The Rampage of Ryan O'Hara

by James R. Pera

  “Sitting under that green tent at the cemetery was a truly horrible experience, Hugo. My grandmother fainted and had to be attended to by some of the nearby police officers, who propped up her legs and knelt by her side. When she finally came to, they helped her back to her chair and knelt down in front of her, ready to catch her should she fall again.

  “A police bagpiper—a lieutenant, I think—played ‘Amazing Grace.’ It really tore my family up. I was crying, my parents were crying, and the sobs coming from my grandma were of a sound I’d never heard before, haven’t heard since, and hope to never hear again. My confused little brother just kept asking loudly, ‘Why is everyone crying, Mommy? Daddy, why are you crying? What’s wrong with Grandma? I’m scared. Please, Daddy, don’t cry.’ Then he and my little sister began to cry as well. It was a mess, Hugo, truly a mess. No little kid should have to experience that.

  “You know, to this day, I can’t listen to bagpipes and I sure as hell can’t tolerate that song they always play. You know, ‘Amazing Grace.’ It just rips into me like a knife. I guess when you’re a little kid, the scars you incur follow you for the rest of your life. Which brings me back to the present, Hugo. Yes, the present. I am here in the present with you because I have to collect a debt. It is a debt that your scumbag parents—you and all the other subversive, sewer-dwelling, shit-eating rats—owe my grandpa and all the other dead cops they have left in their wake. It is long overdue and I’m here to see that it’s paid.”

  Hugo blurted out a protest. “I haven’t killed anyone! I…”

  Ryan cut in, “No, but you espouse the causes of those who do. I’ve been following your activities, you whiny little son of a bitch. Look me in the eye, Hugo. Tell me that you haven’t been aiding and abetting those Marxist dictators to the south who are killing, censoring, and imprisoning their citizens as we speak. Tell me that you and those two mutants in the upstairs bedroom haven’t been down to South America pumping those communist degenerates with innovative ideas on how to carry out their Marxist revolutions.

  “Can you look me in the eye and honestly say that you and the two professors haven’t carried on the revolution they became part of when they were tutored by Castro’s agents back in 1969? I’ll answer that question for you. The answer is no. You can’t deny your culpability.”

  Hugo continued to weep as a small puddle appeared on the floor beneath him.

  “Oh, Hugo, what have you done? Did your aunty Brenda forget to change you this morning? My, my, my, imagine that. A confidant and close personal advisor to South America’s notorious Marxist strong men pissing himself. I can only imagine what they’d think if they could see their devoted little gringo now. Surely they’d be very disappointed. Now, listen closely. I’m about to come to the end of my story. You are seconds away from finding out why I’m going to send you hurling through the gates of hell.”

  Hugo began to heave again, a reaction that invited yet another fist in the gut and a momentary pause in the dialogue while Ryan waited for him to regain some semblance of control.

  “You probably want to know what all this talk about my grandpa, dead cops, bombings, and destroyed families is all about. So let’s discuss that. You see, it was a slimy Lenin’s Legion sow who planted that bomb under the hood of my grandpa’s police car. Do you have any idea who that slimy terrorist sow was? Come on now, Hugo, tell me. Who do you suppose it was?”

  “Oh, please! I don’t know! I don’t know anything! Please let me go! I don’t want to die. I didn’t do anything! Why? Why? Why are you doing this to me? Oh, God, please help me!” Hugo was having a complete hysterical meltdown. His panicked and girlish display of cowardice grated on Ryan.

  Ryan slapped him across the face and yelled, “Don’t you raise your voice to me, you disgusting little wimp. And what’s this ‘Oh, God’ stuff about, anyway? You goddamned commies don’t believe in God, so I don’t think he’s hearing you! If you don’t know the answer to my question, just say so and I’ll tell you.” After a pause, Ryan continued, “I’ll take your silence to mean that you don’t know, so I’ll explain. The slithering little terrorist whore who planted the bomb and ruined my family is that bitch in the upstairs bedroom, Hugo. She did it at the behest of that deviate who calls himself your uncle.

  “There was indisputable evidence that they were part of a nationwide conspiracy to kill cops and destroy government buildings. They bombed many federal, state, and municipal buildings throughout the country. But the only time they hit pay dirt and actually succeeded in killing a cop was when they killed my grandfather.” He paused again, then asked, “I’ll bet you’re wondering why your aunt and uncle weren’t prosecuted, aren’t you?”

  Hugo acknowledged the question with a weak nod.

  “At the time, a number of domestic terror organizations were being investigated by the FBI as well as by state and local agencies. These ongoing investigations were a response to nationwide campaigns being conducted by radical organizations such as Lenin’s Legion. As I’ve already said, the goals of these groups were to kill cops and attack the infrastructure of the government, causing its collapse.

  “Sometimes, the federal, state, and local agencies worked together and cooperated, but at other times their goals didn’t coincide. When goals conflicted, the different agencies worked independently. In many cases, the right hand didn’t know what the left hand was doing, and this lack of coordination was a recipe for the eventual foul-ups that occurred. Other factors complicating matters were the differing agendas of the various prosecutors, which sometimes influenced decisions as to whether certain prosecutions should or should not move forward. I’m not going to delve into that now. It isn’t necessary and will only delay my purpose for being here in the first place, which is, of course, to kill you and those two pieces of garbage upstairs.”

  Hugo released a barely audible gasp as he slumped against the banister that would soon serve as his execution post. He appeared to be devoid of all hope and was totally dejected, having apparently lost the will to survive.

  Ryan continued, “There was an FBI informant working inside Lenin’s Legion who was present when some of the bombings and murders were planned. He knew that cops were being targeted for murder but didn’t have specifics on all of the locations where these plots were to be carried out. He was only told about the ones that he was expected to participate in. Nevertheless, after my grandfather was killed, your uncle Bill mentioned to him, during a debriefing session, that your aunt Brenda was the one responsible for my grandpa’s death.

  “Bill, being the coward that he is, helped plan the bombing but left the actual sabotaging of the police car up to Brenda and another member of the organization. His excuse was that he was needed in Detroit to coordinate the simultaneous bombings of a police precinct and offices of the Police Officers’ Association.

  “The informant, who was a veteran, was angered by the antiwar activities that he witnessed going on at a university in Ohio, where he enrolled after returning from a combat tour in Vietnam. He felt that the war protesters and rioters who were infesting the college campuses and streets of America were undermining the war, giving encouragement to the enemy, and by proxy causing the deaths of thousands of soldiers. So he decided to do something about it. It was the informant’s belief that the war in Vietnam was just one battle in the war against communism and that there was an even bigger and more important battle in that war taking place right here on American soil.

  “He watched as the radical Students for Revolutionary Change, aka the SRC, and Lenin’s Legion gained control of college campuses, indoctrinating students to their Marxist ideals and ultimately escalating their silent insurgency into a violent national insurrection that included bombings, murder, and destruction of property. He gathered intelligence on various Lenin’s Legion members and passed the information along to his FBI handlers. The information included word of their trips to communist Cuba for schooling in terrorist tactics. He also provided information regarding when and where
bombing attacks were going to occur.

  “When all was said and done, the informant barely escaped with his life after his cover was blown in New York City. Later, he testified before several grand juries and a senate subcommittee. His testimony included your scumbag uncle’s statement that he and your aunt had cooked up the plot that resulted in my grandfather’s death, and that it was your aunt and another woman who had built the device and planted it under the hood of the police vehicle, which was parked in the lot outside Park Police Station.

  “After several grand jury hearings, a federal judge ruled that the informant’s testimony would not be allowed as evidence in court because it was based on hearsay. That is to say, no one who was present with your aunt when she planted the bomb was available to corroborate his story.

  “It later came to light that the woman who assisted your aunt in making the bomb and was with her when it was hooked up to the ignition of the radio car became fearful that the authorities were closing in on Lenin’s Legion. In hopes of saving her own skin, she decided to turn on the group. Her name was Linda Longmeir.

  “An attorney representing Longmeir had several meetings with representatives of the FBI, the San Francisco Police Department, and the San Francisco district attorney’s office. The parties were attempting to iron out an agreement that would grant Longmeir immunity in exchange for testimony implicating your aunt and uncle—not only in the murder of my grandfather, but also for scores of other bombings and acts of domestic terrorism throughout the country. Before the arrangements could be completed, however, Longmeir turned up dead. Her decomposing body was found hanging from a tree in an isolated grove near an old windmill at the west end of Golden Gate Park several days after her attorney reported her missing. The coroner’s office declared the death a suicide, but a lot of skepticism was expressed about that ruling.

  “With Longmeir dead, there was no one to corroborate the informant’s testimony regarding your aunt rigging the bomb to the ignition of the police car. The mere fact that your uncle Bill told the informant that Brenda had done it was not enough, because the hearsay rule forbids third-party information from being used against a defendant at trial without a corroborative witness who was on the scene when a crime was committed. Longmeir’s death negated any value that your uncle’s statement to the informant may have had in a case against your aunt.

  “The case still may have been prosecutable had the lead FBI investigator been more careful in overseeing the collection of wiretap evidence. Whether intentional or through oversight, the collection of the evidence was ruled to have been collected in violation of the guidelines that are spelled out in the law. As a result, all of the information that might have brought a conviction against your aunt and uncle was thrown out. This ended any possibility for proceeding with a meaningful prosecution.

  “Your aunt and uncle remained on the lam for several years but finally negotiated a surrender in 1982. Bill made a formal appearance in court and the judge threw out the charges against him. As he left the courtroom, he smiled and replied to a reporter who asked him how he felt about the charges being dropped, ‘The American system of justice is a wonderful thing, isn’t it?’

  “Your aunt, who was facing numerous charges for domestic terrorism, made a deal with authorities and agreed to testify against your mother and father for their part in the murder of the two policemen and the bank guard in Berkeley. She later reneged on that agreement and was sentenced to prison for contempt of court. She was released after serving less than a year. Shortly after her release from federal prison, she and your uncle adopted you, fulfilling the promise they had made to your parents, who had been sentenced to life. They did a good job of cloning you into a dirty, little, traitorous, communist bastard just like them. But by doing so, they inadvertently sentenced you to death.

  “We have enough radical, progressive, communist insurrectionists in America, Hugo. We certainly don’t need any more shit bags contaminating our country now, do we?”

  Ryan looked into the cowering eyes of the shaking shell that no longer resembled anything that could be described as a man. The pathetic figure in front of him looked more like a small puppy tied to a post—a puppy that has just been kicked in the gut and sits dispirited, with its tail between its legs. Hugo was emitting a soft whimper that only a broken animal could make. Ryan actually began to pity him.

  Hugo was weak, but wasn’t that totally understandable? How could it be otherwise, when the two people who had raised him seemed to be the epitome of gender confusion and role reversal? Uncle Bill was feminine, cowardly, soft-spoken, and sneaky. He was totally dominated by his overbearing, tattooed, masculine wife, whose rabid temperament had been notorious among her fellow Lenin’s Legion comrades.

  Yes, Hugo deserved pity after all. This poor little communist bastard, born of murderers and raised by Marxists, deserved some consideration. It would come in the form of mercy.

  CHAPTER

  3

  Bill and Brenda both jumped as a loud bang cracked the silence of their upstairs prison.

  The sound had come from downstairs. Bill screamed, “That maniac shot Hugo!”

  Brenda began to shake, but if she was expecting any comfort from Bill, she was going to have a long wait. With sweat beading his forehead, Bill cried hysterically as he tried in vain to rip his hands out of the cuffs that attached him to the radiator. He was in a full state of panic.

  Ryan entered the room with a bluesteel, four-inch, .41 magnum revolver in his right hand. His finger still caressed the trigger he had pulled moments earlier, causing a copper-jacketed, hollow-point round to traverse the lands and grooves of the gun’s barrel and enter Hugo’s skull directly between his eyes. He had smiled with satisfaction as he’d observed the brain and cranial matter that decorated the banister post where the bullet had exited the deceased’s head. As he’d watched the blood drip to the floor, he’d thought contentedly, “One little commie bastard down, two to go.”

  Satisfied that Hugo was no longer breathing, Ryan had returned to the upstairs bedroom. “You’ll be happy to know that your late nephew, Hugo Delgadillo, has departed the planet and is as we speak rattling on the gates of hell, demanding entrance,” he cheerfully told Bill and Brenda.

  Brenda replied in her shrillest voice with a barrage of invectives that would have made the saltiest of sailors blush. “You dirty motherfucking redheaded cocksucker! You shot my baby. Goddamn you! I’ll kill you and your whole fucking family, you bastard!” She stopped her tirade almost as fast as she’d begun it when she realized she wasn’t going to kill anyone cuffed to a radiator at the window overlooking the street. She was totally at the mercy of a madman.

  “Now, now, now, my wicked little murderess. Let’s not get our panties all up in a wad and start talking about things that will never happen.” Ryan smiled as he pulled back his overcoat and returned the gun to the crossdraw holster attached to his belt. “If you think you’re smart enough to agitate me into shooting you like I did your precious little Hugo, think again. You’re not going to get off that easy. I’m going to see to it that you feel a physical pain that supersedes the emotional pain you inflicted on at least one family.”

  Then Bill managed to gasp out a series of questions. “What do you want with us? Who are you? What have we ever done to you? I don’t even know who you are. Please…”

  “Oh, but I know who you are,” Ryan cut in. “You are Bill Delgadillo and that tramp next to you is your wife, Brenda. You are both tenured college professors. You are considered an expert in early childhood development and education and your bitch teaches law.”

  “So what have we done to you? What brings you into our home on your murderous rampage?” Brenda demanded in a voice so cold and calm that Ryan wondered if she possessed multiple personalities.

  “Okay, Brenda, that’s a fair question. Although I think your description of my visit to your lovely little nest is a bit harsh,” replied Ryan. “You see, my little terrorist, in life, when peopl
e accrue debt, they are required to pay before they can move on. You and Bill have accrued debt, Brenda, lots of debt, and your bills have come due. What I can’t figure out is why the two of you believed you could pile up such a large debt and just walk away from it free and clear.”

  Bill had stopped crying and was quietly staring at Ryan. He had concluded that he and Brenda were in the hands of a madman but couldn’t figure out why they had been singled out. He wondered what had motivated this redheaded stranger to invade their home, kill their nephew, and announce that he had the same plan for them.

  Brenda scowled. Having repeatedly escaped accountability for the many acts of subversion and mayhem she’d committed during her sixty-eight years, she probably thought she would escape this ordeal as well and displayed more defiance than fear.

  “I know that the two of you are both well-respected academics here in the greater Chicago area,” Ryan began. Staring at Bill, he continued, “I know you were born William Carlos Delgadillo. You are the son of the late Tomas Delgadillo, a well-to-do corporate executive, and his wife, Lourdes. You grew up in the suburbs of Chicago with all of the privileges that a spoiled, rich brat—who never had to lift a finger to perform any meaningful task—could hope to have. You went to a private boys’ school and took lessons from a pro at the tennis club in the gated community where you lived. When you graduated from high school, you went on to study at a prestigious northeastern university. When you weren’t studying for a degree in education, you were dabbling in and laying the foundation for the Marxist activities that you would eventually foist upon the rest of the country.

  “You joined the Students for Revolutionary Change, became one of its leaders, and remained in that organization after your graduation from the university, even as you began a career as a preschool teacher. Tell me something, Bill. Why would a man want to be a preschool teacher? Isn’t that job more suited for a woman?” Ryan asked, wondering if Bill understood the innuendo.