Patriot Strike

“Gets bloodshot,” Brognola replied. “I hope he’s working on a low profile.”

“I think the spot as P.I. to the stars was taken.”

“Just as well. If he starts showing up on the entertainment channel, it might ring somebody’s bell.”

“He’s covered,” Bolan said, hoping that it was true.

“Ready to take a walk?”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

They strolled past waist-high curving granite walls decorated here and there by wreaths, bouquets and brightly colored bits of paper bearing messages of love and sorrow. To their left, a woman in her mid-thirties knelt, tracing one of the names as Bolan had seen others do at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

“What do you know about secession?” Hal inquired.

“It didn’t work out well for the Confederacy,” Bolan said.

“I mean more recently.”

“I’ve heard some rumbles. Saw something on CNN.”

“After the last election, Boston Tea Party types in all fifty states filed petitions for secession from the Union,” Hal informed him. “Most of them were no more than farts in a whirlwind. You need twenty-five thousand signatures to garner a response from the White House, and most didn’t come close. Texas led the field with over one hundred twenty-five thousand signatures. On the other hand, a petition to deport everyone who signed a petition to withdraw their state from the U.S. has close to thirty thousand signatures, and it’s still growing.”

Bolan smiled at that. “Is secession even legal?”

“Nope. Doesn’t stop the nuts from trying, though.”

“Not much we can do about that,” Bolan said. “If I remember my high school government class, the right to petition is guaranteed by the First Amendment.”

“And it’s not the scribblers who concern me,” said Brognola. “I was thinking more about the flakes who just might try to pull it off.”

“Anyone in particular?”

“As a matter of fact,” Hal replied, “there might be.”

“Might be?”

“Here’s the deal. Three nights ago, in Lubbock, Texas, persons unknown killed a fellow named Jerod Granger. Don’t worry if you’ve never heard of him. It barely made the news in Texas, much less anywhere outside the state.”

“But you’re aware of it.”

“Only because I know his family. Back in the day when I was with the Bureau’s field office in Dallas, my partner and I got assigned to a case in that neck of the woods. Kidnapping for ransom that turned into murder. You know the G gets in on those under the Lindbergh Law, presumption of interstate flight, yada, yada. Anyway, while we were working it, I got to know a Texas Ranger who was on the case. Lou Granger.”

“Relative of the victim?”

“His father. We stayed friendly, which doesn’t happen often, and we kept in touch after I transferred out of Texas. For a while there, Jerod and his sister used to call me Uncle Hal. Go figure, eh?”

“Why not?”

Hal shrugged. “Anyway, the day after Jerod went down, I got a call from his sister, Adlene. She’s a Ranger now herself. Jerod had phoned her to arrange a meeting with a G-man, ultraurgent. Spoke about secession and catastrophe, gave up some names but wouldn’t cover any details on the phone. Jerod had a face-to-face lined up the next morning with sis’s trusted number one guy, but Jerod never made it. Next thing Adlene knows, she’s making an I.D. for the Lubbock County coroner.”

“And then she called you.”

“Right. Not much to offer in the way of evidence, but when I got the gist of it and heard the names...well, something clicked. It’s worth a closer look, I think.”

“How are the parents taking it?” asked Bolan.

“Cancer took the mother, Jeannie, back in ’95. Lou bought it in a single-car collision two years later.”

“Rough,” Bolan said.

“So, anyhow, I said I’d see what I could do. What we could do.”

“Except she thinks that ‘we’ would be the Bureau?”

“Hmm.”

“Why not the Rangers, since she’s one of them?”

“There could be problems with security.”

“The FBI? Homeland Security?”

“Both say the information is too vague, one of the names too prominent. Plus this is Texas. They’re still having nightmares over Waco.”

“When you say ‘too prominent,’ who are we looking at?” Bolan asked.

“Have you heard of L. E. Ridgway?”

“Rings a distant bell,” Bolan said, “but I can’t place him offhand.”

“No great surprise. The ‘L. E.’ stands for Lamar Emerson. He’s the founder, president and CEO of Lone Star Petroleum and Aerospace Technology.”

“That’s not a common merger, is it?”

“Not at all. In fact,” Hal said, “from what I gather, it’s unique. Lamar made his first couple billion from the East Texas Oil Field, pumping crude and natural gas in the fifties. Today he’s got rigs all over the state and offshore. The aerospace deal fell into his lap when NASA started cutting back on some of its programs. He started out making components for their rockets and space shuttles, then got the bright idea of privatizing outer space.”

“Say what?”

“You heard me right,” Hal said. “Lone Star is planning junkets to the moon aboard their own space craft, beginning sometime in the next couple years. They’re catering primarily to governments, with a projected round-trip price tag of one-point-five billion dollars, but private parties who can foot the bill are also welcome.”

“So, if you’re Bill Gates and you want to take the flight of a lifetime, they’ll send you?”

“Just imagine,” Hal said. “The Koch brothers can take off and really look down on us earthlings.”

“Well, it’s odd, I grant you.”

“Here’s the kicker. For as long as he’s been filthy rich, Ridgway has been a top contributor to far-right causes. Started with the Birch Society and veered off toward the fringe from there. Militias, neo-Nazis, Klans, Army of God—”