“I promise. I’ll get ’em ready. You’ll see.”
“My idea was for you to get rid of them. But let me think. Maybe you’re right.”
Hess considered the situation. What he wasn’t telling Two. That middle of the night, screams and yelling filled the big house. One had rushed into Hess’ room, screeching that His Eminence wanted Hess immediately. Two, sleeping in the barn, couldn’t have known what a disaster it turned out to be. Imagining the worst—a heart attack, a stroke, every disaster Hess could think of—Hess rushed to His Eminence’s bedroom. He found two of the new girls, handcuffed together, huddled in a corner, crying, one of them bleeding from a split lip, the other with a rapidly purpling handprint on her cheek. His Eminence, with bulging eyes, a madman stare, and blood on his chin, sat in the center of his bed, sheets up, fists clutched at his waist.
“That one—with the brown hair,” His Eminence pointed and bellowed. “I’m trying to teach her how to do a blowjob and she fucking bit me! Tried to bite my goddamn cock off! And the other bitch bit my lip at the same time. I’m bleeding goddamnit—bleeding! Get them out of my sight. Get rid of them for good.”
Hess apologized profusely even as he motioned for One to get rid of the sobbing girls. One hauled the girls to their feet, both of them naked, and pushed them from the room saying, “It will be done, Your Eminence. It will be done.” Once out of the bedroom, Hess knew he’d drag the girls down the hallway to lock them in the basement until he got further instructions.
Later Hess sent for One to come to his room. “I know this is fucked up, but we need to keep the greater good in mind. Remember, His Eminence is our best chance to save America from itself.”
“He’s a great man,” said One, parroting the line he’d repeated so many times. “I know that.”
“But this. What happened. It’s not the first time. Not the first time he’s allowed his …appetites…to get the better of him. No one’s ever fought back before, though.” He paced his room. “We gotta deal with those girls. Fuck. And how can we keep others inspired if they find out about this shit? We’ve got to clean it up. Otherwise all the fancy robes, all the ceremonies in all the goddamn world won’t keep us on track. There’s only seven days to the Sunday Summit.”
Later that afternoon, with the girls back in cages, Hess looked over at One and Two. No one said a word. Damn it to hell. What the fuck was he supposed to do with this mess? The girls had been separated. Two different cages. Not close enough to touch each other or talk without being heard. But Two thought he could handle them? Damn. Giving Two a shot at the girls was…well, a long longshot. But why not give him his fucking chance? It’s all a shitstorm anyway.
“All right,” Hess said finally. “Get them ready. Give it a shot. But you damn well better succeed. His Eminence wants a real profit from every candidate we put out there. Without risk. Which means, in this case, getting them off property, ASAP.”
Two, grinning like a shit-eater, started immediately toward the cages saying, “Thank you, Herr Hess. You won’t regret this.”
Hess, half-ignoring the twit, turned to his little black book. “Yes, yes,” he said to himself, “that’s it—Dubai. Always a market for American product in Dubai. “Let’s go to the big house,” he said to One. “I need to make some calls.”
Before leaving the barn with One in tow, Hess shouted again for Two, who came running. “Yes, Herr Hess, what is it?”
“Besides finishing up with discipline, teach the students some Arabic phrases: Yes. No. How can I please you? Of course, Master. Things like that. Could come in handy—real soon. Perhaps as soon as tomorrow.”
Hess then spun around and jogged with One to the truck. He climbed in, pulled his door shut and turned the ignition. “After the Dubai buy, we’ll go to Camp. Finish up the training. Three told me the new boy is showing great promise. But guess he’s ‘golden boy’ from here on—not golden-haired—since the scalping, I mean. And Four told me the other five in training should be ready soon.” He headed down the rocky drive toward the road. “Maybe, just maybe, that will please His Eminence enough to get us off his shit list.”
“It will,” said One. “It’s all coming together. But I’ve been meaning to ask a question.”
Hess, swinging the wheel to turn onto the main highway, looked over at his protégé. “Always with the questions. Not about His Eminence, right?”
“Right.”
Hess nodded. “Then go head.”
“How did you arrange for that lawyer’s plane to go down?”
“It’s like this, when you followed the lawyer a couple of weeks ago and saw him fly out of Torrance, it gave me an idea.”
“What idea?”
“You see, I have friends you haven’t met. They have friends. Powerful groups in America and twenty other countries around the world. All have links to the National Socialist Group. You know—the NSG. Our American neo-Nazi friends. And most of the NSG leaders will be at our Summit next Sunday. But here’s the thing, what goes around comes around. Some of these groups have affiliations with militia, nationalistic, and white supremacy groups here in America. Someday, His Eminence and I plan to bring them all under the Raven Society umbrella. Or at least service them as clients who’ll pay for trial results and appellate decisions in their favor. I told you our goal is to get it all set up in the next five to ten years. By 2015 at latest. We’re on fire, and the Summit this Sunday will ignite the all-important alliance with these other groups.”
One shook his head in confusion. “But what does this have to do with the lawyer and his plane?”
“Everything.” Hess smiled, inwardly impressed with his own cleverness. “The Raven Society and a few of our friends have tapped into a biotech hedge fund. Amazing—how those funds invest millions without doing deep dives on the details. Too quick to chase a profit to do the hard work. Anyway, we’ve been sponsoring ground-breaking work in bioweapons. With genetic engineering—or should I say re-engineering—of germs.”
“Germs?”
“Yes.” Hess glanced sideways at One, deciding how far to go to further train his star student. “Germs include viruses, bacteria, and fungi. Most of our work now is with viruses. But a while back, we had success modifying certain types of fungus.”
“I’m sorry I don’t understand. How are viruses, bacteria, and fungus different?”
Hess wondered if he should do more to educate the boys under his command. Some of them didn’t know shit from shinola. “Bacteria are one-celled living organisms. Viruses are much, much smaller, essentially DNA shreds with protein and fatty coverings. Fungi are plant-like multi-celled substances. They’re the key to the lawyer and his plane.”
“Did you do this work? Are you a scientist too?”
Hess laughed. “No. I didn’t do it, but I monitored it. Made sure it was done right.”
“OK. So, how is this the key to the lawyer’s plane going down?”
“Well, we worked with a filamentous fungus—called Cladosporium resinae. Don’t let the name throw you—for decades it’s been known as ‘kerosene fungus’ or ‘fuel bugs.’ It contaminates kerosene and jet fuel. Recently, they genetically modified that fungus to exist with much less water and reproduce rapidly with sufficient heat in a matter of just hours. That meant theoretically it could be used to contaminate regular gasoline—including aviation gas. But our friends needed a test bed. So that’s when I volunteered our lawyer flyboy. He needed a second warning anyway—besides Two’s antics—to wise him up. And the best way was to take away his control. Drives him nuts.”
“How did you manage that?”
“The scientists loaded a hypodermic with the genetically-modified fuel bugs in solution. And when we learned from our contact at Torrance Airport that Ridge was going to fly again that Saturday, I visited the airport.”
“We have a contact at the airport?”
“The NSG lent us a guy who went undercover there. Reuben’s a mechanic, so he could help with our little experiment.”
One tapped a fingertip on his leg. “OK. So, what did you and Rueben do?”
Hess noted One’s fingertip moving up and down, like counting out the beats of a song. He liked the way the boy was so self-contained. Unlike Two, who was way too jittery. “I went to the Ops Center and saw on the scheduling grease board which airplane he was going to use. Cessna 3-2-1 Alpha—the tail number, you know. Then I strolled out to that plane. I checked one way while Rueben checked the other. No one was around, so I simply squirted the bugs into the fuel tank. The fungi took over from there. As expected, we learned later he crash-landed that afternoon. Mission accomplished.”
