The Fiery Cross Read online

  "Catch his arm!"

  "I'm trying, damn it!"

  "Jesus! Ow!"

  A pistol cracked across his skull, and Brown was reeling when the boot exploded in his groin. With all his remaining strength, he whipped the chair leg down across the nearest skull and felt it crack despite the cushion of a ski mask.

  Falling.

  Falling.

  Hammered to his knees by saps and gun butts, Wilson Brown embraced the darkness and escaped from pain.

  "Don't kill him!" someone growled.

  Wilson Brown no longer cared.

  * * *

  Reverend Jacob Halsey parked his vintage Chevrolet behind the Vanguard meeting hall, retrieved his pistol from the seat beside him, slipping it inside his belt. He did not lock the car. If he came out again and it was there, he would consider driving home. If he did not come out...

  The lights were on in Freeman's office, as he had expected they would be. The boss man and his puppet would be huddled near the phones, awaiting fresh reports from hunters in the field. Some word of Lynn or Bowers. An announcement of their death, perhaps. And would they know Halsey was coming? Had the gunners stationed at his home phoned in a warning? They had made no move to stop him when he left, and he had not been followed, though he had been prepared to lose a tail if necessary. Obviously they were under orders to remain in place and watch the house for Lynn's return, but had they sent a runner out to make a call?

  From habit, he had driven by Mason Ritter's office first and found it dark. That left him only one alternative, for Halsey knew that Ritter would not join the hunt himself. The wizard was a coward at heart, and he would never lead the way in any situation where resistance was expected. Possibly, if Lynn had been alone...

  The back door was unlocked, and Halsey slipped inside, closing it silently behind him. Freeman did not pay a watchman, but there might be Vanguard troopers on the premises. He thought it likely they would all be committed to the hunt by now, but there was no point in courting an unnecessary risk.

  Gun in hand, he passed on the elevator and took the stairs. Without the background noise of daily business, Freeman or his underling might be alerted by the elevator's sound, and Halsey did not plan to give them any warning if he could avoid it. Climbing swiftly, two steps at a time despite the protests from his knees and ankles, he arrived on Freeman's floor before the first full minute had elapsed.

  It was the third door on his right, and it was standing open now. If he had used the elevator, they would surely have been waiting for him when he stepped out blindly to be met by guns. Immensely pleased with his success so far, the minister dismissed the niggling voice of conscience reminding him that pride was a sin. He had murder on his mind, and in comparison with taking human life, a little pride would scarcely make a ripple in the lake of fire.

  He flicked the automatic's safety off and curled his finger snug around the trigger, mentally prepared to open fire at any sudden movement by his adversaries. Odd that he should think of Freeman and the wizard in those terms, when he had followed them for so long, feasting on their every utterance as if it was the gospel. Feeling foolish and betrayed, he stepped across the office threshold, scanned the waiting room and found it empty, moved with grim determination toward the would-be führer's inner sanctum.

  Here, too, the door was open, and he heard their voices well before he saw their faces. They were arguing — or, more precisely, Freeman was berating Ritter while the wizard made a churlish effort to defend himself.

  "We should have had reports by now, goddamn it! What's the matter with those men of yours?"

  "My men? Your guys outnumber mine by more than two-to-one. I don't hear yours reporting anything."

  "This whole damned mess is your fault, Mason. If you hadn't sent incompetents to do the job..."

  "I sent the best I had. Remember, it was your man who cleared Bowers in the first place. If it hadn't been for your okay, he would've never gotten in the Knights to start with."

  "Listen, you..."

  Freeman's bitter stream of words dried up as Halsey stepped into the office, covering them both without selecting either target as his point of focus. Military training was returning to him now, across the years. When covering a group of prisoners, don't point your piece at any single man. Cover the group and be prepared for sudden moves by any individual.

  It was the first time in his life that Halsey had been called upon to use that sage advice. At Chosin there had been no time or opportunity for taking prisoners.

  "You look a little peaked, Pastor." Freeman's smile was oily, something you might discover on the bottom of your shoe.

  "What are you doing, Reverend?" Ritter sounded scared, and he did not possess the skill to hide it.

  "I've got business to discuss with both of you," he said. "It won't take long."

  "That's good," the Vanguard's chief replied, pretending not to see the .45. "We are a little pressed right now."

  "I have the answer to your problem."

  "I don't think so, Chaplain."

  "You might be surprised."

  He sat down, uninvited, in a chair that let him cover both of them at once. His back was to the wall, the open doorway on his left, preventing any late arrivals from surprising him.

  "You tried to kill my niece," he said to both of them at once. Mason Ritter paled beneath his tan, but Freeman merely leaned back in his chair, content to wait and see what Halsey might be working up to.

  "Have you gone crazy, Jacob?" Ritter's hands were shaking, and there was a tremor in his voice. "Why would we do a thing like that?"

  "I'd like to hear your answer on that point myself," he said, "before I kill you."

  "Jesus, Reverend!"

  "Take it easy," Freeman purred. "There must be some mistake."

  "You made it."

  "Have you spoken to your niece this evening?"

  "I have. Your jackals missed her, by the way. Seems like the four of them together couldn't find the back door to my house."

  He saw a spark of anger deep in Freeman's eyes and knew that he had scored a telling point.

  "What did she tell you?"

  "Nothing but the truth. I'll ask you one more time: why did you try to kill her?"

  "Nobody tried to kill her, Jacob. Not deliberately. The word was out on Michael Bowers — he's a government informer, did you know that? — and your niece was with him. In his bed, I might add."

  "Never mind that, Freeman."

  "Don't you want to know the facts? Your niece, in bed with an informer who's been selling out the Knights for federal gold. If I was a suspicious man, I'd say that gives me cause to wonder about you, Pastor."

  "I never betrayed my oath. Never. It's you two who twisted the Knights, turned them into a criminal gang at your own beck and call. What became of the values we stood for? What happened to justice for common men? Help for the innocent? Alms for the needy? You've ruined the movement with personal avarice, living like leeches and sucking the hope from your followers."

  "Well," Freeman drawled, smiling thinly, "I'd say that we've smoked out our Judas. You think so, Mason?"

  Ritter was trembling too much to put faith in his tongue, but he nodded, the jerky response of a spastic.

  "Yes, sir, I've been wondering just who the traitor might be," Freeman said, speaking casually, drawing attention away from his hands in his lap. "I'll be honest and say that I never suspected the reverend here. Hell, if you can't trust a minister, who can you trust?"

  Ritter shrugged, held his tongue.

  "You were foolish to think I wouldn't react when you went after Lynn," Halsey told them. "She's all that I have."

  "That's the truth," Freeman growled. "And you sure as hell don't have the Knights anymore."

  "I'll survive."

  "Will you? What do you think, Mason? Will he survive?"

  Ritter's move came from nowhere, a lunge, not toward Halsey but rather away from him, diving for cover. Instinctively turning, Halsey squeezed of
f a shot at Ritter, saw blood on the sleeve of the wizard's jacket before he was slammed over backward, propelled by a blow to the face.

  On his back, tasting blood in his mouth, Halsey heard dim echoes of gunfire and knew that the second shot must have been Freeman's. A gun in his lap or beneath the desk — somewhere — and now he was pushing away from his desk, standing up, looming huge above Halsey, the squat automatic impossibly large in his fist.

  "Better luck next time, Jacob. Of course, there won't be any next time."

  Halsey's fingers were numb, unresponsive, as he attempted to raise his own weapon. He saw Freeman's smile through a fine ruby haze, watched him stoop to retrieve Halsey's weapon.

  "You're out of your league. See you in hell."

  Halsey closed his eyes, began to pray. "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not wa..."

  * * *

  "Get up, Mase. You're not hurt."

  The Bible-thumper's blood was on Axelrod's shoes and slacks, but he was not concerned. He kept an extra suit on hand for such emergencies, and he would change before he kept his rendezvous with Michael Andrews at the bank. Just now, his mind was on removal of the human refuse from his office, a distasteful chore that could not wait.

  "Get up, I said!"

  The wizard had his jacket off, examining the bloody crease that Halsey's slug had etched across his biceps. Ritter had been luckier than he deserved; a few more inches and the bullet might have cracked his ribs to drill a lung.

  "I'm hit!"

  "You're grazed, goddamn it. On your feet."

  "Is he dead?

  "If he's not, he'll be nursing one hell of a headache tomorrow."

  For Christ's sake, he ruined my jacket."

  "Forget about that, will you? Go bring your car around, then get back up here and help me get rid of him."

  "My car?"

  "You heard me."

  "But... what should I do with him?"

  "Who gives a shit? Drive him out to the country, for all I care. Dump him on Main Street. But get him the hell out of here."

  "Jesus Christ."

  "Move your ass!"

  He was trembling with rage by the time Ritter left, sorely tempted to make it two corpses and drag them both down by himself. As it was, he would have to save Ritter for another time. His meeting with the banker was in an hour, and Axelrod did not intend to miss that session, not at any price.

  In fact, his price would be a cool one million dollars, and he thought Andrews would consider it a bargain. Axelrod had not played any of his aces on the phone, referring merely to their "urgent business," hinting that it might be catastrophic if the banker failed to show. He tried to put himself inside the other's mind, to imagine what Andrews must be thinking. Clearly there was blackmail in the wind, but nothing would prepare his pigeon for the shock of final revelation. When the banker realized he knew, knew everything, he would be more than happy with the price of silence. He would be ecstatic.

  Axelrod was being generous, all things considered. With the dirt he had on Andrews, he would easily have asked five million, even ten. He could have cleaned out the frigging vault, claimed the banker's wife — except that he had seer, her several times, and she possessed nothing that would have changed his attitude toward the opposite sex. Or he might have claimed the banker's firstborn son, a more delicious thought, and one that made him smile.

  He found a box of trash-can liners in the closet, pulled one out and worked it over Halsey's leaking skull. The job was nearly finished when a whirring sound distracted him. The elevator. Knowing it was Ritter but refusing to take chances, Axelrod covered the open doorway with his Detonics .45, enjoying Ritter's expression when he came face-to-muzzle with the gun.

  "Be careful with that, will you?"

  "Always."

  "Well, I got the car. You gonna help me with this thing or what?"

  He took the dead man's feet, left Ritter with the head and shoulders. Halsey had seemed thinner when he was alive, but then, deadweight was always heavier. A corpse was inconsiderate that way, refusing to cooperate around the corners, sagging in the middle, hauling on your arms until it felt as if they were ripping from their sockets. They released their burden in the elevator, riding down, a respite that was only long enough to make the clergyman's body that much heavier when they picked him up again.

  Outside, the muggy night was finally cooling off, an indicator of the hour. Ritter had to drop his end of the body to find his keys and open the trunk, and he was groaning by the time they got the huddled form inside. The trash-can liner made a liquid sloshing sound as Jacob Halsey was laid to rest.

  "Go on now, and when you're finished, meet the boys to settle up with Brown. They're waiting for you."

  "Don't remind me."

  "Do you have a problem with that, Mase?"

  There was deliberate menace in Axelrod's voice, and Ritter got the point.

  "No problem."

  "Fine. I'll see you later. Maybe we can meet for lunch and you can tell me how it went."

  "Okay."

  They would not meet for lunch, of course. When Ritter called and got no answer, curiosity would set to work. It would be hours more before anxiety broke through, and by the time his stooge came looking for him, Axelrod would be long gone. If anyone should take a fall for killing Halsey or the niggers, Ritter was the man on tap. What did it matter if he sang his heart out in a cell and coughed up everything he knew? The beauty of it was that he knew nothing; every "fact" the wizard knew about his cohort, "Freeman," was false. The more he sang, the more he made himself appear duplicitous, a scheming killer trying to escape his just desserts by laying the blame on shadow men.

  Upstairs, Axelrod kicked off the bloody shoes and trousers, retrieved fresh clothing from the closet and began to dress. Once he had put the touch on Andrews, he would stop by "Freeman's" home just long enough to gather his belongings — things with which he did not care to part just now — and then he would be off for parts unknown. A set of extra plates were waiting for him in the trunk of his car, ready to replace those registered in Jerome Freeman's name. If he was stopped for any reason on the first leg of his journey, the plates and a bogus driver's license would agree that he was Peter Thomas of West Memphis, free from wants and warrants in the state and federal crime computers. How could anyone be looking for a man who never did exist?

  He heard the sound — or the suggestion of a sound — as he was zipping up his trousers. Taking time to smooth the fly, he turned to face the doorway of his private office, startled by the figure framed there, gun in hand.

  "This is a nice surprise." He forced a smile. "We've all been looking for you."

  "Here I am," Lynn Halsey said.

  * * *

  Once Bowers left her at the Greyhound depot, Lynn had ducked outside to flag a cab. Her first stop had been the meeting hall of the Teutonic Knights, but it was all in darkness, and she had paid off the driver outside Vanguard headquarters, noting the light in Freeman's office window. She had no concrete plan in mind; invasion of the Vanguard stronghold would be tantamount to suicide, but with the automatic pistol in her purse she felt somehow invincible. She had been moving toward the door with long, determined strides when something captured her attention in the parking lot.

  Her uncle's Chevrolet.

  She would have known it anywhere, a classic '65, with paint and bodywork in mint condition. Uncle Jacob did not love the car, as young men sometimes idolized their wheels; he simply liked it, treated it with care and offered his apologies when some collector tried to buy it out from under him.

  Her stomach lurched. If Uncle Jacob was inside — and, obviously, no one else had parked his car behind the Vanguard meeting hall — what did it mean? She tried to reconstruct his words, their last conversation, but she managed only fragments. He had spoken of his work, of a duty yet to be fulfilled. What duty? And to whom? Was he delivering an ultimatum to the leaders of the Klan, or reaffirming loyalty to the order? Had his mind been so eroded by their
hateful doctrines that he could have turned against her after all?

  She was ashamed for even thinking such a thing. If he had meant to harm her, she would not have been allowed to leave his house. In fact, he had encouraged her to leave with Bowers. A dreadful certainty was growing in her by the moment, telling her beyond a shadow of a doubt that Uncle Jacob had not driven here to pledge support for Freeman or the Vanguard.

  He had come to settle an account.

  As she was fumbling for the automatic in her purse, the back door of the building opened, spilling light across the pavement. Dodging to her left, she crouched behind her uncle's Chevy, peering cautiously around the fender. Two men shuffled through the doorway, burdened by an object slung between them. In the flare of light, she recognized Mason Ritter, picked out Freeman's face in profile as they labored toward a waiting car. With sudden terror, accompanied by nausea, she recognized their burden as the lifeless body of a man.

  The corpse's head was covered by a bag of some sort, but she recognized the clothing. Uncle Jacob's Sunday suit, the one he had been wearing when they had spoken, no more than forty minutes earlier. Half blinded by her tears, consumed by a desire to rush at her uncle's murderers and shoot them where they stood, she watched the men stuff him inside the trunk of Ritter's car. The wizard mumbled something to his master, climbed behind the wheel and drove away, conveying Lynn's only relative to some secluded resting place.

  She had no way of following the car, and so she waited, watched as Freeman headed back inside. She gave him time to reach his office, dabbing at her eyes and checking the pistol, as she had been taught, before she followed him. Unmindful of the noise, she used the elevator, and the killer's own distraction allowed her to reach the threshold of his office undetected. She let him hear her then, her weapon leveled at his chest from twenty feet away.