by P A Duncan
“‘The legions of the already dead,’” Mai said, dredging up another memory from Drake’s briefing.
Paul’s smile chilled the warm room. “You do understand.”
If you only knew, you creep. “You started small. A sex shop, I believe.”
“Like The Diaries showed us, we started with the things the Jew uses to corrupt our children, disrupt our families. That only got us $400, but the experience, the confidence we gained…worth a fortune.”
He grinned and raised his eyes heavenward. “Yahweh be praised! What a team we were. Bob’s planning, our execution, Yahweh’s will fulfilled. After a mission, we would pray, give him our thanks, and send the money to the right churches, not the nigger-infested ones. True, white churches.”
“And kept none for yourselves?”
“Only some to buy food, guns, ammo. Some went to those who helped us, hid us from the Jew police. Go talk to your friends in the FBI. We liberated nearly five million dollars, and they can only account for a few thousand.”
He glanced over his shoulder at the guard and leaned toward Mai again. “That wasn’t all. We counterfeited money to disrupt the financial stranglehold of ZOG.”
“I understand that was quite the sophisticated operation.”
“We had a former engraver for the U.S. Mint helping us, and we were careful. We didn’t throw the money around, used it to buy gas, groceries, things like that.”
“You didn’t succeed.”
“Well, getting arrested and sent to prison put a crimp in our activities. I haven’t gotten to the best part yet. Elimination of our enemies.”
“Murder, you mean.”
Paul shrugged and said, “Murder is proletarian. Assassination is revolutionary.”
“Murder is murder.”
“Spoken like you know. What’s the difference between you and me, Miss FBI? Your badge lets you get away with killing. Killing the enemies of Yahweh, that is righteous.”
“You murdered an unarmed man, taking groceries from his car in the driveway of his home.”
“Alan Berg was a Jew dog, and the mission was accomplished. One less Jew. He was the first on our enemies list.”
“When Matthews tried to set up the murder of someone on that list is when it all went sideways, correct?”
“That pig, Alfonso Colón,” Paul said, spitting each word. “He told us he was descended from the Aryans in the north of Spain, but he showed his true color when he betrayed us. Because of that traitor, ZOG murdered Bob. Someday, Bob will be avenged.”
Again, he scrutinized her, his eyes narrowed and unblinking.
“You could help, you know. The pig Colón is in Witness Protection. Tell me where he is. Take the first step to take back this country.”
“Oh, I think the country is fine, as is.”
“Take your time. Think it over. You’ll look into your heart, and it will reveal the truth about what your FBI did to Bob Matthews, our very own martyr.”
“Your martyr would probably be alive if he had surrendered to the authorities instead of choosing to fight to the death.”
Paul laughed. “Right. You know the FBI can arrange deaths. How many have you made to look like a heart attack, suicide? They couldn’t let Bob be tried because he’d have a forum to tell the world the truth. The FBI set that safe house on fire. To kill him. Like they did at Killeen. That’s a truth people need to know.”
“I’m recording you. Tell it.”
“We had plenty of safe havens, plenty of people who would have hid us, but Bob didn’t want them endangered. After the pig Colón ratted on us, Bob and some others escaped to an empty safe house on Whidbey Island. A beautiful place. One of Yahweh’s sacred places free of the filth of mud peoples, but because of Colón, the FBI knew where to look. Bob and my comrades were fearless, brave warriors for Yahweh and for freedom. When the Second Revolution comes, they will be revered as our new founding fathers.”
“You’re getting ahead of the game. What about the truth you wanted people to know?”
Paul’s wan smile was apologetic. “Thank you for keeping me on track, Miss FBI.” He sighed, rubbed his face, and continued, “Bob and the others put up a good fight, and Bob tried to negotiate. It was the FBI who wouldn’t cooperate.”
Mai knew it was the other way around but nodded for him to continue.
“Finally, Bob talked the others into surrendering. ZOG is naïve enough to believe if they kill our leaders, they’ll stop us. Bob wanted those of us left behind to carry on the cause. He blessed each of our brothers and sent them out into the world, like Jesus did his disciples. They gave him their guns and ammo. And Bob, Yahweh bless him, he held ZOG off for more than thirty hours. Bob was a true and brave patriot.”
Tears welled in Paul’s eyes, and Mai had an inexplicable urge to smash his face against the steel table.
“But ZOG,” Paul said, voice trembling, “ZOG sent in SWAT, and Bob still fought on. ZOG says they dropped flares for night illumination.” Paul laughed, raspy and bitter. “But they were incendiary bombs. And as the fire spread, Bob ran from room to room, firing from window after window to keep SWAT away.”
“All he succeeded in doing was keeping the fire trucks away.”
Paul shook his head and leaned toward her. “If Bob had seen fire trucks, he would have stopped shooting. There were no fire trucks.”
“You’d already been arrested,” Mai said. “How do you know these details?”
“We have friends, still, a lot of them. In unlikely places. There were witnesses, and they spread the word by—”
His eyes widened in fear, and he looked over his shoulder at the guard.
“Through what?” Mai asked.
“Nothing. The word got out.”
“Is there a network? A formal network? Still active?”
Brian Paul shook his head, his eyes pleading with her. “Bob stayed in the house to the end,” he said. “When they found his burned bones, his hands still clutched his gun. Hallelujah!”
Paul closed his eyes, his lips moving with silent words.
The recorder clicked off, and Mai picked it up to flip the tape. Paul opened his eyes and leaned toward her again.
“Help us,” he whispered. “I’ll make it worth your while.”
Mai set the recorder back on the table and pressed Record.
“I could give you strong sons,” Paul murmured, “ones that would survive and fight.”
The urge to smash his face came again. “If that were the case,” she said, “I’d smother them before they drew breath.”
Enough of this garbage. She stood and picked up the recorder.
“Thank you, Mr. Paul. I’ve heard enough.”
“Wait,” he said, pleading. “I have a… a warning.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“No. You said you wanted information. Here it is. The Bruders Schweigen were a unit. We swore our blood oath together, worked together, lived together, depended on each other. What happened to one, happened to all. The new ones coming up? They’re not the same.”
Finally, something that might make this worthwhile.
“We were family men, with wives and children. That’s who we fought for. We wanted a country where we could raise our children and provide for our families according to Yahweh’s laws. We had values. The new ones, they are lone wolves. They can’t relate to women; they don’t connect with people, even their own race. They shun their families. Their motivation has nothing to do with making this world a place for precious, clean Aryan babies.”
The recorder in her hand continued to record, its whirring the only sound in the room.
“And?” she said.
“That makes them dangerous. They don’t care who or what they destroy. They want to tear it all down. We wanted to save the country.”
“Leaderless resistance?”
Paul’s face twisted in a moue of impatience. “No. No. A lone wolf, separated from his pack becomes feral, and he can’t be redeemed.
It doesn’t matter to the lone wolf what he does. He has nothing to lose. He challenges man in his own backyard, and he wins.”
“Names.”
Paul shook his head, eyes again narrowed at her. “I’ve given you enough to think about.”
Paul stood, and the guard moved to take him by the arm. “Just remember,” he said to Mai, “when it happens, don’t be surprised.”
“When what happens?”
“Miss FBI, it was a real pleasure talking to a true Aryan woman. Yahweh bless you, and I’ll be waiting when you change your mind about our sons.”
Mai walked close enough to him to inhale his sour odor. “When what happens?”
He smiled at her, and for the first time, she saw lust. “Because the beauty of the White Aryan woman must not perish from the earth.”
He turned away, and the guard led him out.
Mai’s recorder whirred on, recording silence until she shook herself out of a dark place and turned it off.
At the helipad, Mai signed the form assuring she’d returned the key card given her upon her arrival and handed it back to the female guard, who’d escorted her, coming and going. The guard handed Mai her Beretta in its holster. Mai clipped it to her waistband, under her jacket and turned toward the helicopter.
“Hang on,” the guard said and spoke into her mic. “Go ahead. Yeah, she is. Okay, I’ll tell her.” To Mai, she said, “Inmate Paul wanted to pass a message to you via the deputy warden.”
“What message?”
“Patriot City.”
“What’s that?”
“Hell if I know, but the DW said Paul wanted you to know.”
“Thank you, Officer…”
“Wilkins. Shereen.”
“Thank you, Officer Wilkins.”
“Sure. Uh, any openings in the FBI?”
Mai studied her and smiled. “I’ll be in touch if an opportunity pops up.”
On the return flight to New Orleans, Mai mulled Paul’s two-word message.
41
Freelancing
Mount Vernon, Virginia
Alexei Bukharin browsed the webpage for the National Alliance, his disgust building with every link clicked and every hate message from its founder, William Pierce. People like Pierce who espoused these beliefs were the same as those who’d killed his father, brother, and sister in the Siege of Stalingrad. Alexei saw it in terms that simple: Today’s neo-Nazis were no different from the murderers of his family.
When the phone rang, he was grateful for the interruption. He glanced at the Caller ID. A blocked number, but he answered anyway.
“Bukharin.”
“Hey, you Commie bastard, what are you up to?”
A voice from the not too distant past. “Terrell.”
“The same. How’s the husband of the best-looking spy in the western hemisphere?”
“Hard at work, so she doesn’t withhold her favors. Mai’s not here.”
“I know. I called to talk to you.”
Alexei doubted that. Mai was the reason he and Terrell no longer spoke. “Terrell, what do you want?”
“Hey, it’s Snake.”
Alexei said nothing and listened to Terrell’s breathing, the draw on a cigarette, the expelling of smoke, a murmured curse.
“What do you want?” Alexei asked again.
“Nothing. I need to pass something on, but keep up the disrespect, and I’ll get forgetful.”
“It’s not disrespect. It’s disbelief you want to pass something on to me and not Mai.”
“Yeah, well, we both know Mai’s been edgy for a while. I don’t want her to lose focus while she’s in the field.”
Of course, Terrell would know where Mai was, meaning she and Terrell had spoken when Alexei wasn’t around. Or…
“Where are you?” Alexei asked.
“Not in New Orleans. Ditch that crap. That’s in the past.”
“What’s so important you need to tell me and not her?”
“I owed someone, and he called in the marker. I paid up, but you and Mai never did me wrong. Well, you did, but, like I said, in the past.”
“The marker had something to do with us?” The office grew close with Alexei’s unease. “Go on.”
“The marker was from ‘Nam. The guy I owed the marker to is Hollis Fitzgerald.”
Alexei dredged up what Grace Lydell had told him about the Terrell-Fitzgerald connection. “What happened?”
“He gave me a call in the middle of the Killeen thing, wanting to see me, but I was out of the country. In fact, I didn’t get a chance to meet him until a few weeks back. He wanted the goods on you and Mai.”
“Weeks ago? And you’re telling me this now?”
“I, uh, had to lie low for a while. Don’t ask.”
“What did he want to know?”
“Your weaknesses,” Terrell said and laughed. “I told him you had none.”
“What did you really tell him?”
“I made up stuff that sounded good. He bought it.”
“I thought you two were buddies.”
“Yeah, he hauled my wounded ass to a medevac helicopter, but that doesn’t make him a charming guy.”
“Terrell, Mai had to have told you all about our interaction with Fitzgerald. What game are you playing?”
“All I’m doing is letting you know he was interested in something to use against you.”
“I suspected he would. I suspect as well Mai told you about the surveillance and the false warrant for my arrest. I further suspect Mai knows nothing about Fitzgerald being an old buddy of yours from Vietnam.”
Terrell said nothing.
“Your friend is a bastard, Terrell,” Alexei continued. “He called Mai a cunt. More than that, he refused to accept peaceful alternatives for the situation at Killeen.”
“Like I said, not a charming guy. Anything I can do to help?”
“No, I’d rather keep this in the family, despite your continued tête-à-têtes with my wife. I’ll put it right with Fitzgerald one day.”
“So, you gonna rat me out to your wife?”
“About knowing Fitzgerald? No, that’s your responsibility, but since I know you’d never diminish yourself in her eyes, I’ll file it away until I need to score points against her in an argument.”
“You guys never change.”
Terrell hung up.
New Orleans, Louisiana
The first thing Mai did when she returned to the Ritz-Carlton was take a long, hot shower to erase Bryan Corbin Paul’s slime if not from her psyche then from her skin. She contemplated trashing the clothes but sent them to the hotel’s dry cleaning service instead.
Clean again, she ordered a bottle of Irish whiskey from room service, dressed, and took out her laptop to search for references to Patriot City. Nothing showed up on any U.S. map or among lists of incorporated cities and towns.
The whiskey mellowed her frustration, but she wondered if Paul had played her. No, you didn’t get a warden to pass on a message unless it was something meaningful. She sent a query to Analysis, searched some more, and reached a dead end again. She stowed the laptop and used the room phone to call Directory Assistance for a Mississippi phone number. After jotting down the result on the notepad next to the phone, she hung up and dialed again.
“Center for Civil Rights Research,” came a woman’s voice in a soft, southern drawl.
Mai debated whether or not to keep the American accent. No, that was part of the reason a headache pounded at her temples.
“I’d like to speak to Mr. Norton Ball, please,” she said.
“May I tell him who’s calling?”
“My name is Katherine Burke. I’m a freelance writer, and I’d like to make an appointment to interview him.”
“One moment please.”
Some Muzak played while Mai waited on hold, but Bryan Paul’s words started to ooze back into her consciousness.
“This is Bill Norris. May I help you?”
“Oh, yes. I was hol
ding for Mr. Ball.”
“I’m in charge of Mr. Ball’s security. May I ask who’s calling?”
A lawyer with security? Well, that might be likely.
“As I told the person who answered the phone, I’m Katherine Burke, and I’m a freelance writer doing some research on militias in the United States.”
“What publication or news service are you affiliated with?”
“As I said, I’m freelance.”
“Where are you from, Miss, uh, Burke?”
“East Sussex, England, but I’ve lived in the United States for several years.”
“Your current address?”
“Mr. Norris, I simply want to make an appointment with Mr. Ball to interview him about his work and research concerning right-wing extremists.”
“We’re very careful with Mr. Ball’s security because of death threats. I need some references.”
“How about the U.S. attorney general? I can get it to you in a couple of hours.”
“Leave me a number where I can reach you after I receive that.”
Mai recited her mobile phone number, and he repeated it back to her.
“My schedule is utterly flexible,” she said. “Whenever Mr. Ball can make time for me, I’ll be available.”
“You’ll be hearing from us.”
He hung up before she could thank him, and the room phone rang again almost immediately.
“Fisher,” she said.
“Bukharin.”
Crap. She’d promised to call him after coming back from the prison. “Hi. I was just thinking about you.”
“Oh, really?” he said, the innuendo obvious.
“Not that way.”
“Analysis copied me on something they just sent you,” he said. “About Patriot City.”
“Already?”
“I’ve seen it pop up in some of my research as well, so I already had them working on it. They haven’t been able to pin down yet whether it’s a physical place or an organization.”
“Militia or church?”
