy with the Bureau’s performance lately. They aren’t worried if we let a few bank robbers or forgers slip through our fingers, but they’re scared to death of political violence — which will be aimed at them. Your activity and the cry for government action it raised among the pro-minority forces speeded the whole planning process up and persuaded them that this was the time to make the announcement of a new agency, when they could count on media support for the move.

  “Anyway, they figured that it was easier to start a new agency than to reorganize the Bureau. Besides, I’m going to have extraordinary freedom of action, and they don’t want to give that much freedom to the Bureau, with its jurisdiction over ordinary criminal matters. What worries them about that, I believe, is that the Bureau would start tapping their phones, bugging their offices, and opening their mail, and then half of the government would end up in prison for being on the take.” Ryan chuckled again. “So my agency will have the freedom to tap phones without court orders and to use thumbscrews on suspects, but our mission won’t be to catch the white-collar crooks in the Congress or the Federal bureaucracy; it’ll just be to keep the government from being overthrown.”

  “Are you happy with your mission?” Oscar asked.

  “Yes, Yeager, I am. What this country needs is a little order and discipline, and I’ll be pleased to have a hand in providing those things. The role of my agency will become quite large during the recession of the next few years, and it’ll become even larger after that. The country’s going to change permanently. Hell, it’s already changed permanently. The government won’t be able to exist without the Agency for Public Security to prop it up. Revolutionary action is going to be a permanent feature of American life from now on: from the Arabs, from the left, from the right, from the Blacks, from the Spics, from the Whites. The country has lost all its cohesion. It’s only everybody’s fat paycheck that’s holding things together now. When that goes the shit will hit the fan, and things will never be the same again. The President and Senator Herman don’t realize that — at least, not fully — but I do.

  “There is, unfortunately, a Jew in the ointment, one might say, and that’s the main thing I want to discuss with you. The Hebes moved heaven and earth to try to keep me from getting the appointment to the new agency. Senator Herman called me aside after a meeting this afternoon, and he said to me, ‘What’s your ethnic background, son?” Ryan mimicked the hoarse, quavery voice of the elderly legislator.

  “I told him Irish Catholic, and he said, ‘Well, I thought so. But you know, I’ve had every Jew in the Senate — a good dozen of them — plus about sixteen delegations of rabbis and Jewish businessmen come to me and tell me that you aren’t the right man for this job. They must have thought your background was German Nazi. When I asked them what they had against you no one had anything definite to say, but they all had a candidate of their own.’ Then the old coot leaned over and whispered in my ear, ‘I just want you to know,’ he said, ‘that if the Jews are that strongly against you, then I’m for you, and I intend to see that your nomination is approved. And the President feels the same way.’

  “He’ll have his committee vote on it tomorrow and then send it to the whole Senate immediately, before the Jews can build up any more steam in their effort to block me. The man they want, now that they can’t have Kaplan, is Sherman Davidson, the assistant attorney general who heads the Office of Special Investigations, the Star Chamber outfit that was set up to keep the ‘Holocaust’ baloney alive by hunting down alleged ‘war criminals’ left over from the Second World War. Jesus, that was fifty years ago! Can you believe those Hebes?”

  “So, are you thinking about arranging a fatal heart attack for Davidson?”

  “No, I don’t think that’ll be necessary. I believe everything will go all right tomorrow, and then we won’t have to worry about him. But we will have a continuing problem with the Jews. I think they’re the only ones in our government besides me who understand the significance of the new agency and realize how much power it’ll wield in the future.

  “I’m telling you all these things in your role as my partner, Yeager, so you’ll be able to understand the big picture. I don’t know when I’ll need you for another special operation, but I’m sure it’ll be pretty soon. One thing about the kikes is that they never give up. What I suspect our next major operation will be is a move against the Mossad. Their agents are scattered through our government. The Bureau has most of them spotted, but we were never allowed to move against them. They’re protected at the highest levels. I won’t be allowed to take them out either — at least, not directly, as the situation stands now. Even Senator Herman would turn against me if I started liquidating Mossad agents, because the Yids would mobilize their Fundamentalist Christian stooges, who make up half of his constituency, to start wailing about ‘poor, defenseless, little Israel,’ and the controlled media would be screaming for my hide. But the Mossad is a terrorist organization, and I don’t intend to let it operate on my turf.

  “Besides, since the Jews didn’t get their way with Kaplan or Davidson, they’ll probably try to use the Mossad to make trouble for me and discredit me. In any event, I’ll eventually have to get rid of the Mossad’s agents in this country — all of them. I’m inclined to do it sooner instead of later, before they have time to make their first move against me. And you’re going to have to help me. I think you’ll find them an interesting challenge.”

  Ryan turned and reached for a bulky package on the rear seat. “I’ve assembled an information packet for you. Some of the stuff in here — general background descriptions of a number of Israel’s clandestine operations — has been declassified, but most of it is top secret. It’s got everything from the Bureau’s files on the Mossad, including names, addresses, photographs, and other information on all the agents in this country we know about. It’ll be my ass if you’re caught with this stuff, so keep it in a safe place. But study it, especially the personnel information. Memorize the names and addresses and faces.

  “The only reason I’m giving you this material now, is that we’re really going to have to be much more careful in the future. We can’t afford any more meetings. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Mossad tries to put a permanent tail on me, but I don’t think they’ve had time to get set up for that yet. I know they’ll be trying to intercept all my telephone calls, and so that’s the first thing I’ve taken care of. I’ve set up an absolutely secure phone in my home. The telephone company hasn’t even the faintest idea it exists. The line runs from my study through the sewer tunnel to… well, the details aren’t important.

  Here’s the number.” He handed Oscar a small slip of paper. “Don’t call me unless it’s really important, and try to keep your calls between 5:30 and 6:00 AM or 11:00 and 11:30 PM. When I have other documentary material or any special gadgets for you I’ll leave them at a secure drop and give you a call to pick them up.

  “And, Yeager — no more of your Lone Ranger stuff, understand? There are to be absolutely no independent operations of your own which I haven’t authorized: no snuffing mixed couples, no shooting pesky reporters, no assassinating Congressional leaders, no blowing up churches. Got it?”

  Oscar was irritated by Ryan’s tone, and he felt a strong urge to tell the other man to mind his own business. A split second of reflection steered him away from such an inappropriate choice of words, however, and instead he said: “I’d been thinking about changing my activity anyway, to something more along the educational line.”

  �
�What do you mean by that?” Ryan asked, the suspicion heavy in his voice.

  “I’ve done a lot of studying since you started me thinking about the Jews. I haven’t accepted all of your claims, but I have found some really startling evidence of several things, such as the Jewish role in launching and spreading communism in the first half of this century, and the very heavy Jewish influence in the news and entertainment media. Some items I’ve gotten from the Library of Congress could easily be made up into pamphlets or even leaflets for mass distribution. I believe they’ll really open some eyes and will help to counter the Jewish media control.”

  There was silence for a few seconds, while Ryan stared incredulously at Oscar. Then the older man burst into laughter. When he regained control of himself he shook his head and said, still chuckling, “Yeager, for a fellow who’s so good at figuring out how to snuff bad guys, you sure are a flop at figuring out how to educate people.”

  Oscar blushed deeply, confused and angered by Ryan’s failure to grasp his intentions. “Well, I didn’t mean that the materials I had in mind would completely educate the public about the origins of communism or the reasons for the bias of the media. I still have a lot left to learn myself about those things. But certainly they’ll start people thinking. One of the things I found is a 1920 article in a major British newspaper by Winston Churchill….”

  He was interrupted by another outburst from Ryan: “Start the people thinking! Are you serious, man?

  Do you really believe that those people out there are capable of thought? Do you think that they care who’s responsible for the murders of all those poor bastards in Russia? Do you honestly believe that they would change anything they’re doing, if you could somehow pound into their heads the truth about what the Jews have been doing to them in this country?”