"Let's have the whole thought process. That's why we're here-to share our insights. Perhaps Mr. Edwards will even offer some of his own." The President didn't think much of that last bit of Cover Your Ass Alex Neumann thought. Wonder if he'll like my testimony any better.

"There are certain assumptions we can make about our primary target," Neumann began, "but if we make too many of them, we run the risk of excluding the very man we want to catch. We should only use the more stringent criteria to prioritize suspects in our investigation, not exclude them.

"The first and most logical filter is current and former members of the National Rifle Association. That organization is the largest group of individual gun advocates in the country. It would be hard to imagine our core group being comprised entirely of people who have never belonged to the NRA."

"How many people are we talking about here?"

"Four and a half million." That got their attention Neumann thought grimly, and hurried to continue. "That includes women shooters, junior members, octogenarians, and others we can logically eliminate from our pool. If we narrow our focus to men between the ages of twenty-five and sixty, the number shrinks to less than three million. Priority should be given to life members, and especially life members who have resigned their membership."

"Like George Bush?" Jon Bane of Ohio said sarcastically. I should have expected that Neumann thought with irritation.

"There are two reasons life members resign from the NRA," Neumann explained. "One is that they are offended at NRA's printed attacks on ATF and FBI, and think that NRA should spend all of its money, instead of just most of it. on hunting and target shooting. There are a handful of former members who fall into that category, and former President Bush, who publicly resigned in May of 1995, is one of them.

"However, the vast majority of life members who have quit the NRA in disgust have done so for the opposite reason-because they felt the NRA was spending too much money on target shooting and not devoting enough of its efforts on so-called gun rights."

"What are you talking about?" Dwight Greenwell broke in. "This is the organization that ran ads in USA Today calling us 'jackbooted government thugs'. Your agency as well as mine."

"And now you expect them to hand the FBI their membership list?" Congressman Ward of Indiana interrupted.

"We'll get it," Neumann snapped. / hope he added silently. Then he turned to the ATF Director. "That's a more recent phenomenon, excoriating a federal agency in full-page ads. Those ads were supposedly the reason George Bush resigned in '95. But we need to remember that Bush had only joined the NRA in 1988, I think it was. He needed them to win the '88 election, because some of the NRA people had long memories. Remember the bumper stickers? 'Defend Firearms-Defeat Dukakis', blue and red."

"What do you mean, 'long memories'?" Ward asked.

"Bush was anti-gun before most of us were old enough to vote," Neumann explained. "Before many of us were born, for that matter. He was about the only legislator in Texas that was in favor of the Gun Control Act of 1968, aside from Johnson. So in 1988 he sent in five hundred dollars and became a life member, then as soon as he got in office in 1989 he issued the semiauto import ban by presidential edict. Almost immediately, a large contingent of NRA members petitioned their Board to revoke Bush's life membership and refund his money, because of the ban. That's the point I'm trying to make. Prior to 1995, NRA had seen thousands of members resign because the organization was focused on recreation rather than so-called civil rights. That 'jackbooted thugs' campaign was the most successful recruiting effort in their history." Neumann scowled.

"But we can't concentrate just on former members. Most of the hard-core advocates were and are life members, and only a handful of those actually wrote in to resign. Most of the dissatisfied life members quit sending in additional contributions, but did nothing to terminate their affiliation.

"To the group of 25-to-60 year old male NRA members, past and present, we need to add the membership rosters of the smaller national organizations which focus solely on gun rights and spend no funds at all on recreational issues. The membership overlap between these groups and the NRA is large. However, we are finding that at the bottom end of our age cut-off, there are some strong supporters of these groups who have never had any NRA affiliation at all."

"To what groups are you referring, Alex?"

"There are several, Mr. President. The Gun Owners of America has around a quarter million members. The Second Amendment Foundation, and the Citizens' Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms are somewhat smaller, but have a substantial membership. Probably the most aggressive of the national groups is Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, which-"

"Jews for the preservation of firearms ownership?" Jon Bane broke in, reflexively glancing at Carl Schaumberg, who was seething. "Is that a joke?" The others in the group were giving him reproving looks, but he did not catch them. Neumann shook his head.

"For its size, it's probably the most effective pro-gun organization in the country. They've put up billboards of Adolf Hitler saluting, with the caption 'All Those in Favor of Gun Control Raise Your Right Hand'. They also published the 1938 Nazi laws, in both German and English, side-by-side with the Gun Control Act of 1968. The wording is virtually identical, and they claim Dodd copied the Nazi code."

"I heard about that, but I thought it was NRA propaganda."

"That's been a major complaint among all the smaller groups. Their independent efforts are often assumed to be the work of the NRA." Neumann turned back to the President. "JPFO is based in Milwaukee. Their Executive Director is a man named Aaron Zelman. A Washington news reporter asked him on-camera why almost all Jewish legislators favored more gun control laws. Zelman said many Jews had a quote 'gaschamber mentality' unquote. The station didn't air that segment, but I have a copy of the raw footage." The President was momentarily speechless, but when he saw that Carl Schaumberg was about to break in, he recovered quickly.

"Let's get back to your list of suspects, Alex. Adding these other groups in, it's up around three million?"

"A bit over that. Now we begin to pare it down using other considerations." He held up a finger. "First, education. Every expert we've consulted agrees this guy is well-educated. College graduate almost a certainty. Even though NRA members have above-average levels of education, restricting ourselves to graduates of four-year colleges cuts us down to about a million and a quarter suspects." He held up a second finger.

"Next we have to factor in income. Our boy is computer-literate, and knows his way around the system. We also believe that on at least one occasion, and perhaps several, he or his group has bought a used car for cash, put fresh tires on it, and abandoned it after using it in a killing. That's not something factory workers are apt to be able to do with what they carry in their pockets. Again, NRA members have higher-thanaverage incomes, but if we use a cut-off of $50,000 a year adjusted gross, it should bring us down to around a half-million suspects. On top of that-"

"Excuse me," Harrison Potter broke in, "but is the FBI planning to access the income tax records of a million U.S. citizens for the purpose of fishing for a killer?" / was hoping to avoid that issue Neumann thought.

"We were going to discuss that with the President."

"Invoke the War Powers Act?" Potter asked. "I see."

"From that half-million," Neumann continued, "there are several other filters we can use. One that we are considering is holders of Federal Firearms licenses. Of the 300,000 licensees in the country, perhaps half of them would fit the other qualifications I've laid out. However, there are serious people in the gun culture who do not hold dealer's licenses, so making dealership status a requirement may backfire on us." Neumann took a drink from the glass in front of him.

"The most aggressive screening, Mr. President, would be to restrict our search, at least initially, to people who have at one time or another been licensed by the federal government to own or deal in NFA weapons. People like Kane, Millet, and Bowman. That would cut our sample down to less than thirty thousand people. NFA weapons dealers and collectors have borne the heaviest brunt of the federal antigun laws in the past decades. Most of the dealers were put out of business in '86. A lot of the ones remaining got stuck with huge losses when ATF reclassified their 7.62x39 ammo as armor-piercing and told them they had to eat it. And every one of them risks a prison sentence if he leaves a date out or makes a clerical error on one of his federal forms. These are the people with the most to be angry about."

"Thirty thousand," the President said slowly. "What about when you use the income test? How many does that reduce it to?"

"It hardly changes it at all, sir. NFA weapons are very expensive. Median income of NFA weapons collectors and dealers is a little over two hundred thousand dollars a year." There was a sharp intake of breath among the people in the room.

"That's more than I make," said the President. No one's laughing Neumann thought. The task force members sat in stunned silence until Andy Ward of Indiana spoke up.

"If I'd known that, I'd've campaigned a little differently," he said with a grin. The rest of the group laughed nervously, then the President regained control of the discussion.

"So what we have here is a situation where there are thirty thousand suspects. Every one of these suspects legally owns at least one machine gun, and perhaps several. Each of the thirty thousand almost certainly owns a number of other weapons as well. These thirty thousand will be well-educated men that are especially adept at coping with government regulations. And every one of them will have lots of money, and therefore substantial influence and excellent representation. How many FBI agents are there, Alex? Five, six thousand?"

"That's about right."

"So now every FBI agent in the United States has to investigate five well-armed, wealthy, influential citizens who hate gun laws and who view the agent as a jackbooted government thug. Is that what's going to happen?"

"It's our job, Mr. President," Neumann said.

"So it is." Just then, the Secretary of the Treasury cleared his throat. Lawrence Mills had been silent during all of the meeting.

"Mr. President, whoever is doing this seems to have substantial skills that I, for, one, associate with military or police training. I didn't hear Mr. Neumann say anything about narrowing his list to people with military or law enforcement experience."

"Alex?"

"Mr. President, you should know that Director Lemp shares Secretary Mills' opinion." He took a deep breath. "It is my fear, however, that if we use military or police experience as a screen, we may miss our man. Many if not most of the people in this country who have exceptional shooting and other combat skills have never been in the armed forces or worked in a police department. Major Hume-Douglas was talking about it earlier-the top competitors in the various combat shooting matches held throughout the country are always private citizens. If David Richards is coming in to speak, ask him for his opinion. Police tactics and procedures are also widely known and understood by gun enthusiasts. Articles in gun magazine discuss them on a regular basis."

"Roland?"

"What Alex says may be true. However, I think those on the list who are veterans or have police experience should be given priority."

"I agree with that," Alex Neumann said. Time to play it safe he thought.

"Dwight, I guess you might as well call in this Mr. Richards."

"Yes, sir," Greenwell said as he got out of his chair. "Uh, Mr. President, he's not sympathetic to our agency, or the government in general. And he's very vocal on that subject. Richards hates the government's involvement in the body armor industry. He claims in his sales literature that government standards on body armor have gotten policemen killed. I don't believe that will affect his testimony on the terrorist killings, but I thought I should warn you." The President frowned, but made no comment.

"The main reason I've brought Richards in," Greenwell explained, "is that he is a serious shooter and has many friends in the gun culture. As a matter of fact, he personally knows Kane, Millet, and Bowman, the three NFA dealers Wilson Blair was investigating when all this started." The President nodded as Greenwell walked towards the door and ushered in his expert witness.

David Richards was a cherubic-looking man with thinning sandy hair. He wore a blue suit that had obviously been expertly tailored to fit his barrel-shaped body. His smooth skin made him look younger than his fifty-two years. Alex Neumann found himself thinking of a vaudeville entertainer dressed up to get married and now, standing at the altar, wondering if it was really a good idea after all.

"Mr. President, this is David Richards, the president of the New Lease Body Armor Company. Have a seat, Mr. Richards," Greenwell added, nodding towards the chair Dr. Berkowitz had occupied.

"Mr. Richards, Director Greenwell asked you here because he felt your knowledge might help the task force with this terrible situation we're facing. However, before we get into that, I understand that you have some grievances about government standards involving your business. I've been told that your sales literature contains serious allegations against the government. Is that true?"

"You mean, how the NIJ standard kills cops? Sure, I explain that to everyone, but they still keep doing it." Richards' speech pattern was a stacatto burst of words that ended as abruptly as it had started. "Would you mind explaining it to me?" The President spoke more slowly than usual, unconsciously trying to set an example for the man in front of him. "NIJ stands for...?"

"National Institute of Justice," Richards rattled off instantly. "Mr. President, anybody can design a vest that will stop a bullet. Take the cartridge you want to defend against, and keep making your vest thicker until the bullet doesn't go through any more. Not real complicated, right? Anybody can do it. Hard part's making a vest that a guy would be willing to wear all the time, that doesn't feel like a sandwich board. That's what we do, make comfortable vests, right? Make them in whatever level the customer wants. Guy wants a Tshirt that'll stop .32s and .380s, fine. Guy wants something to stop armor piercing .357s, with a ceramic insert over the heart that'll defeat AP rifle rounds, no problem. We say one of our vests will stop such-andsuch, that means I'll put it on and let someone shoot me with that cartridge. Not like I'm going to lie about what our vests will stop, right? Not like I'm going to close up shop and leave town when the first guy actually gets shot wearing one of my vests. We've been in business over twenty years and have over a thousand 'saves' so far-more than all the other manufacturers put together. That doesn't count the two hundred times I've been shot demonstrating my vests. Last time was day before yesterday," he threw in as an afterthought.

"So maybe I know a few things about designing a comfortable vest and proving that it works. I mean, I'm not hypnotizing these people." Richards laughed at his own joke, shifting his eyes up and to the side to imply he was now considering the concept.

"Anyway, in 1980, NIJ decides to set 'standards' for body armor, to certify vests. They decide blunt trauma's important, but they don't have a clue as to how much blunt trauma is too much, and they don't have any way to simulate human flesh. So the day before the standards get written, their head guy decides to use his kid's modeling clay- Roma Plastilina # 1-as the official standard. Why? 'Cause it's oil-based and convenient to use and he found some in his kid's room. Nobody ever said it acts like human tissue, but he's got some of it, so that's what they use for the simulation.

"So they pound this Roma Plastilina into a block, cover it with the only vest they happen to have lying around-they don't even say in their documentation who made the thing-and shoot it ten times with a .38. Then they measure the 'Backface Deformation Signature' in the clay. 'Backface Deformation Signature' is the government-funded word for 'dent'. They measure this dent in a bunch of different directions and add up the dimensions, and that's the NIJ blunt trauma standard. Any vest that makes a bigger dent in the Roma Plastilina fails the test with that caliber. Never mind that no cop in history has ever been shot ten times in the same spot. Never mind that no cop in history has been permanently injured from blunt trauma after his vest stopped a pistol bullet. NIJ makes the rules. No arguing.

"But NIJ wasn't done yet. They decided the vest had to pass their test when it was soaking we t, and that standard's killed even more people."

"These government standards may irritate you as a manufacturer, Mr. Richards, but I fail to see how they are 'killing people', as you claim." The President was clearly not favorably impressed with the man's complaining. David Richards was undeterred.

"You got different levels of protection, okay, based on what each vest will stop. NIJ-tested vest that'll stop high-velocity .44 Magnum fired out of a rifle gets their Level III A rating. I'll sell you a comfortable vest you could wear all day that'll stop .44 Mag out of a rifle, and I'll put it on and let you shoot me before you buy it. Except it won't even pass NIJ's Level 2 test, because the 'backface deformation signature' in kid's modeling clay will be too big. The vest will be too flexible, even when it's dry. Wet? Forget it. Every synthetic fiber known to man bends a lot more when it's completely drenched.

"Never mind you're going to wear a shirt and jacket over it, and if it's raining out you probably got sense enough to put on a raincoat, too. Never mind you're willing to get bruised instead of killed. NIJ says to get that Level 3 A rating, the vest has to pass its test after you've jumped into a swimming pool. So the manufacturer-that's me-has three choices. One: Make the vest with three times as much material, which means you'll never buy it 'cause it's a lot more expensive, and even if you did you'd never wear it 'cause it'd be a boat anchor. Two: Cover it with waterproof material and stitch it everywhere so the layers are locked together. That's what my competitors do, and it makes the vest feel like a board. You can't wear it for five minutes without the edges rubbing your skin raw. Three: Sell the vest with no rating, and explain to you the facts of life in my ads and literature. Problem with that is that almost every department now requires an NIJ rating to cover its butt on liability. So they buy someone else's vest that's so uncomfortable the cop throws it in the trunk." He jerked a thumb at Roland Lemp.

"Ask him. Miami, 1986. A dozen FBI agents on special detail go out looking for two bank robbers that've killed some people. Five FBI cars-eight agents-find the killers twenty minutes later. Only one of the eight feds has his vest on, and guess what? It turned out the robbers could shoot. Two agents dead, five wounded. Vests were so stiff, only one guy was willing to wear his for twenty minutes in an airconditioned car." Richards nodded at Roland Lemp. Lemp looked decidedly uncomfortable.

"We do have a vest that passes NIJ's stupid water test, most days at least, called our Tyrant model. Like the name? I thought of it myself. It's pretty comfortable, but expensive 'cause of what we have to pay for the Gore-Tex outside fabric. Lot of departments won't pay the price, so they buy our competitors' stuff that ends up in the trunk of the squad car. We got over a thousand saves, more than the rest of the whole industry, almost all with non-rated vests-a tiny fraction of the market. Why? People wear our vests, and they work." His face lit up as he thought of something.

"You wear a vest once in a while, and I know it's not one of mine. You like the way it feels? Or does it rub a hole in your skin after an hour and a half? See, I knew it," Richards said with a grin when he saw the President's expression. "Here, feel this one." David Richards stood up and began to remove his suit jacket and tie.

"Mr. Richards-" Roland Lemp began in protest.

"Hey, it's okay, I got a T-shirt on under it," Richards assured him as he undid the last button on his dress shirt and shrugged out of it. Then he pulled the satin-like nylon carrier over his head and walked up to where the President sat, pulling his undershirt down to cover his ample midsection as he did so.

"Here," he said, proffering the garment. "This is the 'Deep Cover' model. Stops .44 Magnum. Feel it-you don't have to put it on," he assured the Chief Executive. "No rating at all, but I'll put it back on and let one of your FBI guys shoot me with a three-round burst out of his 10mm MP5 submachine gun from a foot away."

"I don't think-"

"You know how bad NIJ is?" Richards interrupted as he remembered something. "Head trauma surgeon for the entire armed forces, Martin Fackler, got interested in body armor and requested Nil's testing protocol. They wouldn't give it to him. Had to get it under the Freedom of Information Act. When he did, he immediately said the kid's clay test was a joke. But that wasn't all. Fackler ran the numbers and found that back in '80, when they added up the different dimensions on their backface deformation signature, NIJ even did their addition wrong!"

"Mr. Richards," the President said, handing back the body armor, "I was unaware of the controversy surrounding government standards in your industry. Perhaps we can go into this another time, when we can give this issue the attention it merits. Director Greenwell asked you to speak before us today, I am told, because he hoped you could help us with the threat ATF is now facing."

"You want vests?" Richards asked, incredulous. "For all the ATF agents? The guy told me you wanted to talk about-" He stopped abruptly. "Oh. Yes, of course. Got sidetracked with the stuff about NIJ standards. Wishful thinking." His brow furrowed. "It's only been, what? A week and a half? FBI already go through all of the suspects? Jesus, I didn't know they had that much manpower." Now it was the President's turn to appear puzzled. Dwight Greenwell looked miserable.

"Mr. President, Mr. Richards made an offhand suggestion last week that I of course did not take literally. I knew that the FBI would have its own criteria for finding-"

"Didn't take it literally?" Richards said in surprise. "Did you think I was kidding? And the FBI has its own criteria-you mean they have some better group of suspects to choose from? What have you people been doing here all this time?"

"Mr. President," Greenwell went on quickly, "Mr. Richards thinks that the most likely group of suspects would be the friends and relatives of people ATF has charged with firearms violations."

"Not 'charged with firearms violations'," Richards said, vigorously shaking his head. "I said 'killed or put in prison'. Those're the first people I'd look at. You stick some 25-year-old kid in the slam 'cause he put a folding stock on his SKS, and now he gets to be Darnell's wife every night, you think his dad's going to go, 'Oh, I'm glad he's learning about another culture', and send his new son-in-law a nice card?" He laughed. "You want to find this guy, check out the friends and relatives of the people ATF has shot or burned to death. Then go check out the friends and relatives of the ones they've put in federal prison because some piece of wood or steel on their gun violated ATF's rule-of-the-day.

"Guy watches his best friend go to prison on some conspiracy charge based on fender washers or bayonet lugs he had in his workshop, charges made by some government jerk who wants to pump up his arrest record, you don't think he's a likely candidate for what's going on now?"

"That's the purp-"

"What do you think people in this country are?" Richards asked, interrupting the President with another question before the man could answer the previous one. "I got a dog, loves everyone, never heard her growl once. Kids on the block love to play with her. I stop feeding her, let her run with some other dogs no one feeds, throw rocks at 'em when they come around to be petted, what happens? I end up with something acts more like a wolverine than a puppy the neighborhood kids like to play with.

"Why're people any different? Wartime, feds grab a kid just out of high school, issue him a rifle and tell him to kill another kid just out of high school 'cause the other kid's got on a different-shaped helmet. He does it 'cause fighting is what you do when you have to, and the feds've made him believe in the cause. We got thousands of war vets did just that when they were eighteen, and nobody thinks twice about it.

"Now, instead of an eighteen-year-old, you got a guy maybe thirty, forty, fifty years old. He sees his friends get their lives ruined by some trigger-happy government jerks who get promoted instead of fired when they screw up. Does it amaze you that this grown man might actually on his own decide this was something worth risking his life for?" Once again, Richards rushed on without waiting for an answer.

"Some Army choppers with door guns crashed on Henry Bowman's property two weeks ago. This Blair guy writing stuff on the Internet says Henry was being raided, along with two other dealers. Greenwell here says the other two were Grant Millet and Allen Kane. Is that true?"

"Yes, it is."

"Well, I know all three of those men, and between them, they got maybe a hundred friends who'd be mad as hell ATF was attacking them with helicopter gunships. I also know that at least two of those three men each paid more in federal income tax last year than you did, Mr. President. Why were Bowman, Kane, and Millet being raided? Hm?" he demanded, his words pelting the President rapid-fire like hail on a metal roof. "Aside from the fact that Bowman likes to drive over a hundred on the interstates, I've never known any of them to break one single law. What the hell'd they do, anyway?" There was a long pause, and the President finally decided to tell Richards the truth.

"We don't know, Mr. Richards. Wilson Blair was the supervisory agent in charge, and he and the agents who have vanished were the only ones who knew the particulars of the raids. We believe Blair may be dead, and whoever is sending the messages is someone else. But we don't know that for a fact." He smiled sadly. "To be blunt, Mr. Richards, we were hoping you could help us figure out who that person is."

"Mr. President," David Richards said slowly, which surprised everyone in the room, "has the FBI even started looking at relatives and associates of guys ATF has put in federal prison?"

"Roland?" the President asked. The FBI Director frowned.