“That’s right. What we don’t have, is an original copy. The analysts have questioned why we would have all these different copies if they came from the same secondary source. The primary source, the writer of the letter, could have made as many copies as he wished, by pushing a button on his laser printer. We think there’s one person behind the letter, but they’re spreading out in chain-letter fashion. A person gets one, copies it, and sends it along to friends or group members who might want to read it and perhaps act on it.”
“And what are we doing about that? By ‘we,’ I mean you, the FBI.”
“What we’re doing is pressing the people we’ve arrested for names of people who might have sent these letters to them. We’re hoping to find more letters, and by cross-indexing names, get up the pyramid to the original sender.”
“Can you identify a printer if you get an original?”
“Yes. Color laser printers—this is a color laser printer, by the way—actually have tiny dots, invisible to the naked eye, sprayed on the paper that will identify exactly what printer printed the letter, and even when it was done.”
“You gotta be shittin’ me.”
“Nope. That’s not a secret, but not a lot of people know about it. We would like to keep it that way. If we can find an original letter, we can match to the printer.”
“You said with two or three exceptions, none of the people we know about wrote the letter. How do you know that?”
“Because we’ve taken samples of all their writing styles and word patterns. All the little stuff—word choice, vocab, spellings, and so on. With three exceptions, none of the people we’ve looked at could have written the letter, because they’re all nearly functionally illiterate. The person who wrote the letter is literate, trained in writing to some degree, probably a college graduate. The exceptions are Stephen Gibson, Charlie Lang, and John Oxford from ANM.”
“I don’t think ANM,” Lucas said. “Could be, but my gut says they’re not involved. They’re very different, but they’re not psychotic.”
“Stephen Gibson has a color laser printer. I would expect Charlie Lang does, too. If we could find an original printed copy of the letter, we could either pin it to one of those machines, or clear them,” Chase said.
“The copies aren’t clear enough to see the dot-codes?”
“No. These codes are tiny. You literally can’t see them with the naked eye, and neither can copiers.”
“So I’m looking for letters.”
“You’re looking for specific letters—printed letters, not copied letters.”
“Even then,” Lucas said. “It might not be the shooter. It could be somebody who stumbled over the 1919 site and decided to send out some letters, to get somebody else to shoot.”
“Could be,” Chase said. “But it’s what we got right now.”
They both stopped talking for a moment, as the waitress delivered Chase’s coffee and two slices of dry toast, sliced diagonally and carefully arranged on the plate.
When she was gone, Lucas took his cell phone out of his pocket and said, “Let me make a call.”
“You mean... right now?”
“When better?”
—
LUCAS CALLED RICHARD GREENE, of the Greene Mountain Boys, who picked up on the third ring. “Marshal Davenport—we had nothing to do with that shooting, believe me.”
“I hope not. I’m calling about something different. I’ve been told you know everything on the alt-right. A number of people in these alt-right groups have gotten letters suggesting that the meaning of the 1919 group was to encourage somebody to shoot a kid, so that could be used as a leverage to change votes in Congress. We need letters. We need you to ask about them. Carefully. With people you trust.”
“Yeah, I heard about Stephen Gibson. He must’ve touched a hot wire.”
“We’re all over that. If you could reach out... you don’t have to tell anyone why you want to know, just provide us the names. You were talking about getting brownie points with the feds, should you need them. This would get you some. Or many.”
“I understand. Listen, let me think about it for a while. I’ll call you if I get something.”
—
CHASE SAID, when Lucas was off the phone and had explained about Greene, “He seemed eager to get those brownie points. I wonder what he did, or he’s planning, that he needs them?”
“Not my problem,” Lucas said. “It’s yours. Say, you gonna eat all that toast?”
