"Not specifically. No."

"Dwight, how many people are there who fit Mr. Richards' description?"

"I don't have that information with me, but I can have it for you shortly. I'm sure it's a manageable num-"

"It's over sixty-two hundred people now," David Richards broke in, "that're in prison on technical violations. And he knows it. The crime is almost always 'conspiracy to violate federal firearms laws'. Bunch of guys I've done business with are in lockup right now for selling fifty bucks worth of SKS ammo. That stuff ATF declared was AP pistol ammo. Day before, you could buy it in any hardware store. Day after, dealer gets a felony count for each round he sells. At ten cents a round, that was five hundred counts of conspiracy, which comes out to about ten life sentences. One of the five guys turned rat for ATF, so he got off, but the others wouldn't, and they're doing ten-to-fifteen, which their lawyer said was a good deal." Richards eyes narrowed, and he was no longer the pleasant cherub talking about bureaucrats with their modeling clay.

"Guys one step away from welfare get ignored. Director Greenwell here and his band of merry men are trying to put every serious dealer out of business, starting with the NFA manufacturers. Forget about the failed raids on Kane, Millet, and Bowman for a second. Let's talk about ATF's 'successes'. Bill Fleming, Fred Vollmer, Jerry Drasen, Chris Lee, Dave Green, Jack Birge, Aron Lippman-every one of those men is a friend of mine. Every one of them was doing a few million dollars a year business, a lot of it to police departments. And the ATF gun thugs spent more than that trying to railroad them into prison for the rest of their lives. Not for shooting anybody, not for selling guns to felons, and not for lying about how much money they made. The hundreds of counts of 'conspiracy' were for steel washers, or pieces of wood, or forms ATF said weren't filled out right. Some of those cases are still open-Greenwell knows they're losers, but he's still spending money, trying to bankrupt these guys 'cause he found out they won't roll over like most of the fucking snitches he's got." Richards smiled without pleasure.

"You don't hear him contradicting me, do you, Mr. President?" he said as he nodded toward Dwight Greenwell. "That's because he knows as soon as you check it out, you'll find everything I've just said is true. You want to catch these guys? You tell Mr. Lemp there to get started on a list of all the acquaintances of the people I just named. The guys who're whacking ATF agents are smart, motivated, and they got money, so tell Mr. Lemp not to bother with anyone that doesn't have a few hundred thousand bucks in the bank, minimum. My name'll be on the list, 'cause I fit the profile. The guys you're looking for are people just like me." Richards stood up and put his suit jacket over his arm.

"Mr. Greenwell called me in so that I could give you my opinion. Well, here it is. ATF screwed the pooch. What's happening now is long overdue, and I'm not a bit sorry it's started. My advice? Try to make contact with these people and negotiate with them. You might find their demands very reasonable. I know mine would be." He walked to the exit and had his hand on the doorknob when he turned for a final comment.

"Keep the vest. Whoever's killing ATF agents doesn't want to kill you, Mr. President, but you might need it on an overseas visit, or something."

"Why do you say these people are not a threat to the Oval Office?"

"Because if they were, you'd already be dead."

"Give me somewhere to start from," Alex Neumann said. "I just don't buy what that guy Berkowitz was saying."

"From what you've told me, I don't either," Angela Riggs agreed. "Not the part about the egotism and thumbing his nose at the government." Riggs was wearing faded jeans and a yellow T-shirt, and sitting barefoot and cross-legged on the floor of her apartment. A glass-topped coffee table separated her from Alex Neumann. On the table were a half-dozen open cartons of Chinese food.

"So what's going on?"

"Well, first of all," she said, digging into the spiced pork with her chopsticks, "I think you are looking at the work of one man. The planning and strategy, I mean. Not the execution."

"So to speak."

"What? Oh. Right. Unfortunate word choice." She chewed and then continued, gesturing with the chopsticks. "I mean, everything I've seen and everything you've told me points to a coherent overall plan. A plan with defined goals, and an overall strategy specifically designed to achieve those goals. That indicates a single leader with vision. Fair statement?"

"Yes."

"Okay then. A coherent plan with defined goals and a strategy to achieve them is not the mark of a crazy person. This is not some guy who thinks he's Jesus or gets told what to do by his dog. He may be egotistical, but so was Patton. We may be able to exploit that, but we may not. So let's concentrate on this guy's goals. What are they? Most important ones first."

"Make the ATF go away," Neumann said hesitantly, remembering Harrison Potter's comment. "Well, let me rephrase that. If ATF were disbanded and their duties turned over to us, or back to the IRS, that wouldn't change anything. This guy's goal is to make the government get out of the gun-regulation business."

"Is it bigger than that? The allusions in his Internet messages to killing other federal agents? Is this man's ultimate goal to overthrow the government?"

"I don't think so," Neumann said, scowling. "I think that's mainly to pull others into it, and give us more to do."

"So you'll be so busy putting out fires, you won't be able to concentrate your assets on finding him and arresting him?"

"Right," Neumann said around a mouthful of rice.

"Alex, does that sound to you like someone who, deep down, wants to get caught?" Neumann quit chewing.

"No," he said quickly, remembering his 20th-century history. "It sounds like a leader in the middle of a war with a stronger enemy, calling on others with parallel interests to join in. America was fighting both the fanatical Japs in the Pacific and the German military machine in Europe. So we linked arms with Josef Stalin and let the Soviets lose twenty million soldiers keeping Germany's finest busy on the Russian Front. That spread Hitler too thin, and he couldn't hold France."

"And the more people he pulls in, the more likely he'll accomplish what he wants and the less likely it is that you'll figure out who he is." Neumann nodded as he considered this, then thought of something else that had been bothering him.

"What if there's another agenda, besides changing federal gun policy? Something bigger." "Such as?" Riggs asked.

"I don't know. It's just that the facts of the case don't add up. Not yet, at least. Raids are planned, but they don't happen, and the agents that are supposed to be on them disappear. Okay, possible explanation: Someone in the government has a change of heart, or undergoes a conversion like Saul on the road to Damascus. He sabotages the raids, kills the others involved, and gets on the Internet with a call to arms. Two problems: One, there isn't an ATF agent alive who would want to do that. Two, there isn't an ATF agent alive who could pull it off if his life depended on it.

"Second explanation: Somebody running a hardcore gun rights group gets wind of the raids, and makes a preemptive strike, and then goes on-line. I could almost buy that, except for what happened in Missouri. How'd they blow up those two choppers in the air? So let's say we find an answer to that-what about the one that's missing? Any way you slice it, somebody in that helicopter had to be in on it. Otherwise, we'd have another wreck, or the men on it would have called in. What we got is straight out of the Twilight Zone."

"Is it?" Angela Riggs asked. "I mean, a jet, yes. You need an airport. But a helicopter, those men could have landed it anywhere. It's probably sitting in the woods somewhere, where they had a four-wheel-drive stashed."

"Right, but who was in on the plan? We've checked out all three ATF agents that were on that chopper. Might as well have been the Three Stooges. That leaves a National Guard pilot. Now he's in on this conspiracy, too? Doesn't add up."

"A stowaway?" she offered. "Holding a gun to the pilot's head? I know it's weak, but..."

"But we don't have anything better," Neumann agreed. "That's what makes me think this is something bigger. I can't help but believe that we've got hold of the tail of the elephant, Angela."

"What do you think the rest of it looks like?"

"I haven't the slightest goddamn idea."

"Aaron Siteman? You mean Congressman Aaron Siteman? From New Jersey? Oh, this is so exciting!" Cindy said, clapping her hands like a little girl.

"Hey, it's not that big a deal, Ellen," the young man said, preening. He wants me to think it is a very big deal Cindy thought.

"But this is so amazing. I've been here three days, and I get to meet you. It's amazing."

"Where are you from?" the Congressman asked as he sipped his vodka.

"California. And I've gotten so I just can't stand it there."

"Really?" Siteman asked. He had never been west of Pennsylvania.

"Oh, yeah. It's terrible. In San Francisco, I mean, all the guys are gay. And then I was in Marina Del Rey, and I'm like, give me a break. You know, all the surfer types, where you just want to yell, 'Hey, get a life!'" Cindy arched her back slightly and tossed her hair. "It's just gotten so plastic there, you know?" That's it, check them out she thought when she saw where Siteman's eyes were aimed.

"I've heard that," he said agreeably.

"My God, I still can't believe I'm meeting you." She lowered her voice and moved her head close to his. "Aren't you afraid, going out like this alone?"

"What do you mean?" Siteman asked, puzzled, as he glanced around the crowded bar.

"I mean, you don't have a bodyguard. Everybody important in California has bodyguards. I mean, there was this one guy that wanted to go out with me, and I'm like, no way. He had these two big guys hanging around him all the time, and I'm like, yeah, right. Your carpet cleaning business makes you just sooooo cool. No way I wanted to hang around with him and his two muscleheads."

"Well, I-"

"Teddy Kennedy has bodyguards," she said suddenly. "I've seen them. They carry UZIs and everything." She flashed him her most dazzling smile and moved in closer so she could whisper. "Can I be your bodyguard? For tonight?"

Aaron Siteman started laughing at his amazingly good fortune, and he put his arm around the young woman's waist.

"You can guard it all you want."

"Mmmm...you're a good kisser," Cindy Caswell said when he finally broke for air.

They were outside the third Georgetown drinking establishment they had visited that evening. "Do you have a place we can go?" "Well, I, uh-" "That's all right," Cindy breathed softly. "My hotel's not too far, but I don't want to embarrass you, if there's anyone there that might see you, you know?" Probably wishes the whole House could see him right now she thought to herself.

"No, no, I don't think that would be a problem. Your hotel would be great."

"Mmmm...let's walk for a little while first," she whispered as she rubbed her breasts against his chest. "I like walking with you."

"God, I feel such an infinity with you," Cindy said, using the most inane-sounding line she could think of on short notice. She pulled Aaron Siteman away from the light of a streetlamp and into the shadows of an oak tree. "Ohhh, kiss me some more," she demanded, and arched her back as her mouth found his. The Congressman pulled her to him with his right arm and with his free hand began squeezing her firm breasts.

Cindy Caswell opened her left eye and looked over Congressman Siteman's shoulder. A figure in a dark business suit was walking silently towards them on crepe-soled shoes. She scanned the area behind and to the sides of the approaching form, searching for any other people. There were none. She pointed her right thumb up in the air behind the Congressman's back as she broke the kiss and moved her mouth up next to the man's right ear.

"Oh, that feels so good," she said, knowing her whispers would cover any sound Henry might make as he crossed the last few yards to where they stood. "Oh, I love it when you rub me like that, don't stop, that feels wonderful, a little harder, I like it firm, you've got such strong hands, oh, that's so good when you do it like that, God, I think I might even come this way, oh, I can't believe what you're doing, don't stop, just like that, oh, that's just r-"

Cindy Caswell kept her passionate monologue going right up until the last instant, when the polished face of the sixteen-ounce Estwing framing hammer shattered the back of Aaron Siteman's skull. She tensed her leg muscles as the Congressman collapsed against her, so that he would not drag her to the ground.

"Go," Henry said softly, and Cindy Caswell turned and walked away. Henry stayed another seven seconds, which was more than enough time to beat the Congressman to death with the tape-wrapped hammer. As he strolled off in the direction opposite of where Cindy had gone, he dropped the tool onto the rear-seat floor of a rusted out Fiat whose window was rolled down.

A block later, Henry started whistling.

June 22

"How the hell did they run this without our knowing it?" Roland Lemp demanded, waving the newspaper. "And what's this crap about how it came from Blair or someone close to him?"