State of Rebellion

“Now I want to know two things, Mr. Samuels-I assume you are in charge here.”

“I’m the senior agent in-”

“Good,” Del Valle interrupted, his demeanor brusque and his delivery abrupt. “I want to know why didn’t your agent inside the brigade prevent this needless death, or, if that was not possible, why didn’t he notify you, or us, so we could have taken some action to save this young officer’s life?”

Dan smiled inwardly. Keep your cool, Captain. . while I go for the throat.

Samuels was visibly startled by Del Valle’s opening thrust, trying unsuccessfully to regain the initiative.

“General, we, uh, we’ve made no mention of any contact with-uh, was it the brigade, you said?”

Del Valle kept a straight face, his body language stiff and formal.

“Don’t jerk me around, Samuels. I’m the Adjutant General of the California National Guard, and I want some answers. We both know we’re talking about the Shasta Brigade, a loosely organized band of rabble headquartered about a hundred miles north of Sacramento, up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. They killed that boy sometime during the night, and you knew about it.”

“General, I’m not able-”

“Well, I am able,” Del Valle said, banging his fist on the desk. He glanced at his watch and firmly pressed the speaker button on his telephone.

“Sergeant Pitama!” he bellowed.

Instantly the reply came. “Yes, General?”

“Sergeant, get the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation on the horn immediately.”

“Yes, sir. Right away, sir.”

Del Valle looked directly at Samuels, who held his upright posture for a few seconds, and then his shoulders visibly slumped.

“General, I’ll tell you what I can without jeopardizing our operation.”

“What you can?” Del Valle repeated, leaning forward.

“General, give me a break here. I work under the same confidentiality and ‘need-to-know’ security restrictions that you do.”

“Now we’re getting somewhere.” Again Del Valle punched his speakerphone. “Sergeant, cancel that call.”

“Yes, sir.”

He punched off the speakerphone and leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers in front of his chest, waiting for Samuels to speak.

Slowly, Samuels smiled at Del Valle. “Now I recall why I got out of the army as a captain after my first hitch, General. I wasn’t willing to put that burr under anybody else’s saddle, and I wasn’t willing to live with one under mine.”

The room was instantly silent, and Dan caught a brief glimpse of Agent Bentley, who to this point hadn’t spoken a word. Her face was pale, and clearly the exchange between the two men had given her pause. She caught Dan’s eye momentarily, and he allowed a brief, subtle smile to cross his lips, looking away before she could respond.

“Now, Agent Samuels-and Agent Bentley,” Del Valle said, smiling at the young woman for the first time, “I’ll do the best I can to remove the burr from my saddle so we can reach some joint conclusions. We are on similar tracks, I think, and we do work for the same government, and it increasingly appears as though we are facing the same enemy.”

Samuels nodded. “General, here it is in a nutshell: for several years, the bureau has been investigating nine selected militia units throughout western America. There are many more, of course, and we keep tabs on them all, but these nine have, well, shall we say, become a bit more operational in the past two years. We have a mobile strike team, but as yet have taken no overt action against any of their command headquarters. Each field office of the bureau-those nearest the militia units-has two or four agents assigned to investigate their activities. In the San Francisco office, that’s Agent Bentley and myself.

“The Shasta Brigade is indeed quite operational, and contrary to your ‘loosely organized’ description, they are quite well organized and have recently gone completely underground. We expected that, after the movement took public responsibility for the murder of the Superior Court judges. We’ve attributed seven bank robberies to them over the past year-seven we can confirm. That’s their main source of funding. Seems they’ve taken a lesson from the IRA and other terrorist organizations in how to raise money. We’re also aware of your ‘Deadbolt’ operation-your attempt to infiltrate the brigade and determine how many members of your National Guard unit participate.”

Del Valle looked quickly at Dan, who shook his head slightly and shrugged.

“As to the murdered officer,” Samuels continued, “we received a call around four o’clock this morning about a possible killing, but the caller had to disconnect. . or was disconnected. I called Agent Bentley, and we headed for Sacramento, hoping to receive further information along the way that would enable us to intervene. We heard the police band radio call first, however, and cut across I-505 into Woodland where we met Sheriff Sanchez. Our information was limited, believe me, and when we saw your lieutenant. . well, it was as difficult for us as it was for Captain Rawlings. If we could have prevented it, General Del Valle, I can assure you we would have done so. Remember, there was a law enforcement officer killed in the line of duty as well.”

“I understand,” Del Valle said. “And I apologize for any unintended implication that you didn’t care. Please, go on.”

“There’s not a lot more, General. We have the identity of about two dozen, full-time regulars in the brigade, and they also have another fifty or so part-time regulars, but their total numbers probably exceed full-company strength-well over two, maybe even three hundred men and women. These newer guys don’t know much about the true objectives or the specific operations. It’s the central core of two dozen or so-most with criminal records-who call the shots. Their commander, a man named Jackson Shaw, is also former Army-West Point, class of ’87-discharged for negligence in the field, resulting in the loss of several men under his command.”

Del Valle looked at Dan. “Do we know anything about Shaw?”

“Yes, sir,” Dan replied. “We’ve pulled his package.”

“His package?” Agent Bentley spoke up for the first time.

“His personnel file, Ms. Bentley,” Dan explained. “His record of service in the Army.”

“General, that’s about all I can share without stepping over my limits. I hope you understand,” Samuels said.

“Are any of these regular brigade members you’ve identified also members of the guard?”

Samuels nodded toward Bentley.

“General Del Valle, Agent Samuels has assigned me to run background checks on the core members of the Shasta Brigade. None of the central leadership is involved with your guard unit, but over half have extensive military backgrounds. Shaw and his cadre of followers have dropped completely out of sight. Nearly a dozen of the new recruits are also members of the 324^th, and over fifty more are either active duty military or belong to various military reserve units. The brigade is on an extensive recruiting campaign, General. They’re growing larger and getting bolder all the time. We’ve suspected them of killing some dissident members or new recruits who wanted out, and as we’ve said, the patriot movement has claimed responsibility for killing the federal judges. But to our knowledge, this is the first time they’ve executed a federal military officer.”

“Why now?” Del Valle asked. “And how does the Shasta Brigade fit into this patriot movement?”

“We believe that all the California militia units have banded together, calling themselves the California Patriot Movement and hiding their individual actions behind the larger facade,” Bentley said. “Whether there is a central command structure yet, we don’t know. And as to why now, we believe they’ve embraced Senator Turner’s appeal for secession. It’s the clarion call they’ve needed.”

“And who killed McFarland?” Del Valle asked.

“That’s what we’re looking to find out, General,” she responded. “But we can assume that they’re sufficiently aware of military intelligence procedure to realize that our side needs to infiltrate their operations. They’ve probably established an internal security unit.”

“You mean an assassination squad,” Del Valle said.

“Exactly, General.”