Enemies Domestic (An Alex Landon Thriller Book 1)

by Gavin Reese

  Duke reflected on his efforts to further delay law enforcement’s imminent investigation during the first few hours following the downtown bombing. He had purchased the piece-of-shit Alero and medic backpack from Rocky, one of “Reggie’s” security co-workers, and intended to use both to force investigators to waste time detaining, questioning, and eliminating Rocky as a suspected accomplice. The parking lot video surveillance, which the owner assured him would be readily available for authorities, would prove sufficiently grainy to prevent facial recognition software from accurately identifying who had parked the car, wore the backpack into the store, and purchased all those rifles under three assumed identities. Poor Rocky, Duke sarcastically thought, the fat bastard should have been less trusting. Rocky The Radicalized Islamist. What a fucking joke.

  Considering Rocky’s imminent fate reminded Duke that he had forgotten to remove the false identification cards from his wallet. He withdrew the wallet in his back pants pocket, removed the ID cards, and placed them in an easily-found false compartment he created under the steering column; once an investigator knelt outside the open driver’s door, the compartment would be readily visible to the trained eye and help lengthen the time, efforts, and focus authorities spent on Rocky instead of running down legitimate clues.

  Duke used the actual, legitimate driver licenses of three different dead men, all of whom endured the lonely passing expected of antisocial desert hermits. He doubted any of his deceased uncle’s friends would have minded that he bought guns in their names, especially since one of the only things they had in common had been a white-hot hatred for the US federal government, at least in its present form.

  Unbeknownst to Cleveland, Duke had pre-ordered another 150 rifles from Big Bad Wolf. Just as had happened after every recent natural disaster, terrorist act, or political shift in the US, he anticipated a significant rise in demand for firearms and ammunition would follow his planned bombings. Americans would run en mass to local dealers to buy anything still on the shelves; Duke refused to take his chances and stand in line behind them. He had prepaid for rifles to be delivered to him over the next six months, which also meant he didn’t need to carry cash to the store and worry about being robbed. Can’t risk some wayward niggers seeing that bankroll, he thought, especially not at a gun counter.

  The additional rifles would allow Duke the option, if all went according to plan, to increase his profits from the cartel’s continuing need for weapons and ammunition. Alternatively, the rifles would allow him and his accomplices to forcibly defend themselves against government aggression if things didn’t go their way. While he planned for the worst, Duke arrogantly expected to extort far greater profits from his driver’s Santa Lina contact after the supply and demand for firearms inside the US shifted further in his own favor. Insider trading in the black market, he surmised and smiled at his evil genius, modern-day piracy. Tragedy would always generate money, but Duke had uniquely positioned himself to be aware of tragedy’s exact timing and execution.

  Duke had been smiling and singing along with David Allen Coe since he drove away from Big Bad Wolf, another happy day that brought him closer to success, thereby closer to righting and whitening America. Not concerned about being caught or identified today, he remained more focused on staying awake after his long return from Idaho. Bleary-eyed and mentally fuzzy, Duke largely forgot to utilize most of his surveillance countermeasures. He didn’t notice anyone following him and didn’t make any significant effort to ensure no one had done so. Nearly dozing off behind the wheel, Duke almost missed the Bell Road exit and drove past the elongated line of hundreds of fellow drivers slowing and merging right a full mile before the busy off-ramp.

  Fifty-Seven

  The Big Bad Wolf Gun Shop. Peoria, Arizona.

  Jonathan made the critical decision to leave Detective Landon and the other cops to work on locating Cleveland and the guns. He’s adamant it’s not a crime, so let them figure it out. He imagined the older male had likely been involved with The Chosen Few and its crimes for a long time, based on how calmly he had helped load all the rifles into Cleveland’s Bronco. Just like he was only carrying groceries, Jonathan thought, he’s clearly done this before. Further, Cleveland had accepted the older male’s directives, so he must be in some leadership position within The Chosen Few’s organization. He could be among the leaders responsible for planning and directing the group’s conduct, Jonathan thought, which meant he was a very big fish to identify and catch.

  After several miles of uneventful northbound driving on the Loop 101, Jonathan became concerned he’d been wrong about the older white male. His Alero kept pace with traffic, which consistently drove at least ten miles-per-hour over the posted speed limit, he made no apparent efforts to shake a tail, and performed no “heat runs” to identify any vehicles following him. Oh fuck, Jonathan thought, they made me and he’s leading me away from the guns! Jonathan slowed closer to the posted speed limit and contemplated what to do. He couldn’t call Landon back and tell the detective he’d so immediately ignored his “official” advisement, nor could he safely continue after the old man believing he had been spotted. Mindlessly driving the next few miles, Jonathan considered his options and decided he could not follow the target through any sudden maneuvers and attract even greater risk. I have to simply drive past, avoid eye contact, and let the man go, Jonathan resolved, there was nothing to be done out here, alone and hanging my ass out, just waiting to get shot. As the long, two-car convoy approached the Bell Road exit, the target moved into the east, right-hand lane and merged into a long line of vehicles slowing to join the ever-present back-up to exit there. Among the only east-west thoroughfares that joined the rest of the metroplex with the far northwest municipalities of Surprise, Sun City, and Sun City West, Bell Road had a two-lane exit from Loop 101. Despite the double-lane exit, Jonathan knew a perpetual traffic jam often existed for the mile leading up to the off-ramp.

  Although he considered driving past the exit and calling it a day, Jonathan couldn’t resist. What’s the harm in joining the hundreds of other vehicles exiting here, he thought, there’s nothing suspicious about taking this turn, any one of these vehicles could be a tail. He dropped the right-turn signal and forced his way into the next lane, which had already been overrun by eager drivers behind him. Jonathan answered an angry horn with a simple, apologetic wave.

  With the target now only fifty yards ahead of him, Jonathan could only watch the Alero turn left onto westbound Bell Road with no hope of doing so within the same green light. Frustrated, he crawled closer to the intersection as the traffic signal turned yellow while three cars remained between him and the crosswalk.

  His limited view to the west allowed Jonathan to briefly watch the gold Alero disappear into westbound traffic. A construction zone west of the interchange and median landscaping aided the older man’s getaway while Jonathan idled at the red light, disappointed and unsure of what to do next. At least I got the plate, maybe Landon and Wall can turn that into something and actually let me step away from doing their jobs for them. That’s not nothing, he reminded himself.

  Just as he saw the east-west traffic signals change from green to yellow, Jonathan looked on in surprise and optimism as the target gold Oldsmobile, now eastbound, suddenly entered the intersection in front of Jonathan before u-turning and driving back west. Quickly accelerating with traffic as the light changed, Jonathan closed enough distance within a few blocks to confirm the Alero displayed the same license plate he’d been following. He decided to move in closer to better watch the driver’s behavior until the next turn. If he made me and wanted to keep me pulled in tight, he’ll be watching my car and my movements, Jonathan surmised, to make sure I’m still following and watching him.

  He closed the gap between them to only a few car lengths and moved into the target’s lane, now directly behind him. I hope I’m fuckin’ right, he thought, this is an easy kill shot if he knows what he’s doing. Jonathan gripped the whee
l a little tighter, prepared to suddenly evade right if he saw danger. Absent any threat indicators, Jonathan accelerated and merged right to enter the Alero’s passenger-side blind spot. He watched the driver through his passenger side-view mirror, but the older man just sang, apparently at the top of his lungs. They never once made eye contact and the driver never even cast a suspicious glance his way.

  Unless he’s an absolute pro, there’s no way this guy made me, Jonathan thought, he would never have turned around after I missed the light, and he certainly wouldn’t be so carefree while I’m on him like this. He again weighed the possibility that the older driver had intentionally pulled farther away from Cleveland and the guns, and decided he would never know if he turned away from the Alero now. Unless Cleveland took ‘em back to his trailer, those guns are in the wind anyway.

  As the two vehicles neared the White Tank Mountains and the western edge of the City of Surprise, traffic quickly thinned and Jonathan risked drawing attention he had apparently so far avoided. He slowed, allowed the Alero to pull farther ahead of him, turned right onto a random residential street, and quickly u-turned to return to the same intersection. Jonathan watched the gold Alero continue westbound as Bell Road meandered northwest and transformed into Sunvalley Parkway; he counted off thirty seconds to allow himself a better following distance before merging back onto westbound Bell Road and resuming the chase.

  Jonathan reached Bell Road’s merger into Sunvalley Parkway, a divided four-lane highway that circumnavigated the White Tank Mountains. Although he’d rarely driven on that particular highway as an adult, he knew it joined the western edge of Surprise with north Buckeye and scattered county islands. Jonathan had, however, frequented the highway while he’d been a teenager, mostly when he and his friends went to large underage desert parties or sought an isolated area to sight in their rifles for deer season. He understood the nearly abandoned roadway required him to follow the older man from a much greater distance, but Jonathan also knew the area’s rolling hills and the dense, overgrown desert foliage in its divided medians limited his visibility and increased the chances he could lose the sedan.

  For the next seven miles, Jonathan and the gold Alero played a high-stress game of peek-a-boo, as the sedan only occasionally appeared on the horizon nearly a mile ahead. Jonathan made each meandering, blind turn expecting to see the sedan pulled off to the right, parked and waiting to identify or ambush him, but the expected terror of that moment never came. Each time he feared the sedan had turned off the highway without his knowledge, it again passed through a distant gap in the desert flora to lead him further on. Just as the roadway generally turned from east-west to north-south near milepost 18, Jonathan saw a long straightaway between him and the Alero. He smiled as the gold sedan merged into a rare left-turn lane in the median, slowed, and proceeded east on a dirt road back toward the White Tanks. Jonathan remained in the right, west lane, and, as he passed the left-turn without noticeably slowing, watched the gold sedan slowly bouncing along a rough private road. Without an obvious address or property marker to allow him to easily identify the owner, he had to relate the property to milepost 17, which stood only a few hundred yards south of the entrance. That’ll have to do for now, Jonathan thought.

  The private road passed through a relative trough and the road soon elevated Jonathan’s field of view as he continued south. Driving to the top of the next hill, which he estimated as slightly more than a half-mile south of the dirt road, he pulled onto the wide right shoulder, and got out of the car.

  Jonathan walked to the front passenger seat and opened the door, where he retrieved a pair of small, high-quality binoculars from the glove box and stood in the open doorway. Hoping to appear as though he stopped to urinate, which he assumed to be a common sight along the desolate highway, Jonathan focused the binos on the private dirt road. To his surprise and delight, he quickly found the gold Alero sedan still bouncing eastbound toward an isolated double-wide trailer. Now I just have to figure out how to approach the place, he thought.

  Jonathan methodically scanned the area for avenues of approach and retreat, but found nothing obvious or easy. I should call Colleen, he told himself, and Landon. In that order. Jonathan dropped the binos for a moment to record his present location on a Garmin GPS device he and Michael had used for geocaching. I need to tell Colleen and Michael I love them and come up with a bomb-proof strategy. Getting to that guy’s isolated sheds and trailer will be tough shit. He paused and assessed the task in front of him. And, I need to tell Landon and Wall where to find this guy, just in case he’s better’n me.

  Fifty-Eight

  Drug Enforcement Administration Conference Room. Phoenix, Arizona.

  Despite having been alone in this investigation only three hours beforehand, Detectives Landon and Berkshire now shared the expansive conference table with a growing number of federal agents. What started as a small gathering of Special Agents Williams from DEA and Healy from BATFE had now grown to include several Supervisory Special Agents from FBI, BATFE, DEA, ICE, DHS, and State Department, Special Agents-In-Charge, and an Assistant Director for the FBI, the last of whom had been temporarily assigned to the Phoenix office specifically for Operation Trifecta. Although late to arrive to the party, the Dry Creek detectives now had the federal assistance they had been seeking for months.

  Special Agent Donnie Williams spoke over the room’s dull roar. “Detective Landon, I think we should go ahead and get started. Anyone else coming in can catch up with you or me after we go offline.” The side conversations died a sudden death. Having been in numerous cop-filled conference rooms during his young career, the group’s almost immediate silence surprised Alex, and he perceived the reaction as a direct indication of the collective interest in their case. “For those who don’t know me, I’m Special Agent Donnie Williams, D-E-A, and my working group has been investigating a particularly productive organization with direct ties to Santa Lina cartel and its leader, Chava. These guys are moving serious weight into Arizona and selling to other, smaller groups that are trafficking into other parts of the country. They recently started smuggling illegal aliens through the same, smaller groups. About that same time, they were starting to trade guns for drugs and taking the weapons back south into Mexico. My partner and I had been working with Special Agent Jay Healy over at A-T-F on that angle.

  “Special Agent Healy has recently been getting rumblings that there has been a recent potential spike in the number of straw purchases in the Phoenix area during the previous six months. It seems a lot of the initial investigation shows a disproportionate number of older white males making multiple semi-auto rifle purchases in one day, sometimes several days a month. Right now, that in and of itself is not illegal, but he’s been working to locate and interview these guys to find out why one dude needs to buy eight or nine AR-15s in a single month. They’re likely selling them to someone, or stock piling them for any number of reasons. S-A Healy and I think our two investigations are related.

  “Dry Creek PD Detective Landon recently joined J-T-T-F on a T-D-Y assignment and told me about an ongoing investigation they have into a local hate group in Tonopah that may be trying to build I-E-Ds. Turns out his I-E-D suspects are also my drug suspects, which means they’re also likely Healy’s gun suspects. You want to take it from there, Detective?”

  Landon cleared his throat and took a small sip from a water bottle in front of him before speaking, and felt all eyes intensely and curiously upon him. He introduced Berkshire and himself before diving headlong into the briefing. Beginning with a short synopsis of his introduction to Jonathan, whom he had chosen to call “Jason” to help keep his identity confidential, Landon explained how his informant provided them information about The Chosen Few and their alleged intent to acquire bomb-making materials and IED manufacturing skills. Landon included intel from earlier that day that his informant watched three white males move sixteen rifle cases from The Big Bad Wolf Gun & Trading Company, closed his brief
ing with the lack of known relationships between the registered owners of vehicles the informant had identified, and a lack of related criminal records among those same owners.

  Alex answered a few specific questions from the audience that clarified the purely alleged nature of The Chosen Few’s identity and conduct. He used that opportunity to also clarify DCPD’s legal relationship with their informant, along with Alex’s directive that morning in which he ordered the informant to cease all his private surveillance activity against The Chosen Few. Landon candidly offered his personal expectation that the informant would likely continue unauthorized surveillance and provide information to their agency as he saw fit, as well as his hope that he came in to officially become a court-recognized Confidential Reliable Informant. He did not, however, disclose that DCPD had recently filed felony charges against their uncooperative informant, as he and Berkshire had previously agreed the feds probably couldn’t tolerate that distraction.

  News that Alex hadn’t yet established “Jason” as a CRI clearly unsettled many of the gathered agents, apparently even more so than the crimes he alleged The Chosen Few’s membership committed. Alex understood, by asking for their help, he invited them to step into the same murky legal waters that Landon and Berkshire had been attempting to navigate. Knowledge of the informant’s actions could find the agents and their chains-of-command vicariously responsible for the man’s conduct and welfare, despite him choosing to remain an unvetted and, possibly, rogue informant. If killed in pursuit of DCPD’s bidding and his family or the press learned of that relationship and federal knowledge of it, the number of demanded zeroes in the liability suit would rise by orders of magnitude. Sensing a growing anxiety, Alex looked at Donnie Williams and hoped for guidance to stymie the collective institutional fear before it consumed everyone in the room.