Above Reproach

Franklin

One

IT WAS A stupidly simple weapon.

Called a SAM by aviators, it was a shoulder held and fired surface-to-air missile so simple that even a ten-year-old could operate the thing. No airplane or helicopter flying below five thousand feet was safe from it, and that included Marine One and Air Force One. It could reach out and kill you as high as ten thousand feet, but even at that altitude pilots barely had time for countermeasures and evasive maneuvering. At lower altitudes, the shoulder-fired FIM-92A Stinger was as deadly as it got.

Oliver Barr knew this well, and as he pushed aside the life vests and towels and opened the wooden crate, he once again marveled at the weapon that lay before his eyes. Keeping the lethal missile hidden on a modestly aging houseboat at a Lake Dallas marina was a stroke of genius, he congratulated himself. Located approximately thirty miles north of downtown Dallas, Lake Dallas had exactly four sworn officers—and no boat. It was about as safe of a place to hide contraband as one could find in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex area.

There was another advantage to keeping the Stinger at this particular location. Lake Lewisville is on the direct approach path to Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. Prevailing winds are almost always from the south, which means arriving airliners are well below ten-thousand feet in altitude as they approach the lake from the north inbound for landing at DFW. It was also a big lake, even for Texas. Averaging just over thirty-thousand acres at conservation level, it offered a huge area to set up and launch a missile at an inbound airliner—and only another person in a boat would be able to stop such an attack.

With the weapon safely back in its hiding spot, Barr pulled out a small rug and spread it over the hidden compartment hatch. Ali Udeen Bahrir—Dr. Ollie Barr, PhD., as he was known to his journalism students and faculty peers at the University of North Texas—turned towards Mecca, knelt and began to pray. For in addition to the afternoon Salat, Barr also prayed for Allah’s blessing for that which they were about to undertake.

* * *

The two businessmen stepped off the Amtrak train at Union Station, Kansas City and slung their garment bags over their shoulders. Walking east on 24th street they headed for the Crown Center complex. The worldwide headquarters of Hallmark Cards, Crown Center was the pride and joy of downtown Kansas City. A five-story nouveau shopping center with an open interior allowed shoppers and gawkers alike to lean over the rail from any floor and look straight down to the bottom level where a fashionable, but casual café was usually bustling with business. The crowning achievement and architectural frosting on the cake for Crown Center were the spectacular skybridges that connect Crown Center with the Hyatt Regency hotel across the way on Grand Street. At night, they glowed an opulent pale blue and gave this part of the city its unique identity.

Entering through the bottom level of the Crown Center shopping square, the two men gazed upwards, as all first-time visitors do, and briefly marveled at the design. Walking to the café tables, they sat their bags down and ordered tea and sandwiches. There was nothing unusual about them. They simply looked like a pair of businessmen, the likes of which are seen everyday coming and going from the Hyatt Regency across the street.

With the meal over, the two men grabbed their garment bags and rode the escalator up to the second level. Rounding the corner, they saw the entrance to the skybridge that crossed Grand Street. There were fifty to sixty senior citizens gathered around a young girl who appeared to be acting as a tour guide. Some of the senior citizens were in wheelchairs, a few had walkers, but most seemed to be mobile enough, if not a little slow in their motions.

The first man casually walked forward on the skybridge, unzipped his garment bag and pulled out a black Colt M16. Cycling the bolt, he walked towards the herd of senior citizens and shouted. As they turned to see who was yelling at them, he brought the weapon to his shoulder and began firing into the group.

A rent-a-cop who’d been standing half-asleep by the entrance jolted upright in alarm. Without thinking, he ran towards the shooter even though he himself was unarmed. As he reached the dark-skinned man who was doing the shooting, he saw that over half the tour group had been shot and lay dead or dying. As the shooter ejected the empty magazine and inserted another, the security guard grabbed him from behind and as they struggled, the guard tried desperately to take the weapon from the man. Call 9-1-1! he shouted to the crowd, praying that at least one of the old folks who was still alive had a cell phone and knew how to use it. As he turned back around, he felt a white hot pain pierce his chest below the sternum. Looking down, he was horror-stricken to see the hilt of a knife sticking out and blood flowing down the front of his uniform. Looking back up, he saw the shooter’s companion. As the dark-complexioned man pulled the knife out of his chest, the guard felt his knees weaken. There was another vicious jab of the knife, and this time the doomed security guard could literally feel his heart beating against the razor sharp blade, destroying itself further with each beat. He reached out with a hand and managed to grab onto the businessman’s shirt, looking up at his face.

Infidel, the man hissed at the dying guard.

* * *

In Chicago, three women turned and headed towards the Hancock Building. Taking the stairs down to the lower level, they stood in line for a table at The Cheesecake Factory, then were seated with menus in front of them. Their waiter’s name was Russ Argyle and he immediately tagged them as tourists. Time to turn on the Chicago charm, he thought as he asked for their drink order.

After bringing them three cups of tea, he told the women he’d be back in a few minutes for their order and hurried off to work his other tables. It was 12:30, which made it the middle of the lunch hour and The Cheesecake Factory was packed to capacity. That meant over three hundred hungry diners, with another sixty to eighty more waiting impatiently for a table. Russ returned to the women’s table after a few minutes and took their order. Ten minutes later, he’d delivered the food and given the women his best smile. Oddly enough, they didn’t smile back and barely even acknowledged him. They hadn’t even removed their sunglasses. Instead, they seemed more focused on the rest of the restaurant patrons, which struck the waiter as odd. He was used to tourists looking around and gawking at the sights, but not necessarily at other people. He didn’t figure them to be big tippers at all. Time to cash them out.

Russ smiled and handed the check to one of the women. Reaching in her large over-the-shoulder bag, she pulled out a short, sawed-off semi-automatic shotgun, aimed it squarely at the surprised waiter’s chest and pulled the trigger.

* * *

In Kansas City, the first man turned back around, his weapon reloaded and began shooting the fleeing senior citizens in the back. His companion reached into his own suit-carrier and pulled out several small bombs made of plastic explosives. He placed one under the fallen tour guide, and taped another to the glass wall of the skybridge. After his partner exhausted his second magazine, he saw that there were no more standing citizens. He saw a single old man crawling slowly on the floor, clutching his chest. Walking over to him, he kicked at the man to roll him over. Not seeing any obvious bullet wounds, he wondered why this old man was gasping and holding his chest and arm. It finally dawned on him that the unbeliever must be having a heart attack. He leaned down and looked at the man who was rubbing his left arm and in the process, had pulled up his sleeve. The dark-complexioned man saw a crude, bluish tattoo of an eagle with 101 above it and Airborne underneath it.

Another infidel, the businessman sneered.

Screw you, asshole! the old paratrooper rasped.

The businessman pulled out his handgun and stared at the dying man for a moment, then aimed the gun and pulled the trigger at the same time a deafening explosion filled the skybridge. The bomb blew a huge chunk out of the north side of the skybridge with most of the debris being blown out onto Grand Street and causing motorists to slam on their brakes, wondering what in the hell had just happened. Both of the businessmen began grabbing some of the dead bodies, beginning with the young tour guide, who they had booby-trapped, and hurled them out onto the street, several of which landed on moving cars. That snarled traffic instantly and made it impossible for the emergency vehicles coming from the north side station to get anywhere close.

* * *

At The Cheesecake Factory, the blast from the point-blank range shotgun sent the waiter crashing into the table of diners directly behind him and screams instantly broke out. The other two women calmly reached into their own bags and produced machine pistols. The weapons were MAC 10 machine pistols in nine-millimeter capable of firing over eleven hundred rounds a minute. Each magazine held thirty-two rounds of ammunition and each woman had six magazines. Both women stood while they held the triggers down and swept the stubby muzzles back and forth across the panicked restaurant.

Machine pistols are difficult to control and the recoil pulls the muzzle upward. The result was that the first ten to twelve rounds out of each weapon found their mark—wounding and killing the diners that were in the line of fire. The rest of the rounds climbed upwards and tore into the walls and ceiling, raining debris and dust upon the terrified lunch crowd. As the two women ejected the spent magazines and reloaded, the first woman was picking random targets with the sawed-off shotgun and firing at will. Every shot was fatal and in the course of ten seconds, five patrons had been killed by the 12-gauge double-aught buckshot rounds. The other two women reloaded and continued their spraying. Inside The Cheesecake Factory, it was utter and complete pandemonium.

* * *

As people began running from both the Hyatt and the Crown Center shopping center to see what had happened, the two killers, dusty and disheveled from the blast, staggered towards them. Thinking that they were victims, the first people on the scene ignored them. After all, they were alive and from the immediate look of things, they were the only two.

Just south of the Kansas City downtown area, behind what used to be the old Western Auto headquarters building, a lone man sat in an ambulance. Hearing the blast, he put the vehicle in gear and raced over the railroad tracks, turning north onto Main Street. When he was half a block away, he reached up and flipped on his lights and siren. Turning on Pershing Street, the ambulance driver tapped relentlessly on his foghorn to clear gawkers out of his way. Straight ahead, he saw two dirty and dusty looking men in suits approach his ambulance. The back doors were already unlocked. The two men climbed in, shut and locked the doors and the ambulance screamed towards the notorious crime-ridden inner city area where it would be ditched. There, the locals would strip it clean like a pack of hungry hyenas.

It was a clean getaway.

* * *

On the 19th floor of the Tribune Building, home of the Chicago Tribune, Assistant Managing Editor Shara Makir stood calmly at her office window and looked north up Michigan Avenue. As she saw people frantically fleeing the restaurant beneath the Hancock Building, she looked down at her desk. The night before, she had carefully written her editorial imprecating a strong message for extremely heightened gun control in light of the horrific bloodbath she was now witnessing. Picking up the disposable cell phone she had purchased at the Walgreens across the street, she made a call and spoke briefly. She then thumbed the phone off, took a sip of her tea and observed the disaster that was unfolding a mile up the street.

As police and ambulance crews were rushing into The Cheesecake Factory, the three women had taken off their wigs and jogging suits, and in the midst of the terror and confusion, nobody took notice. What was ushered out with the panicked survivors were not three women, but three Arab men. As they wiped the makeup off their faces, the three men calmly headed for Lakeshore Drive where a small pleasure boat was waiting for them on the man-made beach. In just a few hours, they would be sitting in a safe house in Racine, Wisconsin.

* * *

Across the country in Denver, Milwaukee, San Francisco, Philadelphia and Boston, the reports came rushing in of more mass shootings. In each situation, the witnesses all said the same thing—Middle Eastern looking men, and in some cases even women, wielding an assortment of firearms opened fire on an unsuspecting public. By the end of the day, the death toll had topped five hundred, with more than six times that many wounded.

Politicians took to their podiums and sought out news cameras and pounded their fists and swore vengeance and justice. Journalists openly questioned the need for such a free society and historians from several of the larger universities even suggested that America’s way of life via the Constitution may have passed its prime. Television and radio stations’ phone lines were jammed with frantic callers demanding that the government protect them.

America’s cities were locked down in fear.

Two

HE HAD THEM firmly in his sights. Crouching behind the barricade, Dillon Cole felt the sweat running down his back. He looked at the Colt Model 1911 45ACP pistol in his hands, then looked back around the barricade. Taking a controlled breath, he placed both hands around his trusted weapon and sprang out from behind the barricade.

There—two of them! Dillon was already applying pressure to the trigger as he brought the Colt up. Two rapid shots sent them tumbling to the ground. Running for cover, Dillon skidded to a stop behind a large elm tree. Crouching down, he peered around the side, his gun already at the ready. Three more! Dillon fired a single round into the chest of each and executed a combat reload. Ejecting the half-empty magazine onto the ground, he inserted a new one in less than the time it takes most men to release the slide. Six more shots followed; again so quick and in such rapid succession that one would suspect he was firing a fully automatic weapon. The first three shots went back into the chest, the last three went into the head. Dillon remembered his old firearms instructor from the military always telling the team, Two to the chest, one to the head always leaves your target nice, quiet and dead.

Dillon ducked back behind the elm tree. That was five, he was thinking, how many more of them can there be? He looked towards an old storage barn that held a tractor and other implements. It was about fifty-feet from his position behind the elm tree. Shoving a fresh magazine in the Colt, Dillon looked around, then back at the storage barn and took off.

As he neared a line of pecan trees, two more dropped from the branches. Without breaking stride, he shifted the gun from his right hand to his left and shot both in the chest with single shots. Ten feet away from the door, two shapes popped up in the doorway. This time he did give each target two rounds to the chest and one to the head. With the slide locked open, Dillon dove inside the doorway.

There was a commotion at the back of the storage barn as a gun-wielding figure popped up in front of the small back door. Dillon had no rounds left—he’d left his first magazine with two rounds in it back on the ground when he’d encountered the first two targets. Shit! Without thinking, he reached behind his back for the small, single piece SOG knife he carried with him. Overhanding it like he would a baseball, Dillon threw the knife at the target. Incredibly, the knife stuck blade first in the stomach. It was one-hundred percent pure luck.

Behind him, Dillon heard the distinct sound of slow, deliberate clapping. Without turning around, Dillon grunted, Ramon, you are one sneaky, tricky son of a bitch.

Ah, that I am, Señor Cole, chuckled Ramon Ram Alvarez. But not too bad. I bet you already know where you messed up, right?

Another disgusted grunt. Yeah, Dillon said. Leaving a half-empty magazine on the ground. Can’t believe I did that… damn! Then more quietly, reflecting on missions and training from many years ago, I know better.

I know you do, the Mexican replied. "But as you are so fond of saying, sometimes caca happens. You recovered well at the end. Let us go look at the targets, my friend." And with that, both men headed back out to the wooden barricade where the combat course exercise had first started.

Standing over the two pie-plate sized metal targets, Ram picked up each and noted the gray splotch where Dillon’s round-nosed .45 bullet had hit the freshly painted white plates almost dead center. Not bad, Dillon, he said with a smile. And you double-tapped as fast as I have ever heard a gunman fire and hit each plate perfectly. Moving on to the cardboard IPSC—International Practical Shooters Confederation—style targets, Dillon admired the remote pop-up springs Ram had engineered. With the small control box that Ram held, he could remotely cause a target to spring into its action position. The control box and the remote action mechanisms were a gift from his son, the engineer who lived in Leon, Mexico.

Dillon examined the targets. Both center-mass shots were within inches of each other and the headshots were close to dead center. Ram was looking down at his chronometer/timer and replaying that part of the scenario. "You shot three rounds, reloaded and fired six more rounds, all perfect hits in less than six seconds. Madre de Dios! That is superb shooting, Dillon," Ram said, the respect evident on his face and in his voice.

Practice always pays off, Dillon pointed out, accepting the compliment. In his day, Ramon Alvarez was one of Mexico’s most feared gunmen-for-hire. In his youth, he simply worked for whoever paid the most. But after meeting Felicia Garcia, who would later become his wife, he decided to get on and stay on the right side of the law. He ended up as a firearms and tactics instructor for a special unit of the Mexican federales who chased the growing scourge of heroin dealers that had began springing up in the mountains of Mexico. Dillon Cole had been on some hairy missions during his stints in the military and federal law enforcement, but Ramon Alvarez had been on missions that the devil himself would’ve balked at.

That it does, my friend, Ram nodded in agreement. I liked the way you shifted the gun to your weak hand on the run and hit both targets that came from the trees. Where did you learn to shoot with your weak hand so well?

Had a parachute fall when I was twenty, Dillon explained. We were doing a night jump up in Washington when some fog rolled in. The closer I got to the ground, the more I could see little weeds poking out from the clouds, Dillon continued.

Only— Ram noted, guessing correctly what was coming next.

Only they weren’t weeds, Dillon said with a grimace, remembering that night all too well. They were trees. And when I realized it, I forgot all about my training and found myself tumbling ass over teakettle through them. Along with some other stuff, my right shoulder got dislocated. I had surgery on it and my arm was strapped to my side for almost a month. Even after it got freed up, it was sore as hell and I had to go through some physical therapy and rehab. It took several months before I got full use of it back.

So you practiced with your left hand.

That I did, my friend, said Dillon. And not just with handguns, but with rifles and shotguns too. And, maybe best of all, I practiced all my unarmed combat techniques from the left side since I couldn’t grasp or throw or strike with my right hand. Dillon shrugged. Been practicing and making it a habit to stay proficient in everything I can with both hands. Comes in handy now and then.

And, Ram added with a sly wink, should you ever hurt either arm again, you have the advantage of knowing that you can take a leak and zip up your pants without getting the trouser snake hooked in the zipper.

Both men laughed. When you lose function of your primary arm for a while, Dillon agreed, "you damned sure find out who your real friends are."

* * *

Kenny Langston, executive vice president and creative director of Worthington, Hill & King, glanced at the caller ID screen on his phone and wondered what had taken so long. With the recent mass shootings across the country and the ensuing editorials that predictably followed, he knew that their client, the National Rifle Association and his advertising and public relations agency were in for some long days.

Hello, Ethan, Langston said pleasantly into his small lip mike.

Kenny, Ethan Donahue replied. Been reading the papers?

Yes we have and we’ve already got Lindsey working on the editorial rebuttals. Lindsey Foxx was Worthington, Hill & King’s most lethal media weapon when it came to the defense of the Second Amendment. A graduate, and rare conservative, from the prestigious Columbia School of Journalism, Foxx had skyrocketed her way up into the top markets, finally landing as the six and ten anchor at the CBS affiliate in Denver before the Dan Rather scandal pissed of so many Americans who in turn refused to watch anything CBS. Kenny and the advertising agency had snatched her up in a heartbeat.

What’s her angle? Ethan asked.

What do you think? Langston asked back. She used to be one of them and she knows how they think. She’s fighting back with irrefutable facts.

Ethan Donahue snorted derisively. Since when does the press deal in facts?

That’s a problem, Langston admitted. But we’re also in heavy contact with our friends on the Hill and their press secretaries. And in the smaller markets, our message is at least being published.

And in the bigger markets?

This time is was Langston’s turn to snort. Come on, Ethan. You know the map as well as any of us do. Langston was referring to the popular red state/blue state map that showed how the rural areas and smaller cities—and the South—had overwhelmingly voted against the present sitting President The big cities are virtually a lost cause. They’re almost all solid blue. But we are working the suburbs—at least there’s hope there.

Ethan changed the subject. What’s your take on these shootings?

Langston was quiet for a moment. I haven’t seen the American public this scared since the DC sniper, but this is worse.

Why is that?

Because the sniper was localized around the northern Virginia and southern Maryland area. No real reason for people in Chicago or Denver or Milwaukee or Kansas City to be scared. But all four of those cities were hit along with others. These aren’t random attacks, Ethan.

The executive vice president of the National Rifle Association leaned back in his chair and frowned. What are you saying, Kenny?

Ethan, I’m not sure yet. There’s somebody I need to call. I’m betting that he’ll have a different take on it than you or me.

Do I know this person?

Yes, you do. And you ripped me and Aaron a new asshole for not keeping him at the agency all those years ago.

The line was silent for a moment. Ethan Donahue had met thousands of people who were ardent supporters of the NRA. He ran through his mental rolodex of who Langston could possibly be talking about but came up blank. Let me know what you find out, he ordered.

Three

OVER ONE BILLION e-mails are sent and received all over the world each day. Muhannad Adham Qasim knew this well. When setting up his network of sleeper cells throughout North America, he knew his biggest problem was going to be communicating with them in such a way as to not draw the attention of law enforcement or intelligence agencies. But when cell phones and the internet came about, along with it electronic mail, he saw them as a gift straight from Allah.

Sitting in his hotel suite in Damascus, Qasim wrote a cryptic message that was only a few words in length, added the important attachment his technical man in Paris had created, and sent the e-mail out. It was a simple piece of software—an alarm clock for a computer’s desktop. His aide had assured him that no law enforcement investigator in the world would even give a second guess to a clock in the menu board of someone’s computer. Qasim loved the irony of it. What better way to wake up his sleeper cells than with an alarm clock?

* * *

Baer Ranch was a four hundred-acre working ranch in eastern Cooke County, Texas about sixty-five miles northeast of Dallas. Dillon and Vicki Cole had named the place after their beloved first Doberman Pinscher, Baer, who had passed away not long after they’d bought the place and built their new home. They kept several dozen head of cattle on the ranch, along with their horses in order to classify the entire property as agricultural for tax purposes. Three years earlier, Ramon Alvarez, an amateur geology buff, invited a gas company out and large pockets of natural gas were discovered. Dillon and Vicki promptly made Ram and Felicia partners in the enterprise, which allowed the Alvarezes to live quite comfortably on just the royalties alone. Ram and Felicia had built a house on the twenty-five acres the Coles deeded out to them, and in return for the land, Ram helped run the place.

The ranch came with a 3500-foot paved runway and a small fuel farm that held avgas, auto gas and even Jet-A, which is in reality little more than high-grade kerosene. The previous owner had built a wildly successful cropdusting service after retiring from the Navy where he spent twenty-six years flying various aircraft off of aircraft carriers. The EPA had started giving the man mountains of grief, then issued fines, and finally sent the IRS after him to collect. Completely disgusted, he refused to pay the fines. And before the feds could levy a lien against his business or his property, he bulldozed every building on the place and moved his planes out of the country. He then sold the land to Dillon and Vicki for what amounted to barely even pennies on the dollar and then told the government agencies to go screw themselves. The IRS was incensed, but unfortunately had no jurisdiction in Argentina where the cropduster had moved and set up his new business.

When Dillon and Vicki bought the ranch, they built a large hangar with living quarters inside on the second level. The 7200 square-foot hangar had two huge double bi-folding doors that opened to the east, and along the walls were rolling tool chests and long work benches. In one corner, Dillon had his reloading bench set up plus his bullet casting table and two massive fireproof gun safes. In an opposite corner, he had a work area set up for his newest undertaking—saddle making and other types of leatherwork. On the floor of the hangar were the Cole’s airplanes: an immaculate Cessna T210 Centurion along with a 1965 Cessna 172 Skyhawk that they had lovingly and completely restored. Joining the two Cessna aircraft was Dillon’s newest pride and joy—a Lancair Legacy. The Legacy was a two-seater with a 310hp engine that could fly at almost 300 miles per hour. It was a kit plane that one had to build and Dillon had been longing to build his own airplane for years. With his early retirement from the ad agency world, he had the time and money to take on the project. The result was a means of transportation that was to airplanes what a Lamborghini was to automobiles—sleek and sexy, fast and sporty.

Within the Cole’s living quarters were a large living room, three comfortable bedrooms in addition to the cavernous master bedroom suite, an office and library, three full baths, and a kitchen with every top-shelf, modern kitchen device known to the free world. Living so far away from town, the Coles had to cook everything—unless they wanted to spend a half an hour on the road just to find a local diner or fast food joint. Skylights were abundant throughout the upstairs, and to walk through the home, one would never guess that it was inside an airplane hangar. The kitchen and living room had a walkout balcony, as did the master bedroom. There was a freight elevator on the south end of the hangar that stopped level with the front porch. Dillon had that installed when the place was being built. He knew that as banged up as he was, even now in his early forties, it wasn’t going to be long before climbing the stairs to the house became a painful chore.

Behind the hangar was a large swimming pool, twenty-five yards in length and with four lane markers painted on the bottom. Dillon grew up in the competitive swimming world and to this day, continued to swim almost daily. One of the lanes had a shallow walkway ramp that gave the Cole’s two dogs, a Doberman and German Shepherd, easy and safe access to the pool. North Texas summers can be brutally hot and the cool swimming pool and covered deck offered a pleasant refuge for humans and dogs alike. Next to the ramp was an in-ground hot tub that saw frequent use during the evenings and cooler months.

Located in one of the corners of Baer Ranch was Dillon’s shooting range. It had been a lifelong dream of his to have his own range where he could practice and enjoy everything from combat pistol to long range rifle shooting. Not only did none of his neighbors ever complain about the gunfire, but they often came over with their own rifles prior to deer season to sight them in. Dillon and Ram had sponsored several shooting events at their range, including a large regional IPSC championship. Shooting and flying were Dillon’s Calgon time, as he called it. Vicki often joined him on the range, as did Ram’s wife, Felicia, and both women had recently been bitten by the sporting clays bug. So Ram and Dillon fabricated some various shooting stations along with trap tossers and the women were quickly becoming downright deadly in their ability to wreak havoc on the flying clay targets.

While Dillon was at his workbench cleaning his Colt auto he’d just finished shooting, Felicia came downstairs. You had a telephone call, Dillon, she told him.

Without looking up, Dillon asked, Who from?

Vicki said it was from Kenny Langston in Tulsa.

That brought Dillon’s head up. Kenny? he asked, mainly to himself. What did he want?

I do not know—Vicki just asked me to tell you.

She can’t tell me herself? Dillon grinned at Felicia. "You’re not doing everything for her now, are you?" Felicia helped his wife with the housework and cleaning as well as the cooking. Vicki Cole was a lot of things, but a cook she was not.

Felicia blushed. "No, no, no. She is stirring the rancho con queso sauce I am teaching her to make. If she leaves the stove, it will bubble and scorch. Smell really bad and almost impossible to clean."

So we’re going to have one of your special dishes for supper tonight? Dillon asked hopefully, dunking another patch in some Hoppes cleaning solvent.

"Si, enchiladas the way my mother used to make them."

Can’t wait, Dillon said. And it was true. Felicia’s cooking was otherworldly, and not just Mexican or border style cooking. Any kind of cooking. A longtime registered nurse, Felicia Alvarez was a woman of many abilities.

They will be good, Felicia promised. Just the right amount of peppers from my garden, and I am using the ground venison from that young buck Ram shot last year. It is so tender, and—

Enough! Dillon laughed. "I’m already hungry and you’re just making it worse. How long before the enchiladas are ready, Felicia?" Dillon asked, checking his watch.

Two hours, probably… that is—

"That is, if Vicki doesn’t burn the sauce, right?" Dillon laughed.

Felicia returned the laugh. Have faith, Dillon. She is learning fast. Two hours and you will see.

Good, Dillon replied. That’ll give me plenty of time to make a phone call.

* * *

In Tulsa, Oklahoma, an international studies student opened his e-mail application and scanned through his inbox just as he’d done for the past six years. And there it was. He breathed deeply and reflexively looked around him, even though he was alone in his small efficiency apartment. Opening the e-mail, he saw an attachment and clicked on it. Within seconds, the date and time came up on his header bar. But the date displayed wasn’t today’s date and the time wasn’t correct. The date and time was for noon. Noon tomorrow.

* * *

Elsewhere in Tulsa, four other students, each in separate locations, checked their e-mail and clicked on the same attachment that had been sent to them. The date and time that came up on their header bar also was for noon tomorrow. One of the students went to his closet and pulled out a box containing a pay-as-you go cell phone. It only had one number pre-programmed into it. He checked the minutes he had on the phone, then scrolled down to the number and hit the send button. After listening to a prerecorded message, he smiled and hung up. He set the phone down on his kitchen floor and went looking for a hammer. Returning to the kitchen, he wrapped the phone in a bath towel and began smashing the phone with the hammer. Opening the towel, the phone was little more than small shards of plastic and computer chips. The student tossed those, and the towel in his trash can. He then went into the living room of his small one-bedroom apartment, knelt and began to pray.

* * *

Just a moment, Mr. Cole, and I’ll get Kenny for you, Langston’s admin told Dillon. He’s been expecting your call.

Fifteen seconds later, Langston picked up. Dillon, how’s life in the country?

Not bad, Kenny, not bad, Dillon answered. Tulsa still treating you all right?

Langston chuckled. Tulsa’s treating me okay, but the agency is running me ramshod.

I expected you’d be getting a bit crazy after last week. The media’s sure as hell doing a number on you.

"Us, Dillon, Kenny replied sharply. They’re raising hell about all of us. Anyone and everyone who owns a gun."

Yeah, well to hell with them. Even though his wife, Vicki, was once one of CBS’ top most recognized reporters, Dillon Cole had damned little use for the media—especially today’s agenda-driven mainstream media.

Dillon, you know better. When the talking heads gets their panties in a wad, they start trying to shape public opinion in order to begin shaping public policy. And when that happens, just like it did in ’68 and ’93 with the Gun Control Act and the Assault Weapons Ban, we all get screwed. It’s the way of the new world and just because you live out on four hundred acres away from it all doesn’t mean the rest of us are insulated from it.

So why did you call, then? Dillon asked.

Because I want your help, Langston answered.

Me? Do I look like a freaking movie star? Dillon chuckled, referencing the blitz of TV commercials Worthington, Hill & King had been running that featured well-known celebrities pitching the Second Amendment to American citizens in response to the terrorist attacks of last week.

"The last thing I’d ever say is that you looked like was a movie star, Langston agreed. But I need your experience and sense of strategy as to what you think these terrorists are up to and what their end game is. You were always real good at that when you worked for me. Plus, both Aaron and Ethan have asked me to call you. And by the way, we’d love to have Vicki help out if she’s willing."

Vicki? You already have Lindsey, Dillon pointed out.

"Lindsey is good, but there are still a few things your wife can teach her. The name Vicki Cole still gets people’s attention in a big hurry, Dillon. Face it, she was one of the best reporters CBS ever had. People still recognize her on sight."

So what exactly do you want from us?

We want to get everyone together in a conference room and pool our collective knowledge and intelligence. We’ve got some folks in various law enforcement agencies that have been talking to us about the attacks. Our friends on the Hill are keeping us briefed on what the political opposition is trying to do and what they’re thinking. I want to close off as many corridors to our political enemies as I can before they get a chance to traverse them. That’s what I need your help with. Are you still friends with that guy in the FBI? The one that married some CIA spook you knew way back in the day?

"Jake Devreau? Hell, we’re like brothers. We were liaison partners when I was with the U.S. Marshals. And yeah, he’s married