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

“You were pretty quick to say we’d best leave the cops out of it. I guess I wasn’t surprised.”

“Yeah? Why’s that?” Vince asked, rolling the window back up as the truck picked up speed.

“I wasn’t sure till I saw you handle those two. A Ranger, sure, but that kind of efficiency — Lord!” He shook his head. “And you fit the description. I saw it on my phone when you were in that store. A former Army Ranger name of Vincent coming out of the D.C. area… You got money but for some reason you’re hitching a ride. And — I could feel something was up. You’re him.”

“Okay,” Vince said with a shrug. “That worry you?”

“Nope! Hell, you just saved my ass. And anyway — me and you are on the same side…” Dutch took his cell phone from a shirt pocket and passed it to him. “Turn that on, there.”

Vince did. The phone showed a photograph of a smiling black woman, about thirty-five. She looked shy but happy.

“That’s my girlfriend — my Shanna. Fuck them Nazis anyway.”

*

Gustafson was pacing back and forth in the den of the Gustafson house, waiting for Dunsmuir to get back to him. Dunsmuir was to take him in the yacht, The Spirit of Purity, to the Cayman Islands, well away from the untidy aftermath of Operation Firepower. Normally he’d have flown there in the helicopter but that vile, treacherous thief Bellator had stolen it. Dunsmuir, Gustafson’s hired yacht coxswain, was one of the Brethren and surely he must get back in touch soon. Or had the news from Washington sent him into hiding?

A log fire was burning in the massive gray stone fireplace; the rain was pattering on the windows. The place was cozy, with books and leathern chairs. A stein of German beer was going flat on the big oaken desk.

Yet Gustafson wanted badly to be away from this “safe house”. The Russians had not confirmed that they would pick him up in the Caymans and take him to the dacha on the Black Sea as they’d promised, and many of the surviving Brethren were not returning his calls. A few from Wolf Base were said to be cooperating with the FBI. And certainly, that other treasonous worm Shaun Adler was spilling his guts, telling many a tale to the feds. Ostrovsky claimed that the safe house was entirely unknown to the Bureau — even to Dawson — and he was quite safe here. But Adler may have reported the whereabouts of the place.

A chilling thought came to him. Could Adler be in touch with… Bellator?

Still, Gustafson had some very capable men here, protecting him: Chaz Prosser, Henry Spellman, Dusty Folkson, Gunny Hansen, and two others. They were alert, well-armed, and this house was nearly a fortress in itself.

If only Dunsmuir would call him back…

He was troubled, his nerves jumping. Gustafson walked to the desk, picked up the stein, then put it down, the beer untasted.

The Operation. One attack had not carried out at all — the men lost their nerve; the suicide bomb never detonated, Flesky wounded and blathering to the feds, Adler escaped and cooperating with the FBI, Colls killed before he could carry out the Joint Chiefs attack. Buster killed. Then the slaughter of the Brethren at the Lincoln Memorial.

Gustafson went back and forth in his mind over whether he had achieved anything. They had killed a handful of the crowd. True, none of the senators had been killed — though they had been targeted. And almost all the Brethren had died or surrendered themselves. The Russians were satisfied — they didn’t care who won or lost as long as there was more social chaos, disruptive violence and terror fomented within America.

But what was his next move? Perhaps the Sacred Cause would consider the dead Brethren to be martyrs. Certainly, when he regrouped with his people, in time, the next operation would be devastating to the liberals and Jews and their black minions…

A knock on the door. “Mr. Gustafson?”

It was Polly, with his dinner probably. “Yes, Polly?”

“Mr. Ostrovsky would like to speak to you!”

“Well — can he not come to me? I’m awaiting a very important call.”

Ostrovsky came. He was wearing an old-fashioned scarlet smoking jacket, with yellow lapels, an ascot, tweed trousers, and slippers. He was smoking a Gauloises cigarette, which annoyed Gustafson. Though his own fortune derived from tobacco, he disliked second-hand smoke. A tall, pallid, bony gentleman of seventy with strangely red lips and deep-sunk rheumy blue eyes, Pieter Ostrovsky was a somewhat ghostly presence who engaged in long silences and sudden announcements.

It was his time for a sudden announcement. “Raoul, I’m afraid you must depart this very night,” he said in his soft Russian accent.

“What? My boat is not yet confirmed…”

“I’m sure your man will confirm. If not, you can hire someone else. Go quickly to your yacht at Charleston.”

“I need Dunsmuir to take the yacht out and I will take a separate boat out to it. Federal agents may be watching it.”

“Your man Dawson surely is protecting you?”

“The Attorney General has taken a ‘leave of absence’ this morning. He is expected to resign. Too much has come out… He cannot help me.”

“All the more reason you must depart. You have your men; you have your Humvee. I am not equipped to protect you any further; indeed, I am ordered not to. You know, this was supposed to be my retirement, supervising this house. I did not expect anything so… well, they did not tell me what to expect. But I have been informed that this Shaun Adler has told them about this very house. You must leave, almost immediately, and I must leave the instant my chauffeur arrives. Pack what you have, tell your men, and depart. I must insist. You would not want to anger