The Fiery Cross Read online

  "I've heard. Some folks are waiting for a second opinion on the Civil War."

  "It's getting better," Brown confided. "Chatham County's not the promised land, but it could be a whole lot worse."

  "You make the Vanguard or the Knights for Theo's murder, Wils?"

  "Who else?"

  "Well, if the heavy money is against the union, they'd have access to professionals."

  Brown shook his head. "It's Freeman's game. If he and Ritter haven't got the in-house talent, they recruit from other groups around the country."

  "You've been doing homework."

  "Keeps me off the streets, I guess. Won't say it keeps me out of trouble, though."

  "What have you got?"

  "There's nothing I could take to court. That's why I made the call."

  "I'm listening."

  "Since Theo started working for the NFU eighteen months ago, there've been twenty-seven major incidents of violence in the area. We're talking bombings, arson, beatings. Back in January, someone snatched the union's lawyer from his office, drove him out of town and shoved a broomstick where the sun don't shine. Oh, yeah — they drove nails through it first."

  "That's grim."

  "That's just for openers. A few weeks later, drive-by shooters crippled Theo's second-in-command. Another union organizer disappeared in April. Hunters found his car, burned out, a couple of miles from town. He's down as missing and presumed dead."

  "So Theo knew the risks involved."

  "Hell, yes, he knew! /knew, and like a damned fool I ignored it. Told him I was proud of him. Encouraged him to lay it on the line for people that I never even met before last week.''

  "You're not responsible."

  "Hell, no. I'm irresponsible. It's easy to be reckless from the sidelines, when you're safe."

  "That's not your style."

  "Oh, no? I didn't used to think so, either, but I've had it on my mind."

  Bolan changed the subject. "These other incidents. I take it they didn't worry Theo?"

  "Not enough to scare him off. He had his mother's stubborn streak when he believed in what he had to do. The calls and letters never fazed him. Oh, he took precautions when he could, but he refused to hire a bodyguard because the other members of the union didn't have the luxury. If anybody wanted Theo Brown, he meant to meet them on his own. But it didn't work."

  "Was he involved with anything specific, just before?"

  "We weren't in touch a lot, the past few weeks. I had my scouting, and the sideline out of Wonderland. I try to tell myself there's nothing I could have done."

  "It's true."

  "Maybe, but I'm not buying it." The man shook his head. "To hell with that. He was on something special, right before... before he died. A couple of his people in the NFU tell me Theo had a pigeon lined up in the Vanguard. Someone who was sick of Freeman and his people, primed to split, but Theo talked him into staying on, reporting back on what was going on. He had in mind to build a case against the Vanguard and the Knights for some of the outrageous shit that they've been laying down in Chatham the past few months. I'm told he had a file damn near completed. He was going to deliver it to someone — locals, FBI, I can't be sure."

  "What happened to the file?"

  "The night the bastards took him, someone turned the union office upside down, made off with all the papers they could carry, trashed the rest. If Theo had a case, it died the same time he did."

  Bolan scanned the silent rows of stones and crosses. Cemeteries were the same throughout the world, regardless of differences in religious symbolism. Hopes and dreams were buried there, along with the remains of human beings. Visions of an afterlife could mitigate the pain of loss, but they could never wipe it out completely.

  "What's the story with police?" he asked.

  Brown shrugged. "The sheriff is a 'good ol' boy.' You know the type? He's not a Kluxer that I know of, and the chances are he wouldn't take a bribe, but he respects the 'decent citizens' of Chatham County, and he's not about to issue warrants on the unsupported word of hardscrabble farmers. His investigators have been "looking into' the harassment, bombings, all of that, but so far all they've got is questions."

  And the FBI?"

  "They take our calls and talk to witnesses, they keep an eye on Freeman and the Klan. But things are different from the old days. Congress keeps a sharp eye on surveillance, and the last I heard, the Bureau didn't have a man inside the Vanguard or the Knights. I guess they follow Freeman when he travels, make notes on his speeches, all of that. But no one ever said he pulled the trigger personally. He's the brains, if you can call it that."

  "Who pays the tab?"

  "Specifically?"

  "If possible."

  "The Southern Bankers' Conference has a solid interest in the farm recession hereabouts. They cut their major deals with big agribusiness interests, but they also hold the mortgages on damn near every farm in Arkansas and six or seven other states. If they foreclose on small-time operators, turn around and sell the land to larger clients.. .well, they win both ways."

  "This conference have a chairman?"

  "Natch. They're based in Georgia, but the local honcho is a fat cat by the name of Andrews, Michael Andrews, also out of Little Rock."

  "Connections with the Vanguard or the Knights?"

  Brown shrugged again. "I figure, but I can't say for sure. Whatever proof my boy had disappeared the night he died."

  "Okay. It's obvious we need a man inside."

  "I guess, but Theo never passed his contact's name around."

  "That's not exactly what I had in mind."

  "Well, what... oh, hell, it figures."

  "Any other thoughts?"

  "Unfortunately, no."

  "All right, then."

  "Listen, Sarge, the tab on this one's high already. I don't want to raise the ante."

  "Sometimes that's the only way to play the game."

  "I didn't make that call to find myself another martyr, understand?"

  "I know that, Wils."

  "I want the killers punished — hell, I want the bastards dead — but I'm not asking anybody else to put their future on the line."

  "You didn't have to ask. Besides, who's got a future?"

  "Jesus."

  "Listen, Wils... I never met your son, but everything I've heard about him tells me he believed in living large."

  The former lineman thought about it for a moment, staring into space. When he turned to Bolan once again, his eyes were glistening.

  "I'd say so, yeah."

  "All right. Then he deserves a monument."

  "What do you have in mind?"

  "Oh, I don't know. A bonfire, maybe."

  "Could we fix that up to be a funeral pyre?"

  "You read my mind.*'

  "I don't know how to say this, man. When I put through that call... I was afraid you wouldn't come."

  "I didn't hear that, guy."

  "Well, hear it, then. I'm trying to apologize."

  "Unnecessary."

  "Don't tell me. I know what's necessary."

  "You've been carrying some weight around that isn't yours," the soldier counseled. "Might be time for you to lay it down."

  "Not yet. I'll think about it when we're finished."

  Silence hung between them for a moment, each man dealing with his private thoughts. When Wilson spoke again, his voice was firm and resolute.

  "What can I do to help?"

  "Stay hard. Watch your back and take it easy. I'm not here to make a martyr, either."

  "I won't knuckle under to these sons of bitches."

  "No one asked you to. That doesn't mean you have to meet them in an alley after midnight."

  "Yeah, I hear you."

  "Fine. I've got some calls to make, and then I need to have a look around. Might be I'll find myself some friends among the local Aryans."

  "I hope you've had your shots."

  The soldier's smile was grim.

  "Not yet," he said.
"Not yet."

  3

  Although he had not shared the fact with Wilson Brown, Mack Bolan was, indeed, familiar with the Aryan Vanguard. He had been briefed on the telephone by Leo Turrin, but prior to that call the Executioner had already been a killing-close acquaintance of the Vanguard's parent organization, the so-called Aryan Brotherhood.

  Founded in the late seventies by "survivalist" Gerry Axelrod, the Brotherhood had offered the embattled farmers of America assorted scapegoats, in the form of immigrants, minorities, the "Jewish bankers" who "control America today." Ironically, the neofascist group had been a sort of twisted ancestor of Theo Brown's National Farmers' Union. Both had cast their nets among the people of the land, although the Brotherhood had been more discriminating in its final choice of members. Only whites had been welcomed to the fold, and once inside the racist clique they had been bombarded with the sort of propaganda that historians would recognize at once as originating in Hitler's Germany. Inflation and foreclosures were said to be the work of Communists and Jews. America was said to be undermined by enemies within, most often recognizable by pigmentation. The Brotherhood's response to the threat lay in endless angry talk about the need for a revolt against the government in power, and the collecting of weapons in preparation for the revolt. Silent revolution would bring back an approximation of the "good old days" to America, when men were men and blacks were free to use the service entrance.

  If the vaunted revolution seemed a trifle slow in coming, few among the Brotherhood would have considered blaming Gerry Axelrod. A handful of his aides had been conscious of the business he operated on the side, supplying arms to terrorists of various persuasions, dipping greedy fingers in the cocaine traffic, handling murder contracts. The superpatriot had come to Bolan's notice while the Executioner was stalking a Soviet-backed international terrorist, Julio Ramirez — a.k.a. "The Raven." Their paths had crossed in Switzerland, within the very shadow of the Matterhorn. By a fluke, Axelrod had managed to escape the cleansing fire that finally consumed Ramirez and his lethal look-alikes. He had not been heard from since, and of late Bolan had allowed himself to hope that tardy justice might have run its course. Whether through a double cross within the convoluted world of arms and drugs, a bungled border crossing or a clash with greedy "friends," all that mattered was the result, and Axelrod's protracted absence from the scene had given Bolan cause for optimism.

  With his disappearance and public speculation on the possibility of his death, the Brotherhood had withered on the vine. No sooner had it been laid to rest, however, than a new association had sprung to life and taken its place, absorbing treasury and membership, producing leaflets similar — if not identical — to flyers circulated by the Brotherhood. For all intents and purposes, the Aryan Vanguard was Axelrod's Brotherhood reborn, more strident now, reputedly more prone to sudden, unexpected violence. A scattering of incidents throughout the South and in the Rocky Mountain states had sounded new alarms with law enforcement, and investigations were proceeding, undercover agents butting heads against the Vanguard's tight security procedures.

  It came as no surprise to Bolan that the Vanguard were flirting openly with members of the Ku Klux Klan. There had been Klansmen in the Brotherhood, attracted by its litany of hate, and the association of the KKK with native Nazis was nothing new or startling. The Klan had marched with German Bundists during World War Two, and several of its members had done time on charges of sedition. Later, in the violent sixties, hooded knights had cast their seedy lot with various factions of the fascist fringe, including Rockwell's Nazi party. The result had been more hate, more blood, more time in jail.

  Bolan had no solid information on the new Teutonic Knights, but from appearances they fit the pattern of the countless factions that had cut themselves a slice of bigot pie across the past four decades. Unlike their Reconstruction ancestor or the monolithic "Empire" of the 1920s, modern Klans appeared to spend as much time quarreling among themselves, competing for the income of their members, as they did in fighting for "white rights." Many self-proclaimed Klan leaders proved, on close examination, to be felons, deviates and swindlers, scrambling for a buck, milking loyal believers in the rank and file and getting off on their cherished illusion of superiority and power. At the grass-root level, the recruitment of unstable personalities perpetuated violence, racking up a cost in lives and human suffering that no financial analyst could ever quantify.

  Through the early 1970s, FBI surveillance had been effective in curbing Klan violence, but tightened Congressional oversight and the complaints of civil liberties groups had weakened law enforcement to the point where terrorists were free, for the most part, to do their work in private. Taps and bugs were virtually nonexistent now, except in cases dealing with the Mafia or foreign spies. Racist groups had learned to screen their applicants for membership and weed out probable informers. Infiltration, therefore, would be a problem, but Mack Bolan never drew the easy jobs. And if police and the FBI were handcuffed by their rules and regulations, there were still assorted avenues open to the Executioner.

  He placed the call, long-distance, from the pay phone at a local self-service station.

  "Justice."

  "That's exactly what I need."

  "Hey, bud... I trust this line's secure?"

  "It's public, but I have no reason to believe it's leaky."

  "Fair enough. What can I do you for?"

  He smiled at Leo Turrin's ever-present sense of humor. More than a decade serving undercover in the syndicate, and Leo had come out clean, to join the covert war on crime and terrorism under Hal Brognola. In the years that Bolan and Turrin had known each other, through the worst of it, Bolan thought he could count the little paesan's truly solemn moments on the fingers of one hand, with a few left over. Somehow, Turrin kept it all together, thriving on a job that would have broken other men and sent them looking for a desk to ride until retirement.

  "I need more on Freeman, Mason Ritter, the Teutonic Knights."

  "Okay. It won't take long, because we haven't got that much." A muffled clacking, as the little Fed keyed up a file on his computer terminal. "Freeman, Jerome. No middle name. Born 1/13/47, in St. Louis, Missouri. He says. There's no record on file. Four years in the Marines, with a tour in Nam, he says. Again, no record."

  "I assume that someone's looking into that?"

  "We're looking, sure, but there's nothing to see. Unfortunately, it's no crime to impersonate a veteran, unless you're falsely claiming benefits. Which Freeman isn't, by the way. We figure he just likes the military aura. Helps him sell himself these days."

  "Goon."

  "Where was I?" Turrin hesitated, found his place again. "All right, I've got it. IRS reports that income taxes have been paid by Freeman for the past seven years. Beyond that, they can't say, but he lists his occupation as public relations, self-employed. Social Security lists him as paid up to date, with a card issued twelve years ago. We have no prints on file, nothing with NCIC or the FBI. Nothing, in short, worth a damn."

  "If we pass on the taxes for now, what's the first public record of Freeman's appearance?"

  "Let's see... it's a bit hard to say, but our definite sightings go back eighteen months, give or take. Around the time the Vanguard organized."

  "Around the time that Gerry Axelrod went missing in Zermatt?"

  "It's close. There was an interval, of course. You looking at connections?"

  "I'm just looking," Bolan told his friend. "Describe the führer for me, will you?"

  "Six foot two, blond hair and beard, athletic-looking. Widowed, so he says, although there doesn't seem to be a record of the marriage or his dear departed."

  "Girlfriends?"

  "Nothing steady. Our surveillance is restricted, as you know. We haven't got the PC necessary for a tap, and so far no one in the Vanguard seems inclined to spill their guts."

  "What word on Theo Brown's inside connection?"

  "Zip. I couldn't say there's no such animal, but we've got
nothing to suggest a leak."

  "I'm interested in Mason Ritter, Leo."

  'The Teutonic Knights? We've got a little better information there. The FBI maintains a vested interest in the Klans, but this one's relatively new."

  "Would that be new, as in approximately eighteen months?"

  "You guessed it, pal. Within a month or so of Freeman firing up the Vanguard, Ritter had his Knights in gear. Nobody here is buying a coincidence."

  "I wouldn't, either. What's the scoop on Ritter?"

  "He's a hard case, but at least he's got a past that we can work with." Leo started reading from the Klansman's file. "Arrested in Atlanta, August 1969, assault and battery. He decked a sixty-year-old minister who tried to buy a sandwich in a downtown coffee shop."

  "The minister was black?"

  "You guessed it. Ritter paid a hundred-dollar fine and walked. He's been picked up on weapons charges half a dozen times in Georgia, Alabama, once in Indiana. He's a traveler, I guess. Convicted in September 1982 for the attempted bombing of a synagogue in Birmingham. He drew five years for that and served a little over two. Paroled to Arkansas on the condition that he stay away from politics and racist groups. He finished off his time last year and organized the Knights to celebrate."

  "A prince."

  "I had another term in mind.

  "He's tight with Freeman, though?"

  "Like shit and flies. There's no official link between the Vanguard and the Knights, as far as we can tell, but they've got overlapping membership, they meet together twice a month for rallies, both groups run their propaganda out of Freedom Press in Little Rock. Their offices are half a mile apart, but we believe that's basically for show. If you find Freeman, Ritter won't be far away."

  "That's what I'm counting on. What do you know about the Vanguard's backers?"

  "We're a little shaky there. No reason for a judge to order banking records opened yet, so we're confined to hearsay, with a dash of observation."

  "What about the Southern Bankers' Conference?"

  "Bingo! You've been doing homework, guy. A couple of their honchos have been seen with Freeman, social like but if you think they're talking baseball averages, I've got some lakefront property I'd like to sell."