Алистер Маклин - Prime Target

‘But it didn’t make him fireproof. How do you know so much about him?’

‘It’s an interesting coincidence. I researched him two years ago, after the Fossil Rim killing. Actually interviewed him, too.’

The murder of a black police officer at the wildlife centre at Glenrose, south of Fort Worth, had been faked to look like an animal attack. Mexican grey wolves were blamed but careful investigation by C.W. Whitlock, and follow-up work by Mike Graham, proved that the killing was carried out by white supremacists and was linked to a number of other murders in the vicinity of Dallas–Fort Worth over a six-year period. No one was ever charged with the Fossil Rim killing.

‘One of the police officers on the case had bad feelings about Gibson and his chums, and the bad feelings worked their way back to UNACO.’

‘What did you find out?’ Philpott said.

‘Well, it was a while ago, but I remember Gibson was a worshipper of all things fascist. He made no secret about it. I introduced myself as a journalist doing a series on rich men of principle. He was flattered to pieces. Told me about his possessions, his business coups, his skill at making things happen. He also told me about the promotional effort he put into republishing Henry Ford’s Dearborn Independent articles about the International Jew.’

‘Saints above,’ Philpott groaned, ‘have you ever read that stuff?’

‘No, sir, I never felt inclined. Always thought it would depress me.’

‘I’ll tell you something really depressing. Adolf Hitler acknowledged that the Ford articles were an influence on the arguments he put forward in Mein Kampf.’

‘I’ll bet Harold Gibson knew that. He thought Hitler was the hottest visionary since John the Baptist. He had a little framed picture of Adolf on the wall in his den.’

‘Intriguing.’

‘On the last news bulletin I heard,’ Mike said, ‘they reported that forensic examiners found the incinerated remains of two hundred thousand dollars lying on the car seat next to Gibson’s body.’

‘I think the matter could merit some attention. Before you ring off, there’s one piece of sad news from this end.’ He told Mike about Lucy Dow. ‘It’s part and parcel of our business, of course, but it’s no less unfortunate for that.’ Philpott looked at his watch. ‘I must go, Michael. Thank you for calling. Get back to me as soon as you have anything on the Stramm woman.’

Philpott’s evening was frenetic. Over a period of five hours he spoke to a lot of people and gave his attention to numerous issues. At 11 p.m. he was back in his office, going through classified status files on the computer.

‘Don’t tell me,’ C.W. Whitlock said from the doorway. ‘You couldn’t stand the idea of wasting hours and hours doing nothing but lying unconscious in your bed.’

Philpott turned. ‘You too?’

‘That’s right.’

Philpott looked at him levelly. ‘Domestic trouble, is it?’

‘More than I need.’ Whitlock came in and closed the door.

‘Is it because of your work?’

‘Part of it is.’ Whitlock poured himself a cup of coffee.

‘Well, it’s customary for someone standing where I do to say it’s no business of mine, and of course it isn’t. But I’ll interfere to the extent of expressing one opinion. In our trade, a man who can live with an unstable domestic background is better at his work than one who enjoys a life of wedded bliss.’ Philpott smiled. ‘It’s a peculiarity that gets stimulated by the nature of our work, I think.’

Whitlock was nodding. ‘It’s the same in the police.’

‘That’s where I first noticed it.’

Whitlock’s discomfort was showing. To change the subject, he asked if Philpott was doing anything he could help with. Philpott explained he was researching a Texan right-winger called Harold Gibson.

‘I had a rummage through the status files and turned up a couple of interesting things. Two months ago, at a garden party in the Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Gardens, a field agent of the FBI overheard Harold Gibson tell a lady guest that he counted himself blessed, because he had shaken the hands of several men who had shaken the hand of Adolf Hitler. It also appears that twice a year, since 1989, Harold made trips to Berlin. That’s about as much as I’ve found.’

‘I could have a flip through the bigot book if you like,’ Whitlock said. ‘There may be something in there.’

‘A very sound idea.’ Philpott vacated the chair by the computer. ‘Be my guest.’

Whitlock’s bigot book was an assemblage of data on fanatics, dogmatists and racists, randomly gathered, fed to the computer and organized into categories. The information was encoded by software that Whitlock had helped to design, and there was agreement within UNACO that only he should be able to access the files.

The computer began to click softly and purr as it conducted searches and file-collections based around the name Harold Gibson.

‘I get the feeling the man’s well represented,’ Whitlock said. He glanced over his shoulder. Philpott was behind his desk, drumming his fingers softly on the blotter. ‘I can do this on my own if you want to go home.’

‘No – I’ll need to make a decision shortly,’ Philpott said. ‘It will involve you.’

A photograph appeared on the computer screen. Philpott saw it and came to the table. It was a shot of a middle-aged man with a grey crew-cut and an ornament on a cord around his neck in place of a necktie. He was fat and he was laughing heartily.

‘Is that him?’

‘Harold Gibson, sixty years old, resident of Waxahachie, chairman and managing director of Munro, Davis and Gibson, realtors, of North Main Street, Fort Worth.’ Whitlock ran his finger down the column of close-printed details. ‘Here we go. In 1960 he was listed among the members of the US Nazi Party, founded by George Lincoln Rockwell. In ’62 he was present in London as a member of Rockwell’s entourage when Rockwell was ordered to leave Britain after attempting to disseminate Nazi propaganda. In August ’67, following Rockwell’s assassination by a sniper, Gibson was a principal mourner at the funeral and later gave an address to followers, in which he praised the dead Nazi and pledged himself to carry on what he called the noble fight.’

‘Did he have a sheet?’

‘Nothing criminal. A couple of cautions for inflammatory behaviour at rallies, and a civil action for obstruction when he did a protest sit-in on the proposed site of a synagogue.’

‘Anything on fund-raising?’

Whitlock scrolled the text. ‘Indeed, indeed. Together with Don Chadwick and Emerett Pearce, listed here as entrepreneurs of Fort Davis and Brownsville respectively, he formed the Lone Star Patriots.’

Whitlock was silent for a moment, scrolling the dense text. ‘Well now. The Lone Star Patriots isn’t quite the localized hick-racist outfit it sounds. They’re shown to have links with long-term Swiss-based eugenics research, aimed at proving the intellectual inferiority of the non-Caucasian races. Three Washington sub-committees have studied evidence implicating the Patriots in financing the protection of Nazi fugitives in South America. There is strong evidence that their propaganda teams have infiltrated university campuses and the boardrooms of major corporations. They are also known to provide funding for three extreme right-wing senatorial hopefuls. Three years ago Gibson personally put up half the defence money at the trial of a Nazi war criminal in Kraków.’

‘I don’t think we need to know any more.’ Philpott sat down again. ‘The man whose works you’ve been describing died less than twenty-four hours ago in Berlin. He appears to have died as a result of possible bomb-planting, and he perished in the company of a lot of money. Do you sense a connection there to matters that have taken our attention lately? Or at least a possibility of one?’