The Hill of the Ravens Page 31

  and they took turns massaging his legs on the foot controls and

  pouring coffee down his throat, slapping his face and shouting in his ear so he would not fall asleep. He brought the plane down at the Luftwaffe airfield in Astoria. It was a perfect three-point landing, using only two of the four engines and those two running on fumes. He asked Anna if his work was done. She told him it was done. Then

  Mooney passed out and did not wake up for thirty hours afterwards. I always wanted to thank him for that. Just after he left, the 24th Ant-Racist Congress incited more massacres of whites throughout South Africa. What was left of my family did not survive.”

  “Jesus,” whispered Don in dismal wonder. “All those years before the revolution the Old Man begged our people to Come Home. Begged and pleaded, cajoled and cursed, berated and mocked and threatened, anything to get them to come to the Homeland. Most of them sat on their lazy asses in the United States for how many years? Five, ten, fifteen? When at any time they could have gotten up, packed their gear and come to our people’s Home, legally! Now our people from all the world over risk their lives every day to come here. In some countries a white person can be sentenced to death for any attempt to emigrate to the Northwest Republic, sent to prison for so much as speaking about it. In the United States it’s a felony hatecrime. You know, sometimes I wonder if there are any of those left back there who heard the Old Man’s call back in the old days, when they were young? Who didn’t come when all they had to do was pack their suitcases and hire a moving van? And now, if there are any of those old people left, do they turn on their TVs and see white people running the border, the mines and the sensors and the fences and the razor wire, the helicopter gunships and the machine gun nests to get here? I wonder what goes through their minds? I wonder if they understand what a precious gift they threw away in their confusion and their laziness, back in the early part of this century when all they had to do was to cut out all their stupid crap and listen to that one voice of desperate illumination calling to them from the Northwest?”

  “I can tell you. They would have given anything if only they had listened,” replied Nel. “I come from the remnants of an entire nation who wish with all our souls that we had listened in time to the call to act instead of to talk. We talked instead. We swilled beer and then talked some more and then swilled more beer until we fell down

  onto the ground like drunken swine while our land was stolen from us

  by the beasts of the field. We listened to people like that buffoon Terre Blanche. Or we listened to no one and ordered another Lion lager in the hotel bar.”

  “And in this country we listened to wretches like William

  Pierce and that old bald-headed drunk down in San Diego, what the

  hell was his name? And dear God, how we paid for it! How we paid!” said Don with a sigh and a sad shake of his head. “Why? Why in God’s name did we not listen to that one voice of sanity that called for us to quit fucking around and Come Home!”

  Vitale leaned forward on the desk. “Look, Don, we may not have much time, and I know beating around the bush when I hear it. What’s up? Why are you two here?”

  “Bill…look…oh, Christ, I don’t know how to say this…back when you were a Volunteer during the rebellion, you were with Tom Murdock’s Olympic Flying Column. You’re one of the eight people who survived Ravenhill.”

  “Yes, I am,” replied Vitale curiously. “You know that, Don. You’ve known it all your life. And now you come all this way to ask me about it? What the hell is going on?”

  “That is the case that has been re-opened.”

  “What do you mean it’s been re-opened?” asked Vitale in genuine puzzlement, still not comprehending what Don was saying.

  “I need to interview you about what happened at the meeting that occurred at the Hoodsport safe house in the early morning hours of August the first, that year. And things that happened before it.”

  “You need to talk to me about what?” Vitale’s face was blank. “Sorry, Don, maybe I’m a bit groggy this morning, but that was more than thirty years ago. I was a teenager still, fresh off the plane from Sicily. What on earth are you talking about?”

  “Trudy Greiner has contacted the office of the State President. She says she will enter the Republic on October 22nd, at Mountain Gate in California,” explained Don. “She says that she’s innocent. She is demanding a public trial to prove her innocence, or guilt as may be. I am looking into that whole episode and frankly, I’m finding some things that don’t add up. I need you to tell me everything that you remember about that time in your life.”

  “Ah, comes the dawn!” said Vitale softly. “This really is an official visit. The Olympic Flying Column was betrayed by an

  informer, Don. We always knew that. If it wasn’t Trudy, then the stukach must be someone else. Most likely one of the eight of us who survived.”

  “God damn it, Bill, I didn’t mean…!”

  “Then you should have meant,” said Vitale quietly and forcefully. “Look, Don, you and I have both had much to do with duty in our lives. I’ve always tried to do mine, and now you have to do yours. There is no need to be in any way diffident or ashamed. Ask your questions. I have nothing to hide and I’m not worried.” Vitale’s face clouded. “Don, all my life I have believed that Trudy Greiner was responsible for what happened that day to some of the finest and bravest men and women in the history of our people. Commandant Tom Murdock and Melanie Young were like my own brothers and sisters back in Sicily, hell, all of them were. I have hated Trudy Greiner in my heart and desired her death all these years. I still can’t believe she’s claiming that she wasn’t guilty, but if she’s not, and if I have been wrong all these years, then I want to know as much as you do. If I owe her that kind of apology, then I pray to God that both she and I live long enough for me to make it in person. Now ask me what you want to know.”

  “The first thing I want to know is the first question I am asking everyone. How came it that you were not with the Column when the ambush at Ravenhill Ranch went down?”

  “I was in the main column’s scout car, or rather scout truck, with Lars Frierson. Why did Murdock pick me? Lars and I were kind of buddies, and I think that’s just the way it played out. I wanted to go with the mortar truck, but the only guy we had who had a full CDL license was Volunteer Saltovic, and…”

  “Yes, we know.”

  “There wasn’t any reason Drago and I couldn’t have been alone together on a mission, at least not on my part, and I’m pretty sure not on Drago’s part either. We always got along fine when we were with the Column and I’ve met him a couple of times since then. There’s never been any bad blood between us, although God knows he had reason enough,” Vitale felt compelled to add with a sigh. “I’ve always admired and respected him for that. But I guess Murdock just figured it was better to be safe than sorry, and so he always kind of made sure it never happened. Nothing at all was said, ever, but Drago and I were never assigned to anything that required close personal contact.”

  “Yes, we’ve already spoken to former Volunteer Saltovic, and with Colonel Frierson. What puzzles me, Bill, is a military question

  you’re probably the most qualified of them all to answer. Why Tom Murdock, who was ordinarily such a cautious commander, seems on this one occasion to have put all his eggs in one basket and moved the entire column, mostly in daylight, in one comparatively vulnerable convoy of only four vehicles total? Can you shed any light on that?”

  “Well,” said Vitale slowly. “The only thing I can offer there is just a fragment of something I overheard between Murdock and Mel Young just before we moved out from the lumberyard where the vehicles were. I forgot about it for years, and when I did remember it was just ancient history.”

  “That’s more than we’ve gotten so far,” said Redmond. “Something about secondary targets after the courthouse. We

  were all given briefings on their locations, vulnerable points for RPGs, security,
etc. I got the impression that at the last minute the operation had become a bit more extensive than originally planned. We were really going to do a number on Port Orchard, the Special Criminal Court, the phone company, the cop shop, the whole nine yards. Take a lot more than the fifty-odd Volunteers we had. So we were hooking up with some reinforcements.”

  “What reinforcements?” asked Nel.

  “Murdock asked us to make sure our CB radio in the truck worked. It did. He went back to Melanie and I heard him say something like ‘We should run into the P. T. boys just past the Ravenhill access road, but if I don’t see the signal we pull off and I’ll send the scout up the road to go look.’ The impression I got was that we were going into a combined operation with the Port Townsend Flying Column, and that Corby Morgan and his men were supposed to be meeting us at some rendezvous point somewhere down Ambush Alley, where we would presumably get our final assignments and dispositions.”

  Don Redmond’s blood suddenly ran as cold as ice water. “Bill, Corby Morgan and the Port Townsend Flying Column were nowhere near your operational area that morning.”

  “Yeah, I know,” said Vitale. “I found that out later, so I always figured I must have misunderstood what I thought I heard. Anyway, just past the Ravenhill access road Fattie sprang the trap. We heard the gunfire. We couldn’t actually see what was going on over the hill. We couldn’t actually see our brothers and sisters dying.

  We knew damned well with all that heavy fire it had to be bad, but we couldn’t do anything, and we somehow convinced ourselves they’d bop their way out of it. Hell, this was Tom Murdock and Melanie Young. They were our best. They could fight their way out of anything. So we obeyed General Order Number Eight and we left. Lars Frierson made me E & E with him.”

  “You told me about that once, Bill, many years ago. Anything to add?”

  “No,” said Vitale. “I’ve been a soldier all my life. That is the only time I’ve ever run away. I know it was complying with General Order Number Eight and I know it was necessary, but I don’t think I’ve ever really forgiven myself, deep down inside.”

  “There’s something else…” began Redmond hesitantly. “Bill, I have known you for many years now, and I have never uttered one word to you on this one particular subject. I am deeply sorry that I have to do so now, but I have to ask. We are dealing with a matter of treason against the state and the race. It’s my job.”

  “Ask your question,” ordered Vitale.

  “Your father was the President of the United States…” He could not go on.

  Vitale looked at him with a face of stone. “Yes, Don, you are quite correct. Never once in all these years have you or John Morgan or Sarah referred to my biological parentage in my presence, and I am more grateful than you can know for that. The only time I have ever discussed it with any of you was twice, many years ago, with Tori. Once in Sicily, when I was twelve years old, when she and Tony Stoppaglia and a man named Visconti, whom you wouldn’t know, came to our home in Castellamare. And once again with Tori privately, after I came here, when she filled in some details. That was enough. I learned all I ever want to know about my birth. I’ve never even read the Old Man’s novel about it. You want to know if that fact somehow has left me with some kind of emotional or spiritual bond with the United States?”

  “Has it?” asked Redmond bluntly.

  Vitale shook his head. “Don, by an accident of history my biological father was William Jefferson Clinton. But my true father, the man who made me what I am today, was the cabinetmaker and leather worker Anselmo Vitale, a citizen of Castellamare del Golfo in

  the prefecture of Trapani, in Sicily. My true mother was Giulia Vitale. My godfather was Antonio Stoppaglia. I did not grow up as an American, I grew up a Sicilian. That is who I am. I have spoken English for most of my adult life, but I still think and dream in Italian. By the grace of God I came to know my duty and my destiny in this life. I came to this Northwest land as a young man, to fulfill that destiny and to repay my debt to your family, to Matt and Heather Redmond and to Tori, who saved my life back in North Carolina at the risk of their own when I was a baby in arms. It is a life that I have never once regretted for a single moment. In the course of fulfilling that obligation, I became a National Socialist by conscience and a citizen of the Northwest American Republic. That is my family history. It is intertwined with your own, and if there was ever any doubt there, then you would know of it without having to ask. As to the other part? My biological father was a coward and a dog, a degenerate drug addict who raped my mother and then murdered her for the crime of giving life to me.” In William Vitale’s voice was a lifetime of hatred and anger and bitterness, of inconsolable loss beyond any help or understanding. Don’s heart verged on the breaking point for this terrible curse born so long by so brave and noble a man, for he understood that never before in half a century had Vitale ever spoken such words.

  “He was also President of the United States,” Don reminded

  him.

  “Yes,” said William Vitale quietly. “I was told the truth at a

  young age, by Tori and Tony and by John Visconti, who were there when it happened. I was given a burden to carry all my days, and I accepted it as the will of God. I have lived all my life in order to try and give some kind of decent meaning to that unspeakable horror from the past. My father was evil, Don. My mother was not, and I have always tried to be the kind of man she would have been proud of. In my home I keep a collection of every movie Alice Silverman ever made, every advertisement she ever did for detergents or stupid computer toys, every rock video she made as a teenaged girl, every interview or talk show she ever did in the 1990s. In the blackest moments of my soul, I watch them over and over. Those images on my comscreen are all that I will ever have of her. I will never, ever forgive Bill Clinton for that. Nor will I forgive the government and

  the society that was capable of electing Bill Clinton not once, but twice. There is only one political or military implication to that which need concern the Bureau of State Security, Colonel, and that is that I want to place a priority on the NAR reconquering southern California for the white man. Before I die, I want to place a wreath of flowers on my mother’s grave, if it is still there and the Mexicans haven’t destroyed or desecrated it. That is the one and the only area where I constitute any possible concern to BOSS.”

  “Fair enough,” muttered Don in utter misery. “Bill, there’s something else. I’m starting to think this angle may be a long shot and most likely isn’t relevant in any way, but what can you tell me about the personal situation between Murdock, Trudy Greiner, and Melanie Young? I understand that there was a bit of a love triangle going on there. And again, please forgive me, but I have to ask. One of the survivors we’ve interviewed hinted that you more or less came on to Trudy Greiner after Tom Murdock dumped her.”

  “Like a rocket, the minute I knew she was unattached,” laughed Vitale sadly. “Just swaggered up to her in my best Italian style and told her, ‘Hey, bellisima, when the time comes, I want a shot.’ She just laughed and said, ‘Not yet, Valentino, but if and when the time comes I’ll keep your resumé on file.’ Or something like that. Very light, but we both knew I was serious. Who knows what would have happened if she’d given my resumé a closer look before she…before she did it.”

  “You think she did it?” asked Redmond.

  “Somebody gave her a million dollars, and it damned sure wasn’t the Party paymaster,” said Vitale. “We didn’t have that kind of shekels. It was almost ten years before I got all my back pay from the NVA as a simple Volunteer.”

  “We do seem to keep stumbling over that million dollars,”

  said Hennie Nel, glancing at Colonel Redmond.

  Suddenly a young SS lieutenant stuck his head through the tent flap. “Sir, we’ve got a bit of a situation developing,” he said.

  “Mooney?” demanded Vitale, rising to his feet.

  “Yes, sir. They made it to the jump-off point and he got t
hem all on the bus, and he was taking it nice and slow down the cat roads, but it seems we weren’t as on top of the landmine situation as we thought we were. The bus hit one, left rear tire. The mineproofing

  held and there were no injuries on board, but the rear axle is wrecked, the vehicle is damaged and the Mexicans have spotted them. Radar says they’ve got the whole nine yards closing in on the bus, copters and ground pursuit vehicles. Captain Mooney has been advised, and he’s flooring it, but he can’t make any speed on what’s left of his rear tires and with a busted axle to boot. He’s not even into the DMZ yet. They’re going to nail him, sir. Him and all those refugees.”

  “Like hell they are!” Vitale ripped the radio from his belt. “Fire up the Ladies!” he snapped into the communicator. “All three of them, and both of the transports! Scramble the fire teams. I’ll be there in two minutes and we’d damned well better be in the air ten seconds after that or I’ll have somebody’s guts in linguini sauce tonight! Captain Maxwell, do you copy? You get on those boom boys at Keziah and tell them I want a solid sheet of .88 shells on any damned thing out there that moves besides Mooney! Capiche?”