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.
CHAPTER 8
LOCK-ON
Three Russianmade GAZ jeeps were parked on the crest of a low, boulder-strewn rise north and east of the industrial city of Ahvaz. Iranian Special Forces troops in full combat gear stood guard at key points on the hill, forming a protective perimeter around the high-ranking Army officers clustered near the three vehicles.
Standing at the center of the small group, General Amir Taleh swept his binoculars slowly back and forth, carefully scrutinising the area selected as a training range for the newly reequipped 32nd Armored Brigade. He nodded to himself in satisfaction. It was good ground.
Regular patches of green dotted the distant northern and western horizons some of the date and sugar plantations that made Ahvaz Plain an important agricultural region. Oil wells were visible to the south, marking the edge of one of the vast gas and petroleum fields that had made the province both one of Iran’s richest regions and a prime objective for neighboring Iraq during their bloody, endless war. Brown, rugged slopes rose to the east the foothills of the Zagros Mountains.
