Bill understood the tone of Ryan’s question, but before he could answer, Ryan shifted his attention to Brenda.
“You, my fair little bombardier, like Bill, were brought up in a comfortable home in the small community of Black Fish Creek, Wisconsin. Your father, Gerard Hornstone, provided you with a life of comfort and privilege but was consumed with his various business interests and was not home most of the time, leaving your mother with the task of seeing to your daily needs. Your mother, Constance, raised you the best she could, providing you with the necessary guidance and discipline but lacking the warmth that an ordinary mother usually shows a child. She was more interested in making sure that her little girl had no imperfections, and you didn’t let her down.
“When you attended Black Fish Creek High School, you displayed all the attributes that your mother hoped you would, excelling at your studies and taking part in multiple extracurricular activities. You earned straight As and became a member of the National Honor Society. You were the president of the modern dance club, played violin in the school orchestra, and a served as student body secretary. When you weren’t occupied with your studies, you were doing community volunteer work at a local rest home. Your parents must have been proud when you accepted a scholarship to one of the many universities that offered you a full ride. You did well, receiving a BA in political science and then later a JD from the university’s esteemed law school.
“Life couldn’t have been more promising for you, but then something went terribly wrong, didn’t it, Brenda? After receiving your law degree, the whole world awaited the contributions that the all-American girl from Black Fish Creek surely had to offer society. Unfortunately, you chose to work for the Progressive Lawyers Cooperative in New York City. While employed in that organization, you became acquainted with some SRC members who had ties to some of your associates. One of those SRC members was your future husband, Bill. Bill soon became your constant companion and introduced you to his large cadre of leftist friends. They were more than happy to teach you the theories surrounding their Maoist and Marxist ideologies.
“With Bill as your steward, you quickly morphed from wholesome all-American graduate student from Black Fish Creek, Wisconsin, into a radical, hate-spewing demagogue, writing and delivering fiery speeches that advocated support for anything communist, including the Communist North Vietnamese, the Red Chinese, and the Cubans. You traveled the country with your newfound friends, speaking at college campuses and demonstrations.
“You soon became an icon in the radical student movement. Your mission in life became the overthrow of the U.S. government, the destruction of our capitalist system, and its replacement with communism. On more than one occasion, you made statements advocating the execution of all people standing in the way of the revolution that had become the vision of the SRC. You didn’t care who had to be killed. It didn’t matter whether it was cops, innocent men, women, children, or old folks. All you knew was that anyone who impeded the cause that you and your comrades were espousing would have to die, and you made no bones about repeating that idea over and over again in your speeches.”
Ryan shifted his gaze to Bill and reminded him, “It was you who stated that up to twenty-five million Americans might have to die if efforts to reeducate them to the ways of communism failed. Joe Stalin must have been looking up proudly from his place in hell when you made that statement, Bill. Hell, you even picked out locations in the southwestern desert of New Mexico for your reeducation camps and killing grounds.”
Ryan directed his attention back to Brenda and continued to recite what he knew about her past. “By 1969, you and your beloved Bill, along with several other leaders of the SRC, broke away and formed the Lenin’s Legion movement because you felt that the majority of SRC members were not committed to transforming the country into a communist state. You and the others felt that most of the members lacked the fortitude necessary to carry out a violent revolution.
“You and Bill were not content with just hanging around college campuses, burning a few draft cards, fighting with riot police, and breaking windows. You wanted a real revolution, and that type of a revolution could only be realized if people were willing to arm themselves, kill policemen—whom you referred to as pigs—disrupt commerce, spread propaganda, and use bombs to blow up government buildings.”
Ryan looked at Bill. “You and Brenda immersed yourselves in the teachings of Mao, Marx, and Lenin and even went to Cuba to be tutored in the finer aspects of how to conduct an insurgency. You were taught how to spread propaganda and mold the minds of young, naive college students who were away from home for the first time in their lives. Some of them were petrified at the thought of being swept up into that Southeast Asian war known as Vietnam—a war that many of them looked upon as a human meat grinder. The young minds that you sought to corrupt were ripe for the picking because a lot of them were looking for a cause to latch on to that would justify their resistance to the draft and give them a support system from which to draw moral sustenance, even if the morality of that sustenance was false.
“Your Soviet, Cuban, and North Vietnamese instructors taught you that a successful revolution requires combined strategies and tactics. Your handlers taught you the art of spreading propaganda and misinformation, stressing the value of these methods in fomenting unrest. You also learned how to use weapons and build bombs. When you returned home to the United States, you applied both the propaganda and terrorist skills you had acquired in Cuba. The idea was that propaganda and terror were moving parts in the same revolutionary machine, with each part dependent on the other.”
Ryan paused and asked his prisoners if they wished to add anything to what he had said.
After a few moments, Bill asked, “Okay, you’ve replayed an earlier part of our lives back to us. We’ve moved on. Brenda and I aren’t the same fiery and passionate people that we were when we were young. And although we talked a lot, we never killed anyone.”
“Oh, no, Bill, you haven’t moved on. You may have calmed down and become more adept at camouflaging your true agenda, but you are still the same radical, communist, revolutionary traitors that you were in the sixties and seventies. Furthermore, I take issue with the assertion that you never killed anyone. You continue to brainwash the young in your college classes, and together with your former Lenin’s Legion compatriots and SRC colleagues, you have formed a new organization called the Movement for Revolutionary Change, which most of you refer to as the MRC.
“You and your fellow MRC comrades are using your organization as a means to mentor thousands of college students in a reincarnated SRC that has emerged at over two hundred college and university campuses nationwide. The goal of your MRC mentoring program is to turn out a whole new generation of good little Marxists who will take up the communist banner and proceed with your revolution in the hopes that someday a communist government will rule America.”
In a voice that betrayed his alarm, Bill interrupted, “What do you mean, you take issue with me about not killing people?”
Ryan paused and studied his subjects, looking first at Bill and then Brenda. Bill looked like a fox caught in a trap. His eyes blinked rapidly in sync with the involuntary nervous twitch that danced across his cheeks. His thinning hair, combined with the rimless glasses and oversized earrings he always wore, accentuated a facade that served to mask the evil that lay just beneath the surface. Anyone looking at Bill would never suspect that this least masculine of men was capable of committing murder, let alone advocating genocide. The fact that he was soft-spoken only added to this misperception.
Brenda, on the other hand, was obnoxious, insolent, and defiant. Ryan studied this ugly woman. Her long, black hair was stringy with generous streaks of gray and looked as if it were rarely washed. Her wrinkled face resembled a prune that had been left outside to bake in the sun. Her body was covered with tattoos and the crow-like chatter that came out of her mouth when she spoke made her even uglier and was amplified tenfold when she be
came agitated.
Ryan wondered how this woman—once a miniskirt-wearing, hot-to-trot vixen of the radical left—could have devolved into such a sickening bag of rancid flesh. The thought of her being the most sought-after female at Lenin’s Legion orgies made his stomach turn. His mind couldn’t rationalize that aging alone could have caused her to become so repulsive. She was truly the end product of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll.
Ryan reached into the inside pocket of his overcoat and felt the sharp metal object that he always carried with him. His mind drifted back almost four decades to the day when it first came into his possession.
His parents never knew about that day in late January, 1974, when he’d cut his third-grade class at Robert Louis Stevenson School on 34th Avenue, hopped the N Judah streetcar, and used his lunch money to travel two miles to the Haight-Ashbury district.
He got off the streetcar at Carl and Stanyan Streets and walked three blocks north. He passed Kezar Pavilion, entered the east end of Golden Gate Park, and continued walking the final half block to Park Police Station, which was located next to Kezar Stadium. Ryan’s eyes had filled with tears as he remembered the time his grandpa had taken him there to watch the 49ers play the Rams.
Ryan lost track of time as he stood in the station parking lot watching city workers place bricks over the windows and erect a cyclone fence around the perimeter. Eventually a police officer approached him and asked why he was crying.
Ryan sobbed as he told the officer, “My grandpa was killed by a bomb, and he used to work here.”
The cop knew Ryan was attempting to connect with his grandpa in the only way that a little boy knew how. He picked up the grieving child and carried him into the station. Several cops gathered around and comforted him. They spoke about his grandpa and told him what a great policeman, friend, and mentor he’d been to them.
One of the officers slipped away and drove the two blocks to Bob’s Drive-In at the corner of Haight and Stanyan Streets. He returned minutes later with a burger, some fries, and a shake. Ryan was grateful. It was one o’clock in the afternoon. The only thing he’d eaten all day was corn flakes at breakfast, and he quickly devoured the food. When he was finished, an officer offered Ryan a ride home. As they were leaving the station, Ryan picked up one of several sharp, U-shaped objects that he saw laying in the parking lot near the newly constructed fence.
“What are these, officer?” Ryan asked.
The cop looked uneasy but replied, “Those things were inside the bomb, Ryan. I’m sorry.”
Ryan shrugged. When the officer looked away, he put the object in his pocket.
The police officer dropped Ryan off in front of his house, waiting until he was safely inside before driving away. Ryan went to his room and dropped the metal object into his piggy bank, alongside the nickels and dimes he’d saved for candy and other treats. It stayed there until he began carrying it in his wallet many years later.
Ryan returned to the present and stared disdainfully at Bill and Brenda as his fingers gripped the two-pronged piece of metal. He pulled it from his pocket and held it up.
“Do either of you know what this is?” he asked. Neither Bill nor Brenda answered. Ryan wasn’t sure if their silence indicated ignorance or if the sight of the U-shaped fence staple had shocked them into realizing the reason for his visit.
He approached Brenda and knelt beside her. He put his hand around the back of her head and pulled it gently toward him until her cheek made contact with the pointed ends of the object. In a whisper, he said, “This, bitch, is a barbed-wire fence-post staple.”
Brenda went cold and the blood drained from her face. She began to tremble. Her hands became clammy and her body was instantly soaked in sweat.
Ryan pushed the staple into Brenda’s cheek with just enough force to break the skin. Two small beads of blood appeared and began to trickle slowly down her face. She whimpered softly and began to cry.
“How does that feel, Brenda? Does it hurt? I hope so, because it’s only a fraction of the pain that you caused someone very dear to me many, many years ago.”
“What are you talking about? I don’t…”
“Shut up, you filthy whore. I don’t want to hear a word out of that commode you call a mouth until I tell you to talk.”
Ryan looked over at Bill, who was trembling. “What’s the matter, Billy? Are you cold?” Try being patient for just a few more minutes. You’ll soon be very warm.”
Bill shivered. He looked at Brenda, who was beginning to hyperventilate.
“Listen up, now, while I tell you about an event that happened years ago in San Francisco,” Ryan said. “Have you ever been to the town that Mr. Bennett sang about, Brenda?” Ryan didn’t wait for an answer. “Of course you have. What about you Bill? Have you ever been to the city of cable cars? Again, the answer is yes.”
Ryan smiled as the two of them squirmed. “They must be figuring out why I’m here,” he thought.
“Now that we’ve confirmed that you have been to my hometown, I think it only fitting that I introduce myself. My name is Ryan O’Hara. Does the name O’Hara mean anything to either one of you?”
Brenda’s gasps resembled those of a panting dog. Her hyperventilation was acute as she neared collapse.
“She knows,” Ryan thought. A feeling of satisfaction consumed him.
“Yes, my two belly crawlers, the name O’Hara should most definitely ring a bell with you.” He stared directly at Brenda and continued, “Mortimer Dermott O’Hara was my grandfather. You know who he was, don’t you, Brenda?”
Brenda tried to say something but was cut short.
“Shut up, rodent, and listen to me.
“Mortimer O’Hara, in addition to being my grandpa, was a policeman. He was working at Park Station the night you rigged a bomb under the hood of his patrol car. But you already know that, you filthy, Marxist slut, don’t you? My grandfather was hit by several of these barbed-wire fence-post staples that you and your Lenin’s Legion friends loaded into the bomb that you hooked up to the ignition.”
Ryan held up the U-shaped staple. “One of these was driven through Grandpa’s eye and into his brain. Another one severed his jugular vein. Hundreds more sprayed out indiscriminately through the interior of the police car and surrounding parking lot. Have you ever wondered what it would feel like to have one of these staples rip into your eye or tear into your throat, Brenda? Perhaps you’d like to experience that. Would you?”
Brenda gasped and wheezed as her breathing became more labored.
Ryan shifted his attention to Bill. “Don’t think I’m just singling out Brenda as the target of my wrath, asshole. I know you helped her plan the bombing and I’m holding you equally accountable. Perhaps you’d like me to shove this through your eye so that you can feel what my grandpa felt. No?”
Bill was weeping again. That annoyed Ryan.
He was tired of the weeping, the gasping, the denials of murder, the oh, Gods, and all the other panicked cries he’d had to listen to since he’d entered the house two hours earlier.
“Don’t worry, my two little communist scumbuckets. I’m not going to poke your eyes out. I want you to have all your senses intact so that you can watch your bedroom become a crematorium. You will watch the flames climb to the top of the curtains and spread out across the ceiling as the carpet around you turns into a sea of fire. You will watch each other vanish amid your own screams and the sound of sizzling flesh. Yes, my two little commissars of propaganda, you will need your eyes and all of your other senses to reap the full benefit of the gift I am about to bestow upon you. It’s time for you two Bolshevik bastards to join Vladimir, Joseph, and Mao.”
Ryan grinned and gazed at his captives one last time. “It’s time to fire up the barbie,” he said calmly. Removing the Zippo from his pocket, he ignited one set of curtains and then the other before leaving the room.
The animal-like screeches that came from Bill and Brenda gave Ryan a rush.
He quickl
y descended the staircase, lit a piece of newspaper, and threw it on the gasoline that had saturated the carpet by the banister near Hugo’s corpse. He waited a few seconds to make sure the flames ignited and traveled up to the second floor before opening the front door, where he paused for another moment to listen to the screams for mercy coming from the upstairs bedroom. Satisfied that the house was well on its way to becoming fully consumed, he closed the door and walked swiftly away.
As he approached the corner, a quarter of a block away, he heard glass shatter and crash to the street amid the anguished screams of his prey. The agonized pleas coming from the third floor of the brownstone excited him.
He continued walking until he had completely circled the block.
He sat on the stoop of the apartment building directly across from the inferno he’d caused and watched the people pour onto the sidewalks as the sound of sirens echoed in the distance. A sense of peace came across him. He lit a smoke and looked skyward. “Chalk one up for the good guys, Grandpa.”
The screams had stopped.
CHAPTER
4
Ryan relaxed as he sipped on a Jack and Coke in one of the numerous cocktail lounges at O’Hare International Airport. It was only half past eleven and he had time to kill before his scheduled 2:50 departure time.
He’d checked out of his hotel earlier in the day after unloading his .41 magnum and locking it in his suitcase. He’d taken a taxi to the airport, checked his baggage, and breezed through security.
Parting with his gun wasn’t something he relished, but concealing it in his checked luggage was his only option for getting it back to San Francisco. He’d thought about taking the train instead of flying, but he just didn’t have that kind of time to spare.
The Rampage of Ryan O'Hara Page 3
