The Apocalypse Troll

But that, too, was acceptable. He had made progress-not as much as he'd hoped, for the technical data on the construction of weapons, as opposed to their employment, were guarded by Shirmaksu security codes he could not break easily. But they could be broken with time. He had most of what he required now, and once the design was completed, his servomechs could fabricate and assemble the components in a very few days.

Not that he expected to need the bomb. Things were going well, very well, and surely if any human on this benighted planet had possessed the wit to search for him, it had given up by now. Besides, he thought with a wicked, hungry happiness, anyone who might have hunted him would be occupied with other matters very soon.

Like the wildfire waiting to consume its land.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Dolf Wilkins looked up as Allison DuChamps entered his office. DuChamps, one of the Bureau's most senior female agents, was a pleasantly unremarkable-looking woman with a first-class mind and a levelheadedness that was almost infuriating-a combination which had served her well in the field-and head of the domestic terrorism unit.

Wilkins smiled and she smiled back, but only with her lips. Her dark, foreboding eyes touched him with a chill, and his own smile faded.

"What is it, Alley?"

"I think we have a bad situation," she said carefully. "Possibly very bad."

Wilkins stiffened. The Bureau had learned its lesson (yet again, he conceded) about overreaction, Big Brotherliness, and clumsy interventions brought on by panic attacks among its leadership, which was one reason DuChamps had been chosen for her job. If Allison was concerned ...

"What?" he asked again.

"I've been reading some reports from domestic surveillance," DuChamps replied, "and there's a very strange-and ugly-pattern developing. One with the potential to do a lot of damage."

"Where and how?"

"The Southeast and racism," she said succinctly. "To be more precise, large-scale, organized, deliberately orchestrated racial violence."

"What?" Wilkins sat straighter. Organized racial violence had become less of a concern to the Bureau over the last decade. Oh, there were still bigots-of every color and creed-who were willing or even eager to resort to violence, just as there were occasionally horrific incidents in which they did just that. But society's tolerance was drying up, and that, as every good cop knew, was the true secret to controlling any activity: turn it into something society as a whole rejected. Judicious pressure from the Justice Department and the Bureau helped keep it trimmed back, though there'd been a few ugly flare-ups in various i

That was his first thought; his second was that the South wasn't even where racist organizations remained strongest. In fact, the focus of active bigotry seemed to have moved north from the Sunbelt, especially into the decaying urban sprawls of the "Rust Belt." Southerners had taken the rap too often in the sixties and seventies. As a society, they'd learned a lesson which the rest of the country, having taught it to the South, seemed disinclined to learn for itself.

"Are you sure, Alley?" he asked finally, and she nodded.

"It surprised me, too, Dolf, but it's there. And the entire pattern is ... wrong. I've never seen anything like it."

"Explain," he said sharply.

"I'll try. Look, we all know there are patterns for organized hate groups. National and regional groups grow out of long-standing, widespread prejudice and/or the need for some sort of scapegoat. A localized group can arise from those same pressures or from the emergence of some 'charismatic' (if you'll pardon the term) local leader or from strictly local, and therefore, by definition, special circumstances. Or, in some instances, a single powerful individual or group of individuals can, by economic or other pressures, create an organization, in which case it's usually rather fragile and tends to fall apart once the pressure from those individuals eases off. And, of course, some groups become pure hate groups as the 'purity' of their other political goals degenerates. Right?"

"Yes," he said a bit impatiently.

"All right. What we have here is a series of apparently isolated episodes, scattered over parts of nine states. The states in question have different economies, social patterns, and ethnic compositions. With a few exceptions, none have any recent record of large-scale, racially motivated hostility-certainly not on an action-oriented, organized model. Only portions of each state seem to be affected, with no abnormalities outside the affected areas. And, finally, there are very clear similarities between these widely scattered episodes. So much of one, in fact, that I'm tempted to say we're looking at a single group's MO ... except that the activity seems to jump back and forth across racial lines like a ping-pong ball!"

"Huh?" Wilkins leaned back in his chair. "Are you sure there really is a pattern, Alley? You're not reading correlations into unrelated data?"

"I'm certain." She opened a folder and glanced at some scribbled notes. "The Civil Rights Division passed us a formal-and quiet-request from the Southern Governor's Conference to look into racial unrest in both Carolinas, Te

"Fact: five months ago there was no significant racist activity in the affected areas. Fact: a little over three months ago, local law enforcement people started noticing a marked increase in both recruiting by and visibility of racist organizations, predominantly white. Fact: about two months ago, there began to be a few widely separated incidents-more what you'd call ruffianism than anything else-mingled with vandalism, cross burnings, harassment, that sort of thing. Fact: once the first moves had been made by the white groups, nonwhite groups started popping out of the woodwork and shoving back. Fact: one month ago, there was a decided and very noticeable acceleration in the situation, almost like a controlled surge, from both sides of the racial line ... and the rate of increase is still climbing."

She closed the folder.

"What we seem to have here, Dolf," she said very precisely, "is the blow-off of carefully concealed but long-standing mutual hatreds. I mean, these people are organized-on a cell basis, no less-on both sides, and they're heavily armed and turning more extreme, more violence-prone, almost in unison, no matter which side they're on." She paused, regarding him levelly.

"I suppose it's theoretically possible that the situation could have been this bad all along without our noticing, but I don't believe it. The more peaceful, process-oriented radicals would have given us some sign of it, and I simply ca

Wilkins nodded, fighting a strangely mixed exhilaration and horror.

"Go on," he said quietly.

"I plotted the data on a map, Dolf," she said. "I mean everything: rallies, known financial contributions, confrontations, the whole shooting match. And when I did, I found a uniform, graduated density of events, like a ripple pattern, spreading out from a common center, going just so far, and then stopping." She waved a hand. "Oh, there are odds and ends beyond the edge of the pattern, but I think they're rogues-copycats, that sort of thing. I mean, there'll always be some nuts, and if they get the idea there's some sort of 'wave of the future' coming, it's bound to bring them out of the closet in their white sheets and swastikas or what-have-you. The point is that outside the boundary the events are scattered. They don't plot. But inside it ..." Her voice trailed off.