The Eye of Moloch (12 page)

“Who’s payin’ for all this?” Olin Simmons asked. Throughout this break from the executive meeting he’d been salivating over the sights of the expanding base like a diabetic at a doughnut store.

“This?” Landers said. “For the men I report to, as spending goes this is a drop in the ocean. And the wealthy don’t waste; compared to the fortunes to be had when this is over they’re making a very small investment here.”

“Tell you what, I never would have thought it was all about money.”

“It’s not—at least not in the way you and I think of money. They each already have more money than a million men could squander in a lifetime. Money, and land, and gold, and works of art—even whole governments—those are all just things to be collected and compared, like the notches on your bedpost. They’re a simple way to keep score so they can prove who’s won in the end.”

The other man took a step closer and leaned against the railing. “Who are these people, the ones at the top, the ones you work for? You can’t tell me, can you?”

“I’m sure you’d be disappointed.”

“Try me.”

“On paper, I work for a gentleman named Arthur Gardner.”

“And he’s in the New World Order, am I right? Or the Bilderbergers? Or the CFR?”

Landers smiled. “He’s in public relations.”

“Public relations?”

“He runs a multinational firm called Doyle & Merchant.”

“Doyle & Merchant.” Simmons pronounced the names as though
they left an unmanly taste in his mouth. “Sounds like a couple of San Francisco rump-wranglers.”

“Be that as it may. You can believe it or not, but as much as any single force in human history they’ve shaped the world you live in, and the world that’s about to come.”

“What with, words and pretty pictures?” He spat again. “You’re right. I don’t believe it.”

“Of course you don’t,” Landers said. “And they wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Another lackey came to the balcony and informed the two that Mr. Pierce was almost ready now for the conference to resume.

Olin Simmons let out a sigh, cracked his neck, and started for the door, but Landers stopped him.

“Tell me something,” Landers said. “Are you ready for more?”

“Sure. I’m not much of a man for meetings, but this one’s blowin’ my mind—”

“No,” Landers interrupted, and he made a subtle show of looking behind him and through the open door to ensure they were alone. “What I mean, Olin, is that a time may come soon when I need more from you. And I want to know if you’ll be ready to step up and do what needs to be done when I ask you.”

Simmons pocketed his tobacco pouch and considered that for a moment. “When you ask me what?” By the sly tone of this question it was already clear he had an inkling of its answer.

“I have to trust in the leadership I leave in charge here,” Landers said. “I’m talking about Mr. Pierce, and his future with us. Just watch while we’re in there, and you’ll see what I’m seeing. Everyone must serve their purpose, and I need to decide how faithfully he’s going to serve his. Be ready to give me your counsel before I leave.”

Landers put out his right hand, and after a thoughtful moment Olin Simmons took it with a firm shake and all the gravity appropriate to the pledge of a new allegiance.

Chapter 14

B
efore the final session of their pre-deployment conference could resume, word arrived at the Pierce compound that the remains of two men had been found, identified, and recovered from the adjacent woods.

These had been a pair of the organization’s best commandos, both sent out in pursuit of Molly Ross on the night of her recent escape. A third was still missing in action—the nineteen-year-old nephew of the little General himself—and considering the fate of the other two and the amount of time that had passed without contact, it was only realistic to presume this young man to be dead at the enemy’s hands as well.

As Warren Landers returned to the meeting room the other attendees were still milling about on their break, grumbling about the dismal news from the field. George Pierce sat alone, deep in study at the head of the table, with unfolded maps and a ream of handwritten notes spread around him. A Bible lay open to its final pages nearby. He continued this way, seemingly engaged in his own intrigues even after the assembly was called back to order.

Throughout the night, Landers laid out the details of the nationwide tactical plan.

Their orders were simple enough for men of this class to understand and carry out; no real comprehension of the broader design was required. Timing and orchestration would be the key to their role in this coup d’état, like the sequenced detonations of a controlled demolition. Without such an underlying scheme, in fact, if executed randomly and one by one these small assignments he gave might have little impact on a prepared and courageous public.

Fortunately, prepared and courageous was not the trending status of the modern American people.

Many thoughtful decades had been devoted to sinking deep faults into the foundation of what was once the home of the brave. Though a sad minority still clung stubbornly to their gold, God, and guns, it was fear, dependence, and submission that had finally replaced the rickety illusions of faith and freedom at the heart of the last great nation to fall.

The strategy was sound, and he knew it would work because it always had. The principles of leveraged terror—problem-reaction-solution—had proven themselves since the ancient reign of Diocletian. Three hundred organized men can easily bring 300 million simpering cowards to their knees. Still, timing and precision were required at every step and nothing could be left to chance. Terrorism done wrong can awaken strength and unity in a population under attack, and that could quickly undo even the best-laid plans.

At appropriate points he opened the floor for discussion. For the most part the men were concerned with
how, where,
and
when,
leaving the all-important
why
in the hands of their new leadership. During these interchanges George Pierce continued to offer nothing but the occasional terse comment and a conspicuous lack of engagement.

Near dawn, as things were winding down, two men arrived at the conference room door. One carried the duffel bag that had been found earlier; the tags attached showed it had been forensically processed, as Landers had ordered. At a gesture from Landers the bag was brought over and slid onto the table near him.

The second man went directly to Pierce’s side to whisper into his ear. From across the room Landers could see the color rising in his face and when the message had been fully delivered the little man brought his fist down onto the bare wood with enough force to overturn a dozen water glasses nearby.

The meeting had come to a full stop and no one uttered a sound until he spoke.

“They found my nephew Billy Clark,” Pierce said softly. “And they found him dead.”

A long moment of silence ensued, apparently out of group respect for the dear departed. For Landers himself it had always been a particular annoyance to try to summon a show of sympathy when he felt none whatsoever. He took the opportunity to glance over the stapled paperwork that accompanied the canvas bag and that passed a bit of the time. After what seemed an appropriate interval he let out a deep, vocal breath and checked his watch. There was, after all, a schedule to keep.

This obvious prompt did not escape the notice of George Pierce. “Have you got somewhere you need to be?” he hissed.

“As a matter of fact, yes.”

“Then why don’t you get on outta here? Go report back to your masters. We’ve got our pay, we’ve got our list of things to do”—he waved a scribbled page—“and we know how to get ’er done. Don’t we, boys?”

The men were quiet; if there was going to be a confrontation no one seemed quite willing to commit themselves to one end of the table or the other.

“Before I leave I need to know we have an understanding,” Landers said.

“Oh, you bet we do, we’ve got an understanding.”

“If you have something to say you shouldn’t dance around it, George; it’s unbecoming. All night long it’s seemed to me you’ve been keeping your thoughts from us. Is it the words you can’t find, or the courage?”

“All right, then,” Pierce said, and he stood to his full, inadequate height. “If you want to hear it I’ll say what nobody else here will.”

“I’m listening.”

“You’re a liar.”

“And what have I lied about?”

“You’ve spent all this time talking about what we’re supposed to do for you. I haven’t heard one word about what you’re gonna do for us. Not a word—and far as I can tell, you expect us to gear up and start working with our enemies now. Hell, you’ve got us rubbing elbows with the union bosses, and the hippies, and the lefties, and the towel-heads, and the socialists, and the commies—”

“That’s exactly right.”

“Am I the only one here that’s got a problem with that?” Pierce looked briefly around the table but got no takers. “And how do we know, once we’ve put our shoulder to the wheel and made all this happen, that you’re not just gonna pull all those other bastards together and turn against us?”

“I’ll tell you all something, George, and I’m not lying now. You wonder if we’ll turn against you in the end? You don’t have to wonder; I
guarantee
we will. But between now and then you’ll have plenty of time to get what you want—everything that’s coming to you, all the allies you can muster, maybe even enough power to win a small kingdom for yourself when it’s all over. We’re playing the long game now, George. How can I get you to understand that?”

“You sure talk big, I’ll give you that. But this ain’t a game to me.”

“Look at it this way,” Landers said. “The Ku Klux Klan—they’re yesterday’s news but they used to talk big, too, back when they were a much larger mob than yours—the Klan’s killed how many blacks in the last hundred years?”

“I don’t know.”

“I do. It’s only a few thousand actual lynchings, and with the shootings and the church burnings and the beatings and other random acts, let’s be conservative and round it up to four thousand total. In one hundred years. That’s forty per year on average.”

“So?”

“So more than that number have been shot in
one weekend
in present-day Chicago. There were one hundred and twenty blacks murdered in that one city in just the first quarter of last year. Eight thousand, nine thousand murders happen annually in their communities, over twice as many as the KKK has managed to commit in its entire history.”

“That’s just the damned jungle bunnies killing one another. What, now you’re gonna stand there and take credit for the Vice Lords and the P-Stones and the Gangster Disciples?”

“I am.” The question had been mocking but Landers’s answer was delivered with such authority that they all seemed to see it must be true. “Since the start of the Great Society we’ve systematically destroyed their spirit and dismantled their families, all with their full cooperation. You’re right, they’re killing each other; it’s easier for us that way. We saw Martin Luther King rising up to stop it, and we met him head-on, and we won. Today the sanctimonious do-gooders you hate so much have rewritten King’s words into nothing more than a shameless plea for handouts and reparations. We’ve made his people wards of the state and convinced the taxpayers it’s the only compassionate thing to do for such a downtrodden and helpless inferior race.

“The loudest of their leaders—and we’ve handpicked them all—they’ll march arm in arm in the streets to preserve the very chains we’ve used to enslave them. For every one that escapes the trap there are ten more for whom crime is the only career that seems wide open. In the inner cities we’ve herded them into a savage culture that glorifies the worst of their men, objectifies their women, and orphans their children. We’ve imprisoned whole generations and put them to work for us at twenty cents an hour. That’s ethnic cleansing at its best, but that’s only the beginning. You people believe abortion is murder, correct?”

Pierce blinked. “Yes, we do.”

“In your own language, then, abortion on demand has murdered seventeen million blacks, and counting.” He let that number sink in for a
moment. “Do you get that? We’ve normalized the voluntary termination of their babies into just another form of birth control—and a sacred civil right of liberated, empowered women. That’s the illusion we’ve created to make another genocidal weapon in the race war you say you’ve always wanted. Can you think it’s an accident that this choice is made so much more often by the people you claim to hate? There are fifty percent fewer blacks in this country now than there otherwise would be, and we’ve pulled the wool over the eyes of the American people so completely that even you couldn’t see that truth. But do you understand it now? The real war’s been going on for quite a while, George. We’re just inviting you to finally be a part of it.”

“That may all be true,” Pierce said. “But there’s times when a man’s got to pull the trigger himself to get his justice.”

“Are we talking about Molly Ross again?”

“Yes, we are.”