'You like having your hand on my crotch?' I asked as he worked his way down. He gazed at me with horror and what I sensed was a tinge of embarrassment, then continued silently down my thighs. Really, these guys were too easy.
'You're ready. We'll bring you in,' the other one said.
They led me into the main room of the farmhouse. It was cold up here in the hills, and there was a fire burning in the fireplace. Nathaniel was sitting behind a large metal desk at the far end of the room. He stood up when I walked in and stretched his hand toward me.
'Welcome back,' he said in a serious tone. 'You here to enlist this time?'
What a card. I gave him a polite laugh. 'You'd never take me,' I said. 'Flat feet. My father's black. Oh, and I'm gay.'
He didn't laugh at my humor. Never has, come to think of it. And I saw his young bodyguards flash each other a look before scurrying from the room like a pair of rodents. Nathaniel's a rodent too, but he's a rodent in a position to help me out, so as we often do in the reporting business, I'd treat him with nothing but respect on this day. In journalism, this is called working toward the greater good.
'How's the fight going?' I asked as I settled into a plain wooden chair that sat atop the braided rug, which in turn covered ancient, scratched pine floors.
'We're going to win,' he said, his voice flat, as if he were advising me that the waterproof coffin vault would make my family considerably more comfortable about my mother's burial. 'The government is weak-weaker than you think. And one day, we will rise to conquer.'
I observed him closely, again unable to tell if this mortician-turned-tax-evader- turned-ex-con-turned-freak actually believed some of these things he said, or whether it was all tongue-in-cheek, done in spite, as he looked for the best deal he could find coming out of prison, wifeless, jobless, homeless, and broke.
When I had met him the year before, I had been writing a three-part series on the burgeoning militia movement in America. Nathaniel, believe it or not, was one of the smarter ones, press savvy, and he allowed me into his enclave for a firsthand glimpse of the philosophies and activities of one of the more vibrant militias in the country.
That story, widely circulated among members of the movement, single-handedly caused Nathaniel to soar within the loose national structure of the militias. Other news organizations began quoting him regularly. Other state militias called on him for consultations.
Soon, he became a de facto national leader. And much as I hate to give him credit for anything, I must say that he has maintained some sense of modesty about it all, at least in his office, though perhaps that is due to nothing more than lack of money. Wall Street bankers and $400-an-hour attorneys don't normally join or bankroll their local militia, and that fact was readily apparent here.
I said, smiling, 'Hopefully that day won't be today, because I was hoping you had a little time for me.'
'All the time you need,' he said, still flat.
He was fairly straightforward, I had learned, but like many potential sources of valuable information, he could lapse into spates of caginess, and often had to be asked just the right question to provide the knowledge I needed. I had nothing prepared on paper to ask. I never do. I've spent a career winging it, and I wasn't about to change that style now. I decided to start broadly.
I asked, 'So, what do you know?'
'About what?' he replied. Okay, so I sensed he was in his cagey mood.
'What do you have?' I said in a conspiratorial tone, as if it were me and him against the world, two partners with different views and from different walks of life, thrown together in this remarkable situation.
'Tell me what you need to know. I'll tell you if I have it. Then maybe I'll even tell you what I have,' he said.
I rolled my eyes, but only to myself. He wanted to make a game over this, and I had no choice but to play along.
'You mind tape?' I asked, pulling a microcassette out of my jacket pocket.
He said, 'My words are meant to last forever.' I couldn't tell if he was joking. I don't think he was.
'Good. The president himself tells me that the FBI has evidence that the militia movement is behind the recent assassination attempt against him. I'm wondering what you know about this, whether you believe this to be true.'
'Maybe,' he said. Then he fell silent and gave me a look that said, Next question.
Maybe was an interesting answer, even as it occurred to me that I gave up time with my dog and flew across an entire continent so some goddamned jackass ex-undertaker with a camouflage jacket pressing against an enormous beer belly could play mind games with me. And perhaps play them successfully.
'What do you mean, maybe?' I said, trying to maintain patience.
'Maybe. Maybe means maybe. Possibly. Perhaps.'
This was getting downright sophomoric, but I had to play along. Either that or I could start to slap him, but I quickly calculated that playing along might be better for my story, if not my health, given the information he might possess, as well as his phalanx of security goons at the ready.
'Help me out,' I said. 'I'm jet-lagged. I'm hungry. I'm stupid.
Walk me through this thing. I'm not precisely sure what you mean by maybe, even if I should be.'
He sat silent, cowlike, though I'm not sure if cows ever sit. After a while he cast his eyes on my microcassette, which was sitting between us on his desk, slightly off to one side.
I said, 'You want me to turn that off?'
He nodded. So much for his everlasting words.
'What do you know about this?' I asked, my anxiety easing, but only slightly, realizing we were getting down to the business of doing business.
He paused again, as if collecting his thoughts. 'I have some reasonably reliable information that this assassination attempt was sponsored by a group of freedom fighters based in Wyoming. They're a relatively new unit, inexperienced, with a commander who's hell-bent on making a national mark. This, apparently, was intended to be it.'
I sat for a moment in a stunned but relieved silence. Daniel Nathaniel was essentially confirming the initial FBI line on the shooting, cutting against the grain of most other stories since, including some in the New York Times. This was a significant development, not to be underplayed. A story indicating that a high-placed, well-up source within the militia movement was suggesting, if not outright saying, that the assassination attempt was militia-related would put me and the Record way ahead of the game. Sitting here in this cabin, it also gave me a surge of adrenaline, or maybe it was testosterone. Either way.
'Okay,' I said, partly to Nathaniel, partly aloud to myself. Looking right at him, I asked, 'How do you know?'
'What, you think I'm going to give away all my trade secrets? When you reported that time that the Michigan militia was on the brink of disbanding for lack of leadership, did I ask you how you knew?'
I hate when people I'm interviewing answer questions with questions.
Puts me on my heels. Wastes my time.
'Different situation, different set of circumstances,' I said. 'You know that. I'm trying to get something into print. I have to make sure I can use it before I just go zipping it into the paper.
Sometimes it's helpful to be accurate, even if it's just for kicks.'
He said nothing, so I asked, 'What's the guy's name in Wyoming, the commander?'
'Billy Walbin. Billy Joe Walbin to his friends. My understanding is he came up from Louisiana. He wears many hats, and maybe a cape, if you know what I mean.'
I think I did. A too-typical antigovernment zealot who, for good measure, also railed against blacks, Jews, gays, and anyone else slightly different from himself. A Ku Klux Klan member sowing his oats.
I asked, 'He accessible?'
'I don't know. Maybe not if one of his guys just took a potshot at the president and bought the farm.'
I said, 'I want to get this into print. I need to get this into print.
