by Larry Bond
Halovic was proud of his assumed German accent. Together with his own native speech patterns, simply substituting “t” for “th” and “v” for “w” made his words decidedly Teutonic. The accent lent credence to his new alias as Karl Grüning, a German postgraduate student on an extended vacation to America.
“Be right there, mister,” a slow, southern drawl answered him from the back room. The owner of the voice, a wizened old man, emerged a few seconds later, blinking rapidly against the sunlight streaming in through the windows. He finished buttoning a plain white shirt that had clearly seen cleaner days and smiled nervously, showing an uneven row of yellowing, tobacco-stained teeth. “Now, then, what can I do for y’all?”
“I would like a room, please. You have a vacancy?”
“A room?” The old man seemed surprised by the notion that anyone would want to stay at his establishment. Then he roused himself. “That ain’t no problem, mister. I’ve got plenty of rooms.”
He looked Halovic up and down, clearly weighing what the traffic would bear. “Now, I charge twenty-five bucks a night—cash. In advance.” He looked almost defiant as he continued: “I don’t take no credit cards. And no checks, neither. Too much danged trouble.”
Halovic nodded. Better and better. He had hoped that the motel owner’s record-keeping would be on a par with his cleanliness. Carrying out this phase of the mission already entailed more risk and personal exposure than he would have preferred. At least staying in this rattrap would not require leaving a paper trail for the police to follow. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a full wallet, and carefully counted out fifty dollars in crisp ten-dollar bills. “That is not a problem. I would like to stay at least two nights, please.”
“Two nights?” The old man seemed even more astonished, but not so astonished, Halovic noted, that he neglected to grab the money in front of him. “You can have number five. Tidied it up myself yesterday.”
He reached under the counter for the right key and dropped it onto the desk in front of Halovic. “Scuse me for asking, mister, but you’re a foreigner, ain’t that right?”
The Bosnian smiled politely. “Ja, that is right. I am German.”
“Thought so,” the old man said with satisfaction. “I thought so.” His eyes narrowed in speculation. “Now, I don’t mean to pry or nothing, but I was wondering what you’re doing here in town. Can’t say as we get many foreign tourists here in Walker’s Landing.”
Halovic allowed himself to look embarrassed and eager at the same time. “I have come for the shooting. To shoot the guns, you understand?”
“The shooting?” Understanding dawned on the motel owner’s lined face—mixed in with some surprise. “You mean you come all the way from Germany to fire off a few rounds at our local gun club?”
“Oh, no. That is, not only to shoot.” Halovic paused, pretending to search for the right English words. “I am in America on a holiday. A sabbatical. I was in Richmond when I was told of your gun club.” The Bosnian shrugged. “It seemed a good opportunity, you understand? Firearms are restricted in my country. There are few places to shoot. It is not like here.”
The old man nodded slowly. “I’ve heard about them goddamn gun control laws like they got over there in Europe.” Although obviously still puzzled that anyone would come all the way to Walker’s Landing when there were more and better firing ranges closer to Richmond, he had clearly decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth. “Well, mister, I sure do hope you enjoy your stay.”
He nodded toward the door. “There’s a working phone in number five. You need anything, you just give me a holler, you hear?”
“Danke.”
“If you get hungry or want a drink, there’s a couple of bars and a diner in town, just up Route 250. Okay?”
Halovic politely nodded his understanding and turned to leave. He could feel the old man’s interested gaze as he walked back to his car. That was not surprising, really. In fact, he fully expected the story of the gun-crazy foreigner to be all over Walker’s Landing by nightfall.
That was exactly what Sefer Halovic wanted.
It was still daylight when he wandered up the road into town, trudging slowly along the grassy verge in the stifling heat. Although an occasional car or pickup truck passed him, the traffic was extremely light. Walker’s Landing was not really on the road to anywhere in particular. Certainly, the hamlet had very little to attract anyone to itself, he decided. Two churches, wood-framed houses, and a combination general store, post office, and pharmacy lined Route 250. Poorly paved streets on the right and left led off to more houses and a tiny school.
He stopped first at one of the local bars, the Riverfront. He didn’t stay long.
A loud rock sound track pounded at him as he walked in the door. Four or five customers were scattered around the bar, all of them in their early to mid-twenties. Halovic frowned at the bare wood dance floor and drum set that dominated one end of the interior. This place was not what he was looking for. This was a dance club, not a drinking saloon. Besides, the bartender and two of his patrons were black.
Halovic made sure that everyone noticed the hard, angry scowl he directed at them before he spun on his heel and stalked out. He had an image to create and maintain.
The Riverfront’s sole competitor looked more promising.
The Bon Air Bar sat at the north end of town, flanked on one side by a rutted, boggy field the bar’s customers used as a parking lot, and on the other by a small stand of trees. The brick building’s brown-painted wood-shingle roof might seem rustic or even homey at night, but the harsh late afternoon sunlight would not tolerate such friendly illusions. Right now the Bon Air Bar looked bleak and shabby. A neon sign on the roof advertised Budweiser beer, but Halovic wasn’t sure it would actually light once the sun went down.
This time he heard country-western music coming out of a corner jukebox. There was no sign of a dance floor. The room smelled of tobacco smoke and beer, and its dark wood paneling seemed to absorb the dim light. The only bright color in the bar was a five-foot American flag tacked up across one wall. Two middle-aged men sat together, talking, while a younger man, thin with long hair, tended bar. A TV blared in one corner, tuned to yet another baseball game.
Halovic stood in the doorway for a few moments, taking in the scene in front of him. He actually liked country-western music, which had a fair-sized following in Eastern Europe. And this appeared a quiet place, one not used to strangers, but certainly more restful than the Riverfront. It should suit his needs.
He walked over and sat down on a red plastic barstool. When the bored-looking young bartender glanced in his direction, he asked for a beer, carefully picking an American brand.
He sipped the pale, cold brew cautiously, comparing it unfavorably to the darker, warmer European beers he’d first tried as a student in Sarajevo and then again as part of the intensive preparation for this mission at Masegarh. Alcohol was forbidden to followers of the Prophet under normal circumstances, but God would understand the need to camouflage himself in this land of unbelievers. He was supposed to be a German and Germans drank beer.
Still drinking slowly, he let his eyes focus on the unfamiliar game being played out on the television set. And then he waited.
“I don’t guess they have much baseball where you come from, mister.”
Halovic looked away from the TV to find the bartender looking at him. He shrugged and smiled politely, clearly puzzled by what he had been watching. “That is true. In Germany we play football—what you call soccer. It is a fast game and very simple. But this”—he nodded toward the set—“this baseball of yours is so difficult. So complicated.”
“It’s not all that tough, actually.” The bartender grinned and held out his hand. “My name’s Ricky Smith, by the way.”
Halovic shook hands with the younger man and introduced himself. “Karl Grüning From Leipzig.”
“Pleased to meet you.” Smith nodded toward the television again. “You
want me to explain the finer points of the game?”
“I would be very grateful,” Halovic lied smoothly. He sat back on his stool and sipped at his beer, content to let the bartender’s gibberish about double plays, foul balls, and the rest wash over him.
The afternoon and early evening passed quietly. Halovic studied the men coming into the bar, noting faces and even names when he could hear them. Most wore work clothes, faded blue jeans or coveralls. Some had obviously come straight from their jobs or farms. While there were men in their twenties and thirties, the bulk of them were older.
By six-thirty there were ten or twelve men inside the Bon Air—all familiar to each other. Most came up and greeted the bartender, who in turn introduced the German tourist, “Karl.”
Halovic answered their questions easily, describing Germany and the journey he planned across America. But he was always quick to turn the conversation back to baseball or to firearms and sport shooting.
One of the men talking to him paused to light a cigarette and then spoke around it. “I heard it’s real tough to buy guns overseas. That true?”
Halovic nodded. “Ja. That is so. The authorities, they do not like citizens to own weapons. Even for hunting or sport. It is strictly forbidden in many places.”
The man and several of his companions shook their heads in disgust. One muttered something about “goddamn guv’mints.”
Their heads turned toward the TV as a sudden roar burst from the televised crowd. The man with the cigarette whistled and nudged the others. “Well, I’ll be damned! Will you look at that! A grand slam! That boy hit a goddamn grand slam!”
Halovic carefully concealed his contempt. These people were like children—easily distracted and amused by trivialities. No wonder they were held in thrall by the rich and powerful in this country’s cities and suburbs. Perhaps it was time to begin shaping the conversation to suit his purpose in coming to this backwater town.
He waited until the cameras cut away from the stadium and back to the network studio for a recap of the other games played that day. The commentator was a black man.
After listening to the sports anchor rattle off meaningless statistics for a few moments, Halovic suddenly remarked sharply, “Ah, get him out of here. I don’t want to see him.”
One of the older men seated nearby shook his head slowly. “He ain’t that bad, Karl. You should hear—”
“No, no, I don’t care if he is good or bad,” Halovic countered. He grimaced. “I am just tired of all the blacks I see on television all the time. It’s worse here even than in Germany.”
Without pausing, he launched into a bitter fusillade against “the Turks, Arabs, and Africans who infest Germany’s streets and steal jobs from true Germans.”
As he spoke, Halovic carefully noted the reaction from the group. The four men he’d been talking with all frowned slightly or showed neutral reactions. When he finished, there was a small embarrassed silence. To his chagrin, nobody took the bait he’d laid out, and someone quickly changed the subject to the latest movies and TV shows.
Dinnertime came and Halovic ordered a barbecue sandwich. The crowd thinned only slightly during the dinner hour, then grew again until the Bon Air was comfortably filled.
The group sitting near him changed as men drifted in and out, and he took advantage of that to occasionally throw out a biting reference to the problems caused by blacks in America, comparing them to similar situations in Europe. He also complained about the interracial marriages and about black people’s “low intelligence and tendency toward crime.”
Most ignored his remarks, or changed the subject, or simply left quickly. A few argued the points with him, or even agreed to some extent. Despite that, none of them reacted in the way that he had hoped.
By ten o’clock Halovic was beginning to feel the effects of the beer he’d been drinking, even at his limited rate. His eyes smarted from the tobacco smoke and the stuffy air, so he made his excuses, paid his bill, and left.
The walk back through town to his dingy motel room helped ease some of his frustration—but not all of it. Although he had known that this part of General Taleh’s master plan would take time and some risk to implement, he was all too aware of the days slipping past.
AUGUST 19
(D MINUS 118)
Halovic rose early the next morning. He exercised in his room, showered, and changed into jeans and a short-sleeved shirt. It was just after dawn when he stepped out into the muggy air.
Already aware of the sweat beginning to soak the back of his shirt, he crossed the highway and walked back to the diner he’d spotted the night before. There were three waitresses working that morning, one of whom was black. He was careful not to sit at one of her tables and he took pains to make his disdain for her known.
After a light breakfast he returned to his room, grabbed the Remington .30-06 rifle Yassine had procured for him earlier at a northern Virginia gun shop, and pocketed a large handful of cartridges. Before heading to his car, he also loaded a small 9mm pistol and tucked it away into a holster concealed in the small of his back. In Halovic’s experience, it never hurt to have a hidden edge.
The Walker’s Landing Rod and Gun Club lay right next to the James River, three miles west of town and down a winding country lane. A faded sign by the side of the road directed him to the clubhouse, an old concrete-block building topped by a rusting aluminum roof. Several other vehicles were already parked out front, and he could hear the steady pop-pop-pop of small-arms fire from off behind a row of trees.
With his rifle tucked under his arm, Halovic walked into the clubhouse to pay the five-dollar fee it would take to make him a member for the day. He paused just beyond the door to let his eyes adjust to the interior light.
Display cases containing rifles, pistols, shotguns, fishing rods, and other sports gear filled half the tiny shop. The rest seemed full of a hodgepodge of U.S. Army surplus clothing and military collectibles: World War II Wehrmacht helmets, fur-lined Soviet tanker’s hats, knives, bayonets, and boxes full of decorations, service ribbons, and unit patches from a dozen different countries.
How ridiculous, Halovic thought icily, these Americans play so hard at being warriors. And yet, how little they understand about real war.
He stepped up to the counter with his five dollars already out and ready.
The proprietor, a large, bearded fellow wearing a white T-shirt with a fish on the front, took his money with a smile and passed him a photocopied sheet. “Those are our range safety instructions,” he explained. “They’re pretty basic. No booze, no automatic weapons, and no explosive targets are allowed here at the club.
“Now, when somebody yells ‘clear,’ it means they want to retrieve their targets. When you hear that, you immediately cease fire and put your weapon down. And then you yell ‘clear’ back so they know you heard ’em. Once everybody’s stopped shooting, you’re free to go out and check your own targets. Okay?”
Halovic nodded his understanding.
The other man eyed his rifle appreciatively. “That’s a nice piece. Brand-new?”
“It is.” Halovic patted the stock fondly. “I bought it just last week. A real beauty, eh?”
“Uh-huh. You need any ammo today? I’ve got a good special running on boxes of .30-06.”
Halovic nodded again. He didn’t really need more ammunition, but it made little sense to risk antagonizing this man. “One box, please. And a map of the area, if you have such a thing.”
While the big, bearded man rang up his purchases, he used the opportunity to study his surroundings a little more closely. The owner and most of his customers were white, but one black couple was also there, perusing the racks of handguns and hunting rifles. Halovic took pains to shoot several hard looks at them, some of which, he noted, were spotted by others in the shop.
With the racial views of Karl Grüning once more made plain, the Bosnian cradled his rifle and headed outside toward the sound of gunfire.
By four
o’clock Halovic was back in the Bon Air Bar, this time perched well away from the television set.
He scowled to himself. The shooting range had been another waste of time. The people he’d met had been friendly enough, and they were certainly well versed in the workings of their various weapons, but none of them had been the least bit interested in his racial or political views. Worse from his viewpoint, the Walker’s Landing Rod and Gun Club had seemed merely a well-armed version of the Elks, or Lions, or some other kind of American civic organization. It was not the sort of place that would attract the kinds of men he had come looking for.
So again he quietly sipped beer and conversed with the regulars. They seemed to accept him more today—at least in the sense that they were willing to challenge some of his wilder statements. One fellow named Jeff Dickerson, short, pudgy, and in his thirties, seemed to have come in with that as his express purpose. Halovic remembered him from last night. Dickerson had walked out right after he had uttered something about blacks and Jews causing most of the problems in the world. Now the man was back.
That played right into Halovic’s hands. This man Dickerson was intent on a reasoned debate, so he gave him one. He was careful to keep the conversation unemotional, since an argument might cause them to be ejected from the bar. At a minimum an argument would drive other listeners away. And Halovic wanted listeners.
Speaking softly and calmly, he articulated a carefully thought-out worldview in which “lesser races” were the cause of many of the world’s current problems. Knowing he would need such information, he had spent many hours studying the neo-Nazi pamphlets and other literature Taleh’s agents had obtained in the United States and Europe. Now he repeated some of those same phrases, and quoted from German and American fringe writers who’d published books like The Jewish Crime and Genetics and Race. He also mentioned the Christian Bible frequently, selectively citing passages that supported his views.
Halovic didn’t believe any of it himself. In fact, he found their arguments and “facts” pathetic—almost comical. Islam, true Islam, recognized no racial divisions among the Faithful. Nevertheless, the man he was supposed to be would have believed in his hatreds with his whole heart and soul, and he had no compunctions about spouting such nonsense as long as it furthered his mission.
