The Master of Sinanju did not wish to be recalled to Folcroft, where Remo might convince Smith to release him from his contract. He did not wish that at all.
Chapter 18
They welcomed Konrad Blutsturz with the straight-arm salute of the past.
As one, they came to their feet in the great auditorium of Fortress Purity, their arms shooting out and up in perfectly stiff Nazi salutes, more like robots than men and women.
"Sieg Heil!" they shouted, as Konrad Blutsturz, Fuhrer of the White Aryan League of America and Alabama, sent his wheelchair buzzing down the aisle, beneath the swastika flags hanging in ordered rows. The wheelchair labored up the low inclined ramp to the podium like a wind-up toy that didn't quite work. The handicapped ramp was one of the first things Konrad Blutsturz had installed earlier in the day. By nightfall, every staircase in Fortress Purity would be replaced by a ramp.
Attired in a jet-black military shirt, Konrad Blutsturz Joined Ilsa, who stood waiting, microphone in hand, and faced the audience. A huge Nazi banner served as a backdrop.
He returned the salute and lifted the microphone slowly, soaking up the cheering like a thirsty man. For a moment he knew how Hitler had felt. For an instant he felt the thrill the true Fuhrer must have known. But then he looked hard into the faces of the crowd, these sons and daughters of Alabama and North Dakota and Ohio and Illinois, and made a disgusted noise low in his throat.
Hitler had spoken to a unified people. These were rabble. It was not the same at all. He let the noise of the crowd run its course and motioned them to be seated.
At a nod from him, Ilsa dropped to her knees so that no one sat higher than Konrad Blutsturz.
"A war is coming," he told the crowd, his dry voice rumbling over the public-address system. "A race war. You know it. I know it. Our beloved founder, Boyce Barlow, knew it. That is why he founded the White Aryan League. This is why he built Fortress Purity. That is why we have had to erect razor wire around our settlement and top it with electricity. Because the rest of America-mongrel America-resented our prophetic vision."
The crowd applauded.
"The Jews already control America. Everyone knows it. They control the media. They control Wall Street, and the corporations. If their power grows, they will control America the way they control Israel. If this goes on, we true, white, patriotic Americans will be displaced as the long-suffering Palestinians have been displaced. America will become the new Israel-an occupied land!" Konrad Blutsturz shouted, and the effort set him coughing.
Ilsa handed him a glass of water. He sipped.
"But this day may never come to pass," he went on.
The crowd cheered.
"It may never come because the inferior blacks will bring this proud nation to its knees before then. Look at the major cities of America. Once they were proud and white. Now they are dirty and black. Many people have come to these shores. Germans have come, and the English, and the French. Even the Polish. They have given to America. The blacks only take. They steal from our mouths by refusing to work. They live off welfare. Our taxes pay for their loud radios, their many children, their vile drugs. Now, the Jews are bad, but the blacks-they are like the kudzu weed you chop from the perimeter fence each day. The blacks, by their sheer numbers, are strangling this land."
"Down with the blacks!" the crowd roared, and Konrad Blutsturz had them. He grinned his skull-like grin.
"Keep it up," Ilsa whispered. "You've got them going good now."
"But the blacks are not organized," said Konrad Blutsturz, his voice cracking with exertion. "And the Jews are patient. There is a third enemy, the Orientals. They are the more immediate menace."
The crowd hissed. Some yelled "Gook" and "Slanteyes. "
"The Orientals combine the worst traits of the others. They are becoming as numerous as the blacks, but they are as crafty and avaricious as the Jews. You have seen them coming to these shores in increasing numbers. Even here in Huntsville, there are many. It does not matter whether they are Chinese, or Japanese, or Vietnamese, or any other 'ese.' They are all the same. You know it. I know it."
The crowd cheered the words of Konrad Blutsturz as other crowds had cheered the words of Adolf Hitler fifty years ago, because the words were the same and the crowd-like all mobs-was also the same.
"How is it," Konrad Blutsturz shouted, "that when America defeated the Japanese, the Japanese ended up with economic superiority?"
"They cheated," the crowd yelled.
"When the Vietnamese defeated the Americans in the last decade, the Vietnamese flocked to these shores, to steal the jobs that the Japanese industries did not already take, and buy up the homes that true Americans could no longer afford. These people are so unfair, they work two or three jobs. For every employed Vietnamese, there are three unemployed Americans!"
The crowd screamed its anguish at the injustice of the selfish Vietnamese immigrants.
"But the Orientals are not the worst. No," said Konrad Blutsturz in a low voice that forced the auditorium to listen very hard.
"The fourth group is the worst. We cannot recognize them by the color of their skins, or by their habits. Because they are chameleons, poisonous chameleons."
"I didn't know chameleons were poisonous," Ilsa whispered.
"Poisonous chameleons," Konrad Blutsturz repeated, ignoring the girl. "For they come in all sizes and shapes. They blend into our society unsuspected and unchallenged. You know them for what they are, the Smiths." Konrad Blutsturz hissed the word.
The crowd screeched its horror at the menace of the Smiths until the walls shook.
"You know that I have just returned from investigating the Smith menace firsthand. I have seen the evidence with my very eyes. The Smiths are as numerous as the blacks, more numerous than the Asians, and craftier than the Jews. I have fought them in unreported skirmishes. I have inflicted Aryan vengeance upon their seemingly white heads."
"Aryan vengeance," howled the members of the White Aryan League of America and Alabama.
"When the race war begins, it will be begun by the Smiths. Not the Jews, not the blacks, not the Asians, but by the Smiths. Have I not always said so?"
"Yes!"
"Did not Boyce Barlow, our founder, prophesy this?"
"Yes!"
"And it has come to pass!"
"No," the crowd protested.
"They have struck the first blow."
"No!"
"A cruel blow," said Konrad Blutsturz. "They have extinguished the pure flame that was Boyce Barlow." A low moan lifted from the audience. Faces contorted in pain, "And his cousins Luke and Bud."
The crowd was stricken. There were shouts for revenge and, amid them, cries for the heads of the agents of this atrocity.
"But fear not," Konrad Blutsturz went on. "We are not lost. I will lift up the banner they have dropped. I will carry on in their place. If you will have me.
"Yes! Yes! Yes!"
Konrad Blutsturz let the howls of adoration continue until the crowd grew hoarse. He liked them better when they were hoarse. Their American twangs and drawls and nasal consonants offended his ears. It was a mongrel sound.
Finally Konrad Blutsturz waved for them to calm down.
The crowd quieted, their heads turned upward, their emotions spent. They believed. They believed in the purity of their skin color. They believed in the righteousness of their cause. And they believed in Konrad Blutsturz. They did not know they believed in a lie. Or that Konrad Biutsturz, who spoke so ringingly despite his many handicaps, believed none of it.
"The blow has been struck. We will not wait long to counterstrike. I have selected men among you to become my lieutenants. They will form you into squads. You will march, you will drill, and you will learn to use the weapons we have stockpiled in secret. Instead of hiding from an impure world, we will march into it. Instead of clinging to our vision of a white America inside Fortress Purity, we will expand Fortress Purity. Fortress Purity will become America!"