“DIDN’T THAT strike you as weird?” Rachel asked.
“What?”
“That Martin didn’t have a plan. He’d gathered four hundred people and squirreled them away around the country. Yet he didn’t know what to do with them.”
“Yeah,” Ingrid said, lightly stroking Clare’s head. “But their first responsibility was to save everyone. For months they’d heard the rhetoric on television. All those accusations. They were being labeled terrorists. It was just a matter of time before you guys started rounding them up.”
Rachel shook her head. “Sure, the media was blowing up, but the Bureau wasn’t. We weren’t going to move against the Massive Brigade until we believed they were going to do something. Once we found the missile launcher we knew we had to move.”
“It wasn’t their missile launcher.”
“Well, Ingrid, it was somebody’s. And, no—we didn’t plant it. Do you know who called to tell us to look in that storage space? Her name was Holly Rasmussen, and she was a friend of Mittag’s.”
Kevin shifted, and Ingrid glared at Rachel. “Okay,” she said, but her face became more reflective, as if the Holly Rasmussen news meant something.
Rachel went on. “So don’t tell me there was no plan in the works. The missile launcher was part of the plan, and even if not everybody was on board, July 4 was, too.” She turned to Kevin. “Is this really the story you wanted me to hear?”
Kevin shrugged. “Maybe you want to let her finish.”
Rachel’s leg was acting up again, and immobility wasn’t helping. So she limped over to a wall and stretched the leg out. The pain rose and then subsided. She nodded at Ingrid. “Okay, then. Go on. What more did Martin Bishop tell you?”
Ingrid seemed amused by Rachel’s irritation. She said, “Nothing, yet. He had to go somewhere, and Reggie drove me west, to Montana. It took two days, but we didn’t stop. Drove in shifts.”
“You just handed yourself over to this stranger.”
“That’s what trust is, Special Agent.”
Rachel didn’t reply.
“Lolo, Montana, a stone’s throw from the Idaho border. A log cabin in the mountains. Sixteen people, young people, and they went by the names George and Mary. Most of them were scared, you could tell. They didn’t know what to do next, so they stuck to a schedule. Chores, firing practice, group talk sessions. Most of them were peaceful, though there were some exceptions. George from Albuquerque, an economics grad student. Albuquerque George wanted to ride into Lolo and take over the town by force, establish a beachhead. ‘One city at a time,’ he liked to say.”
“And how did the others react to that idea?” Rachel asked.
“They didn’t. All ideas were on the table. Though I did point out to him that Martin wouldn’t be on board, and Reggie agreed. He and I were the only ones who had spoken with Martin. To the others, he was a face on a screen or words on a web page.”
“He was an idea,” David said, his first words in a while.
“Yeah,” she said, looking back at him. “He was an idea.”