Triple Threat

“But you’re okay with some taxes?”

He shrugged. “To pay for roads, air traffic control and defense.”

3:20.

“The SEC for regulating stocks?”

“We don’t need stocks. Ask your average Joe what the stock market is and they’ll tell ya it’s a way to make money or put something away for your retirement fund. They don’t realize that that’s not what it’s for. The stock market’s there to let people buy a company, like you’d go to a used car lot to buy a car. And why do you want to buy a company? Beats me. Maybe a few people’d buy stock because they like what the company does or they want to support a certain kind of business. That’s not what people want them for. Do away with stocks altogether. Learn to live off the land.”

“You’re wrong, Wayne. Look at all the innovations corporations have created: the life-saving drugs, the medical supplies, the computers… that’s what companies have done.”

“Sure, and iPhones and BlackBerrys and laptops have replaced parents, and kids learn their family values at porn sites.”

“What about government providing education?”

“Ha! That’s another racket. Professors making a few hundred thousand dollars a year for working eight months, and not working very hard at that. Teachers who can hardly put a sentence together themselves. Tell me, Kathryn, are you happy handing over your youngsters to somebody you see at one or two PTA meetings a year? Who knows what the hell they’re poisoning their minds with.”

She said nothing, but hoped her face wasn’t revealing that from time to time she did indeed have those thoughts.

Keplar continued, “No, I got two words for you there. ‘Home schooling.’ ”

“You don’t like the police, you claim. But we’re here to make sure you and your family’re safe. We’ll even make sure the Brothers of Liberty is free to go about your business and won’t be discriminated against and won’t be the victim of hate crimes.”

“Police state… Think on this, Ms. Firecracker. I don’t know what you do exactly here in this fancy building, but tell me true. You put your life on the line every day and for what? Oh, maybe you stop some crazy serial killer from time to time or save somebody in a kidnapping. But mostly cops just put on their fancy cop outfits and go bust some poor kids with drugs but never get to why of it. What’s the reason they were scoring pot or coke in the first place? Because the government and the institutions of this country failed them.”

3:26.

“So you don’t like the federal government. But it’s all relative, isn’t it? Go back to the eighteenth century. We weren’t just a mass of individuals. There was state government and they were powerful. People had to pay taxes, they were subject to laws, they couldn’t take their neighbors’ property, they couldn’t commit incest, they couldn’t steal. Everybody accepted that. The federal government today is just a bigger version of the state governments in the 1700s.”

“Ah, good, Kathryn. I’ll give you that.” He nodded agreeably. “But we think state and even local laws are too much.”

“So you’re in favor of no laws?”

“Let’s just say a lot, lot less.”

Dance leaned forward, with her hands together. “Then let’s talk about your one belief that’s the most critical now: violence to achieve your ends. I’ll grant you that you have the right to hold whatever beliefs you want—and not get arrested for it. Which, by the way, isn’t true in a lot of countries.”

“We’re the best,” Keplar agreed. “But that’s still not good enough for us.”

“But violence is hypocritical.”

He frowned at this. “How so?”

“Because you take away the most important right of an individual—his life—when you kill him in the name of your views. How can you be an advocate of individuals and yet be willing to destroy them at the same time?”

His head bobbed up and down. A tongue poke again. “That’s good, Kathryn. Yes.”

She lifted her eyebrows.

Keplar added, “And there’s something to it… Except you’re missing one thing. Those people we’re targeting? They’re not individuals. They’re part of the system, just like you.”

“So you’re saying it’s okay to kill them because they’re, what? Not even human?”

“Couldn’t have said it better myself, Ms. Firecracker.” His eyes strayed to the wall. 3:34.

# # #

The helicopter set down in a parking lot of the outlet mall in Seaside and Michael O’Neil and a handcuffed suspect—no ID on him—climbed out.

O’Neil was bleeding from a minor cut on the head incurred when he scrabbled into a cluster of scrub oaks trees escaping the satchel bomb.

Which turned out to be merely a distraction.

No IEDs, no anthrax.

The satchel was filled with sand.

The perp had apparently disposed of whatever noxious substance it contained on one of his crosscut turns and weaves, and the evidence or bomb or other clue was lost in the sand.

The chopper’s downdraft hadn’t helped either.

What was most disappointing, though, was that the man had clammed up completely.

O’Neil was wondering if he was actually mute. He hadn’t said a word during the chase or after the detective had tackled and cuffed him and dragged him to the helicopter. Nothing O’Neil could say—promises or threats—could get the man to talk.

The detective handed him over to fellow Monterey County Sheriff’s Office deputies. A fast search revealed no ID. They took his prints, which came back negative from the field scanner, and the man was processed under a John Doe as “UNSUB A.”

The blond woman with the big soda cup—now mostly empty—who’d spotted him in the crowd now identified him formally and she left.

The crime scene boss strode up to O’Neil. “Don’t have much but I’ll say that the Taurus had recently spent some time on or near the beach along a stretch five miles south of Moss Landing.” Calderman explained that because of the unique nature of cooling water from the power plant at Moss Landing, and the prevailing currents and fertilizer from some of the local farms, he could pinpoint that part of the county.

If five miles could be called pinpointing.

“Anything else?”

“Nope. That’s it. Might get more in the lab.” Calderman nodded to his watch. “But there’s no time left.”

O’Neil called Kathryn, whose mobile went right to voice mail. He texted her the information. He then looked over at the smashed Taurus, the emergency vehicles, the yellow tape stark in the gray foggy afternoon. He was thinking: It wasn’t unheard of for crime scenes to raise more questions than answers.

But why the hell did it have to be this one, when so little time remained to save the two hundred victims?

# # #

Hands steady as a rock, Harriet Keplar was driving the car she’d stolen from the parking lot at the outlet mall.

But even as her grip was firm, her heart was in turmoil. Her beloved brother, Wayne, and her sometimes lover, Gabe Paulson, were in custody. After the bomb detonated shortly, she’d never see them again, except at trial--given Wayne’s courage, she suspected he’d plead not guilty simply so he could get up on the stand and give the judge, jury and press an earful, rather than work a deal with the prosecutor.

She pulled her glasses out of her hair and regarded her watch. Not long now. It was ten minutes to the