to be tucked away again out of sight, if possible…”
It was as good a description as he’d ever read to explain situations like the one he viewed below him. The unfortunate thing
for the people of Fairmont, of course, was that they would always know, from this day on, that once a collective madness was
exposed, perhaps it could never be tucked out of sight again.
He thought of Johnny Lee Rogers. That was the sort of man who was so talented at exploiting madness, whatever its root.
These days, these days of revolution by media, as in Iran, an exploiter like Johnny Lee Rogers would have no qualms about
using terrorists to bring about the innate madness of “law-abiding” citizens. Slayton was seeing the truth of that assumption
right now as he looped around the perimeters of the grazing riot on the ground, fixing his sights on the natural boundaries
of Fairmont, the landmarks and the traffic patterns. He spotted the mine easily enough. It was the fourth big smoking pile
to the north.
Plainly, Rogers’ supporters had now broken with their bully-boy rhetoric with this wanton sacrifice of human life. Was Rogers
himself directing it? Would he acknowledge the effort, if and when terrorists managed to spring him?
Would this new
Führer
acknowledge his own duplicity in violent tragedy?
After all, it was Hitler’s own squads of
Sturmabteilung
who entered the German parliament via underground tunnels which connected it to the presidential palace, and set the Reichstag
on fire.
On the day after the fire, the aged Hindenburg was prevailed upon to sign a decree “For the Protection of the People and the
State” designed as a “defensive measure against Communist acts of violence endangering the State.”
And now here was Johnny Lee Rogers with his exhortations against the civil rights of those who would not agree with him—Rogers,
like Hitler himself, always staying far beyond the fray. Johnny Lee Rogers, until this murder conspiracy conviction, had never
been known to burn a cross or march in a Nazi uniform or put his name to any document with defamatory descriptions of minorities.
In his time, too, Hitler never once spit at a Jew, kicked a black, or fired on a Communist. Others did all these things in
their names. Others were made to feel that their focus should be on an enemy of Rogers’ choosing—or Hitler’s.
Slayton knew that to get at the root of a problem he would always have to understand the players of the plot. He had to understand
Hitler, since Johnny Lee Rogers, presumably the guest of honor in absentia at this little holocaust in Fairmont, West Virginia,
was a student of Hitler’s. And Slayton would have to understand Hitler’s followers—and Rogers’.
The question in each case, it seemed to Slayton, involved the nature of the followers and the future course of the followers.
At this point, he could focus no more clearly than that.
He shook his head. This tiresome repetition of history, the failure of man to learn from his own abuses, made his brain ache—as
well as his heart. Would we ever come to an end in the trail of the twisted cross?
Slayton cut back on the rotor power and let the helicopter drop gently through the air, almost straight downward over a clearing
not far from the Lovebridge mine entrance.
What would he find down on the ground?
He let the few slim clues float through his mind, applying them against the sifting impressions of history. Once again, during
a national crisis, Ben Slayton knew only, at the outset, to put himself as close to the eye of the hurricane as possible,
and to trust to his deductive reasoning powers.
The helicopter made its final hovering approach. In a swirl of dust, Slayton set down. A few local cops and men he assumed
were from the nearest FBI Field Office in Wheeling, stood in a line just beyond the concentric circles of dust made by the
helicopter blades. Why the FBI at this stage?
Before he was out of the
It was as good a description as he’d ever read to explain situations like the one he viewed below him. The unfortunate thing
for the people of Fairmont, of course, was that they would always know, from this day on, that once a collective madness was
exposed, perhaps it could never be tucked out of sight again.
He thought of Johnny Lee Rogers. That was the sort of man who was so talented at exploiting madness, whatever its root.
These days, these days of revolution by media, as in Iran, an exploiter like Johnny Lee Rogers would have no qualms about
using terrorists to bring about the innate madness of “law-abiding” citizens. Slayton was seeing the truth of that assumption
right now as he looped around the perimeters of the grazing riot on the ground, fixing his sights on the natural boundaries
of Fairmont, the landmarks and the traffic patterns. He spotted the mine easily enough. It was the fourth big smoking pile
to the north.
Plainly, Rogers’ supporters had now broken with their bully-boy rhetoric with this wanton sacrifice of human life. Was Rogers
himself directing it? Would he acknowledge the effort, if and when terrorists managed to spring him?
Would this new
Führer
acknowledge his own duplicity in violent tragedy?
After all, it was Hitler’s own squads of
Sturmabteilung
who entered the German parliament via underground tunnels which connected it to the presidential palace, and set the Reichstag
on fire.
On the day after the fire, the aged Hindenburg was prevailed upon to sign a decree “For the Protection of the People and the
State” designed as a “defensive measure against Communist acts of violence endangering the State.”
And now here was Johnny Lee Rogers with his exhortations against the civil rights of those who would not agree with him—Rogers,
like Hitler himself, always staying far beyond the fray. Johnny Lee Rogers, until this murder conspiracy conviction, had never
been known to burn a cross or march in a Nazi uniform or put his name to any document with defamatory descriptions of minorities.
In his time, too, Hitler never once spit at a Jew, kicked a black, or fired on a Communist. Others did all these things in
their names. Others were made to feel that their focus should be on an enemy of Rogers’ choosing—or Hitler’s.
Slayton knew that to get at the root of a problem he would always have to understand the players of the plot. He had to understand
Hitler, since Johnny Lee Rogers, presumably the guest of honor in absentia at this little holocaust in Fairmont, West Virginia,
was a student of Hitler’s. And Slayton would have to understand Hitler’s followers—and Rogers’.
The question in each case, it seemed to Slayton, involved the nature of the followers and the future course of the followers.
At this point, he could focus no more clearly than that.
He shook his head. This tiresome repetition of history, the failure of man to learn from his own abuses, made his brain ache—as
well as his heart. Would we ever come to an end in the trail of the twisted cross?
Slayton cut back on the rotor power and let the helicopter drop gently through the air, almost straight downward over a clearing
not far from the Lovebridge mine entrance.
What would he find down on the ground?
He let the few slim clues float through his mind, applying them against the sifting impressions of history. Once again, during
a national crisis, Ben Slayton knew only, at the outset, to put himself as close to the eye of the hurricane as possible,
and to trust to his deductive reasoning powers.
The helicopter made its final hovering approach. In a swirl of dust, Slayton set down. A few local cops and men he assumed
were from the nearest FBI Field Office in Wheeling, stood in a line just beyond the concentric circles of dust made by the
helicopter blades. Why the FBI at this stage?
Before he was out of the
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