Henry Bowman used his index finger to disconnect the call, dropped more coins in the slot, and dialed the second number. A black man answered on the second ring.

"Heywood? Wilson Blair. Listen carefully," Henry Bowman said, and then went through the same presentation as he had with Lorenzo Cruz.

When he was finished, and after he had heard Heywood Downing hang up, Henry took a heavy pair of pliers from his pocket and clipped the metal cable holding the receiver to the pay phone. Heywood Downing's phone would be out of service until someone pressed down the lever on the pay phone's receiver. Then Henry closed his eyes and sagged against the aluminum shield surrounding the public phone.

Now for the really tricky pan he thought.

"You must be Cutter," the tall man with the pockmarked face said as he opened the passenger door of the van, reached over the stack of Halliburton aluminum hardcases, and extended his right hand. "J.P. Stewart. And this is Lorenzo Cruz," he said, indicating an hispanic man of medium height standing behind him.

"Eric Cutter," Henry said in his own voice, shaking Stewart's hand. "Sorry about all this gear, but Blair said get cracking, and I just threw it in the front."

"No problem. We'll just hop in the back." Stewart slid the side door open and the two men climbed into the van's middle seat.

"You'll have to help him with the door," Henry said helpfully to the tall man who had entered first. "Push on the top edge while Mr. Cruz slams it shut hard, or it won't close all the way."

"Goddamn Fords," Stewart muttered as he leaned across the bench seat and began to push on the top of the door. He did not notice the slight movement in the driver's seat. Lorenzo Cruz grabbed the door handle, gave it a mighty heave, and the sliding door swooped rapidly along its track.

As the door slammed shut, Henry Bowman shot Jedediah P. Stewart in the back of the head. Stewart's corpse folded across Lorenzo Cruz's knees, then became wedged against the front seat. "Hey-" Cruz started to say, but his words were cut off as Henry put two 29-grain bullets into his left eye socket. Cruz died with his mouth open, still sitting upright in the seat.

Thank God this van doesn't have any windows back of the front doors Henry Bowman thought as he laid the Hi-Standard on the passenger seat, dropped the lever into DRIVE, and pulled away from the curb. Then he switched his 5" Smith & Wesson from his left hand to his right, and slid it into the inside-the-pants holster on his right hip. Four grains of Bullseye still would have made a hell of a mess. Glad I didn't have to use it Henry thought as he gave silent thanks that the .22 functioned reliably with CB caps.

In over three decades of shooting, Henry Bowman had still never gotten to where he was willing to trust his life to any semiautomatic handgun designed by someone other than John Browning.

Hope my luck keeps holding Henry said to himself as he pulled onto the street where Heywood Downing's apartment was located. It was in a more densely populated part of the city than Cruz's house, and cars lined the curb in front of the two-story walk-up. He honked the horn after bringing the van to a stop. Several black faces on front stoops stared in his direction. That's it, guys he thought. Burn this into your memory for when they come to your door with questions in a week or so.

After a little over a minute's wait, a black couple in dark blue uniforms came out of the front door. "You Cutter?" the man said.

"Yeah. Blair's got a problem. We got to go pick up the other two and meet him before tonight. Hop in." "We need anything?" Heywood Downing asked.

"Nah, you'll have time to come back here. Blair needs to see everybody right now, 'cause he's got to be somewhere else in an hour, or something like that." The black couple nodded in understanding as they climbed into the van. Wilson Blair liked to play the role of workaholic supervisor.

"What's that smell?" Mary Bright asked, sniffing the air as the van accelerated down the city street.

"Lysol and cedar shavings, " Henry answered. "Blair's kid puked in here, or at least that's what he told me. For all I know, he did it himself," Henry added with an undertone of irritation. "I'm just the goddamn cleanup crew." Downing and Bright looked at each other knowingly. Wilson Blair was not one of their favorite people.

"So where do you come in on this deal?" Downing asked.

"The Indiana team found something at the house. A letter, or something like that. Blair's afraid this guy- Millet?-he's afraid Millet may have rigged his house before leaving the country. And that's my specialty: Bomb disposal and disarming boobytraps."

"Man, ain't there an easier way to make a living?"

"You sound like my ex-wife," Henry said, laughing. "She's afraid I'll let my insurance lapse, and then get sloppy."

"See why I say we should just live together, baby?" Downing teased. Mary Bright glared at him. Henry laughed at the comment, and scanned the area ahead. The next intersection was a four-way stop with a boarded-up gas station on one corner and a burned-out brick building on the other. The only person visible within a hundred yards was a kid on a bicycle, pedaling across the intersection with his back to the van. Henry checked his mirrors and saw no car behind him.

"Say, is my briefcase back there?" Henry asked as he braked for the stop sign and twisted around to face the two agents. "Under your seat, or on the seat behind you maybe? It's not up here." Heywood Downing turned around to look over the back of his seat, and Mary Bright bent over to look underneath where she was sitting.

"There's nothing under here," Bright finished saying just as Henry Bowman shot her lover in the back of the head with the .22. As Heywood Downing fell sideways across the bench seat, Henry triggered two quick shots into the crown of the woman's head, and sent his fourth round into Downing's ear canal. Henry engaged the safety on the Hi-Standard and put the gun under his leg. Then he reholstered his Smith & Wesson, and accelerated away from the stop sign.

The four-person raid team Wilson Blair had handpicked to break into Grant Millet's house no longer existed.

"Listen carefully and don't talk," Henry Bowman said into the mouthpiece of the pay phone, speaking softly and using his Wilson Blair voice. "Grant Millet's in South America and the ATF has a raid scheduled for his place sometime in the next ten days. They've got a pile of stuff they're going to plant, and it's enough so that he'll be held without bond. Might be as early as tonight. Got it?"

"Jesus! Tonight? Who is thi-"

"Shut up. I could lose my job for this, or worse. Do what you want with this info," Henry said, and broke the connection.

Henry Bowman knew exactly what Keith Werner, another NFA dealer in Ohio, would do with the information. It was what Second Amendment advocates around the country had been doing on a regular basis since the Waco disaster, whenever word leaked out of an impending raid.

Keith Werner, Henry knew, was at that very moment on the phone, organizing a round-the-clock watch of Millet's house. The watch would be manned by between ten and twenty local Federal Firearms License holders and other gun enthusiasts, all armed with video cameras.

How did that guy put it? Henry thought with a smile. ATF agents treat video cameras like vampires do crosses and sunlight. Yeah, that's what he said. He laughed, dumped a bunch of quarters into the phone, and became serious again. This call was going to be a lot more critical.

"ATF, Brown speaking."

"Wilson Blair. Let me talk to Hernandez."

"Hang on." Henry waited for a few moments before the other man came on the line. ' "Hernandez here. What's going on?"

"I'm in Ohio. Kane's went like clockwork, but what we found there changes a few things. Schedule's been changed on the Millet raid, and I may not be able to get back with you until you see me. Are the choppers all set for tomorrow?"

"Yeah, and they even got the gun mounts installed. We're all ready to rock and roll." For a moment Henry Bowman was speechless. Gun mounts? he thought, then realized the man was probably waiting for a verbal pat on the back.

"Good job." Henry Bowman was thinking frantically, trying to cope with this new development. "What time you going in?" he asked, stalling for time to come up with a plan.

"We're still on for 2:00, if you can still be at the airport by then. We can push it back 'til later in the afternoon, if the team there is running behind."

"That's what I called about. I won't be able to meet you at the airport, and two o'clock's a little early. Like I said, we found some stuff here that'll make our case even stronger-broaden the scope quite a bit. I'm meeting some guys from Washington tonight that I'll be bringing with me."

"What's going on?" Hernandez asked.

"I'll tell you about it in person." Nothing like tossing in a little dose of paranoia Henry thought. "Got your aerials of Bowman's place handy? If not, go get 'em."

"Here in front of me."

"Okay. The old quarry pit on the northeast corner of his property-See it?"

"I got it."

"There's a clearing on the west side of it. It's big enough for the choppers to land,

but there's no houses around, and I can get to it without being noticed. Pick me up there at 4:00 sharp. You won't see me 'til you land. I need to brief you on some changes, so get everybody on the ground as fast as you can-no screwing around. Clear?"

"Yes, sir." Henry heard the hesitation in the man's voice, and knew it was time to give a little more. "And make sure you're all carrying max fuel and lots of ammo. Our three-part raid just turned into a fourpart raid."

"Yes, sir!" Hernandez replied enthusiastically. "Four o'clock at the clearing by the lake. All choppers on the ground, with full fuel and loaded for bear."

"See you then," Henry Bowman promised, and broke the connection.

It was a little after 7:00 p.m. when Henry Bowman made it back to Dale Price's property in southern Indiana. Henry noted with relief that Dale's truck was not visible, and he immediately drove over to the large hog pens and got out of the van. He looked over every inch of the inside of the pen, but could not see anything resembling a bone fragment.

Damn he thought. Those things really do eat every last piece. Guess I'll risk it with the hands and feet. Not the heads, though. The hogs snuffled and looked at him.

"Hang tight, girls," Henry said out loud. "I'll have four more for you after it gets dark." He turned and walked back to the van.

After going over everything several more times in his mind, and convincing himself that he had not forgotten anything, Henry Bowman pushed his BMW up the 2 x 12 and into the now-spacious rear section of the van. He used the tie-downs he had brought from Missouri to secure the bike. Then he picked up the pieces of the van's seats, which he had unbolted earlier and then cut apart with Allen Kane's disc grinder, and wedged them between the BMW and the sides of the van.

The full jerrycans came next, followed by the plastic bag containing Eugene, the dead dog, and then the covered plastic bucket. Last of all, Henry loaded the two large cardboard boxes that were heavily wrapped with duct tape. He felt his gorge rise as he put the two heavy packages into the vehicle, and he slammed the back doors quickly. Not now, you idiot he said to himself. That part's over. For now, at least he amended.

When he neared Indianapolis, Henry Bowman started looking for an all-night supermarket in a busy section of the city. It did not take long to find one, and he pulled the van around back, next to the dumpsters where the store disposed of its rotten produce. He was ready with a story about how his dog had gotten loose and been run over in the street, and his wife was hysterical and wouldn't get in the van until he'd gotten rid of the body.

No one came around the back of the building, however, as Henry heaved the boxes into the half-full dumpster. He popped the lid on the bucket of rotten foodstuffs, poured the foul contents over the two packages, and threw the bucket in also. Then he lifted Eugene's corpse from where it lay on top of the gas cans and dropped it on top of the pile of garbage.

Ten minutes later, Henry Bowman was several miles away from the supermarket. It was almost 11:00 p.m., and he had a good four hours of traveling ahead of him. Four hours to think about what he had accomplished, and what he still had to do. Two more things to do right now he reminded himself, and pulled into the parking lot of a Walgreens drug and convenience store. His first stop was the pay phone.

There was no answer at the first number, but a sleepy voice picked up the phone when Henry made his second call. Bowman gave the man on the other end the same warning he had passed along in Ohio, only this time it was Allen Kane's house that was due to be raided in the next few days.

The response was almost identical, and Henry Bowman smiled as he hung up the phone. Just what the doctor ordered he thought with satisfaction. A dozen camera-toting friends of Allen's, camping out on his property, hoping to catch crooked feds red-handed. And tramping around, destroying any tire tracks, bloodstains in the grass, or other evidence I might have missed. He pulled the door open and went into the store.

"Can I help you?" the cashier asked as he came in. It was a slow night.

"Pack of cigarette lighter flints," Henry answered. "And where are your padlocks, and things like that?" "Aisle six, far end on the left."

"Thanks." Henry followed the woman's directions, and thought of a few other things that would come in handy.

Henry Bowman stuck to state roads instead of taking the interstate. He knew that the patchwork of local agencies would have poorer radio communications amongst each other than the Highway Patrol which cruised 1-70. The cars and trucks which used secondary roads hopped on and off more often than those cruising at a legal 65 miles per hour on the interstates. People coming back from a tavern or taking a girlfriend home had more on their minds than long distance travelers. It was easier to be invisible among the former group.

Well, Duane Henry said to himself as he flicked on his high beams, you've come this far with your wire cutters and your tin of beef jerky. Don't back down now.

June 9 East St. Louis, Illinois, took its name from the Missouri city which stood just across the Mississippi river, but any similarity between the two ended there. The Illinois town was an utterly blighted ghetto of tarpaper slums and broken glass, interspersed with liquor stores and barbecue shacks.

It was a community which had achieved brief national fame in the mid-1980s when news services picked up the story of a resident who had found, in her grandfather's effects, a $200 bond issued by the city around the time of the Civil War. The terms of the note were that it was to accrue at 10% per year, compounded annually, until redemption. The City of East St. Louis had not yet paid the bondholder, and quick calculation indicated that the amount due was over one hundred fifty million dollars.

The town's mayor at that time was flamboyant, controversial, and corrupt, given to putting personal bodyguards on the city payroll and waving at police cars while driving his Jaguar coupe past them at 100 MPH. He had made the story eve n better. He had been widely quoted as saying 'City of East St. Louis pay this woman a hundred fifty million dollars interest? Shit, we ain't even got the two hundred bucks!'

It was on a rubble-strewn lot at the end of one of the gloomy streets in this area that Henry parked the BATF agents' van. He wiped the vehicle of fingerprints, left the passenger-side window down, and rolled the BMW down the 2 x 12 onto the asphalt. He started the motorcycle, and after it had warmed up and was idling with the choke off, he went back to the van, opened all of the jerrycans, and tipped all but one of them on their sides. The remaining can he used to soak the upholstery of the vehicle, including the cut-up sections of the back seats. Then he closed the back doors, put on his helmet, and rode to the far corner of the lot. Trees and overgrowth concealed him from every direction except the quadrant facing the vehicle.

Henry lowered the side stand, retrieved the Hi-Standard .22 from the right saddlebag, and extracted three .22 rounds from his shirt pocket. One ought to do it, unless I miss and hit the seat or something he thought as he examined the noses of the .22 slugs. There was enough moonlight for Henry to see that the flints were still in place. He poked one of the homemade rounds into the pistol's chamber and dropped the bolt.

It was a trick Henry had discovered when he was eleven years old, and Walter had been mightily impressed. A cigarette lighter flint, bought in 5-packs at the grocery store and inserted into the nose of a .22 hollowpoint, made a surprisingly large flash when fired against rock or steel. In 1964, Henry had written the Ronson company, asking for a price quote on ten thousand of the tiny, red, cylindrical flints, packed loose instead of in those irritating yellow plastic holders. The Ronson company had not been interested in selling them that way, or in bypassing its normal distributors. When Henry had bought these at the Walgreens in Indianapolis, he saw that they still came packed five to a yellow plastic card.

The van was about eighty yards distant. Henry used a two-handed hold, took aim at the top of the opening of the van's passenger-side window, and squeezed the trigger. The .22 slug passed through the open window and slammed into the steel reinforcing pillar behind the driver's door, converting the tiny flint into a geyser of white-hot sparks. The gasoline vapor filling the van ignited instantly with a solid whump! that blew out the windshield and driver's side window and bulged the sheetmetal sides of the vehicle's body. Then the van began to burn in earnest.

Henry stowed the Hi-Standard in the saddlebag, hopped on the bike, and rode away from the blazing vehicle.

In addition to the ATF van, small fires burned on several vacant lots, tended by residents of varying ages. There were a surprising number of people, both young and old, still up at three o'clock in the morning in East St. Louis. They paid no attention to one more burning stolen car in their neighborhood or to the lone rider piloting his motorcycle towards the bridge which spanned the Mississippi River.

The biggest dilemma Henry had been wrestling with all the way from Indiana was where to park the motorcycle so that it wasn't too far away from the airport, and yet wouldn't be noticed by anyone. If I screw up this part he thought, I'm fucked.