by Jack Bowie
“And we sure don’t want to do anything different do we, Macon?” Wicks was sitting in the back of Holly’s pickup checking out his new possession. The smirk on his face make Holly sick.
“Give it a rest, Tommy,” O’Grady said. “If you want out, we’ll do it ourselves.”
“Screw you, Sean,” Wicks yelled back. “What’s the matter? You scared?”
O’Grady jumped into the pickup and grabbed Wick’s jacket. “Look you little bastard. I’ve seen more . . .”
Wicks fell to the bed of the truck and raised his Uzi, pointing it at O’Grady’s chest. The Irishman froze.
“Stop it!” Holly screamed. “We don’t have time for this shit! Tommy, put the goddamn gun down. Sean, get back to the van.”
O’Grady scowled at Wicks and hopped onto the ground. Wicks went back to fondling his Uzi.
Scared? Yeah, they were all scared. Wicks was just too crazy to know it. They had talked about a mission like this for years. Something to show the government they were serious. But they had never gotten up the guts to pull it off; not until Gary came. Their new partner had provided the motivation and the resources. Now they had to do it or face the consequences.
They had been training for over two months now, following Gary’s plan step by step. It was time to make a statement. They had sat back too long, letting the Feds take away their freedoms. Charlie hadn’t put up with it. But he had been alone. Now they were together, with the Covenant. He hoped his team was up to the challenge. As long as he stayed close to Napes, they could pull it off.
Holly checked his watch one last time. “Let’s go.”
He headed to his pickup with Dalton, and O’Grady went to his van. Napes jumped in the back with Wicks. They headed down the trail and out to the highway.
* * *
Brown slumped over the monitor of his ancient PC, giving his aching hands a much-needed rest. The editorial was coming out his head slowly, sort of like molasses on a winter day. It was a solid story, why was he having so much trouble?
On Saturday he had tracked down his Georgia Representative for background on the article, but the man had been too busy cowing up to a room-full of tobacco lobbyists to give him an interview. He had, however, gotten what he really wanted: a quotable denial of any wrongdoing in the highway contract investigation. It would look wonderful next to copies of financial records that showed regular, substantial deposits into his private account from a certain local construction company. It was going to be a great lead, although he was sure it would anger some of his fellow townsfolk. They screamed about the crooks in Washington, but defended the ones that lived next door.
Most of the folks in Tyler were nice enough, even to this Yankee from Pennsylvania. He had graduated from UPenn in journalism and taken a job with the Baltimore Sun. Bouncing from assignment to assignment, covering charity bazaars to human interest, he never felt he was getting the experience he wanted. He knew he was good, others had told him so, but it would take years to climb through the arcane maze of the Sun. He wanted to call the shots: pick the stories, do the investigative work.
Then he had read a small want ad: local newspaper office for sale, no offer refused. The previous owner had died with nothing to leave his family except the legacy of his paper. Without considering its location, he had immediately called the widow and struck a deal. Cashing out what little was left of his own inheritance, George Brown had packed a trunk and moved to Tyler.
It was probably just as well that he had missed the date with Crystal. He inevitably would have gotten into a fight with her over something. They always did. She was great in bed, but a real drag otherwise. He longed for a real friendship, a companion. Taylor Luckett’s visit had been pleasant but a bittersweet reminder of the intellectual excitement of his younger days. So far Tyler had offered no such relationship. Maybe it was time to give up trying to be the next Horace Greeley. He needed to get out of this town and get a real job.
Brown glanced down at the screen and all he saw were fuzzy blotches. The sharp white characters of his story were gone. Frustrated, he set down his glasses and rubbed his eyes.
Probably shouldn’t have had that last beer. I’ll take a break and finish up later.
Brown clicked off the table light and laid his head down on the desk.
* * *
Holly felt the rush of adrenaline as they hit Georgia 318. The two vehicles followed the highway toward Tyler, turning off about a mile from town onto a dirt access road. Tyler had few real inhabitants to worry about. Most of the shop owners had homes in the surrounding farmland. There were a few laborers and displaced youngsters that lived in apartments above the businesses. The rents brought a little more money into the town, and provided facilities for the migrant laborers imported during harvest season. Holly expected they would all be sound asleep by now, but he didn’t want to take any chances by driving down the middle of Main Street like a conquering army.
The weather was cooperating. It had turned cool during the day, so most windows would be closed. A few wispy clouds shone against the filtered light of a half-moon. It was enough for them to navigate by, but wouldn’t provide enough for any identification.
O’Grady and Dalton had driven around to the north side of town; they would take care of the back of the building. Holly, with Wicks and Napes in the back, pulled up in the gravel lot behind the Post Office.
His two riders slung their sub-machine guns over their shoulders, grabbed the red plastic containers from the bed of the pick-up, and followed Holly around the building to an alley that ran between the Post Office and the bricked-over facade of the now-defunct Placer Savings and Loan. When they reached the front of the buildings, Holly stuck his head around the corner and looked out onto a deserted street. There was not a light on in any of the windows. He waved his arm and Wicks and Napes dashed across the street to the opposite row of buildings, disappearing into the shadows of the second story overhang.
Holly could visualize the next actions but only an occasional squeak of floorboards provided confirmation. Thirty seconds later it was again silent.
He checked his watch. It was 11:58. The tension was building in every muscle. Blood pounded in his ears. “Do it!” he whispered.
He saw a flash of light from across the street. 12:01. Two figures emerged from the shadows and raced back to the alley.
“That’s it, Macon,” Wicks panted. “Let’s get outta here.” The arms and neck of his shirt showed dark stains of sweat. He started back down the alley.
“In a minute,” Holly replied. “We gotta make sure it catches.”
The small flicker spread horizontally across the porch and began climbing upward. The evening’s breeze brought the pungent fumes of the burning siding across the street. The trio watched the flames rise up the walls, licking at the windows and searching for a way into the structure.
Holly stood silently, mesmerized by the sight. That should take care of any more of the bastard’s lies. The flames reminded him of Klan cross burnings from his youth. Gary had been right, this was their real initiation. His cell needed the reality of the event to secure their commitment. They had bought into the Covenant tonight whether they realized it or not. Now they were together ‘til the end.
12:04. They only had a few more minutes before the light and sound would raise someone’s attention.
“Now. Let’s go,” he whispered and turned down the alley.
“Ahhhhh.”
They had gotten about ten feet when the scream froze them in place. Thinking they had been spotted, Holly drew his pistol and spun to his rear. Nothing. The only sound was the increasingly loud crackle of the fire across the street.
He didn’t have time to investigate. Their safety margin was nearly gone.
“Ahhhhhhhh.” Another scream.
It was coming from across the street. Could someone have seen them? If so, he had to find out who. They couldn’t leave any witnesses.
Holly waved his men to the sides of the alley
and stalked back toward the street. He had just poked his head around the corner when a flame shot through the front door of the newspaper building.
But it couldn’t be a flame. It was moving!
* * *
George Brown ran screaming through the door, trying desperately to escape the conflagration inside. He couldn’t see. The smoke that had awakened him from his stupor had teared his eyes to the point of blindness, but he had managed to find the door. Flames still swept around him. But he should be outside! The air around him was so hot! What was happening?
* * *
“Shit!” Holly yelled. The figure was racing across the street, right toward the alley. It was only ten yards away.
Holly raised his pistol to drop the apparition when the world exploded next to him. A spray of bullets leapt from the alley, chipping the asphalt street and creating a cloud of projectiles even more deadly than the Uzi’s parabellum slugs.
He turned and saw Napes quivering in the alley, his spent weapon hanging loosely at his side.
“I got him, Macon. I got him good, didn’t I?”
“Shit, Cal,” Holly whispered. “Why the hell did you have to do that?” He grabbed the automatic from Napes. “You probably woke the whole goddamn town.”
“He was like some kinda ghost, Macon. He was comin’ after us.”
“Jesus Christ, Cal. We’ll talk about it later.”
“I thought there wasn’t supposed to be anybody around, Macon,” Wicks accused.
“There wasn’t supposed to be. How the hell was I supposed to know somebody would be in there?”
“You figure it was Brown?”
“Doesn’t matter much now does it? We’ve gotta get out of here.”
Wicks was the first to turn down the alley. Holly grabbed Napes by his vest and shoved him ahead, pushing him behind Wick’s lead. As they ran down the alley, long shadows stretched out before them, cast by the still burning mass in the street.
* * *
The Tennessee cell had had none of the complications encountered by their confederates in Georgia. The offices of the Tennessee Populist were in a refurbished barn on the outskirts of Chattanooga. Nestled in a small clearing among stately oaks and elms, it was hard to believe the structure was a bastion of left-wing rhetoric. The publisher and owner, Carleton Graves, was a senile old Tennessean who wanted nothing more than to use his paper as a soapbox from which to spout his bleeding-heart liberal views. A life-long atheist, he had ranked the demise of school prayer as the most important story of the twentieth century. In recent years his favorite targets had become Shepard’s friends in the Christian Right. Exposés of their extravagant lifestyles and extensive contributions were getting a little too much public attention. It was long past time to silence the old coot.
Shepard had picked three of his top lieutenants to execute the strike. They circled the building just past midnight, first dousing the old barn board with gasoline, then breaking in and sprinkling just enough thermite over the old printing press to assure it would never again spout its blasphemous accusations.
The team retreated to the edge of the woods and watched as Shepard lit a Molotov cocktail and arced it gracefully over the split-rail fence surrounding the structure. The side of the barn burst like a firecracker on impact; Shepard had to use his arm to shield his eyes from the inferno. Satisfied they were successful in the mission, he gave a quick thumbs up to the team then waved them into the woods.
Two hours later there was nothing left in the clearing but charred timbers and a pile of useless molten metal.
* * *
Gary stuffed the dirty fatigues in his duffel and made one final pass through the motel room. Everything had gone well. The targets had been efficiently dispatched.
They were minor missions, but they would build confidence. Soon the pattern would be clear even to the blind agencies and their ineffective leaders. But they would not be able to stop it. And the Commander would have his revenge.
Nothing had been left behind. As his last task, he typed another update into his phone.
ALPHA completed successfully.
BRAVO plans proceeding.
HALFTIME on schedule.
Chapter 8
Tyler, Georgia.
Tuesday, 9:30 a.m.
Derek Thomas flipped a cigarette stub through the open pickup window and slammed his hands on the steering wheel.
Eight days on that goddamn mountain! For what? They go out one night, torch a building, murder the owner, and he’s asleep in a stinking motel room.
Well, the damn bureaucrats finally released him from his constraints. When he had checked in last night, Atlanta had told him infiltration had been approved. Now it was going to be different. Today he would find out what these goddamn weasels are doing.
So far, things had been pretty easy. There had been little problem getting into the property. His cover had been carefully constructed, and security at the farm surprising lax, just a few superficial questions from a filthy militiaman. The last two days had been spent talking with the militiamen and taking part in the day’s activities. He had joined in some exercises, fired off a few magazines, and openly shared his hatred of blacks, Arabs, Feds, homosexuals, and any other inferior species he could think of.
There hadn’t been one mention of arson, however. Could he have missed something? Some slip that would have saved the publisher?
What he had been able to do was identify his suspects. He had learned that Gimpy was Sean O’Grady, a vociferous IRA supporter with a penchant for automatic weapons. Beau Brummel was Tommy Wicks, a smart-ass young businessman who had inherited his father’s string of very profitable farm equipment stores. Baldy was Frisco, a short, muscular loner with an incongruous New York accent, and Walrus was Macon Holly, the apparent leader of the cell. Thomas had so far been unable to get very close to Holly, he always seemed to be running from one meeting to the next, but he would come later. Thomas had already selected today’s target.
Baldy—he still thought of his new friends by their handles—moved through the cell wordlessly, as if he had no interest in their activities. The other cell members, for their part, left him alone and even went out of their way to avoid his presence. Baldy’s primary duty seemed to be as courier. He would appear in a shiny Toyota rental, always carrying a black nylon bag, disappear to somewhere on the farm—it had numerous barns, houses, and other outbuildings—and reappear a few minutes later. He did this twice a day, once in the morning when he arrived, and again about 4:00 in the afternoon just before he left for the day. Between these times he simply hung out. Thomas had never seen him actually have a conversation with anyone. The few times he had dared to speak to the man, he had received only a few perfunctory words—in that odd accent.
Thomas had finally been able to determine Baldy’s destination: a small storage shed behind the main farmhouse. The farmhouse was the activity center of the cell. The major gatherings were held there as were smaller meetings of the militia’s elite, usually run by Walrus/Holly. Behind the farmhouse was a freshly cultivated field, growing more weeds than vegetables, and a small building that looked like a tool shed. The oddity was that some militiamen would enter and not come out for hours. Baldy, on the other hand, usually only stayed a few minutes. Something was going on inside that shed and Thomas was going to find out what.
It was only mid-morning but the Georgia sun already burned high in the sky. The few militiamen tending to the chores of the property had returned to the farmhouse porch for shade and a cool drink.
It was time to break the back of this goddamn cell. Thomas wasn’t going to let them murder anybody else.
He hopped out of the pickup and grabbed a rusty rake and shovel from the back of the truck, implements confiscated on a previous scouting mission into the backwoods of the farm. If he was going to wander around like a laborer at least he would look the part. Hefting the tools onto his shoulder, he headed for the rear of the farmhouse.
* * *
&n
bsp; “We had no idea Brown was in the office, Gary. It was dark and quiet.” Holly slapped his hand on the table. “Shit!”
Holly was back in the old farmhouse, trying to make sense out of the prior evening. Gary had called him at the feed store and suggested they meet at the farm. Somehow Gary’s suggestions always felt like orders.
So Holly had driven out and found an unfamiliar rental car parked by the front porch. He had no idea how long his benefactor had been there. After checking downstairs, he had finally found Gary in one of the upstairs bedrooms. Walking into the room, the smell of Hoppe’s No. 9 cut at his nostrils. Gary was sitting at a small dressing table, calmly cleaning his SIG P226 automatic. The pieces were spread neatly across the tabletop.
“There’s nothing to worry about, Macon.” Gary turned his face to Holly, while his hands continued to reassemble the weapon. “It was an unfortunate coincidence, but he was the enemy wasn’t he? We’re in a war now, you and I. We have to stick together. And there will be casualties. We both understand that. Right?”
Holly nodded, then looked directly at his benefactor. In most ways, Gary looked very ordinary. He was a little shorter than Holly, maybe five foot ten, and slim with short brown hair and an unremarkable face. Except for his eyes. They were stark white disks dotted only with tiny ebony pupils. He had never seen anyone with no color in his eyes. ‘Albino eyes’ he had heard someone call them. Eyes from hell, if anyone asked him.
“Sure, Gary. I was in Afghanistan, I understand.” But that was in somebody else’s country. They all knew Brown was a jerk. He didn’t understand what they were fighting for. He had been blinded by all the propaganda. Hell, he had been part of it. But had he deserved to die?
“Have you heard about the other missions?” Gary asked.
“I haven’t heard nothin’. All the news has been on Brown and the Guardian.”
“That’s not a surprise. They were all successful, Macon. Everything we wanted. The Feds’ll try to deny us as long as they can. They don’t want anyone to understand how far we’ve come. But we’ll show ‘em, won’t we, Macon? Soon they’ll see how strong we are. Then the rest of the country will join us.”