The Fiery Cross Read online

  Of course, if things went sour at the meeting, and he was forced to act in self-defense...

  The Vanguard's leader was a minute late when Andrews spotted headlights, watched them turn in from the street and go out as the car rolled up close beside his own. Freeman sat behind the wheel. In the back seat of his car, a form vaguely human was wriggling beneath a blanket.

  "Company?" He had the pistol in his hand, concealed below the window.

  "A spy. My problem," Freeman told him. "You've got problems of your own."

  Such as?"

  "Your cover. It's about to spring a leak unless you patch it in a hurry."

  "I'm afraid you've lost me."

  "Really, comrade? Have I?"

  A lump formed inside Andrews's stomach, but he held the poker face. "You're babbling nonsense."

  "Am 1? Let me try again. I should be able to explain. After all, it's as simple as KGB."

  The lump became a block of ice. He knew. Somehow, impossibly, in spite of everything, the bastard knew.

  "What are you saying?"

  "I believe we understand each other now, Mikhail Andreivich. I'd bet a million dollars that you know exactly what I mean "

  "You think that I...?" He forced a laugh that came out sounding brittle, harsh. "You must be mad."

  "Not yet. I'm hungry, though. That million dollars ought to fill me up just fine."

  "Assuming what you say is true..."

  "Assuming."

  "You must realize that I don't have that kind of cash available tonight."

  "I'm looking at a bank right now."

  "You're looking at a bank that has a time lock on its vault. Unless you have a jug of nitro in the trunk, that lock will open at its normal time. That's eight o'clock tomorrow morning."

  "Listen, comrade..."

  "No, you listen!" Andrews put the edge of steel back in his voice, attempting to disguise his sudden fear. "At home I have one hundred thousand dollars in a wall safe. I can let you have that much tonight. If you want more, you will be forced to wait. It does no good to threaten a machine or curse at tempered steel."

  "You'd better not be jerking me around!"

  "One hundred thousand dollars now, or take your million in the morning."

  "I'll be waiting when you open up at eight o'clock. If I'm not out and running clear by 8:15, a nasty little package will be posted to the FBI."

  "I'll see you then, together with the package."

  "Right. If I were you, I'd leave the fancy tricks at home."

  "How could I hope to trick a man of your perception?"

  "Never in a million years, and don't forget it."

  "I assure you, nothing is forgotten."

  Freeman let him have a sneer in parting, put the Continental through a tight U-turn and powered out of there. As Andrews watched the taillights wink, then disappear, he let the ice block in his stomach slowly melt, regaining his composure. Somehow, Freeman had found out his secret. Given time and opportunity, Andreivich would have enjoyed debriefing his subordinate, discovering the methods he had used to crack a cover that had been decades in the making. But it scarcely mattered now.

  The "package" mattered, definitely. Freeman's evidence against him, ready for delivery to the authorities or to the media if he refused to pay the designated ransom. He would pay, of course, and gladly. What was money, in the last analysis, except confetti that had been assigned an arbitrary value by society?

  But he would not leave his "fancy tricks" at home.

  Oh, no.

  He had a very special trick in mind for Freeman, one that would eliminate his threat forever, and in style. He thought the redneck mercenary would appreciate it, if he only knew. In fact, the sleeper thought that he would have a blast.

  20

  The country road was dark and rutted, winding through a grove of cottonwood and oak. Each time a pothole rocked the car, Bolan heard a muffled protest from the trunk as Ritter made contact with his leaky traveling companion. Bolan smiled, content that this time out the wizard would not have an opportunity to keep his hands clean.

  Just ahead, the narrow road swung left and opened into a wooded glade. The trees were thinner here, more widely spaced, and vehicles were parked between them, three rows deep. He counted forty cars and pickup trucks before he finally gave up. No matter what the odds, he was going in, and there was no point fretting over numbers he could never change.

  He parked behind a station wagon sporting a gun rack in the rear and killed the engine. Swiveling to scan the open meadow thirty yards distant, he could pick out several dozen Klansmen, ghostly in their raiment as they helped erect a giant wooden cross. Brown shirts were scattered through the crowd, as members of the Vanguard mingled with their brothers of the sheet.

  The problem of his actual approach was solved as Bolan parked the car. A Klansman, all in white, had been assigned to keep an eye on traffic, and he was approaching; now, his mask thrown back, a curious expression on his face.

  "Hey, there!" he called. "Ain't that the wizard's car?"

  "You've got a good eye, brother. Mason had me bring it on ahead. He's right behind me, coming in with Freeman."

  "Freeman's coming?"

  "Absolutely. You're surprised?"

  The Klansman shrugged. "I saw some of his Vanguard boys check in a while ago, but no one told me it was going to be a combination deal."

  "They wouldn't want to miss this kind of action."

  "No, I reckon not." The man was eyeing Bolan quizzically. "Do I know you?"

  "It's possible."

  "I'd swear I've seen your face somewhere."

  Before he could pursue the matter, his attention was distracted by a muffled groan that emanated from the trunk.

  "Now, what the hell..."

  He made it halfway there before the edge of Bolan's rigid hand impacted at the juncture of his skull and spine, obliterating conscious thought. Before the guy could fall, his head was captured in a vise of flesh and muscle, one twist separating vertebrae and snuffing out his life.

  The soldier left the straw man draped across a fender and doubled back to free his captive from the trunk. It took a moment for the wizard's eyes to focus, but he recognized the close proximity of death and made no move to run.

  "Get dressed," the soldier ordered, dropping Ritter's briefcase at his feet. "We're going in — together."

  Moving swiftly, knowing they might be surprised by new arrivals any moment, Bolan stripped his recent kill of robe and hood, depositing the body in the trunk of Ritter's car with Jacob Halsey. Keeping one eye on the wizard as he dressed, Bolan slipped into the satin robe, placing the conical hood on his head and lowering the mask to hide his face. The robe had snaps in front, providing easy access to the hardware underneath, but Bolan cut a slit below one arm to let him reach the Uzi submachine gun in its armpit swivel rig. Spare magazines were tucked inside his belt, with two grenades clipped on in front.

  The snow-white robe could hide a multitude of sins.

  "Nice and easy, now," he cautioned. "Any deviations from the normal script could be hazardous to your health."

  Another line of cars was pulling in to park as Bolan followed Ritter toward the meadow, trailing several paces back and covering his Judas goat, prepared to cut the wizard down if he attempted to alert the others. Off to one side, near the tree line, Bolan spied a shed with sentries on the door. It was a safe bet Wilson Brown would be inside there, and he thought of veering off to take the guards immediately, make a break without delay, but knew it would be suicidal. If the prisoner was under guard, it meant that he was still alive, and any chance they had lay in following the ritual... to a point.

  The ranks of robes and brown shirts parted for them, Ritter leading, nodding to the faithful as they called his name, some of them raising stiffened arms in salutation. As he mounted the dais, Bolan took up station on the wooden steps, assuming a position where his field of fire would cover Ritter and the crowd. Behind them, someone touched a match to keros
ene-soaked burlap, and the giant cross erupted into rippling flame.

  Mason Ritter tapped the microphone and waited for the feedback to subside. Across the meadow, stragglers were hurrying to join the throng. Two hundred men, give or take, and Bolan knew he could not kill them all. With luck, he would not have to.

  "Brothers!" Ritter bellowed at his audience. "We have assembled here to celebrate a victory against the nigger-loving, Jew-backed farmers' union!"

  "Damn right!"

  "Lay it out!"

  "Our guest of honor probably would like to slip away somewhere," the wizard said, and waited for appreciative laughter to subside, "but he's been called in here by popular demand!"

  "All right!"

  "Let's do it!"

  "Bring the nigger out!"

  "You all know why we're here, and I assume you came prepared." This time, the wizard cast a sidelong glance at Bolan as he spoke. A murmur of assent ran through the crowd as Klansmen dug beneath their robes, producing knives and razors, blackjacks, lengths of pipe, revolvers. Here and there, a sawed-off shotgun was in evidence.

  "I see you still know how to throw a party," Ritter drawled to the approving hoots and rebel yells of his constituents. "I won't waste any more of your valuable time, then, except to say... bring our the nigger!"

  "Bring him out!"

  "Bring out the nigger!"

  Bolan slipped a hand inside his robe to grip the Uzi, bringing up his free hand to the snaps in front. Downrange, the sentries were emerging from the shed, supporting Wilson Brown between them like a prisoner en route to execution.

  * * *

  Struggling with his bonds and getting nowhere, Brown had listened to the mob as it assembled thirty yards away. It was impossible to count the vehicles or voices, but he thought there must be hundreds of the rednecked bastards, waiting for an opportunity to cut themselves a slice of dark meat for the party. Sensing it was hopeless, knowing that the nylon ropes would never yield in time, he kept on trying anyway.

  The sons of bitches might destroy him, but he would be damned before he let them make him quit.

  The Klansmen had been gathering for something like a quarter of an hour when a sudden hush fell on the crowd. He knew, without the need of being told, that someone in the upper crust of kluxdom had arrived. A moment later, and the troops were calling out his name.

  Mason Ritter.

  He would finally meet the bastard face-to-hood, at any rate. Brown prayed that he would have the strength and spittle left to plant one in the wizard's eye before they started carving on him. And if not, he had in mind as backup a few choice quips about the ranking Klansman's ancestry, just in case they kept him out of range.

  He heard a hollow tapping in the distance, as of someone drumming fingertips against a microphone, the momentary feedback squealing like a banshee in the darkness.

  "Brothers!"

  It was show time. He closed his mind to the infernal diatribe, refusing to eavesdrop on his own death sentence. It was ridiculous, if you thought about it: after Nam, the syndicate and all the other shit he had been through in forty-some-odd years of living, he was going to be lynched by morons living in a bygone era, dreaming of the "good old days" that never really were. It made him want to laugh, except that he was too damned angry. Too damned scared.

  Why not? He was about to be the main course at a feast of ghouls, and he was reasonably certain that the Klansmen did not have a quick, clean kill in mind. Allowing for the time, assuming most of them had jobs to go to in the morning, they could spare a couple of hours for the torment of a fellow human being. Something they could talk about in years to come, a little bit of hell on earth to help them feel superior.

  "Bring out the nigger!"

  That was it. They were playing his song, and the damned ropes were still tight enough to cut grooves in his flesh. If he had a while longer, a few days perhaps...

  Sudden light in his eyes from the two-story cross that was burning outside in the meadow, surrounded by blood-thirsty ghosts in their shrouds.

  "Time to go, boy," the sentry informed him, and them there were two of them, grabbing his arms in an effort to haul him erect.

  Brown fought back as much as the ropes permitted, letting one Klansman carry his weight as he kicked at the other with feet bound together. He missed the guy's groin, knocked him flat on his ass with a blow to the hip, but he bounced back and swung with the butt of his shotgun, releasing a fountain of blood from Brown's cheek. He col lapsed in their arms, cursing bitterly, unable to fight anymore as they dragged him outside.

  Ragged cheering broke out on the fringe of the mob, spreading swiftly as Klansmen and storm troopers got a first look at their prey. In the firelight, he caught sight of ax handles, hatchets, machetes, a cavalry saber. The bastards had bought out a hardware store. Business was good.

  "Bring him here!"

  "Let me at him!"

  "You want a piece, brother?"

  "I got dibs on his head."

  In the crowd now, conveyed by his captors between rows of white robes and brown shirts. The few exposed faces were seething with hate, spitting four-letter filth as he passed. For perhaps half a heartbeat, he pitied the poor stupid bastards, then anger surged up again and he wished them to hell.

  One last shot. Put one throat in my hands.

  One would do, if he couldn't kill twenty or thirty. Just one of the jackals to join him. One bastard along for the ride.

  They were close to the dais now, Ritter in purple on high, regarding his prey with the eyes of a vulture, the head of the microphone close to his mask.

  "Are you ready, my brothers?" he purred to the crowd.

  "You're damned right!"

  "We been ready!"

  "All right, then..."

  From nowhere, a knife blade slid down through the ropes that secured Brown's wrists. Hesitation, and then it repeated the move at his ankles, enabling him to stand on his own. He was free for the moment, aware that it must be a part of the game. Yellow scum that they were, they preferred the illusion of "fighting" a man who could try to defend himself, bare hands against the two-hundred-odd bludgeons and blades in the crowd.

  "Motherfuckers!" he rasped. "You want me? Come and get it, you bastards! Come on!"

  As the first wave surged forward, Mack Bolan ripped open the snaps on his robe and cut loose with the Uzi, a burst punching waist high through satin and khaki. The robed Knights and storm troopers toppled together, the second rank wavering, wondering what had gone wrong.

  Bolan held down the trigger and sprayed the assembly from left to right and back again, raking the ranks as he emptied that first magazine. They were jammed in so closely, all hot for a chance at their prey, that he could not have missed if he had tried. In the crowd, those with firearms were searching for someone to shoot, one or two of them squeezing off practice rounds into the mob. Klansmen fell, thrashing helplessly, bright crimson blossoms defacing their robes.

  On the dais, Mason Ritter was down on all fours, seeking cover where none was to be found. Bolan thought about shooting him, decided not to as he snapped a new magazine into the Uzi and ripped off his mask, moving forward to guard Wilson Brown.

  "What the hell...?"

  Recognition, in eyes nearly closed by the beating Brown had absorbed. He grinned, revealing missing teeth.

  "I'll be damned!"

  "Find a weapon. Lieutenant! I can't do this all by myself!"

  Scattered shots from the crowd, bullets droning like hornets around them as Klansmen and men of the Vanguard began to catch on. Bolan backpedaled, hosing the crowd with another long burst, watching several go down in a tangle of arms, legs and sheets. On the fringe of the killing zone, Brown found a pistol discarded by one of the fallen and made it a cross fire, selecting his targets from those who were armed, fighting back. Bolan crouched by the dais and waited, his stuttergun poised, for the stampede to thin.

  They were breaking en masse for the cars, shouts of warning replacing the curses and
catcalls of moments before. Bolan tugged a grenade from his belt, pulled the pin and let fly, overhand, pitching hard, for the point of the crowd. Smoky thunder enveloped a half dozen Klansmen, and others were dropped in their tracks by the shrapnel that sprayed in a circular killzone, away from ground zero.

  The lynchers were wavering now, undecided, a few of them breaking away for the trees, others ditching their robes as they went to ground, seeing concealment in the tall grass of the meadow. A handful were answering fire with more zeal than success, wild rounds snapping a yard above Bolan's head, gouging the wood of the dais.

  Mason Ritter was winged by a stray, and he leaped to his feet, crying out, "Don't shoot me! I'm on your side!"

  A shotgun blast out of left field sent him spinning, robes flaring out behind him like Dracula's cape as he fell, arms outstretched, toward the cross. With a shriek he embraced it, arresting his fall as the sleeves of his robe and his mask caught the flames, going up in a flash. One more scream and he slid down the pole like an animate shish kebab, sizzling his way to the ground. Bolan watched him impact, his broken legs thrashing, refusing to carry him, blackened hands straining for mercy from heaven. Instead, what he got was a bullet to silence his cries.

  "Too damned good for him."

  Brown was beside him now, armed with a shotgun and scanning for targets.

  "Could be."

  They were fresh out of candidates, tattered survivors escaping, their outlines like ghosts in the forest, and all out of range. On the field dead and dying lay twisted together, two dozen or more, their regalia discolored by bloodstains and soil. Weapons littered the meadow, discarded as owners took flight for their lives.

  Brown was grinning through split, swollen lips. "Looks to me like the Ku Klux have gone out of business."

  "Not quite," Bolan answered. Across the dark meadow, a few cars and pickups were pulling out, running dark, spewing up dust from their tires. The thirty-foot cross cast its shadow across the field, flickering dimly, preparing to die.