The downside, by comparison, left Halsey free to plan a new attack at some uncertain time and place. And how long would Cooper be available to play the waiting game?

  Not long, if Corwin’s intuition was correct.

  Her phone rang and she checked the screen, recognizing the office number prior to answering.

  “Josh? Yeah, sorry ’bout that. I hear you loud and clear. What have you got?”

  THEY KILLED AN HOUR in the restaurant, having what Halsey called an early lunch, then drove another hour north-northwest across more desert, into Lancaster. Bolan watched Stone as they approached the Lancaster Performing Arts Center and circled the block twice from opposite directions in a lazy figure eight.

  The German had a sniper’s eyes. Like Bolan, he recorded crucial details in his mind, without a need for photographs that might be lost or turn up in the wrong hands to incriminate him later. He was cool, asked questions when appropriate and stopped Gruber from making a third trip around the building.

  “Secret Service is already here,” Stone said. “Don’t be so obvious.”

  “Oh, right.”

  “You see, Matt?” Halsey beamed. “He’s just the man we need.”

  “You plan to do the job long distance?” Bolan asked.

  “I’ve seen two vantage points,” Stone answered, “but the agents who will guard the target are not fools. They’ll cover both with snipers of their own tomorrow morning, with surveillance overnight.”

  Bolan agreed. “So, what then?” he inquired.

  “There is another point behind us,” Stone replied. “We passed it coming in. The library.”

  “That’s close to a thousand yards out,” Bolan said.

  “Not an easy shot, I admit,” said the German. “But the roof, I think, will give a clear view of the target when his limousine arrives outside his destination.”

  Bolan gave Stone points for confidence. The rooftop he’d described did grant an unobstructed view along West Lancaster Boulevard to the main entrance of the Performing Arts Center, where local officials would roll out their best red carpet for the commander in chief the next day.

  A clear shot, if Stone could make it.

  And if someone didn’t spot him first.

  “You’ve made allowance for the helicopters?”

  “First, I must access the roof and examine its materials. When that’s done, I can purchase the few items I require. As for the weapon…”

  “Got you covered there,” Halsey said. “You asked for a .50-caliber Barrett rifle.”

  “Correct.”

  “It’s waiting for you at our range. When we get done here, you can sight it in.”

  “I only need a bit more time,” Stone said. “If you could drop me off a block from the library and give me half an hour? No, make it three-quarters. Better to be safe than sorry, yes?”

  “Just leave you there?” Halsey asked.

  “Yes. Perhaps go window-shopping to amuse yourselves.”

  Halsey was frowning, but he said, “Okay. If that’s what you want, we’ll drop you at the corner and come back at…twelve-fifteen, let’s say?”

  “I’ll see you then,” Stone said to no one in particular, as Gruber slowed the car and swung in toward the curb.

  When they were rolling once again, Halsey told Bolan, “He’s a strange bird, I’ll admit. But no one’s better at his job.”

  “Which is?”

  “The surgical elimination of high-profile targets.”

  “If he’s hit a U.S. President before, I must’ve missed the memo,” Bolan said.

  “No, this will be a first for all of us,” Halsey replied. “And he’ll need help.”

  “Besides an invisibility cloak to hide himself from aerial spotters?”

  “He’ll come up with something,” Halsey said. “No sweat. But what I need from you, Matt, is a firm hand on the tiller of Plan B, in case he drops the ball.”

  Bolan met Halsey’s eyes and asked, “What did you have in mind?”

  Apple Valley, Desert Palms Motel

  WITH AXTON TOE-TAGGED out in Riverside, Bolan had told Corwin it should be all right for them to meet at his motel. Despite his seeming confidence, Corwin watched her back the whole way out and practiced her evasive driving in the streets of Apple Valley for a quarter of an hour, playing safe.

  No tails were in sight. No spotters sitting on the Desert Palms.

  Bolan was waiting, watching through a gap between his curtains when she left the Crown Vic, and he had the door open before she raised her hand to knock.

  “You made good time,” he said.

  “I get a lead foot when I’m motivated,” Corwin replied.

  “What’s motivating you tonight?”

  “Besides your little tour of Lancaster?” she asked.

  “So, you were with us?”

  “Not only in spirit,” she confirmed.

  “And?”

  “I have an ID on your new Teutonic friend.”

  “I’ll play a hunch and bet his name’s not Gerhard Stone,” Bolan said.

  “Pay the winner,” Corwin replied. “You spent your day with Ubel Stern, ex-member of Die Heimattreue Deutsche Jugend. For the non-German speakers among us, that’s the German Youth Faithful to the Homeland, a neofascist outfit banned in March 2009 for repeated violations of various anti-Nazi statutes, plus multiple crimes of violence.”

  “You said ‘ex-member’?”

  “Right. You’ll love this. Stern was too extreme to suit the modern Hitler Youth. They kicked his Aryan heinie out of the club when he went overboard attacking and sometimes killing immigrants. Cops couldn’t make the murder charges stick, but he did time for arson and assault, then skipped out from a prison work detail. The past few years, he’s been a serious person of interest to Germany’s Federal Criminal Police, to Interpol, the FBI, you name the agency.”

  “Charges?”

  “Suspicion of multiple murders on four continents that I’m sure of. Stern’s apparently a true believer and a gun for hire. The worst of both worlds.”

  “And now he’s working with Halsey,” Bolan said.

  “I hear that he favors the long shots.”

  “You heard right. He’s working an angle to crack on the Man from a thousand yards out.”

  “Can he do that?”

  “His weapon can,” Bolan replied. “Halsey’s set him up with a Barrett Light Fifty.”

  “Sweet Jesus!”

  “He’s sighted it in, and I’ll tell you he’s good, at least with stationary targets.”

  “Is he shooting from the place you dropped him off to look around?”

  “That’s it. Were you still with us for the hardware stop?”

  “I let it go when you were heading out of Lancaster.”

  “Okay. He checked the stand’s roof and bought a roll of look-alike material at Lowe’s. On the day, he’ll be a trapdoor spider, nothing showing from the bird’s-eye view unless they notice lumps and wrinkles in the tar paper.”

  “You’re saying he could pull it off.”

  “In theory, sure. The hitch for Stern and Halsey is that I don’t plan to let them get that far.”

  “And your plan is…?”

  Bolan produced a cell phone, opened it and started tapping numbers. “I aim to get by,” he told Grace, “with a little help from some friends.”

  14

  Bakersfield, California

  “Call’s for you, Ace,” Maggot said, and dropped the telephone’s receiver with a clatter on the marble countertop.

  “Whosit?” Ace Winegart asked.

  “How the hell do I know? Somethin’ ’bout the guns.”

  “Oh, yeah?” This peaked his interest and kept the president of the Comancheros from ripping his insolent lackey a new one.

  Winegart rose from his recliner and clomped across the clubhouse to the kitchen.

  Rank has its privileges.

  “Whosis?” he asked the caller.

  A man’s voice answered, “Just call me a friend.”

  “Got all the friends I need.”

  “You sure?” the caller asked. “Word on the street is that you lost a bunch the other night.”

  “You know somethin’ about that?”

  “I know who did it, and who has your guns.”

  Winegart could smell a trap a mile away. He always took for granted that the clubhouse line was tapped. That’s why his men used prepaid cells for any call more pressing than a pizza order. When the pigs were listening, you played it straight.

  “What guns’re those?” he asked, all innocence.

  “Don’t want to talk about it on the phone? I understand,” the caller said. “Just listen, then.”

  “You wanna tell me fairy tales, I got two minutes for ya,” Winegart said.

  “I won’t need half that, Ace.”

  The bastard knew his name. So what? Most of the cops in California knew Ace Winegart, plus a growing number in adjoining states.

  Still.

  “You know me,” Winegart said. “What should I call you?”

  “Just a citizen,” the caller answered, then plowed ahead. “Those guns you never heard of were collected by their rightful owners. Maybe you know who they are? The rest of it was payback for you burning them, the way they saw it.”

  Winegart answered through clenched teeth. “You lost me, Mr. Citizen. Sounds like you’re smokin’ somethin’ that I’d like to get acquainted with, you wanna send some over.”

  “You know where to find them,” said the caller, as if Winegart hadn’t answered him.

  The line went dead before Winegart could think of a response. He listened to the dial tone buzzing in his left ear for a moment, as if it was something that he’d never heard before, then cradled the receiver.

  “Rightful owners, shit!” he muttered.

  “Wha’s that?” Beagle asked him, passing by.

  “I’m thinkin’ that it wasn’t Outlaws who hit us for the AKs, after all,” Winegart replied.

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “I’m thinkin’ now it was those redneck hicks from out Berdoo way.”

  “Ones you stiffed after they paid up front,” Beagle said.

  “Ones we all stiffed. Don’t forget it.”

  “Sure, prez.” He not so subtly reminded Winegart that the orders came from him, that it had all been his idea.

  Twelve brothers dead because of that, and it could be enough to get him booted out—or worse—unless Winegart could make it right, muy pronto. Get the AKs back and punish those who’d taken them, damn right.

  Winegart thought a body count of five for every one of his should do the trick.

  “Start makin’ calls,” he told Beagle. “Pull ever’body in. We’re goin’ on a desert run.”

  “YOU THINK THAT’S ENOUGH?” Corwin asked, as Bolan closed his phone and placed it on the nightstand in his motel room.

  “It’s enough to light the fuse,” he said. “Unless the Comancheros are sedated to the gills, they’ll want the guns and sweet revenge.”

  “But will they move on it tonight?”

  He shrugged. “No way to tell. They’ve got a hundred miles to ride, if they were ready when I called.”

  “Which I’ll assume they weren’t,” Corwin said.

  “No reason to suppose it,” Bolan granted. “Give Winegart a couple of hours to rally the troops and arm up, then a couple more to make the drive and find their target.”

  “So, you’re thinking midnight, give or take,” Corwin said, after a quick glance at her watch.

  “I’ll ride over and have a look around. Stargaze a little. See what develops.”

  “You do a lot of that?” she asked. “Stargazing, I mean.”

  “When I’m out of the city I try to make time. It’s relaxing.”

  “How else do you like to relax?” Corwin inquired.

  “The same as most people, I guess,” Bolan replied.

  The lady Fed got up and crossed the small motel room in about three strides, then sat on the bed within arm’s reach.

  “I’ve given it some thought,” she said. “After tomorrow, anyway you slice it, chances are we’ll never meet again.”

  “Makes sense,” Bolan agreed.

  “If nothing happens, you go back to wherever it is you came from, and I’m back to waiting for Clay Halsey to screw up.”

  “Sounds right.”

  “If something does go down, you either stop it, then go back into your Twilight Zone, or else you drop the ball and die.”

  “If there’s a choice, I’ll take the first alternative.”

  “And when I’ve finished writing up my mostly fictional reports and been debriefed, I might go one of two ways—either back to work, chasing some other bunch of scum, or off to get my unemployment check.”

  “You paint a grim scenario,” he said.

  “It’s been that kind of year for me, so far,” Grace said. “So, like I told you, I’ve been thinking.”

  “And?”

  “I thought maybe we’d turn it all around. Maybe you wouldn’t mind debriefing me before it hits the fan.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” the Executioner replied.

  And reached for Corwin.

  BLACK, BROWN AND YELLOW, everywhere he turned. It was the blight of Ubel Stern’s existence—of his race throughout the world. A rising tide of color stranded pure-blooded Aryans in pockets of resistance scattered here and there around the planet, under siege and losing ground with each tick of the clock.

  Hitler had tried to solve the problem thirty years before Stern’s birth, but he had failed. Milosevic had tried his best in Bosnia, but once again in vain. The other groups and individuals worldwide who’d pledged their lives to Racial Holy War meant well, but what had they accomplished in the universal scheme of things?

  A few thousand inferiors eliminated in the wreckage that had once been Yugoslavia. Stateside, less than two hundred in the Oklahoma City bombing, and nothing to speak of since then. Isolated attacks, with one or two eradicated here and there.

  It simply wouldn’t do.

  Stern had dedicated his body and soul to the struggle for white supremacy on Earth. That meant not only subjugating black, brown, red and yellow, but eliminating each and every one of the philosophies that made inferiors feel worthy of asserting so-called “civil rights.”

  In Stern’s ideal world, survival was a privilege reserved for those of pure Aryan blood. All others were expendable, commodities on par with livestock, valued only for the services they rendered to the limits of their pitiful abilities. And when their purpose had been served, they were disposable.

  Before that lofty goal could be accomplished, though, there would be massive bloodletting. Each yearly census emphasized the growing numbers of the enemy. Until their gains had been rolled back by overwhelming force, until they were contained, subdued, enslaved, it would be war to the knife, and the knife to the hilt.

  Stern meant to strike a solid blow in that campaign the following day. But this night, he needed to relax.

  Sex was out of the question. Even if Stern had been willing to soil himself with prostitutes of uncertain lineage, the risk of contracting a fatal disease would dissuade him.

  He could always have a drink—or ten—but Stern wanted a clear head in the morning, with no hangover. The last thing that he needed when the time came to make his historic long shot was a blurry eye and a roiling stomach.

  Which left his favorite alternative.

  With time to kill before the main event tomorrow, Stern went hunting.

  Granted, it was no great challenge in a place like California. Published demographic reports claimed that “white Americans” comprised about 42.3 percent of the state’s population, then went on to list a breakdown of 36 percent Hispanic, 12 percent Asian, 6 percent African American, and 26 percent from two or more races, whatever that meant. No doctorate in mathematics was required to see that the numbers didn’t add up—and those official figures took no account of religion or sexual preference.

  Victorville was whiter than most towns of its size in Southern California, at 64 percent Caucasian, but that still left ample opportunity for a selective hunter.

  When he was at home in Germany, Stern liked to use a vintage SS dagger purchased from an Aryan collector in Hanover, but he couldn’t travel with it when he flew. For that reason, after his time with the militiamen that afternoon, he’d visited a pawn shop and acquired a replica of a 1918 trench knife, with a double-edge blade, brass knuckle-duster grip, and a skull-crushing spike on its pommel.

  Perfect for the hunt he had in mind.

  Passing a bar on Seventh Street, a block south of the Amtrak station, Stern heard someone call out to him from a darkened alley’s mouth. A woman’s voice.

  “You looking for a date, mister?”

  A young woman stepped into view. She was hispanic, slim but well-endowed, dressed for the street. It took a second, closer look to see “her” Adam’s apple and the makeup base applied to mask shaving rash.

  “Like what you see?” the young transvestite asked.

  “I couldn’t be more pleased,” Stern said.

  TWO DOZEN MOTORCYCLES RUMBLED out of Victorville and into the deep night of the vast Mojave Desert. Headlights lanced the darkness, Comancheros riding two abreast and following their leader toward the target. In their wake, a Dodge van trailed the bikes, prepared to haul away their loot.

  Gator Galliano had been proud when he was picked to lead the raid against the men who had massacred his brothers and robbed the club in Bakersfield. It felt good, riding through the darkness with the warm desert wind in his face, toward a battle for justice—but in truth, Galliano was having second thoughts.

  He’d gone with Winegart to see his brothers in the morgue, a dozen of them shot to hell. And while he didn’t know how many shooters were involved, he’d known the men who died. They were tough bastards, every one of them, and mostly killers in their own right. If they couldn’t hold their own against these damned militia freaks on the MC’s home turf, how smart was it to tackle unknown numbers of the enemy a hundred miles from home?

 

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