Masked Prey

by John Sandford

  “Anyway,” Lang continued, “an individual investor in Michigan bought a tax deed in Westmoreland County. The sale was held by the sheriff and he signed the papers in the sheriff’s office at the courthouse, stepped out on the front steps, and was killed with a single rifle shot. They never identified the shooter or even where he shot from. The bullet was recovered, a .30-caliber slug, and because of the weight of the slug, the police believe it was probably fired from a .300 Winchester Magnum, which I am told is a favorite sniper rifle.”

  “And people thought the ANM . . .”

  “Then, three or four months later, the president of one of the investing companies was shot at his front door after his company won another Michigan auction. Another long-range sniper action, another .30-caliber. They did find the sniper nest the second time—and there was a note that said something like, ‘Buy a tax deed and die!’ That put at least a temporary chill on tax deed sales. There was a rumor that the ANM was involved in both shootings.”

  “Huh.”

  “Then there was a murder in Ohio,” Lang said. “A man was accused of rape, got three hung juries despite a lot of evidence—DNA evidence—because he’d been a local football star. Girl committed suicide after the last hung jury. A couple of days later, the alleged rapist was killed by a sniper. Once again, a heavy .30-caliber slug. There were more rumors.”

  “But no substantial investigation?”

  “The police didn’t have much to work with. And I don’t think anyone looked at it too closely, the rape thing. For several reasons, like, not many people really cared about the rapist, plus, there was no evidence about who did it and if you did find some evidence . . . the killer might come for you.”

  “Can you put me in touch with the ANM contact man?”

  “Actually, it’s a woman. She may or may not be willing to talk with you. Before I agree to reach out on your behalf, there’d be a condition,” Lang said.

  “That would be?”

  “If she reaches out to you, and you interview her, you consider sharing the substance of the interview with me,” Lang said. “You tell me what you find out about the group.”

  “I’d consider it, but I might not be able to do that,” Lucas said. “This is a federal investigation, not scholarly research.”

  “I’m not asking for a promise, only a consideration.” Lang’s tongue flicked out, wetting his lower lip. “I’ve been curious about the ANM for a while.”

  “Is there any other group? Or contact?” Lucas asked.

  “Actually, there is. I can give you that one right now, Richard Greene of the Greene Mountain Boys. Green with an ‘e’ at the end. There are only a few dozen members in the group, they’re alt-right, and I’ve sometimes thought that Richard is more interested in publicity than in actually doing anything. He’s . . . and I’ll apologize for the language, as you did earlier . . . a bullshitter. But. Because of the publicity, he knows a lot of people. Being media-aware, he collects rumors and tracks everything alt-right. He would be the most likely person to have heard something.”

  “How would I reach him?” Lucas asked.

  “He lives outside Annapolis . . . I have a phone number . . .” Lang reached for an old-style Rolodex.

  * * *

  —

  LUCAS TOOK DOWN a phone number for Greene, but Lang wouldn’t tell him how he planned to reach the ANM contact, other than to say he’d call some people he knew and ask that somebody call him back. The word might or might not get to the right person. If it did, he’d pass along Lucas’s phone number.

  “You can’t count on it, but it’s a possibility,” Lang said. “They have responded to occasional inquiries in the past. I’ve never met the woman myself. I would like to.”

  Gibson returned with an iced lemonade for Lang, and then took a seat in a chair at the side of the room. Lucas sniffed; he didn’t normally have allergies, but the flowers were getting to him and when Lang went past with the lemonade, he thought he smelled alcohol. He asked about alt-right groups with a reputation for criminal activity, especially violence, but Lang shook his head.

  “There’s always some of that. Most of these groups are populated by younger men who feel repressed, ignored, slighted, pushed aside for wealthy or politically connected groups. They’re a political version of a motorcycle gang. In fact, some of them are motorcycle gangs.”

  “Politically connected? Do you mean, like, teachers’ unions? Or Jews?”

  Lang’s smile lost some wattage, but then he blinked and brightened and said, “They would both be considered problems . . . by these people.”

  “But not by you?”

  “I’m not a racist, Marshal, but I am a realist. Jews control the banks and the media; that’s a fact. And how far do you have to look to see the damage being done to this country by the media and the banks?” Lang asked. “The teachers’ unions . . . well, teachers live their privileged socialist lives and they look around, and ask why shouldn’t everyone live their privileged socialist lives? Good salaries, excellent pensions, long vacations. The average workingman in this country works 260 days a year; the average teacher, 170 to 180. What’s not to like about that life? They don’t seem to understand that somebody actually has to provide the money for their lives, for the pensions that are absolutely ruining the states, and bought in return for funding left-wing politicians like Obama . . .”

  Lang went on for a while, his face going bright pink, and in a shaft of sunlight coming through the slats of half-drawn wooden shades, Lucas could see small drops of spit flying across the desk toward his lap. He shifted away, as much as he could without getting up. He’d touched a button and Lang apparently was having trouble reining in the rant.

  He eventually trailed off, having disposed of Jews, teachers, Hispanics, and Arabs—“Maybe nice people as individuals, but they don’t share our culture and they don’t want to have anything to do with it; they want our money and nothing else”—as well as mentally ill street people and “welfare queens,” a phrase Lucas hadn’t heard since the ’90s.

  When he stopped to take a breath, Lucas broke in with, “I have to say I don’t totally agree with you on all of that, but I think I understand your point of view. I guess I’ve lived something of a socialist life myself—except for a couple of years with a software start-up, I’ve worked for governments most of my life.”

  “Then you know what I’m talking about,” Lang snapped, pointing a yellow pencil at Lucas’s chest. He leaned back, took a breath, got a grip, and smiled again. “Anyway, that’s really . . . for another discussion. I will try to help you hook up with the 1919 organization. I do want to speak to them myself, though. They have kept themselves, whoever they are, very carefully secret. I find that intriguing.”

  * * *

  —

  GIBSON, WHO’D SAT QUIETLY through the rant, showed Lucas out of the house. At the door, he said, quietly, “Charles is doing important work. When he’s gone, which I hope won’t be for many, many years, people will look back and wonder why they didn’t listen to him in his prime.”

  “It’s a thought,” Lucas said.

  His phone buzzed in his pocket, and he took it out as he was walking down the walkway to the car. Jane Chase. He poked Accept and asked, “Did something happen?”

  “No, I wanted to find out if you’d come up with anything new,” she said.

  “Jesus, it’s not even noon.”

  “You’re a fast worker.”

  “Let me get in my car,” Lucas said.

  He got in the Cadillac, started it, punched up the air-conditioning, went back to the phone, and said, “I’m at Charles Lang’s place. He’s a fuckin’ Looney Tunes. So’s his assistant. You got anything on a guy named Stephen Gibson? He’s worked for Lang for thirteen years?”

  “I haven’t heard the name, but I’ll look. Is Charlie going to help out?”

  “He�
��s already put out the word for a 1919 contact. I’m not holding my breath on that. He’s going to try to hook me up with a group called the American National Militia, ANM, and the Greene Mountain Boys.”

  “I’ve heard of those. The Greene Mountain Boys are not harmless—they’ve participated in a couple of marches that got ugly. They weren’t the instigators, but they were out there swinging signs. The ANM is something different. We’ve heard about them, tried to get inside, but no luck so far. They’re pretty picky about their membership. They don’t let anyone in that they don’t know about, a lot of times through family connections. Their leader is supposedly called Old John. No last name. We’ve heard that the movie Fight Club is a cult film with them—that’s where they want to go.”

  “Love that movie,” Lucas said. “But I guess you could take it the wrong way.”

  “No kidding. Anyway, if Charlie hooks you up with the ANM, tell me. We’ll want to cover you.”

  “We’ll see,” Lucas said. “I’m not an FBI agent . . .”

  “Lucas . . .”

  “Lang said there are rumors in the alt-left that the ANM has killed some people,” Lucas said. “He has three or four examples, if you could get me what’s available on those killings.”

  He told her about the Erie, Pennsylvania, developer, the two Michigan shootings, and the execution shooting of the alleged rapist in Ohio. Chase said she was familiar with the rapist killing, from news stories, but the FBI hadn’t been involved in the case. She hadn’t heard of the Pennsylvania or Michigan shootings.

  “Why do you think the ANM might be involved with 1919?” Chase asked.

  “Lang suggested it. That they could have created a fake site to hang the blame on the alt-right, while they take advantage of it. They are apparently willing to shoot, if the rumors are true. And they’re at least somewhat media-aware—they have a PR woman. Lang’s going to try to get me in touch with her.”

  “Keep me up on that.”

  “We’ll see,” he said again. “Another thing: I hate to say this, but there’s something not quite right about Audrey Coil and her story about finding 1919. I don’t know what to do about that.”

  “What’s wrong with her story?”

  “I don’t know, but something is. She was lying to me about something, but I can’t think what it might be.”

  “Audrey and I had a little talk away from her mother, and—keep this under your hat—there’s been a little sexting going on there,” Chase said. “With her friend Blake and probably some other boys at the school. But she knows a lot about the workings of the internet and she’s been careful not to let any really identifying . . . stuff . . . get out there. Bare breasts, maybe some below-the-waist stuff, but not anything that you could say, ‘That’s Audrey Coil.’ At least, not unless you’d visited the neighborhood in person. She told me that she was completely aware of the problems sexting could cause downstream in her life, and was careful. I believed her.”

  Lucas said, “Huh.”

  “That was a skeptical-sounding ‘Huh,’” Chase said.

  “No, that could be it. I’m an older male, talking to her with her mother present. There may have been subjects she really wanted to avoid.”

  * * *

  —

  LUCAS DROVE BACK toward the Watergate; on the way, he phoned Richard Greene, but got no answer. After six rings, Greene’s phone kicked over to an automated answering service, and Lucas left a message.

  * * *

  —

  WITH NOTHING MUCH TO DO BUT WAIT, he went to his room, took off his suit and put on jeans, and started picking through the FBI files again. Jane Chase called and said she was forwarding a brief file on Gibson and longer files on the Greene Mountain Boys and the American National Militia. Lucas opened the files on his computer, using the encryption code Chase had given him.

  Gibson, it seemed, was more than a paper-pushing assistant and researcher. He held a Maryland private investigator’s license and concealed carry permit, had taken a three-month “executive protection” bodyguard course, including tactical driving, was an ongoing student at a martial arts studio that specialized in Krav Maga, and had completed a Maryland state police–approved handgun training course. Concealed carry permits were tough to get in Maryland, which suggested that either Gibson or Lang had a connection, or had demonstrated a clear threat to one of them.

  The Greene Mountain Boys—a wordplay on the “Green Mountain Boys,” a fractious group of Vermont militia during the American Revolutionary era—were the creation of Richard Greene, a right-wing podcaster and shoe store operator in Annapolis, Maryland. Greene had served as a Navy officer, reaching the rank of lieutenant, before leaving to run the shoe store, which he’d taken over from his parents. His podcasts had a couple of thousand followers and when he called out the troops to participate in a political action, twenty or thirty would turn up to march.

  He had finished the Greene file, and had started thumbing through the file on the American National Militia, when Greene called back. “Charlie Lang got in touch and said you’d be calling me,” Greene said. “I get a lot of junk calls so I didn’t pick up when you called earlier—I looked up your message after I talked to Charlie. He told me what you’re doing.”

  Lucas said he’d like to talk face-to-face and Greene agreed to meet him halfway between Washington and Annapolis that afternoon, at a Panera Bread restaurant. “How will I know you?”

  “I’ll know you, if your podcast picture is recent,” Lucas said, looking at his computer screen.

  “Yeah, it is,” Greene said. “See you there, Marshal.”

  Lucas set the ANM file aside to listen to a couple of Greene podcasts, not quite broadcast-quality rants about America going into the toilet because of the Usual Suspects. When Lucas finished listening, he wasn’t sure whether Greene was a true believer, or a con artist jumping on the bandwagon most likely to get him attention.

  Lucas went back to reading the file on the ANM, which apparently had the goal of eliminating most government above the county level, although they would make provisions for a small military, and for some infrastructure coordination on things like highways.

  The feds had little information on the group and had been unable to pinpoint its actual leader, who operated mostly through the more obscure reaches of the internet. He wasn’t entirely faceless, though: he apparently had shown up, from time to time, at meetings of ANM cells. The cell leaders knew his face, but not his real name. Cameras were forbidden at all cell meetings, and members were required to leave cell phones in their cars; personal sidearms were permitted.

  There were no connections between cells. Even if a cell was penetrated by a government operator, he or she could discover only the names of the local cell members, usually less than a dozen people. All connections were through internet “dead drops,” which were used only once. After a dead drop was used, “Old John” or somebody else in the leadership group would issue a cell leader the location of the next dead drop. Since Old John picked the cell leaders, apparently on the basis of personal connections, getting an undercover agent chosen as a cell leader was virtually impossible.

  It was all fairly sophisticated and Lucas was fascinated. He had a growing feeling, as he read, that the group might actually be dangerous—not that it might someday overthrow the government, but in the sense that it might kill somebody or even some large number of people. There was an intelligence working there. The overall goals might be absurd, but the organizational work and tactics were intriguing.

  * * *

  —

  ON HIS WAY out of the Watergate to meet Greene, Lucas ran into a plainclothes security man for the hotel, an ex-cop named Jeff Toomes, who he’d met during his last stay at the Watergate, during which there’d been a firefight outside Lucas’s hotel room.

  “That was a hell of a thing,” Toomes said as they shook hands. “Man, the shit
got thick after the shooting upstairs. We had the FBI, the Secret Service, the DC cops up our ass for freakin’ weeks. Then I read about marshals involved in those shootings over in Virginia, and I figured that was you.”

  “Yeah, I was there,” Lucas said. He lied a little: “We never did get the shooter, though.”

  The shooter was dead, though not at the hands of the cops.

  “Can’t win them all, brother,” Toomes said. “Listen, if you need anything . . .”

  * * *

  —

  THEY TALKED FOR ANOTHER MINUTE OR SO, then Lucas left, heading for Maryland and his meeting with Greene. Ten minutes later, he got a call from an unknown number, but with a 202 Washington area code.

  “Davenport.”

  “Lucas? This is Jeff Toomes, again, from the Watergate. I got your number through the reservation system.”

  “Yeah, what’s up?”

  “Maybe nothing, maybe something,” Toomes said. “I’d been walking around the garage for ten minutes or so when I ran into you. A couple cars came and went, but nothing unusual. I was in the stairwell when you drove out and I heard a car engine crank right as you were leaving, but I hadn’t seen anybody going to their car. I stuck my head back out and there was a car leaving, moving fast. A dark blue Toyota RAV4. I got a feeling about it. Like he’d been waiting in his car for you to leave and he was hurrying to catch up.”

  “Huh. You get a tag number?”

  “That’s the other thing. I didn’t, because there was something on his tag. Mud? Maybe mud, but I couldn’t read the number, which worried me a little. That bullshit mud-on-the-plates thing. Maryland plates, though.”

  “Hey. If it turns out to be something, I’ll send you a dollar,” Lucas said.

  Toomes laughed. “Four more and I can get a cup of coffee. You take care, man.”

  * * *

  —