“Don’t disturb her,” Lucas said. “If she’s telling the truth, the thread that goes to the leadership is pretty thin. As far as we know, she could have some way of signaling that she’s been approached... or might be monitored. I need her to get to Old John for me.”
“What are you going to ask him?”
“It seems to me that he’s got an interesting organization and they’re sort of right-wing, in an unusual way. They’re not really alt-right, the way TV talks about alt-right. If Charlie Lang is correct, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they have a lot of... intelligence... on these other right-wing groups. That would be their natural recruiting grounds, picking out certain people who might tend to agree with them more than they would thecrazier alt-rights. If they sent feelers out to all their cells... if they really have cells, like Charlie thinks they do... then they might come up with something.”
“All right, but, Lucas—no midnight meetings with Old John down in Whiskey Holler. Talk to me.”
“I will. I gotta have somebody calling me, because right now, I’m fresh out of things to do.”
—
SOMEBODY CALLED AT NINE O’CLOCKthe next morning, about the time Lucas was thinking of getting out of bed. A man’s voice: “I’m a member of the ANM. I understand you would like to talk with one of us. I won’t talk on the telephone because of your surveillance techniques. In fact, I’m about to throw this phone into a trash basket. If you do want to talk, walk out under the front canopy of your hotel at exactly ten o’clock, turn right toward the Washington Monument, and start walking. Don’t cross Virginia, stay on the Watergate side of the street. You might have to walk quite a way, so wear good shoes. We checked the internet and we know what you look like. Come alone. If you’re not alone, we won’t talk. If you don’t like these terms, don’t come.”
Click.
That was clear enough, Lucas thought.
He got cleaned up, decided on jeans, a golf shirt, and a sport coat, with trail-runners, along with his Walther PPQ. He thought about calling Jane Chase. FBI surveillance teams were good, but the caller warned him about a long walk and the only reason for that would be counter-surveillance. There was a lot of securityon a weekday in downtown DC, so he wasn’t concerned about being shot or kidnapped.
Still: Ten minutes before he left the room, he sat down and wrote a note to Jane Chase, explaining what he was doing and about the ANM contact. He sealed the note in an envelope with her name on it and left it on the hotel room desk. If he got shot or disappeared, she’d find it soon enough.
At ten o’clock, he walked out from under the canopy into the bright sunlight, took a right, and started walking toward the Washington Monument.
And he walked. And walked. He didn’t try to hurry, but ambled along, for twenty-five minutes, when he could see what appeared to be the end of the street. The Washington Monument was obscured by overhanging trees, but when he could see it, he knew it wasn’t far away, and there was a sprawling park around it. That’s where he’d be picked up, he decided.
He crossed the last small street before he’d come to a much larger one, and started past the small triangular green space on the other side. He passed a bronze statue where a man stood reading the legend beneath it, and as he passed, the man turned and said, “Marshal Davenport.”
Lucas looked back.
The man was as tall as Lucas, thin, but not hungry-looking, maybe a runner, perhaps thirty-five years old; brown hair sprinkled with white, conservatively cut. He had a tanned oval face, brown eyes, narrow nose and lips. He had an ex-military or ex-LEO feel. He was dressed almost as Lucas was, running shoes and jeans, but with a black T-shirt under the sport coat, instead of a golf shirt.
“You’re my guy?” Lucas asked.
“Yes. I am,” the man said. “If you arrest me, I won’t resist, but I won’t say a word except ‘lawyer’ and by-and-by, you’ll be in desperate legal trouble for arresting me, since you have no cause. You also won’t get any help from us. Agreed?”
“I’m not here to arrest you or even hassle you,” Lucas said. “I followed your instructions. You aren’t Old John, I take it?”
“No, I’m not. We were fairly sure you would follow the instructions, but not positive,” the man said, mildly enough. “You are being followed, though. Doesn’t look like federal people, to us.”
“Blue RAV4?”
“Hewasin a blue RAV4, but he ditched it after a while—found a lucky parking place—and now he’s on foot,” the man said. “He’s on Virginia, a block or two behind us.”
“Goddamnit. I’d really like to know who it is,” Lucas said. “He was back there yesterday. I think he’s trying to figure out who I’m meeting.”
“We’ve taken a couple of pictures of him. We’ll send them to your phone. An email address would be useful, too.”
Lucas took out his ID case, extracted a business card with his official email address, and handed it across. The man dropped it in his jacket pocket.
Lucas: “Now... I wanted to talk to you because Charlie Lang thinks you’re a large well-organized group with good contacts among the alt-right. We need to track down this 1919 group as quickly as we can. If a kid gets hit, the FBI will tear up everybody in sight and that includes you. We need you to put out feelers to all your cells: anything will help.”
“I don’t think we have that many people in the District, or around it,” the man said. “I’ll talk to my friends and see what they want to do. See what theycando. We’ll get back to you by telephone, the number we called this morning.”
“You don’t know how many members you have? What’s your position with the ANM?” Lucas asked.
The man smiled. “I’m a trusted member. We don’t have officers, as such. Even Old John is more of a coordinator than an officer—he can’t order people around, because, well, that’s the kind of thing we’re against.”
“You can’t really promise me anything? Make any commitments?”
