Army swept it under the rug and told you to soldier up and keep your mouth shut. It pissed you off.”
“And between the inequitable treatment and the fact that my male attacker got off scot-free, I made a decision that I’d never be that helpless again. Good thinking.”
Gabe nodded. “So you took advantage of all the educational opportunities the service provided, including the GI bill, after you separated. You were a staff sergeant by that time, by the way.”
It was all in there. Dates of service, what college she’d attended, where she’d gone to law school.
“When you passed the bar—first attempt, by the way—you ended up a public defender in Sacramento, which is where you eventually met handsome Dan here.”
“Apparently I was even irresistible in my prison orange,” Mike said absently as he pulled out a chair and sat down at the table opposite Gabe.
“Mr. Irresistible,” Gabe said dryly, “is a little more hard-core. Grew up in the mountain west, which is true, so that helps. He was the child of a far, far rightwing father who was also a strict disciplinarian. Read: He did not believe in sparing the rod to spoil the child. Dan hightailed it off the farm as soon as he graduated high school but with no skills, no college degree, and no money, he couldn’t find work. He eventually enlisted in the Navy—where he encountered Hill, someone his own age, who spouted the same doctrine as his old man. And suddenly the whole “less government, more people” message began to resonate.”
“I was very impressionable,” Mike said.
Eva had his number by now. His sense of humor was his coping mechanism. Tension, anger, guilt… he hid it all behind a wisecrack. He couldn’t help himself.
“So you did your four-year hitch in the Navy, got out, couldn’t find steady work, and drifted from odd job to odd job for several years. Began to resent the establishment that you felt repressed your earning ability. Got mixed up with a bad crowd in Sacramento. Got nabbed on a couple B&Es and got off on technicalities, but not learning the error of your ways, you got busted knocking off a liquor store where a clerk was shot. Not killed, and you weren’t responsible, but you were an accomplice in an armed robbery so you were pretty much screwed.”
“Enter Maria Gomez, my court-appointed attorney?” Mike speculated.
“The same. She repped you, got your sentence reduced from ten to eight, of which you served six—early out for good behavior—in California State Prison. You kept to yourself while you were there, kept your nose clean, no gang affiliations, but—”
“But I ran into Barry Hill again in prison. Seemed like kismet, right? And Hill became my new best friend.”
“Exactly. Now back to Dan and Maria. Romance blossomed while Dan did his time. Maria resigned from her PD position and moved to Soledad to be closer to the facility and you. While there, Maria did pro bono work for a local woman’s shelter and paid her rent working part-time for a small law firm.
“Dan, on the other hand, had become a student of Lawson’s teachings and a devotee of him and UWD.
When you got out last month, you and Maria got married and you convinced her you wanted to join the movement.”
He stopped and looked from her to Mike. “Any questions? Issues?”
“Yeah. Maria will be of value to UWD because she’s an attorney. What do I bring to the table—besides my good looks and malleable mind?”
“There are so many places I could go with that, but I’ll restrain myself.” Gabe actually grinned. “You’re offering up a strong back, a military background, proof that you aren’t afraid to mix it up—your recent record supports that—and the possibility of bringing in more recruits. Numbers are king when you’re trying to sustain a movement. Mob mentality and strength in numbers aren’t just cliches. They’re the foundation for these radical organizations.
“So once you’ve earned Lawson’s trust, you convince him you have a couple buddies who believe in the cause and want to recruit them.”
Disappointment flashed in Mike’s eyes for an instant. She knew he was thinking of Taggart and Cooper. He was thinking that they should be the ones going in with him.
“Most likely it’ll be me and Joe,” Gabe said, breaking a silence suddenly rife with regret. “The more boots on the ground, the more we find out about Lawson and his extracurricular activities.”
“This is really good work,” Eva said, “but you know they’ll run a records check—you have to figure they’ve got someone in the ranks that can hack into IAFIS.”
The Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System was a national fingerprint and criminal history system available to local, state, and federal partner agencies to assist in solving and preventing crime and catching criminals and terrorists. She had no doubt that UWD had someone in law enforcement they could tap to run both Maria’s and Dan’s backgrounds.
“And Dan Walker’s history will all be there by the time you two make contact with UWD. It’ll also be supported by strategically planted federal reports that, prior to his conviction, mark Dan as a low-level activist with a pattern of sporadic radical rhetoric against the government—a few arrests involving protest rallies, maybe a concealed-weapons charge or two prior to his big downward slide.”
Mike scratched his jaw. “I’ve been a busy boy.”
“The perfect candidate for anarchy, madness, and mayhem. Maria’s military background, education history, employment, everything will be on file where it needs to be. Same for Dan’s criminal record. All you have to do is sell it.”
Very clearly implied was that they also had to sell the married-and-in-love act.
Gabe glanced at the diamond stud in Mike’s ear.
“I know. I need to lose the rock.”
“A long time ago.” The look on Gabe’s face told a bigger tale of what he thought of the earring.
Mike laughed. “What? You don’t like my bling?”
“You’re lucky someone hasn’t ripped your ear off, going after it in a bar fight.”
“Lucky’s my middle name.”
“Well, leave the hair, Lucky. If Lawson saw photos of you it would have been with a military haircut. Plus that scruffy I’m-pretty-but-I’m-not-anyone’s-bitch look has
“So glad we’re not talking skinhead.” Mike ran a hand through his hair. “I can fake the low IQ but I don’t have the tats to pull that off.”
“UWD has been very careful to disassociate themselves from the white-supremacist movement,” Eva said. “The Randy Weaver case was the first nail in their coffin, but the Aryan Nation still held a strong presence in Idaho until about a decade ago. You remember the Victoria Keenan incident, where guards at the AN compound were found responsible for the assault on her and her son?”
Both men nodded.
“That pretty well sank them. The Aryan Nation has effectively become history in Idaho. A multimillion-dollar civil suit followed and basically bankrupted the organization. Everything I’ve read says Lawson has been smart and sensitive to the bad feelings the local residents have about the white-supremacist group. He doesn’t want the bad press, so he’s limited his rhetoric to his anarchy platform. It’s just as wrong but not as distasteful to the public.”
“Show’s how savvy he is,” Mike agreed.
“We should probably do a little something about your look, Eva,” Gabe said, turning to her. “You good with that?”
“Whatever it takes.”
“I need to take shots of both of you and e-mail the pictures to B.J. and Stephanie so they can pull together your photo IDs.”
B.J. and Stephanie, Eva had learned, provided much of the intelligence gathering and dissemination, and coordinated ID documentation for the team. B.J.’s background included the military and the Defense Intelligence Agency—DIA. Stephanie came directly from the National Security Agency—NSA. Both had joined the BOI organization after marrying operatives Rafe Mendoza and Joe Green respectively. Both, Gabe had assured her earlier, were digging into Brewster. So far he was whistle clean.
“Almost forgot.” Gabe opened another envelope. Two wedding rings fell out into his palm.
