“Okay, I promise I will.”
“I love you, Alex.”
“Love you more.”
Alex puts down his phone and lays his head on the pillow. Just a little more rest.
Then he’ll go out again. After dark.
There’s more to Colton Brophy than meets the eye.
Alex is sure of it.
CHAPTER 90
Sampson
I’M DRIVING AIDEN PHILLIPS’S Dodge Charger down a dark road. He’s in the passenger seat, his pistol resting in his lap. Both of my guns are in the trunk, loaded but way out of reach. I’m behind the wheel, but Phillips is in control.
At least for now.
I swerve around a dead possum in the center of the lane. The car handles like a tank.
“What’s wrong with this thing?” I ask. “It feels heavy.”
“Armor plating underneath,” says Phillips. “Adds a quarter ton or so. I welded it on myself.”
That answer matches up with all the weapons and tactical gear I saw in the trunk.
“What are you, Aiden? Some kind of doomsday prepper?”
“No. I’m a survivalist. I believe the government could come after us at any time. When they do, I’ll be ready.”
We’re approaching Reedville, Virginia, a couple hours south of DC, not far from the Chesapeake Bay. It’s an isolated area dotted with farmhouses and trailers. Not another car on the road.
We’re looking for a man named J. T. Polermo.
Phillips showed me his picture before we left my house. The two of them were together in DC on a two-week leave from Afghanistan, just one block from the Capitol, both in military camo gear, getting ready to join the march that day in January.
According to Phillips, he and Polermo had split a liberated supply of C-4 and smuggled it into the States.
Phillips says that Polermo is behind the bombings. “But I’m the one being framed for it.”
For some reason, I believe him.
We’ve spent most of the ride not speaking, listening to right-wing radio. Phillips’s choice. To me, it all sounds like batshit conspiracy theories and white-guy grievances. But I can tell that Phillips is soaking it up, nodding to every word. “Damn straight,” he mutters now and then.
I stand the screeds for as long as I can, then reach over and switch off the radio. I expect Phillips to react, but he just stares out the window. I want to get him talking again. Find out what I might be walking into.
“So that’s the last time you saw Polermo?” I ask. “At the insurrection?”
“You mean the march for electoral integrity?”
“If you say so.” I never argue politics with a man holding a gun.
“Yeah,” says Phillips. “I lost track of him after that. We had different ideas about how to get back at the system.”
“You mean you wanted to just limit yourself to trashing the People’s House?”
