just short of criminal action.” Though his words seemed inspired by anger, Dolph suddenly laughed. “I’m sure you like facts. I will give some to you. America has the longest-running democracy in history. And what is it? About two and a half centuries old? In the timeline of history that’s a rounding error. The most efficient, the longest-lasting form of government is, without debate, autocratic. One commands and others obey. People deride that as evil. I would say then the world dearly needs more evil.”
“I think there’s more than enough, actually,” opined Reel.
Dolph did not seem to hear her. “You saw what happened when Saddam was toppled. Certainly he killed many of his own. Certainly he was cruel. But by taking him out of power, how many more have died? Ten times? A hundred times? I can give you example after example. People don’t want freedom. People want to be safe. Democracies cannot provide that. But one person with the requisite power can. I am that person to my people. And I desperately want my people to greatly increase in number.”
Reel had to use her hands to dig into the chicken since no knife had been provided, for obvious reasons. “So you’re the leader who keeps your people safe?”
“I am not a joke, or a lunatic, since I know that is what you’re thinking. I rule, but I do so benevolently.”
“Like you did with Holly and Luke?” she said.
“Luke Miller broke his oath. This I have already explained to you. Holly was an example. This she brought upon herself when she formed her alliance with the traitor Luke. I must have rules. And those rules must be enforced. Otherwise, there is chaos. And chaos will bring down any regime. Even mine.” He paused and stubbed out his cigarette on the tabletop. “Now, when you are trying to change things and your power is not yet at its height, you must use stealth. You work from the inside out. You turn people to your cause. Then before your opposition knows what is happening”—he stopped and, pulling a knife from a holder on his belt, drilled its point into the table—“they are the weaker ones and they can be vanquished.”
“So that’s your goal, overthrowing the United States.”
Dolph pulled his knife free. “I don’t have to overthrow the United States. I will never have the power to do that. But I just have to change the perspective of some in a few key places. That is all. People make it too complicated. I make it simple. And by making it simple my focus is complete and my odds of success are far greater. We are making terrific strides.”
“‘We’?”
“I’m affiliated with other organizations that share my core beliefs.” He patted the stock of Reel’s rifle. “We don’t do it with this. We do it by raising dark money to fund policies and candidates that we like. We even help write legislation. We have infiltrated legitimate political organizations, or found those already inside those organizations who are sympathetic to our goals. It is a wonderful thing. To have friends in power.”
He stopped and studied them. “You didn’t expect some asshole simplistically labeled a neo-Nazi to talk about organizational infrastructure, policies, strategic legislative endeavors, and dark money funding, did you?”
“No, we didn’t,” admitted Robie.
“I don’t go around screaming, ‘Heil Hitler!’ What would be the point? But by my playing dress-up and filling a cliché, as it were, people underestimate me. They put me in a little box and assume I will always be in that little box and not in the mainstream.”
“And then before the mainstream figures it out, there you are with a lot more force behind you,” said Robie.
Dolph nodded approvingly and pointed at Robie. “Now there is the nuance I was looking for. I take people underestimating me as a wonderful gift. Complacency by the masses is my greatest weapon. Did you know we have a very large social media platform? We have blogs and vlogs and online news organizations that communicate directly to our core population, which is growing exponentially every year. We get out the facts that need to be gotten out. Last week, our collective online clicks rivaled anything CNN or even Fox has been getting lately. It is tremendously exciting.”
“I can see it probably gets you off,” said Reel drily.
Before Dolph could respond, Robie said, “Global conquering aside, do you know Roger Walton?”
Dolph shook his head. “Who?”
“He disappeared from his cabin here about a week ago.”
“And why is this of interest to me?”
“It’s of interest to us.”
“And why should you think that anything should be of interest to you now?”
Here we go, thought Robie.
“So when do we get a bullet in the head like Holly?” asked Reel.
“It is timely that you ask that,” said Dolph. He hefted Reel’s rifle. “You mentioned just now that you and your comrade are the best shots I will ever meet. I need good marksmen, excuse me, markspeople.”
“That’s not going to happen,” said Reel.
Dolph ignored her and said, “I’m going to give you a chance to prove yourself and perhaps save your life at the same time.”
“How?” she asked.
In answer Dolph aimed the rifle at Robie. “A simple test. You shoot him, you live. You don’t, you both die. And the test commences now.”
He slammed his fist on the table.
The doors burst open and armed guards came in, seized Robie and Reel, and hauled them outside.
Dolph followed with the rifle.
Chapter
33
THERE WAS NO blindfold.
There was no last cigarette.
There was no preacher with a Bible and a soothing scripture verse to give out to the condemned.
There was a concrete wall that Robie was hustled over to and made to stand in front of. He noted that it was splotched with blood and bullet pockmarks.
Every man in the place, including those on the watchtowers, was staring at the spectacle unfolding in front of them.
Fifty feet away Jessica Reel stood with Dolph next to her.
“I’m not going to shoot him,” she said.
“I think you may come around to it.”
“I won’t. So you can just put a bullet in my head now.”
He handed her the rifle and then placed the muzzle of his Walther against Reel’s temple.
“Aim the weapon,” he said.
Reel made no movement to do so.
Dolph pulled back the hammer on his pistol.
“Just pull it,” said Reel. “And fuck you.”
He called out to his men. “Shoot Mr. Robie first in the crotch. Then in the knee.”
He looked at Reel. “We’ll keep going, piece by piece, until he dies. Far better for you to just cleanly finish him off. And then you get to live.”
Robie looked at Reel. “Just do it, Jess. Pull the trigger.” He pointed to his heart. “Right here. No pain. Do it. Now. Better for me that way.”
A tear trickled out from Reel’s right eye. She lifted the rifle to her shoulder and sighted through the optics.
She placed her crosshairs on something she thought she never would.
Will Robie’s chest.
Her finger wavered and did not venture to the trigger guard. The first stopping place for it before it descended to the trigger, and from there to the trigger pull.
“Do it, Jess,” said Robie, as the moments trickled past.
“Two seconds,” said Dolph.
Reel’s finger touched the trigger guard and then dipped to the trigger.
“One second,” said Dolph, as his finger went to the pistol’s trigger.
The front gates of the compound exploded open.
And for a second time in recent memory, all hell broke loose in eastern Colorado.
The Hummer threw up dirt and gravel as it fishtailed into the interior court of the compound.
Two pickup trucks were right behind it. Bullets started flying from all three vehicles.
Reel had reacted the moment the doors had been knocked in.
She
swung her rifle around and caught Dolph right in the gut. He dropped his weapon and bent over, gasping for air. She snapped the rifle straight up and the barrel caught him directly on the chin. This blow lifted him off his feet and he fell backward on his ass. A bare second passed before Reel had the weapon pointed right at his bleeding face. He looked up at her, his eyes pleading. She looked down at him, her gaze full of revulsion. Her finger swept to the trigger.
He shook his head. Tears filled his eyes.
He mouthed something that she couldn’t hear clearly. It sort of sounded like please.
Yeah, right.
Her finger started to bear down on the trigger. Then she stopped, her finger barely a millimeter from the point of no return.
She took her foot and smashed it into his face, bouncing his head off the hard ground and knocking him out.
Meanwhile, Robie had rolled to the right and come up next to a guard who had ducked down when the Hummer had burst in.
It was the last thing the man would ever do.
Robie used the man’s own knife to slit his throat. He seized the dead man’s pistol and shot two men who were running toward him.
Reel dropped to one knee, aimed her rifle, and shot two guards off the watchtower.
Like a movie stunt scene they fell over the sides of the tower and plummeted thirty feet to the dirt. They felt no pain on impact, being already dead.
Robie raced toward the Hummer, which was spinning around while shooters inside were laying down fields of fire, keeping the skinheads running and ducking for cover. The pickup trucks were doing the same.
A door on the Hummer opened up and a man leaned out and beckoned to Robie.
“Get in!”
Robie didn’t wait to be told a second time.
On the other side of the Hummer another man had opened his door and was calling out to Reel.
Keeping low, she sprinted hard toward the vehicle.
Rounds were flying through the air all around her.
One struck the butt of her rifle, shattering it. It knocked her off stride but she managed to hold on to it despite the shock wave of the impact.
She regained her balance and leapt toward the open door.
Strong hands snagged her and pulled her in. She sat up in the seat and slammed the door shut even as a bullet hit the window, shattering it.
They all ducked down.
A man yelled out, “Go, go!”
The driver put the Hummer in reverse, and the six-thousand-pound vehicle leapt backward, causing attacking skinheads to throw themselves out of the way.
The Hummer passed butt first through the gate, and then the driver put it into a one-eighty and pointed the nose toward open country.
Reel looked behind her and saw that the pickup trucks had done the same.
The three vehicles roared to safety as shots continued to chase them from the compound.
They reached the main road and headed west.
Reel and Robie looked around at the men in the Hummer.
Then the man in the passenger seat turned around to look at them.
It was Doctor King.
“What the hell?” began Robie.
“Hold that thought,” said King.
He turned back around while Robie and Reel exchanged a confused glance.
Later, they pulled to a stop in the center of Grand.
King climbed out but the rest of his men stayed inside the vehicle.
Robie and Reel joined him. Reel still clutched her rifle.
King went to the back of the Hummer, opened the door, and said, “We got that from your truck.”
It was the hard-sided case with their other weaponry.
He looked at Reel’s damaged rifle. “Will it still shoot?” he asked.
She nodded. “So long as I have a target to aim at.”
King pulled the case out and walked into their hotel. Robie and Reel, exchanging another glance, followed.
They went up to Robie’s room, and when the door was closed King set the case down. “Your truck was pretty badly torn up. Don’t think it’s drivable. But we arranged for another truck for you to use. It’s down on the street. Untraceable to us.”
He tossed Robie a set of keys.
“Why are you doing this?” asked Reel.
“And how did you even know we’d been taken by the skinheads?” added Robie.
King sat down in a chair. He was dressed differently from before. Jeans, a dark shirt, a canvas vest, boots, and a ball cap.
He leaned forward. “To answer your second question first, I’ve got ears inside Dolph’s place. That’s how I knew. Glad we got there in time. The idiots on the watchtowers weren’t even looking our way.”
“They were watching us about to die,” said Robie.
“And the answer to the first question?” said Reel.
King reached down to his boot, undid the heel, and pulled something out of the revealed compartment. When he held it up they could see it was a badge.
“FBI?” said Robie, looking stunned.
King nodded before putting the badge back in its hiding place. “Been out here for years. Undercover, of course.”
“But why?”
“You just have to look around to answer that. There are more vigilante groups out here than you can imagine. There are pockets of them in lots of states, but they tend to gravitate to the great outdoors—translation being ‘where law enforcement is spread very thin.’”
“But you started the King’s Apostles?” said Reel.
“It was excellent cover. And a great source of information and interaction with some of the worst scum you’ve ever seen. I’ve been building cases against these assholes, like Dolph, all this time. I couldn’t reveal myself to you initially, even though you were fellow Feds.”
“No problem there,” said Reel. “We don’t reveal ourselves either if we can help it.”
Robie said, “I had an encounter with one of your guys at the bar across the street. Bruce is his real name.”
“No, his real name is Special Agent Todd Cummins. He told me about the encounter and that you helped him out big-time in front of the others. I appreciate that.”
“So you got some backup here, that’s good,” said Robie.
“What’s your actual name?” asked Reel.
“Special Agent Dwight Sanders.”
“Well, you’re doing a helluva job, Agent Sanders. And thanks for saving our butts.”
Reel said, “So is that how your group is funded? With government dollars?”
“That’s a big part of it. But you have to get in the dirt and muck around if you want to get to the really bad stuff. The Apostles are just young guys looking for direction. If I hadn’t recruited them, Dolph or some others would have. We do a lot of good, but we do just enough bad for me to get what I need.”
Robie nodded. “Sounds like a plan.”
“So what were you doing at Dolph’s compound?” Sanders asked.
“We didn’t go voluntarily, they ambushed us,” replied Reel.
Robie added, “Dolph had Luke Miller beheaded. And we saw him kill Holly Malloy right in front of us.”
Sanders’s jaw dropped. “Shit. You witnessed this?”