He balled his hand, started to retract it. Ahlward’s voice froze it mid-motion like a blast of liquid nitrogen.
“Later, Gordon.”
Latch looked back and forth between the two of us. Spat in my face and returned to the couch. But no more casual leg-cross. He sat on the edge, hands on knees, huffing with rage.
A gob of his saliva had landed on my cheek. I lowered my head, wiped it as well as I could on my shoulder.
I said, “How impolitic, Councilman.”
Latch said, “He’s mine, Bud. When the time comes.”
I said, “I’m touched, Councilman.”
Ahlward turned to me and said, “That all you have to say, turd?”
“Oh, no. There’s plenty more. Back to Wannsee Two. The meeting no one believes ever took place. But it did. Somewhere rural and secluded- away from the untermensch-infested cities where the police and the Feds had control. Maybe somewhere like southern Idaho? The ranch that Miranda inherited from her father? How many people were involved?”
Ahlward’s eyelids drooped. He touched his gun.
I said, “A redux of the Hitler-Stalin buddy bit. You even came up with a new insignia that said it alclass="underline" red for the left, the spear for the right, a circle signifying the union.”
I turned to Latch: “If the folks on Telegraph Avenue only knew.”
He said, “You’re an idiot. It started up in Berkeley. Back in the days when I was still brainwashed and toxified. I did hypnotic things without knowing why I was doing them. Taking African history, Native American studies, all sorts of contrived, useless bullshit the Jew-profs shoved down my throat. But even then I was starting to see through it. It wasn’t working for me. I went searching for my own source material. Learned facts no one had the guts to come out and say in class. Like the fact that there wasn’t a single written language in Africa before the white man came. No real music except for stupid chants a retardate could master. No fine cuisine, no literature, no fine arts. We’re talking an ape culture- malaria, promiscuity, dung-eating, Mau Mau cannibals. They’re nothing but a bunch of dung-eating baboons, brought to America by the Zionist-occupier in order to pick Zionist cotton. Trained by the Zionists to wear human clothes and mouth human words and masquerade as human peers. I’d dealt with them; I knew how impossible it was to get through to them using logic. All of a sudden it made sense. You can’t use logic with an ape.”
“Apes with rhythm? Like DeJon?”
He laughed. “That was fun. The irony. He and his fucking gorillas. Monkeys riding in limousines. Thinking they’re even a half-step above the dung heap. He actually thanked me for giving him the opportunity to serve.”
“You have a taste for irony, don’t you, Gordie?” I said. “Making speeches at the Holocaust Center after the building was defaced. Serving on their Board. Knowing all the time that it was D.F.’s storm troopers who did the defacing.”
He laughed harder. “They’re so gullible, all of them- the inferior classes. Poor self-esteem on a bio-ethnic level. It’s coded genetically- on a cellular level they know they’re inferior. Which is why, when the white man asserts himself properly, there’s no competition. No resistance. They march straight into the ovens, shimmy right up to the lynching tree. All you have to do is pretend to like them.”
Ahlward nodded in assent but I thought I spotted a hint of annoyance. Deprived, once again, of the limelight.
I shifted my attention back to him. “Wannsee Two went better than you’d imagined. You drew up a plan. But there were obstacles. People who stood in the way- who’d fight you to the death if they found out. People with charisma and drive and no compunctions about working outside of the system themselves. Norm and Melba Green, Skitch Dupree, the Rodriguezes, Grossman, Lockerby, and Bruckner. Time for some more damage control, and here Gordie came in handy again. Your inside track to the first cadre. Privy to their plan- New Walden. Black and white farming side by side, inviting the Indians back. Everything you despised. Gordie and Randy lured them up to Bear Lodge with tales of clean air and pure water and free rent. Randy’s inheritance.” I looked around the room. “Guess she likes warehouses. Didn’t know they were such a good investment.”
A flicker of impatience crossed Ahlward’s eyes.
I said, “The Walden folks traveled up to Bear Lodge with stars in their eyes. And you were waiting for them. Dayton Auhagen, macho hippie. Communer with nature. The kind of stranger who could skulk around without arousing their suspicions. You watched them. Surveilled them. Getting a fix on their habits, their routine. Same way you’d track any prey. Getting into that warehouse when they were gone and hiding explosive charges among all that combustible produce.”
Ahlward was smiling. Remembering.
I said, “Only some of the group was settled in Bear Lodge. The others were farther north, negotiating for lumber. But that other group was strictly second cadre. Without their leaders they were likely to cut and run. And if they did prove threatening sometime in the future, you could always pick them off at your pleasure- small game. So you fixed a date before the second cadre was scheduled to arrive, got into the warehouse again, poisoned their dinner meat. Returned to the forest, waited until they were all inside, incapacitated, pressed a button, and boom. The FBI dovetailed beautifully into your plans by jumping on the bomb-factory explanation and feeding it to the press. No doubt you helped them along with an anonymous tip.”
Smug smile on the blunt face. Nostalgia had never looked so ugly.
I said, “That was a good touch. No one mourned a bunch of urban terrorists blowing themselves up with their own nitro. Only one minor glitch: one of the second cadre people- Terry Crevolin- arrived early. A vegetarian, to boot. He didn’t eat the meat, was spared, and escaped the blast. But once again, no big threat. He had personal problems- drugs, a weak will- likely to sap his political energies. And his hatred and distrust of the establishment led him to believe the explosion was government-sponsored. To this day he doesn’t believe in Wannsee Two. So it was a nifty plan, D.F. As far as it went. But my question for you is, why bother? Why go to all that trouble for the first cadre when there were other radical leaders just as charismatic?”
Latch said, “They were scum. Fucking snobs.”
Spoiled-brat rage.
Not-invited-to-the-party rage.
I knew then that the idea of the blast had originated with him. That for him it had been personal, not political.
All those lives lost- the horror- because they’d been smarter than he was. Shut him out.
His idea.
More of an idea man than I’d thought. Their relationship was complex. Made the one between Dobbs and Massengil look wholesome…
Ahlward was sitting up straighter. I decided to keep the insight to myself.
“After Bear Lodge,” I said, “time to move forward. Pick a front man, sanitize him, and get him into public office- no matter how humble an office. You’re a patient man, D.F., know your history. All those years it took the first Führer to progress from a jail cell to the Reichstag.” I sat forward. “The only thing is the first Führer was his own front man. He didn’t need a dummy on his lap.”
Latch said, “Fuck you, you piece of shit.”
I thought I saw Ahlward smile. “Times have changed,” he said. “This is the media age. Image is everything.”
I said, “Thought the Zionists controlled the media.”
“They do,” said Ahlward.
“More irony, huh?”
He yawned.
I said, “Okay, granted, got to consider images. But is he the best you can do, image-wise?”
Furious mutters from the sofa. A hint of movement that Ahlward stilled with a sharp look.