"Yeah. This Blair guy had a hard-on for everybody with an SOT number, but especially us, 'cause of that thing at the Columbus show back in '90," Henry added with disgust. "Anyway, the reason they didn't know I was still there was 'cause I was out in your shop most of the time, and every time I called somebody, I used my cellular."

Allen nodded. "And now there's nothing left. After you shot them, you butchered all six feds and fed them to Dale Price's hogs."

"Ten, actually," Henry admitted. "There were six at your place. I killed four more in Columbus." "Right. Ten ATF agents, butchered and fed to Dale's hogs."

"All except the heads. The heads I wrapped up with duct tape and newspaper, and put in boxes, and taped the boxes up real well. Then I threw them in a dumpster behind a supermarket in Indianapolis and dumped some rotten food on top." He shook his head, remembering something he'd left out.

"Before I wrapped the heads up, I knocked the teeth out with the back side of a hatchet, and drove the van over them a couple times. I don't think they could be IDed, even if they ever got found, which seems unlikely anyway." Henry shrugged. "I mean, the way I tried to set it up, everyone thinks these guys have split." He paused, then went on. "Oh, and I checked the hog pen a while after I put in the first six. Didn't see any bones left." His stomach turned over at the memory.

"I really think from the feds' viewpoint, those ten have just vanished," Henry repeated. "And with the tape Blair made, and the other stuff I plan to do, they'll be trying to figure out where they ran off to, not where the bodies went." Henry chewed his lip.

"I'm more worried about what they'll make of the three crashed helicopters at my place, and if anyone saw me take off right after they crashed. But hell," he said, shrugging, "what have they got? A 172 taking off, or more likely, just flying in the area. Could have been anyone. Especially someone coming down for a looksee, after that Mayday." Kane nodded, then thought for a while.

"What're we going to do with this?" he asked, pointing to the plane. "Cut it up and throw it in a ravine?" Henry shook his head.

"ATF's got those damn OV-l0s, with the trick radar for spotting people on the ground. They're going to come looking for us, Allen, to make sure we're here. They could be on their way now, and I don't want them spotting this 172 from the air.

"We'll drive the truck into town, fill up the gas cans, come back and fuel up the plane. I'll take off, set it on autopilot heading west, and bail out. Brought my 'chutes with me. Thing should be about three hundred miles over the Pacific when it runs out of fuel. I better hustle up and do it now," Henry explained, "because they might come looking for us any minute." Allen Kane smiled when he heard the plan.

"I like it," he said after a few moments. "It vanishes forever, and you've been here all this time, with me. Only we don't need to drive back to Mackey to get fuel. I've got fifty gallons with me, if that's enough." "Lord, that's twice as much as I need," Henry said. "But I thought this was diesel?"

"That was the other one," Kane explained. "This one's gasoline."

"Then let's get cracking. I'll tell you more about what I've got planned while we're getting my stuff out of the plane. Then we'll gas it up, and while I'm in the air, you can watch the tapes I made, see what you think about my plan." Henry stopped for a moment and looked at his friend.

"You realize what you're getting into, don't you, Allen?"

"Yeah," Kane replied. "And it's about fucking time."

It took Henry Bowman about half an hour to get to altitude, circle around from the east, and set up the airplane for straight and level flight at 2100 RPM. He was sitting at an angle in the single remaining front seat, for the dual rig on his back was a good 7" thick.

The 172 had been 'sanitized' so that any plane flying nearby could tell next to nothing about it. Henry had spray-painted the 172's side windows gloss black from the inside after he and Allen had unloaded everything of value from the plane, and the entire interior smelled like enamel. Be just perfect to pass out from paint fumes Henry said to himself. The N-numbers on the tail were painted over as well. All interior surfaces had been wiped clean of prints, and Henry was flying with gloves on. These precautions were just in case the Skyhawk somehow crashed before reaching the ocean. Allen had asked about the Emergency Locator Transmitter, designed to activate on high-G impacts, but Henry had explained that he'd removed the ELT's batteries before leaving Missouri.

Henry engaged the autopilot, let go of everything, and made sure that the airplane stayed on course. Satisfied that the electronics were functioning as designed, Henry looked at the instruments one final time and grabbed the door handle. Now for the hard pan he told himself.

Skydiving schools that use Cessnas for jump planes invariably replace the factory door with a 'jump door' which is hinged at the top, and can be easily opened in flight. Henry had jumped out of a 172 with a standard door once before, when a friend had flown him over a college football game in a rental plane, and he had jumped in at halftime. On that jump, however, the pilot had chopped the throttle, crossed the controls, and slipped the plane to the right to reduce the windblast. Henry had none of those luxuries this time.

No screwing around. One good shove he told himself as he turned the handle and got his fingers between the door's trailing edge and the fuselage, then crouched on the floor next to the pilot's seat Now! he said silently as he pushed off the pilot's seat with both feet, slammed his left shoulder into the door, and protected the handle of the pilot 'chute on his belly band with his left arm.

Henry got most of his torso out past the edge of the door as the 100-MPH wind tried to clamp him between the door and the fuselage. He sank down a few inches lower and gave a second violent thrust with his legs, while pushing against door and fuselage with his shoulders and upper arms.

Don't rack your balls on the main gear Henry thought as his body exited the doorway on a 45 degree angle to the rear of the Skyhawk. His left thigh slammed painfully into the plane's right wheel pant, and then he was tumbling free.

Henry Bowman bent at the waist and relaxed his arms, and immediately started falling in a back-to-earth position. For a five-count he watched the Cessna proceed across the sky. Then he pulled in his left arm, flipped over, and went into the arch-and-spread position. He saw that he was west of Allen's van, so he pulled his arms into his sides and hunched his shoulders to put his body in a 'track' towards the spot where he wanted to open.

Allen Kane had intended to try to observe Henry's exit and opening, but he had started watching the Wilson Blair videotapes on the 9" DC-powered TV/VCR Henry had brought. The portable color unit was running on batteries since Allen's truck had a military-standard 24-volt system, and now the Indiana firearms expert was utterly engrossed. He was almost through the second, more explosive tape Henry had made of Wilson Blair.

"This stuff is pure plutonium," Allen whispered to himself as he watched the screen. Then he heard the unmistakable sound of a parachute opening. It sounded like one second of violently fluttering nylon ending in a loud whop! Kane hit the STOP button on the player and watched for the ninety seconds it took his friend to fly his gliding 'chute around the center of the valley and make a stand-up landing fifty feet away from the truck.

Henry gathered up the parachute and walked over to where Allen stood at the back of the truck. He was favoring his left leg slightly from where he had slammed his thigh exiting the plane. There was a big smile on the younger man's face.

"I see it opened," Allen said drily.

"Of course," Henry replied happily. "I packed it."

"I watched your tapes," Allen said, changing the subject. "Almost through the second one. Good diversion." "Did my best on short notice."

"You know, Bowman," Allen Kane said with a smile, "when you first flew in here and told me what had happened, all I could think of was you spending the rest of your life in prison. But after seeing this," he said, indicating the portable television, "I think you got a real shot at dodging this thing altogether, and showing the whole country what those sons-of-bitches have been up to. I think this tape here might make a real difference." He sucked at his teeth.

"And they won't have a clue who did it," Henry added.

"Right. Your scheme seems to've worked okay so far," Allen continued. "So I don't guess you were jerking off the whole time it took to fly up here. You got some plan, I suppose? Of what we should do now?" Henry's spirits rose at Allen Kane's choice of pronouns.

"First I got to repack this 'chute, so we can bury it, and the Solothurn, too," Henry said. "Then, when we get to town, I want to call Ray Johnson in Colorado."

"The guy moved back from Africa I met at your house that time?"

"Right. I think the time has come to get some legal counsel on this. As backup, if nothing else. Then, I think, we'll let ourselves get found by the feds."

"Sounds like a plan."

"No, I haven't heard from Blair!" the man in Chicago almost shouted.

Dwight Greenwell, seven hundred miles east, gritted his teeth as he listened to his Regional Director give him the bad news. Don't you realize that raising your voice to the boss is not the way to get ahead in government? he thought acidly. His Washington office was becoming more and more cramped, and Greenwell could feel his blood pressure hitting new levels.

"I'm sorry, sir," the man on the other end of the phone continued, as if reading Greenwell's mind. "It's just that we don't have much of anything on this end. Initial reports out of Missouri have been saying the crash out by Bowman's place was a midair collision, but we still don't have any word on where the third chopper went, and the Guard is screaming bloody murder. On top of that, one of the local guys in the sheriff's department noticed that one of the two wrecked choppers on the scene was all shot up with machine gun fire from the inside."

"What?" Greenwell sat bolt upright in his chair.

"We're still trying to put that part together, sir, but apparently the door gun malfunctioned and spun on its mount. It sprayed the inside of the helicopter, causing it to go out of control and hit the other one." "And the third pilot decided to take a vacation in Mexico," Dwight Greenwell said with obvious disgust.

"Apparently Blair had an elaborate plan, which included raids in Ohio, Indiana, and Missouri, all in a space of three days," the man in Chicago replied, ignored his superior's sarcasm. "I've spoken with people in the Columbus and Indianapolis offices, and Blair had a total of ten agents, counting himself, slated to raid the homes of a Mr. Grant Millet, and a Mr. Allen Kane. Millet's place is in Columbus, and Kane's in out in the country in southern Indiana. Both of these men are licensed Class Two Manufacturers, and carry DD licenses as well." He took a breath and went on.

"Kane is presently in Idaho with Bowman. Millet is in South America. The raids were scheduled for the seventh and eighth, but apparently never happened. "Uh...it appears that word of the raids leaked out to friends of both these men. There are between ten and twenty people with cameras camped out at both locations."

"Sonofawhore!" Greenwell spat. "I despise it when those yellow, chickenshit bastards do that!" He calmed down and asked another question. "Is that why the raids weren't carried out? Because the element of surprise was lost?"

"We don't know, sir."

"Well, what do the agents on the raid teams say?" Greenwell sometimes felt he was a kindergarten teacher.

"None of them can be located, sir," the man in Chicago answered miserably. "We know, or we strongly believe, that Blair contacted at least two members of the Ohio raid team on the day that the raid was supposed to take place. We do not know what was said, but no one we've talked to heard any mention of the raid being cancelled. Shortly thereafter, however, the four agents vanished.

"We have one report," the Regional Director went on, "of two of the Ohio agents, Heywood Downing and Mary Bright, getting into a white van that matches the description of the one Wilson Blair was driving out two days before. The driver was a white male, wearing dark clothing and sunglasses. Witness doesn't think he had a beard or mustache. We assume it's Blair."

"Well, where do you assume he is now? And where do you assume the agents from Indiana are?" Greenwell demanded.

"I have no idea," the subordinate answered truthfully.

"Find all three of them," Greenwell said suddenly. '

"Three...?" The man did not realize what his boss meant.

"Millet, Kane, and that other one," the director explained, as if to an idiot child. "Make damn sure they really are in South America and Montana, or wherever. Get those OV-l0s up in the air and find the two that are in this country. Find those two men, debrief them, and get back to me."

"Yes, sir," the agent said, then realized he was speaking into a dead line.

Dwight Greenwell sat in his office pondering the situation. Didn't want to say it out loud, he thought, but I'll bet Blair took a nice, fat bribe from those two men. If I were asked how to get a raid cancelled and have the agents all go on a long vacation, that's what I'd recommend. A large application of money.

"Well, look who finally showed up," Allen Kane said with a smile as he squinted towards the sky. A dark blue twin-engine turboprop airplane was circling the valley. As it got closer to them, Henry could see the plane had red and white trim. "Think you could hit it?" he asked.

"With the Solothurn? Yeah, if he kept circling, and if I had one of those wheeled mounts like you got in Indiana. Never get enough elevation with the little bipod. Have to wait 'til he got a lot closer, but it looks like he's heading this way. I'd stick one right in his windscreen."

The conversation Allen and Henry were having was purely theoretical. Henry's free-market 20mm cannon was at the moment broken down, wiped clean, wrapped in hydrosorbent paper, packed in airtight plastic bags, and buried in the National Forest, with the location logged and encrypted inside his GPS receiver. Henry knew he might never be able to return to get the big gun his father had given him in 1967, but he believed in thinking positively.

"He's checking out the truck."

"Yeah."

"What now?" Allen asked, after the plane had finally left the area.