A long moment of silence ensued, apparently out of group respect for the dear departed. For Landers himself it had always been a particular annoyance to try to summon a show of sympathy when he felt none whatsoever. He took the opportunity to glance over the stapled paperwork that accompanied the canvas bag and that passed a bit of the time. After what seemed an appropriate interval he let out a deep, vocal breath and checked his watch. There was, after all, a schedule to keep.
This obvious prompt did not escape the notice of George Pierce. “Have you got somewhere you need to be?” he hissed.
“As a matter of fact, yes.”
“Then why don’t you get on outta here? Go report back to your masters. We’ve got our pay, we’ve got our list of things to do”—he waved a scribbled page—“and we know how to get ’er done. Don’t we, boys?”
The men were quiet; if there was going to be a confrontation no one seemed quite willing to commit themselves to one end of the table or the other.
“Before I leave I need to know we have an understanding,” Landers said.
“Oh, you bet we do, we’ve got an understanding.”
“If you have something to say you shouldn’t dance around it, George; it’s unbecoming. All night long it’s seemed to me you’ve been keeping your thoughts from us. Is it the words you can’t find, or the courage?”
“All right, then,” Pierce said, and he stood to his full, inadequate height. “If you want to hear it I’ll say what nobody else here will.”
“I’m listening.”
“You’re a liar.”
“And what have I lied about?”
“You’ve spent all this time talking about what we’re supposed to do for you. I haven’t heard one word about what you’re gonna do for us. Not a word—and far as I can tell, you expect us to gear up and start working with our enemies now. Hell, you’ve got us rubbing elbows with the union bosses, and the hippies, and the lefties, and the towel-heads, and the socialists, and the commies—”
“That’s exactly right.”
“Am I the only one here that’s got a problem with that?” Pierce looked briefly around the table but got no takers. “And how do we know, once we’ve put our shoulder to the wheel and made all this happen, that you’re not just gonna pull all those other bastards together and turn against us?”
“I’ll tell you all something, George, and I’m not lying now. You wonder if we’ll turn against you in the end? You don’t have to wonder; I guarantee we will. But between now and then you’ll have plenty of time to get what you want—everything that’s coming to you, all the allies you can muster, maybe even enough power to win a small kingdom for yourself when it’s all over. We’re playing the long game now, George. How can I get you to understand that?”
“You sure talk big, I’ll give you that. But this ain’t a game to me.”
“Look at it this way,” Landers said. “The Ku Klux Klan—they’re yesterday’s news but they used to talk big, too, back when they were a much larger mob than yours—the Klan’s killed how many blacks in the last hundred years?”
“I don’t know.”
“I do. It’s only a few thousand actual lynchings, and with the shootings and the church burnings and the beatings and other random acts, let’s be conservative and round it up to four thousand total. In one hundred years. That’s forty per year on average.”
“So?”
“So more than that number have been shot in one weekend in present-day Chicago. There were one hundred and twenty blacks murdered in that one city in just the first quarter of last year. Eight thousand, nine thousand murders happen annually in their communities, over twice as many as the KKK has managed to commit in its entire history.”
“That’s just the damned jungle bunnies killing one another. What, now you’re gonna stand there and take credit for the Vice Lords and the P-Stones and the Gangster Disciples?”
“I am.” The question had been mocking but Landers’s answer was delivered with such authority that they all seemed to see it must be true. “Since the start of the Great Society we’ve systematically destroyed their spirit and dismantled their families, all with their full cooperation. You’re right, they’re killing each other; it’s easier for us that way. We saw Martin Luther King rising up to stop it, and we met him head-on, and we won. Today the sanctimonious do-gooders you hate so much have rewritten King’s words into nothing more than a shameless plea for handouts and reparations. We’ve made his people wards of the state and convinced the taxpayers it’s the only compassionate thing to do for such a downtrodden and helpless inferior race.
“The loudest of their leaders—and we’ve handpicked them all—they’ll march arm in arm in the streets to preserve the very chains we’ve used to enslave them. For every one that escapes the trap there are ten more for whom crime is the only career that seems wide open. In the inner cities we’ve herded them into a savage culture that glorifies the worst of their men, objectifies their women, and orphans their children. We’ve imprisoned whole generations and put them to work for us at twenty cents an hour. That’s ethnic cleansing at its best, but that’s only the beginning. You people believe abortion is murder, correct?”
Pierce blinked. “Yes, we do.”
“In your own language, then, abortion on demand has murdered seventeen million blacks, and counting.” He let that number sink in for a moment. “Do you get that? We’ve normalized the voluntary termination of their babies into just another form of birth control—and a sacred civil right of liberated, empowered women. That’s the illusion we’ve created to make another genocidal weapon in the race war you say you’ve always wanted. Can you think it’s an accident that this choice is made so much more often by the people you claim to hate? There are fifty percent fewer blacks in this country now than there otherwise would be, and we’ve pulled the wool over the eyes of the American people so completely that even you couldn’t see that truth. But do you understand it now? The real war’s been going on for quite a while, George. We’re just inviting you to finally be a part of it.”
“That may all be true,” Pierce said. “But there’s times when a man’s got to pull the trigger himself to get his justice.”
“Are we talking about Molly Ross again?”
“Yes, we are.”
“You have to leave her to me.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m not paying you to be subtle, and it’s a delicate business to kill an idea,” Landers said. “She’ll be dealt with soon enough. She’s just an insignificant person who’s going to be used as a patsy, nothing more. If we can we’re going to push her into some public act that we can call terrorism, and then we’ll take her down. If she only continues to cower and hide, we’ll stage a bombing or a mass shooting ourselves and pin it on her. See? All this violence you’re about to commit is going to be blamed on Molly Ross and her ignorant followers, and once that’s done, we’re finished with her. Then I’ll have her sent here and you can do whatever you want with her, but not until we’ve beaten the last breath of life out of this pathetic patriot movement she’s stirred up.”
“You’ll never find her. They’ll be long gone soon and hid underground, but I’ve got a man right now in the other room who can lead us right to her—”
“No need,” Landers said. “We’ve already found her.” He tapped a small square on the grid of the laptop screen in front of him, a small moving image ballooned wide, and he spun the display around so the room could see. The live video was an extreme telephoto view of a large house and its surroundings, drifting and correcting, streamed down from a surveillance drone orbiting its target at nearly twenty thousand feet. “In fact, we never lost sight of her.”
“Where is that place?”
Pierce had started around the table but Landers snapped the screen closed before he’d gotten near. “When it’s time, and not before. For now, if you really want to hurt Molly Ross, you can use this.” He unzipped the equipment bag next to him and took out
the scoped rifle inside. “The report tells me this all belonged to a man named Thomas Hollis. He was a modestly decorated Army Ranger and I understand he’s now her enforcer. If you’ve lost lives, he’s the one that took them. But I’m sure you knew that already.”
George Pierce nodded.
“Good,” Landers said. “So this is how you’ll start to take your justice. Who’s your best marksman?” After a moment Olin Simmons raised his hand and Landers passed the weapon to him. “Gentlemen, this will be the last point on the agenda today. Mr. Thomas Hollis is about to go on a coast-to-coast killing spree.” He briefly consulted the dossier again and turned to Simmons. “We only have an old description and one dim photograph of the man. You’re tan enough to pass, you’re about the right size, and with a wig and a beard from the costume shop you’ll be a reasonable match for any eyewitnesses to report. It’s a plus that Hollis is ex-military; good for the standard mythology. But he doesn’t seem to have a middle name, and that’s a pity.”
“Why is that?” Simmons asked.
“It’s better for the headlines.” Landers smiled. “Every ruthless lone gunman should have a middle name.”
Chapter 15
Alone in the conference room, from deep in his studies George Pierce became aware of a faraway sound outside. With a finger he held his place in the open Bible and listened; it was the shrill, swelling roar of a helicopter coming up to full power and lifting off. By the transit of its noise he could follow the craft as it slowly rose above the trees and made a single orbit low overhead, as if to complete a rude inspection, and then it faded steadily away on a heading toward the southeast.
Pierce smiled. With a final rattling of the shingles this smug interloper Warren Landers was gone, no doubt in full confidence that his mission here among the simpletons had been a success.
But a success for whom? Among other burning questions, that remained to be seen.
“Mr. Pierce?” A voice from the doorway interrupted his thoughts.
“Yes, what is it?”
“That prisoner we’ve got, he’s come around now, and you said I should let you know.”
“Bring him to me,” Pierce said, but then another thought occurred. “Wait—where is Olin Simmons?”
“Him and some of the others walked out with the gentleman you all was meetin’ with before, I guess to see him off on his way home.”
“Of course they did.”
All will be tested, so the Good Book says, and all duly judged in the Lord’s good time. But the darkest corners of perdition were reserved for those who once knew the ways of righteousness and then turned their backs on the sacred command.
“Don’t just bring the prisoner,” Pierce said. “Bring Mr. Simmons, as well. Bring them all.”
When the men had been gathered, on his orders some cleared the central table to the side. Soon the guest of honor was brought into the middle of the room and roughly seated in a straight wooden chair. He was conscious, though so bloodied about the head it would be a genuine surprise if no permanent damage had been done to his brain. Whatever the case, he really wouldn’t need to last much longer.
“My brothers,” George Pierce began, “as you’re all well aware we’ve been honored over the past few days with a visitation from the invisible empire. A messenger has descended to us, come down from Olympus and the awesome, faceless powers that be. I foresaw that it would happen at some point near to the end, and I’ve told you as much, and now it’s come to pass. The great deceiver has sent forth his ambassador and finally shown his hand.
“But I am not taken in by his idolatries, I’m not deceived. We—will not be deceived. If you think we’ve lost our power with this new alliance, I tell you now, we’ve only gained. We will accept their money, we will use their weapons and resources, and to the degree that they coincide with our own ambitions we will execute their plans. We will help them collapse this broken American system, but it is we who will rebuild it, true to our vision. We will not lose ourselves. We will not lose this war.”
The men responded enthusiastically, and amid the cheering and encouragements Pierce scanned each of their faces for any signs of duplicity or reserve. He committed what he saw to memory, and pressed on.
“Now I’ve got me a grudge to satisfy,” he said, and the crowd hushed as one. “There’s a wrong that cries out from the grave to be put right. Some of you may have heard that I’ve been forbidden from on high to act in this matter. That I’ve been warned by this Warren Landers against avenging the betrayal and the killing of my own nephew.
“And I don’t know, some of you might even agree with that prohibition. You may have heard and seen what’s been said and done here in the last two days, and you may be standing there believing that the only choice we’ve got is to kowtow to our new overlords, to worship at their pagan altar with our hats in our hands and hope to cuddle up and curry favor like gelded lapdogs. As for me, boys, that is not my way.
“Now I’m not proud, and I’m not perfect. God’s made no perfect men. But let me ask you, has it ever been said that George Lincoln Rockwell Pierce would ever shy from a fight? That I don’t look out for my people?”
The long room erupted in a rowdy chorus of cheers, stomps, and loud applause.
“You!” Pierce shouted, as he pointed at the seated man. “What have you got to say?”
The prisoner raised his battered head to nearly level, and it seemed to take considerable effort to focus his good eye on the one who’d spoken to him. “I told them everything already—”
“You will stand when you address the company in this room.”
It was all quiet as the shattered man strained and suffered to get to his feet. A would-be good Samaritan took a step forward to help but at a stern gesture from George Pierce he stopped short and quickly resumed his place.
“For those here that may not know,” Pierce said, “tell us all your name.”
“My name is Ben Church.” He was standing by then, but with an unsteady sway and crooked posture, clearly favoring something torn or broken inside.
“Mr. Church is a devotee of Molly Ross and the Founders’ Keepers. He came to me with an olive branch just the other day, as a self-appointed peacemaker, without her knowledge or approval, as I later came to learn. When all of you were up to your necks in government lead and brimstone in that battle up at Gannett Peak, it was this man who’d come to solicit the help we provided her there. He knew his people were outmatched and he came begging for the kind of salvation that only we could offer. And now the lives we’ve lost since are on his hands, and no one else’s. Isn’t that right?”
Ben Church nodded, though he winced at a pain brought on by the movement.
“Once you brave men had done your duty I brought Molly Ross and her folks here in good faith. I kept Mr. Church’s involvement a secret from her, I told her we’d found this man shot and killed by those government men so she could make her choice without feeling that one of her own had come to me, to set her up behind her back. I gave her every chance to make the right decision and join us. But it wasn’t too long before she showed us her true colors, and we all saw the results.”
Pierce turned again to the prisoner. “Three more of my men are dead, now, Mr. Church, and my own flesh is among them. Who’ll answer for that?”
“It’s my fault, I won’t deny. I’m sorry for it. Coming here and asking for your help, it was the only thing I knew to do. I only wanted to save her life. I didn’t know—”
“We’re not here to receive your confession. We know what you did and why you did it. All you can do to help yourself now is to tell us where she is.”
“But I don’t know.”
“Speak another lie,” Pierce snapped, “and see what it gets you.”
“She’s no threat to you,” Ben Church said. “She never was. Molly Ross is no leader; her mother was a leader, but she’s not. She’s young and weak, now she’s blinded, and she’s got no idea what to do next. It was all we could manage just
trying to stay a step ahead of that army they’d sent after us. We were just trying to stay alive, that’s what it got down to in the end. You don’t need to kill her. She’s no threat to you at all.”
“I’ll ask you once again,” Pierce said, and he gave a nod to the men who’d been in charge of the prisoner before. “Where is Molly Ross?”
“I don’t know.” It was obvious that he could hear the heavy footsteps approaching but he kept on pleading as the men came for him. “She wouldn’t tell any of us where we were going, none of us knew, not even the ones she trusted more than me—”
The words were cut off sharply by a bare-knuckled blow to his rib cage. His knees gave out and he would have fallen but a second man held him up from behind.
It went on that way for a time, the same question asked, the wrong answer given, and the punishment applied. This unappreciated art of controlled savagery can take years to properly refine. Considerable skill is involved in beating a man to the very edge of his endurance and yet keeping him conscious all the while so the pain can do its patient work.
“We were shown an image of the place she’s run to,” Pierce said. “A large house with many outbuildings, acreage fenced for livestock. It must be somewhere less than a day’s drive from the nearest road they could have reached on foot. That much we know. Now where is she?”
Ben Church’s head lolled so loosely to the side it nearly came to rest on his shoulder. He was bleeding freely from the mouth and when he spoke next the words were largely drowned in fluid and slur. A sharp twist of his arm snapped him bolt upright and forced him alert enough to say it again, but clearly. “I don’t know.”
George Pierce approached the wretched man, whose handlers held him straight in the event that their leader might wish to strike him personally.
“Very well, then,” Pierce said quietly. “We’ll take you at your word.”
Not much of Ben Church’s face retained the capacity for expression, but still, he managed to look bewildered.