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Two days later, we approached Lancaster airport from the north-east, paralleling Highway 222. We skimmed over farm fields scattered in between new subdivisions that popped up as fast as they could build them. Touchdown was uneventful. Simon’s jet had made our trip comfortable and quick.
As promised, Mack and his team were waiting for us inside the airport’s gate. Clearing customs was a breeze for someone with Simon’s money. A signed declaration handed to a customs agent as we left the aircraft was all that was required.
The door of the Escalade closed so heavily that I knew it had to be armored. I turned to Simon. “Does anyone ever board your aircraft or check your cargo? You could have brought a shipment of drugs in, and they would never have known.”
“They do spot checks dependent on the origin of the flight. Today, we lucked out. Tomorrow, we might have to wait to allow the dogs to walk through the cabin.” He elbowed me in the ribs. “Don’t worry, they have not subjected me to a cavity search. Yet.”
The glass separating us from the driver’s compartment came down to reveal Mack in the front passenger’s seat. Without waiting for pleasantries, he got right to business.
“There’s been a development, and we need to decide how to react.”
Simon and I exchanged a look before turning back to Mack.
“What’s happened?” Simon said.
“I think it’ll mean more if I just show you. We’ll be there in a few minutes.”
Without waiting for a reply, the glass divider rose, leaving Simon and me looking at each other with trepidation.
Our convoy continued towards the center of Lancaster, the familiar mixture of old and new architecture reminding me how much time had gone by since I was last home. John Deere farm trackers and glossy, low-riding, Jaguar sports cars shared the busy streets, moving past massive brownstones and turn-of-the-century colonials, with many backing onto a sprawling modern-day mall. The town was a potpourri of time capsules that captured a progression of snapshots of American architecture.
As we turned onto the street that held my apartment, I felt a quiver in my gut that had nothing to do with my cancer. Mack’s indication of a problem accented that feeling the closer we got to my home.
As we came to my street, our car smoothly turned the corner and headed south. Mack lowered the partition, as if to gauge my reaction.
The convoy stopped across the street from the building and Simon whispered, “My God!”
I was on the far side of the vehicle looking past him, and what I was seeing made little sense. Pushing my door open, I carefully stepped out, my weight on my good leg. Using the vehicle’s roof to stabilize me I got my first good look at my home.
The enormity of what I saw made me go cold.
Someone had covered the entire facade of the two-story building with hundreds, maybe thousands, of swastikas. They had replicated the hated image in different sizes and colors, stretching from the base of the building to the underside of the eaves. Even the windows hadn’t been spared.
The door to the passenger’s compartment opened beside me, and Mack stretched his long form out. He said nothing but stood beside me to give me strength. The message centered in among the swastikas pulled my eyes. Painted in black and outlined in red, “DIE JEW LOVER!” and “Donald Wilson, ENEMY of AMERICA!”
“When?” I croaked, my voice failing me.
“Last night. We heard about it on the local news this morning.”
“How... how does he know where I live? And how could he do all this with no one noticing? I mean... there... had to be a bunch of them... ladders... they’d need ladders.”
Mack kept his eyes on me, letting me process it.
I snapped my head at him when one thought clarified. “The other tenants? Are they all right?”
He nodded. “Yes, they’re fine. Shook up, as you might guess; but none of them saw or heard anything. One neighbor down the street took her dog out around 6:00 AM and saw it for the first time. She’s the one who called it in. She told police that there was no light on in any of the units.”
“You’ve spoken to the police then?” Simon asked.
Mack nodded. “Met with them this morning. They reached out fairly quick and have been real forthcoming. Seems Donald here is something like a local celebrity. They’ll be amping up their drive-bys from now on.”
“Well, that’s something, at least.”
My leg was aching, and I had no choice but to return to the back seat. Mack’s strong arms took the bulk of my weight and eased me into the compartment. The relief was instant, although I was shocked by how quickly I had lost the strength in my muscles.
When the other two men got in as well, I asked, “Can you drive me around so I can get inside?”
Mack swiveled in his seat to look back at me with an expression that said I had lost my mind. “You can’t stay here! He obviously knows you live here. You’ll be like a lamb pegged out for a lion.”
I looked at Simon and then back at Special-Ops Mack. “Did you forget our plan, Mack? We want him to come after me. That’s the whole point,” I said, a little more harshly than I wanted to. “I told you I wasn’t running from this son-of-a-bitch, and I meant it. This is my home! And I will fight to the death to defend it. When he comes, it should be easy for you and your men to nail him. It should be like shooting fish in the proverbial barrel.”
“Taking him down is not the problem, Donald,” he said in his calm voice. “Doing it in a way that doesn’t put you or others at risk, is. Protecting you is no different from any of my other clients, except for your mobility issue, which my team and I include in all our plans. And you just mentioned the other issue: the other tenants.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but realized he was right. I hadn’t taken them into consideration. I pictured Helen and David Wong and their children who called me Yéyé, Grandfather. If any harm came to these kind-hearted and happy people, I would be devastated. And Mr. and Mrs. Ziegler, who immigrated to America after the Berlin Wall came crashing down. They’d be as horrified by the markings on the building as I was. Finally, the young couple, Lisa and Charlotte, who had just moved in this past fall. My shoulders slumped; and my anger, which had been rising, deflated as fast as my hope of ending this quickly.
Mack’s eyes softened as he saw that I had calmed down enough to see his point. “I'm not saying we’re going to run and hide, Donald, but we need to plan this out so there’s no collateral damage.” He looked from me to Simon. “Let’s go to the safe house so we can flesh this out so there are no mistakes.”
I don’t recall the trip to the safe house. My mind couldn’t seem to grasp a single thought. Images of Russell and the carnage he had sowed kept flashing through my thoughts. I couldn’t even feel the anger that would normally threaten to overflow the boundaries of normality. Perhaps the numbness was the shock of going from an enjoyable break with my family and friends to being plunged so quickly into this battle of hate and racism.
I only looked up as our armored Escalade turned onto a long straight driveway that ended in a weathered but well-kept farmhouse. A massive barn rose from behind the house, and I could make out several paddocks with white-painted posts and rails. There was movement in those enclosures, and I could see a few horses moving forward to meet their new visitors.
As we neared the farmhouse, a speaker clicked on and Mark’s voice, tinny because of the radio, said, “We might have an issue. There’s a cargo van that’s been behind us and now it’s slowing down near the driveway. When we stop, wait inside the vehicle, until I give the ‘all-clear’.”
Both Simon and I twisted in our seat to peer out the rear window.
A white van stood parked across the entrance to the driveway, the driver staring after us. I couldn’t be sure, but it looked like he was watching us through a pair of binoculars or maybe a camera.
Our convoy of SUVs circled the roundabout of the drive so my side of the vehicle faced the house. A long sloping ramp ran from the pavement to the front porch, and I grunted at Mack’s forethought.
I heard one of the car doors open and turned to see Mack stepping out of the vehicle, his attention fully on the suspect van. He raised his wrist to his mouth, and I knew he was talking to his other teammates. Seconds later, he dropped to the ground as bullets struck the side of our vehicle. A cluster of white divots materialized on the window beside Simon’s head, causing him to duck instinctively. The high impact shells created a ‘thunk, thunk, thunk’ that caused my heart to jump. But the special glass held.
Mack returned fire with his pistol as he maneuvered round the front end of the SUV, but the distance made his shots ineffective. Behind us, the other men of Mack’s team were also returning fire.
Looking at the van, I could see the driver standing with a rifle to his shoulder. Puffs of white smoke burst from the weapon, but the breeze pulled the smoke across the field. The side door of the van slid open, and another figure emerged with a long, tube-like object.
At sight of the weapon, the drive threw his door open and rolled out. “RPG,” he yelled. He yanked open my door and lifted me physically out of my seat and set me to lie prone on the scorching black asphalt.
On the other side of the vehicle, Mack was yanking Simon out and shoving him unceremoniously around the rear of the car.
I grunted as the driver covered me with his own body. I rescued my glasses from the pavement by me, stuck them on my face, and peered at the man at the far end of the drive. I could just see him from under the SUV as he leaned forward, weapon on his shoulder, taking aim. With a whoosh of white exhaust, the weapon fired. Almost at the same moment, a loud report from a rifle washed over the courtyard and a bullet slammed the tube-totting shooter into the van’s open door, the back of his head crumpling as it hit the vehicle’s frame. Dark blood covered his shirt. The RPG launcher fell with the man . . .
. . . just as a massive explosion rocked our vehicle, and it terrified me that it would roll over on us. Chunks of asphalt and gravel pelted us as strong hands lifted me and we scrambled away from the SUV, intact, but still rocking from a blast that had seemed to come from the ground beside it.
I heard Emily give a startled cry of concern and glimpsed her being herded towards the front entrance of the building as she looked back towards me as someone was lifting me off the ground to get me to safety.
Hands grabbed me again, lifting and dragging me unceremoniously towards the building. Another rifle shot echoed across the field towards the van, as screams of the terrified horses added to the chaos. As someone bodily carried me forward, I watched the van lurch forward, side door still open with the dead man’s leg dangling from its maw. With no thought to his comrade, the driver accelerated, weaving through oncoming traffic, a blast of horns in his wake.
It was our driver who had carried me and deposited me safely inside the house. Simon was on his hands and knees beside me panting like a worn-out dog. Mack slapped the driver on the shoulder and they raised a high five.
“On me!” Mack called. Turning towards a table beside the door, he passed an assault rifle to the driver and a harness with extra magazines. Grabbing a rifle and harness for himself, he led the way back out to the vehicle, loading his weapon on the run.
The two men jumped into the SUV, which, remarkably, had been missed by the rocket-propelled grenade that had been fired much too low. As the car leapt forward in a sharp, tire-squealing turn, I saw the crater that the explosive had left, mere feet from where we had just parked.
Like a NASCAR racer, Mack tore down the driveway and slid onto the roadway without slowing down. The last I saw, he was heading east in the van's direction.