Firepower, John Cutter [best summer reads .txt] 📗

Colls shook his head. There was just something about Bellator that troubled him, and it wasn’t really that the man had disarmed him. “It’s the way he turned up here… the timing. He comes along only a month before we initiate Firepower. He’s got an agenda, General! Suppose he reports on Wolf Base to everyone out there?”

“I’m not showing him everything. And you know, the FBI is well aware of this place. Have you forgotten that we escorted ATF agents through here?”

“We had to hide two-thirds of our hardware first…”

“And who gave us the chance to do that? Our special friends in government warned us. We are to an extent protected from the feds — by the feds! Of course, there are still people in the Justice Department who might like to infiltrate us — or even carry out a raid. They would, if we hadn’t sold the ATF on the whole ‘recreation for fans of the military lifestyle’ business. The brochures really did the trick — I’m so glad I had them worked up.”

Colls let a sound of exasperation escape him. “Sir, we can’t trust anyone in government. How do you know your federal contacts aren’t FBI operatives undercover?”

“Because they’re old friends! I spent many a summer night with them at Bohemian Grove. One of them was my student, another was my teacher!”

“Suppose Bellator finds out about Firepower and tells some fed who’s not your friend, General?”

Gustafson shrugged. “Bellator won’t find out anything I don’t want him to find out, I assure you. And — you know me, Mac. I let the gods whisper to me. I have a feeling this is the man who will change everything — I feel it in my heart. His coming here is destiny! Das ist Schicksal!”

“Is it? What if he’s the wrong kind of destined man, sir? What if he’s a mole of some kind?”

“Ah, well, if he turns out to be an enemy, then we’ll kill him. I’ll let you do it! If I give you the signal — you may personally shoot Vincent Bellator in the back of the head.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Three hours, sitting in a chair.

Some of the toughest hours Vince Bellator had ever experienced. And he had undergone Ranger training, maybe the world’s toughest. He had also been in “meat grinder combat”, as they’d called it in Afghanistan. But this…

And yet all he had to do was sit there and watch videos without showing his real feelings.

He’d been trained for Delta Force to play a role if he were captured and interrogated. He’d been trained by the CIA to play a role working undercover in urban combat zones. He could control his features, his outward responses. He was very aware that two men were watching him.

But inside he was a turmoil of emotions as he watched racist videos telling lie after lie, falsifying history — he had a degree in actual history — and showing violent imagery suggesting that the United States would only survive if it was cleansed of “all non-white races except some few, kept at low levels, for domestic work”.

His three best friends in the Rangers had been black, brown, and white. The officer he’d respected most was Chinese-American. The best friend of his youth in Texas, Hector Gomez, had been killed by a white sheriff’s deputy, rumored to be a Klansman, on a flimsy excuse. Vince had strong emotional feelings about racism. He was not down with it. He supported the First Amendment rights of racists, and that’s as far as he would go.

Vincent Bellator tried not to hate or despise any group of people. But there were exceptions. He despised dealers in hard drugs like meth and crack and heroin and fentanyl, he despised terrorists of any kind, and he despised racists. The Germanic Brethren were racists and, in all probability, domestic terrorists planning a big move. Vince had heard that some domestic terrorists in the USA were raising money for their weapons by selling meth.

As he watched the videos, he kept his face wooden — except when he thought he should give a flicker of an approving smile. Sometimes he nodded, trying to give the impression he agreed with the utter bullshit propounded in the video.

But inside, Vince was seething.

Two uniformed Brethren had been sitting to either side of the screen, watching him the whole time he was watching the videos. He could almost feel their gazes on his face. The brawny guy on the left, introduced as Deek, had a close-shaven head that looked too small for his body. He had his mouth slightly open as he watched Vince, his eyes squinted. He carried a Glock niner on his hip.

The militiaman on the right was wiry, his face angular, his nose Roman, his big hands clutching nervously at one another in his lap. He had his teeth clenched as he stared at Vince. He carried what looked like a Colt .45 revolver on his hip. On his shoulder was a ranking patch showing two stripes. Apparently, Gustafson had declared the guy a corporal. He’d been introduced as Corporal Marco Ambra.

When they’d met, Vince had asked, “You related to Antonio Ambra?”

Marco had smiled proudly. “He’s my father!”

Vince had read about the guy while doing his research in Pat’s. Antonio Ambra was a notorious Italian Neofascist, arrested for possession of stolen military explosives. There were numerous connections between American Neofascists and those in Europe and Russia. German and American neofascists were known to go to special training camps in Russia, probably run by Russian intelligence.

Corporal Marco Ambra. Overgrown, psychopathic, dangerous children playing army…

Vince wondered how far they carried this fake military stuff. Was there a boot camp? Was Wolf Base the boot camp? Probably something of the sort.

The last video finished in a welter of blood and martial