The Hill of the Ravens Read online

  “Colonel, you must have asked us here for a reason,” said Brittany McCanless anxiously. “You must have found out something new about what happened at Ravenhill. What is it?”

  “It’s not so much that we have found out what happened at Ravenhill, comrade, but that we have found out what did not happen there,” said Don. “At a certain point in our investigation, it became apparent that Trudy Greiner could not possibly have committed the crime she was accused of committing.”

  “How could you tell that?” asked Palmieri.

  “How could you tell that when my own court of inquiry just a couple of years after it happened couldn’t tell that?” demanded Morgan.

  “Oh, you were in charge of that, were you, sir? Oh, yeah, I remember now. I read it in the file.” Don turned to the others. “We were lucky enough to make one key discovery which very understandably escaped you at the time, Mr. President. You weren’t fortunate enough to have a partner from the Transvaal. To begin with, the question of motive struck me as significant. I couldn’t quite get a take on why Trudy would betray her comrades, including a man whom everyone agrees that she loved. All of you still living who knew her personally have concurred that betrayal for money, no matter how much money, was totally out of character for Trudy Greiner.”

  “I agree. I never bought that,” said Leach, shaking his head. Redmond continued. “Gertrude Greiner had no other

  conceivable motive other than the possible one of jealousy, and everyone who was there seems to agree that this was also unlikely. She never exhibited any symptoms of jealousy and seemed to accept the situation between her former lover Commandant Murdock and Melanie Young. As a certain someone told me at the beginning of this case, she was a good soldier. Neither did Trudy have the opportunity to commit the crime. Her cell phone was down because it depended on a communications satellite that crashed, she was in the middle of

  the meeting at the safe house when the phone call to the FATPO commander was made, and to make a long story short, so far as we could determine it was impossible for her to be the culprit. That indicated to me that there was at least one other person involved.”

  “That person might be dead or fled to the States or Aztlan long ago,” Transportation Minister Palmieri reminded Redmond.

  “True, but the fact that he or she existed was significant to me. Hell may hold no fury like unto a woman scorned, but jealous women contemplating a murder of passion usually do not involve third parties. Such a thing is too intimate. Nor do they take another fifty uninvolved people along for the ride. Most importantly, we now know that whoever made that call conveyed information to the enemy which Trudy Greiner had no way of knowing, specifically the number and type and colors of the vehicles that would be in the NVA convoy. But there was a problem. The one insurmountable obstacle we kept running up against, the one damning fact that seemed to prove Trudy guilty for all time, was the one million dollar payoff which was allegedly collected by her on the morning of the ambush,” said Don. “In the heat of the revolution’s aftermath, just coming out of a time when betrayal was so terribly common in the NVA and some of our comrades had been betrayed to the Americans for the price of a bottle of whiskey, this motive was very convincing indeed. Very early on it struck me that we had no real evidence Trudy had ever actually received the money. Old photocopies of computer printouts do not rank high in my estimate of evidence. In point of fact, we had no indication that anyone had ever received that money. No original documentation. No photographic evidence or actual fingerprint ID, which was in use at the time. Only a notation on a piece of paper that such an ID had been provided, and that struck me as odd. There wasn’t even a signature on what documentation we had. Oh, come on, now! A woman walks into a bank, she gets handed a check for a million dollars, and they don’t even get a signature? But then, a faked signature was a little bit beyond our traitor’s technical capacities. He could dummy up computer-generated material but not handwriting, at least not well enough to fool an expert graphologist if one ever looked at it. He knew his limitations and so he avoided that trap. That was what first tipped me off that something was off kilter. No signature on any kind of document or receipt for a million dollars? Not even a

  photostat? Then I spoke with Charlie Randall who had participated in the hunt for Trudy on behalf of the WPB, and he told me that the one time they actually got close enough to make any personal observations on their target, the poor woman was a poor woman in every sense of the word, definitely not living a millionaire lifestyle. More and more, I became convinced that there never was any million-dollar payoff, at least not to Trudy Greiner. But after all this time it was impossible to prove, one way or another. Then it turned out that the Bank of America vice president who allegedly signed the million dollar check never existed.”

  “How do you know that, Colonel?” asked Lars Frierson

  keenly.

  “I didn’t, at first, and I probably never would have, but

  fortunately my detective sergeant was a bit more on the ball than I was,” admitted Redmond. “He spotted something I never would have spotted.”

  “Only because I happen to be an Afrikaner, sir,” said Nel. “A cultural thing. I noticed that the alleged vice president of the bank who signed the draft order for the one million dollar check was one J. P. Van der Merwe.”

  “So what?” demanded President Morgan impatiently.

  “You didn’t grow up in South Africa, Meneer Staatspräsident.

  I did, or what was left of South Africa after the horror of March 17th,

  1992. In this country we tell Wyoming jokes. In Ireland they tell Kerry jokes. In South Africa we tell Van der Merwe jokes. There is no Jaapie Van Der Merwe. He’s a fictional character, a national joke name, like Joe Six-Pack or the Jukes and the Kallikaks, like Tommy Atkins the typical British soldier, like G.I. Joe or Jimmy Higgins, like Tyl Eulenspiegel among the Germans, or Cowboy Bob in our own Wyoming jokes. Jaapie Van der Merwe is a kind of Afrikaner Everyman. He has many lives and many silly adventures in our culture, Meneer, but signing off on million dollar checks to traitors who betray the white race is not among them. Suppose you had seen those computer printouts on that million dollar check and it had been issued by Vice President Joe Doaks or Beavis N. Butthead? That is what it looked like to me.”

  The double doors to the library swung open and old man Nash came shuffling in, pushing a tea cart loaded with a large coffee urn,

  cups, glasses, and liquor and beer bottles. “This is your party, so you can do your own damned bar-tending!” he snapped at Don.

  The rest of them ignored him, fascinated by the story Don was unfolding. “So you’re saying that the Olympic Flying Column was betrayed by a South African?” asked Admiral Leach in puzzlement.

  “Or someone who knew who Jaapie Van Der Merwe is,” said Nel, standing and beginning to move toward the door. “You know, they call us Africa’s White tribe, and in a way we are. But long ago, even before we destroyed ourselves, there was another White tribe in Southern Africa. A smaller one, but not a bad bunch of blokes, really. Most of ‘em, anyway.” Nel slid his gun from his shoulder holster.

  “They were once called Rhodesians,” said Don, standing as well, his pistol in his hand. “Ironic, isn’t it, Nash? That crap on those phony bank documents was probably the only joke you ever made in your entire bleak and horrible and humorless life, and now after almost forty years it comes back to bite you.”

  “You bloody kak bastard!” hissed Nel in utter rage and loathing, as Nash stared at him. “A crime like this…done by a white African! How can we ask them now to give us back our huisland? You have disgraced us all, forever! You dog!”

  In a proper detective story, now would have been the time for the killer to break down and render an emotional confession to the group, and then be taken away for some future stern but unseen punishment offstage. Prior to his exit he would have added in the few details necessary to supplement the brilliant detective’s deductions. But this was no
t a mystery. It was a horror story, and in the Northwest American Republic punishment tended not to be delayed overlong. Corey Nash was a very old man, and no one dreamed he could still move as fast as he did. Nash hurled a full pint bottle of beer at Don’s head, turned the drinks cart over with a crash and managed to trip Nel, and then he turned and tore open the double doors. He dodged the outstretched arm of the cursing Sergeant Nel on the floor, and he pelted down the hall towards the back entrance of Longview House as if he were a youthful decathlete of twenty. God alone knew where Nash thought he was going. Where could he run to? But he ran. John Corbett Morgan leaped to the doorway almost as quickly, where he turned his head and bellowed at the top of his lungs. Morgan did not call the SS guards. He called the dog. “Bruno! Runner! KILL!” A

  brindled furry form seemed to fly past the open door, five feet in the air. The attack dog caught Nash somewhere outside in the rear garden, out of sight of the people in the room. There was a single pistol shot from Nash’s gun, but the GELFs were designed to take a bullet or two. For about fifteen seconds the corridors of the old mansion rang with the hideous screams of a human being who was being torn limb from limb. Then there came an appalling silence. Several SS guards appeared at the door, submachine guns at the ready. “Mr. President, what the hell?” shouted the officer of the guard in stunned amazement. “That was old Mr. Nash you just…”

  “That was a traitor,” said Morgan. His voice was ice, and his face was stone. “Later, Captain. Don’t worry, son, I may be old, but I haven’t lost my marbles yet. There was a reason. I’ll fill you and your boys in later on. Right now, get the dog to a vet and get whatever is left of that…get it out of here.”

  “Yes, sir,” said the captain, stunned. Morgan closed the door. He turned to Redmond and the staring group of people in the library.

  “Corey Nash betrayed the Olympic Flying Column?” said Leach in utter amazement. “But how? I remember seeing him around camp a few times back then, but I don’t remember him being anywhere around on that night.”

  “There’s still a few gaps in the how,” said Redmond. “Unfortunately, now we’ll probably never know what they are, unless Trudy Greiner can tell us. I am particularly looking forward to her account of what happened during the four hours between the time she left the safe house at three in the morning and the time she didn’t show at seven in Poulsbo. Assuming I am allowed to hear it. I’m not sure that will happen. A little time ago someone suggested to me that when she crosses the border, Trudy be taken to a locked room from which she would never emerge. Is that going to happen, sir?” demanded Don of the President bitterly. “Is Trudy going to be taken to a locked room where she meets someone like Nash? Some O. C. Oglevy, Junior? Or a GELF dog? Because after all this, if she’s still just going to end up as fertilizer in a hydroponics farm, let’s just invoke the Official Secrets Act and we can all go home right now, all right?”

  “No,” said Morgan tonelessly. “That will not happen. I

  thought about it, but no. That will not happen. You have my word.”

  “Thank you, sir. I am glad to hear it. Getting back to your question as to what Nash did and how, Admiral Leach, in a general way, we’ve got that figured out. Nash was acting as a courier and liaison between Murdock and the president’s own column operating in the northern part of the Olympic Peninsula. He carried information and orders from the Army Council, stuff that could not be communicated over the air or put in writing. Murdock naturally accepted that anything Nash told him came from higher up, and that was the chink in his armor Nash used to destroy him and the others. As such Nash came into contact with Trudy Greiner, and he somehow convinced her to tell Murdock that John Morgan was going meet him somewhere along Ambush Alley that morning along with the entire Port Townsend column for a combined mission. He also involved himself in the planning of this non-existent plan to the extent that he was able to give Coleman of the FATPOs all the details, including the make and color of the vehicles in the convoy. This kind of combined operation had been done before, with the attack on the American aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy, so there would have been credibility to the story. That would have meant that we would have been able to party down in Port Orchard with about 150 people and really do the place up good and proper like Quantrill did Lawrence, Kansas in

  1863. Level everything flying that red, white and blue Masonic dishrag. Murdock must have been thrilled at the prospect, so eager to inflict a titanic blow against ZOG that he didn’t scope the idea close enough and spot the holes in it.”

  “There never was any such plan,” said Morgan. “We always avoided that type of major combined operation. Simply too much to lose if it went bad. There were rare exceptions of course, like the attack on the Kennedy, but those exceptions were carefully planned and organized at the highest level.”

  “I know, sir, but apparently Nash was able to sell the idea, with Trudy’s unwitting help. Murdock trusted Trudy Greiner and Nash must have convinced Trudy. Afterwards…well, we still don’t know what happened in that four hour time period. Somehow Nash must have diverted Trudy Greiner from her rendezvous in Poulsbo, most likely when he met her to deliver the van we were to use as an impromptu ambulance, and change vehicles with her.”

  Shaking his head in amazement, Ed McCanless asked, “But in the name of all that is holy, Colonel, why? Why did he do it? And why did he falsely accuse Trudy?”

  “And what else did he do down through the years against the state?” wondered Morgan grimly. “Have I been harboring a spy in my own household all this time?”

  “I doubt he did anything else at all, sir,” said Redmond. “I’m going on my personal knowledge of the man, but my opinion on that is also due to the fact that as a BOSS agent I have never seen anything that indicated any serious security breach anywhere that close to you, Mr. President. My guess is that when we get through tearing apart and examining under a microscope every day of Corey Nash’s life that we can trace, we will find that he was an absolutely loyal and dedicated white revolutionary and Party member both before Ravenhill and after. My guess is that the betrayal of the Olympic Flying Column was Corey Nash’s only act of disloyalty to the Republic. I know that’s kind of like saying ‘Other than that, how did you enjoy the play, Mrs. Lincoln?’ But I am convinced that Ravenhill was a one-shot deal with Nash. As to why he did it? The answer is simple and terrible. He loved her. Young Trudy Greiner was the only woman and probably the only human being that Corey Nash ever loved in the normal sense of the word, or as close to normal as a man with his terrible past could ever love anyone.”

  “I’m sorry, Colonel, you’ve lost me,” admitted Frierson frankly. “How in the name of God does Nash’s fixation on Trudy Greiner lead to the death of fifty-two Volunteers and fitting her up for it?”

  “There we enter into the realm of madness,” said Redmond, shaking his head. “Nel and I did a Section 30 entry on Nash’s hunting and fishing cabin up along Hood Canal, ironically enough not far from Hoodsport, the last meeting place of the Olympic Flying Column. We found evidence there that Trudy Greiner has haunted Nash all his life since then, a kind of weird shrine to her memory and some very disjointed writings in a kind of diary.”

  “Ja, he was bloody bonkers all right,” said Nel, shaking his head. “I tried to read that journal or whatever it was. He seemed to think Trudy Greiner was some kind of supernatural being, sometimes an angel, sometimes a devil, sometimes a kind of extraterrestrial

  being or emissary…the man hadn’t the full shilling, ek se. Colonel

  Redmond tells me this kind of thing was called GUBU.”

  “Love is a kind of madness at the best of times,” said Redmond grimly. “When it gets bitter and twisted in a mind that is already diseased, the results can be truly bizarre, unbelievably destructive. GUBU. I believe that the early murders of his family in Zimbuggery completely unhinged the man. Look, anyone who met old Corey even back in those revolutionary days very quickly discerned that he was a few bricks shy o
f a load. Some of you who remembered him from that time told me as much. But we wrote it off as mere eccentricity. Our Movement long ago fell into a very bad habit of tolerating odd and eccentric behavior that verged on cackle box material, so long as we felt we could get some mileage out of an individual. Some vestiges of this survive even today, Corey Nash being a prime example.” Redmond poinetdly avoided looking at Doctor Joseph Cord. “This isn’t the only time that extremely dangerous practice has come back to bite us. It used to happen all the time back in the Old Man’s day. We put up with Corey Nash because Nash made himself useful in a hundred ways. He talked to himself occasionally, true, but on the other hand he didn’t rave, he didn’t stab strangers with scissors, he didn’t think he was Napoleon, and he was coherent if cantankerous. He found this little niche here in the Morgan household as a kind of eccentric butler type, so he appeared to be more or less functional in real life. No one ever connected him with the Olympic Flying Column disaster.”

  “Maybe he didn’t mean for things to go that far?” suggested Brittany McCanless. “Was the whole Ravenhill thing some terrible accident that went wrong? Or God forbid, did he do it to her deliberately after he could no longer fail to understand that her heart belonged to Tom Murdock even after Murdock chose Melanie over her?”

  “I still don’t get it, Colonel,” said Arthur McBride, shaking his head. “He called Woodrow Coleman that night and betrayed and murdered fifty-two of his own people just to get this girl’s attention in some way? Impress her? Impress her with what, the fact that he’s a bloody bastard? This is way beyond me.”

  “How could he think that betraying the Column to their deaths would show his love for Trudy?” demanded Drago, stunned and

  appalled. “I told you when you spoke to me before, the man must have been mad!”