The Hill of the Ravens Page 12

  “Just want to pick your brains on some ancient history, Charlie,” Don told him.

  “How ancient? Want me to tell you the old abo legends about Ayers Rock?”

  “No, a little bit more recent. You were a hunter for a long time, weren’t you?”

  “Almost ten years after the revolution, before they kicked me arse upstairs to this bloody desk job.” Redmond’s question was rhetorical. He knew that Randall had successfully carried out assignments as far afield as the United Kingdom and his native Down Under. Randall was chief operations officer for the War Prevention Bureau and the man largely responsible for ensuring that hostile elements within the United States and United Nations power structure never succeeded in building up the necessary critical mass in military capability, political will, or propaganda frenzy to launch a bona fide war of extermination against the Northwest Republic. The main tool for accomplishing this objective of state was the use of carefully targeted, surgical assassinations. Intelligence agents, psychological profilers, and political scientists identified those relatively minor personalities within the United States who might not make trouble now, but were likely to develop the capacity to be dangerous to the Republic in five or ten years. The hunters removed those people on the sound principle that baby rattlesnakes tend to grow into large and venomous rattlesnakes. Politicians, community leaders, media people, Hollywood entertainment gurus, religious leaders, government officials in minor posts, writers and intelligentsia, the entire necessary propaganda and logistic infrastructure for launching a serious assault against the existence of the Northwest Republic was constantly being cut off at the knees. The result was that despite repeated efforts on the part of the world establishment to work their way up to a serious attempt on the Republic’s life, it all somehow never seemed to gel. The WPB also had a special unit responsible for tracking down and punishing informers and traitors from the old days. That unit had shrunk over the years as virtually all such targets had been liquidated, but there were still a few accounts remaining to be settled. It was national policy to hunt them down with the same zeal with which ZOG had pursued veterans of the Third Reich well into their nineties. It was a vitally important message to send to the rest of the world: betray the white race or conspire to harm the Northwest American Republic and you spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder, a life that was very likely to be short. “‘Strewth, best time o’ me life, that was,” reminisced Randall. “Over fifty kills with me own hands and I was in on hundreds more, one way or another. Everything from NVA traitors and informers to up and coming young blokes in suits we figured was going the wrong places. We drink to absent friends tonight. Well, there are some of our so-called friends from them days that bloody well deserve to be absent, and I made sure of it. Why, what’s up?”

  “I’m interested in one of our absent comrades in arms in particular,” said Don. “Ever chase Trudy Greiner?”

  “That she-devil traitor who sold out Tom Murdock and the Olympic Flying Column for a million bucks? For a while, yeah.” Randall scowled. “She spent a long time at the top of our hit parade, believe you me, but she turned out to be the one who got away, damn her eyes! What about her?”

  “I’ve caught a really odd one, Charlie, one that goes back to the Olympic Flying Column days, if you can believe that,” Redmond told him. “I’ll fill you in, but first, you were on the team that did in Monkey Meat Coleman, right?”

  “I was. Former FATPO Major Coleman was the only blackfella who ever rated a special hunt of his own. We brought the whole carcass back and stuffed it. ‘E’s down in storage in our basement up in Lacey. One of these days we’ll figure out some special propaganda event and trot ‘im out on display. Wot about ‘im? I don’t mind talkin’ about that one to you, Don, never was one for all this inter-departmental territorial crap, just so long as you bear in mind it’s still under the Official Secrets Act and keep all shtum.”

  “Corby Morgan himself laid this job on me, so it’s all good. Charlie, before you killed him, did Coleman ever give you any idea what went down with the Olympic Flying Column? Who the informer might have been?”

  “We know who the informer was,” said Randall in surprise. “Trudy bloody Greiner! But in point of fact, yes, we were instructed to ‘ave a quiet word of prayer with Monkey Meat on that subject before we sent ‘im on ‘is way. Just to dot the i’s and cross the t’s.”

  “And?” prompted Redmond.

  Randall looked embarrassed. “Never got the chance. Work accident.”

  “Beg pardon?”

  “We caught up with Monkey Meat in Detroit. ‘E was a so-called promoter after he got out of Fattie, ran a couple of nigger boxers and rappers, that kind o’ crap. What ‘e really was, was a dope dealer and pimp who moved drugs and girls through a couple of night clubs. Do you want the whole thing play by play?”

  “No, I’m only interested in the Ravenhill business,” said Don. “Good, makes a long story a lot shorter. Coleman knew we were after ‘im and ‘e took precautions. We had to set a honey trap for

  ‘im, used one of our female hunters to lure ‘im away from ‘is entourage. It’s somebody you may know. She’s married now with kids and I don’t see any need to remind ‘er of that part of ‘er life unless it’s necessary.”

  “It’s not necessary,” said Don, shaking his head.

  Randall continued. “Well, we got Monkey Meat into the trunk of ‘is own pimpmobile Cadillac all nice and trussed up, gagged with a towel, and we drove ‘im off to a nice quiet spot for our little Come To Jesus session. We got where we was going, popped open the trunk, and the monkoid’s already dead. ‘E knew right well what was coming and ‘e was so terrified ‘e puked, but ‘e couldn’t because of the gag, and ‘e ended up choking to death on ‘is own vomit. We were definitely going to ask ‘im about Trudy Greiner. We hoped against hope that ‘e might have some idea where she was and ‘e’d try and trade that information for ‘is own worthless life, but it never ‘ad a chance to play out.”

  “In your professional opinion why, exactly, were we never able to catch up with that little lady?” asked Redmond over the babble of the crowded barroom next door. “You guys are damned good, and that’s a fact. You’re right, she is our official One That Got Away, and I’m curious as to why. In view of what she did, surely you pulled out all the stops?”

  “Too bloody well right we did,” replied Randall with a scowl and a muttered curse. “That bitch is slippery as a bloody eel. It became a kind of point of honor with us that one day we’d catch up with Trude, but we never did. Back when I was first with the Bureau I once spent two months in the living ‘ell of a Houston summer trying to find ‘er, just before that worse bitch Chelsea finally handed the city over to Aztlan. I finally thought I had ‘er, and we moved in for the kill, but something tipped ‘er off. We missed ‘er by about thirty bloody minutes. Signs of hurried packing and ‘er bloody supper was still warm on the table. God alone knows what spooked ‘er. I still get angry thinking about that. For years she managed to evade us. Then about ten years ago we were told to stop looking.”

  “What?” asked Redmond in astonishment. “Who the hell ordered you to stop looking?”

  “I made it a point to find out,” said Randall evenly. “It was the

  Old Man himself.”

  “You’re joking!” gasped Redmond.

  “Does me ruggedly ‘andsome Antipodean countenance betray the slightest sign of jocularity, my son? No, we were pulled off the Trudy hunt by the then State President Patrick Brennan. I was able to learn that this was done at the personal request of the Old Man.”

  “Did he ever give any reason?” asked Redmond. “Brennan, I

  mean?”

  “Not that I was ever able to get out of him, and believe me, I asked. Unfortunately, he’s dead now and he can’t speak, and I was never offered the opportunity to speak with the Old Man. He was pretty much sequestered even a decade ago, officially to protect his privacy during his golden years and a
ll that wallaby poop, but unofficially to keep him from doing anything in public that might prove embarrassing. From what I gather, he’s pretty much senile now. The Party used to trot him out on formal occasions like a kind of stuffed dummy, but not for a long time now. I think they’re worried

  he’s so far gone he’ll drop his trousers and wave his John Thomas at the audience. Even if you could get to him and ask him, he may not even remember what he did or why the hell he did it.”

  “I’m not surprised. The old codger is a hundred and what now?” asked Redmond.

  “He was born in 1953. You do the math,” said Randall.

  “1953!” whispered Don in awe. “Holy Jesus! Is such a thing possible? Look, I know we have the best health service in the world and that we have made medical discoveries that have put us decades ahead of everyone else. Hell, cancer cures in our hospitals are one of our main foreign currency earners. When little Brandon or Jennifer has leukemia, all of a sudden us evil Nazis ain’t quite so evil. But still it seems astounding to me that someone could live that long. Ye gods, think of what memories that man must have!”

  “Most of those memories are probably a curse to him now. The world he knew is gone forever, for better or for ill. That isn’t something that should happen to anyone. No man should live too long past his time. I don’t envy him. You always were obsessed with the past,” said Randall with a laugh. “You should have been a history teacher, not a cop.”

  “Those who refuse to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it,” replied Redmond.

  “Yeah, so they tell me. Anyway, if you by chance to get an opportunity to talk to the Old Man, for Christ’s sake or Odin’s, please ask him why he gave that order! I really would love to know,” said Randall.

  Behind them arose shouts from the elderly audience, demanding, insistent. “Rebel song! Rebel song!” the old codgers yelled.

  “Are yez all drunk enough?” yelled the bandleader into the mike in the ballroom outside. There was a chorus in the affirmative. “Then I guess it’s time for a rebel song!” The cheers resounded as the banjos and guitars struck up an old favorite.

  “It was on a January eve, as the sun was going down,

  When a truckload full of Volunteers approached a Northwest town. The stars were bright, and the cold of night, it chilled them to the bone.

  And their leader was a Texas man: Jack Smith from San Antone!”

  “Let me ask you something, Charlie,” said Redmond. “That time in Houston when you thought you had Trudy Greiner? Where was she living? What kind of a place?”

  “Ratty little bungalow in Baytown, it was,” replied Randall. “She was working as a cashier in a Mega-Mart. We found ‘er by hacking into the Federal ID card database and doing a holographic comparison on ‘er facial features. She’d dyed ‘er hair and had some kind of plastic surgery, but we still made a twelve-point match on a Rosa Lee Johnson in Houston and took it from there. Why?”

  “I guess she wasn’t able to hold onto the million dollars she was paid for her ratting out the Olympic Flying Column, then.”

  “Hey, when you gotta keep on moving from place to place one step ahead of the Hunters, a million bucks can disappear pretty quick,” said Randall.

  “Maybe,” replied Don. “Or maybe she never had the money to begin with. Seems kind of odd, is all. I’m trained to look for odd things. How could a woman with a million bucks in her poke end up working as a cashier in a Mega-Mart? I sense a certain incongruity there.”

  “Maybe she gambled it all away in some Indian casino. Look, Don, why the questions? Do you know something?” asked Randall keenly. “Has BOSS finally got a line on the Greiner woman that I haven’t heard about?”

  “In a way, yeah. I’ve been handed a pretty weird assignment, Charlie. How’s your own Official Secrets Act these days?”

  “Got it off by heart,” said Randall.

  “Trudy Greiner’s coming out of hiding. Or so she tells us. Going to walk right across the border into our arms. On October 22nd, to add insult to injury. She says she’s innocent.”

  Randall whistled. “You don’t say?”

  “I just did say. Or rather she says. We got a letter from her with a bloody thumbprint to authenticate it. She says she’s Coming Home and she wants a trial. A public trial to clear her name. She denies that she betrayed the Olympic Flying Column. If she’s right we are going to have to re-write a lot of our history textbooks, and those

  new editions will be heavily stained with the egg dripping from our faces.”

  “She claims she’s innocent?” demanded Randall, indignant and dumbfounded. “The bloody cheek of ‘er! That’s impossible! We know she did a flit with a million dollary-doos the day after Ravenhill. So what is she going to say about that? Tell us her Aunt Millie died and she inherited all that lolly and decided to take a vacation right the morning after her entire unit is slaughtered? You can’t…do you think she’s innocent?”

  “I am investigating the possibility that she may be just that,” said Redmond. “I’m also supposed to be dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s, in a manner of speaking, but I’m already finding some oddities. As to the facts of the matter, I always start with an open mind. Who knows? She may yet get her trial, courtesy of the information I dig up. I may yet prove that she’s guilty as sin. But the can of worms has been opened, Charlie, and when one does that the worms crawl out and things get kind of squishy.”

  From the ballroom the words of the rebel song came loud and clear, the audience singing along lustily:

  “In the dark they moved along the street, up to the jailhouse door, They scorned the danger they would face, what fate might lay in store. They were fighting for their people’s right to make themselves a

  Home,

  And the foremost of that gallant band was Smith from San Antone!”

  “You know, John Corbett told me once that he knew Jack

  Smith,” remarked Redmond.

  “Yeah?” asked Randall, interested. “Never met him meself. I

  never got out Montana way back in them days.”

  “Yeah,” continued Redmond. “John C. said that for all his faults, Jack Smith was the best man with a gun he ever knew. He told me Smith had two outstanding features. The man was as brave as a lion and he thought maybe ten minutes ahead, on a good day. He played it all by ear, and he had the devil’s own luck for a long time. Smith was a boozer. Gunpowder and alcohol don’t mix, but for a long time his luck held. During the first couple of years Jack Smith was personally responsible for just about all the Federal body count in

  Montana. He had a very simple philosophy in life: kill the enemies of the white race. He got by on sheer raw guts, shot it out with a team of six FBI agents in Kalispell and killed every one of them. The Party made the not uncommon mistake of confusing personal courage with leadership, and so they made him a Commandant. Wrong move, but in those days brave white men were in short supply. Then his luck ran out. That particular operation they’re singing about in there wasn’t betrayed, at least not in the dramatic sense. Smith simply didn’t have enough sense or discipline to tell his kids not to go into combat drunk or to put their guns away and not fire into passing houses as they went into town. Some palefaced stukach called the cops on them when he saw four or five vehicles of armed men rolling by hollering rebel yells and shooting out mailboxes.”

  “Well, at least it’s a great song,” pointed out Randall.

  “Yeah, he gave us that,” agreed Redmond. “And was it worth it, I wonder? Two dead white men and a dozen more in prison for a great song?”

  “You know damned well it was,” replied Randall. “That great song and a hundred more like it helped to make this country, Don. There are times when a man must give his life for a song. Quite literally. The Irish learned that over many centuries and we were able to learn it faster than that, thanks to the Old Man. It was his idea to cannibalize and re-write all those old Irish rebel songs. Now they are a part of our heritage.”

&n
bsp; “But their daring plan had been betrayed. The FATPOs lay in wait, And a hundred guns poured down that street a hail of death and hate! And when the shots had died away, two men lay as cold as stone. There was one kid from Wisconsin, and one from San Antone!”

  “You used to be pretty good with a gun yourself during the revolt,” said Don.

  “Yep, that was when I got my start at hunting. Acquired a taste for it,” chuckled the old assassin. “Nothing like a dead Jew lying on the floor with ‘is brains oozing out to give you that solid feeling that you’re accomplishing something in life. Makes it all seem worthwhile, know wot I mean?”

  “Didn’t they call you the Prince of Wands?” asked Redmond.

  “That was my media nickname, yeah, but I encouraged it,” Randall told him. “You know about the Tarot cards?”

  “My wife is a witch,” Redmond reminded him. “She does a reading for me once a week. The whole family, in fact. Cindy El on Monday, Allan on Tuesday, Matt on Wednesday, Eva on Thursday, John on Friday, and me on Saturdays. She does her own on Sundays but she never says anything about what she sees.”

  “Uh…right. Anyway, I would drop a Prince of Wands card on every dead body I manufactured. The media had a special case of the ass for me back then, since I specialized in taking out reporters and TV people who seemed to be unaware of the pressing need for balance in their reporting of the conflict.”

  “The Old Man declared reporters and media personnel to be enemy combatants and therefore legitimate military targets,” said Don.