And 6:01 was fifty-eight minutes from now.
I had been instinctively staring upstairs as Shooter spoke. On the way in, Frank had described the operation as a wait-and-see.
But in less than an hour, this ME would walk into a detective’s office in Hambis and tell them that someone had carved a bullet outof Freddie’s stomach. Then burned his body. If that detective was dirty, J. P. Sandoval would get a call one minute later.
“I need to go,” I said. “Are you headed back to see Richie?”
“He went back to Shilo,” Shooter said. “I’ll brief him on this, though. I was thinking of having him follow up with Natalie so I can play it clean. Keep acting like Freddie’s ex. I’d have Richie question her officially.”
“I may need you to contain this ME, Jo,” I said. “Can you head down to Hambis instead, and I’ll be in touch?”
“Right away,” she said.
As I bounded up the stairs, I thought of what I knew about men in militia groups. Of their proclivities and ours. At the FBI, we were famous for two standoffs in the last forty years. Each of them had taken the reputation of the Bureau down a notch.
I flipped open the double doors from the lobby and saw Barry Kemp from ATF.
“There’s the man of the hour,” he said.
Poulton was beside him. “The head of the head cases,” he said. “The genius himself. We just got food, Camden. Eat with us. We’re holding the raid ’til after midnight.”
But Poulton’s expression changed. He’d read my face, and his patented smirk fell.
“You have new intel?” he said.
“In fifty-eight minutes, the men across the way are going to receive a phone call,” I said. “When they do, they’ll arm themselves and fight to the death.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
I relayed every detail Shooter had told me to Craig Poulton, and the men and women around him dug in for more.
“The police in this municipality are compromised?” a tall man asked. The question was about the town of Hambis, and it came from Ethan Mackey, the head of the Bureau’s Counterterrorism Division, or CTD.
“At least one of the detectives is dirty,” Cassie said. “But there are only two in town. So if one of them finds out…” She let her voice trail off.
“And your agent?” Mackey followed up. “He’s positive about all this?”
“She,” Frank said.
Kemp cocked his head. “This is Joanne Harris?”
Cassie nodded, and Kemp turned to the other men. “She was one of mine before she went to work at the Bureau. Solid agent. Crack shot. Former Olympian.”
The rest of the team nodded, impressed, and Kemp moved on, discussing what activity he’d witnessed so far at the Foggy Bottomhouse. ATF had set up a camera in a retail location on the street. After the U-Haul had entered, three other SUVs followed, containing a total of nine men. License plates had been run. Four of the men were ex-military, three with dishonorable discharges and two with criminal records.
“We’ve got a lot of firepower on our side,” Poulton said. “But we don’t want a standoff. Even if we win the battle, we’ll lose the PR war.”
Within ten minutes, the number of personnel on the fifth floor had doubled, and we’d moved to a larger conference room. A man and a woman in matching suits joined us, both from the Department of Homeland Security. Five of the soldiers from tactical joined our group, as well—two from Enhanced SWAT, two from CIRG, and one from SABT, our explosives division.
I looked at my phone. Nineteen minutes had passed.
I had often wondered about Poulton’s specialty, but now it was on display. He balanced the interests of each team, incentivizing them to work together.
“SRT-2 is based out of Sterling.” Poulton pointed to a man in tactical gear. This was ATF’s northeastern Special Response Team, located a few miles from Dulles airport. “Call someone you trust,” he said. “Tell them to get a team here based on my orders and Barry’s, but wait a block away. No other information.”
“Got it,” the man said and headed out.
Twenty-three minutes had passed.
