Cold Red Read online

  “She asked if I was kin to Harvey,” Anna said.

  “She recognized his SUV?”

  “There are monitors by the register that are angled to get the license plates on tape.”

  “She recognized this guy’s plate?” What are the odds? He pulled at the accordion folds of the map and blinked at the lines that danced across the page. His vision was getting worse. He squinted to see if that would help him to focus.

  Anna let out a sigh. “Our license plates read: Molon Lave? It must mean something.”

  “It’s Greek for ‘Come and get them.’”

  “You lost me,” Anna said as she picked up speed.

  He opened the glove compartment and tried to use that light to find their location on the map and a choice of routes. “Remember that movie Men in Black? ‘You can have my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers.’ Then the alien says, ‘Your proposal is acceptable.’ Edgar gets killed, and the alien uses Edgar’s skin as his disguise.”

  “I loved that movie.” She glanced over. “Finding me a new direction?”

  “No, sorry. I can’t see the lines on the map,” Finley said, slapping the glove compartment shut as he sat back.

  Anna stopped in the middle of the road and turned off her headlights. “Watch for traffic,” she said, reaching out for the map and her cell. She karate chopped the phone through the air to turn on the flashlight. “What did Iniquus say?”

  “Strike Force is off grid. I asked for Panther Force’s war room. Honey Honig is an operator on that team. He’s my new brother-in-law. I played the family-in-peril card.”

  “You’re well connected with Iniquus.” Her finger was tracing along a red line, her mouth pulled to the side as she concentrated.

  “Enough that I trust we’re in safe hands. I told him we had a fire that needed to be put out. Honey’s headed over to headquarters to get on it. In the meantime, Nutsbe is looking for us on satellite and is pulling a team in to stage an escort. See what resources they have in the area. Safe house, what have you.”

  “Nutsbe?”

  “Nutsbe Crushed, he’s the Panther Force logistics guy. Skilled as hell.”

  “Awesome call sign. I hope the story that inspired it wasn’t as tragic as it sounds. We’re waiting for them to reach out?” She handed him the unfolded map and put them back in gear.

  “I gave Honey the number to Harvey’s phone. He agrees that’s our cleanest avenue for communications. I left that phone off airplane mode. Nutsbe said that we should stay on this highway for now, getting us over the Virginia state line might take some heat off us. He didn’t know about the kid in the store, though. If you have something new, I’ll call it in.”

  Anna reached out to tap on the headlights. “I don’t trust the side roads with the snow accumulation. If we get stuck, we’re stuck. And if we crash, we’re goners.”

  Finley folded the map and stuck it in the console between them. Then reached for the bag of groceries. He pulled out two sandwiches, unwrapped one and handed it to Anna.

  “The coffees are heavy on the cream and sugar. I didn’t want to wait for it to cool before I could drink it. I’m not sure about caffeine protocols and head injuries, so I erred on the side of caution. Yours is decaf.”

  “That’s kind of mean.”

  “I could have lied.” She slowly brought her speed up. “Make sure you get the one with the straw sticking out of it.” She took a bite of her sandwich. “You were telling me that Harvey put a Men in Black quote in Greek on his license plate?” She was rotating her shoulders like someone trying to get her head in the game; she probably needed the conversation to help her focus.

  “You said you saw Harvey’s Spartan tattoo. That’s why it came to me so quickly. Some of militias put that phrase on their flags and t-shirts. ‘Molon Lave: Come and get them.’ Rumor has it that the Spartan King Leonidas sent that message as his response when the Persian emissaries demanded that the Spartans hand over their weapons.”

  “Ah. I wonder how it’ll go over in the community that two beaten-to-hell hitchhikers not only got hold of Harvey’s vehicle but also got his gun. Molon Lave, it was an invitation, as I see it. We were just following through.”

  “Sparta!” Finley yelled, and instantly and profoundly regretted it.

  He didn’t have it in him to be conversant after that. Instead, he reached out and flipped through the radio channels to see if he could pick up on anything informative – the weather, the local news. Voices he could probably handle. Music was going to be a reverberating no, he realized as he quickly scrolled past a channel with deeply resonant bass.

  “Stop there, the last one,” Anna said.

  “The winter storm will continue to devastate the region over the next two days. Neighbors are encouraged to check on the elderly and disabled,” the man said in his melodic radio voice. “In our local news center, we are learning that FBI special agents conducting a search of Johnathan Borkin’s home found 4.25-pound block of C-4 military-grade explosives as well as other bomb making components. The federal agents removed the dangers from the home.” The newscaster read. “Other tactical equipment, including a cache of firearm suppressors, were also discovered in the home. The collection of materials is considered extremely dangerous.”

  “Mary Beth Twist is Mr. Borkin’s next-door neighbor and is on the phone with us. Good evening Mrs. Twist, did you know your neighbor Johnathan Borkin?”

  “Johnathan? I knew him by sight that’s about it. Quiet fellow. Kept his lawn neat. I thought he made for a nice neighbor.”

  “What do you think now that they’ve found all of these weapons?”

  “He’s fine. He weren’t bothering no one with that stuff. People around here like their guns and toys. It makes me no never mind what he’s got going on in there. I figure he’s had him some training, and he’s not stupid enough to blow himself up. Other than that, I think we should leave the man alone. Mind our own business.”

  “Alice Testin lives across the street from Johnathan Borkin. Mrs. Testin, you’re on the air. Surely, this is concerning for you. You have three children who play in your yard.”

  “There’s no reason for us to be thinking that he posed a threat to our community. Though, sure, he could have used them things for something bad, I guess. It’s not for sure yet that he had any bad intentions, though. We have to remember that it’s not our job to judge. It’s the judge’s job to judge here on Earth, and then God will be the ultimate judge when we get to Heaven”

  “Thank you, ladies. Officials indicate that Borkin has been charged with fifteen counts of possession of explosives requiring a license after he was taken into custody by the FBI.” The newscaster said. “He was then transported toward Washington DC. The car, carrying Borkin and a woman who was in the house at the time of the sting, Zelda Fitzgerald, along with two FBI special agents, has gone missing along their route during the storm. If you have any information about their whereabouts, the FBI is offering a sizeable reward for useful information in locating them.

  “In other news, four package bombs have gone off in the Washington DC area in the past week. These bombs have killed two family members at their homes when they opened the packages.

  “Authorities suggest that should a package arrive at your Washington DC home, that you verify the sender prior to opening it. If you’re in doubt, call the authorities.

  “While Washington DC authorities believe these bombings are related, they have yet to determine a motive. Authorities have not indicated whether or not the homes receiving the mailed bombs have anything in common, or if the families were targeted, or if this is a series of random acts. Officials are not ruling out hate crimes.

  “The bomb-maker is highly-skilled, displaying a level of sophistication that might indicate military training. The devices were designed to detonate with motion. That could be someone shaking or jostling the box. Also, the bombs incorporated a safety switch which allowed the bomb maker to move the boxes without blowing him or
herself up. Or to have them blow up in transport.

  “A sense of unease has descended over Washington DC. Area residents have become vigilant. Since Sunday there have been over six hundred reports of suspicious packages. Bomb-sniffing dogs and robots have been deployed to ensure that none of those packages contained explosives.”

  As the news moved to a commercial break, Finley turned down the volume.

  “A sizeable reward,” Anna said. “With unemployment what it is in this area, I can imagine that the money dangle will turn a lot of eyes our way. I’d imagine that’s why the girl at the gas station was on her phone so quick.”

  “Do you think she’d know to call the FBI?”

  Anna shook her head. “I think she’d know to call 9-1-1. And that 9-1-1 will put out an APB with the sheriff in the lead.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Anna

  “They did that on purpose,” Finley said.

  “What’s that?” Anna looked down at the phone and willed it to ring. Come on, Nutsbe. She wanted a plan. Something other than driving down the same highway where they’d car-jacket the SUV.

  “The journalist juxtaposed the C-4 the FBI found in Johnathan’s house with the bombings in Washington DC.”

  “There was no C-4 in Johnathan’s house. He’d freak the hell out if he was anywhere near the stuff. You should have seen how twitchy he got around guns. He tried to pull it off like he’s a big gun lover, but they made him nervous as hell.”

  “They planted the evidence?”

  “Someone did. I guarantee you that Johnathan had zero to do with that. But it is interesting that they seeded those thoughts in the same news story. Subtle propaganda. People will make that association in their minds. That’s hard to combat.”

  “Nearly impossible to combat, according to Lynx.”

  “Whose Lynx?” Anna asked, thinking that call name sounded feminine.

  Anna was aware that a part of her had sat up and taken notice in a way that she wasn’t proud of. There was no relationship between her and Finley – only the shared effort to stay alive. If there was a woman in his life, it didn’t change anything. Anna was aware that she was blatantly lying to herself.

  “Lynx works with Randy at Iniquus and is full of weird knowledge.”

  “Weird like what?”

  “Last time I was talking to her, she was talking about armadillos and how they can’t all curve into a protective ball. The ones who can’t ball up have a different safety mechanism. For example, the nine-banded armadillo jumps about three feet off the ground when it’s scared. Which is conveniently about the right height for hitting a car grill or the bumper on an SUV.” Finley adjusted the make-do c-collar. “She just comes out with that kind of stuff all the time. And it’s uncanny. Her background gives her this breadth of information that most people don’t have. When she has a case, and I’ve worked on several of them with her, one being the Zoric case last year, she just lets herself bubble up odd pieces of information. Allows her mind to churn, and she lays out these things.”

  “Like armadillos jumping into the air.”

  “Right. Well in that case it was about the armadillos which roll into balls basically shoving their noses into their butts.”

  “And that was helpful?” Anna’s brow wrinkled.

  “Actually, it was. It was a metaphor and because she said that we started looking… I’m sorry. I lost my train of thought. My mind flipped back to why that radio spot was a great propaganda piece.”

  “Alright.”

  “The news putting the two stories together like that back to back sounded like what we call ‘motivated reasoning.’ Yes, that’s it. That’s why I’m thinking about Lynx’s armadillo metaphor. Propaganda uses someone’s go-to self-protection against them.”

  “Whether they roll in a ball and sniff their butts or jump in the air and get plowed down by a car?”

  “Exactly, reflexive self-preservation isn’t always a great survival system.”

  “You’ve used this ‘motivated reasoning’ in your work?” Anna asked.

  “Sure, we did and do. All the time. We give our target some information that they can reasonably believe and act on. Then, we take advantage of the human propensity to stay convinced. It’s a natural human trait. I do it, you do it. We get an understanding of a situation and then we seek out ways to bolster our original interpretation.”

  Anna thought about her “first handshake” evaluation. That moment of decision-making that she would base all future interaction on, and she started to doubt her technique.

  “People seek out ways to ignore or devalue contradicting information,” Finley said. “In my work, we feed them information that is the ground floor understanding of the event.”

  “The way you want it to be understood and interpreted,” Anna said.

  “Exactly. Then their brains do the heavy lifting in keeping those initial reactions cemented in place.”

  “Weird to think that our brains evolved that way though – being resistant to facts,” Anna said.

  “I mean if you’re sitting in a hunting blind, and you hear a bear snorting outside, your brain wouldn’t be searching for facts. It’s possible it’s your buddy out there pulling your leg, but you’d still run like heck, because you don’t want to be eaten.”

  “I wouldn’t run, that’s a sure way to get eaten,”

  “You get what I mean,” Finley said. “What I’m saying is that survival is more important than truth.”

  Survival is more important than truth. Okay. She was right back to thinking about Finley – what she knew about him and Lacey. What she felt about him. Could it be her newly growing feelings for Finley were just her brain saying survival is more important than truth?

  Maybe this was all an illusion. But she was sure she’d seen it in his eyes, felt it in his touch that he was feeling the same way she did. But then again, he was in survival mode, too.

  “What are you thinking?” Finley asked.

  Anna sent him a quick glance. “Do you think that news story was lined up the way it was by happenstance? For dramatic effect by the news station? Or do you think they were handed that information by someone and told read these stories in this order? I’d really like to know how that came about. And if it’s true that someone planted evidence in Johnathan’s house, what was that all about? I’m thinking in terms of the who, what, and why of all this.”

  “Keep going.” Finley balled up the blanket, stuck it against the door, and rested his head on the padding.

  “We speculated that there was a symbiotic relationship between SIC and the Russians.”

  “If you took out the middlemen.”

  “If SIC had wanted to have the high road,” Anna said. “If they had wanted to say, ‘Hey, we’re just exercising our rights as US citizens and in bursts the FBI harassing us and interfering with us. We’ve done nothing wrong.’ How does that work exactly if the FBI finds explosives in one of their prominent member’s homes and links it to hate crimes in Washington DC? I mean, that seems at cross-purposes. SIC would want to look saintly. But this makes them look culpable.”

  “Alright,” Finley said. “Who would benefit from you and Johnathan being arrested with explosives?”

  “The way it plays out, it looks like the FBI were doing their job,” Anna said.

  “Not to his neighbors. Those two women thought that there was no harm, no foul. Johnathan was being Johnathan, and the FBI was pushing their way into private lives. I can almost picture the yellow “Don’t Tread on Me” flags hanging on their flag poles.”

  “Going back to your motivated reasoning argument, you’re suggesting that those who empathize with the SIC mindset will discount the connections being made between Johnathan and the bombings in Washington DC, and SIC?”

  “A vice versa. People who think that the FBI were right to step in and take down this guy with a block of C-4 and bomb-making materials were right to do so. And further, that the FBI had the duty to go find their missing
special agents and so would take up the opposite position to those who believed in the SIC mindset.”

  “SIC knew. They knew the FBI was coming. They knew the route we’d take. This was all planned,” Anna said.

  “Right.” Finley waited for her thought to gel.

  “SIC agreed that Johnathan and I would be killed – that’s clear both in Mulvaney’s texts and from the conversation I overheard. SIC might have been asked for two sacrificial lambs. SIC might have picked Johnathan and me because we’re new, and we’re outsiders.”

  “I can’t see that being true. You told me Johnathan’s money was integral to the buildup of their fiefdom.”

  “There could have been an agreement that the money would keep flowing. They didn’t really need Johnathan in the picture.”

  “SIC offers your names. Did SIC know you’d be at Johnathan’s house at the day and time that the arrests were made? Did you live there with Johnathan?”

  “I rented a house with some women in the group. But, I was told to be at Johnathan’s at that time for a meeting.”

  “Johnathan called the meeting? Who was supposed to be there?”

  “Cal Turner, he’s the SIC leader, called a meeting with me and Johnathan. He said he had some highly classified information he needed to pass to us from a friend of his at the National Gun Association.”

  “The NGA wouldn’t be served by them finding C-4 in the house. Their push is that good guys should have guns to protect themselves against bad guys with guns. Not blow people up. That’s a narrative that wouldn’t fly.”

  “I can’t see Cal agreeing to planting bomb making supplies in the house as a reason for the take down.”

  “Going back. SIC has to appeal to those who are of the militia mindset. The FBI has to appeal to those who believe in the government’s ability to protect the citizenry. Who would like to see this debate rage in the media?”