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  * * *

  Seth had seen from the look in Tony’s eyes that he knew something was wrong, and because Tony was Tony, Seth knew he was going to follow through with the awful things he had promised to do. All for a hundred goddamn bucks. As he pressed his hands into his face, he willed himself not to cry. Crying wouldn’t accomplish anything.

  He heard footsteps approaching from behind, but he didn’t think anything of them until they stopped. He lifted his face from his hands and looked up to see a lady with a ponytail smiling down at him.

  “Hi, Seth,” she said as she squatted to take a seat next to him on the curb. “Are you okay?”

  Seth didn’t like her. He didn’t know why, but something about her didn’t seem right. It was time for him to go. He stood without answering, and as he did, he saw the guy from the mirror walking toward him, too.

  “Please don’t run,” the lady said. Seth turned back to her and saw that she was holding up a gold badge.

  “FBI,” she said.

  Seth whirled again, and now the mirror guy was holding a badge.

  The lady said, “Please take a seat. I promise that you’re not in trouble. Yet.”

  Mirror guy was only a few yards away now. “This is my colleague, Agent Bonner,” the lady explained. “I’m Agent Culp. We need to talk to you.”

  Seth’s ears grew hot, and he imagined his eyes were turning red. As Agent Bonner drew near, he put a hand on Seth’s shoulder and gently pressed down, trying to get him to sit again.

  Seth spun away and jammed his hand wrist-deep into his pants pocket to grab the fistful of bills, and he thrust it toward the FBI guy. “Here,” he said. “I don’t want it anymore.”

  Agent Bonner smiled. “We don’t want your money,” he said. “We just want to talk. Please have a seat.”

  Seth had never been so scared—not even when he was approaching Tony’s truck. His heart hammered in his ears, and his breakfast was again threatening to come back.

  “Please,” said Agent Culp, tapping the spot next to her on the curb. “We’ve got a few questions, is all. Ten minutes, tops. Then you can go.”

  “Am I under arrest?” Seth asked.

  “No.”

  “Can I leave?”

  “If you do, we’ll have to arrest you,” Agent Bonner said.

  Seth knew he’d been beaten. He had no choice. Not anymore. He lowered himself to the curb, and Bonner sat down next to him. Seth was trapped now, with the others so close that if he tried to run they’d just grab him and pull him back.

  “Let’s start with what just happened,” Agent Culp said.

  “How did you know my name?” Seth asked.

  Agent Culp gave a kind smile. “We’re the FBI. Knowing things is what we do.”

  Seth knew that she was trying to be nice, but he wasn’t having any of it. “It was just a phone,” Seth said. He heard his voice crack with emotion, and that pissed him off. “What’s wrong with answering the phone?”

  “How did you get the phone?” Agent Bonner asked.

  “He gave it to me.”

  “Who?”

  “Tony.”

  “Who’s Tony?”

  “That guy in the truck.”

  Culp asked, “How did you come to know Tony?”

  “He paid me a hundred dollars to sit in Carol’s and answer the phone if it rang.”

  “Didn’t that seem odd to you?” Agent Bonner asked.

  “It was a hundred dollars!” Seth exclaimed. “Of course, it seemed odd. But the money was real, and who can’t use a hundred bucks?”

  “How did he find you?” Bonner asked. “Or, maybe how did you find each other?”

  Seth explained, “I was on my way to school this morning, and he just drove up to me. Gave me the phone and a hundred bucks and told me to wait in the diner for a call. I’m not the only one he’s asked. There’ve been rumors in school about the guy, but I never believed them.”

  Culp asked, “What were you supposed to do when you answered the phone?”

  “Just listen and remember what I was told.”

  The agents looked at each other. They seemed to think he’d just said something important, but he had no idea what that might have been.

  “How would that work?” Bonner asked. “I mean, if it rang and they told you XYZ, how would you get that information back to Tony?”

  “I’d just walk it to him in his truck.”

  “And then what?”

  Seth answered with a shrug.

  “So, what did you tell him today?”

  Seth felt his heart skip even faster. “Nothing,” he said. Then he had another thought. “Is Tony the guy you’re really looking for?”

  “Yes,” Culp said.

  “What did he do?”

  Bonner took this one. “That’s none of your concern,” he said.

  Another piece fell into place for Seth. “Wait. Why haven’t you asked me what they said to me on the phone?”

  Another look between the two agents.

  “That was you, wasn’t it?” Seth guessed.

  Agent Bonner took a big, deep breath. “It wasn’t us, exactly, but it was part of our team. We knew that someone in there would have that phone, but we didn’t know who it would be. We for sure didn’t expect it to be you. A kid.”

  “Why do you need the phone?”

  “Why didn’t you tell Tony about the message you received?” Culp asked.

  Seth looked down at the curb, at the space between his knees. “I guess I was scared,” he said. “If he’s doing something that would bring the FBI down on him, I didn’t want him to know that I knew. I just wanted to be done with everything.”

  “So, you told him what?” Bonner pressed. “I mean, we saw you talking to him. What was that about?”

  “I told him that the phone never rang. I’m not sure he believed me.” Seth was surprised by how good it felt to come clean with all of this. “He promised to hurt me and my family if I ever told anybody about what I did.”

  Agent Culp tapped his knee. “Don’t worry about that,” she said. “You did the right thing,” she said. “Now, go on to school.” She stood, and so did Agent Bonner.

  “One more thing,” Bonner said. “If you had told Tony the truth, he probably would have killed you. From his perspective, he’d have no choice.”

  The words and the tone in which they were delivered were terrifying. Seth took a step back. “Seriously?”

  “Seriously,” Bonner said. “Keep that in mind next time somebody gives you a stupid amount of money to do something that doesn’t seem right.”

  * * *

  Jonathan wondered sometimes how children in general, but boys in particular, could be so stupid in adolescence yet still live long enough to become adults. Seth walked back down John Wayne toward the courthouse, but after maybe a dozen steps, he turned to address them.

  “I have a question,” he said.

  “Go ahead,” Jonathan replied.

  “Does my mother have to know anything about this?”

  Jonathan suppressed a smirk. “As long as you don’t tell her, she doesn’t have to know a thing.”

  That seemed to make him happy. He turned again and continued on his way.

  “What do you make of all that?” Gail asked.

  “Two things,” Jonathan said. “One, that there are still active plans in the works, and two, that we need to get the car and join Boxers’ car chase.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Earlham Road, like most roads in this part of the world, might have been laid out with a straight edge. Iowa was the land of the right-angle turn. Boxers had followed Tony—as if that were his real name—out to a modest farm about a mile and a half up Earlham Road from 210th Street, just a few miles from Winterset. Tilled and harvested land stretched endlessly in every direction, but gently rolling hills and thick, meandering lines of trees and undergrowth marked the pathway of streams and rivers.

  Per Boxers’ instructions, Jonathan drove the rental Ford
Taurus about a quarter of a mile past the target house to a spot along the road that was fairly shielded by trees. When he and Gail arrived, they found Boxers at the rear of his vehicle, under the lift gate, studying the screen of his laptop.

  “So, what do we know?” Jonathan asked as he approached. As he got closer, he saw that Boxers was watching an aerial view of a farmhouse.

  “I launched Roxie while you were on your way,” Boxers said, referring to the UAV—unmanned aerial vehicle, or drone—that had recently become an important part of their kit. Small and quiet, Roxie captured high-definition live photos and videos and, with Boxers at the controls, was capable of going just about anywhere they wanted to take her. The man literally could fly anything.

  Boxers rotated his big frame out of the way to make room for the others. “Take a look.”

  The house in the video was an unremarkable two-story frame structure with porches in the front and the back. The white dually pickup sat in the driveway next to a blue Toyota Prius.

  “Two vehicles,” Gail observed.

  “That means two people are home,” Jonathan said.

  Boxers pointed to the lower right corner of the screen. “There’s more than that,” he said. “A bicycle and a tricycle.”

  Jonathan checked his watch. “The kids should be at school,” he said.

  “Unless the one with the trike is too young,” Boxers said.

  Jonathan forced a wry chuckle. “That would be consistent with our luck so far. Have you dialed Mother Hen into this?”

  “Yeah,” Big Guy replied. “About ten minutes ago. She’s researching the property and its owners.”

  “Did you actually see the driver pull in?” Gail asked.

  “I saw him make the turn into the driveway. It’s a long driveway, too. I was a couple hundred yards back, so when I crossed the apron, he was out of sight. That’s one of the reasons why I wanted to get Roxie up in the air. Since I’ve been watching, no one has come in or out.”

  “Can you bring us in closer?” Jonathan asked.

  Boxers worked the controls on his remote, and the image zoomed in to the twenty-foot range. From here, they could see details of window coverings and the dust that had accumulated on the sills.

  “Give me a three-sixty tour,” Jonathan said.

  Boxers worked his magic, and the image moved in a large circle, revealing the locations of all the doors and windows and the fact that the building was an old one, from the 1940s at the latest. And not much had been done in the way of improvements.

  “Doesn’t look like entry will be difficult,” Boxers said.

  “The place looks like it would burn easily,” Gail said.

  Jonathan agreed. “And hot.”

  Jonathan’s ear bud popped. “Scorpion, Mother Hen. Are you on the channel?”

  He reached behind his left hip to press the transmit button on the radio on his belt. “Right here, Mother Hen. What have you got for us?”

  “Are you still monitoring Big Guy’s computer?” she asked.

  “Affirm.”

  “Have him open up his encrypted chat window.”

  “I’m right here,” Boxers said. He worked the keyboard and opened a second window. “Got it,” he said.

  The screen showed a happy family of four, mom, dad and two girls, smiling at the camera. “Any of these faces look familiar to you?” Venice asked.

  The mom might have been American Indian, and she’d passed her dark hair and high cheekbones on to the girls. Dad could have been Swedish, blond on white with a thick neck and wary eyes. “The guy in the picture is the one who gave the kid the phone.”

  “Well, meet the Talley family,” Venice said. “Angela and Eric, with daughters Maria and Angelina. He’s former Army, a Green Beret, and she is a nurse at Madison County General Hospital. Specializes in pediatric emergencies. Their credit is terrible—low five hundreds—and they’ve got at least two mortgages on their farm. Neither of them has an arrest record, not even a traffic ticket.”

  “Not exactly the profile of a killer, is it?” Jonathan wondered aloud.

  “Did we just stumble onto the motivation?” Gail asked. “He needs the money?”

  “Half a million would do it,” Boxers said.

  Over the radio, Venice said, “Are you still there?”

  Jonathan keyed his mic. “Sorry, Mother Hen, he said. “We were just thinking aloud. Mostly about motivation. But this is definitely the guy we saw.”

  Venice said, “I don’t know what this means in the larger picture, but the record says he was dishonorably discharged. I have TickTock2 looking into the details. His record is sealed.”

  Boxers scowled at Jonathan. “Who?”

  “The horny kid from the NSA,” Jonathan reminded.

  Gail slugged his arm. “Be nice.”

  “Are you making fun of our new team member?” Venice asked.

  Jonathan keyed the mic. “Who, us? Hey, thanks for the intel, Mother. We’ll let you know the plan when we have one.” He looked to the others. “I think we have to go in.”

  “You mean break things and shoot stuff?” Boxers said with a grin. “I’m good with that.”

  Jonathan turned to Gail, on whom he depended for less lethal, more rational approaches.

  “I think you’re right,” she said. “There’s some kind of organized plan in the works, and this guy knows more about it than anyone else we’re aware of. We need to take him out of the equation and learn what he can tell us.”

  “How do you want to do it?” Boxers asked.

  “Fast and loud,” Jonathan said. “We know he’s got firearms and explosives, and we know he’s not shy about using them. If we can get him before he has a chance to draw down, that’s our best chance for not having to shoot him.”

  “Yeah, I’d hate to kill a terrorist,” Boxers said.

  “We need to know what he knows,” Gail said.

  “What makes you think he’ll be willing to share anything?” Boxers asked.

  “So far, we’re one for one,” Jonathan said.

  “Well, if he points a gun at me, he’s going to die,” Boxers said.

  “I worry about the wife and the kids,” Gail said.

  “Background is really important on this one. That’s old construction, and we don’t know what’s behind any of the walls.”

  Jonathan shifted gears to a more tactical view. “When we hit them, I want everybody in full armor, plates in their carriers. We’ll combine into the Suburban. Box, you come in the back, Gail and I will come in through the front. No flashbangs. We don’t know where he’s storing his explosives, and we don’t need a secondary detonation.”

  “We think that the wife is there,” Gail said. “At least the wife. What do we do with her?”

  “We don’t know if she’s part of the conspiracy or not,” Jonathan said. “We handle her just like we handle him. If she poses a threat, respond to the threat.”

  “And if there’s no threat from her?” Gail pressed.

  “We zip-cuff her and leave her be,” Jonathan answered. “When we’re done, we’ll contact Wolverine, and she can contact the locals to come in and clean up the mess.”

  “Shouldn’t we be talking to Wolverine now?” Gail asked. “I mean, we know that he’s one of the bad guys. We’re going to screw up the evidence chain. There’ll be practically no chance to get a conviction when they prosecute.”

  Boxers coughed out a bitter laugh. “There won’t be any prosecutions for these assholes. They get nabbed, squeezed for information, and then given a dirt nap.”

  Jonathan thought Boxers was overstating the fate of Eric Talley, but not by much. Uncle Sam wanted this terror plot to go away as soon as possible.

  Why the hell aren’t the FBI here?

  That thought coursed through Jonathan’s mind as he was changing from his FBI haberdashery disguise into the tactical kit that he preferred. The thought startled him. Was it possible that the FBI was silently working against them while pretending to push them
forward?

  That would explain the attack on the prison house. And it would explain why the federal government, with all the resources that were available to them, didn’t think of performing the same phone trick in the diner that Security Solutions had devised on its own.

  Jonathan pulled one of the duffels closer, unzipped it, and lifted out the gun belt that would soon hold his Colt 1911 .45 on his right thigh and his H&K MP7 on his left. He’d done this so many times that his hands worked on their own. He racked a round into his M27 carbine, and set the safety.

  As he was reaching for his ballistic vest, he shared his question with the others. “Am I missing something?”

  “It’s about warrants,” Gail said without dropping a beat. “Everything we’ve done these last few days is against the law. If a fed tried it, he’d be fired and maybe prosecuted.”

  “So, we are being used,” Boxers said as he pulled his vest over his head.

  Jonathan bounced his shoulders a few times to get his own vest to seat comfortably. “Of course, we’re being used,” he said. “That’s what we do when we’re working for Uncle. Doing the shit that they can’t do on their own.”

  * * *

  “Everybody go to VOX,” Jonathan said, flipping the switch on his radio. “Mother Hen, we’re ready to roll.”

  “I copy,” Venice replied.

  Boxers said, “Mother Hen, I’m sending you the video feed from Roxie. Are you getting it?”

  “Stand by.” After a few seconds, Venice came back with, “I’m very proud of you, Big Guy. Maybe someday you can teach your boss how to use a computer.”

  “That’s why I have staff,” Jonathan said.

  Boxers explained, “I’ve set her to hover over the farmhouse. If she runs out of juice, she’ll return to the controller.”

  The availability to use UAV technology had revolutionized much of Jonathan’s business. Not that long ago, they needed to tap into satellite feeds to get a bird’s-eye view of a target—and sometimes that was still necessary—but with Roxie, they could go pretty much everywhere and see everything before exposing flesh and blood to danger.

  “Final safety check,” Jonathan said. Boxers had his 7.62-millimeter H&K 417 slung across his chest and an H&K 45 tactical pistol on his thigh. Gail’s preferred loadout was an M27 like Jonathan’s but with a nine-millimeter Glock 19 as her sidearm. All wore Kevlar ballistic helmets and vests, the latter with “FBI” emblazoned on the front and back.