The reporter was offered the woman as a friendly gesture. He returned to write about a misunderstood group seeking free enterprise, and called for a dialogue between the Knights and community leaders. He did not mention the desperate knocking coming from the doors. Nor did he mention that the rug belonging to the real mosque of Lebanese Sunnis was being sold right before his eyes. He had the black beat, and he didn't see how mentioning those unpleasantries would have any bearing on the stories. His story was about black men with the courage to stand up to pressure groups and criticism.
Francisco Braun knew what he was buying. He was buying very sloppy killers. They probably had practiced on relatives first, then neighbors, and then branched out. Braun understood that every judge who released these killers back into the community had probably been responsible for more black deaths than any Ku Klux Klan chapter during the height of lynchings at the turn of the century.
Francisco Braun did not care. He had seen their kind in the slums of the world. They did not even make good guerrillas. If Francisco Braun were to stage a black revolution in America, he would not use these, but those middle-class blacks who struggled to build homes and send their children to school. They were soldiers. This was garbage. But garbage was what he needed. Lots of it. "I want a massacre," said Francisco.
"De green gotta be seen, man."
"Certainly," said Francisco. He felt one of them sidle up close to him. To understand these people one had to know that a thousand dollars now was more important than a country later. They were probably thinking robbery, and possibly even male rape. Many men thought that when they saw the tender features of Francisco Braun.
Francisco smiled gently, and with a smooth, practiced motion, put a twenty-five-caliber Beretta into the bulging pants of the young man sidling up to him, and sent a slug into the bulge. There were some very pearlwhite teeth grinning back at him from an asphalt-black face.
Though a pumping red ooze seeped from the crotch of his pants, the pain had yet to show in the young man's face. The grin, Francisco knew, was the first reaction, the total disbelief of what had been done. The Islamic Knights understood they were not dealing with a social worker or a reporter. They were packed into three cars by evening.
They stopped to rape and pillage a farmhouse in New Jersey until the figure of Francisco Braun appeared at the doorway.
"Keep moving," said Francisco.
In Pennsylvania the three carloads complained that they had been without entertainment for fifteen hours. They were suffering withdrawal symptoms. Francisco asked for someone to enumerate all their needs. They picked the supreme imam leader. Francisco listened to all the requests politely, then shot out his eyes. The three carloads did not stop until they reached a suburb of McKeesport, and the address Mr. Caldwell had given him.
At that point, Francisco laid out machine guns, machetes, pistols, and a few hand grenades on the hoods of the cars. The young Knights could not believe their good luck. Not only were they going to off this white, they were going to cut him into pieces.
"They're loaded," said Francisco. "In that house, down there," he said, pointing from a ridge down to a ranch house with a lit living room and three figures present around a table, "are three people without weapons. I, on the other hand, have a pistol. I can kill at least three of you before you kill me. I won't tell you which three. Now the choice is between three defenseless people who have done nothing to you, and me, a man who would like nothing better than putting blood spots on your black skin. Your choice."
And then he smiled very sweetly. It took the Islamic Knights less than a full second to decide. With a cry of holy war they grabbed their weapons and ran screaming toward the ranch house in the little valley.
Francisco Braun knew that a mass attack like this could not be stopped. He had seen it before. No matter how bad they were, the fury of the Knights' assault, combined with numbers, would neutralize any skill. He would have liked to do the job himself, but Mr. Caldwell had stressed he wanted distance from the crime. Too bad. There was a woman there, too. He liked women. He would have liked that woman. She was so beautiful. He ached for a woman. Sadly he turned back to his car. He could not bear to watch the pack having all the fun.
Sometimes, he thought, money did not pay for all the longing in him. But he knew that working for Mr. Caldwell, there would always be more women. As Mr. Caldwell had said:
"Great wealth needs a great sword. You, Francisco Braun, are my sword. Plan on it being moist."
And Francisco knew he had found the one man he wanted to work for, knew it even as he knelt on one knee before his lord.
Sadly, Francisco got into his own car. The shooting should be starting now. He turned to his engine. Perhaps that had blocked the sound. He opened the window. Still no sound. He had given them AK-47's, an excellent field weapon, perhaps the best. Nothing. Not even a grenade going off or the sound of a machete. Francisco Braun got out of the car and looked down into the valley. An old man in flowing robes was returning into the house. Three carloads of ghetto youths lay in the driveway. There had not even been a yell. Not a cry.
Now loud sounds came from the house. A man was growling, something about cleaning up bodies. The older man, the Oriental, turned his back on the younger, the white. The white was complaining.
"If you kill them, you clean them up. There are large garbage bags in the kitchen. You can get them as well as anyone."
The younger white moved the bodies around like small cartons, stacking them as he complained about always getting the dirty work. Three carloads stacked like a pyramid.
Francisco estimated the bodies were from 170 to 270 pounds. And they flew onto the pile.
"The last time," said the white. And then, as though he had known Francisco was looking down all along, he glanced up to the hill.
"Hey, sweetheart, you want yours?" said the man. Francisco knew he wanted that man as he had wanted no one else in the world. He wanted the young one. And he wanted the old one, and then in ultimate satisfaction he would finish off, like a dessert, the woman. They were all his now. And Mr. Caldwell could not possibly mind that he took them himself. The plan of the ghetto youths had failed.
Chapter 5
Francisco Braun did not collect the reward for killing the fiercest man in Barcelona by rushing in. Granted, he could crack a man's ribs with a single karate blow. He had put out the eyes of a fleeing woman at fifty yards with a fine handgun. And she had been a fast woman, too. Even faster after she dropped her baby.
But the greatest weapons Francisco Braun had at his command were reason and patience. And he forced himself to move correctly even though his passion to take all three immediately strained him mightily. They had killed the garbage he had picked up in Boston. Physically, they moved extraordinarily well, so fast he had not been able to determine which school of hand fighting they used. He could get off a shot now. But that might be risky. He might get one and then have to hunt the others, because he did not know what these men could do. He did not know who they were, and if he did not know who they were, he just might miss. They had shown they were special, very special.
Of course, if he launched a grenade into the house now, they would probably scatter in confusion and he could pick them off. Probably. But he was not alive because of probabilities.
Besides, he had help now, a man who truly knew how to use power. And Francisco Braun knew how to use what he had. He was never one who preferred to get his hands dirty when he didn't have to.
Already he had an advantage over the two men in the house below him. He knew how dangerous they were. But they had no idea how dangerous he was, or that he was going to kill them. They couldn't even know he was there. That had always been more than enough of an edge to make Francisco victorious. There was no reason to believe it would change now. He would know them, they would not know him, and then he would kill them. He had been lucky that they had shown themselves, lucky that he had not gone in first.