Burke nodded slowly after studying the map himself. “Okay. Do what the man says, Tony.”
McGowan complied.
Ten minutes later, they were in a quiet, suburban section of Richmond. The small professional building that housed Malcolm’s office lay a few treelined blocks from a large shopping mall. A parking lot surrounded the two-story brick and glass structure on three sides.
“Pull in here,” Halovic ordered. He pointed to an empty space near the exit to the street. “There. Back in.”
Sweating now, McGowan cranked the wheel over hard and carefully backed the Chevrolet into place between two other cars.
Moving slowly and methodically, Halovic donned the gloves Keller had given him and began to carefully wipe the metal surface of the pistol with a handkerchief. He was aware that all three men were staring at him. Burke seemed pleased. McGowan was wide-eyed and looked increasingly nervous. Keller was poker-faced.
The three Americans exchanged quick glances and then nodded to each other.
“We’ve seen enough,” said Burke. “We believe you.” “Excuse me?” Halovic said. He tucked the pistol under his jacket.
“I said, we’ve seen enough,” repeated Burke. “That’s it. You were ready to go through with it. That’s all we wanted to know.”
Halovic frowned inside. His first contemptuous suspicions had been right. All of Burke’s talk about waiting for the right moment, his elaborate plans, their stockpiled weapons, it was all just a fantasy.
He stared hard at the older man and shook his head. “No. It is not enough.”
“Huh?” Burke was clearly bewildered. “What do you mean, Karl?”
“This was a test, true? To see if I would kill?”
The older man nodded rapidly. “Yeah, that’s right.”
Halovic smiled coldly. “Very well. I accept that.” He pointed toward the office building. “Now I will test you. This black man will die and you will be a part of his death.”
He glanced at Keller, the man he judged the toughest and most reliable of the three. “You. You will come along as my lookout.”
The younger man stared at him for a moment, plainly taken aback.
“Hold on just a minute, Karl,” Burke interrupted. “There’s no need to go off half-cocked. I told you that we’re satisfied you’re one of us. We don’t need to take any unnecessary risks here today.”
A pale, terrified McGowan mumbled his agreement with his leader.
“Risks? You fear risks?” Halovic said scornfully. “And yet you call yourselves soldiers?” He shrugged. “My people will not deal with cowards or shirkers. Either this black man dies, here, today, or you will see no advanced weapons from me. Is that clear?”
He waved a hand toward the office building. “I tell you that your plan is-good. This man can be killed with ease. But you must act not sit and dream.” He turned back to Keller. “Decide. Will you come with me?”
The younger man stared first at Halovic and then at Burke. “Jesus, Jim … what do you think?”
Clearly torn, the older man chewed his lower lip. He wanted those grenade launchers and explosives. He just hadn’t expected to be asked to help kill anybody to prove his own good faith. Finally, he shrugged.
“It’s up to you, Dave. We need those guns.”
“You are afraid,” Halovic said flatly, forcing the issue. “Stay behind, then.”
“Hell, no!” Keller flushed, unwilling to admit his fear. “If you really want to kill this nigger, I’ll help you do it.”
Halovic popped open the car door and got out quickly, before the stunned Burke could say anything else. The Bosnian worked hard to keep his expression neutral. These American fools were about to learn the difference between fantasy and deadly reality a reality he already knew all too well.
Keller followed him without evident hesitation.
That was good, Halovic decided. He had no intention of trusting his life to this man, but at least he showed some backbone.
The office building’s glass double door led into a small lobby. He checked the building directory, reconfirming the information contained in the dossier. Malcolm’s offices were still on the second floor suite
215.
Nobody else was in sight.
With Keller at his heels, Halovic walked down a short hall to a door marked “Stairs.” He ignored the elevator.
Two flights of bare concrete steps led up to an unlocked steel fire door. Halovic paused long enough to make sure that it could be opened easily from either side. If anything went wrong in the next few minutes, a rapid exit might prove to be the difference between life and death.
The door opened up on a long hall that ran the length of the building, widening in the middle for the elevators. John Malcolm’s office was down at the far end of the hallway.
With Keller still following him, Halovic walked briskly past a series of other offices. The sounds of typing and soft music filtered out from behind closed doors. The hallway was empty.
He stopped just outside suite 215. Painted lettering on a frosted glass door identified it as the offices of Malcolm Accounting. After checking the hallway again, he slipped the bulky Smith & Wesson out of his jacket. Then he turned toward Keller, measuring him one last time.
- The American licked his lips, clearly nervous, but still in control of himself. Halovic knew the look well. He’d seen it on dozens of men just before their first real action.
Readying his automatic, he commanded softly, “Do not let anyone in behind me.”
Keller nodded quickly.
With the pistol held out of sight, Halovic opened the door and walked through it into a reception area. Dark wood furniture, soft carpeting, and original oil landscapes on the walls conveyed a reassuring air of stability and success. A middle-aged black woman with snow-white hair sat behind a desk.
She looked up with a polite smile. “Good morning. Can I help you gentlemen?”
Halovic smiled back. “I certainly hope so. Is Mr. Malcolm in?”
“Yes, but he’s with a client…”
Good enough. Halovic brought the Smith & Wesson up in one smooth motion and shot the woman in the chest. Blood spattered across the painting hung behind her. Even silenced, the pistol’s report seemed shockingly loud, like someone dropping a heavy telephone book on a tile floor. He worked the slide rapidly, chambering another round, and fired again.
The woman slumped forward across her desk, scattering papers and a bound appointment book onto the carpeting.
“Oh shit.”
Halovic glanced behind him. Keller’s eyes were wide, almost white with shock. He stood frozen in the doorway, staring at the carnage. He had clearly completely forgotten his duties. The Bosnian had expected that. The American’s only real function was to act as a witness.
“Shut the door and be silent.” Halovic swung away toward the entrance to Malcolm’s inner office.
He knocked twice and went in without waiting for a reply. There were two men inside, one seated behind a large mahogany desk. The other occupied a Queen Anne chair in front of the desk. The furniture looked expensive, the men prosperous.
Malcolm, his primary target, was the one behind the desk. He matched his newspaper photos perfectly. A large, balding black man in his mid-fifties, he wore a subdued grey suit and conservative red tie. The other man, also black and similarly dressed, was younger. Halovic didn’t recognise him, and didn’t care. His presence here marked him for death.
Both looked toward the door, clearly surprised at being interrupted.
“You are Mr. John Malcolm?”
The man behind the desk nodded slowly. “That’s right.”
Halovic took three steps into the room, moving left to clear his field of fire. Perfect.
“Look, who are you?” Malcolm asked, still perplexed.
The Bosnian brought his pistol up, fired at Malcolm, swiveled slightly, and fired at the younger black man all within a single murderous second. Both shots struck home.
Without hurry, Halovic strode to the desk. Malcolm sprawled back in his chair, a bright red stain spilling across his stomach. One hand clutched at his belly wound, but the other just twitched feebly, pawing toward a phone just out of reach. The businessman’s eyes were open but unseeing, glazed with pain.
He had fired too low, Halovic thought coolly, displeased by the evident imperfection of his marksmanship. Stomach wounds were rarely immediately fatal.
This time he aimed carefully at Malcolm’s head and fired twice more. The black man’s face dissolved into red ruin and his body twitched violently as each 9mm round tore a path through his brain.
Without moving, the Bosnian turned to check the other man. Malcolm’s visitor was still alive. He’d fallen forward out of the chair onto the carpeted floor. Now, moaning loudly, he was crawling through his own blood inching in agony toward the open door.
“No, no, my friend,” Halovic said softly. do not escape.” He walked toward the crawling man, stood behind him, and fired two more shots into the back of his skull. Brains, blood, and skull fragments sprayed across the carpet. The young man shuddered once and lay still.
Halovic quickly stepped back and behind the desk, double-checking Malcolm’s throat for pulse. Nothing.
About thirty seconds had passed. He walked out of the inner office.. Again acting on trained reflex, he checked the white-haired receptionist, making sure she was dead. She lay as he had left her, facedown on a desk almost completely covered in her own blood. He dropped the automatic. Nothing about it would lead the police back to him, so there wasn’t any need to risk being caught with it later.
Keller stared at him both in horror and in admiration. “Oh, man. You did it. You killed everyone. Didn’t you?” “You saw me,” Halovic said coldly. He motioned the American out into the hallway, turned the snap lock on the door, and closed it behind him. They were done here.
He half expected to find Burke, McGowan, and the car gone, but the Chevrolet was still parked where they had left it. He and Keller piled in and he ordered, “Drive. But take your time. No traffic accidents, please.”
“Sure. Sure. No problem.” McGowan put the car in gear and drove slowly away. His knuckles were white on the steering wheel.
Burke furtively studied the two men in the backseat. From time to time he opened his mouth as though to ask exactly what had happened inside Malcolm’s office, but each time, he closed it without speaking. Halovic ignored him, calmly studying the city streets, checking to make sure they weren’t under surveillance.
Still pale and in a state of shock, Kaller slumped back against the rear seat, staring straight ahead, shivering occasionally. But when they turned onto the highway leading out of Richmond without any sign of police pursuit or even interest, he seemed to settle down. His shivers died away and his color began coming back.
Halovic watched the younger man with some interest. Keller was apparently learning how to come to terms with the blood bath he had witnessed. That was good. Given time, he might even learn to control his fears and to act with the discipline and ruthlessness a successful secret war required.
They were ten miles outside the Richmond city limits when Keller leaned forward, closer to Burke, and nodded toward Halovic. “Jesus, Jim, you should’ve seen it. Karl blew that damn nigger away like you’d put down a stray dog! He offed two more of ‘em, too. Just like that!” He snapped his fingers.
Burke stared at Halovic. “You shot three people?”
“It was necessary.” The Bosnian shrugged. “One man or three it makes no difference.” He smiled crookedly. “You cannot keep count in a war, Mr. Burke.”
His own calm was not an act. He had killed many times in Bosnia, so many that he had lost track somewhere along the way. The faces of the dead sometimes came to haunt him in nightmares, but they faded in the waking day. Besides, eliminating Malcolm had proved to be child’s play an act without significant risk. These Americans were all so open, so unprepared so unsuspecting. Killing them required less real effort than posting a letter.
“Then all this stuff about your group, about the alliance, about the guns and bombs you can get for us… that’s all true? No bullshit?” Burke asked rapidly.
Halovic could hear the excitement building in the other man’s voice. This was the reaction he had hoped for. Confronted for the first time by a man who would do what he had only dreamed about, Burke was beginning to see the prospect of his hate-filled rhetoric bearing real fruit.
He nodded somberly. “What I have told you is true. My comrades and I in Europe have the weapons… and the will to use them.” His eyes narrowed. “The question I put to you, Mr. Burke, is this: Do you and your men of the Aryan Sword have the courage to join with us in this war? Can you really kill to save the white race in America?”
“Hell, yes!” Burke exclaimed. He sounded almost surprised by the certainty in his own tone. Then he thumped his fist on the seat back for emphasis. “You get us that heavy duty hardware, Karl, and we’ll set this whole god damned state on fire before we’re done! The blacks and Jews won’t know what’s hit them!”
Keller nodded sharply, seconding his leader’s sudden resolution.
“That’s right!” He slapped McGowan on the back. ‘-‘Ain’t that right, Tony?”
The driver flinched and mumbled a tentative assent.
Halovic ignored him. McGowan was nothing a drone. Burke and Keller were the key men in their twisted group, the brains and the muscle of their so-called Aryan Sword.
He hid a satisfied smile as Burke started bargaining in earnest, making the complicated arrangements needed to covertly acquire a wide range of weapons and explosives. Clearly, the older man now believed they would help make him a leader in the new crusade to “purify” America.
Well, Halovic thought grimly, let him dream. If Burke and the other extremist leaders truly believed in the coming Armageddon, they might even work up the courage to act on their own when the time came. And if not, the armaments they were about to receive would still make them useful stalking-horses for General Taleh’s special action teams.
Either way these foolish Americans would be made to serve a greater purpose.