"Let's shoot for a while, but then I think we should head into town. I hate making life easier for these assholes, but wouldn't you rather they found us in public, instead of out here with no witnesses around?"

"Good point," Allen agreed.

"Some folks been asking around about you two," the man behind the counter in the service station said as Allen and Henry came in to pay for their fuel. "I didn't tell 'em nothing, but they been asking all over. Tax men, I think they was. Not from around here."

"Tax guys?" Henry replied. "What would they want us for out here?" Allen Kane looked equally puzzled.

"Don't know. Seems like they was more interested in knowing if you two was really out here and had anyone seen you. Didn't act like they had to get holt of you right away. You fellas in trouble?" the man asked dubiously. "None a my business if y'are." Henry and Allen both shook their heads.

"I'd like to know what they want," Kane said evenly. "If you see them again, tell them we're heading back to the Pahsimeroi, then up towards Blue Dome." He handed the man a hundred-dollar bill, collected his change, and followed Henry back to the vehicle.

"Let's hit a few more places, get something to eat, maybe," Henry suggested in the cab of the truck. "Give them a chance to find us before we head out." The man at the filling station was the third person that morning to tell Allen and Henry about the federal agents. People in Idaho had no great love for government men, and that had been true even before Randy Weaver's wife and son had been murdered.

"Sounds like a plan," Kane said as he started the engine.

"Are you Allen Kane and Henry Bowman?" Allen and Henry looted at each other,

then at the two men in suits standing at their table in the cafe.

"Yes we are," Kane said. "What's the trouble?"

"We're with the Treasury Department," one of the men said as he produced some credentials.

"You're ATF out of Boise," Henry said as he read the printing on the identification. "If somebody's reported machine-gun fire, we're both Special Occupational Taxpayers, and we've got copies of the registration papers for all the machine guns we brought with us." As Henry said the words, Allen Kane reached into his battered leather valise. Henry Bowman noted with interest that the two agents paid no attention to the action. Allen extracted a sheaf of ATF Form 3s and laid them on the table. The two feds ignored the documents.

"Could, uh, could we see some identification?" the second of the two ATF agents asked uncertainly.

"What's this about?" Henry said as he slowly reached for his wallet. "We've got all our papers. Idaho doesn't have any law against firing full auto on state land. We haven't shot anything except a bunch of jacks, and those were with revolvers, but it wouldn't matter what we'd used. You federal guys wouldn't drive all the way to Salmon from Boise to look into a possible game violation or a noise complaint anyway. What's the story?"

The agent took Henry's driver's license, looked at it, did the same with Kane's, and handed both to his partner. His expression was one of disappointment. "It's them," he said to the second man, shaking his head.

"What?" Allen asked again, more forcefully this time. "What are you here for? What's the charge?" "We don't know the details," the second agent admitted. "We were told to find you, if you were up here. Director seemed to act like you wouldn't be." He furrowed his brow which went against the training he had been given to remain impassive.

"Three days ago, two government helicopters crashed on your property," he explained, nodding to Henry. "Everyone on board was killed."

"I don't understand," Henry said to the man. "What happened? And why did they send you to come find me? That's not the Treasury Department's jo- Did they crash on my house?" he demanded, as if suddenly realizing the implications of what the men were saying.

"We don't know," the agent said truthfully. "We were sent to find you, since the men were from our department," he added lamely. Both agents had already learned from a dozen local sources that the big army truck had driven into the area two days before the time of the helicopter crash, and that the men in it were on vacation to shoot jackrabbits.

"Well, I'd like to find out!" Henry announced as he quickly slid out of the booth and walked briskly to the pay phone near the cashier's station.

"When did you two get to this area?" the second agent asked Allen Kane.

"Last week," Kane said. "Wednesday, I guess it was, we went through Arco, in the late afternoon," he added, confirming what the feds had already found out from several sources. "Made camp that night in the Pahsimeroi." Kane looked the two men in the eyes.

"What's going on here, guys?" the Indiana weapons expert asked reasonably. "Why send you two all the way from Boise? Has Henry's place been burned to the ground? Are you here to find out what guns he brought so you can tell your records guys in Washington which serial numbers to keep in your system, and which to report as destroyed?"

The agents were startled by this question, and it showed in their faces. They had not bothered to think how their presence might be interpreted by the two men.

"We were told to find you," one of the agents said diffidently.

"Mister Kane," the other agent said in a more friendly tone, "the fact is that we don't know much more than you do about this deal. Like we said, we're out of Boise. We get a call to hotfoot it over here and make sure you two are all right." The man smiled. "And I'm glad to see that you are."

"So who said we were in Mackey? Or anywhere else in this state, for that matter?" Kane demanded. "Both of us are single, and I didn't give my ex any idea where I'd be- how'd you know where to look?" Both agents' faces instantly became blank.

"We got our orders from Washington," the first one said finally. His tone implied that he expected Kane to be impressed by that bit of news.

"So now you're all done?" Kane asked. "You call up your boss on the east coast and say 'Yep, they're there, all right' and hang up the phone? What is going on?" Kane repeated. The two agents were starting to plead ignorance again when Henry walked up "Talked to Skip Krause," Henry said to his friend as he slid back into the booth. "He's the sheriff where I live. Feds aren't talking much, but they told him more than they told these guys. ATF borrowed three National Guard helicopters with pilots. Two of 'em crashed in the woods on my property. They don't know where the third one is. He hasn't called in and they have no idea where he flew off to," The two agents looked at each other. This was indeed more than they had been told. "He hasn't crashed, though," Henry went on. "There was no ELT signal like there was from the other two." The Emergency Locator Transmitter on the third aircraft had indeed been activated on impact. However, ELTs did not work underwater.

"Sheriff Krause says that ATF doesn't want to talk about what they were doing there, but that it was some special project they were working on." Henry paused a moment, and his eyes narrowed. Kane thought he saw just the hint of a smile threatening to form, but it vanished. Then Henry dropped the bomb.

"The interesting part is that Krause says, according to the FAA, it looks like the ATF guys shot themselves down."

"What?" Allen and one of the two agents said almost simultaneously.

"All three choppers had door gunners and M60s on swivel mounts. The two that crashed were blackened wrecks, but one had a ton of bullet holes in it, going from the inside out."

"What are you talking about?" the first agent demanded.

"One chopper was almost cut in half from .30-cal fire that came from the inside. , First they figured it was a midair, and that's what set the gun off and spun it around. Made sense, 'cause the gun was an M60, and those things run away all the time. But the FAA inspector told the sheriff that since the two wrecks were far apart and each helicopter's rotor blades were still attached to the mainshaft, it wasn't a midair.

"And on the one with the inside-out bullet holes, they only found three bodies at the crash site, and all the helos took off with four men in each. Deputies finally found the door gunner's body a quarter mile away in the woods. Sheriff said it looked like he climbed out on the skid and hosed down the others inside, then bailed out."

"That's ridiculous," the second agent said indignantly. Allen Kane shook his head.

"No it isn't," the Indianan said. "In fact, it makes a lot of sense. Henry, what did the guy say about the second helicopter-did it have a bunch of holes in it from the outside?"

"He didn't mention anything about that, either way. Just said that they were both burned-out wrecks."

"What I bet happened," Kane went on, "guy probably fired his first burst at the other chopper and shot it down. Then he jumped out on the skid and hosed the rest of the belt into his own helicopter, and dove out before all the fuel caught fire." The two agents looked mightily offended at this, and began to protest.

"That's absurd! You don't know anyth-"

"Makes sense, Allen," Henry went on, cutting off and ignoring the two feds who had now lost control of the discussion. "It fits with what's happened before. Out in California that time."

"Right!" Kane said. "That ATF guy in Los Angeles." One of the agents at the table spoke up. "What are you talk-"

"Best indicator of future behavior is past behavior," Henry Bowman said, once again acting as if the two government men were not there. The other agent put his hand on his partner's arm.

"I'll explain later," the first agent said to the second fed.

"Oh, you new to the department?" Henry asked as he widened his eyes and looked at the ATF man. "Happened a while back out in Southern California. An ATF guy in one of the local offices shot his partner in the head and then killed himself. Word the office tried to put out was it was an accident. When no one bought that line of crap, they came up with the claim that the guy was despondent 'cause he hadn't gotten laid. A single guy in Southern California," Henry added, and he and Allen both broke out laughing. "It's no wonder the other chopper pilot booked out of there and hasn't been heard from since. He probably wasn't ready to die for the glory of F Troop." Henry abruptly became serious and stared at the senior agent from Boise.

"I notice that in all this time you haven't bothered to tell me what three armed helicopters loaded with ATF agents were doing over my property in the first place." There was a long pause before the agent spoke. "We're not at liberty to say."

Henry and Allen exchanged a look. They both knew that there was no way the two feds from the local field office would be told anything about a raid over a thousand miles away. What they were now hearing was blatant posturing and nothing more.

"You want to pack up and head back?" Allen Kane asked his friend. Henry shook his head.

"I still got plenty to shoot, and the jacks are unbelievable. Sheriff said he'd check my property every few days, shoot anyone that tried to loot the place. Let's stay 'til we run out of ammo. Maybe check out what's over in Montana."

"You got anything more you want to ask us?" Kane asked the two feds. "If not, we're leaving. It's past the time we'd planned to head out." He and Henry both stood up. Kane picked up the check. The older fed opened his mouth, then closed it again. He had been about to tell Henry and Allen not to go anywhere they couldn't be reached, but had realized he had no authority to make such a demand. The fed hadn't liked the way the conversation had gone, but there was nothing to do except report back to Washington. He and his partner turned without speaking and left the cafe.

"Them two fellas from the ATF give you boys any trouble?" the woman behind the cash register asked.

Henry grinned as he handed her a twenty. The woman was only a few years older than he was, and at least five years younger than Allen Kane. She had dirty-blond hair, and a little smile that told the two men that no matter how many unwanted come-ons she might receive every day, she still enjoyed male attention.

"No more than you'd expect," Allen told her. "They been bothering you?"

"Can't say that. They just been hangin' around, askin' about you two, and makin' everyone edgy. People 'round here, they don't think much of that bunch. After what happened to the Weaver family, and all." "I hear you."

"Two of their helicopters crashed on my property back in Missouri," Henry explained. "They wanted to tell me about it."

"Well, hallelujah to that." Henry and Allen turned to see a weathered-looking man in faded blue jeans and a battered Stetson rising from a nearby table. "Didn't mean to listen in, but them two have been asking around about you for a couple days now, and I recognized the name. You're Allen Kane, aren't you? I been reading your stuff for over twenty years now." He held out his hand, and Kane shook it.

"Folks thought Elmer Keith was a liar, about shooting pistols at real long range, but you were telling everybody the same thing. I bought me a Super Blackhawk .44 back in 'seventy-one, tried it for myself. Saw you guys was telling the truth. Then this metal silhouette game come along, and the ones was calling you a liar seemed to shut up right quick. It's an honor to meet you, Mister Kane. You say some of them ATF men crashed their helicopters on your property?" he asked, looking at Henry.

"That's what they said. I called the sheriff a few minutes ago. Both the choppers had M60 machine guns mounted in them. One of the wrecks was full of bullet holes going from the inside out, and they found the body of the guy who had been the door gunner a quarter mile away in the woods. He said it looked like the door gunner shot the other chopper down, swiveled the gun around and dumped the rest of the belt into his own aircraft, then bailed out. They're looking into his history right now, from what the sheriff tells me," Henry said, making an educated guess. "See was he on drugs, or what." Henry turned to his friend.

"I got to make some more calls. Allen, sit down with this man and tell him about the hundred- and two hundred-yard groups you been getting with that new nose design." Henry turned towards the pay phone. "They say why them two helicopters with door gunners was coming to your place?" the stranger asked. Henry stopped and turned back towards him, shrugging.

"Those two guys wouldn't say, but I got a lot of guns, and I guess that's reason enough." "They find out what stuff it was that guy was on," the man said, "maybe we could put it in the water, up in Washington."

"Goddamn it, I said I wanted a complete blackout on this fucking mess!" ATF Director Dwight Greenwell screamed at his staff as he slammed down the phone.

"That's the fourth call I've gotten in the last half hour from a newspaper, and they're all asking about Calron Jones and what made him shoot down his own helicopter. 'Did he have a drug problem? Is this related to the murder-suicide in Los Angeles a few years ago?' Jesus!

"Then they want to know what the two choppers were doing there, and of course they want copies of the search warrant. And on top of that, they all seem to know about the third one, that's gone missing." "How do they know about that?" one of the staffers asked.

"Hell, anyone could have talked about it. But this last guy wanted to know if Blair was on it. Said an agent gave him that tip. Where the fuck is the loyalty in this agency?" He shook his head and looked around at the others in the office.

"I want you people to get on the phones to every one of our field offices. Find Blair. Call every goddamn airport where a National Guard helicopter might refuel. That sonofabitch is going to have some answers for me." He looked each of his subordinates in the eye.

"I don't need to tell you that none of you is to say word one to the press about any of this." Greenwell's staff was not about to disobey this last order, but the damage had been done. Nine well-placed phone calls from a cafe in Idaho had started a line of inquiry that was not going to go away.

"You had a ZX-11, and it got stolen?" the young man asked Henry as the two men stood looking at the 1981 Kawasaki which Henry had spent twenty minutes going over. The ZX-11 was the fastest motorcycle Kawasaki had ever made. It had been tested by several magazines at over 170 MPH in utterly stock condition.

"Right outside my motel room in Idaho Falls. Had my gear in the room with me, but the bike's gone for good, I'm afraid. Had a padlock on the brake rotor, so I guess it got lifted into a pickup. Best road bike I ever had," Henry said wistfully. He shrugged. "Got to finish my trip, and the insurance won't pay off for a couple months, at the least."

"That sucks."

"Yeah." Henry stared at the thirtyish man whose classified ad he had spotted in the local paper. "Look. You're asking absolute top dollar for a bike this old. But you've always garaged it, the oil's clean, the electrics all work, the engine sounds good, the tires aren't bald, and Z-l's don't break. I know-I had one before I got my 'eleven. I got to buy something soon, 'cause I got to be moving, and I'm over a barrel. You got saddlebags on it, and that helps, too.

"I'll pay your price, in cash, but you got to do one thing for me."

"What's that?" the seller asked.

"I can't be riding all the way back to Pennsylvania with no plates. And I'd rather not trust that long a trip to one of those pieces of paper that says 'License Applied For'. Insurance is no problem-I'm insured on anything. But riding with no plate is asking for trouble. Call your agent and cancel your coverage right now if you want, but leave the plate on. The bike'll still be in your name until I get home and mail the title off to the DMV anyway."

The young man thought a moment and then nodded. "Yeah, okay," he said, smiling. "That sounds fair." Henry pulled out his money clip and began peeling off hundreds.

It was almost 10:00 p.m. when Henry Bowman pulled in to the long-term parking lot at the Salt Lake City airport. Henry lifted the Kawasaki onto its center stand and bent over to check the oil level through the sight glass. Doesn't look like it used any. He smiled. Motorcycles are the perfect way to travel anonymously Henry told himself. Pick one with no trick paint and wear a full-face helmet, and you 'II never get a positive ID on the bike or the rider. He pocketed the key, unstowed his bags, and began the long walk to the United Express ticket counter.

June 13 "You made it a little earlier than I thought," Ray Johnson said into the phone. He did not use any names. "But that's good. I can pick you up in about twenty minutes. Ah..." Ray hesitated, about to say more, then decided against it. / got a funny feeling about this he thought silently, remembering the time when the roles had been reversed and he had been the one calling from an airport. "...I'll see you then," he finished, knowing the questions he had could wait until he and Henry were face-to-face in private.

"So what's going on?" He looks a little tired, but otherwise in good shape Ray decided. Henry smiled. "Are you still a lawyer, Ray?" he asked as he turned in the passenger seat of Ray's pickup so that he could face his friend. "You still belong to the New York Bar?"

"I told you that on the phone. It was only twenty bucks a year to stay a member while I was in Africa. I figured that was a screaming bargain compared to taking it all over again if I ended up wanting to practice law when I got back to the United States. You want to tell me why that's important?"

"I want to retain you." He reached in his shirt pocket and withdrew a thin sheaf of bills. "Here. That's a thousand dollars." Ray waved the money away.

"Lawyer can be on retainer without actually getting any cash up front. He just has to be convinced the client's good for it." He yawned quickly, then closed his mouth. "Okay, I'm working for you, now. Anything you say is protected by the attorney-client privilege. What's the scoop? You in trouble?" At this question, Henry Bowman started laughing and Ray felt the hair on his back stand up. He turned to look at his younger friend.