The Fiery Cross

by Don Pendleton

  "Mike isn't what you think. He's working for the government."

  "A spy?"

  "You have to understand," she pleaded with him, desperate to make him see before it was too late. "The Knights have lost control, the Vanguard too, for all I know. You must see that."

  He frowned. "What would you have me do, child?"

  "Come away with us. Mike says he can protect you. You could testify, receive immunity for anything that may have happened... anything you may have seen... or done."

  "I took an oath," he said.

  "It doesn't matter now. The Klan opposed everything you stand for, everything you believe in. You don't owe them anything."

  "It doesn't matter what they've done or how I feel about the movement, Lynn. I swore an oath before Almighty God."

  "You think He cares about the Klan? These men have murdered in His name, burned churches to the ground. You can't be any part of that."

  "I am. By virtue of my oath, I share whatever guilt may fall upon their shoulders."

  "And you have a chance 10 purge that guilt. Come with us."

  "No man has the power to absolve me of my sins."

  "They mean to kill me, Uncle Jacob. If you stay here, I'm afraid they'll kill you, too."

  "Don't worry, Lynn. I'm not a helpless child."

  She felt a sudden urge to scream, to shake him violently and force him to believe. "They're maniacs," she snapped. "They have no more respect for you than for the other men they've killed."'

  "Before I walk away, I need to have a word with Ritter. To explain myself."

  "For God's sake, why?"

  "Don't take his name in vain. I'll not allow that in my house."

  "I'm sorry, Uncle Jake." Their conversation had assumed a strange, surrealistic quality. Lynn knew that she was losing the contest, and still she could not turn away. "Why Ritter? Why?"

  "I owe him that, at least. I owe it to myself."

  "He'll kill you... or he'll have you killed."

  "I don't believe so."

  "Please!"

  "I think you ought to go now. Out the back, the way you came. Is Bowers waiting for you?"

  "Yes." She had already told him that. "He's waiting."

  "Good. I trust your judgment, Lynn. If you believe that he's a good man, I believe it, too."

  "Don't make me leave you, Uncle Jake."

  "I still have duties here. So much to do."

  "Stay clear of Ritter."

  "Go, now — quick, before they think to check inside."

  "Be careful?"

  "Yes."

  "You promise?"

  "Promise."

  "There are still some things I need, upstairs."

  "All right."

  She left the lights off in her bedroom, fumbling in the closet for her clothes, no longer caring if colors matched or not. She felt a sudden urgency, a need to be away and running, to leave the old, familiar house behind. Before it killed her and became her tomb.

  Downstairs, she found her uncle seated in his easy chair once more. He seemed alert now but troubled, leaning forward, one hand resting on the telephone.

  "I'm going now. I'll see you... won't I?"

  "Yes." His smile seemed genuine. "Take care."

  She closed the screen door carefully behind her to prevent its slamming. Nearly one o'clock. The night was warm, almost muggy. Suddenly she wished it would rain, a downpour that would rinse the city clean.

  There was a gap between the hedgerows, and an almost hidden gate that opened on the alley behind her uncle's house. Somehow, Mason Ritter's hit team had forgotten it or else hadn't known about it in the first place. Mike was waiting for her in the car, a submachine gun in his lap.

  "He wouldn't come," she told him, weeping softly even though she tried not to.

  "His decision."

  "Yes." As if that settled everything, absolved her of her own responsibilities. "It was."

  She owed her uncle more than that — a great deal more, in fact — and if she could not save him from himself, perhaps she could avenge him. In advance.

  "You got enough to keep you for a while?" Mike Bowers asked.

  "Should be. Where are you taking me?"

  "The Greyhound station fair enough?"

  She thought about it, finally nodded. "Yes," she told him honestly. "That should be fine."

  * * *

  The pistol was an Army-issue .45. Jacob Halsey had not fired it in a decade. In Korea, long before he found his calling, he had carried it in battle but had never been called upon to use it in his own defense. His bloody work at Chosin Reservoir had been completed with the M-1 carbine he was issued as an NCO. The Colt had never taken human life.

  Tonight would be a first.

  He had arrived at his decision after listening to Lynn, but he had found and cleaned the gun beforehand. Just in case. It had already occurred to Halsey that he might be forced to kill in self-defense before the Knights would let him go, and while the thought did not appeal to him, it did not terrify him, either. Christian soldiers were prepared to carry out their duty as it was revealed by God, and Halsey had decided that his duty lay outside the Klan.

  His oath would be no problem, he had decided. He did not intend to testify against the Knights or use his privileged information to the detriment of any Klansman. If he spoke against the group in times to come, it would be as a minister, advising members of his flock to purge their hearts and minds of hatred, to seek their help in Jesus rather than in men who hid their faces to do "God's work." Convincing Mason Ritter might be difficult — the wizard would naturally be suspicious — but an Army-issue .45 could be a powerful persuader in times of trial.

  Such had been his reasoning before this fateful night. But the conversation with his niece had altered everything. If Ritter and the wrecking crew meant harm to Lynn, it was his duty to protect her, at whatever cost. His own defection from the Klan no longer mattered. Halsey's duty to his flesh and blood transcended any oath he might have taken with a fellowship of men. Lynn's safety was a sacred trust, and any man who tried to harm her would be forced to deal with Jacob Halsey first.

  He did not care to think about Mike Bowers at the moment. Halsey had no time for government informers, pimps and liars on the public payroll. But if Bowers could provide protection for his niece, then Halsey wished him well.

  His confrontation with Mason Ritter would be rather different now from his earlier plan. It would be no use trying to persuade the wizard to abandon his attacks on Lynn and Bowers. Ritter was a stubborn man, unwilling to admit mistakes, and there were felonies involved now, witnesses at large. The only way to stop the Klan was to remove its leader, forcibly and finally, from his position of control.

  The minister could have spoken to authorities, pressed charges on behalf of Lynn, but Ritter would make bail, and in the meantime all his gunmen would be on the street, still hunting. Swift and sure removal of the wizard was Halsey's only hope, and even then the word would take some time to filter through the ranks.

  He tried to picture Ritter s face, the moment of surprise before he realized that Halsey meant to kill him, that the gun was real and not some out-of-character joke. Would he try to fight? Or would he weep and plead for life, a coward to the end?

  It came to Halsey now that he had surrounded himself with cowards, men who masked their faces and concealed their actions under cover of night. He had become one of them, tainted with their sins against almighty God, and he could only pray for ultimate forgiveness, sincerely repenting of the blindness that had cloaked his eyes.

  It was impossible to ask forgiveness for a future sin, so Mason Ritter's death would have to wait. There would be time enough, he thought, when all was done... unless they killed him first. The prospect of impending death was not as frightening as Halsey had expected it to be. His own life seemed immensely less significant then Lynn's, and if his soul was hanging in the balance... well, he had no one but himself to blame.

  He would surrender to the sherif
f later, after he was finished. If he had the chance. If not, he would be content to know that he had done his best, had fulfilled his duty to the limits of his ability.

  But there was still his fear to deal with. Fear of failure more than of death, mortal terror that his chosen course of action was too little and too late. He had nearly followed Lynn, a moment after she closed the kitchen door; it would have been so easy to pursue her, take Mike Bowers up on his suggestion in the guise of guarding Lynn. The tattered vestiges of Halsey's pride prevented him from running after her, and now he was alone with doubts and fears that stubbornly refused to die.

  No matter. In Korea he had learned to forge ahead in spite of fear, refusing to be paralyzed by contemplation of his own destruction. It had been a valuable lesson, and in later life he had confronted lesser tribulations with a fortitude that frequently amazed the members of his flock. So now, with death not merely possible but likely, he refused to flinch from duty as he understood it.

  It was late, but Ritter had been at the office when he had called Halsey earlier, and there was still a decent chance of catching him there. If he had gunmen on the streets, the wizard would be staying near his telephone, prepared to issue orders and receive reports from members of the wrecking crew.

  No time to waste, then, Jacob Halsey decided. He would leave the house as he had always left it, through the front door, and walk to his car parked in the driveway. If the Klansmen shadowing his home had suspected Lynn was inside, they would have crashed the door long since to drag her out. They might have orders to prevent his leaving, but the minister knew he would have to wait and see. If they were primed to open fire on sight, he had no chance at all. And he was finished before he started. If the Knights attempted to detain him without killing him immediately... well, there just might be a rude surprise in store for anyone who tried to block his path.

  He drew back the pistol's slide, chambering a round, and set the safety. In military parlance, the gun was "cocked and locked," ready to be fired as soon as Halsey flicked off the safety and squeezed the trigger. Slipping it inside his waistband, where it was hidden by the jacket of his suit, he pocketed two extra magazines containing seven rounds apiece.

  If Mason Ritter wanted war, the Reverend Halsey was ready to oblige. One man against the Klan was sucker odds, but he could only try — for Lynn and for himself.

  * * *

  A Greyhound depot sheltered half a dozen late-night travelers: three women, two with children, and a solitary man who dozed behind the sports page. None of them looked like Klan assassins, and the Executioner allowed himself briefly to relax.

  "I'm sorry, Lynn, but..."

  "You can't stay. I know. I'll be just fine."

  She had the Colt Mustang .380 in her handbag, and she had been briefed on how to use it in a pinch. He hoped it would not be necessary. Klansmen searching for them would be counting on a devious escape; he did not believe any of them would suspect so obvious a method as the bus line. Lynn should be long gone before the hunters got around to thinking simple.

  In the meantime, Bolan had a few distractions planned that ought to keep them hopping, running for their lives.

  "Take care."

  "You, too."

  He kissed her lightly, turned and walked away, his mind already on the here and now before he reached the parking lot. A superficial scan revealed no onlookers as he slid behind the steering wheel.

  The answer to the riddle, when it came, had been simplicity itself, but he had needed Lynn to point it out unwittingly. He had been blinded by appearances — the altered face and hair, the different style of dress — and he had missed the obvious, the things that never change.

  Like Freeman's hands, so small that he had trouble with a handshake. So unnaturally small that he would favor the Detonics .45 above all other weapons, something he could comfortably manage.

  Hands like Gerry Axelrod's.

  Lynn's comment about the Vanguard leader's sex life had awakened something in Bolan's memory, allowing bits of unassimilated data to collide and synthesize Freeman rumored to be a homosexual. Lynn's reference to falling into Ritter's hands. Tiny hands. Freeman's hands. Freeman's lack of any verifiable past beyond the point in time when Axelrod had disappeared.

  Axelrod.

  He was the one who had gotten away, in spite of Bolan, Able Team and Phoenix Force. The setup in Zermatt had been aimed at bigger fish, with Axelrod relegated to the status of a side dish. He had escaped in the confusion, with Bolan unaware until his enemy was well away. In the meantime, analysts had speculated on his probable elimination by the sponsors he had served with something less than absolute efficiency.

  But Gerry Axelrod was still alive. Still planting seeds of hatred, reaping profits from the sale of muscle, weapons, mercenary expertise. The Vanguard had succeeded Axelrod's Aryan Brotherhood after a decent interval, just long enough for "Freeman" to have undergone the plastic surgery required to make him new again.

  Except for those accusing hands.

  The fingerprints might well be different, Bolan knew, but he was not concerned with evidence that would convince a judge and jury. He was convinced, and he would execute the standing sentence on Axelrod at his earliest opportunity. But there were questions to be answered first.

  Like motive.

  Axelrod was mercenary to the core, and money was his motivator, but it was the motives of his sponsors that now preyed on Bolan's mind. In his first incarnation, Axelrod had played both ends against the middle, bilking lame "survivalists" and "superpatriots" for hard-earned dollars on the home front while he cut sweet deals with terrorists and agents of the KGB abroad. There was no reason to believe that, given half a chance, the new improved reichsführer of America would pass on such a deal today.

  Were Freeman's sponsors in the Southern Bankers' Conference merely patriots gone sour, closet Nazis looking for a way to put their money where their mouths were? Was there more at stake in Dixie now than merely black and white?

  Was there, perhaps, a touch of Red behind the scenes?

  Before he executed Axelrod, Bolan would have some questions for his enemy, questions he would be reluctant to answer. But the Executioner could be persuasive when he tried.

  And in the meantime, close to seven hundred Klansmen were scouring the countryside for Bolan, each determined to retrieve his head and win the wizard's gratitude. If Freeman had committed Vanguard troops — which was probable — that put the tally at around two thousand. Add police in Little Rock and Parrish, sheriff's deputies in two adjoining counties, members of the state police... and he was up against an army.

  So what else was new?

  18

  Wilson Brown awoke in darkness, startled by a sound he could not identify. At first he thought it might have been an echo from his nightmare, distant gunfire snuffing out a scream, and yet...

  Predictably, his dream had been of Theo. All his dreams these days revolved around the figure of his son, although he never actually saw the boy. Sometimes a shadow figure, glimpsed peripherally; more often — like tonight — a pleading voice that emanated from the shadows of a barren dreamscape, calling out to him for help, for mercy. He was never quite in time, of course. Each night he seemed to come a little closer, but the gunfire would inevitably shatter his illusion moments, seconds prior to contact. Sometimes the report would startle him awake, cheeks slick with tears that he could never shed in daylight. Other times, the blast would jar his dreams off track, propel him back to Vietnam, the reeking jungles where another portion of himself had been lost.

  And what about tonight?

  His cheeks were dry, which might mean anything or nothing. Kicking back the tangled bedding, Brown sat up in darkness, finding his prosthetic limb by touch and buckling it on with an ease that came from years of practice. Standing in his shorts and V-necked undershirt, he held his breath and listened to the night.

  Had he heard breaking glass? A doorframe shattering on impact? Brown was certain he would have recog
nized a scream.

  Downstairs, muffled voices now, interrupted by the sleepy, angry ranting of his landlady. "What are you-all doing here? Get out my house, I say! Get out before I call..."

  The blow was audible in spite of distance and the door that stood between them. Weeping, she responded haltingly to her interrogators.

  "Where's your roomie, bitch?"

  "Where is he? Quick!"

  "U-u-upstairs."

  A second blow made tears superfluous, and Brown was dragging on his robe as boot heels hit the stairs. Unarmed, he cursed the grief and lack of foresight that had caused him to forget his training. Theo might have been nonviolent, but it was a trait that father had not handed down to son. Now, too late, the ex-lieutenant knew he should have come prepared.

  He seized a handy chair, applied himself and wrenched a leg free, weighing it for balance in his palm. It would be of little use against a firearm, but if he could take the bastards by surprise...

  He heard them, huddled just outside the door, perhaps believing that their prey had slept through the commotion. A whispered consultation as they tried to buck up their courage, and then one of them tried the knob.

  Come on, you sorry bastards. Come to Papa.

  Cautiously the door eased open and a head intruded, features covered by a stocking mask. Brown stabbed the chair leg laterally through the mask and deep into the socket of an eye, rewarded by a wild, unearthly shriek of pain. The prowler brandished a revolver, pumped a wild shot toward the bed and lost the weapon as the bludgeon cracked across his wrist.

  "Don't kill him, damn it!"

  Grinning at the knowledge that they needed him alive, Brown hit his sagging adversary with a savage backhand, flattening his nose and darkening the tattered mask with blood. Behind him others caught the body, wrestled it aside and crowded through the open door. He counted five before they hit him, though there might have been another in the hallway, but it scarcely mattered in the circumstances.

  Lashing out with his prosthetic, Brown cracked a kneecap, toppling another enemy. He made a point of stepping on the fallen gunner's hand, delighted with the feel of fingers snapping underfoot like pencils, as the others rushed him. Four-on-one was sucker odds, he knew, but he could maim a couple of the bastards as they took him down, and later, after he was dead, a few of them would bear his tokens of remembrance.