The Rampage of Ryan O'Hara (3 page)

“He watched as the radical Students for Revolutionary Change, aka the SRC, and Lenin’s Legion gained control of college campuses, indoctrinating students to their Marxist ideals and ultimately escalating their silent insurgency into a violent national insurrection that included bombings, murder, and destruction of property. He gathered intelligence on various Lenin’s Legion members and passed the information along to his FBI handlers. The information included word of their trips to communist Cuba for schooling in terrorist tactics. He also provided information regarding when and where bombing attacks were going to occur.

“When all was said and done, the informant barely escaped with his life after his cover was blown in New York City. Later, he testified before several grand juries and a senate subcommittee. His testimony included your scumbag uncle’s statement that he and your aunt had cooked up the plot that resulted in my grandfather’s death, and that it was your aunt and another
woman who had built the device and planted it under the hood of the police vehicle, which was parked in the lot outside Park Police Station.

“After several grand jury hearings, a federal judge ruled that the informant’s testimony would not be allowed as evidence in court because it was based on hearsay. That is to say, no one who was present with your aunt when she planted the bomb was available to corroborate his story.

“It later came to light that the woman who assisted your aunt in making the bomb and was with her when it was hooked up to the ignition of the radio car became fearful that the authorities were closing in on Lenin’s Legion. In hopes of saving her own skin, she decided to turn on the group. Her name was Linda Longmeir.

“An attorney representing Longmeir had several meetings with representatives of the FBI, the San Francisco Police Department, and the San Francisco district attorney’s office. The parties were attempting to iron out an agreement that would grant Longmeir immunity in exchange for testimony implicating your aunt and uncle—not only in the murder of my grandfather, but also for scores of other bombings and acts of domestic terrorism throughout the country. Before the arrangements could be completed, however, Longmeir turned up dead. Her decomposing body was found hanging from a tree in an isolated grove near an old windmill at the west end of Golden Gate Park several days after her attorney reported her missing. The coroner’s office declared the death a suicide, but a lot of skepticism was expressed about that ruling.

“With Longmeir dead, there was no one to corroborate the informant’s testimony regarding your
aunt rigging the bomb to the ignition of the police car. The mere fact that your uncle Bill told the informant that Brenda had done it was not enough, because the hearsay rule forbids third-party information from being used against a defendant at trial without a corroborative witness who was on the scene when a crime was committed. Longmeir’s death negated any value that your uncle’s statement to the informant may have had in a case against your aunt.

“The case still may have been prosecutable had the lead FBI investigator been more careful in overseeing the collection of wiretap evidence. Whether intentional or through oversight, the collection of the evidence was ruled to have been collected in violation of the guidelines that are spelled out in the law. As a result, all of the information that might have brought a conviction against your aunt and uncle was thrown out. This ended any possibility for proceeding with a meaningful prosecution.

“Your aunt and uncle remained on the lam for several years but finally negotiated a surrender in 1982. Bill made a formal appearance in court and the judge threw out the charges against him. As he left the courtroom, he smiled and replied to a reporter who asked him how he felt about the charges being dropped, ‘The American system of justice is a wonderful thing, isn’t it?’

“Your aunt, who was facing numerous charges for domestic terrorism, made a deal with authorities and agreed to testify against your mother and father for their part in the murder of the two policemen and the bank guard in Berkeley. She later reneged on that agreement and was sentenced to prison for contempt of court. She
was released after serving less than a year. Shortly after her release from federal prison, she and your uncle adopted you, fulfilling the promise they had made to your parents, who had been sentenced to life. They did a good job of cloning you into a dirty, little, traitorous, communist bastard just like them. But by doing so, they inadvertently sentenced you to death.

“We have enough radical, progressive, communist insurrectionists in America, Hugo. We certainly don’t need any more shit bags contaminating our country now, do we?”

Ryan looked into the cowering eyes of the shaking shell that no longer resembled anything that could be described as a man. The pathetic figure in front of him looked more like a small puppy tied to a post—a puppy that has just been kicked in the gut and sits dispirited, with its tail between its legs. Hugo was emitting a soft whimper that only a broken animal could make. Ryan actually began to pity him.

Hugo was weak, but wasn’t that totally understandable? How could it be otherwise, when the two people who had raised him seemed to be the epitome of gender confusion and role reversal? Uncle Bill was feminine, cowardly, soft-spoken, and sneaky. He was totally dominated by his overbearing, tattooed, masculine wife, whose rabid temperament had been notorious among her fellow Lenin’s Legion comrades.

Yes, Hugo deserved pity after all. This poor little communist bastard, born of murderers and raised by Marxists, deserved some consideration. It would come in the form of mercy.

B
ill and Brenda both jumped as a loud bang cracked the silence of their upstairs prison.

The sound had come from downstairs. Bill screamed, “That maniac shot Hugo!”

Brenda began to shake, but if she was expecting any comfort from Bill, she was going to have a long wait. With sweat beading his forehead, Bill cried hysterically as he tried in vain to rip his hands out of the cuffs that attached him to the radiator. He was in a full state of panic.

Ryan entered the room with a bluesteel, four-inch, .41 magnum revolver in his right hand. His finger still caressed the trigger he had pulled moments earlier,
causing a copper-jacketed, hollow-point round to traverse the lands and grooves of the gun’s barrel and enter Hugo’s skull directly between his eyes. He had smiled with satisfaction as he’d observed the brain and cranial matter that decorated the banister post where the bullet had exited the deceased’s head. As he’d watched the blood drip to the floor, he’d thought contentedly, “One little commie bastard down, two to go.”

Satisfied that Hugo was no longer breathing, Ryan had returned to the upstairs bedroom. “You’ll be happy to know that your late nephew, Hugo Delgadillo, has departed the planet and is as we speak rattling on the gates of hell, demanding entrance,” he cheerfully told Bill and Brenda.

Brenda replied in her shrillest voice with a barrage of invectives that would have made the saltiest of sailors blush. “You dirty motherfucking redheaded cocksucker! You shot my baby. Goddamn you! I’ll kill you and your whole fucking family, you bastard!” She stopped her tirade almost as fast as she’d begun it when she realized she wasn’t going to kill anyone cuffed to a radiator at the window overlooking the street. She was totally at the mercy of a madman.

“Now, now, now, my wicked little murderess. Let’s not get our panties all up in a wad and start talking about things that will never happen.” Ryan smiled as he pulled back his overcoat and returned the gun to the crossdraw holster attached to his belt. “If you think you’re smart enough to agitate me into shooting you like I did your precious little Hugo, think again. You’re not going to get off that easy. I’m going to see to it that
you feel a physical pain that supersedes the emotional pain you inflicted on at least one family.”

Then Bill managed to gasp out a series of questions. “What do you want with us? Who are you? What have we ever done to you? I don’t even know who you are. Please…”

“Oh, but I know who you are,” Ryan cut in. “You are Bill Delgadillo and that tramp next to you is your wife, Brenda. You are both tenured college professors. You are considered an expert in early childhood development and education and your bitch teaches law.”

“So what have we done to you? What brings you into our home on your murderous rampage?” Brenda demanded in a voice so cold and calm that Ryan wondered if she possessed multiple personalities.

“Okay, Brenda, that’s a fair question. Although I think your description of my visit to your lovely little nest is a bit harsh,” replied Ryan. “You see, my little terrorist, in life, when people accrue debt, they are required to pay before they can move on. You and Bill have accrued debt, Brenda, lots of debt, and your bills have come due. What I can’t figure out is why the two of you believed you could pile up such a large debt and just walk away from it free and clear.”

Bill had stopped crying and was quietly staring at Ryan. He had concluded that he and Brenda were in the hands of a madman but couldn’t figure out why they had been singled out. He wondered what had motivated this redheaded stranger to invade their home, kill their nephew, and announce that he had the same plan for them.

Brenda scowled. Having repeatedly escaped accountability for the many acts of subversion and mayhem she’d committed during her sixty-eight years, she probably thought she would escape this ordeal as well and displayed more defiance than fear.

“I know that the two of you are both well-respected academics here in the greater Chicago area,” Ryan began. Staring at Bill, he continued, “I know you were born William Carlos Delgadillo. You are the son of the late Tomas Delgadillo, a well-to-do corporate executive, and his wife, Lourdes. You grew up in the suburbs of Chicago with all of the privileges that a spoiled, rich brat—who never had to lift a finger to perform any meaningful task—could hope to have. You went to a private boys’ school and took lessons from a pro at the tennis club in the gated community where you lived. When you graduated from high school, you went on to study at a prestigious northeastern university. When you weren’t studying for a degree in education, you were dabbling in and laying the foundation for the Marxist activities that you would eventually foist upon the rest of the country.

“You joined the Students for Revolutionary Change, became one of its leaders, and remained in that organization after your graduation from the university, even as you began a career as a preschool teacher. Tell me something, Bill. Why would a man want to be a preschool teacher? Isn’t that job more suited for a woman?” Ryan asked, wondering if Bill understood the innuendo.

Bill understood the tone of Ryan’s question, but before he could answer, Ryan shifted his attention to Brenda.

“You, my fair little bombardier, like Bill, were brought up in a comfortable home in the small community of Black Fish Creek, Wisconsin. Your father, Gerard Hornstone, provided you with a life of comfort and privilege but was consumed with his various business interests and was not home most of the time, leaving your mother with the task of seeing to your daily needs. Your mother, Constance, raised you the best she could, providing you with the necessary guidance and discipline but lacking the warmth that an ordinary mother usually shows a child. She was more interested in making sure that her little girl had no imperfections, and you didn’t let her down.

“When you attended Black Fish Creek High School, you displayed all the attributes that your mother hoped you would, excelling at your studies and taking part in multiple extracurricular activities. You earned straight As and became a member of the National Honor Society. You were the president of the modern dance club, played violin in the school orchestra, and a served as student body secretary. When you weren’t occupied with your studies, you were doing community volunteer work at a local rest home. Your parents must have been proud when you accepted a scholarship to one of the many universities that offered you a full ride. You did well, receiving a BA in political science and then later a JD from the university’s esteemed law school.

“Life couldn’t have been more promising for you, but then something went terribly wrong, didn’t it, Brenda? After receiving your law degree, the whole world awaited the contributions that the all-American girl from Black Fish Creek surely had to offer society.
Unfortunately, you chose to work for the Progressive Lawyers Cooperative in New York City. While employed in that organization, you became acquainted with some SRC members who had ties to some of your associates. One of those SRC members was your future husband, Bill. Bill soon became your constant companion and introduced you to his large cadre of leftist friends. They were more than happy to teach you the theories surrounding their Maoist and Marxist ideologies.

“With Bill as your steward, you quickly morphed from wholesome all-American graduate student from Black Fish Creek, Wisconsin, into a radical, hate-spewing demagogue, writing and delivering fiery speeches that advocated support for anything communist, including the Communist North Vietnamese, the Red Chinese, and the Cubans. You traveled the country with your newfound friends, speaking at college campuses and demonstrations.

“You soon became an icon in the radical student movement. Your mission in life became the overthrow of the U.S. government, the destruction of our capitalist system, and its replacement with communism. On more than one occasion, you made statements advocating the execution of all people standing in the way of the revolution that had become the vision of the SRC. You didn’t care who had to be killed. It didn’t matter whether it was cops, innocent men, women, children, or old folks. All you knew was that anyone who impeded the cause that you and your comrades were espousing would have to die, and you made no bones about repeating that idea over and over again in your speeches.”

Ryan shifted his gaze to Bill and reminded him, “It was you who stated that up to twenty-five million Americans might have to die if efforts to reeducate them to the ways of communism failed. Joe Stalin must have been looking up proudly from his place in hell when you made that statement, Bill. Hell, you even picked out locations in the southwestern desert of New Mexico for your reeducation camps and killing grounds.”