Dual Action

3

Bolan’s secondary target lay across the Arkansas-Missouri line, some thirty miles away, at Poplar Bluff. The man he wanted was a gunsmith for the ARM, one Neville Alan Hoskins. Friends called him “Chopper,” in homage to his fondness for machine guns, but rumors persisted that certain jailhouse wolves had dubbed him “Nellie” when he pulled a five-spot in Atlanta, for weapons and explosives violations.

Federal dossiers named Hoskins as an ARM member who stayed “in the world,” conducting business of a sort in mainstream society while serving the cause when he could. Rumor had it that his services included the purchase of banned weapons and conversion of semiautomatic civilian arms to full-auto illegals, but no such charges had been proved since his emergence from the pen.

From all outward appearances, Hoskins and his small appliance repair shop in Poplar Bluff were completely legitimate, if decidedly low-rent and on the terminally scruffy side. The photos Bolan had examined didn’t show a classic member of the Master Race, by any means.

He hadn’t taken out the commo hut at Camp Yahweh, but he’d done the next best thing—alerting county sheriff’s officers to the attack while he was on the run—assuring that the compound would be overrun with uniforms before another hour passed. Still, Bolan knew his adversaries could’ve spread the word on his attack before he’d reached the county line. And while that posed no threat to him per se, he feared that those he hunted might escape to parts unknown if they were spooked.

It all depended on the system of communication from Camp Yahweh. First alerts would go to those who ran the ARM—Curt Walgren, Barry James and their top aides. Beyond that, if they had no network for emergency alerts in place, the news might spread haphazardly, skip certain members altogether. Then again, they might turn on their TV sets and catch the live broadcast of the search for bodies at CampYahweh on all the news channels.

There was a chance that Neville Hoskins wasn’t in the loop, so far, and that the neo-Nazi armorer might have at least some clue about the nature and whereabouts of a certain mystery weapon. If Bolan could find him, the gunsmith would spill what he knew. That much was guaranteed.

If Bolan could find him.

The Executioner reached Poplar Bluff without incident, no sign of patrol cars on the highway or the city streets. It seemed to be a dead night in the Show Me State, and Bolan hoped that it would stay that way. His mission in the town of eighteen thousand could be a relatively simple one—or it could go to hell in nothing flat, if things went wrong.

He found the combination shop and residence where Hoskins hung his overalls, circling the block to check for lookouts on the street. In light of what had happened farther south, Bolan supposed police might have the place staked out, or soldiers from the ARM might’ve rallied to a brother who had served them well. If there were any watchers on the quiet street, though, they were well concealed.

He made a second pass, then parked his rental car two doors north of Ace Appliance and cut through a silent yard to reach the alleyway in back. Jeans and a nylon windbreaker covered Bolan’s blacksuit, while his hands and face were stripped of war paint. He could pass a casual inspection in the seedy neighborhood, as long as no one checked beneath his jacket, where the sleek, silent Beretta nestled in its shoulder rig.

Against all odds, the gunsmith had no dogs. Bolan had been concerned that he might have to deal with Dobermans or pit bulls in the yard, but no such threat materialized. Instead, he simply had to hop a sagging chain-link fence and sneak up on his target’s dark apartment from the rear.

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?

James was right. It had to be Ohio.

Dammit!

“Never mind,” his mirror image said. As always, the reflected face could read his thoughts, almost before they formed inside his head. “We’ll make it right.”

“We have to,” Walgren echoed.

“And we will.”

“Identify the enemy.”

“Identify and locate.”

“Locate and destroy.”

“In Yahweh’s name.”

“Amen!”

4

Bolan drove through the night and predawn hours to reach his next target in Russellville, Missouri, a few miles southwest of Jefferson City. It was the last target Bolan could reach that day, without a plane ride, and he hoped to make it count.

The man he wanted, Vernon Upshaw, was a former high school English social studies teacher, driven from his job when he began insinuating Nazi propaganda into daily lesson plans. Around the time he told a class of freshmen that the Holocaust was a colossal hoax created in the postwar years by Communists and the “Jews Media,” the school board cut him loose and his appeals had been rejected by the courts. Since then, Upshaw had turned his questionable talents to production of theAryan Resistance Movement’s monthly newsletter and sundry other publications, printed in the basement of a house that he’d inherited from relatives.

Bolan had the address, and dawn seemed like a good time for a pop quiz with the former teacher. If he passed, and didn’t raise a fuss, maybe Upshaw would live to foul another day.

Maybe.

The house was small, situated in a neighborhood that had outlived its glory days. The people Bolan saw leaving for early shifts at work were mostly Hispanic or black, a circumstance that had to have rankled Upshaw. He was caught in the classic bigot’s dilemma: live with nonwhite neighbors, or risk selling his Aryan homestead to more of the same. It was the kind of problem that would keep a Nazi up at night.

Bolan was ready with a wake-up call.

He parked in front, walked up and rang the bell. He sensed neighbors were watching as he waited on the tiny porch. There was no answer from within, leaving Bolan to choose a point of entry in broad daylight, under scrutiny.

With nothing much to lose, he tried the front door’s knob and felt it turn. A chilly sense of déjà vu washed over Bolan as he slid a hand inside his windbreaker, gripping the pistol in its armpit rig, and brainstormed on the call.

He couldn’t go all SWAT-team on the threshold, with the local busybodies studying his every move. Likewise, if Bolan left the stoop and went around back, suspicious neighbors might alert police. He couldn’t count on them dismissing it as “white man’s business,” where their homes and families were concerned. Potential crimes in progress were a danger to the neighborhood at large, and Bolan thought someone was sure to phone it in.

Which left a classic bluff.

Watchers could see him, but they probably couldn’t hear him, unless they were shadowing the house with advanced electronic surveillance equipment. It was also unlikely that they could see past him and into Upshaw’s living room if he opened the door. For all they knew, their racist neighbor could be welcoming an early-morning visitor.

Of course, the bluff would put Bolan’s life at risk. He couldn’t draw his weapon or take any other normal duck-and-cover steps to guard himself against an ambush or a booby trap. He’d had to mime a conversation, step inside as if by Upshaw’s invitation and proceed to search the place after he’d closed the door.

And if Upshaw was waiting for him, with a weapon pointed at the door, Bolan would know it in the split-second before he died.

He gave the door a shove, quickly withdrew his hand and raised it in a gesture of greeting. No muzzle-flash erupted from the inner darkness, and he heard no clamoring alarms, but that still didn’t mean the house was empty, much less safe.

Bolan went through the motions, mouthing silent words although he wasn’t sure that any watchers had a clear view of his lips. He nodded once, then shrugged, nodded again, and stepped across the threshold into Upshaw’s murky living room. He used a heel to shut the door behind him, cutting off the light.

The drapes were drawn, which would shut out the neighbors, but also left him in a twilight world of hulking shadows. Bolan found a wall switch, flicked it, and a pair of tall, cheap-looking lamps provided ample light to see that no one else was in the room. He drew the pistol, took a chance and called out Upshaw’s name. His voice fell flat and dead within the musty silence of the house.

Nobody home? Nobody answering, for sure.

He made a rapid tour of the kitchen, bathroom, two small bedrooms and the basement. There was no one to be found, and while Upshaw’s abode was tidier than that of Neville Hoskins, it revealed signs of a swift and unexpected exit. Coffee had been brewing when the tenant left, but it had long gone cold. Dust patterns on a bedroom dresser told him that a six-by-ten-inch box was missing, likely Upshaw’s nest egg or a jewelry box. The only evidence of weapons was a small oil stain on one of Upshaw’s pillows.

As for any superguns, no dice.

In the basement propaganda mill, Bolan sifted through stacks of newsletters and pamphlets with a common theme: Jews were the spawn of Satan, blamed for ninety-odd percent of all recorded wars and natural disasters from Old Testament times to the present. Upshaw strung events together, from famines to assassinations to volcanic eruptions, in a panorama of conspiracy that would’ve been hilarious—if some sick minds didn’t regard it as the gospel truth.

One pamphlet, undated but bundled and ready for shipping, was headlined: THE DAY IS AT HAND!!! Below a crude sketch of muscular, bare-chested Aryans pummeling hawk-nosed Hassidim, Bolan read:

Warriors! The great day we have long awaited is upon us! We shall soon close ranks with allies to reclaim the Holy Land for Yahweh and destroy the usurpers of pseudo-Israel! With a mighty bolt from Heaven we shall slay them in the thousands and ten thousands, until none stand in our way! Be ready for the call to battle when it comes! Watch for the signs of Armageddon as the day draws near! The blazing lance of Faith leads us to victory! A world of racial purity at last! If you have not already pledged yourself to aid the cause, now is the time! History waits for no man! VICTORY OR DEATH!

An Arkansas post office box was listed at the bottom of the proclamation, just in case readers were inspired to send donations for the cause. Bolan shook his head. It was the standard piece of Nazi nonsense, melodrama to the max, but parts of it caught his eye. Specifically, he focused on the mention of a mighty bolt from Heaven and a blazing lance.

Those might be flights of fancy—Upshaw’s takeoff on the legend that the Third Reich’s leaders had possessed a magic spear of destiny that dated from the Crucifixion—or, they might refer to something else.

A supergun, for instance, out of Baghdad via Ciudad Juarez?

Bolan pocketed the flier, left the house and jogged back to his car. Five minutes later, he was on the open highway, eastbound toward St. Louis.

Bolan had no means of tracing Vernon Upshaw at the moment, but he wasn’t giving up. Someone inside the ARM had answers, and they couldn’t all have disappeared.

He hoped not, anyway.

For if they had, there could be hell to pay.

BROGNOLA TOOK THE CALL at home, as he was brewing coffee for his first cup of the day. He picked up automatically, not waiting for the answering machine to screen the call, and recognized the caller’s voice at once.

“It’s me,” Bolan said. “Sorry, but it couldn’t wait for office hours.”

“No sweat. What’s up?”

“Are we secure?”

“As modern high-tech crap can make us,” Brognola said. His home and office lines were swept for taps three times a day, and built-in scramblers were installed to make sure any eavesdroppers the sweepers missed were treated to a stream of gibberish and static.

“Okay,” Bolan replied. “I’m striking out here, in Ozark country. If I don’t hook up with someone who can manage conversation pretty soon, we won’t have anything.”

“I see. What’s next?”

“I’m heading west. The ARM has people in New Mexico. They may feel safe enough out there to stay at home and wait for orders. Anyway, it’s worth a look.”

“You need a lift?”

“If possible. Saves time spent shopping for new hardware on the other end.”

“It shouldn’t be a problem,” Brognola said.

The 9/11 attacks had not only made things more difficult for terrorists in the United States. Airport security was still erratic, prone to errors that made headlines, but in terms of baggage screening it was almost impossible to move firearms on a commercial carrier in check-through luggage without filling out a ream of paperwork for every gun and round of ammunition registered. Brognola might’ve pulled some strings from Washington, but that would only turn the spotlight on clandestine ops and lead to further problems in a time when even famous senators were hassled with their names on airline “no-fly” lists.

It saved time all around to book a private charter flight or schedule Bolan for a military ride across country. There would be paperwork involved in that scenario, as well, but it was classified and might even be “lost” with help from Aaron Kurtzman’s team at Stony Man Farm.

“Where are you going, in New Mexico?” Brognola asked.