The Devil's Good Boys, page 104
“Perhaps,” Dueker said. “But many Oxford University undergraduates were idealistic eighteen- and nineteen-year-olds just becoming aware of their place in the political world. Putty in the hands of a smart-sounding professor beating the drum for a socialist Utopia under Great Britain. One of Ruskin's students was Cecil John Rhodes. He later took control of South Africa's biggest diamond and gold mines and rose to fame by creating the Rhodes Scholarships. He used his wealth to found a secret society, hoping to bring Ruskin’s globalist-Royalist paradigm to reality.
“Rhodes and his followers arguably were responsible for igniting the Boer War in south Africa in 1899. For them, that was a first step to taking over the world for Britain. After Rhodes' death in 1902, an effort was made to draw an anti-war public into World War I and bring the United States into that same terrible meat grinder. Think of this: Great Britain and France and the United States went to war with Germany to defend Russia against Austria-Hungary in a dispute with Serbia! It is incomprehensible today! Ten million people died, and opposition by the American public to World War I was easily as strong as to the Vietnam war. Nevertheless, hostilities were kept going at least a year longer than they needed to.”
Jane erupted, “How horrible! Why would anybody do such a terrible thing?”
“As with Vietnam, Mrs. Millard, the global elites were administering a hard lesson. A Hegelian dialectic, one could say. Teaching humanity about the futility of war...”
“I can go along with that.”
“…But the over-arching goal, Mrs. Millard, was to advance the ideal of a one-world government that supposedly would abolish war. Such a government would be joined to an authoritarian world system of financial control and world religion. Out of World War I came the League of Nations and ultimately the United Nations.”
Jane said, “Herr Dueker, this sounds like the granddaddy of all conspiracy theories! If I bought into this, all my friends would laugh at me.”
He smiled. “They would be in error, Mrs. Millard. But to continue: a course correction for these globalist plotters was required in the aftermath of World War I. Great Britain was virtually bankrupted and most of a generation of young British men were quite dead. Disciples of Ruskin and Rhodes – most of whom were naïve believers in the occult, by the way – had not anticipated this outcome. It became evident that bringing the United States to heel was unattainable. America's self-styled elites, therefore, were invited to link arms with the British conspirators. Political 'round table' groups were becoming fashionable, and many Americans were enchanted by the concept of a global government and a future without war.
“Also, on board was a fraternity of international bankers who agreed to underwrite the costs. They were linked to J.P. Morgan, the Rockefeller and Whitney families and associates of Lazard Brothers and Morgan, Grenfell and Co. ...”
Most of those names meant nothing to Jane or me. Jane's voice was tired. “All this was a long time ago, Herr Dueker. It’s getting late and I’m exhausted. Where are you taking this?”
“The ball, as they say, remains in play, Mrs. Millard. In a nuclear age, ideas of global governance, a global currency, banishing war and creating a universal religion as an opiate for the masses, remain popular among intellectuals and the young and moneyed elites. All of whom intend to be in charge when the smoke clears. Secret societies today hide in plain sight. I'm talking about such groups as the Club of Rome, the Bilderberg Group, the Trilateral Commission, Skull and Bones and the Council on Foreign Relations, among others.”
“We’ve all been assured conspiracies do not exist, Herr Dueker,” she said.
He smiled. “Were that true, what are these groups up to, Mrs. Millard? Just asking, young lady. Their members include billionaires, heads of state, owners of media empires, king-makers who cloister in five-star hotels for secret talks. If not engaging in conspiracy, what are these powerful people doing?”
“Sharing casserole recipes?”
He smiled thinly. “Perhaps that is it, Mrs. Millard.”
He took a sip of coffee. “I contend these elites are working toward a new global system overseen by the planet's most enlightened leaders – themselves. Whether they truly are enlightened remains to be determined, of course. I rather doubt it. They advocate for a world currency and a world religion that would not be, by the way, Christianity or Judaism. Their goals include elimination of US national sovereignty.”
“If any of this is true,” Jane said, “these people sound misguided, but well meaning.”
He shook his head. “No, Mrs. Millard, their agenda is quite dark. Certain groups that are troublesome to these elites, in their minds, must be stamped out. Because I am a Jew who escaped Nazi Germany, my fellow Jews instantly come to mind as likely targets. The conspirators hope to reduce the world's human population by 90 to 95 percent. Survivors would live in impoverished serfdom, ruled by these monied elites.”
“Not benevolent,” I said.
“Awarding global power to unelected ‘intellectuals’ accountable to no one, who meet in secret and possess nearly limitless wealth, is a recipe for tyranny. It would allow them to accomplish anything they choose. While they may present themselves as altruistic, their agenda would inflict global mass murder, looting and authoritarian control upon us all. Their goals are as dark as were Adolf Hitler's.”
This, I decided impatiently, was all very well, but irrelevant. Jane and I had concerns that were immediate and unrelated to any of this this. I slouched in my chair, regarding him. “Herr Dueker, what the hell do you want from us?”
His lips quirked up in another of his humorless smiles. His black eyes glittered. This guy may have been as psychotically ruthless as the power elites he claimed to dislike so much.
“We have strayed, have we not? As I said, this on-going globalist plotting is a bee in my bonnet. These groups even figured into the modern rebirth of my nation, while doing so for their own evil ends. I am a nationalist, so, this is indeed a complicated business. But to answer your question, Mr. McGrath, I want you to again attempt what you accomplished when you were nineteen years old.”
He took a drag off his cigarette and exhaled. “I want you to return to Operation Group Forty’s base of operations in the Blue Ridge Mountains and kill as many of them as you can.”
“What?” I sat up straight. “That's crazy!”
He shrugged. “You've established that you are capable of such a feat ....”
“I've admitted no such thing.”
“Nevertheless, given what my people witnessed today, I suggest that you are more accomplished now than as the callow and untried teenager you once were. Your ability and willingness to mete out violent death are quite unsettling, Mr. McGrath. Seated with you, I quite feel like a man taking high tea while at his elbow an uncaged Bengal tiger laps milk from a saucer…”
I snorted. “Too bad my old man isn't alive to hear this.”
“Please do not interpret my words as complimentary, Mr. McGrath.” Enoch Dueker's expression was dour. “I remain undecided whether you are a classic warrior – someone in the words of an ancient Viking poet who becomes 'battle glad' and 'strife eager' – or a commonplace psychopath indifferent to the moral and ethical codes of Western civilization.”
Now I was annoyed. “Anything I've ever done, Herr Dueker, was in self-defense or to protect loved ones.”
“Perhaps. But I must say, only a handful of men and one woman that I know of may be your superior as man-killers, Mr. McGrath ...”
“There you go, buddy. You’ve admitted you’ve got trained commandos at your disposal! You need to ring ‘em up and recruit them.”
He shook his head and fixed pitiless obsidian eyes on me.
“Impossible. On a related note, I must admit that my operators’ skills were learned and refined during many years of specialized training, Mr. McGrath. You, however, appear to be nothing short of a savant, a dark and grim natural phenomenon.”
Then he smiled. “Mr. McGrath, I represent one of the greatest intelligence networks in the history of mankind. Better, by far, than Britain's MI6, superior to your own self-indulgent and lawless CIA –all of which are peopled by intellectually arrogant, drug-abusing blue-bloods, alcoholics, sexual libertines and coastal elites. This may shock you, but only the Vatican's Jesuit spy network is superior to ours. My people know that Group Forty once again possesses that mountain property where you accomplished your earlier feat of arms. We uncovered that information before the Vernams clumsily blundered into it –which, I must add, led to the elder Mr. Vernam's death today.”
“Why on earth,” I asked, “would you imagine I would do what you ask?”
His smile was crafty.
“Think about it, Mr. McGrath. These enemies of yours are relentless engines of destruction. They executed your father, his friends and Mrs. Millard's husband. They attempted to abduct and kill your mother, sister and Truman Vernam. They are committed to bringing you and Mrs. Millard down to an early grave.”
He paused for dramatic effect: “These people have a menu of murders, if you please, Mr. McGrath. Killings to be accomplished before commencement of the Church hearings.”
“You need to leave Mrs. Millard and me out of this.”.
As if correcting a wayward child, he replied, “My directive, Mr. McGrath, is explicit. It points me to find ‘an indigenous force or person’ to undertake operations of this sort. You suit my purposes and have no alternative. In the Americanism, you are cornered. If you do not help me, you fail yourself, you fail Mrs. Millard, and you fail both your families. These men will slaughter the lot of you at their leisure.”
He studied me for a long moment and his words were spoken almost to himself.
“I must say, Group Forty made a hash of its victim selection process back in 1966, did it not? I am referring to that casual Sunday evening robbery of your family’s restaurant. A holdup that, for them, was to be a recreational, low-risk training exercise.” He seemed genuinely amused. “Incredible! Well, really! It is almost indescribable what they brought down upon themselves.”
He laughed out loud. I nodded. Nice that we agreed on something, and that he could laugh about it. I wasn’t laughing.
“Mr. McGrath, you actually went on the offensive against a cadre of government-backed, professionally trained … assassins! Harry Spiker, a brilliant and skilled operative –a man who put a bullet into President Kennedy! –repeatedly was shot by you personally and is now without an ear and one leg. Quite deliberately, you burned down his mountain chalet! You looted him of… what? …more than two million dollars of personal and operational funds? Am I correct about that? Good heavens, young man!”
Again, he chuckled. “So, when you return to your locked rental car, Mr. McGrath, you will find two duffel bags. They contain sanitized equipment that should prove useful.”
He smiled. “You will also find a card bearing a telephone number that will be monitored twenty-four hours a day. When you finish with these men, if you survive, call that number and a clean-up team will be dispatched.”
“I haven't consented to this,” I interrupted, listening to my pulse hammer in my temples.
“You have no choice – that really should be obvious, Mr. McGrath. As I was explaining, should you become injured, medical staff will be available, but my people will only treat you. Wounded members of Operation Group Forty who remain alive will be briefly interrogated, summarily shot and their bodies disposed of. Should you possess an impulse to be merciful or take prisoners – which I doubt – please resist it.”
Abruptly, he stood, looking down on us. “I wish you good fortune, Mr. McGrath. And allow me to observe that it is in all our interests –yours and my country's –that you do not fail.”
With that, he turned and walked to the doorway. Pulling up his collar, he hesitated only for a moment before being swallowed almost supernaturally by a miasma of rain, fog and black darkness, as if he were some dark apparition from hell.
Stunned, Jane and I looked at each other.
“Holy shit, McGrath!” she whispered.
I had to swallow twice before I could speak. “What did he say I am? An indigenous force?”
“Patsy is a better word.”
“What do you mean?”
“Don't you remember Lee Harvey Oswald? We talked about this with Truman Vernam. After Oswald was arrested, he insisted he didn't kill anybody. He was a patsy, set up to take the fall for Kennedy's real killers. Jack Ruby was another patsy, a Mafia stooge under do-or-die orders to murder Oswald. Ruby was more afraid of flubbing that job than being caught. He died of a suspiciously fast-progressing cancer.”
I shook my head, bemused. Patsy and idiot savant I may have been, but Herr Dueker was correct. I was indeed cornered. Anyway, killing Spiker and his crew had already been my goal. So instead of me helping this dark and mysterious emissary of a foreign government, almost certainly the nation of Israel, Herr Dueker was assisting me.
“Seriously,” persisted Jane. “This is a bad idea, baby! We don't even know who the hell this strange man works for. Plus, he's an over-the-top conspiracy nut job! There are no conspiracies, McGrath. Everybody knows conspiracies don’t happen. He’s delusional and probably needs to be checked out and medicated. I don't believe one single damned word he told us!”
“There's a bottom line, Cochise. We're in Group Forty's cross-hairs. I'm talking about all of us – you, me and our families.”
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph, McGrath! This is bad, bad, bad!”
“Well, I'm fresh out of good ideas, Cochise.” I put a hand on hers. “Let's go have a look in Herr Dueker's Santa Claus sacks. I’m real curious. We can pretend it’s Christmas.”
Chapter Sixteen
Shanghai McGrath
Present Day
A casual conversation over coffee revealed Grandpop Gifford had been engaged in a fangs-out personal war with Group Forty for much of his life. And while he’d guessed at the existence of a behind-the-scenes globalist cabal that employed the assassins, the old man had accumulated few details until now.
Later, when Shanghai and Juliette stepped outside for some air, she took his arm. “I'm kind of off balance. Forgive me, sweetheart. I'm feeling clingy and I don't know what I'm going to do next.”
He noticed that she’d quit smoking, but didn’t comment.
“Well,” he said, “since that gender-neutral, non-binary, bed-wetting Peter Tarleton no longer is part of this equation, I have a suggestion. You and I should drive over to Eugene ...”
“I just came from there, Shanghai,” she reminded him.
“I know, but I haven't met your folks yet, Juliette. And I think you'd prefer the ceremony to be in Eugene, with your family and best friends. Your girlfriends could be your bridesmaids ...”
“Ceremony? Bridesmaids? What are you talking about?”
“… Then I was thinking the Oregon coast would be a great place for a honeymoon. Maybe we’ll cruise on up to Seattle. After that, we’ll have to get on back to the Estoque, because the McGraths are going to relocate. You and I need to powwow with my dad and grandparents and my sister about how to swing that, and where we’ll go. I have a few ideas, and I’m going to suggest Central Idaho. That will take big money and planning. Plus, I’d like to start framing up a house for you, me, and the kids as soon as possible ...”
“What kids?”
“Our kids, Juliette! Like I told you before, I want my own tribe of sawed-off buckaroos and Big Loop rodeo queens and princesses. That's gonna require some time ...”
“Wait a minute! Stop! Are you proposing to me, Shanghai?”
He nodded, smiling. “I can practically guarantee I won't ever be president of the United States, Juliette. But I might run for the Malheur County board of commissioners someday if we ever come back to the Estoque. Somebody needs to keep these high-desert brush-poppers honest and thinkin’ straight. So, what'll it be? How's that sound?”
Her eyes welled. “Oh, Shanghai, I have something dreadful to tell you! It may change your mind about marrying me.”
“Not a chance.”
“Shanghai, I believe I'm pregnant ...”
“We were bein' pretty careful, Juliette ...”
“It's Peter's child, Shanghai! I thought he and I were getting married, and … it just happened, sweetheart.” She was humiliated and her eyes brimmed with tears. “I'm so, so ashamed! And sorry ...”
He pulled her to him. “Doesn't matter a damn. Not one bit. I love you and the proposal stands. So, what do you say?”
“You're sure?”
“Without a doubt.”
“It sounds … pretty good, cowboy.”
“Ain't no cowboys in the I-O-N country. We're buckaroos and buckaroo gals. Like I just said, I love you, Juliette.”
“I love you, Shanghai. For the record, the answer is … hell yes!”
It was a garden wedding. The O'Bolands' three-story Edwardian home was built of imported brick and stood solitary on five acres overlooking the Willamette River, with a backdrop of towering Douglas firs. Juliette told him the home dated to the colorful timber baron logging era in Oregon's Cascade Mountains and Coast Range.
Juliette's mother and father were intrigued by Shanghai's high-desert ways, but seemed to like him nevertheless. They enjoyed Barnabas and Saph, and were fascinated by Suzie, Shanghai's brash, Big Loop Rodeo queen sister. Grandma Jane, the glamorous former commercial DC-10 co-pilot, charmed them, as did the brainy and attractive Tamiym Ruth, who was on Barnabas' arm a good bit of the time.
Admittedly, they were less easy around Grandpop Gifford.
“He's very droll,” conceded Faye, Juliette's mother, catching her daughter alone in the kitchen. “All those silly stories. Having a drink with the ghost of Ernest Hemingway, my word! Bigfoot and the Roswell extraterrestrial. And that Pennsylvania farmer who got struck by lightning with a dime in his mouth and it filled all his teeth. He tells a wonderful story, dear. But have you ever looked in that old man's eyes, Juliette? My goodness, I did, and ...”
