Don Pendleton: Dual Action

“To fire the supergun,” Bolan said.

“In our estimation, yes. With the arrangement we discovered, they could aim it fore or aft. They made it mobile, and it served them well.”

“Too bad we don’t know who they are,” Bolan remarked.

“I just might have a lead on that,” Brognola said. “It isn’t definite, by any means, but—”

“Give me what you have,” the Executioner replied.

“How much do you know about Christian Identity?” Brognola asked.

“A neo-Nazi version of King James. The Nordic tribes of Israel. Jews are demons, nonwhites are mud people, the usual racist garbage.”

“That’s it, in a nutshell,” Brognola said, “with the emphasis on nuts. It used to be the creed of choice with white supremacists until the 1990s, when a lot of them turned Odinist to claim their Viking roots. The hard core hanging with Identity is more extreme than ever now, maybe to balance what they lost in numbers.”

“If you want to call that balanced,” Wethers said.

“In any case,” Brognola said, forging ahead, “we’ve got a clique of suspects who line up with the events in question geographically. Are you familiar with an outfit called the Aryan Resistance Movement?”

“Not offhand,” Bolan replied.

“Aaron?”

Kurtzman keyed a button from his chair, and Bolan watched a screen descend behind Brognola. From the far wall opposite, a slide projector hummed to life, projecting a map of the central U.S. on the screen. Brognola half turned in his chair to eye the map, as he continued speaking.

“They’re a neo-Nazi outfit, as you might imagine from the name. Still clinging to Identity theology, against the far-right trend. They have a compound here.” He pointed to the northeastern corner of Arkansas with an infrared beam. “You’ll find their background information in the file I brought you, but to summarize, they started in Missouri, then moved south, and they’ve been getting more extreme—more militant—as time goes by. Nonsense about the call to topple ZOG, and so on.”

“That’s the Zionist Occupation Government,’” Barbara Price reminded him. “Otherwise known as the U.S. of A.”

Bolan nodded, familiar with the term from other contacts on the fascist fringe. He waited for Brognola to continue.

“Anyway,” Brognola said, “geography.” The pointer danced across the broad projected map as he continued. “Here we’ve got the ARM, holed up in what they call Camp Yahweh. A hundred miles to the southwest is Little Rock, source of the stolen license plates. Due north, St. Louis, where the movement got its start—”

“And where the van was stolen,” Bolan finished for him.

“Right, you are. Ohio, where they made the hit on Wednesday, is a straight shot, more or less, from northern Arkansas along the interstates. And coming back, there’s Louisville. Stop by and torch the van that’s served its purpose.”

“It’s suggestive,” Bolan said, “but it’s also circumstantial.”

“Granted, but we’re looking for a weapon, not preparing for a trial.”

“Okay,” Bolan replied. “Convince me.”

“Right. For starters, three known members of the ARM were once associated with the Phineas Priesthood and the Aryan Republican Army.”

Both of those groups, Bolan knew, had robbed banks and armored cars across the United States in the 1990s to finance a scheme they liked to call Racial Holy War. Some members had been prosecuted and were serving time, but others wriggled through the nets for want of solid evidence connecting them to a specific crime. Broader sedition charges filed against both groups had been dismissed on grounds that anyone in the U.S. was free to advocate destruction of the government, as long as they made no attempt to pull it off.

“All right, we’re closer,” Bolan said.

“It’s apparent from the new group’s publications that they idolize the Phineans and ARA,” Brognola added, “but their straight-up heroes are Bob Mathews and The Order.”

In the early 1980s The Order—also called the Silent Brotherhood—had blazed a path of mayhem across the Pacific Northwest. Its membership was never more than twenty-five or thirty diehards, but the group had declared war on “Red America” and financed its campaign with a series of daring armed robberies that netted several million dollars from banks and Brinks trucks.

“You’re looking for a blueprint,” Bolan said.

“Already found it,” Brognola replied. “It’s right there in The Turner Diaries.”

Bolan nodded, frowning. While he hadn’t read the novel, self-published in 1978 by a former physics professor turned Nazi guru for a pack of dim-witted disciples, Bolan knew the basic plot: America, enslaved by “ZOG,” is rescued from the brink of race-mixing and social chaos by a band of vigilantes called The Order, who rob banks, hang “race traitors” and finally demolish Congress with a huge truck bomb. The Diaries had inspired a host of homegrown terrorists over the past quarter century, from Mathews and the real-life Order to various Klansmen, militias and the Oklahoma City bomber.

Playing the devil’s advocate, Bolan noted the obvious. “They’re not the only bunch of redneck psychopaths who have the Diaries memorized. I’m guessing you could point to six or seven other groups right now, within the same half-dozen states.”

“You’re right again. I could. But only one of them has been in touch with this guy. Aaron?”

On the screen, a grinning face replaced the map. The man was bearded, sunburned, appearing to be an Arab. He looked vaguely familiar to Bolan.

“Wadi Amal bin Sadr,” Brognola declared. “He’s an Iraqi Shiite cleric, presently in exile. We’ve had sightings from Tehran to Paris, but the only one confirmed so far was here.”

The picture changed again. This time, the man stood with two Caucasian males. Flat desert and a small adobe building could be seen in the background. All of them were smiling for the camera, apparently delighted to be there.

“Wadi again,” Brognola said, aiming his pointer at the second face in line. “This one is Curt Walgren, self-styled supreme commander of the ARM, and on his left is Barry James, his second in command.”

They didn’t look like much to Bolan, though they could’ve been a pair of Gulf War veterans in their desert camouflage fatigues. Bush hats concealed what might have been evidence of skinhead sympathies, or simply military-style buzz cuts. They had no visible tattoos, and sunglasses concealed their eyes. About all he could judge from the group photo was their strong, white teeth.

“When did they meet?” Bolan asked.

“This was taken in October,” Brognola replied, “outside of Ciudad Juarez. That’s just across the Tex-Mex border from El Paso.”

“Been there,” Bolan said.

“Oh, right.”

“Stop me if I’m mistaken, now,” Bolan began. “Our theory is that Sadr passed the supergun along to these yahoos, so they could—what? Rob armored cars? Raise hell at random in the States?”

“We can’t ask Sadr,” Brognola answered. “Rumor is the Israelis vaporized him with a rocket attack in Jordan, last week, but I doubt that we’ll ever confirm it. Motive-wise, there’s not much difference between his sect and what passes for Christianity inside the ARM. They both hate Israel and believe that Jews are children of the devil. Both regard the U.S. government as a Satanic instrument. Walgren would spit on Sadr for the color of his skin, but if the Arab helps him hit the Jews, he’d play along. You know the old saying—‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend.’”

Bolan nodded. “It’s logical enough,” he said. “You think they’ve got the weapon stashed at their compound inArkansas?”