without the order.
“No,” the newcomer said.
A half dozen fingers pressed triggers ever so slightly. The SEB agents didn’t like having guns pointed at them.
“Frank.”
It was Brett Marks. His voice was calm, the voice of a man who had led men in combat. Jack almost took his eyes off the militia men to look at him.
“Frank, calm down.”
Jack hid his surprise. Six months of undercover work and countless hours of research had told him that under Marks’s mainstream exterior lay the heart of a violent anarchist. He hated the Federal government, and he’d been preparing his true believers for a showdown just like this. Why was he striking his colors?
“Brett, don’t give me this shit,” said the other one. Jack knew him, though not well. He was Frank New- house, a lieutenant in the Greater Nation. Newhouse was Brett’s colorless alter ego. Everything about him was flat, from his crew cut to his pale eyes to the permanent look of disinterest on his face. He had the lean, wide- shouldered body of a man who never worked out but also never stopped working. “This is what we’re here for!”
Brett Marks shook his head. “This isn’t worth someone’s life, Frank. Not this. Whatever they want, we’ll beat them in court. They don’t have shit on us and we know it.”
Frank grinned. “They don’t want to die? Maybe you’re right. What do you think, Danny?” He elbowed the man next to him, a carbon copy of Heinrich Gelb. “He’s right, probably, isn’t he? We might as well lay down our weapons when the Federal government can send liars and spies into our group, point guns at us, knock down our door whenever they want to, right?”
Danny said, “Hell, no.”
“Frank,” Brett said. “You’ve still got a mission to finish. Focus on that.”
“Put the guns down!” Jack ordered.
Jack couldn’t tell who fired first. If it was his own people, he couldn’t blame them. A man can only stand under the gun for so long before he has to act. All Jack knew for sure was that the militia man’s words were still hanging in the air when the room erupted in gunfire. Jack found his senses assaulted by the crack of handguns, the flash of muzzles, and the sharp stink of gunpowder. He flinched for only the briefest of instants before laying his sights across Frank Newhouse’s chest and squeezing the trigger.
“Stay on him!” Jack ordered half his team. The other half followed Jack through the doorway into Brett Marks’s bedroom. White sheets and a heavy comforter lay askew across the mattress. A bathroom door and a closet door were both open, and Frank Newhouse was nowhere to be seen.
“Shit!” Jack swore. He jabbed a finger at the closet, ordering someone to check it, and threw himself against the wall beside the bathroom doorway. He kicked the half-open door and burst in, following the arc of the swinging door with the muzzle of his gun. Nothing.
“Sir!” someone called.
Jack spun toward the closet as several of the SEB agents cleared an aisle. Shirts and pants on hangers had been pushed aside. A panel in the back had been kicked through, revealing a shaft that dropped down into darkness.
“Go!” Jack said. “Keep on the radio. Get that guy!”
Three members of the assault team went through the panel and down the shaft. Jack pointed to one of his team. “Stay with them by radio. I want to know what direction they’re heading and where that tunnel comes out.”
Bauer took a deep breath and assessed his situation. His primary target had been caught. His teams had captured the Greater Nation’s munitions depot and rounded up most of the militia men. One target missing, but pursuit was in progress. He looked to the doorway, where SEB agents were huddled over the bodies of the three militia men. One of the agents looked at Bauer and dragged his thumb across his throat.
Jack checked his watch: 3:23. The whole operation had taken less than fifteen minutes. Three militia men dead, no casualties on his team. So far, so good.
“Where’s he going to go, Brett?” Jack asked, returning to the outer room.
Marks smirked. “You’re an agent of the Federal government, Jack,” he said. “You have no authority to do or say anything against a private citizen like me.”
Bastion laughed. “He’s shitting you, right?”
Marks frowned at Bastion like a professor dealing with a naive student. “Check the law, my friend. Read the Constitution.
“Give it a rest, Marks,” Jack growled.
“—crimes against the laws of nations, or civil rights violations by officials. You are violating the same Constitution you swore to protect. These men should be arresting you.”
“He is shitting you,” Bastion said in disbelief.
Brett shook his head. “It’s a felony punishable by ten years in prison.”
Bastion nodded his head sarcastically. “Oh well, in that case I’ll just take these off and put them on Agent Bauer here.”
Marks half-turned so he could look Bastion in the eye. “Officer, you are joking. But I’m telling you the truth. Look it up.”
“Sorry, I don’t subscribe to
“Then maybe you should check the Constitution. Or the United States Code published by the House of Representatives. What I’m talking about is right there in black and white.”
“Move him out of here,” Jack said. Guns and handcuffs aside, Marks was still on his home turf, in his comfort zone. He needed to change that. “Get him in the van and sit on him until you hear from me.”
Jack’s ear bud chirped. “Agent Bauer, this is Able, over.”
“Able, Bauer. Go ahead.”
“We’re in the munitions depot. You want to come see this now, over.”
“On my way. Bauer out.” Bauer eyed Bastion. “If he keeps talking, shut him up. But keep your eyes on him.”
Bauer spun toward the door. As he did, he started to take himself down from his assault status. He checked and holstered his weapon, then pulled the black skullcap from his head and tugged the gloves off his hands. He stopped in a bathroom and splashed water on his face, letting it rinse away the black combat paint he’d smudged there. Lastly, he slid his mobile phone out of a Velcro pocket of his black battle dress uniform pants and turned it on. Immediately it emitted an angry buzz.
It was after three-thirty in the morning, and CTU Special Agent in Charge Kelly Sharpton’s mood was as dark as the unlit hallway. He banged his toe against a chair and swore like a sailor. He wasn’t a sailor, though, he was Air Force — eight years in, ending up in the Office of Special Investigations before leaving the Corps to join the FBI. He’d been a field agent in the San Francisco office before his computer skills — and a few personal problems — drove him off the streets. Now he mostly rode a desk, but he didn’t mind. At CTU he had eyes and ears that saw the entire world. He was good at his job, and he liked it most of the time.
Not now, though. Now he’d been roused out of bed by the gravediggers — his nickname for the analysts who worked the swing shift from oh-dark-hundred until the sun came up. Sharpton was used to getting calls from the
