LITMIR.BIZ

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      Greg tried to keep the surprise out of his voice. He’d been a profiler with BAU a long time. Long enough to know when Dan Moore was sending someone on a long-shot assignment as punishment.

      Dan frowned at him, probably able to read every thought running through his mind, since he was a profiler, too. “No.” He tapped his pen against the towering pile of legal pads on his desk. “There’s another situation in Montana.”

      “If Evelyn’s already there, maybe she should take it,” Greg suggested. He’d trained Evelyn, and he knew her as well as anyone could. Whatever the case was, she could handle it. And if Dan didn’t start giving her real assignments again soon, he was afraid she’d leave the unit.

      “Too late. She’s on her way back,” Dan dismissed him, draining his cup of coffee as if it was water. “You’ll probably pass each other in the air. Besides, she doesn’t have much experience with this kind of case.”

      “What is it?” Greg asked, dreading the call home he’d have to make, telling his son, Josh, that he’d be missing his first hockey game. Greg’s family was used to it; this was the life of an FBI agent. But it still wasn’t easy to hear their disappointment, shaded with resignation—as though they’d expected him to cancel.

      “The Salt Lake City office has an agent who went off on an unsanctioned call. Her boss says she’s got a hard-on for the Butler Compound, a cult out in the Montana wilderness that’s technically under the Salt Lake City office jurisdiction. He’s pretty sure she went there. About an hour ago, her supervisor got a call from her. Apparently, she didn’t say a word when he picked up, but he heard part of a conversation, then a gunshot.”

      “Okay,” Greg said slowly. “And they want a profiler because...?” It sounded like they needed the Salt Lake City SWAT team, fast.

      “Because they haven’t had contact with the agent, and they don’t know her status. They aren’t a hundred percent sure she’s there, and the cult is a survivalist group. Completely antigovernment and, although they’ve never displayed aggression before, these people are skilled with their weapons. The Salt Lake City office is afraid a show of force will start a firefight.”

      “Then shouldn’t I be reviewing the Butler Compound information from here to give them a profile?” Greg asked. He didn’t mind going to Montana if they really needed him, but he didn’t see how being on-site would help in this case. Especially since there wasn’t even a confirmed “site” yet.

      Dan sighed and opened the top drawer of his desk, where Greg suspected his boss kept endless bottles of antacids. But instead of popping any, Dan closed the drawer again, looking pensive. “You’re heading out with a CIRG contingent. A hostage negotiator and a group from HRT.”

      The Critical Incident Response Group was a special group within the FBI, made up of teams that could respond instantly to any serious emergency, anywhere in the United States or abroad. BAU was part of CIRG, the only part not located in Quantico, the next town over.

      If he was going with a hostage negotiator and a bunch of Hostage Rescue Team agents, that meant someone high up expected things to turn very, very bad. The kind of bad that required more than just a local SWAT team. The kind of bad that required HRT agents, who did absolutely nothing but train for and execute tactical missions.

      Unease settled in Greg’s stomach, along with the hint of anticipation that always came with a new case to profile. That was what had kept him in BAU for going on nine years. “What don’t I know?”

      “Most of it you do know,” Dan replied, just as his phone began to ring. He tapped a button to silence it. “We’re looking to avoid an armed standoff here. But if this agent is inside that compound, we have to get her out.”

      Greg nodded. The last time someone from the antifederalist movement had stood up to the government, it had become a media spectacle that seemed likely to turn violent at any minute. But the FBI, as well as local and state police, had walked away.

      That incident in Nevada had driven all the wackos out of the woodwork. They’d shown up to pledge their support to the rancher who’d refused to move his cattle off federal land. And then they’d hidden in the surrounding brush, aiming rifles at federal agents from all directions and posting the images online.

      It was a miracle no one had fired a shot. Greg knew the chances of another ending that peaceful were slim.

      “I assume I need to head over to Quantico?” Greg asked, starting for the door.

      “Hold on,” Dan said, his tone weary. “There’s one more thing.”

      “You have a file on the Butler Compound?”

      “Yes, but it’s thin. We evaluated the group last year, at the request of this Martinez agent, the one who’s missing now.”

      “And?”

      “And we considered them a low threat, basically a cult that wanted to be left alone to live without federal interference. They’re bound together by their desire to live off the grid. There’s probably a religious component tying them together, too, although we don’t have evidence of that yet. It’s a group that wouldn’t strike out unless the government showed up on their doorstep, but a genuine danger if that happened. Vince did the analysis.”

      Vince was one of their old-timers, a legend who’d finally retired and gone into the private security consulting business a month ago. BAU was still looking for his replacement.

      “That’s good, as long as we can stay off their doorstep,” Greg said slowly, because he sensed something worse was about to follow.

      “Martinez kept insisting Butler was a Bubba.”

      Bubba was slang in law enforcement circles for a homegrown terrorist.

      Greg was skeptical. “She thought a cult leader was a Bubba?”

      “Not just him,” Dan replied. “The whole group of them.”

      “That’d be pretty unusual, especially for survivalist types.”

      Precedent said that kind of personality—an extremist antifederal homegrown terrorist—was a lone wolf. Someone who’d try and fail to fit into fringe militia and survivalist groups, then finally set out on his own to wreak havoc.

      Not a cult member, who looked to a leader to provide identity. And certainly not a cult leader, who derived power and purpose from having a group of people to do his bidding and treat him like a god. If that cult leader sent his followers out to commit terrorist acts, he’d be breaking up his little kingdom. With no one left to worship him, what would be the point of his cult?

      Greg took the file Dan handed over. “You now think Martinez could be right?”

      “No. But I think her constantly going there for answers might’ve pushed the group into endgame mode. We could be looking at people who are ready to barricade themselves in their compound and defend it to the death. Or mass suicide.”

      Greg frowned, suddenly understanding why he was being sent to Montana. “And if there’s a chance Martinez is there, we have to go in, anyway.”

      Dan nodded grimly. “Exactly.”

       3

      “We need to move,” Jen whispered as a faint sliver of light tracked over the right side of her face and onto the floor.

      “We need a plan,” Evelyn countered just as quietly. “They took your car keys. We’re in the middle of the wilderness, without supplies.” Cold as it was inside the compound, which felt like it didn’t have any heat, at least it was well-insulated. Outside, it was much, much colder. Which could mean frostbite and death from exposure.

      “Besides,” she continued, “even if we get the SUV started, I’m guessing they’ve closed that big gate by now, and they’re

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