Code of Honor

Chapter Thirty

Cam drove past the Timberwolf Bar and Grill without slowing. The parking lot was empty, except for a ten-year-old pickup truck parked on the side of the building. Had she not known the place was actually in business, she would have assumed it had been abandoned long ago—the log timbers were gray with age and splintered in places, the roof had bare patches where the shingles had blown off, and the parking lot was little more than a muddy gravel turnaround. She drove on for another two miles, scanning both sides of the road for access trails or turnoffs where vehicles might be concealed, and saw nothing. Five miles down the road, a cluster of square single-story houses, a garage with a row of muddy pickups in front, and a small convenience store marked the village of Stromberg. A hand-lettered sign in front of the store advertised gas, pizza, coffee, and worms. She kept driving for another ten miles and saw nothing on either side of the road except forest. Eventually, she U-turned in a narrow fire road and headed back. A few cars passed her on the way. No one seemed to take notice.

She continued past the tavern, which still showed no signs of life, and on to the closest town, about twenty miles south. She went through the drive-thru at the McDonald’s and sat in the parking lot to drink her coffee and wait. Thirty minutes before the meet time, she tossed her coffee cup into a trash can and completed the entire circuit again, eventually pulling into the tavern’s lot. After parking the Pathfinder facing out toward the road in front of the low structure, she stepped out and looked around. She hadn’t used the rear lot as she had no need to conceal her presence and every reason to want to be able to leave quickly if something went wrong. The two-lane road was empty, the forest quiet. She walked inside.

The musty bar was as empty and silent as the surrounding mountains. A grizzled, thin man in a red-and-black plaid flannel shirt and baggy khaki pants perched on a tall stool at the end of the bar with a newspaper spread out in front of him. He looked up and regarded her curiously, as if the presence of a potential customer was a surprise.

“Help you?” he said.

“Any chance of getting a coffee?”

He scratched his beard and nodded. “Don’t see why not. You want something to eat?”

“I think I’m okay for now.”

“Lost?”

“Not that I know of.”

He nodded, slid off his stool, and disappeared through a door with a portal window into what Cam presumed was the kitchen. She unbuttoned her jacket to give herself access to her weapon in case he returned with more than her coffee. A few minutes later he emerged from the back with a white porcelain mug and a small carton of cream. He set them down on a round wooden table near the door.

“Need sugar?”

“I’m good, thanks,” she said and handed him a five-dollar bill.

He took it and walked behind the bar to make change while she poured cream into her coffee. Real cream. The last thing she’d expected. “Keep the change.”

He looked at her over his shoulder, the curious expression back. “Thanks.”

When he went back to his newspaper, Cam moved her coffee to another table near a window from which she could see both the door from the kitchen, which presumably opened into the rear parking lot, and the front door. Even though the window glass was streaked and gritty, she had a good view of the small lot in front of the building as well as the approach road in both directions. Five minutes later a dark blue sedan pulled in next to her rented SUV. A woman emerged matching the photo Cam had pulled from the FBI files when she’d gotten the name of the agent she would be meeting. Skylar Dunbar looked younger in person than her jacket photo, but she acted like an experienced field agent. Dunbar had backed her car in as well and, upon emerging from the vehicle, scanned the surroundings thoroughly before moving out from the cover afforded by the car.

The owner glanced up from his paper again as Dunbar walked toward Cam’s table and called, “Get you something?”

Dunbar nodded toward Cam. “What she’s having would be good.”

“Be a minute.” He slid off his stool and disappeared into the back.

Dunbar sat down across from Cam. “This place is a little off the beaten path.”

“I noticed,” Cam said. “I’d rather we had a little company.”

“Yeah. Sometimes potential witnesses are a good thing.” Dunbar looked around the room. “What do you think of the bartender?”

“Hard to say. He gave me cream for my coffee.”

Dunbar laughed shortly. “I think that might be points for him, but I’m not sure it’s a valid recommendation.”

“How sure are you of the person who set up this meet site?”

“Totally sure,” Dunbar said with conviction. “I’ve worked with the guy for years. He’s solid.”

“What about his intelligence?”

“There shouldn’t be anybody else in on this. We’ve kept this operation quiet.”

“All right, but let’s make this quick all the same,” Cam said. “What I’m looking for is a connection to someone in a militia in this state, particularly a well-organized group that is potentially growing their own from the ground up.”

“Well, we’ve got plenty of paramilitary groups,” Dunbar said, “but all of that’s in the bureau files. You didn’t come all the way here for background.”

“What’s in there is all pretty superficial. I’m looking to track specific individuals, and I need to cut through the camouflage quickly.”

“Names?”

Cam shook her head. “Probably not real ones. The aliases are Jennifer Pattee and Angela Jones. I don’t suppose that means anything to you?”

Dunbar shook her head. “No. We’ve got a few names, but we can’t be sure that those are real, either. How’d you get this far?”

“My gut tells me this group probably homeschools their kids, then trains them to infiltrate organizations for later action. That takes sophisticated, long-range planning, and the radical fringe groups aren’t stable enough to pull it off. We need to be looking at some of the grassroots paramilitary groups with professional leadership and resources.”

“Putting people inside where?” Sky asked. “How high up are we talking, in terms of infiltration?”

Cam regarded her silently.

“So that’s why you’re here personally,” Dunbar murmured. “Jesus. That takes a whole hell of a lot of resources, and a leader with charisma and power.” Dunbar’s sculpted red-brown brows creased. “The biggest group is right here in the Bitterroots, and from what we can tell, they’re large, well established, and well organized. They’ve also got money behind them.”

Cam felt the first stirring in her gut that usually meant she was on the right trail. “How big and how much money?”

“Enough that they can come up with a quarter of a million on short order.”

“That’s a lot of money. The kind of money that a group would need, to put together the type of operation I’m investigating.” Cam took out a photo of Jennifer Pattee and the slightly blurry image of Angela Jones that had been on file in her Eugen Corp portfolio and passed them to Dunbar. “Have you ever seen these women?”

“No,” Dunbar said after studying them for a few moments. “They look a little alike.”

“Jones managed to pass off a faxed photo on her job app, so it’s hard to tell, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re related. We can’t connect them, but I think they are.” Cam glanced at her watch. The tavern owner had been gone awhile. The building was silent. “Tell me about the group you’re looking at.”

“The main man running the militia goes by the name of Graves. Might be real, might be one of those identities cultivated so long ago that his original name would be tough to trace. We know he’s got women in his organization, but that’s about the best I can tell you.”

“Do you have anyone on the inside?”

Dunbar didn’t hesitate. “No.”

“But you’ve got someone who can get close.”

Dunbar held Cam’s gaze for a long moment, nothing showing in her eyes. She was making a decision, and Cam wondered about the source of her reluctance. Someone she wanted to protect. Cam said, “I’m not going to jeopardize your operative.”

“I don’t know that,” Dunbar said. “No disrespect intended.”

“None taken. I’m not going to pull the national security card on you, either, because I don’t have to, do I?”

Dunbar grimaced. “You don’t have to. I’ve got someone who will be getting close. We might be able to get you some more information about the other members of the group.”

“How long?”

“Soon. A matter of a week, maybe two.”

“I take it you’re after who’s behind it? The moneyman?”

“We’re after all of them,” Dunbar said, steel in her voice.

“I need you to jump on this.”

“Any chance the information highway will run both ways?”

“I can’t promise you that. But if we need local help, you’ll be my first call.”

“Fair enough. I’ve got other contacts who might be able to help research people who fit the profile,” Dunbar said. “If they’re homeschooling, they’ll eventually need an entry point into the official system, and they often use insiders who help pave the way. We might be able to track that.”

“Good.” Cam shook her head. “The coffee’s taking too long.”

Dunbar stood. “Yeah. I say we get out—”

The door from the kitchen swung wide, and the woman Cam knew as Angela Jones, dressed in camo and carrying a Glock in her hand, walked in.

“You’re going to want to put your weapons on the floor,” Jones said casually. She smiled almost pleasantly at Cam. The automatic looked like an extension of her arm, steady and comfortable. “Slowly. And then you’ll want to come with me.”

“I don’t think so,” Cam said quietly.

Jones fired, and Dunbar lurched back with a sharp cry and went down.

Cam drew her weapon and aimed at Jones, who was aiming at Dunbar on the floor, seemingly unconcerned by the automatic in Cam’s hand.

“Please don’t resist,” Jones said, “or I’ll shoot her in the head this time.”

Dunbar writhed on the floor, blood seeping between the fingers she pressed to her upper arm, and gasped, “Forget about me. Fucking shoot her.”

The tavern door behind Cam opened with a gust of cold air, and she knew by the look on Jones’s face she was outnumbered. She lowered her weapon.

Jones nodded. “That’s better. Now, come with me.”

“She comes too,” Cam said, indicating Dunbar. If she left without her, Jones would have Dunbar killed. No witnesses that way. “If she doesn’t, neither do I.”

“Why not,” Jones said. “Maybe she’ll be useful.”

Cam leaned down, got an arm behind Dunbar’s shoulders, and helped her up. “How bad is it?”

“Flesh wound, I think.”

Someone prodded Cam in the back with a gun barrel.

Jones said, “Let’s go.”

Cam had no choice if she wanted to keep Dunbar alive. She went.