Chapter 14

 

Luna drove her car for five minutes, just to get off the route that led to Hendrix’s trailer, then turned up a side road that led to a farm, pulled over, and quickly turned on her computer.

She had not yet opened the desktop folder where she had transferred all the flash drive files—all she knew was that there were over two thousand of them. It had taken a few minutes to copy them.

When she clicked on the icon and sorted them by file type, there was nothing to sort—all of them were photos. Lewd photos, actually, when she started opening them. Lonnie Hendrix engaged in sex acts with both men, women, and what looked like a few bisexual orgies. She sorted them by date and saw that some of them were eight years old.

Nothing but a record of his sexual activity, she thought, once again disappointed. A collection of memories to help him get his aging rocks off…

She began skipping through them, convinced she wasn’t going to find anything that would help her track him down, when she opened one made two months ago, then another, then another.

She leaned back, surprised. The photos were different.

Lonnie with some men, outdoors, in groups of three, four and five. All the men were fully clothed in these pictures, dressed in green camouflage army fatigues and combat boots, rifles slung over their shoulders. In one, they were drinking beer and shooting bottles off a tree stump.

These were taken less than a month ago…the newest one only two weeks ago. From the leafless trees, vegetation and general look of the hilly land, they could have been taken around here.

Then she realized that she recognized two of the men—they were the same two guys she had seen in the photos that her old FBI boss, Frank Hagland, had found online, the ones from a Steve Ezell political rally in Alpharetta.

Luna expanded each photo to full screen size and carefully examined them, one by one, looking for any hint of where they might have been. All of them were out in the wilderness, although various man-made structures were visible in the distance. Part of a red barn, a dark blue pickup truck passing on some faraway road, the top of a grain silo sticking up over treetops.

She stopped on one particular photo.

Yes!

The four men were stepping off a paved road onto a dirt track. A heavy, sagging chain was drawn across the track, blocking access by vehicles, strung between two dark green metal posts that had paint peeling on both of them.

A rusty metal sign hung from the middle of the chain, red letters on a white background.

 

NO TRESPASSING!

ARE YOU BULLET-PROOF

OR JUST STUPID?

 

The photo must have been taken by Lonnie, because he wasn’t in it. Despite the sign, the three other men in the photo were only visible from the back and appeared to be casually entering the property, walking single file, their rifles slung over their shoulders. Their faces were not visible, but the man in the middle had his arm extended with his bare hand poised as if it was holding a pistol and he was firing off a round at the NO TRESPASSING sign.

Luna made a screen shot of the photo and sent it to her phone.

It was time to go to the post office.

 

* * *

Half an hour later, Luna was wandering around the loading and sorting areas of the central Gainesville, Georgia Post Office, showing the photo of the chained off dirt track to anyone who drove a mail delivery truck, or had ever driven one.

“Nope, never seen it before,” one man said.

“Looks familiar, but I can’t say where,” a woman said. “Maybe on Route Twelve. Or Route Three. I’m not sure, honestly.”

“Ha ha that’s funny,” another man said, but then thoughtfully scratched his chin. “Can’t say I seen it anywheres, though, woulda remembered.”

Luna was getting discouraged. Most of the drivers were out on their routes, of course.

Out in the rear loading area, she spotted an aging postal worker with black hair pulled back in a ponytail who had just come out the door behind the loading dock.

He glanced around, missing Luna, then stepped down off the dock and went around to the side of the building, out of sight.

As Luna approached and he came into view again, he had pulled out a cigarette and was flicking a lighter to fire it up.

“How ya doin?” Luna said, flashing her badge. “I’m with the Secret…”

His eyes widened, and he flicked the cigarette at the chain fence that ran along the back of the building.

It bounced off and landed at his feet.

Then Luna saw that it wasn’t a cigarette, but a big, fat joint.

The man kicked it with his shoe. It rolled under the chain link out of reach, the pungent smoke pluming from the end.

His face was as pale as the cigarette paper the joint was rolled in.

“I’m not interested in that,” Luna said, and shook her finger at him. “But you shouldn’t be doing that at work.”

“I know, I—”

“Are you a driver?”

“No, of course not!”

“Have you ever been a driver?”

“Well, yeah, but I never—”

Luna raised her phone and turned the screen so he could view the photo. “Have you ever seen this particular place before?”

He glanced at Luna’s face again, saw that she really wasn’t interested in getting him in trouble over the grass, and squinted at the screen. “Yeah, I know where it is.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Where?”

“Down near Talmo, I used to sub for a guy who drove that beat. It’s on Route Twenty-nine, near the Blackstock Road turnoff. I remember the sign.”

“Blackstock Road,” Luna repeated, writing it all down.

As she turned to leave, she glanced at the joint beyond the fence, and shook her head. “Next time one of my packages gets lost, I’ll know why.”

 

 

* * *

Luna was driving slowly along the winding Route Twenty-nine, hilly farmland on both sides of the two-lane highway. Every now and then a car or pickup truck would come speeding up behind her, honk, and then pull angrily around her.

It was her second pass along the section of the highway that Blackstock Road crossed, but either the stoner postal worker had been mistaken or she’d missed it. It had stopped drizzling, but the sky was still heavily overcast.

She came around a curve and saw two older men emerging from a dirt road, one of them walking a German Shepard.

She pulled over and lowered the window.

The dog barked a couple of times.

“Hey, can you guys give me some directions?”

The dog barked again, both men looking suspicious.

Luna raised her phone, turning the screen towards them, “I’m looking for this road here.”

One of the men, the older of the two, with a tuft of gray hair sticking out of his otherwise bald scalp, stepped up and squinted at the phone.

“Oh, that road’s just around the next curve,” he said, pointing ahead. “On the left-hand side.”

The other man stepped up, holding the leash tight, trying to stop the dog from barking.

“Thanks a lot,” Luna said, and started to put the window back up.

“You don’t want to go up there,” the first man said.

“Why not?”

The other man leaned down, looked at Luna, and then glanced at his companion.

“You just don’t.”

They turned away and crossed to the other side of the road, talking in low voices to each other, the older man glancing over his shoulder at her.

What the hell was that? she thought.

She considered showing them her badge and digging deeper, but changed her mind—she’d find out for herself.

 

* * *

Just as they said, she found the chained off road just around the next curve. She’d missed it because the posts and chain were farther away from the highway than it looked in the photo.

She pulled right up to the sign and parked, shutting off her engine.

 

NO TRESPASSING!

ARE YOU BULLET-PROOF

OR JUST STUPID?

 

There were now a few bullet holes in the sign, holes that were not in the photo, and a couple of dents from rocks.

Luna opened her car door and hesitated, then shut the door again and pulled out her phone and her notebook computer.

She was neither bullet-proof nor stupid.

She pulled her blue police strobe from the glove compartment, plugged it into the cigarette lighter, and suction-cupped it to the dash. Then, she opened Google Maps, found her present location, and zoomed in on it in satellite view. The winding dirt road led to some kind of building which appeared to be a farmhouse, but it was hard to tell. When the photo was taken no vehicles were parked around it—the building looked abandoned. The surrounding area seemed to be nothing but woods.

She composed an email and pasted in the coordinates, called one of the back office numbers at the Secret Service headquarter in D.C. and asked them to check with the County Clerk in Hall County, Georgia, and find out who owned this property, when they’d bought it, its size and boundaries, and anything else they could. She told them it was urgent.

While she waited for them to call back, she rolled down the driver’s window—it was stuffy and humid in the car.

Then she heard a far-off popping sound.

She opened the car door again and stood up, listening, turning her head...

Rat-tat-tat-tat. Rat-tat-tat. Rat-tat-tat-tat.

Semi-automatic rifles, somewhere deep in the woods ahead.

The gunshots stopped and it was quiet again. After a few minutes her phone rang.

“Property is three hundred and twenty acres, purchased by a Buford L. Billings five years ago. It’s listed as timberland. That’s all I’ve got so far. Looks like the east side borders a creek. You want me to send you the map from the property deed?”

“Yes, that would be helpful. Call the FBI and have them run the address through their system. If you dig up anything else, please let me know.”

“Will do.”

 

* * *

Luna locked the car, leaving everything behind except her pistol and cellphone.

She stepped around the chained-off entrance, moving slowly through the wet grass, and began walking up the road. Her Secret Service badge was hanging from its chain around her neck—she wanted to make sure it was clearly visible to whomever she encountered. She was tempted to draw her gun, but since she was wearing a simple navy blue raincoat and had nothing but the badge to indicate that she was a law enforcement agent, she decided it was best to proceed empty-handed.

The popping of the rifles picked up again. They sounded closer this time, but stopped after only thirty seconds. All was silent now except the occasional passing of a car or truck on the highway. The road was muddy in places from the rain, and she had to step around some large puddles as it began to curve to the left.

She took one look back over her shoulder at the rental car, sitting on the other side of the chain, the blue strobe on the dash still flashing.

 

* * *

“Where the hell do you think you’re goin’, nigger?”

Luna came to a stop, one foot partially sinking into the mud.

The voice had come from the woods, on the left-hand side of the road. She had been walking for about ten minutes and thought she was about to reach the building at the end, whatever it was.

“Yeah, where the hell do you think you’re goin’?” another voice called out.

Luna stood perfectly still, still seeing nothing but the leafless trees and scattered winter brush.

She heard the rustle of dry leaves.

One, two, three men emerged from behind the trees. They all had rifles strapped to their chests, their hands on the trigger guards, but none were pointing the weapons at her.

She immediately recognized one of the men from the photos on Lonnie Hendrix’s flash drive. He had straight white hair, was balding in the middle of his scalp, with a long, bushy white beard.

“Hey Zeke!” one of them yelled across the road. “Look what the cat dragged in!”

“I guess she’s either bullet-prove or stupid,” one of the guys said, and they all laughed. The men looked to be in their forties and fifties, all Caucasian, all stocky, beer bellies bulging against their camouflage outfits. In fact, two of them were holding beer cans in their hands.

Another man emerged from the other side of the road. Zeke, presumably. He was bigger than the others, a skinhead. A red swastika was tattooed on one of his shaved temples.

All four of them approached her.

The one named Zeke got close enough to squint at her badge.

“Goddam nigger fed.” He had piercing blue eyes, and they glanced up into hers, looking for a reaction.

“No, it’s worse than that—I’m not just a nigger fed. I’m a half-breed nigger fed.” She smiled. “Father was black, mother was an injun. I got Yurok blood pumpin’ through my veins.”

The men glanced at each other, a little thrown by this—clearly it wasn’t the reaction they expected. Luna knew that she looked intimidating, the long raincoat making her appear even taller than she was.

Zeke was unfazed, however. Unlike the others, there wasn’t an ounce of flab on him. He was wearing a sleeveless camouflage vest, his muscular arms showing. His eyes were riveted on Luna’s face—hatred seemed to emanate from every pore of his white skin.

He said, “You need a warrant to set foot on this property, half-breed. You got one?”

“I don’t need a warrant. I’m not here to conduct a search. I have reason to believe that a suspect wanted for a murder up in Pennsylvania may be hiding out somewhere on this property.”

“And who the hell might that be?”

“His name is Lonnie Hendrix.”

“Never heard of him,” Zeke said.

The other three men shook there heads. “Nope. Doesn’t ring a bell.”

“He uses a lot of aliases.” She reached into her raincoat pocket, “I’m going to show you a picture on my phone.”

All four of the men tensed and backed away, gripping their rifles but still not aiming them at her.

She opened the most recent mugshot of Hendrix and held it up so each one of them could get a good look at it.

“Never seen him before.”

“Don’t look familiar.”

“Can’t say I’ve seen that face around here.”

“Nope,” Zeke said, shaking his head and gazing at Luna again, the hatred evident. “What do think he’s gonna do, kill the President?”

The men laughed.

“We ain’t never seen no Secret Service agent around here.”

Now Luna had the strangest feeling—she had seen Zeke’s face somewhere before. Probably in the mugshots she’d gone through when she was putting together the set to see if Elaine’s mother could ID Lonnie Hendrix.

“Are any of you Buford Billings?” she said, looking from once face to another.

None of them spoke.

“He’s listed on the deed as the property owner.”

“Never heard of him,” the man with the goatee said.

“Well, guys, it’s very interesting that none of you know Lonnie Hendrix, either, because I know for a fact he’s been here.”

“Is that so?” Zeke said, looking interested.

She flipped to the next photo on her phone, which showed the group of men stepping around the NO TRESPASSING sign entering the chained-off property. “He took this picture, time-stamped two months ago.” She again held up the phone and moved it so all four men could see it, stopping in front of the white-bearded man. “And whaddya know? That’s you there in the middle.”

“It ain’t me,” the man said, and spit out tobacco, nearly hitting her boots.

“Sure looks like you.”

“Yeah?” He grinned, showing a gold tooth. “Prove it.”

“Don’t have to prove it. See, it’s called exigent circumstance, a legal term that’s probably far beyond the grasp of your alcohol-pickled brains. It allows law enforcement agents to pursue a suspect onto private property without obtaining a warrant if we have probable cause to believe said suspect is on said property.”

“Oooh, them’s awful fancy words,” the bearded man replied. He looked over at Zeke. “You know what I think we got here? She ain’t just any old half-breed nigger fed, but a college edge-i-cated half-breed nig—”

“Look, pal, you get Billings to come talk to me, or take me to him. Now.”

“Or what?” The man’s grip tightened on the rifle.

Luna laughed. “You so much as swing that gun barrel a quarter inch in my direction, Santa Claus, and I’ll cram it so far up your ass you’ll look like a Christmas unicorn.”

The man backed away slightly.

Zeke chuckled at this—it seemed he thought it was a good joke. He nodded to the man with the radio. “Go on, Charlie, call the damn Colonel. We don’t need any trouble with the law.”

The Colonel? Luna thought.

 

* * *

A few minutes later, the four men were marching Luna up the road towards “headquarters,” whatever that was. The man with the radio had pulled it out and contacted “Colonel” Billings, who asked a few questions, at first thinking the “cop” was a fed from ATF, Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms.

Luna heard the whole conversation. “A woman?” Billings said.

“Not exactly sure,” the man with the radio replied, glancing at Luna. “Her voice is deeper than yours. Maybe one-a-them transgender people—I heard the gov’ment hires ‘em now, loads ‘em up with benefits.”

When Billings found out that she was from the Secret Service, he said, “Okay, no problem, march the lady up here.”

And march her, they did. Literally. With their rifles upright in a slightly drunken parade position, two of the men led the way, with Luna and Zeke following, and the other man taking up the rear.

“You like Jodies?” Zeke said.

“Excuse me?” Luna said, dodging a mud-puddle. Zeke had walked right through it, splashing water on her.

“You know, Jodies, them marching cadences they sing in the military.” He cleared his throat.

“I don’t know but I been told,” he sang.

“I don’t know but I been told,” the other men echoed.

“Half-breed nigger ain’t got no soul.”

“Half-breed nigger ain’t got no soul…”

 

* * *

The racial harassment continued all the way up the hill, with Zeke making up lyrics that used the N-word in virtually every line. He seemed hell-bent on getting under her skin and making her do something against law enforcement rules, but the truth was, it didn’t bother her. At least not much. She’d been called a lot worse in her day, names that were not shallow slurs based on sweeping, ignorant stereotypes, but insults that were much more personal. Luna-Goona-Baboona. Those were the ones that hurt.

As they marched along, Luna’s phone vibrated in her pocket—the pattern indicated a call from the Secret Service back office in D.C.

She decided this wasn’t the time to take it.

The road turned several times and they finally reached a high chain link fence that looked almost brand new, with coiled razor wire running along the top. Beyond it was a huge barn and grain silo, with a few towering, bare trees scattered around it, along with a few green firs. A huge sign hung over the entrance to the barn with the letters NDC painted on in bright red block letters.

Also within the fenced-in area was an obstacle course similar to the one they had at Quantico, with climbing ropes, a huge cargo net, along logs, high wooden and brick walls, and barbed wire barriers.

As the man with the radio unlocked the gate, Luna’s phone vibrated again—this time the pattern indicated a text message.

Luna stepped back from the group and pulled out her phone. It was a message from her back office contact in D.C., a follow up to her inquiry a few minutes ago.

The property you asked about in Georgia is on an FBI terrorism watch list. DO NOT enter the property under any circumstances. Repeat: DO NOT enter the property under any circumstances.

Luna swallowed. Damn. It was a little late for that.

“Well?” Zeke said, looking at her expectantly. “Was that your boss-man, askin’ if you need backup?”

Luna put the phone back in her coat pocket. “Pick up a loaf of bread on the way home,” she sighed. “House husbands.”

Zeke eyed her warily.

The five of them stepped through the gate, and Luna noticed, with an uneasy feeling, that he re-locked it. The air was filled with screeching industrial metal music that came from inside the barn, intermixed with shouts of men who sounded excited about something. Now she could see that on the far side of the barn, there were several shiny aluminum Quonset huts, like those used in the Marines, that looked like barracks. Apparently a lot of the men lived here. And a lot of money had been spent on it. Beyond them, dozens of cars were parked in the grass—apparently, the gate and dirt road they’d walked up had been a side or back entrance to the property.

They walked across the far end of the obstacle course and through the wide-open barn door—across one wall was another gigantic sign, but with words, not merely an abbreviation. Now Luna knew what the letters stood for.

NORDIC DEFENSE CORPS

On another wall hung a massive Nazi flag, and underneath, a smaller Confederate flag. There must have been at least fifty men inside, most of them gathered around a matted sparring area, where two “soldiers” were going at each other bare handed in martial arts style, the men cheering them on.

As Luna was escorted across the large space, heads turned their way and the shouting stopped. The two men who were sparring both turned her way and stood still, gaping at her.

Above the whole area, on another wall, was a glassed-in loft. Through the windows she could see file cabinets, a wall map of the United States, and some ancient-looking radio equipment.

“Who the hell is that?” she heard someone say.

“Looks like a goddam fed.”

“ATF,” another said.

“They let a spear-chucker in here?”

The loft door opened and a man in a wrinkled military officer’s uniform stepped out. He glanced at Luna, then began to descend the stairs. The man was in his sixties, clean shaven with neatly cropped gray hair. He actually had a lean, intelligent-looking face—there was something aristocratic about his features.

When he reached the end of the steps, he walked over to Luna and peered down at her badge.

“Welcome to the NDC,” he said, formally extending his hand. “I can’t say we’ve ever had the pleasure of having a Secret Service agent as a guest here.”

His hand was rough and calloused.

“Mister Billings, the reason I’m here is—”

“Let’s go up to my office,” he said.

As she followed him up the stairs, she glanced over her shoulder and saw Zeke standing there at the bottom, watching her. The two men started sparring again. Zeke pointed at her, then at himself, and then over at the sparring mat. He mouthed, You and me.

Luna continued up the stairs, half-wishing she could take him up on his offer.

When they entered the “colonel’s” office, he said, “Want some coffee?”

“No thanks.”

He offered her a metal chair, but she declined. “This isn’t a social call, Mister Billings.”

“Colonel Billings,” he said, and he motioned to some framed medals on the wall behind his desk. “U.S. Marines, honorable discharge.”

She nodded. “Colonel Billings, then.” Just as she reached for her phone, it started vibrating again. She glanced briefly at the message, a second one from Washington—PLEASE CONFIRM THAT YOU HAVE NOT ENTERED THE PROPERTY.

She knew she had royally screwed up, but it was too late now. She scrolled to the photo of Lonnie Hendrix and showed it to Billings. “I have reason to believe this man is, or has been, on your premises.”

He looked at the photo and went through the same routine as the other men, claiming not to recognize Hendrix, and saying that the man with the white hair might not be the one in the picture. While they talked, Luna glanced out the window overlooking the lower level. Zeke had started sparring with the winner of the previous contest, and he kept looking up at her and grinning.

He was good, so good that she might have trained him herself. As he sparred, she saw glimpses of Krav Maga, Muay Thai, Pencak Silat, combined with the more common moves of Karate and Jujitsu.

Zeke saw her looking down at him, stood back from his opponent and did the pointing bit again, mouthing You and me. Most of the men watching caught this and glanced up at her to see her reaction.

“Doesn’t look at all familiar,” Billings repeated, glancing up from her phone screen.

“So you deny ever seeing him before?” Luna said, peering into his eyes.

“Well, I didn’t say that.” Billings motioned down to the men at ground level. “Lotta guys come and go, don’t stay more than a day or two. They decide our cause isn’t for them.”

“Cause?” Luna said.

“Ideology, philosophy, whatever you want to call it.” He paused. “You probably think we’re just a bunch of racists.”

Luna frowned, glancing down at the Nazi flag that spanned the wall, at the Confederate flag underneath, and at Hitler’s bust on the bookshelf. “Why in the world would anyone think that?”

He barely smiled at this. “We don’t have anything against Blacks or Jews or Muslims, per se—it’s mixin that we don’t like. We just want to keep our Nordic culture intact. See, there’s gonna be a race war pretty soon, and that’s what we’re preparing for—”

“Colonel Billings, I honestly don’t give a damn what you guys do up here—you can play army and wear tinfoil hats and prepare for the coming whatever, as long as you’re not breaking the law. Armed militias aren’t my beat. I’m only interested in tracking down Lonnie Hendrix.”

Billings gave a knowing smile. “You think he’s out to get the President…”

Even Billings didn’t know the Secret Service had more than one sphere of responsibility.

“He’s a person of interest to us, and we want to question him.”

“Well, he isn’t here, and hasn’t been, to my knowledge.”

Luna considered asking him if he minded if she walked around and showed the photos to some of the other men, but based on the text messages she’d gotten, the best thing to do was leave.

“Thanks for your cooperation,” she said, and she headed towards the stairway.

 

* * *

When Luna was halfway down the steps, Zeke saw her and trotted over, some of the men following.

“Come on, bitch, show me what you’re made of,” he said, trotting alongside her when she reached the bottom.

“I’m on duty,” Luna said, though she really was itching to take him on.

He didn’t let up, following her through the barn and out into the surrounding area.

“I know they teach you Secret Service agents some good moves, you get lotsa special training to protect the President and all that. Come on!”

“Yeah, show us, show us, show us!” the group started chanting.

She reached the gate, which was locked.

“Open it,” Luna said.

“Show us, show us, show us…!”

“Open the goddam gate!” a voice boomed from behind.

It was Billings, yelling through a loudspeaker from the barn doors.

The man with the radio complied, muttering, “Goddam coward,” to Luna as she stepped through.

Luna bristled at this, but of course sparring with any of these idiots was far beyond the limits of anything she could do while on duty.

She only walked for about fifty feet before Zeke trotted around her and stepped directly in her path, and the others formed a circle so she couldn’t get around him without bumping into somebody. Some of them were armed.

“Leave the woman alone,” Billings called through the loudspeaker, but he didn’t sound like he meant it.

Luna stopped in front of Zeke and he just stood there. His eyes boring into hers. “You’re just gonna walk away from the challenge, half-breed?”

Somehow he’d sensed that this was the one term that got under her skin, a childhood wound.

“Maybe some other time.”

“Let the woman leave,” Billings called out.

Zeke smiled. “You know what they say, half-breed—‘There’s no time like the present’.”

Luna glanced around as the men closed in on her. For the first time this morning, Luna was truly scared. Not so much of him, but of the wolf-pack energy that had gotten stirred up. Some of the men were itching for an excuse to beat the crap out of her—she represented the federal government, their archenemy.

“This situation is out of control,” Luna said, preparing to draw her gun if necessary. Her raincoat was open, the weapon easily accessible. “You should do the smart thing, for the sake of your existence here, and let me leave.”

Zeke snickered, and he assumed a martial arts stance, turning sideways, raising his arms. Once again, he seemed familiar to her—she was certain she’d seen his face before. If she got out of here alive, she would go back through the mug shots she’d most recently looked at in the criminal database—

He feigned a kick with his left foot.

In that instant, she recognized him.

Luna yanked her pistol from the holster and pointed it at his chest, but she was a little too slow to grasp it in a solid, two-handed grip.

In that split-second, Zeke took advantage. Both his hands shot out, his left grabbing hold of her wrist just behind the thumb joint, with his right almost simultaneously slapping the side of the pistol. It was a slick Krav Maga move. The pistol flew out of her hand, spinning end over end, and landed in the dirt.

“Oh, shit,” she muttered.

She whirled around and started running down the dirt road.

“I got her!” Zeke cried, and she could hear his footfalls behind her.

“Chase her off the property,” Billings called through the loudspeaker, and the other guys started laughing and hooting. “Don’t lay a finger on her! We don’t need problems with the feds.”

There were some boos.

“And give her back her goddam gun!”

Luna glanced over her shoulder—she glimpsed one of the men tossing her pistol to Zeke as he backtracked to catch it, and then he was after her again, a maniacal grin on his face.

 

* * *

Luna ran at top speed back towards her car, but Zeke could run as fast as she could. When she sprinted around the final bend in the road, she glanced over her shoulder once more—now he was no more than thirty feet behind her.

Behind him, there was nothing but the dirt road. Fortunately, the others hadn’t followed—Billings had forbidden it.

She suddenly veered off the road and headed into the woods.

As soon as she came to the first clearing, she stopped and turned around, half bent over, wheezing a little.

Zeke dashed into the clearing and skidded to a stop in the wet grass.

They just stood there, looking at each other.

His face broke into a wide grin.

Hers did the same.

They ran straight towards each other, collided, and embraced in a bear hug.

“Russell, what the hell are you doing here?”

“What the hell are you doing here, Luna Faye?”

They stepped back and gaped at each other again, beaming with delight.

“My god,” Russell said, “how long has it been?”

Russell Galbraith was one of her oldest martial arts students, from her hometown of Redding, California—she’d trained him even before she’d gotten her job at the FBI. He had later joined the Secret Service.

“You’re with the FBI now?” she said, with disbelief.

“I am.” He chuckled. “Ironic, isn’t it?”

It was indeed—they’d switched places. After he left Redding, he had gone on to join the Service’s Uniformed Division, and, years later, they’d run into each when she was home visiting her mom. In fact, he was the one who had encouraged her to transfer from the FBI to the Secret Service.

“I hope I didn’t blow your cover,” Luna said, lowering her voice.

“Nah,” he said.

“You really had me going there,” Luna said, as she looked up at the swastika on his temple. “I couldn’t place you, not with that tattoo and without any damn hair.”

He laughed. “I figured you’d recognize that Krav snap-disarm move, if nothing else.”

She had expected that, and she had purposefully raised her gun with one hand after recognizing him, something she would never do otherwise.

“Remember how much trouble I had with that move?” Russell said.

“Yeah. You have it down pat now, though.”

“Thanks.” He chuckled. “A Christmas unicorn—that was a good one.” He paused, looking uneasy. “I hope you didn’t take anything I said personally…”

“Of course not.”

He glanced over his shoulder to make sure they were still alone. “I infiltrated this group about three months ago. We thought they might be responsible for a couple of church bombings, but I don’t think these bozos could organize a bake sale.” He looked back at Luna. “I do have some info on Lonnie Hendrix.”

Luna hadn’t expected this. “You do?”

“He’s a key player here—he’s given Billings a ton of money for setting this place up. Kind of a weirdo, if you ask me—Billings doesn’t like him. He goes by the name of Brooklyn Parks.”

“Brooklyn Parks,” Luna said. She pulled out her notebook and wrote it down.

“What’s his story, anyway?” Russell asked.

“He’s wanted for a murder up in Pennsylvania, and another murder that I’m investigating, a contract killing—he’s connected to a case I’m working on in Europe for the Service.”

“That fits. He says he has some mysterious European ‘donor’ who wants to support the cause—that’s where he’s getting the money.”

That would be Spyro Leandrou, Luna thought. An unwilling and unknowing donor—Lonnie was probably blackmailing him. More evidence that Lonnie Hendrix had killed Elaine’s dad on a contract from Spyro, and another nail in Spyro’s coffin.

“Where is Lonnie now?” Luna said.

“No idea. He showed up last night and left again this morning, in a big hurry—I figured he was in some kind of trouble.” Russell glanced over his shoulder again. “Listen, he’s tight with a couple of the other guys here—if you give me a phone number or email where I can leave a message for you, I might be able to find out more from them. But it will take time, I have to be super careful.”