The Blood Flag (4 page)

“Only take a second.”

“What is it?”

“I'll cut to the chase. I want a temporary transfer to Karl's group at Domestic Terrorism.”

She frowned, “What for?”

“Well there's a long story behind it. But the short story is I think I can take down a growing worldwide neo-Nazi movement. It's building. It's a real problem. There's going to be a meeting in Germany and I want to stop them.”

“Why you?”

I inched inside her doorway and said, “I was just in Europe. I went to Germany on vacation, and ran into a neo-Nazi group. They threatened my family as they marched with their masks and Nazi armbands. I want to help snuff it out.”

“How do you plan on doing that?”

“Karl has a CI. I want to work with him to get him there and turn it.”

“How do you plan on doing that?”

“I haven't made a final decision on which way to go yet, but the key is to get invited. To show them something that will get their attention. I'm finalizing it now.” Of course, I didn't know what I was going to do yet.

“And what you're doing here is so unimportant you can just walk away from it.”

“No. And I don't plan on walking away from it at all. I'll keep monitoring everything and doing my job probably at about a two-thirds rate. And Alex said she can cover for me, even work extra hours.” I hesitated. “I need to do this. Just give me sixty days.”

She exhaled heavily. “Have you even looked in your inbox? Did you open the high-priority email I sent you an hour ago?”

I hadn't looked at my email since nine thirty. “I haven't been in my office.”

“I noticed. You didn't respond. Mohammed al-Hadi is on the move. Heading for Europe. Germany, we think. And since that's directly in the area that you have been working on, you have more work, not less. I can't spare you, particularly now.”

“Understood.” I paused. “Can I at least talk to Karl? Can I help him out on the side? Not to interfere with what I'm doing?”

“Al-Hadi needs your full attention. How are you going to have extra time to help out Karl?”

“I'll cut back on my sleep.”

“You should have already cut back on your sleep.”

“Just give me a little room.”

She was done with me. She dismissed us with a wave of her hand. “Just get your job done.”

“Guaranteed.”

I turned quickly and walked down the hall with Karl following. I didn't want her to say anything else. As we waited for the elevator I said to Karl, “I'm going to need Jedediah's number.”

“You took what she said as a ‘yes'?”

“Absolutely.”

Karl shook his head. We clearly weren't of the same mind. Karl finally responded, “He doesn't have a number. We don't call him.”

“How do you contact him?”

“Untraceable Gmail account. His email address is nonsensical. It's just letters and numbers about twenty-six characters long. It's one that you could never remember; you've got to have it written down. And he will only respond to another Gmail account. I've set up an account that I talk to him through. He only accesses it—”

The elevator arrived and the door opened. Karl watched to see who was getting off. He waited till they got off, we got on, and the doors closed in front of us.

“He only accesses it from computers at Internet cafés and the like. Nothing in his house, nothing traceable.”

“What is his email?”

He pulled out his wallet and showed it to me. “Here.”

It made no sense and was just as Karl described. “Do you have this in your computer? Can you email it to me?”

“Sure. You should make an account to contact him. Something completely random. You should know that Jedediah is very careful. Don't let his looks fool you. He's actually incredibly bright. He looks like a thug, which throws everybody. They expect nothing but grunts and stupidity. And then when you throw in a southern accent, two-thirds of the country assumes he's retarded. But this is a guy you want on your side. He's courageous, bright, and the best chance we have to do anything with these guys, if he's legit, about which I still have my doubts. So I'll let you talk to him, but you've got to do it right, and you've got to run everything by me.”

The doors opened and we stepped out. He continued, “But, I guess it all depends on you coming up with some brilliant idea. Anything occur to you?”

I shook my head. “I need to talk to him first. I've got to understand what drives them.”

“Pretty simple. Racial purity. But their big play right now is illegal immigration, particularly those identified with Islam. We've handed them the best issue they've ever had on a platter. We continue to pretend we have immigration policies, and continue to do nothing about them. So, as they see it, they have Mexicans and Ecuadorians and Iraqis invading South Carolina with the endorsement of the federal government. Once you get into the anti-immigration world, it's broad and deep across the country. Something like ninety percent of Americans disagree with the way the federal government is handling immigration. When you've got unemployment and a lot of jobs in the heart of the south taken by Spanish-speaking people, you've got a formula for trouble. They capitalize on that. They soft pedal the anti-Semitism and white supremacy but it's there. They suck people in with the anti-immigrant bit, how the country's been overrun by immigrants, then they start on the Muslims, with the Jews thrown in for good measure. There are still a lot of people out there who sign off on this rubbish. A lot. Never ceases to amaze me.”

“I'm going to contact him right away. You okay with that?”

He paused, then said, “Sure. Keep me posted.”

I went back to my office. I logged onto Gmail and created a new account. I copied Jedediah's address into the “to” line and left the subject line blank. I typed, “I am the other one from Virginia. We need to meet.” I didn't put any signature or name to it. I didn't really have a good sense of how secure this type of communication was. I knew it wouldn't be very secure from the NSA if they chose to monitor it, but I thought it was probably secure against the people he'd be concerned were watching him. Others like him. If he never accessed his email from any known computer, I couldn't imagine how they'd ever know about it. Still, it paid to be as cautious as possible.

As I was about to log off I was surprised to see the first email pop up in my inbox. It was from Jedediah. It contained one word. “Why?”

I typed quickly, “To help with your idea.”

“Have one?”

“Not yet.”

“Email me when you do.”

“I need to talk through this. To find out what would work.”

Nothing happened. There was no response. I stared at my inbox and hit send/receive ten times. Nothing. Then suddenly an email. “Asheville, N.C., next Tuesday 10:00 a.m.”

I replied immediately, “Sure. Where exactly? What's your cell?” There was no reply.

I flew to Charlotte Monday night, then got up early and drove my Toyota rental car to Asheville. I pulled into town about nine thirty, wondering how I was supposed to find him. It was a beautiful day in the quaint, artsy mountain town, but it wasn't a town of a thousand people with one street. It was bigger than I expected. I drove around the city for a while, mostly downtown, and then to the older section. I didn't see him. I found myself driving slow and being obvious, something I didn't usually do. I passed used bookstores, quilt stores, hand-made furniture stores, and art galleries. I lowered my window and inhaled the fresh air.

I found a public parking lot, which had clearly been constructed for all the tourists. I parked, locked the car, and walked toward the center of town. It was exactly ten o'clock. I had no idea where to go. My cell phone buzzed in the inside pocket of my sport coat and I pulled it out. I didn't recognize the number.

“Yes?”

“You here?”

“Yes. How'd you get my cell number?”

“Your friend. Where are you?”

“Walking toward the center of town.”

“There's an art museum, the Rafferty. It's in an old house. Pay your admission and check out the art.”

I put my cell phone back in my pocket and headed toward the main street to see if I could find the museum. I didn't really know which way to go. There was a café at the corner where I stood. I walked in and spoke to the man standing behind the cash register. “Excuse me, can you tell me where the Rafferty Museum is?”

He was looking at several bills that were stacked in front of him. He replied without looking up. “Down the street to the left, by the church on the left side. Big white house.”

“Thanks.”

After three blocks I saw the large, beautifully restored Victorian house. I walked up the steps onto the broad front porch and opened the screen door. I pushed the glass door open and stepped into the entryway. A woman sat behind a desk reading an art magazine. She looked up at me and smiled. “Good morning.”

“Morning. One, please.”

“Yes, ten dollars.”

I gave her the money. “Which way should I go?”

She smiled. “Most people like to go with the flow of the house, so you could just go that way,” she said pointing to my left, away from her into what was the drawing room. “That would be the best place to start. Then just follow the rooms around the ground floor of the house and then you can go upstairs. There's more art on the second floor, but you should start on the first.”

I nodded. “Anyone else here?”

“Yes. A couple people.”

“Should be pretty quiet.”

“Oh, it's always quiet,” she said smiling. “It's
important
that one be able to look at art in quiet. It allows you to
engage
with the artists.”

“No doubt.” I gave her a polite smile and walked into the first room, feigning interest. It was all attractive, mostly landscapes and probably painted by local artists. I tried to linger long enough in the first room to appear to study the paintings, then moved quickly to the next room where she couldn't see me. I still hadn't seen anyone. I went to the next room, then into what must have been the kitchen when the house operated as a house, and then to the dining room and living room. Still no one. I came back around to the front of the house where the receptionist was still sitting.

“You're quick,” she said.

“Yeah, I ah, I just like certain things. I guess I'll go upstairs.”

“Help yourself.”

I walked up the polished wooden stairs, turned at the landing, and went to the second floor. The house was completely quiet. I picked a direction once I got to the top of the stairs and went into the first room on the right. It probably used to be a bedroom or sitting room, but now was a beautifully lighted room with eight or ten paintings. I walked through the first three rooms and then found him in the fourth. He was standing in front of a watercolor scene of a house with the sun setting behind a mountain. He was wearing a long-sleeve high-neck fleece and a baby-blue baseball hat.

“Morning,” I said. He didn't respond.

I stood next to him, looking at the art. “You're a little less intimidating when your tattoos don't show.”

“If I walked down the street of this artsy town in a wife-beater, I'd get some serious attention.” He almost smiled. “Maybe I will one day.”

“I'm not sure this is really the best place to talk.”

He looked away from the painting and turned directly toward me. “This isn't where we talk. This is where we find out if anybody followed us. I've been looking out the window since long before you got here.”

“You think I need help figuring out whether I'm being followed?”

“Yes.” He glanced at me for the first time. “There's a path that leads off this street. Let's go.”

He headed toward the stairs. I followed. We walked half a block, turned on a side street, and went to the end of the street, where there was an entrance to a city park and a nature walk. No one was around. It was beautiful, flower filled and inviting. The air was cool.

After we had walked fifty or so yards in silence, he asked, “So what do you want?”

“I've asked for temporary assignment to Karl's unit. I want to help you take down these Nazis.”

“I don't even know you.”

“No, but you know I'm serious or I wouldn't be here.”

“So how do I get to Germany?”

“Do you have a date? When's the actual meeting?”

“I told you.”

“I don't remember. I know it's a couple of months.”

“November 9th, of course.”

“Why of course?”

“The anniversary.”

“Of what?”

“You don't know?”

“Remind me.”

“The beer hall
putsch
. When Hitler marched with his followers—two thousand of them—from the Bürgerbräukeller to the Odeonsplatz to take Munich. November 9th, 1923. The beginning of Nazism.”

“Of course.” I said. I had read about it while I was in Germany, but didn't remember that much about it. “But the reason I'm here is I want to hear from you. About the Southern Volk, and other neo-Nazis. What makes them tick. And what you think this guy from Germany is looking for.”

He turned. He looked back down the path from where we'd come. We were alone in the woods. I was acutely aware of his strength. I could handle myself in a fight but this wouldn't be close. I was aware of the weight of the gun in my shoulder holster, and knew that since I was within an arm's length of him, I'd have no chance of getting it out if he decided to do me harm. He was staring at me with his usual intimidating intensity.

He spoke with an aggressive but soft tone. “So you asked me to have a meeting, to meet with an FBI agent which I
hate
doing, so you could tell me you have no idea what we should do.”

“No. I'm here to listen. I want to hear how you guys think. What gets your people stirred up? I'm going to get you there, Jedediah. You can take that to the bank. And no, I don't have the idea yet. It takes time. I have to have the background, the understanding.”

He looked down at the trail and moved a twig around with his foot as he pondered. “What do you want to know?”

“What's your primary motivator? What do you use to motivate and recruit people?”

He contemplated, then said, “The two I's: Islam and immigration. We've got beaners in the Carolinas now, and we've got the federal government looking the other way while people pour over the borders every day. They seem to think it's a joke. Immigrants coming in here taking up welfare, taking up jobs—pisses people off. People act like they don't mind immigrants, but they hate
illegal
immigration. You want to change how many people can immigrate here? Fine, change the laws. Let's vote on it. 'Cause what the feds are doing would lose any vote. And the government doesn't seem to get that. Or they do, and don't care. It's insulting. So we get a two for one. We get people to hate immigrants, and hate the federal government. That's our number one issue. We count on it, we rely on it, we bang on it, and we get people riled up.

“Once they're riled up about immigration and they think that we're one of the few groups that will do something about it, they start thinking about joining. That's when we start talking about the Muslims trying to kill us all over the world and how we need to get them out of America before we're under sharia law. That's an easy one too.

“Then we talk about the moral decline of the country, and how that's the fault of the Jews. But we don't spend too much time on Jews. That's old stuff. We'll get around to them, but the hot issues are Islam and immigration. Like taking candy from a baby.”

“Jews still? Really? What do you say about them?”

“How long do you have? It's an easy sell. Most people these days aren't sensitive to how Jews wreak havoc on a country. They don't get how our country's moral decline—its feminization, its lack of moral clarity—is because of the Jews. It's an active, intentional determination by the Jews to ruin our country. But the funny thing is, it's not just us. It's every country. Wherever they show up in numbers, they ruin the country. That's why you've got to read
Mein Kampf
. It's the same story over and over again. The Jews own or control all the levers of the culture. Newspapers, movie studios, art, music—all Jews.

“I don't think it's hard at all to say that the film industry undermines the morals of the country. Easy to prove, I think. They don't make pro-family movies. They never portray a father as a strong character. All fathers are dumbasses. Abortion's good. Kids need independence. Adultery is good. Fine. Easy to make the case, I think. So of the eight major movie studios in Hollywood, how many are run by Jews? Any guesses?”

“I don't know.”

“All of them. And television networks? All of them. Maybe you say,
So what
. But it's pretty easy to make a case they have destroyed the moral fabric of the country. Torn apart the family. Promoted an anti-family pro-gay agenda.

“Oh, and print?
New York Times
?
Washington Post
? All started by gentiles, now all Jew run.

“And they always push for no accountability for moral conduct. It's the Jewish lawyers who tear down our structures and try to eliminate religion from our society. They're the ones suing everybody over praying at football games or putting up the Ten Commandments in the city square or singing Christmas carols in schools. It's not called the ACL Jew for nothing.”

I was stunned. I'd been around a long time, been in a lot of locker rooms. I'd been in a lot of military settings. I'd been around a lot of guys who'd felt free to say whatever they wanted. But I'd never heard anybody talk like this in my life. It was chilling. “You sound like you believe this shit, Jedediah.”

“Don't even get me started. Not only are the Jews trying to tear apart the moral structure, they're the assholes who gave us Communism. Who the hell did you think Karl Marx was? A Jew, and the founder of Communism. They're the ones who said religion is the opiate of the masses. They're the ones who gave us atheistic godless Communism, which nearly took over the world and ruined it forever. They're the ones who gave us the great Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, run by Jews, like Trotsky. Do your research. The Bolsheviks were thick with Jews. And even here. They're the ones who have given us the wonderful pornography industry . . .”

“Come on . . . ”

“Check it out. Check out Sturman, and Hirsch. Not only have Jews made the vast majority of porn flicks in America, they've starred in them. The vast majority of men in porn movies are Jews. Go look at the guys out in the San Fernando Valley in California who started it all. And you know what some of them have even said? Been quoted? That they do porn as a middle finger to puritan, Christian America. They are
fighters
in the spiritual battle between Christian America and secular humanism! Believe that shit? It's not us saying it, it's
them
. They're trying to ‘destroy the puritanical beast.'
They're
talking about the moral fiber of the country. And I read about it in a
Jewish
magazine! We pull this stuff out and people go ape-shit.”

“But the Jews aren't your focus,” I said, still shocked by his outburst.

“No, they're not. But it's always there if you want to bring it out. Talk about how our country is in moral decline, then show them why—the Jews—and people get it.”

“What about Islam?”

“They've been trying to kill us all since 9/11. When our president says our issue isn't with ‘Islam, which is a religion of peace,' we vomit. What a bunch of bullshit. Islam hates us, and everything we stand for. Show me a country where the majority of the people are Muslims and there is
any
freedom. Nowhere. And absolutely no religious freedom. They demand it, but don't give it. Just look around. If they're less than ten percent of the population, they demand fairness, and respect, and committees. But when they get over ten percent? They want control. Watch France. They're past ten percent. Go talk to their police and local politicians confidentially. They'll tell you the true story. And you know what? When we went to Saudi Arabia to defend those ragheads in Desert Storm? They told us we couldn't celebrate Christmas! They made our chaplains take off their insignia, no crosses or Stars of David on uniforms allowed in Saudi Arabia! No, sir. We could die to defend them, we just couldn't
mention
our religion in the process. And the U.S. government went along with that bullshit. Again, I talk about this stuff and people go nuts.”

“Frankly, you sound a little crazy too.”