The Eye of Moloch

Chapter 26

Most killers get caught because they neglect the most important part of their job. You don’t have to be a genius; the key to a clean getaway is long preparation before the fact. You plan to get out of there with all your bases covered, and then you do the deed, stow your weapon, grab your kit, and go.

It sure seemed like more, but until very recently Olin Simmons had committed murder only four other times. Two he’d gotten away with clean, but he’d been clipped for the third, and then one had been done from necessity in the ugly tile showers at Lewisburg.

Those acts were different than these current ones; they’d all been up close and personal. The first was hard only because it had been the first. The second was a robbery gone bad and that guy got what he deserved for trying to fight back. The next had been an ex-girlfriend; she’d made it so much easier just by being the malignant little bitch that she was, right up to the end. And the last had been a rite of passage in the joint, just some unlucky fish who got picked from the general population so a better man could earn his yard credentials. Everybody serves their role; that blood initiation had brought Olin Simmons into the brotherhood with George Pierce, and he couldn’t remember feeling much of anything but pride when it was done.

Now he was killing with a purpose—two purposes, really. Warren Landers had said his first job was to “generate conflict,” and that concept had taken some explaining before Simmons finally understood. The second job was pinning these soulless acts on someone else, and that was actually the only part of all this that was beginning to feel like a chore.

These weren’t to be random killings, though they’d look that way until the cops pulled their heads out of their asses.

He’d started in D.C. with a young white mother who’d been filling up her hybrid SUV at the corner Gas ’n’ Go. He waited from long-distance cover until she’d come out of the minimart with some chips and sodas for the kids in the back, and then he’d shot her through the heart as she opened up the side door.

She’d been chosen because of her many bumper stickers, all of which identified her as a proud supporter of the incumbent President and his many clever slogans. Her good looks and her gender would be a media bonus; she represented what they call a sympathetic demographic. This young blond mother of two, cut down in her prime by a deranged political extremist, would tug at America’s heartstrings and be sure to make a splash on the nightly news.

He followed up as he’d been directed with a typewritten note to the newspapers. The text included threats of further violence, a blistering manifesto giving full credit to Molly Ross and the Founders’ Keepers, and several ridiculous demands. One of these was a call for the President to withdraw his name from the upcoming ballot to clear the way to the Oval Office for an obscure candidate from the Libertarian Party.

The paper and the envelope carried another hidden message: partial fingerprints and a fleck of harvested DNA from the fall guy, Thom Hollis. For good measure Simmons had also tucked in an ounce of benign white powder to spread a little panic and ensure the ready involvement of even more government agencies.

There’d been a few other shootings that first day, meant to be linked only later to this same cold-blooded minuteman and his patriot accomplices. Near each location Simmons had hired a hooker of about the right size and shape to walk around with him for the benefit of the surveillance cameras on the street. Upon review of their footage the authorities would see a large bearded man in fatigues and a pretty young woman in dark glasses, apparently scoping out the area before their crimes.

Now on his path west he’d arrived in the windy city of Chicago.

This day’s activity was more elaborate and had required a good deal of advance work and participation from other friendly local factions. Despite all the details, getting away with murder here should be a cakewalk compared to the previous day’s work. A full-scale riot would make it so much easier to get lost and disappear toward the next assignment.

A protest march was scheduled for that morning. This was no small mob; it was part of a well-funded, centrally coordinated “grassroots” citizen uprising that was coincidentally popping up in many places nationwide. As times got worse their crowds had gotten bigger and bigger and the liberal press was continually showering these mobs with completely unbiased, universally positive coverage.

A lot of these people came out just because they were angry or scared. Many were hired or otherwise lured into involvement by promises of future favors in return. Those few marchers who actually understood why they were there were waving signs and calling for “direct democracy.” What a pack of pinko dumb-asses. As Mr. Pierce might put it, a direct democracy was like asking a group of ten Nazis and two Jews to vote on their plans for Passover.

Well, if that’s what they wanted, by God that’s what they’d get.

The best thing that he’d learned from Warren Landers so far is that you don’t have to aim at your foes to do them harm. Instead, if you shoot at the people you support while loudly endorsing your enemies, you can kill two birds with one stone. To make the heroes and villains real in the eyes of the public, sometimes you have to hurt the ones you love.

The protest organizers had published their route so that interested followers and new recruits could more easily join them. The police had also announced their crowd-control plans with lines of blue barricades put in place at vulnerable sites the night before. These sites included a financial landmark where a major confrontation was supposedly anticipated. And so Olin Simmons had known exactly where he needed to be.

He was crouched at the seventh-floor window of a vacant downtown office space near the mouth of the LaSalle Street canyon. He had the rifle by his side and was enjoying an unimpeded view of the riot line and the restless crowd beginning to swell to capacity in the street below the towering Chicago Board of Trade.

Everything was in place.

The police were out in force, with their commissioner and other higher-ups standing resolutely behind them. The rank and file were equipped for hand-to-hand violence, dressed in padded black, visors down, shields up, and weapons ready. The crowd was chanting louder—they got bailed out, we got sold out—and a few planted among them would occasionally shout particularly fiery and profane epithets and threats right into the faces of the nearby lawmen. The area news teams were there, too, ready with mic and camera to capture any developments, no doubt with hopes to parlay any minor conflict into an on-scene report for the national network feed.

Because of its sheer size the throng of protesters periodically shifted and came into physical contact with the thin blue line. In response the police would push back against them, moving in solidarity at a bullhorned command. With each such cycle the anger was growing on both sides; the tension was becoming electric at the volatile border between opposing forces. This tinderbox was primed to ignite, and so it was time.

Simmons took out his flashlight, brought it up to the open window, and sent three quick high-intensity blinks down toward the street. Seconds later three flashes came back in answer to his signal. With that the action was under way, though there wasn’t an agreed-upon instant when it all would come down. With just a little prompting the crowd itself would decide that moment.

He’d chosen several potential victims among the rabble. If you settle on only one, sure enough the lucky bastard’ll get himself behind a street sign or a bystander and then you’re stuck scrambling for a target of opportunity. With the exception of the cute female cop he’d singled out, all the ones he’d picked for that day were young blacks, clean-cut Cosby Show types whose yearbook pictures would look just great displayed below the tragic headlines.

The chants were growing louder and angrier, the individual confrontations at the line flaring higher. Olin Simmons picked up Thom Hollis’s rifle and brought the preset scope up close to his eye.

A line of burly men in the back let out a bloodcurdling rebel yell and pushed hard against the crowd in front of them, driving like the Packers’ defensive line against the training sled. At the same time a lit pack of firecrackers dropped to the pavement and the sharp reports sparked the beginnings of a panic among the pinned-in crowd. The surge of human pressure passed forward like a wave and the hapless protesters at the front were forced off balance and stumbling through the barricades.

As the police fell back a few of them were knocked from their feet and their partners responded with batons and fists and pepper spray. Some raised their guns, a spinning canister of tear gas was fired into the midst of the mob, and a regiment of more heavily armed reinforcements ran in to aid their brothers in uniform.

Olin Simmons took aim and shot the first young target in the side of the head, and then he took out a second victim before those around the first had even begun to react. He shifted immediately and found his woman cop, fired once, and then shot her again for good measure as she was going down.

At the unmistakable sound of gunfire most in the crowd would have run away if they could, but they couldn’t. They were now caught up in a shared mentality of fear and rage and had ceased to be individuals at all anymore. Whatever their plans for this march had once been, all ideals were forgotten with that first scent of blood. A roar went up from the thousands in the mob, a stirring primal sound completely out of place on those formerly civilized midwestern streets.

Now the violence would play out on its own; no more was required of the man who’d started it. As new shooting erupted and the police line fell and the mob stormed across the fragile barrier between chaos and law and order, Olin Simmons was already gone.