"Yeah. They give me an upper-body workout, so I get equally tired all over, instead of just my legs. And when my knees start hurting, I can just walk and still keep my heart rate jacked up. Your joints ever complain?"

"You kidding?" the man snorted. "Almost all the time."

"Try a set of these, and just walk while pumping your arms hard. Only start light on the weight. Five pounds is the most I ever use running, and two pounds will wear you out if your arms aren't used to it. But any weight at all will definitely slow you down, so you'd best run alone or with somebody a lot slower."

"What, different weights screw on those handles?"

"Yeah. Ones I got here are three pounds a hand." The other jogger looked at Taylor Lowell's upper body. It was much more muscular than his own.

"You lift weights, too?"

"No, just this."

"I think you may be on to something," the man said with a smile. "You have to order those special?" "No, you can get them all over."

"Thanks," the man said, nodding, and resumed his quicker pace.

"What's the story on that guy out in Wyoming that ATF was going after?" Alex Neumann asked. "They haven't checked in."

"Jesus, it's been, what? Three days? Call our office, see what Trey Mullins has to say." "We can't reach him, either."

"Well, where are they?"

"We don't know, sir."

"Where's their vehicle?"

"It's missing, too."

"Is there anything we do know?" he asked. Jesus, is this another Wilson Blair? Neumann wondered.

"Yes sir, we know that Orville Crocker is at home in Laramie, because he is answering his phone, and the local sheriff confirms that Crocker is indeed on the premises. We've asked the sheriff to question him, and all he'll say is that Vonetta Ecks of the ATF pointed a gun at him and he took it away from her. He refuses to speak on any other subject. Uh, we really need some more of our own men on the scene, sir. The local sheriff is helping us as little as he possibly can without risking an obstruction charge."

"So what else is new. Locals have never liked feds, and after that CNN piece, we might as well all have AIDS." He thought a moment, chewing his lip. "I'll have some men sent up from the Denver office and have them contact us directly the minute they have anything." The younger agent nodded and left.

Christ Neumann said to himself. You'd think I might be due for a break by now.

"Hey, Boss?" a new voice said. Alex Neumann looked up at the agent who had appeared in the doorway . "What now, Jud?"

"They're getting grim. San Antonio, Texas. Somebody set fire to an ATF agent's house at 2:00 this morning. Obvious arson job. Accelerants all over the front of the house, especially the front door. When the firemen got there, they find the whole family in their pajamas, in the back yard. The agent, his wife, and three kids. All dead. Each one shot at least three times, and all of them once behind the right ear."

"A finisher."

"Right. All the slugs were twenty-twos, but forensics says they came from two different guns. Both bolt actions, from the looks of the fired cases. One's a Marlin, they have that special kind of rifling with lots of little grooves. The other's a Winchester, looks like."

"Which narrows it down to maybe ten million guns."

"Yeah." The agent looked away from Alex for an instant, then turned back to face him. "Guys from the San Antone office questioned four sets of neighbors."

"And?"

"And nobody knows nothin' about nothin'. One old guy with a walker came to the door, told the San Antonio SAC he wasn't about to talk to him, and to get a warrant if he wanted to come inside. The wife's behind the old guy, and she's sitting in a wheelchair, so the SAC asks her for a statement. Did she hear anything, see anything out the wi ndow? She says, 'You want a statement? Okay, Mister FBI man. People who play with fire sometimes get burned.' Then she laughs and shuts the door in his face." The agent took a deep breath. "Sir, cooperation was low before that tape got aired, but now it's nonexistent."

"I know, Jud. And thanks for the update. I know it's hard, especially for the guys in the field. But make sure you get all the reports to me as soon as you can, no matter how bad they are. And let me know if they get any breaks on this last one."

"Yessir." The man nodded and left Neumann's office.

I've got to talk to the President again Alex Neumann thought as he stood up from his desk. "Sir! They've found the missing chopper!" Alex Neumann jumped out of his chair when the other agent came into his office and blurted out the news.

"Where is it? Any sign of the men that were in it?"

"All dead, sir. Found it a couple of hours ago. A diver verified the bodies were all there. And you're not going to believe where it was-Bowman's property in Missouri."

"What?"

"At the bottom of the old quarry that's at the northeast corner of his land. Been there all along, apparently. Must've crashed at the same time as the other two."

"Son of a bitch. Why didn't we spot it from the air?"

"Water's pretty deep, sir. Over a hundred feet. One of the bodies floated up and drifted over to the bank. Must've been there a while. Up on the bank, I mean. Scavengers had picked it clean, down to the bones. Skeleton with a flak jacket on it."

"Who found it?"

"One of the local deputies. He was checking on the property while Bowman's off on some geology dig, and decided to go over to the old quarry pit while he was there, and shoot his M16."

"Call the St. Louis office, and the National Guard in that area. We got jurisdiction and authority, and by God I'm going to use it. I want our people there when that thing gets dredged up. I want it done today, I want every piece of it tagged and put on a cargo plane, and I want it here in our lab by midnight tonight. The same goes for the corpses. Have our best bomb people and our best forensic pathologists ready and waiting to go to work the second everything gets here. You have my authority to do whatever it takes to see that that gets done. And make damn sure none of it gets lost or thrown away this time."

"Yes, sir."

"We been due for a break," Neumann said with real enthusiasm. It was the first time he had smiled for many days. "We got ourselves another chopper to work with. Let's see what Forensics can do with one that didn't burn up."

Taylor Lowell increased his pace when he saw the familiar figure ahead of him in the distance on the jogging path. He glanced around without breaking stride to confirm that no one else was around. On this, his sixth attempt, Lowell had timed it almost perfectly, and there were no other runners in sight. With a little more speed Taylor Lowell would catch up to the man just as the path entered the grove of trees. The air was dry, but the heat that morning in Phoenix was as hot as it had been all month, and the runner up ahead was not in the same physical condition as the USWest executive with the revoked pilot's medical certificate. Taylor Lowell continued to close the gap.

Congressman Heebner was breathing hard and plugging along at a ten-minute-mile pace when the path bent left and into the welcome shade. He wiped sweat from his brow and stopped squinting quite so hard as the morning sun was intermittently blocked by the trees. The soft thup-thup-thup of another runner approaching joined the early-morning sounds of insects and distant automobiles. Without breaking stride or turning his head to look, Congressman Heebner automatically moved to the right side of the path to give the faster runner plenty of room to pass.

Taylor Lowell flicked his head left and right, looking over his shoulders for final confirmation that no one else was anywhere around. Then he increased his pace and adjusted his stride slightly so that it would be his left foot that would be leading at the moment he shot past Congressman Heebner. As Lowell closed to within a few yards of the slower jogger, he lengthened the swing of his arms so that they extended their full length, each moving in concert with the opposite leg.

The sole of Taylor Lowell's right shoe landed three feet behind the jogging Congressman as the five-pound handweight in Lowell's right hand reached its full rearward extension. On his next stride, Lowell brought his right hand up and forward, describing an ellipse in the air with the same motion that a person uses to pound his fist on a table. At almost exactly the same instant that Taylor Lowell's left foot slapped against the pavement to the side and just ahead of Heebner, the five-pound weight slammed into the back of the Congressman's skull with the sound of forceful impact. Congressman Heebner skidded on his face as Taylor Lowell blew past him.

Taylor Lowell continued on for several more strides and then looked back. Heebner was crumpled on the ground. The executive and former pilot put an expression of concern on his face and trotted back to the fallen man. He squatted on the asphalt and rolled the Congressman over on his back. He knew that the man might still be alive, although he suspected the legislator had a fractured skull. Lowell looked around in a pantomime of frantic anxiety, preparing to shout for help and ready to volunteer to run for a doctor if anyone was nearby. When he was sure there was still no one approaching, Lowell dropped the act.

With an economy of motion that belied the power of the blow, Taylor Lowe ll swung the handweight once more, crushing Heebner's larynx. Then he stood up and resumed his seven-minute pace, enjoying a 'runner's high' as he contemplated the FAA supervisor who was next on his list.

"Right in here," the aide said, and ushered Alex Neumann in through the doorway. Neumann spoke before he got a good look at the President's face.

"Mr. President, I'm glad you called me in. We're running 'round the clock, and-"

"Slow down, Alex. I called you, remember?"

"I'm sorry, Mr. President." Shit! Stupid idiot! Neumann thought. "Of course you did. What can I do for you?"

"I asked you to keep me up to speed on any new assaults on our people, outside of ATF," the President said. "Alex, you let me down. I just got blindsided at my press conference. Did you see it?" "No, sir," Neumann said miserably.

"I got blindsided, Alex, on national television, by a reporter who asked me what the White House response was to the fact that the killings had spread to the FAA, what we were going to do about 'Hoover's Revenge', and whether the White House approved of the current FAA medical standards. The goddamned FAA, for Christ's sake!" he exploded. Openmouthed, Neumann shook his head in bewilderment.

"I'm sorry, I...I don't know anything about that," the FBI man said finally, then stared at the floor. The President closed his eyes, most of his rage obviously spent.

"Alex, things have gone crazy in the five days since CNN ran that damn footage of Blair," he said slowly. "It's spreading way beyond ATF now. Congressman Heebner's killing yesterday was apparently not because of his voting record on gun laws." Neumann looked up quickly.

"That's right. An FAA official was shot to death this morning, also in the Phoenix area. Two hours ago someone posted an anonymous message on the Internet, calling for the assassination of other FAA officials and legislators who have given the FAA more power. Legislators like Congressman Heebner," he added pointedly.

"The Internet message referred to this...engagement, as 'Hoover's Revenge'. When I first heard that, I thought it referred to J. Edgar Hoover."

"No?"

"No," the President said, shaking his head. "Bob Hoover, not J. Edgar. Some air show pilot that was a World War II hero. Back in '93, someone in the FAA used an 'emergency procedure' to revoke his medical certificate so he couldn't fly any more, and apparently every private pilot in the country thinks we railroaded him. I just had a talk with an FAA lawyer and looked at the evidence Hoover's people have. It looks like they have the proof that FAA fabricated all of it, with an FAA Inspector's sworn testimony, and the government's strategy has been to bankrupt them. I'm beginning to think the Director is another Dwight Greenwell."

"Mr. President, do you want me to put an FBI team on this? It won't take me long to get up to speed, sir. On these medical standards, or whatever they are."

"I can brief you right now, Alex," the President said with a sigh. "Apparently, pilots have to meet medical minimums to keep their licenses. I hadn't realized it, but that includes everyone, not just commercial pilots. The FAA has set blood pressure limits, and things like that, and a lot of people flying these little two- and four-place planes for pleasure have lost their licenses. That's our pool of suspects, and it's a big list."

"You lose your right to fly your little plane around an empty sky over open ground because your blood pressure's elevated, but you can go drive your Cadillac in the business district at lunch hour?" Alex Neumann asked, startled at the news. "How low does it have to be?"

"Lower than mine is right now. I talked to a lawyer for a pilots' rights group, and that was exactly his point." The President rubbed his temples. It would give me a headache, too Neumann thought. "Alex, this is a parallel situation to the gun issue, and it's just starting to accelerate. I do not want another Wilson Blair preaching rebellion, but that's exactly what we're about to get. God knows how many other groups are going to spring out of the woodwork. No one's targeted anyone at the IRS yet, but they're getting very nervous." Neumann nodded. Guys at the Bureau have all been predicting the same thing.

"Judge Potter is expecting the next call from this Jones bastard on the eleventh. I'm going to be there when he takes it." The President flared his nostrils, breathing in and coming to a decision.

"Alex, since CNN showed that tape, another seventy-plus agents have been killed and over a thousand have resigned. I don't know what the total deaths are now in all branches and on a state level, but with legislators added in it's well over two hundred. This thing is on the verge of turning into a real civil war, and I am not going to let that happen. You and Judge Potter are the only ones who know this, but I am going to come to some kind of agreement with Jones on the eleventh. He is not going to put me off for another three weeks. The eleventh is one week from today. I should have agreed to what he wanted a month ago, but that was then and this is now. The one thing that would strengthen my position is if we had Jones' client in our hands before I have that final meeting."

"Mr. President, Forensics is poring over the wrecked helicopter they pulled out of the quarry pit, and I'm going to get something out of those people today. But you know I can't promise an arrest by the eleventh. It's been-"