“Pretty much.”

  “Can you vague that up for me a little?” Corwin asked.

  “Direct action,” Bolan replied.

  “Direct action,” she repeated, letting that sink in. “How does that work?”

  “The job gets done.”

  “Throw out the book, in other words,” Corwin stated.

  “Or use a different one.”

  “I took an oath, you know.”

  “Nobody’s asking you to break it,” Bolan said. “Nobody’s asking you to stick around, at all.”

  “And if I do?”

  “You take the first step with your eyes wide open.”

  “Right.” She spent another endless moment staring at the man in front of her, then asked him, “So, what’s next?”

  WHEN THE LADY FED had gone her own way half an hour later, Bolan dug out one of the prepaid cell phones and called Hal Brognola at home. It was three hours later on the east coast, but he didn’t think the news could wait.

  “Brognola,” the big Fed announced without a salutation, when he picked up on the third ring.

  “Me,” Bolan said.

  “Hang on,” Brognola said. “I’ll scramble this.”

  He came back on the line a moment later. Bolan’s ear detected no great difference, perhaps a whisper-hint of static, but he knew that any eavesdroppers would hear only a blur of indecipherable noise, on par with the “greeting” sounds of a dial-up internet connection.

  “We’re good,” Brognola said. “What’s up?”

  “We had our sparring session,” Bolan told him, “and I’ve had a visitor.”

  “Already? One of Halsey’s people?”

  “ATF,” Bolan replied. “Say what?”

  “I didn’t see it coming, either. But she’s good. An Agent Corwin, first name Grace. Already checked my cover and decided it’s a phony.”

  “Damn it! That was quick.”

  “Something about computer code in files that tells you when they were created, modified, whatever. Way it sounds, she’s been on Halsey’s case from the beginning, watching like a hawk. The snitch from the Mojave was her guy, and now she’s mad as hell. Some kind of guilt trip, too, I’d say.”

  “She put all this together since the fight? I don’t see how—”

  “You know the Feds, when they get motivated,” Bolan said.

  “Right. Half the time, they wind up tripping over one another.”

  “Not this one. She had the roadhouse covered. Ran my cycle’s plate, which took her to the dossier on file, just like you planned, but she had someone on the geek squad look a little closer. Maybe just a hunch, but it paid off in what she calls computer noise. Long story short, that’s cooking while your bikers roll up, and she makes a couple of them as acquaintances from DEA.”

  Brognola snorted. “I must be losing my touch.”

  “I’d say the lady’s hyper-motivated,” Bolan answered. “And she’s also willing to collaborate.”

  “Which means…?” Brognola sounded worried.

  “Just what I said,” Bolan replied. “She wants Halsey and his militia so bad she can taste it, but she’s getting nowhere since they iced her boy on the inside. As far as this situation goes these days, I get the feeling that she feels a certain flexibility toward rules and regulations.”

  “Or she’s playing you,” Brognola suggested.

  “Unlikely,” Bolan said. “For one thing, she’s too single-minded at the moment to go running off in new directions, chasing secret units of the government that pays her salary. I also left her with the understanding that if she starts poking into nooks and crannies, it could damage her career.”

  “I guarantee it,” Brognola replied. “In fact, I think the smartest thing would be to have her transferred out, right now. There must be something she could do on Guam.”

  “I wouldn’t rush on that, if I were you.”

  “The longer she’s in place, buzzing around—”

  “You didn’t let me finish,” Bolan said, cutting him off. “The other reason why I tend to trust her is her hunger. She wants Halsey and his cohorts served up on a platter, and she’s frustrated by lack of progress. When I hinted at a more direct approach, it didn’t scare her off. No cries of outrage.”

  “If she’s scamming you—”

  “Then, you can cover it at your end,” Bolan said. “You know the ATF’s director, right?”

  “We’ve met,” Brognola admitted. “Worked together on a few things, here and there, peripherally.”

  “And you could have a word with him, if necessary. Shine him on, pull rank, whatever’s necessary to nip trouble in the bud.”

  “Meaning, if this gal tries to set you up.”

  “I’d bet against it,” Bolan said. “But I’m a fan of having backup plans on tap.”

  “Same here. I’ll scope the angles on this end. Meanwhile, if she starts getting pushy, let me know ASAP.”

  “Will do.”

  “This is a complication we don’t need,” Brognola said, sounding morose.

  “I’m not expecting any blowback,” Bolan replied.

  “I hope you’re right. Let’s sleep on it and see what happens in the morning.”

  “In the morning,” Bolan said, “I’ve got another date with Halsey.”

  “Moving right along,” Brognola said. “Stay frosty. Watch your six.”

  “I always do.”

  Five minutes later, in the shower, Bolan took time to replay his chat with Special Agent Corwin. He knew she might try to find out more about him, peer through the holes that she’d found in his cover, but Bolan trusted Stony Man Farm to have his back on that score.

  Meanwhile, if she stuck with Bolan, didn’t blow the whistle on him, she’d be implicated in whatever moves he made against the Clay Halsey and the NMM. Once that was clear to her, she’d have a choice to make: stick with the plan and pull her weight, or sacrifice herself to stop Matt Cooper.

  In which case, she would inevitably fail.

  Sliding between crisp sheets, his right hand kissing-close to the Beretta underneath his pillow, Bolan closed his eyes on one long day and focused on the dark tunnel of sleep.

  “YOU DID WHAT?”

  “You heard me,” Halsey said. “I told him he could stop by headquarters and have a look around, consider joining us.”

  “A total stranger,” Luther Axton said, sounding incredulous.

  “I’m trusting you to check him out, of course.”

  “Damn right, I will.” Axton was Halsey’s second in command and chief of security for the New Minuteman Militia. Paranoid by nature, he was also paid to worry.

  And he did it very well.

  “I don’t see how you could—”

  “A man like this,” Halsey said, interrupting Axton’s protest, “could be very useful to us.”

  “Jesus, Clay! ‘A man like this’? You’ve only known him for a couple hours.”

  “During which time, he was more than helpful. If he hadn’t jumped in when he did at Scoots, I might be fielding your objections from Intensive Care.”

  “Okay. I’m glad he helped you, and I wish to hell I’d been there,” Axton granted. “But for helping in a fight, you buy the guy a drink or three. You don’t give him a pass to snoop around our operation.”

  “You’re exaggerating,” Halsey said. “There’s no pass, and it’s your job to prevent the snooping part.”

  “Oh, I’ll be watching. You can bet your ass on that.”

  “But if he works out as I’m hoping, Major Cooper could become a major asset.”

  “Ex-major,” Axton said, correcting him.

  “Same thing.”

  “Unless he’s blowing smoke.”

  “Look into it. Pull up his file.”

  “You know I will.”

  “Then, if he’s clean—and if he fits—we’ll have ourselves a Green Beret.”

  “We’ve already got two,” Axton reminded him. “Patton and Tolliver.”

  “A sergeant and a corporal,” Halsey replied. “They’re skilled, of course, but neither has experience commanding men, or training them.”

  “Sounds like this Cooper’s moving up the ladder pretty goddamned fast.”

  “Your job’s secure, Luther. Don’t worry.”

  “And I plan to do it. If this guy’s been feeding you a line of bullshit—”

  “I’d expect you to uncover it, of course.”

  “And deal with him,” Axton said.

  “First things, first,” Halsey replied. “He didn’t come to us, remember.”

  “Just coincidence, you mean? Smells fishy.”

  “If it’s fishy, run it down. You find something, we’ll act on it. If there’s nothing to find, then we’re good.”

  “You’re assuming he’ll want to come in,” Axton said.

  “I don’t assume anything,” Halsey assured him. “He’ll have the same screening as anyone else, and then some.”

  “Nothing sensitive, though, till he’s cleared,” Axton said.

  “Not for us. As for him…well, a Green Beret should pass the test.”

  Axton scowled. “For the record, then, Clay. I don’t like it.”

  “So noted. Get cracking. Go prove me wrong, if you can.”

  Axton left him, deserting the no-frills executive office Halsey occupied at NMM headquarters. Truth be told, the whole place was no-frills, a larger version of the place where he had taken Cooper for their first brief interview—all cinder blocks and concrete floors, with an unfinished basement used mostly for storage.

  Not sensitive storage, however.

  The good stuff was safely stashed elsewhere.

  Major Matt Cooper would have to be vetted and tested before he got past the militia’s public facade. And Halsey had a test already fixed in mind, a little operation that would tell him whether Cooper had the skill and nerve to be a useful member of the team. As for commmitment, that was bound to take some time. Halsey would work on that, once he had satisfied himself that Cooper could be trusted.

  And if not?

  No problem.

  They could always plant another body in the desert. The Mojave had devoured people from the dawn of history, no end in sight. One more wouldn’t make a difference.

  GRACE CORWIN SIPPED her second glass of vodka, last one for the night, and wondered what she had been thinking. What in hell, exactly, had she done.

  Her deal with Cooper wasn’t set in stone, by any means. They’d talked, and that was all. Verbal agreement didn’t have to mean that she’d crossed any lines. No laws were broken yet. It took only one call for her to pull the plug.

  So, why wasn’t she on the telephone?

  Because she’d run out of options.

  Joe Gittes had been her last, best hope to crack Halsey’s militia, and something had gone terribly, tragically wrong. Corwin still didn’t know how Gittes had tipped his hand, and she likely never would. Halsey, for damned sure, wasn’t going to confess. As for his personal gorilla, Axton…

  Corwin could feel her blood pressure rise as she pictured their smug, smirking faces, the bastards relaxing, telling themselves that they’d gotten away with murder—again.

  Gittes wasn’t their first kill. Corwin would stake her life and her career on that, although she knew she didn’t have a hope in hell of proving it to any judge’s or jury’s satisfaction. She’d prepared a list of other deaths related to the NMM—a shady gun dealer in Fresno, half-a-dozen Mexican illegals in the no-man’s-land along the California border, two other militia members who had disappeared without a trace or any word to loved ones—but hard evidence was nonexistent.

  Matt Cooper offered her another way to go.

  Direct action, whatever that meant.

  Hell, she knew exactly what it meant—or, at least, what she hoped it might mean. But how would that work, in a system devoted to law and established procedures?

  Sure, cops went rogue from time to time, and not just in the action films cranked out by Hollywood. Some planted evidence to close a case, but that was only practical if they had evidence to plant.

  Some broke the rules with physical interrogations, what an older generation used to call the third-degree, but repercussions were severe if they got caught, and Corwin couldn’t picture herself water-boarding Halsey, no matter how much she’d enjoy it.

  Then again, some cops—a very few—went all the way. They marked a criminal who seemed above the law, immune to punishment by any normal means, and simply took him out. She’d never known an officer who’d done it, but the stories got around. A rapist or a child molester had an accident; a gangster disappeared, presumed to be eliminated by his rivals in the hood.

  Whatever.

  Corwin had never admired those officers who crossed the line, although she understood their motives and frustration. She also understood all the rage built up over careers spanning decades, the victims who couldn’t be saved, and the bastards who smirked as they cut deals with lazy prosecutors, pleading down to misdemeanors, maybe rolling over on some other scum to skate without a day in jail.

  Sammy the Bull, for instance. Gotti’s right-hand man and chief enforcer had confessed to nineteen murders—though suspected of many more—to racketeering, receiving a five-year sentence, with early release into the Witness Protection Program. From there, he’d gone on to the New York Times besteller list and a new round of crimes, finally popped with his son for dealing meth in Arizona. The nineteen-year sentence boiled down to one year for each victim he’d killed.

  Not enough.

  And here was Corwin herself on the verge of going rogue and found it didn’t bother her that much. It made her nervous, sure, to think of straying off the reservation, risking her career, her liberty, maybe her life to help a not-so-perfect stranger break the law in what she hoped would be a righteous cause.

  Not that her boss or any court would sympathize.

  But if the man who called himself Cooper was being straight with her, and his approach was sanctioned somewhere higher up the food chain, what exactly were the risks? If Cooper had been sent from Washington or God-knew-where specifically to wage some kind of vigilante action against Halsey and the NMM, would other agencies attempt to intervene? Would anybody even care?

  Don’t kid yourself, she thought.

  The FBI would never miss a chance to screw with ATF, or vice versa. Their jealousy and animosity ran deep, regardless of the public statements vowing full cooperation, unity of purpose in the War on Terror, or whatever. When all was said and done, bureaucracy still reigned supreme. There was no end to petty office politics.

  So, if she went ahead with Cooper, Corwin would absolutely have to watch her back, assume, for sure, that no one else would watch it for her. She wasn’t entirely on her own, perhaps, but she was working with a man she didn’t know and couldn’t fully trust.

  Why risk it, then?

  Because at this moment, he seemed to be the only game in town.

  And she was getting nowhere fast.

  5

  The internet was everywhere. Even the Desert Palms, as rundown as it was, had access for its guests, via an aging PC in the lobby. Bolan took advantage of it, using Google Maps to find the address on Halsey’s business card and pull up a satellite photo of the terrain.

  Nothing special about it, that he could detect. It was just another blockhouse planted in the midst of arid terrain sprouting tumbleweeds and Joshua trees. No sign of life was visible in the satellite photo, but it was a one-off, a snapshot from space, not a live and continuous feed.

  Bolan was going in without any specific expectations. He had a toe in the door, a measure of appreciation from the man in charge and some of his inner circle, at least, but he wasn’t home free. Not by a long shot.

  It hadn’t been long since Halsey or some of his men had dumped one ATF informant in the desert. Most of them were paranoid to start with, and a near-miss with the Feds would have them all on edge. Bolan was confident that he would be required to pass some kind of test before Halsey accepted him as a recruit.

  But what form would it take?

  Initiations varied widely in the covert subculture of gangs, crime families and militant extremist groups. Some were satisfied with blood oaths, while others required a trial by combat, known as jumping in. Most required proof of a prospect’s willingness to obey any order, without hesitation, and a significant few listed murder as the price of admission.

  Bolan was prepared to play the game and find out where it led him. He was flexible when it came to illegal behavior, having personally killed hundreds of men, stolen millions of dollars from criminal targets and destroyed property worth billions. Nonetheless, there were some things he absolutely wouldn’t do.

  Bolan would neither kill nor seriously injure any law enforcement officer, although he’d knocked a few unconscious in his time.

  He wouldn’t voluntarily cause harm to any innocent civilian or bystander who was dragged into his war by circumstance.

  And he would not permit the guilty to escape.

  Those basic rules aside, Bolan was game for anything.

  The Harley Nightster bore him westward on Highway 86, out of Apple Valley, toward his destination in the desert outside Victorville. He was still in San Bernardino County, heart of the New Minuteman Militia’s territory, sprawling over some twenty thousand square miles with two million registered inhabitants. That translated to eighty-five souls per square mile, but in fact the vast majority were concentrated in two dozen cities clustered in the county’s western quadrant, near Los Angeles. Two-thirds of the county consisted of open desert, rugged mountains and the San Bernardino National Forest.

  There was no shortage of room for maneuvers and training with weapons, ample room for base camps, war games and communications facilities concealed in the occasional historic ghost town.

  Bolan reached his destination with two hours to spare, drove past it without a sidelong glance and rode another mile or so beyond until he found a narrow access road branching off to the north. The soldier followed the cracked pavement for a quarter of a mile, until Highway 86 was invisible behind him. He parked his bike and shut off the powerful engine.

  It was time to have a look around, get the lay of the land with his own two eyes instead of a photo snapped from space.

 

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