LITMIR.BIZ

      LYONS CAME FROM OUTSIDE, with a pair of hand cutters Harper had supplied from his vehicle’s tool kit. He handed them to Bolan, who severed the wire around Gantz’s limbs, freeing him from the chair. He covered the unconscious man with a blanket. Lyons went back outside as a precaution, prowling the area with the restless energy that never seemed to leave him.

      Chief Harper joined Bolan inside the house. “I have my people on the way. They’ll seal off the area. And I radioed for an ambulance. It has to come some distance. I called the Coast Guard to check the area. The trouble is, by the time they reach the bay that boat will be long gone. Coast Guard is busy tonight with all this fog.”

      “Best guess is they’ll find that boat empty and drifting.”

      “My thoughts, too.”

      “Best we can do is try, Chief.”

      “How’s Gantz doing?”

      “Touch and go. Those .50-calibers didn’t do him any favors.”

      Harper eyed the big man, sensing there was a reason he wasn’t showing much feeling over Gantz’s condition. “Something I should know, Agent Cooper?”

      “Tell me about Gantz.”

      “Not much to tell. He turned up a few months back. This place had been rented out to him for twelve months. He only showed his face in town a few times. All we got from him was he was here to rest after an illness. The man wasn’t what you’d call talkative.”

      “He have any visitors? Did he make trips away from the area?”

      “Only a few visitors, but he did make a fair number of trips away from town in that SUV parked out front. You ask a lot of questions, Agent Cooper.”

      Bolan smiled. “I suppose I do. It’s necessary, Chief. We need to get a line on the people Gantz was involved with.”

      “And who are these people? Not the friendly kind, from what’s happened here tonight. Or is this a need-to-know operation?”

      “We believe Gantz may have been involved in the recent mass bombings.”

      “The Federal Reserve banks and the department stores? And those National Guard units?”

      “The intel we have is moving more and more toward Gantz being involved.”

      Harper took a slow look around the room. “Son of a bitch wasn’t making the bombs here?”

      “Most likely he worked out his details here, then took trips to wherever they actually constructed the packages.”

      “How did you tie him in?”

      “Gantz was involved in making similar kinds of bombs some years ago. Back then he was never convicted, and appears to have been keeping low ever since, but recently he was seen in the company of a radical militia group.”

      Harper digested the information. “Come to think of it, Gantz did make some of his away trips days before the recent attacks.”

      “He make any trips out of town since the attacks?”

      “His last one was a couple of days ago. Hell, you think he was setting up more bombs?”

      “It’s what we have to find out, Chief. I’d be grateful if you could arrange for photographs and fingerprints of all the dead. I need to get them to the lab for positive identification.”

      “I can do that. We might be a small department, but we have the equipment. I’ll call for my guy to do it for you.”

      CHAPTER FOUR

      Stony Man Farm, Virginia

      The digital and fingerprint images sent from Bolan were in the system, being scanned by the FBI’s AFIS recognition program. Kurtzman also had them being scanned by military databases and any other recognition systems he could work into his search. Huntington Wethers was taking his turn watching the scans running across his monitors. It was just over an hour when he got his first hit.

      “We got one,” he called.

      Kurtzman rolled up to Wethers’s workstation as a hard copy slid from the printer. He snatched it up and scanned the information.

      “There it is,” he said. “Henry Jacks. He’s done time for assault. Over the past ten years he’s been associated with three different militia groups. Guess who he’s been with the last three years? The Brethren. He hates the government and doesn’t agree with anything they do. He has been quoted as saying ‘when we burn you down, it will be a new day for real Americans.’”

      “His burning days are over,” Wethers said.

      “Let me run a check on known associates,” Kurtzman said. “We might hit lucky.”

      It was quickly found that Jacks’s two closest friends were both members of the Brethren, and a cross-check revealed they had both died in the assault on Jerome Gantz’s Tyler Point home.

      Carmen Delahunt, who had been quietly monitoring her data input, called for Kurtzman’s attention. “A news service in Washington just received a claim from a group calling itself America the Free. They are saying they are responsible for the recent bombings, and there are more to come.”

      “New name to me,” Kurtzman said.

      “I just ran a trace through FBI files,” Delahunt said. She was former FBI herself, so her knowledge of their procedures was a great help to Stony Man. “There’s no data on such a group. But the information they included in their claim is pretty close to what the FBI has on the bombings.”

      Kurtzman pondered on that. “Okay, Carmen, you stay on that for a while. See what else you can find on America the Free. There’s something odd in this. Let’s see if we can dig it up.”

      Kurtzman relayed the current information to Bolan and advised they were continuing with the identification of the others involved.

      Tyler Bay Hotel

      ADDITIONAL INFORMATION came through the laptop, and it was Bolan’s turn to check the screen when another Brethren connection popped up. He found himself staring at an image that took him back to the Gantz house and the boat retreating into the fog shrouding the bay.

      The image stared at him from the screen. A long, lean-featured face. The stare was hard and direct, and above it the hair was pale and cut short. It was the man Bolan had seen at the stern rail. He had been right at the time—it was a face he wouldn’t forget. He called Lyons to take a look.

      “He’s the one I spotted on the boat just as it pulled away. Deacon Ribak. One of the Brethren’s top lieutenants. Ex-Army Ranger out of Fort Benning, Georgia. Served thirteen years. Last couple of years his personal politics clashed with the Army’s. He refused to change his views and took a discharge a couple of years ago. Joined the Brethren six months later and has been with them ever since. He’s a trained professional, Carl. He’s seen a lot of hard action.” Bolan ran his fingers down the column that detailed Ribak’s military career. “One hell of an asset for the Brethren.”

      “I still don’t get why they hit Gantz. What they did screams interrogation. If you want the guy dead, it can be done quick and easy. Unless you want him to tell you something.”

      There was a knock on the door. Lyons turned and flattened himself against the wall, his Colt Python in his hand, as Bolan crossed the room and cautiously opened the door. Chief Harper

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