Don Pendleton - Dual Action

So far, so good.

The back porch sagged and groaned under his weight, two-hundred-plus pounds added to the appliances and parts collected there with no apparent system to their storage. Bolan tried the back door, certain that it would be locked, and froze when it moved at his touch.

Was it a trap, or was his quarry simply careless? Bolan drew his Beretta, stepping well back from the doorway as he gave the door a shove. It swung wide open on a kitchen redolent of grease and deep-fried food. No guns blazed, no burglar alarms shrieked for attention in the predawn silence. After another cautious moment, probing with his mind and senses, the soldier stepped across the threshold into the unknown.

The kitchen was a long-established mess. Whatever else Hoskins believed in, sound nutrition hadn’t made the list. For all its grime and clutter, though, the room held no proof that its owner had evacuated. Neither did the living room, where empty beer cans had assumed the status of an art form, posed on every flat surface available. The kitchen’s oil smell gave way, in this room, to stale sweat and mildew.

Bolan found the proof of hasty exit in his target’s bedroom. There, general disorder of his living space gave way to ransacked chaos. Drawers from a cheap dresser had been dumped out and discarded. Wire hangers from the closet made a trail across the floor, some of them bent where clothing had been jerked away. Presumably, the missing items had been packed, since Hoskins’s bedroom had less clutter on the floor than any other room Bolan had seen, so far.

There had been weapons in the closet, too. He could smell the oil and solvent. His guns were probably the only thing Hoskins had truly cared for, beer aside, and they were gone. Besides the lingering aroma, all Hoskins had missed was a half box of .357 Magnum cartridges, pushed back into a corner on the topmost closet shelf.

Something had spooked the Nazi gunsmith. Whether it was Bolan’s raid in Arkansas or something else, the end result was still identical.

Hoskins was gone, without a forwarding address.

And Bolan had to choose another target from his shrinking list.

“SO, WHAT’S THE FINAL body count?” Curt Walgren asked.

“Holding at nine dead, seven wounded,” Barry James replied. “Grundy’s ass-deep in cops and Feds.”

“Of course he is. They’ll tear the place apart before they’re finished. Where’s our fucking lawyer?”

“On his way,” James answered in a soothing tone. “I had to wake him up.”

“The rates we pay, I don’t care if you had to raise him from the dead. I want him shadowing those cops and Feds. Make sure they don’t take anything that isn’t specified by warrant.”

“He knows what to do.”

“He’d better.” Walgren bolted down his second shot of straight tequila, left the glass and went to sit directly opposite his chief lieutenant. “All right, Barry, what the hell is this about?”

“You have to ask?”

“Ohio? That’s impossible.”

“Is it?”

“The Feds suspect us, naturally. They would be total morons if they didn’t,” Walgren said. “But they need evidence. They come with warrants, not like this. Some joker with a painted face, running around at midnight, blowing things to hell. Give me a break.”

“Black ops, remember? Christ, we’ve talked enough about it from day one.”

“They pull that shit in other countries, Barry. Black ops in the States means bugs and wiretaps, stings, entrapment, setting up an ambush when they have the chance.”

“All right,” James said. “Who else is there?”

Walgren echoed his aide’s own words. “You have to ask? Think Yiddish. Try Mossad, maybe the JDL.”

James thought about it for a moment. “I don’t think so, Curt.”

“Why not?”

“Mossad might bomb your car or shoot you on the street, but this is too high profile for an operation in the States. Also, they’d never send a single man to pull a deal like this. Same thing for Jewish Defense League, assuming they had any talent on this scale.”

“So, it’s a mystery? We let it go at that?”

“Nobody’s saying let it go. We just have to be careful now, with so much going on. The last thing we need, with the big day so close, is some kind of high-profile vendetta,” James said in caution.

“Play it cool, you’re saying.”

“Right.”

“Roll with the punch.”

“Until we know who threw it, anyway.”

“And then?”

James shrugged. “We choose the time and place for payback. Make it count.”

“You always were conservative,” Walgren said.

“That’s why I get the big bucks, right?”

Walgren could only smile at that. “We’ll think about it, Barry. In the meantime, get that shyster on the line, will you? Make sure he’s earning every goddamned cent we pay him.”

“Right. Will do.” James rose and stiffened to attention, clicked his heels and snapped off a straight-arm salute. “Hail victory!”

Walgren responded from his chair, halfheartedly. When James was gone, he rose and crossed the room, pushed through another door into his private sleeping chamber. There he sat, relaxed as best he could, as he addressed his mirror image.

“So, you heard all that?”

“I always hear,” his reflection said.

“Barry wants to cool it. See what happens.”

“What do we want?”

“Waiting sucks,” Walgren said. “It’s cowardly. It sends the wrong message.”

“Make an example, then.”

“Of who?”

“It’s whom.”

“All right. Of whom?”

“Identity is less important than impact,” the mirror image answered. “In a totally corrupt society, who are the innocents?”

“No one.”

“Precisely. All except the faithful are complicit in the crime.”

“All guilty should be punished,” Walgren said.

“In time. Until that day…”

“A choice.”

“Our choice.”

“A demonstration.”

“An example.”

“Good.”

The choice would be a challenge, with so many enemies around them. Still, Curt Walgren knew whatever choice he made would be the proper one. He was inspired, at times like these, with a perception and intelligence beyond his normal limits.

In such moments, he knew how the old-time prophets felt, spreading the word of Yahweh to a world that didn’t care and wouldn’t listen. A reckoning would follow, and the unbelievers would be punished for their doubts, their mockery. Walgren would supervise their punishment himself, and he would glory in it.

But until that day…

There was a demonstration to arrange, and he had to also make concerted efforts to identify the enemy responsible for the attack upon Camp Yahweh.

It was not a crippling blow, would not defeat them or postpone the great day that was coming, but it still required an answer. James was wrong about the wait-and-see approach, which only signaled weakness to an enemy and thus encouraged him to strike again. Retaliation was the answer, and a larger demonstration to society at large.

A warning of the wrath that was to come.

One man against a small army.

Who had such skill and daring? Walgren wondered. His worst enemies were Jews, the schemers after world dominion, but it seemed incredible to him that the U.S. could produce such fighters. Israel had been forced to breed them, train them from the cradle upward, but Americans were soft by definition, their pampered minorities all the more so. They lacked discipline, determination, and the will to sacrifice.

The man who had rampaged through Camp Yahweh might be an Aryan, given the courage and ability he had displayed. Who was he? Why had he chosen this, of all times, to attack the Aryan Resistance Movement?