“By noon, then,” Mike promised, and walked away, hands shoved into his pockets.
“He seems to be a good guy,” Mac said. “But he doesn’t know sh— anything about daily journalism.”
“Looks like he’s learning,” Janet said, returning to her desk. “Give me a bit to finish up, and then let’s go over the details for your trip.”
Mac was restless. Rather than wait in the newsroom for Janet, he headed toward the photo department. He wasn’t surprised that Angie was there. “Do you ever go home?” he asked, with a half-smile. He leaned against the door frame, and watched her.
“Sure,” she said, smiling at him. “And then I come back in again.”
He laughed. “I’m headed to the coffee shop across the street. Janet will be joining me to talk about the trip. Wanna come along?”
She nodded, finished what she was doing to a photo, and closed things down. She stuck her head into her boss’s office. He looked up at Mac, and came out to talk to him. “I approved this,” he said, “but I have to tell you, I have had second thoughts. I might be on the tenth set of thoughts. You sure you don’t want to take a more experienced photog?”
Mac thought he probably meant a male photog. “Too late,” he said easily. “They approved Angie. Can’t change now.”
The photo editor nodded. “I worry this is dangerous,” he said. “Your stories are.”
Mac grinned. “Can’t argue there,” he said. “But I come home.”
“Will she though?”
“If I come home? She comes home,” Mac said somberly. “My word on it.”
“Holding you to it,” the man said. He met Mac’s eyes. Mac nodded.
The editor looked at Angie. “Go,” he said. “Be careful. Don’t take risks. Let him take the risks. You just take pictures, you hear?”
Angie nodded. She grabbed up all of her stuff. Mac took her backpack from her. “See you Monday, Carl,” she said.
He nodded.
“Let’s take this to my truck before we go drink coffee,” Mac said.
“Sorry about the ‘Dad grilling a boyfriend on the first date’ bit,” she said with an eyeroll.
“I knew I recognized the tone from somewhere,” Mac teased. “It’s fine. I’ll get a similar lecture from Janet. And I’ve already gotten one from a cop I know.”
She laughed and relaxed. “Not from your girlfriend?” she asked as he opened up the back of his 4-Runner and added her backpack.
“We broke up,” he said, not turning around. He locked the back of the SUV. “Last night. It was overdue. I can’t be what she wants, you know? A man in church every Sunday, raising a family to worship a God they say disapproves of my aunt because she’s gay?”
“Well you could be,” Angie said slowly. “But you wouldn’t be you any longer. So, I’m glad you’re not going to try.”
“Yeah,” Mac said, turning around finally. “That’s the scary part. I did try. I almost did it. And that’s been a sobering experience. I better understand why these men are getting sucked into this gun cult. I wouldn’t have understood a year ago. I would have said, ‘I never would buy into something so stupid. They’re weak fools!’”
“And they may be,” Angie said as they crossed the street. “But anyone can be tempted by the desire to belong. These Rambo-wannabes? This makes them feel important, gives them meaning. They belong to something bigger than themselves. And yes, I can see why you think there are similarities to the church.”
“You’re a smart woman, Angie Wilson,” he said, opening the door.
“Glad you recognize it,” she said laughing at him. “Makes up for my boss who thinks I’m a kid barely out of high school.”
He laughed.
Janet was already at the café, drinking her coffee, when they walked in. She was reading something, but she looked up and smiled at them.
The waitstaff approached them, and Mac ordered iced tea, unsweetened, and enjoyed the look of shock. Janet laughed. Angie frowned slightly at the joke she wasn’t privy to, and ordered iced tea as well.
“What was that?” she asked after the waitstaff left.
“Every time we come in here, he orders Mountain Dew,” Janet said. “They keep some just for him, I think. And they’re always disdainful about serving it to him. It’s a ritual now. And he just broke it.”
Angie laughed and relaxed.
“I ordered a sandwich last time,” Mac added. “Messing with their minds might become my favorite thing.”
“Just don’t piss them off, Mac,” Janet warned. “I like their coffee.”
She looked at the two of them. “So, what do you know about the logistics of this? Rodriguez called me. He’s concerned.”
Mac raised an eyebrow. That was unusual.
“We meet at Anderson’s gun shop in Marysville and caravan to Wilderness Adventures,” Mac said. “We then will go on a fairly posh expedition into the mountains. When I pictured all these idiots with guns, the only thing I could think of that would make it worse, was having drunk idiots with guns. Anderson laughed when I mentioned it. Said for the money the men were paying, of course, there would be alcohol. And catered meals as well. So that means there’s support vehicles going in with us.”
Mac paused to drink some of his iced tea. It was good tea, he acknowledged.
“There will be 10 men from their gun club setup. Angie and me, Anderson, and the guy who runs the expedition, Ken Bryson. Maybe some of his crew. And the sheriff, of course. Anderson said he brings along a variety of weapons for the men to try out.”
Janet nodded as she listened. “And you’ll be armed?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I don’t trust anyone’s weapons but my own. And Angie will have one of my small handguns just in case.”
“Good,” Janet said. Angie looked surprised.
Janet laughed. “Mac’s investigative reporting seems to end in gun fire,” she said. “Prepare yourself.”
Angie snickered, but she nodded. “I made him take me to a gun range,” she admitted. “I liked it.”
Janet was silent for a moment. Thinking about last fall, Mac thought.
“He did the same for me,” she said at last. “But don’t get complacent. I still got kidnapped. Because in the end, a lesson at the gun range didn’t outweigh the three men who grabbed me.”
Angie nodded slowly. “Good point.”
Mac looked at her. “When it comes down to it? If it’s flight or fight? You run like a rabbit,” he said. “I’ll find you. But I can’t in good conscience not give you a weapon. If it comes down to it? Shoot it in the air, so I can hear it. Then throw it at them and run.”
Angie grinned at him. “Maybe I should have had you teach me to throw something instead, then.”
Janet laughed. “How certain are you that Norton is going on this trip?”
Mac frowned. “He’s the one that OK’d it with Anderson for me to go,” he said slowly. “Why?”
“Bad feeling, mostly,” she admitted. “But something Rodriguez said. He figures if something bad is coming down, Norton won’t want to be near it. Just like Malloy has the sense to stay home. And you know he’s got to want to be there, if they’ve got something bad planned for you.”
Mac was silent, thinking that over. “You both seem to think this is a set up,” he pointed out. “But the Sensei seems to want to recruit me, not shoot me.” He grinned at the rhyme undeterred by the matching eyerolls from the other two.
“I think that there might be competing agendas,” Janet said. “The reason that the Skinheads never got anywhere is they fought among themselves more often than not. Same with the militias — Hayden Lake, Branch Davidians. If you look at Bundy in Nevada, however, you start to see a movement developing, not just a small clan of white men suspicious of outsiders who like guns. So, what do we have? Branch Davidians or the next Bundy?”
“Or both?” Mac asked.
Janet nodded.
“Sensei is building a movement,” Mac said slowly. “He says he
’s winnowing out the weak to make white men strong and proud again. Anderson and Malloy? They just like making money, I think. But Norton? Especially if he’s mlk4whites on Facebook? He’s Branch Davidian — he’s a doomsday cult.”
Janet looked at Angie. “Mac values your insight into people. You’ve met Norton. What’s your read?”
Angie glanced at Mac, but he couldn’t read her expression.
“He’s a believer, down deep,” she said. “Religion? White supremacy? Constitutional sheriff? Whatever the flavor is, he believes in it. Passionately. And he sees himself as the man on top. If he’s following this Sensei, it bugs him to do it. And eventually he’ll challenge the man.”
“And that’s exactly the dynamic that has brought down these other white supremacy groups in the past,” Janet said. “But Bundy is different. He’s more calculating. His ‘lieutenants’, if you will, are his sons — and that’s a well-established pecking order. He may have failed in his stand-off with BLM last month, but it won’t be the last time we hear from him either.”
“So, what’s your read?” Mac asked. “How much danger are we really in?”
Janet hesitated. “If I thought you were in danger, I’d pull the story,” she said. “If I thought you’d listen,” she amended dryly. Mac grinned.
“I think the danger is that Norton may decide this is the moment to move on Sensei,” she continued thoughtfully. “You may not be the target. Doesn’t mean that you couldn’t get caught in the crossfire.”
“Sensei worries me,” he agreed. “Shorty is pretty sure Norton is mlk4whites on Facebook. And when I get back, I’m getting that foul pseudonym booted off Facebook, no matter what it takes. But Shorty hasn’t spotted who Sensei is, other than to say he’s pretty sure it isn’t Norton or Malloy, and that he knows me.”
“Worries me too,” Janet agreed. “So, go up there, get the story, and don’t get dead. OK?”
“Sounds like a good plan,” Mac said.
The three of them batted questions around for a while, and Mac wrote them down in his notebook. He had a lot of unanswered questions, he thought. He wasn’t sure he had a story though. He said as much to Janet.
She shrugged. “You’ve got a profile about a constitutional sheriff,” she pointed out. “You’ve got a story about wilderness survival training that unites these men, and that two of them have recently gone off the deep end. You got that backgrounder that says this is a growing phenomenon and that matters. That it correlates with domestic violence. And that domestic violence almost always figures in the background of mass shooters and spree killers. So, you may not have the piece that exposes the players behind all of this. You may not get it either. But you’ve got a lot of stories that will help people understand that this is a threat we need to face. White supremacy is going mainstream.”
Mac nodded slowly. He wanted that exposé, he admitted. He didn’t just want to inform and educate. He wanted to take the bad guys down. You’re a reporter, not a vigilante, he reminded himself. But he’d been both last fall and with the Parker story as well. And it was much more satisfying than just an explainer.
“I hear you,” he said.
Janet’s eyes narrowed as she looked at him. He snorted. She knew him too well. He glanced at Angie, who was studying him carefully.
“So?” he asked her, with a half-grin. “Do I have a tell?”
She chewed her lip. “No,” she said. “And that’s scary. Because you just lied. And I couldn’t tell, even though I know you won’t be satisfied unless you expose the bad guys, and they go down for it. Only sociopaths are that good at lying.”
Janet started to laugh, and then couldn’t stop. She looked at Mac, and laughed some more.
“Whatever,” Mac said, resigned. It wasn’t the first time someone had called him a sociopath. Hell, he wasn’t sure they were wrong. The Marine Corps hadn’t been sure either. He’d been sent to a therapist more than once. Inconclusive, the last report had said. But well-adjusted within the confines of military discipline.
He knew what it said because he’d broken into the therapist’s office one night to read it.
“We done?” Mac asked sourly.
“Yes,” Janet said. She looked at her watch. “Take the rest of the day off. Go to the gym. Eat some lunch. Take a nap. You two have got a long, tense weekend ahead.”
Chapter 18
Mac picked Angie up at her apartment two hours later and added her backpack to his duffel in back. He drove to Marysville, listening to her chatter about office politics and newsroom gossip. He learned as much about her as he did about the Examiner. Her gossip was never malicious, but she was extremely curious — nosy, she called it. She connected the dots to make coherent stories about what was going on. And she laughed at the foibles of others, but also at herself.
It made for very good company.
His contributions to the conversation were negligible. Getting to Marysville in rush hour’s stop and go traffic required focus. And he’d never been great at small talk anyway. Angie didn’t seem to mind.
Craig Anderson’s gun shop looked just as grungy as it had the first time he was there. Angie looked at it. “I want some photos,” she said.
“Make him show you inside,” he advised. “Complete contrast.”
She nodded.
It looked like they were the last to arrive, Mac thought as they got out. Anderson saw them and came over.
“Heads up,” he called out. “We’ve got special guests with us this trip, courtesy of Sensei. This is Mac, he’s a reporter with the Examiner. Former Marine. And the news photog, Angie.”
“That’s a girl,” one guy protested.
“I bet she’s aware of that, Dag,” Anderson said dryly. Everyone laughed. Angie grinned at him, and he reluctantly grinned back.
Mac admired how Anderson had gotten everyone past that awkward moment. He looked at the 10 men who were standing around with an amazing amount of stuff. His eyes narrowed, and then he looked at Anderson. “You said you’d provide tents and sleeping bags, right?” he asked.
Anderson nodded. He looked amused.
“And it’s for two nights?” Mac continued, looking at the piles of gear.
Anderson nodded again.
“Then what the hell is all this stuff?”
Anderson laughed. “Let me see what you brought,” he asked.
Mac popped open the back of the truck, and showed him: Angie’s backpack, his duffel, and the gun case for the Remington. Anderson laughed some more.
“They’re new to all this,” he said. “They bring all kinds of things that I didn’t even know existed. It’s no biggie. We’ll carpool up to Sedro-Woolley and then we have vans. You want to take your own rig?”
Mac nodded grimly. He wasn’t going to be dependent on someone else to get out of there if things got weird.
“Good,” Anderson said. He hesitated, and then he added, “We’re going in farther than usual. I guess there’s been complaints about the noise from all the shooting. But, I dunno. Something doesn’t feel right. Watch your back.”
“Always,” Mac said. “Norton going in with us?”
“No, and that’s one of the weird things. He approved you to go, then said something had come up with the sheriff reserves. I don’t like it.”
“Why are you telling me all this?” Mac asked. “Aren’t they your partners?”
Anderson looked at the men with their stuff. “Malloy and I are partners,” he said. “It’s business with us. But Norton and Sensei? They’re true believers if you know what I mean? Fanatics. And fanatics are dangerous. If this goes to shit, I’m hoping you’ve got my back.”
Mac nodded slowly. “I’ve got two goals,” he said. “Get the story, and get Angie and I home safely. If you’re good with that? Then I’ve got your back.”
Anderson nodded and went to help get everyone loaded up.
Angie took pictures, and Mac leaned against his 4-Runner and studied the men. They ranged in age from mid-20s to 50ish.
All were white, no surprise, considering Sensei’s rhetoric. None of them were clearly out of shape, but none of them were as fit as they should be for a wilderness survival trip. Obviously, this was more about a catered, let’s shoot some guns, weekend than survival, he thought. They all seemed to know each other, and they joked and kidded around. He smiled. They seemed like good guys.
He wondered if the two men who went off the deep end in the two last weeks had been good guys too. Until they weren’t.
By 6 p.m. they were on their way to Sedro Woolley where Ken Bryson was waiting for them.
“Not what I expected,” Angie said once they were back in the truck.
“What did you expect?” he asked.
“More like Craig Anderson, or even like you,” she said. “Tough men who can take care of themselves. These guys seem more like a litter of puppies.”
Mac laughed. They did, he conceded.
“Anderson is worried,” he said, and Mac filled her in on what he’d said. “So, stick close to me, and if you can’t? Latch on to him. We’ll get you back out safe.”
“You’re both worried,” she observed.
“Norton’s not going in with us,” he said. “That strike you as strange?”
Her eyebrows raised. “Strikes me as completely unbelievable,” she said. “He’s got something to prove to you, and he’s not sitting home.”
Mac nodded. “He told Anderson that something had come up, and he would be with his deputy reserves. Want to bet they’re going to be up there somewhere?”
“Not taking that bet,” she said troubled. “Are you imagining war games of some kind?”
He grimaced. “Maybe. Sounds paranoid.”
She settled back in her seat. “A bit of paranoia might keep us both alive,” she said.
“Yeah, I’ve lived in too many places where paranoia was a necessary survival skill,” Mac agreed. “I can drop you off in Mount Vernon if you want me to.”
“No way,” she said. “I’m going.”
Ken Bryson turned out to be a meaner, leaner version of Craig Anderson. He was whip-thin, in his 60s. A Vietnam vet. These hills had appealed to a lot of the veterans of that era who hadn’t been welcomed home when they returned to a society turned violently anti-war. Kids, really. Twenty-year-olds who had been turned into killers and then returned to American society with no transition. His own generation of soldiers had been treated differently. His generation had no draft, so men — people — who went had chosen to go. And after 9/11, they were considered heroes. Learning from the Vietnam era, the military now provided transition support. Society admired veterans now, and thanked them for their service constantly. He’d like them to stop, but he had to admit it was better than being spit upon and called baby killer.
Serve & Protect Page 20
