The Billy Club Bastard Case Files: The Heartland Heroes, Part 2 of 2

The Office has a public image problem. With the Bastion Americana Freedom Journal turning them into bad guys, they need to make a big statement. Teaming up with some of America’s largest corporations and the enigmatic Shadow Committee, they’ve decided to make a team to show off the strength of cooperation and progress, inspired by the rash of masked vigilantes fighting fascists and criminals all over the country.

Mickey Malloy’s orders are show off what these Heartland Heroes can do with the otherworldly weapons they’ve been given. But he ain’t one to follow orders right to the letter, and the folks intent on deomizing him aren’t going to take his latest venture lying down.

This is Part 2 of The Heartland Heroes, second story in The Billy Club Bastard Case Files: Old Dogs Still Got Teeth. Read Part 1 first to avoid spoilers.

Content warnings: Violence, animal violence, gun violence, death, gore, mild swearing, alcohol use, tobacco use, general grossness, gaslighting, sexuality, Nazis.

WEDNESDAY NIGHT, AUGUST 18, 1943
LEFTHAND MARINA, BUFFALO BAYOU
HOUSTON, TEXAS

“What are we waiting for?” Eric Reed asked. He pushed his brown hat back once again to wipe the sweat from his red brow. The Texan sun had been merciless on the New Yorker's northern skin. Even with the sun down, the reporter still glowed pink.

“Fireworks, kid,” Mickey Malloy replied, blinking and groggy. The sun hadn't been kind to him either, but it wasn't the heat that was throwing him off.

Two whole days and the bureau's investigators hadn't found anything about Walsh's old wizard. Save for a couple munitions stores and some hidden emergency bunkers, there was no Office presence in Maine.

Mick grunted, then tugged his floppy fedora low over his misshapen nose and pulled one last sweating beer out of his bucket. The ice had finished melting a couple hours before, but the beer was still cold enough to soothe.

“You don't have any more of those, do you?” Reed asked. He was sweltering; hulking blonde reporters weren't built for Houston. Mick leaned back in his folding chair and looked at the five empty bottles around his feet.

“Nope,” he said. He popped the cap with his bottle opener and tossed it over his shoulder. It pinged off the tin roof. “Sorry about the heat, but you'd have been sorry if I'd let you miss this.”

“I didn't think you were the apologizing type, so when you called yesterday I figured it must be something big.”

“Yeah, yeah, don't get used to it,” Mick grunted. He'd spent half-an-hour on the horn with Reed to convince him to hop in an Office transport and fly down to Houston. During that time he'd had to apologize to the reporter about a dozen times for keeping the Office story from him and letting some newsletter hacks drop that nugget into the public consciousness.

“You know, that article I asked you to write helped put this mission together.”

“The bullshit Tesla cover-up in January?” Reed asked.

“Your story was the point of a very large wedge we've been driving between the Silver Legion and the Tridente Cremisi for months,” Mick explained. “Now everybody's cracking down and the Italians already done half the work for us.”

“The Legion isn't street criminals, Malloy,” Reed said, “They are heavily-armed Nazi-trained militants. If they're who we're waiting on, a bunch of drunk old men in a duck blind may tip them off.”

Mick looked around. Their roof had been fitted with a thin facade which served to conceal a gaggle of mint julep-swilling senators and lobbyists. Fast-talkers from GE, GM, RCA, Bell, MGM, and General Foods were hob-knobbing with and back-patting the men who signed their defense contracts.

They'd even dragged along a goon from the Garrisonian Party; both the liberals and the conservatives were courting the growing movement's support. He was a loud-mouthed man with a wide, sweaty red forehead puckered with scars from recently-removed stitches who looked irritatingly familiar. When he caught Mick's glare, he melted away, never addressing the big man. This didn't surprise Mickey; he'd read their pamphlets. The Garrisonians were a bunch of cowards that wanted to hide under their beds. A truce with the krauts and keep out of Europe? What a load of bullshit.

He swigged his beer and drove the glad-handers out of his mind. Their duckblind was at the dead end of the marina's single road. From their seats they could spectate on the marina’s comings and goings all evening.

“The Silver Legion may have been trained and equipped by the Abwehr, but they're still just turncoat imitators. Almost every mission they've tried to pull off has been flubbed, countermanded, or broken up. This is one of their last chances to prove themselves before...” Mick cut himself off. Regardless of how much he trusted Reed personally, he couldn't let any newshound get his paws on the Cascade; it was too juicy a story. He cleared his throat and recovered as nimbly as he could: “... Before the krauts disown them.”

Reed noted Mick's self-censorship, but let it slide for the moment.

“So they're desperate,” Reed said. “Desperate, heavily-armed traitors in danger of losing their homes and their Nazi sponsorship. Seems like you could have up-armored this blind a bit.”

“Don't worry,” Mick said. “They won't be looking at us.”

The whole port was empty. Or emptied. Mick's officials had cleared the place out, save their own plants acting as Nazi double agents. Cicadas droned in the old buildings on either side of a long asphalt road. A row of warehouses loomed over the road's south side and a series of indoor dry docks squatted on its north. Brown bayou water gurgled just beyond the dry docks.

“What kind of prize do they expect to find in a Houston ship repair depot? It has to be something huge if they're expecting to impress Himmler,” Reed mused.

“Is a u-boat big enough?” Mick asked.

“A what?”

“U-703. An operational German submarine, captured and housed in that building down there. Apparently a Legion sympathizer spotted us moving it after that hurricane tore up Galveston a couple weeks ago.”

“Why do you have a u-boat?” Reed asked as he scribbled notes, the emphasis on 'you.' He stopped writing and sat up straight. Reed looked Mick in the eye and demanded: “And what hurricane?”

“Crap,” Mickey muttered. The typewriter jockey never let anything slide. Mick preferred Reed with his Peacemakers in his hands, rather than that pencil: he was less dangerous that way. “News about the hurricane was suppressed, and still is, just learned about it myself. Didn't want to start a panic then, don't want so stir up the loons now, and can't have the krauts hearing about supply losses. Focus on the sub or you'll miss the show.”

“Speaking of loons,” Reed said, throwing a thumb over his shoulder to point at the eastern horizon, still glowing blood red even in the middle of the night, “Why don't you tell me about the ones that did that?”

“Like you said, loons,” Mick grunted. “You tell me about it.”

“Most of our readers had swallowed the line you boys were shoveling about the Bloody Dawn. A natural eruption with poor timing? Makes enough sense. It did, anyway, 'til the Bastion Americana got Father Coughlin to play the recording of Axis Annie spewing her line about you guys bombing the volcano and setting it off. When Bellegarde backtracked on your first story is when people got uneasy. They didn't have any trust in your spy club to begin with, then they catch you lying. They don't trust your Printmaster General. Whatever she might be, she’s also French. They trust American voices. Your team is pushing them into the Garrisonian Party.”

Mick kept his lip zipped but felt his face getting hot. The thick muscles in his clenched jaw were bulging. Reed kept the questions coming:

“So who is right: the Garrisonians claiming the Office had American bombers set off the eruption on purpose and make the Bloody Dawn, or what Arachnae Bellegarde is saying: an explosion, possibly artificial in nature, caused the catastrophe? She's implying the Germans let Italian civilians die for propaganda or at the very least killed them outright, their own allies.”

“Bloody Dawn, who comes up with this crap?” Mick snorted, hoping that was enough to hide his reaction. He noticed the politicians and lobbyists around him staring and listening.

“The Germans have been killing their own citizens for years, what makes you think they give two shits about Italians?” he snapped. He knew he was deflecting and tried again. “Put this on your goddamn record: Arachnae Bellegarde is an honorable woman worthy of your trust. She earned her rank in the Office through being the best at what she does. What she tells you as the Printmaster General is the best information you should have.”

“So you know her?” Reed interrupted. “She is literally unknown to the rest of the world, now we're expected to take her word and not question a thing she says?”

“I fought alongside her father in the last war, against things you can't even imagine. Anyone carrying a fraction of that man is head and shoulders above reproach.”

Reed jotted down about two words out of that whole tirade, then asked:

“Which do you think is worse: her implication that the Nazis possess a weapon capable of setting the Earth on fire, or that we would choose to do it ourselves?”

Before he had to cobble enough words together to form another hollow response, Mick heard a vehicle in the distance and smiled.

“Reed, when did you move to the war desk?” he asked.

“I'm still on the crime beat,” the young reporter answered.

“Then shut your trap and watch some of it happen,” Mick said. He held out a set of low-light binoculars, which Reed took. Mick pointed to the end of the warehouse row and said: “Look.”

Reed pulled the binoculars up to his eyes and peered through a little slit in the facade. The politicians next them hushed at the lobbyists' urging and produced spyglasses of their own.

Seven cars pulled onto the long stretch of empty road between the unguarded warehouses and the brown bayou waters. Their headlights were off, obvious in their subtlety. They parked before the third covered drydock in the row. Almost thirty men piled out, their light gray uniforms catching moonlight. They looked exactly like the goose-stepping Brownshirts they so pitifully sought to emulate. Each man carried a bag of gear and a pistol. Many were also packing long guns, including a few wicked-looking black rifles sporting long curved magazines, the new StG-44 SS rifles. The men conferred for a moment, then got to work on the warehouse door.

“Silver Legion,” Reed said. Mick nodded. “How many of 'em are there? There've been arrests all over the country.”

“We've been putting them through the wringer,” Mick answered. Reed knew that was all he'd get out of him.

“Did they kill the guards?” Reed asked..

“One guard is theirs, the rest are ours. We let 'em through without any trouble. Their man's in 'cuffs by now.”

Reed nodded and scribbled.

“Let's see how this plays out before you write that down,” Mick said. Reed gave him a look, but he'd seen enough oddness at Mick's side to trust the old P.I.. He tucked his nub of a pencil back behind his ear and watched the fascists assembling before him.

Below them, the first Legionnaire pulled long bolt-cutters from his bag and snapped the cased-hardened lock off the sliding doors. A lanky, middle-aged man with an imitation-Adolf haircut stood back and began directing the Legionnaires. Gutermuth. It took eight of his men to drag the creaking entrance open. Moonlight flooded the dry dock, and the traitors stepped back in awe.

U-703 loomed over the traitors on a steep slipway. The U-boat had been fully repaired since the Lanes' frogman assault had forced it to surface in the Gulf two years before. Water lapped at the base of the rail. The Legionnaires stood silent for a moment, staring at the gray submarine suspended above their heads. The haircut barked an order, and the rest spread out and got to work.

“What are they doing?” Reed asked.

“They're going for a cruise,” Mick asked. “The mouthy one is their captain, Gutermuth. They call themselves the Traditionalist Heritage Party. A bunch of racist cowards.”

“How do you know all this?” Reed asked.

“A little birdie told me,” Mick replied. Cabhán Walsh had been right about every damn thing leading up to this raid. That twelve-pack Mick had sent him was worth every penny. Gutermuth’s boys would be the first nail in a coffin that Mick had been trying to shut for a long time.

Many officials saw the Silver Legion as pro-Nazi nutcases, a loosely-affiliated group of uneducated, uninformed zealots with no overall appeal or power. Mick knew that this assessment couldn't be more wrong. The Legion had big money pouring in from every level, both domestically and internationally. That mansion they'd built in Hollywood for Adolf? That was just the start, a single property among hundreds of caches, holdouts, and safehouses. And disorganized? Not in a group put together by the Abwehr themselves. Every article on them that somehow slipped past the Office's filters, whether a report on their successes or failures, put their name out there. And their beliefs fueled others'. These maniacs were not a fringe group for long. Every action they took validated their beliefs in the public eye. Mick knew they had to be stomped out soon.

The rise in domestic opposition groups had to be a cornerstone of Eizhürst's Cascade.

“So you brought me all the way to Texas to watch that submarine get stolen?” Reed asked.

“Cheeky doesn't look good on you, kid,” Mick grunted. He sipped on his beer again, then set it down. “Make sure your damn pencil is sharp, there's going to be a lot to see.”

Mickey groaned and stood, popping his knees. He found the flashlight buried in his pocket, beneath his flask and knife, and pulled it out. With that, he turned and addressed the conspiring politicians and lobbyists.

“Gentlemen and gentlemen,” he started, hushing the half-drunk spectators, “Keep your peepers peeled, this is going to go down quick.”

The old stooges and drunken industrialists crowded the blind's viewing slits, peering eagerly through their spyglasses. They were thirsty for blood. Mickey spat on the floor then blinked his powerful flashlight three times at the warehouse across from the U-703. The door slammed open, revealing the towering Lincoln Landstrider, every one of his dozen gun barrels leveled at the traitors.

“That’s our guy!” one of the suits from GM whispered gleefully.

“Stop right there, Nazis!” Caldarone shouted, his ridiculous timbre amplified by a megaphone in his walking armor. The combat-drilled quislings responded with immediate, articulate violence.

“Fire!” Gutermuth shouted. He raised his StG 44 to his shoulder and opened fire, letting loose and roaring burst of heavy-caliber fire. None of the bullets connected with the hulking soldier's steel chassis. Gutermuth's men were a split-second slower on the uptake, but they loosed volleys of rifle and SMG fire in withering volumes. Still, not a single round sparked off the Landstrider's plating.

“Surrender your arms immediately!” Calderone droned, oblivious to the fusillade screaming at him.

“What is that thing?” Reed asked, furiously scribbling notes as he watched. The Legionnaires scrambled for cover, reloading and providing cover fire as they moved. The Abwehr had taught them well. Unfortunately for them, none of their rounds were striking home.

“Surrender now, this is your last chance,” the seemingly-invincible Landstrider ordered.

“Grenade!” Gutermuth shouted. One of his men produced a stick grenade from his overcoat's inner pocket. Mickey spit beer and flashed the red flashlight three more times.

“That's enough of that,” Mick grunted. The Lincoln Landstrider flickered at his signal, became transparent, then disappeared entirely. The Nazi with the grenade in his hand let his jaw drop open, shocked. It took him a panicked second to realize that the explosive was armed, and he reeled back with it.

“Wait, what?” the GM goon stammered.

“Hold that thought!” the Blizzardier shouted from behind cover. A white blast from his blizzard gun hissed from the open warehouse, crackling the air. In a flash a thick ball of ice formed around the grenade, freezing it in the man's hand.

Gutermuth was first to react.

“Down!” he shouted. He shoved his doomed man hard enough to throw him over the hood of the car they'd arrived in and dropped to the concrete. The frozen traitor had just enough time to scream before the bomb detonated. Shrapnel and flesh and fire flashed and flew and in a horrible instant what was a man was replaced with smoke and stink.

“Yes! Got him!” the lobbyist from General Foods yipped.

Mick grimaced, but he could see the excitement on the politicians' faces. These men had never seen death. The quick, dramatic ones were nothing but spectacle to them. The blast shook the whole shipyard.

A truck-sized creature bounded into the Legionnaires' midst. Half-a-dozen assault rifles turned onto it and scores of bullets thudded into the monster's thick gray fur. A red spotlight appeared on one man's chest, and Tanner froze in anticipation.

“Here’s ours!” an MGM rep hooted, punching the GM guy in the arm.

“Get him, Tanner!” MGM's Starpower shouted from his hiding place in the ambush warehouse. His second chromed pistol flared crimson, projecting the beam that designated the massive lion's prey.

Tanner snarled in response, revealing a set of razor-sharp ivory fangs. A senator cheered, but only until the beast pounced. Bones snapped as Tanner tore the man's throat from his neck. Viscera splattered the remaining Nazis and Tanner went in on the man's entrails, shredding and swallowing intestines and bladder. The formerly-gleeful senator doubled-over, retching up three or four of his mint juleps.

Reed's pencil was moving as if possessed.

The Legionnaires scattered, frantic to get away from the ravenous lion as quick as they could. Starpower focused the red beam on a new target, but Tanner remained fixed on his first victim. He took the dead man's thigh between his teeth and tugged the whole leg clean off. Blood soaked into Tanner's fur and another senator fell out, puking his guts up.

“Not so fast!” the Blizzardier called out. He stepped out of the warehouse's shadow, firing his frosted gun from the hip. The freezing gas erupted and lanced into the pavement, instantly coating it in a film of slick ice. Four scrambling Nazis tumbled head over heels, slamming into the ground hard enough that they lost their guns.

“Didn't you hear me before?” the Lincoln Landstrider roared.

“Woo!” the GM moron yelled.

The fallen traitors looked up to see the corporeal armored soldier standing over them. One dared to raise his MP 40, only for the steel-clad behemoth's wrist-mounted shotguns to roar. High-velocity rubber bullets battered the quartet to bloody, unconscious smears on the asphalt.

“Oh. Oh God,” the GM guy whimpered, suddenly boneless and slumping away from the blind.

“Pull back!” Gutermuth screeched to his remaining men. He put rounds on Landstrider, sparking ineffective shots off the hulk's steel plating. The Legionnaire grabbed one of his fallen men by the collar, only for the rigid corpse to crack in half. A blast from the Blizzardier had flash-frozen the man into a human ice crystal, and an accidental tug snapped him in two at the waist. Flesh shattered when it hit the ground.

The Legion captain dove behind cover and fired blind. Bullets skipped off pavement by Agnarsson, forcing the Blizzardier to retreat. The Blue Bulb stepped up.

By then, the mouthpieces from GE and Bell had nothing to say.

The Bulb's stripe of hair was already standing up. Pops of static electricity crackled around his ears. The bulbs on his arms were glowing, brighter than blue spotlights.

“Dance, traitors!” he shouted, Searing electric whips snapped and slashed across Gutermuth's men, cutting them in half in explosions of boiling organs and spattering flesh. Mists of steamed blood rose from a half-dozen corpses.

An old man fainted on the roof, his aides rushing to his side.

“No!” Gutermuth roared. He fired his StG 44 at the glowing killer. Several bullets slammed into his thick insulated costume, and the glass bulb glowing on Bolton's right wrist shattered. A concussion like an iron bomb launched the Blue Bulb yards away. Bolton bounced against the concrete, limp. On the roof, the Bell Labs lobbyist dropped his martini.

Lincoln Landstrider was hit full on by the blast, knocking him hard. He tripped over his own armored boots and staggered into one of the Legion's bullet-riddled cars. The Landstrider grasped for purchase, peeling a door off the Oldsmobile in the process, but he still fell to a knee, hitting hard enough to shatter concrete.

The I-A blast sent black blood streaming from Tanner's ears. The giant lion vomited up a belly-fulled of torn human flesh before whimpering and dashing away.

“Good Lord,” someone on the roof gasped.

“Tanner!” MGM's Starpower shouted. He took off after the running lion, completely forgetting the firefight he'd started with his projection.

“Heavy guns!” Gutermuth roared. His remaining ten men regrouped quickly, letting their training take over. One pair ripped a tarp off an FG 42 light machine gun and steadied it on top of an oil drum. The gun roared to life, battering the dazed Lincoln Landstrider. He yelled out in pain. Even the Lincoln armor couldn't stand up to that barrage for long.

“Hand me my bag!” Mickey growled.

“What?” Reed asked. His scribbling pencil had already been reduced to a sweaty nub.

“My bag!” Mick shouted. Reed dropped his notebook and snatched up the leather duffel Mick had brought with them. Gun metal clanked inside.

“What are you going to do?” Reed asked. Mick pulled his snub-nose revolver from the bag.

“Cover my people,” he grunted. He notched back the hammer and knocked the blind out of his way. The sheet metal facade fell away with a clatter.

“Up there!” Gutermuth shouted, pointing. He brought his automatic rifle around and opened up on the occupied roof. Senators and lobbyists alike hit the vomit-soaked deck. Mick ducked down as rifle rounds snapped over his head.

The FG 42's fire battered the little ledge Mickey had for cover, showering him in brick fragments. Gutermuth's remaining men racked their rifles and joined in as well, coordinating their shots and reloads to keep their targets pinned. The building was eroding under their fire, shuddering and shattering with each impact.

“Give me that!” Reed shouted above the din. Mick tossed him the pistol without hesitation.

Reed tucked his notebook into his breast pocket and spun the heavy revolver on his finger. Satisfied he knew its weight and balance, he popped over the edge of the roof and fired one barely-aimed snap shot before dropping back to the cover.

Eric Reed was one of the best shots Mickey had ever encountered, and his bullet flew true. As his alter-ego, the Pacifist, Reed's rounds never hit flesh; instead this bullet crashed through the breach of the Legion FG 42, taking out the big gun and showering its operators in steel splinters.

The remaining Legionnaires cowered for just a second, then renewed their fire on the roof, concentrating it on the bricks just above Reed's head.

“Now what?” Reed shouted over the chaos.

“Now we let Castaño go to work,” Mickey grunted. As if on cue, a shotgun blast permeated the cacophony. As suddenly as it began, the barrage changed focus, and the whip-snap of bullets over Mickey's head ceased.

Mick and Reed peeked over their cover to see Captain Garand himself advancing on the desperate Legionnaires. His bulky mechanical arm was coughing and chugging, spitting out gouts of diesel exhaust as he stalked straight at the firing traitors. It had flattened and expanded, taking the form of a heavy shield. Bullets sparked and ricocheted off of it, none doing so much as scratching its impermeable surface. Behind it, Castaño trudged forward.

“Put 'em down!” he roared at the traitors.

“Put him down!” Gutermuth shouted in response.

Castaño grunted something unintelligible and stopped his advance. He hunkered down behind the heavy shield and activated a mechanism within it. A panel on front snapped open and score of gas pellets erupted forth, scouring the belligerent Nazis before him.

“Gas?” Reed asked, horrified.

“Can it,” Mick said. He had the same reservations about chemical weapons that the reporter did, but the tear gas Castaño was shooting was different than the skin-searing stuff Mick had fought through: it'd just give the Legionnaires a bad day. Stinging eyes and a runny nose was nothing on bursting blood blisters and melting skin, so Mick let it slide.

In seconds, the whole contingent of Legionnaires was coughing and choking, rubbing at their eyes and crying so hard that their tears and dripping snot melded into a single translucent stream of goop dangling from their scarlet faces. Weapons clattered to the ground and Captain Garand stood. He turned some dial on his belt and the shield folded back into his angular crab claw prosthesis.

“Giving up now?” he asked. Two Legionnaires stood, empty hands in the air. Quint smirked. “That's more like it.”

A pair of pistol shots rang out and the surrendering Nazis crumpled to the ground, brains leaking from perforated foreheads. Gutermouth was standing, smoking Luger leveled, snot running over his chin and staining his silver shirt.

“No surrender,” he spat. Compressed air popped, and Quint's vicious claw was suddenly clamped into his gun hand's knobby wrist.

“Get over here!” Quint roared, then yanked hard on the steel cable that ran from his metal arm to the claw. A winch within his forearm whirred and Gutermuth was jerked from his feet and dragged across the bloody ground. It was only animal instinct and zealous willpower that kept the Luger in his grip.

Quint hauled the former klansman to his feet with a brutal tug, hard enough to dislocate bones and shear tendons.

“Surrender now?” he asked, loud enough for Gutermuth's sniveling men to hear.

“Never!” the Nazi shouted. Despite Quint's inhuman grip, Gutermuth twisted as hard as he could, ripping his own flesh on the claw's unyielding steel teeth. He managed to squeeze off one shot, drilling a nine-millimeter parabellum round into Quint's good shoulder.

Quint Castaño roared, and before Mick could object, the metal claw closed the rest of the way with a hydraulic hiss and a sickening snap, separating Gutermuth's hand and wrist in a spray of crimson. Thick blood splattered Quint's face, soaking him from scalp to chest as he let the screaming Nazi fall to the ground. The shorn hand came to rest a yard away.

“God damn traitor!” Quint roared. His shuddering metal arm burst into into its insectine array of weaponry and activated every mechanism it had to offer. Miniature harpoons lanced into Gutermuth's back and exploded inside, Japanese chain-whips sliced into him like cheese-wire, flares buried themselves in his fat and sputtered, bullets and buckshot ripped through and shredded away whatever was left.

“I lost one arm to protect you animals already,” he snarled. He threw a boot at what remained of Gutermuth's ribs, but there were few left to break. The Nazi had been hollowed like a Christmas goose.

The remaining Legionnaires that could, stood, arms as high as they could go, fingers spread wide, hands shaking, gassed lungs heaving, mucous streaming.

“Mission accomplished,” Quint said, loud enough for the observers to hear. Blood ran down his sleeve and dripped to the ground. John Calderone clomped to his feet, struggling with his freshly scarred Landstrider armor. Agnarsson had emerged from cover and was administering to Bolton, still dazed from the bulb explosion: his scalp was scorched and his welder's goggles shattered. He'd come closer than anyone cared to calculate to losing both his eyes to the Nazi's lucky shot. Gimball and Tanner were nowhere to be seen.

“What the hell was all that?” Reed demanded. Below them, corpses were laid out in droves. Shattered bodies roasted by Blue Bulb's I-A bolts had splattered over frozen human shards and grenade-scattered scraps, while flies were already buzzing around the torn-out bowels of Tanner's victim. Four Legionnaires were still alive, unconscious, their skulls, jaws, or ribs broken by the Landstrider’s rubber bullets.

“That was me giving these vultures a look at what they had bought and paid for,” Mickey muttered, pointing at the heaving and shaken politicians and lobbyists with his thumb. Down below, Quint wiped Gutermuth's blood from his claw onto the dead man's pants. “People eager to start fights should have to see what it is they push so hard for.”

Mick found a lone cigarette in his pocket and lit it, drawing in the cheap smoke. It was harsh and greasy and left the taste of bitter bark in the back of his throat. He took two more long drags on it as the he watched the shot-callers of Congress loosen their ties and sip on water with thousand-yard stares.

The Garrisonian was crying.

Mick flicked his cigarette and watched it gutter out in a puddle of previously-enjoyed whiskey sours, then stood, his arms wide and welcoming.

“Gentlemen,” he said. The haunted men looked at him with empty eyes, searching for an explanation. “These are your Heartland Heroes. Coming soon to Main Street in your home town.”

FRIDAY MORNING, AUGUST 20, 1943
THE MAIN STABLES, BRAMBLEWOOD
DAVIE, FLORIDA

“And you’re sure it was Michael Malloy, Mister Haldeman?” Lyla Lohmann asked, not even bothering to look up as she brushed Caspian down. The circle of seven panhandlers behind her could only speak to her back and the short gray riding braid hanging down her spine.

“Of course I’m sure,” Jimmy Haldeman snapped. Lohmann felt Caspian stiffen at his tone, but she calmed him with a slight touch and a smile. Haldeman continued his squawking: “That gorilla put six stitches in my head not a month ago and now he’s running some death squad for Roosevelt? I’d know his ugly mug anywhere.”

“I bet you would,” Lohmann purred. The Garrisonian emissaries meandering outside the horse stall looked at one another. The grinning man in the black suit spoke next:

“Does that confirm it for you, Missus Lohmann?”

Schmidt’s manic smile split his face like a crack across a dropped melon. Of all the agents the Garrisonians had sent asking for donations, he would have been the oddest were it not for the company he had brought with him. The weedy man behind him shrunk away in the his shadow.

“Of course I trust Mister Haldeman’s word, Mister Schmidt,” she said. She moved on to brushing Caspian haunch. “Do you understand my interest in Mister Malloy?”

“I do,” a mustached tough in back answered. Arthur Kerper looked like he’d been put through the ringer a time or two. His ill-fitting and overpriced suit told her that he was new money, still seeing how it felt to spend it, and to lose it. His security agency, Pinkerton Review Services, had only just found its footing. He himself was still adjusting to working as an executive rather than as a leg breaker. She could hear him adjusting the rumples in his suit before he spoke again. “I heard what happened with your kid.”

“Your as good an investigator as your bill suggests, Mister Kerper,” Lohmann replied. “So you know Mister Malloy was responsible for that. My son might still be breathing, but the day he met Michael Malloy, his life ended.”

“He did the same to me,” Abe Allison said, all done up in his little policeman uniform, leaning against a post. “Before Mister Schmidt took me in, a lifetime, a name, and a face ago, I was a mess thanks to Malloy and his pals. The bastard left me pumped full of snake poison, treading water off Key West.”

“He did this,” a hulking shadow added, his voice roiling with a thick Scandinavian accent. Hakor Klingenträger’s attention had been on a storm-gray mare, but he turned just enough to show off the freezer-burned scar on the right side of his face. He wore absurd, fur-lined armor and was absolutely scrawled over with blue runic tattoos, with dragons fighting crows and dogs all over every inch of him.

Beneath all of Klingenträger’s costumery and dramatic flair, Lohmann found him handsome. His braided blond hair and beard was intriguing, and the scar, though by no means small, made him even more rugged. And he was enormous: she could practically sit in one of his calloused palms. His muscles were layered on his towering frame like a Greek statue and his pale, ethereal skin was was cold and exhilarating to the touch. He was a titan, a Viking who had braved the worst and come through it stronger.

His patrons must have known her preferences.

Klingenträger had arrived the evening before the rest of the strange assembly with the compliments of Clyde Lehrer. If the Garrisonians thought her purse strings could be opened by a night of manipulative lovemaking with a chiseled Norseman, they were mistaken. But it did not hurt.

“Don’t forget this,” Haldeman butted in, tapping the puckered pink scar atop his bare scalp.

“Scars?” a young man sulking by the stable door spat. He flicked his cigarette onto the floor and stalked over. “My father’s dead. They killed him. He was a patriot and those God damn freaks killed him.”

He tried to stand tall with what he imagined to be swagger but the four bourbons he’d had before the meeting were sapping his balance. He stared and swayed, daring someone to say something.

“Mister…” Lohmann offered. She pat her horse on its rump and turned, making eye contact anyone for the first time. Her dark eyes locked onto the fidgeting young man. His bravado melted like candle wax.

“Gutermuth. Frank Gutermuth,” he snarled.

“Mister Gutermuth, if you curse one more time in my presence I will have Mister Klingenträger drag you out of here by your nose,” Lohmann said.

Gutermuth tried to puff himself up but the scarred Scandinavian stepped forward at the mention of his name. He stood a full head taller than the young man. The Viking snarled, rolling his neck and cracking his knuckles.

Goosebumps rose on Lohmann’s skin as Gutermuth shrank back.

“Do you understand?” Lohmann hissed at him, doing everything she could not to match Klingenträger’s growl.

“Yes, ma’am,” Gutermuth muttered.

“Now kindly put that cigarette out before you burn this barn down around our ears,” she added. Gutermuth hurried off and ground out his still-glowing ember. Lohmann let a motherly smile turn up the corner of her mouth. “Thank you, Frank.”

“You’re welcome, ma’am,” Gutermuth replied.

One of the assembled men chuckled only to be silenced by a glare from Lohmann. She softed after a second.

“Frank,” she said, “Tell me about your father. What was his name?”

“Wilbur Gutermuth, ma’am. The Knight of Eagles.”

No one dared chuckle again.

“What happened?” she asked him.

“They tricked him,” Gutermuth answered. “All he wanted to do was preserve the America he loves and they tricked him. They lured him into a trap to kill him.”

“Who did?”

“The Office, Malloy,” Gutermuth told her. “He threw him to those ‘Heroes’ and told them to rip him to pieces as a show.”

“I am so sorry for your loss, Frank,” Lohmann said. She opened the stall door, closed it gently, then stepped up and took Gutermuth’s hands in her own. She loomed over him despite him having six inches on her. “I understand how you’re feeling. The same man has taken a terrible toll on my own life. When he did this to me, I reacted poorly. I should have hurt him worse, but I listened to others, not my own heart.”

After Mickey Malloy had paralyzed Lyle, she had taken his badge, his name, and burned his house down for good measure. She should have taken his legs.

“Yes, ma’am,” Gutermuth said. She continued:

“These men here, they have ideas on what we should do about all this. But you’re the one who has lost so much. What do you want to do?”

“I want to kill him, ma’am,” Gutermuth replied. His tears threatened to take the plunge but he somehow held them in. “He killed my dad. He butchered him. I want to cut him apart.”

The boy was speaking the words that had been echoing for so long in her own heart.

“If you ask me to, I can help you,” Lohmann replied.

“Ma’am?”

“I have more money than I could spend in hundred lifetimes. My son has every comfort I can give him. If there is something I can do to keep Michael Malloy or the miscreants who have taken him in from hurting one more person’s son, I will do it.”

“That is where I come in, Missus Lohmann,” Schmidt interjected, his frozen smile unwavering.

“And what do you propose, Mister Schmidt?” Lohmann asked. “I will not be linked to hired thugs.”

“All we need is a simple donation to the Garrisonian Party’s discretionary fund, ma’am,” he answered. All she wanted to do was wipe that smile off his face.

“Yes, ma’am,” Haldeman interjected. “The Office is trying to make these ‘Heroes’ into a symbol, a movement. We can do that ourselves, the Party I mean. We want to show Americans what true defense and patriotism looks like.”

“I read about what happened to the men Michael Malloy had killed,” Lohmann said carefully. “Those ‘Heroes’ are monsters.”

“We kill monsters,” Klingenträger grunted. He himself had appeared as one the night before, with his fur-coated helmet and golden ax. Beneath the armor, he was an Adonis, patient when necessary, powerful when requested. She had made him put the helmet back on at one point. Nude, save for the helm’s goat face and curling horns, he had looked absolutely diabolic. Her skin prickled at the memory.

But even he could not survive the things those animals could do.

“There are five of them,” she replied. “And a lion.”

“They are just parlor tricks,” the man lurking in Schmidt’s shadow muttered.

“Speak up, sir,” Lohmann admonished. She would not be mumbled to on her own property.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, straightening as if the memory of every dress-down he’d ever received had come rushing back at once. He was middle-aged, with a pencil mustache and small glasses. He took off his hat and smoothed his thinning hair down. She had seen him somewhere before.

“You are?” she demanded.

“Doctor Nedrick Garver,” he answered slowly, as if the sound of his own name was unfamiliar.

“The defector,” she realized. Garver had been featured in every issue of the Bastion Americana Freedom Journal since its second. He was the one who’d let the world in on the Office’s little secret. He’d exposed the biggest and most insidious conspiracy in American history.

“He’s a real hero,” Haldeman jabbered. “Not like those nuts.”

Garver put his hand out and she took it. He was thin and soft, not the hardened, selfless, fugitive whistle-blower the Journal made him out to be.

“Lyla Lohmann. So you say they’re tricks,” Lohmann said. “Explain your statement.”

“Because the ‘Heroes’ are snails: soft inside a shell,” Garver replied. “Marketing and sensationalism make them seem unstoppable. But it is science that crafted their shells, and science is not owned by any one entity. By its nature, it is replicable.”

“And you happen to be a scientist,” Lohmann replied.

“A particle physicist,” he answered. He cleared his throat, adding “It means - !”

“I know what it means,” Lohmann interrupted. “And I understand your meaning. The Office does not have a monopoly on science.”

“Once it is out there, you cannot force it back away,” Garver chirped.

“We have the means to make our own Heroes,” Schmidt told her. “Doctor Garver’s advances are hardly the only ones our Party has at its disposal.”

“Simply because you can does not mean you are able. The means are not all you need,” Lohmann said.

“Look at these men,” Schmidt replied. He held out a hand, presenting the scarred, broken, orphaned, and ruined men standing before her. “It is one thing to have the weapons. What we also have is the will. The ‘Heroes’ are mercenaries. We will be crusaders.”

Frank Gutermuth stood straighter then, and Ned Garver puffed out his chest. Abe Allison crossed his arms, showing off his badge. Art Kerper, Jimmy Haldeman, and Schmidt shared a glance. The ample muscles in Hakor Klingenträger’s massive arms tightened and shifted.

“The Heroes are willing to kill,” Lohmann said.

“That’s the difference,” Gutermuth replied. “They kill because they’re paid to. I’ll fight ‘cause there’s something worth dying for.”

Lohmann smirked. These men thought they were one cheque away from facing down ravenous lions and flensing lightning bolts. Her throat went dry.

She knew she was looking at dead men. They were already ghosts, eager to escape the flesh.

She’d felt the same way the first time her son had looked up at her from his gurney. Michael Malloy had hollowed Lyle. He had hollowed the men before him, too. There had to be more, countless more, and Roosevelt and his Office were giving him the license to keep doing it.

She could stop him.

“You’ll have my support,” she replied. “People deserve better than this farce. They deserve real safety.”

“True defense,” Haldeman agreed. Schmidt nodded, his grin lupine.

“On one condition,” she added. Schmidt’s smile never budged, but his eyes went hard.

“Of course, ma’am,” he said.

“You,” Lohmann said, pointing at Gutermuth, “If you all catch Michael Malloy, you him tear him to pieces. Then you mail some of them to me.”

Gutermuth smirked.

“I’ll need a little help to go toe-to-toe with those freaks, but that’s a deal I’m happy to make,” he replied.

“What say you, Doc?” Haldeman asked, smacking Garver of the back. “Got anything that’ll give Frank an edge against those loons?”

“With the right funding, I can make miracles,” Garver replied, annoyed. He pushed his glasses back up his nose and added: “I craft the stuff of mythology.”

“The Office created mascots, Missus Lohmann,” Schmidt said. “With your help, we will break those corporate shills and then drive foreign influence out of our nation and people will cheer. We will create a new spirit for this country. Children will read our comics, listen to our radio shows, and pretend to be us on the playground. They have characters, we’re making a modern Round Table. Have you ever built a legend before, Missus Lohmann?”

“I cannot say that I have, Mister Schmidt,” she replied. “And these are your ascendents?”

His men looked at one another, but her eyes settled on Gutermuth. Schmidt followed her gaze and spoke directly to him:

“What say you, young man? There is the difference: vengeance is easy enough, but you’re called to be something more. You have the chance to continue your father’s works, to see his dream fulfilled. You have the chance to make this nation powerful once more. What say you to becoming an icon, Frank?”

Gutermuth swelled at the thought. Power, freedom, adoration. His father would have been so proud of him to continue his crusade. Garver, Klingenträger, Allison, Haldeman, and Kerper all clapped Gutermuth on his shoulders. He beamed.

They all knew his answer.

Lyla Lohmann saw something in him, in them all: purpose. She felt her own atrophied purpose in her chest. It was still there, still waiting, still impatient, clawing at the inside of her ribcage. She had tried to smother it, because she once thought that mercy was virtue.

Life had taught her better.

Mercy was only necessary when something was already lost. What she was buying was insurance, for her and for everyone else. Michael Malloy would never take a son from anyone ever again.

“Name a number,” she said.

Mister Schmidt beamed, his grin far wider than even Gutermuth’s.

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Copyright © 2025 Daniel Baldwin. All rights reserved.

Written and edited by Daniel Baldwin. Art by Tyrelle Smith.