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Invasion
and betrayal
BLACKHOLE, IDAHO
Joe Haldorn stood outside, watching the snow drop
dry and cold on the burnt-out foundation of Billy
Bright's house. The black charred remains of woodframed
walls, collapsed into the open cement pit of the
basement, were all that was left of the two-story
structure. Haldorn remained silent and still as
the snowflakes continued to fall, doubting if
there was enough snow in all of heaven to cover
over this disaster and the loss of his good friend.
Hell, Bright had been like a son to him, the son
he'd never had. Although he'd not had much faith
in the idea or the practicality of the Savior
Machine, he had personally agreed with the idea
of the crystal meth lab as a way of channeling
much-needed funds into their group, at the expense
only of the children of minorities, Jews and other
drug-using liberals; he did not regret that decision
now, but he did regret the price that Bright had
paid.
He
looked back down into the blackened pit and felt
his chest tighten with emotion. He felt his eyes
mist over, the lids heavy with moisture, and he
started to softly sob.
After a few moments, Haldorn took off his black
cowboy hat, rubbed his eyes with his left thumb
and index finger, wiped the streaks of tears off
his cheeks, then dusted the collected snow off
the hat brim. He was a big man, six-two, two-forty,
an athlete's frame gone to fat in middle age.
His hair was the color of nickel, his eyes a flat,
metallic gray; he had a four-inch scar across
his chin, just visible through three days of gray
stubble, the result of a shattered beer bottle
in a bar fight too long ago to remember with any
clarity or detail. He fingered the scar with his
big right hand, bowed his head, fought back another
round of tears, then silently saying a brief prayer,
fixed his hat in place and walked back to the
Ford pickup parked in the dirt driveway.
He
followed the dirt road out onto the old back highway,
crossed over the railroad tracks and headed into
town. Blackhole was located in a V-shaped valley,
surrounded by treeless brown hills and the jagged
blue outline of distant mountains. The hills were
now covered with snow and the mountains lost in
the low clouds and fog of a winter storm. The
Snake River wandered hard right about twenty miles
from town and flowed west, bypassing the town
itself and thus its chances at being anything
other than a way station to such major tourist
attractions to the north as Jackson Hole and Yellowstone
National Park.
Blackhole
had been founded in the 1880's by a radical sect
of Mormon polygamists, sons of the once-mighty
but by-then disbanded Nauvoo Legion. The coming
of the railroad in the 1890's had caused a boom
in the town's population, a boom which also brought
to light and finished off the founding father's
unconventional marital practices, and one which
had continued with the influx of industry that
the twentieth century brought in. The recession
of the 1970's had killed both the industry and
that boom, flattened out the population and sent
the town into darkness and depression.
Recently,
Blackhole had been discovered by disaffected Californians
seeking to escape the evils of Los Angeles and
San Francisco. On their flight from crime, earthquakes,
recession and possible terrorist attacks, they
brought their money north and built large, stone
Tudor and brick ranch-style houses on the ridges
south of town. With them had come a resurgence
in the downtown area, with restaurants, coffee
houses and even a bagel shop now lining Main Street.
Most of the residents of Blackhole, who'd lived
there all of their lives in the safety, comfort
and conformity of small town routines, did little
to contain their scorn of these outsiders. Both
cars and pickups could be seen driving down Main
Street plastered with bumper stickers reading
DON'T CALIFORNICATE BLACKHOLE.
Haldorn
turned left onto Yellowstone Avenue and headed
through the main commercial district, passing
by strip malls, convenience stores, fast food
chains and used car lots full of the detritus
of other lives. He passed several trucks fitted
with snowplows, honking briefly at each one. He
turned right and took the underpass into the Old
Town district, an area consisting of rundown brick
buildings, haphazardly painted cheap colors of
red, green, or brown, the shabby remnants of an
old railroad hotel, graffitied with a slogan reading
ITS OUR MONY UNCLE SCAM, and a few buildings restored
to pseudo-respectability housing restaurants and
women's boutiques.
He
turned into an alleyway, skidding on the accumulation
of gravel, pulled into the back of a rundown building
called the Whitman, a transient flophouse, and
parked next to a group of overflowing green dumpsters.
A single glass door with a small sign reading
THE LIBRARY OF SEXUAL CONGRESS stood slightly
ajar.
Haldorn
opened the door and moved through a long hallway,
past several closed doors, the sounds of moaning
and cries of faked pleasure leaking through the
cheap plasterboard and shoddily constructed doorways.
He quickened his pace until he came into the dimly
lit main shop area. The walls were covered with
wire racks holding hundreds of videotapes, CR-ROMs
and DVDs whose covers advertised sexual adventures
and escapades that no one in Blackhole should
be familiar with. He tried not to look, but his
eyes briefly caught flashes of naked women, blondes,
brunettes, redheads, Asians, blacks, large breasts,
pouting mouths, patches of pubic hair, spread
thighs, seductive poses, the magnetic attraction
and repulsion of sensuality calling to him like
those bird-women from heathen mythology he'd read
about in high school. He felt a slight heat rising
up his stomach and he looked down surprised to
find himself with a hard-on.
"Shit,
Joe, why don't you just head back to the jerk-off
booths and take care of that thing," a man
laughed. "Here's a couple of tokens if you
need them."
Haldorn heard the tinkle of hollow coins hitting
the floor and looked down at the two gold-plated
tokens at his feet. Then he looked back up. The
man sat next to the front counter in a wheelchair,
staring crotch-level at him. He had long, dirty
black hair, streaked with silver and pulled tight
into a ponytail, a full beard that fell across
his chest and fanned out toward his armpits, and
the vacant look of the lost in his red-veined
eyes. His lower lip drooped low, saliva slowly
dripping into his beard. Haldorn reached down,
adjusted the crotch of his jeans, kicked the tokens
across the floor, then moved across to the front
windows. He stared out at the gray cotton of winter
sky showing through the narrow top strip of glass
not covered over with blackout paint.
"Funny, Boo, real funny. Why don't you get
a real job."
"This
is a real job, Joe. I provide a valuable service
to this community." He laughed again.
Haldorn
walked up and clapped him on the shoulder. Every
time he saw Boo Gale he knew God did indeed work
in mysterious ways. Boo had been a marijuana farmer
in Mendocino who'd taken a stray bullet in the
spine during a combined DEA/FBI/ATF raid, which
had left him paralyzed from the waist down and
confined to a chair for life. His wife and family
had left him and he'd wound up homeless and hungry
in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco, another
Vietnam vet abandoned by his country to the fate
of dogs and the dregs of the inner city.
Fortunately,
Boo's story had made the national news and he'd
been rescued by the Citizens Against Democracy
And for Visionary Evangelical Religion; just another
example of how the bright, shining promise of
America had been betrayed by the fascist, zionist,
world socialist government of godless liberals.
The Reverend Wilder Stear himself had helped save
Boo from the streets, taking him up to Pray to
get him away from the publicity surrounding the
case. Later, Boo had relocated to Blackhole. Haldorn
just couldn't understand what the hell the connection
was between Boo Gale, the Library of Sexual Congress
and the Reverend Wilder Stear, and Boo himself
hadn't volunteered any helpful information. But
whatever the connection, Haldorn knew there was
a way he could use it to his own advantage.
Boo
looked up at Haldorn's face, raised an eyebrow,
then nodded toward the counter. "I have a
video you should see." Haldorn gave him a
look of disgust. "No, for real."
Haldorn grabbed the handles of the chair and pushed
Boo behind the back of the counter. Boo opened
a drawer and pulled out a tape called "Girls
Who Take It Up The Ass." "Give me a
break," Haldorn said, barely looking at the
cover. "You sure?" Boo laughed teasingly,
then dropped it back in the drawer. Then he pulled
out another tape, this one without a cover or
a label. Boo pointed the tape up toward a small,
combination portable TV/VCR on the counter. "Here,
slide this in."
Haldorn looked around the shop. There were two
other men standing back toward the hallway, an
oldtimer in faded and torn overalls and a frayed
green John Deere cap and a big man in a sleeveless
black t-shirt, a bloody ninja star tattooed on
his upper left bicep, crew cut, a spotty mustache
like an elongated "m" across his upper
lip. The old timer bent down and picked up one
of the tokens Haldorn had kicked away. Boo shook
his head and laughed. "They're headed back
to the booths. Don't worry. That is, unless you
want to join them." Haldorn jerked the tape
out of Boo's hand and popped it into the VCR.
After
a few seconds of darkness a grainy black and white
video came into focus, attack helicopters swooping
down on flaming and smoking buildings like black
birds of prey. Then the title appeared in flaming
red letters: THE INVASION AND BETRAYAL OF AMERICA.
The black and white picture faded out into color
video of the American flag and a spokesman with
glasses and a goatee walked into the frame. "Yes,
folks, Waco. April 19, 1993. 218 years to the
day that another first shot was fired at Lexington
Green. Just one more of the seemingly random bits
and pieces of unconstitutional acts our government
is committing as it eliminates the sovereign rights
of U.S. citizens on its quest for one world socialism
and the New World Order. A betrayal of the Constitution
and the laws of God which once governed this once
great nation."
Haldorn
watched as the spokesman, whose name was Johnny
Holy, went through various documents, news reports
and interviews showing how, in addition to military
and police actions, a paperwork, bureaucratic
invasion was setting out to disarm citizens, change
the educational system to eliminate knowledge
of America from its future citizens, unite the
churches into one New World Order Church, and
create a one world socialist government with a
world tax system, a world army, a world central
bank, and a world welfare system. "The key,
my friends, is the elimination of private ownership
of firearms. This way, honest, god-fearing citizens
cannot defend themselves against this invasion
and betrayal." Johnny Holy stared directly
into the camera, his face somber, serious. "In
fact, 9/11 was not the random luck of some foreign
terrorist organization, but a carefully planned,
coordinated assault by the government and its
Mossad allies to further crack down on our civil
rights. The facts speak for themselves. The so-called
leader of the terrorist cell, Mohammad Atta, was
terrified of flying. How could such a meek, mild
mannered man hijack a 757 and fly it into the
heart of Sodom on the Hudson? These assaults on
our freedoms cannot be ignored any longer."
Johnny Holy then went on to advocate the stockpiling
of weapons in hidden underground basements or
shelters, the reading of books like The Turner
Diaries, Operation Vampire Killer 2000, The Road
Back, or The Protocol of the Elders of Zion, the
writing of underground newsletters, the construction
of web pages and chat rooms to spread the news
through channels other than the government-controlled
mass media. "We are talking about a People's
Revolution, 1776 all over again. Ever thus to
tyrants!" Then Johnny Holy himself faded
out and a single credit appeared in the same blood-colored
letters: A CADAVER PRODUCTION.
Haldorn
stood silent a moment, then ejected the tape and
handed it to Boo. "Jesus," he said.
"What a revelation. I had no idea--"
"I'll
bring it to the meeting tonight. I think everyone
should see this," Boo replied. Haldorn nodded.
Boo took the tape and slid it into a leather pouch
attached to the side of his wheelchair. From the
rear of the shop the muffled sounds of fake orgasms
filled the air. Boo laughed as Haldorn turned
red and hurried toward the exit.
Boo
Gale watched as Joe Haldorn headed down the hallway,
walking quickly past the jerk-off booths and pushed
through the rear door. Boo wheeled himself next
to the counter again and stared off into memory.
Boo
tried to keep his mind free, but the past filtered
in all the time, random bits and pieces of events
and people scattering through his head like buckshot.
He caught fragments of men in black racing toward
him, of raising a hand in warning, of shots being
fired, feeling the hard wet slap of a bullet against
his back as he twisted around a table, then the
flaming rush of pain, the blood staining his t-shirt
bright red, the numbing deadness below his waist
as he collapsed, a face above him, greasepaint
black, staring down, a black pistol aimed down
at his forehead...
Boo
never knew who had shot him, whether it had been
an ATF or a DEA or an FBI agent who'd ended his
upright existence, but he knew he would recognize
that face, that black oval of death, even without
the assault camouflage. Several agents had been
disciplined, but no one had been fired or handed
full responsibility for the incident. The true
story had been covered up in the media version
of events, but only after Boo had secretly settled
for a large sum of money to cover his medical
expenses and been granted his wish to continue
his life as an undercover FBI agent. He had spent
three years of that life working his way into
the Mendocino marijuana underground and he hated
the thought of having his career destroyed by
the random accident of a friendly fire incident.
Boo
himself had come up with the idea of continuing
the undercover operation of being a marijuana
farmer whose life had been wrongly destroyed by
the evil DEA/FBI/ATF machinery as a way of infiltrating
the growing network of the extremist patriot movement,
a cover story the Sacramento SAC had passed on
to the Director himself as a Group I matter, since
it involved the infiltration of both religious
and political organizations. The Director had
been impressed by Boo's devotion to duty and approved
the UCO; he also saw the opportunity to insert
an agent into the tightly-closed circle of militias,
domestic terrorists and religious fanatics as
too good to pass up. No intelligence agency had
ever been able to penetrate very far into that
shadowy world of criminals and crazies masquerading
as patriots because, for the most part, they distrusted
outsiders and kept with their own. No one was
even sure exactly how well organized they were
or what connections existed between the various
disparate groups and the well-financed cells of
international terrorism. Besides, the Director
had concluded, having an agent in a wheelchair,
even one who for the time being could not be identified
as such, could come in handy if Congress decided
to press the Bureau again about its affirmative
action program. He did not need a repeat of the
class-action lawsuit brought by Hispanic agents
which had shaken the Bureau a few years previously.
Even
Boo had been surprised at how quickly he'd been
welcomed into the fold, given a hero's reception.
The Reverend Wilder Stear had personally flown
from Bozeman to San Francisco to "rescue"
Boo from a life of degradation and humiliation
due to the oppressive intrusion of the government
into an innocent citizen's life. Never mind that
Boo had been farming an illegal drug crop; all
sins were forgiven in the blended new light of
Christianity and politics. He'd spent several
months recovering and being indoctrinated into
the organization at the Reverend's log-cabin retreat
in Pray, Montana. The Bureau had some idea of
how organizations like CADAVER were funded, from
citizen contributions to tele-religious huksterism,
but Boo's discovery that CADAVER made most of
its money from pornography shops in small northwestern
towns had shocked not only Boo but the Director
himself.
Boo's
mission had been to discover exactly what role,
if any, the Reverend Wilder Stear and CADAVER
played in the growing wave of violence being perpetrated
on an innocent population by small but well-armed
bands of fanatics. But now Boo's mission had changed.
He had become friends with Joe Haldorn and a few
of the others who had formed Billy Bright's Nauvoo
Legion; Bright was dead, but the Legion seemed
ready for resurrection. Boo expected things to
really heat up at the meeting to which Haldorn
had invited him. He reached behind him and felt
the padding in his wheelchair seat. One of the
Bureau's wiretap specialists had bugged his chair,
the remote microphone hidden deep in the chair's
padding, where no one, the soundman had reassured
him, would ever think to look for it. All he had
to do was remember to lean forward during any
conversations he wanted recorded.
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