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“This is remote,” Evelyn said, staring out her window at the woods. The trees were thinning as they climbed in elevation, but it was still wilderness. The sun had fully set now, so she found it hard to see much beyond the headlights of Jen’s SUV.
They’d been driving just over an hour, and Evelyn had seen nothing more than the occasional lean-to or shack. Snowcapped mountains rose up in the distance. The view was beautiful, but she couldn’t imagine anyone living out here.
“Yeah,” Jen agreed. “Very remote. Good place to hide out, away from prying neighbors. Away from law enforcement, too.”
Jen had finally hung up the call she’d taken almost as soon as they’d gotten in the car, which had prevented Evelyn from getting any more information about why they were going to the Butler Compound. But she’d learned plenty about Jen from her half of that conversation.
“That was your supervisor, huh?”
“Yes,” Jen said. “And before you ask, no, I’m not supposed to be doing this. He thinks I’m running down a lead on another case. Which was probably obvious from that call. He has no idea I tracked you out to the prison.”
Evelyn nodded. “He may not know about me, but he knows what you’re doing.”
“What?” Jen whipped her head toward Evelyn, and the SUV jerked. She corrected quickly on the poorly maintained road. “Why do you say that?”
“I could tell from your call.”
“You could hear him? What do you have, bat ears?” Jen asked. She’d taken the call on her Bluetooth, instead of putting it on speaker.
“No. But that’s what makes me a profiler,” Evelyn replied. “Trust me, Martinez. He knows.”
It had been obvious from the way Martinez had kept repeating answers to the same questions about her location. Detailed questions, as though her boss didn’t believe a word she was saying.
“Shit,” Jen muttered. “He warned me to stay away from this.”
“Want to tell me what I’m getting into here?”
“Okay. So, the compound is pretty isolated, as you can tell. This group is cut from the same cloth as Cartwright.” She glanced over at Evelyn. “Which reminds me, while we’re there, call me Jen. Not Martinez. Just Jen. That’s how they know me.”
Evelyn shot her a disbelieving look. “They know you?”
“Yeah, I’ve been out there a couple of times. Kind of unofficial, doing the rounds, that sort of thing. They come out and meet me, talk for a while. Usually Butler himself, sometimes with a few of his followers.”
“And they bought your reason for visiting?”
“Oh, yeah. Salt Lake City is a big field office, but this area is sparsely populated. People around here are used to law enforcement periodically making goodwill calls.”
Evelyn frowned, but didn’t argue.
“You ever work at an RA?” Jen asked.
Evelyn shook her head. Most agents now started at one of the bigger field offices, but back when Jen had begun her FBI career, they were still sending a lot of newbies to resident agencies, smaller satellite offices.
“Well, I have. Place quite a bit like this actually, out in Nevada. And it was par for the course, law enforcement checking in on everyone now and then.”
Evelyn nodded, still not sure it was a good idea for Jen to be making these visits. On the other hand, direct contact was the best way to get information on a potential problem group.
“Anyhow,” Jen continued, “my last partner and I introduced ourselves as FBI, but with first names only. No reason to tell a bunch of racists that I’m married to a Hispanic man.”
“They’re going to love me,” Evelyn muttered. Her mother was of Irish-English descent, but her father had been Zimbabwean. There was no hiding her heritage.
“Yeah, well, the profiler who showed up being a big, white, Aryan-looking guy was probably too much to hope for. Don’t worry. The most they’ll do is glare at you.”
“That’ll be fun,” Evelyn said, already regretting that she’d agreed to this as she glanced at the dashboard clock. She didn’t really mind the animosity of suspects—that was pretty common—but this visit was sounding more and more like a bad idea.
And if the most she had to fear from them was the evil eye, what kind of threat were they?
“The leader, Ward Butler, was friends with Lee Cartwright when they were kids,” Jen explained as she sped along the barely paved roads.
Evelyn stared at her. “You know Cartwright’s claiming he’s got a copycat, right?”
“Yeah, I heard. I wouldn’t take anything that guy says at face value, though. He’s not exactly the type who’d warn the government. He’s more likely to watch the news from prison and cheer when it happens. Or taunt law enforcement, acting like he knows who’s copying him, just to get a rise out of us.”
“Okay,” Evelyn said. “I can see that. But if Butler and Cartwright are friends...”
“Were friends,” Jen corrected her. “Like twenty years ago. They grew up together, but there’s no indication they’ve been in contact in a long time. Then they had a complete falling-out when Cartwright went violent, and Butler started his compound.”
“So you’re saying Butler’s group isn’t violent,” Evelyn said, getting frustrated. “Why are they a threat?”
“They haven’t been violent yet,” Jen replied. “But I think they’re going to be.”
“Why? And how long have they been nonviolent?”
Jen slowed the SUV and turned off onto a dirt path. “Just because they’ve been quiet for a few years doesn’t mean they plan to stay that way. Butler refers to the place as a ‘refuge’ for other survivalists. And we have a lot of those—people who want to live off the land, with no interference from anyone. Most of them wish they’d been born a couple of centuries ago, with no law except maybe a local sheriff, and the chance to be as isolated as they want.”
“I know about survivalists,” Evelyn said. “And sure, some of them are a problem, but plenty of them just want to be off the grid. Leave them alone and they leave everyone else alone.”
The SUV bounced along the potholed trail, and Jen’s silence dragged on until she said, “You know the Unabomber’s cabin was only about twenty miles from here? His neighbors probably thought he was harmless and just wanted to be left alone.”
Evelyn held in a sigh. “You still haven’t told me why you think this particular group is more dangerous than any of the dozens of other cults we’ve got.”
Jen’s knuckles whitened on the steering wheel. “You’re too young to remember some of the crap from the nineties, but...”
“I know enough.” Evelyn could see where this was going. “And yes, there’s been an uptick in homegrown terrorism chatter over the past few years, but...”
“Officially, the Butler Compound is a low threat,” Jen broke in. “The FBI thinks Butler is more likely to feed his followers Kool-Aid than plan an attack against anyone. But I’ve been around cults. One of my very first assignments was in Waco, Texas.” She gave Evelyn a meaningful look.
“The Koresh disaster? You were there?” David Koresh and his followers had been in a fifty-one-day siege after Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents tried and failed to deliver a warrant. Koresh and his followers had fired on the ATF agents and barricaded themselves in the Apocalypse Ranch—a name that should’ve set off warning bells from the start. The FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team had eventually surrounded the place. In the end, Koresh and the cultists had set their own compound on fire, and most of them died.
“Yeah, I was there. Mostly getting senior agents coffee, but trust me, I have experience with cults. I heard the crazy ranting, I saw the few cultists who came out, I saw the place burn. Hell, I even walked through crowds of protesters and had egg thrown at my face. But this compound is different. It’s got some of that same creepy vibe, but I’m telling you, this is more than a simple cult. There’s just something off about the place. I know there’s more happening. And I’m not going to be the FBI agent who overlooks it.”
No wonder BAU had refused to take on the file. The Butler Compound had already been evaluated and Jen had nothing but her gut to say there was a genuine threat.
Evelyn was probably going to find a group of survivalists who wanted nothing to do with her or Jen. She’d come home with nothing useful from Cartwright, and an unsanctioned side trip that would make her miss her flight.
Jen must have sensed her frustration, because she said defensively, “See for yourself.”
The SUV rounded another bend and the compound seemed to appear out of nowhere. It was a larger building than she’d expected in such a remote place, and much more sophisticated, too. Usually survivalists built small, and used the materials they found in their immediate vicinity. Not this group.
The compound looked more like an aboveground bunker than a house. Windows were barred as if they lived in the city instead of the wilderness, and there was a tower at the center, rising high in the air, that Evelyn hadn’t seen until they’d gotten close. But if anyone was up there, they would’ve seen her and Jen coming for miles—a single set of headlights approaching through the darkness.
Evelyn peered through the windshield, squinting at the rooftop. “Are those...?”
“Solar panels,” Jen broke in. “Yeah. Judging from the chimneys, they have a couple of fireplaces. And I know they’ve got some massive generators, but they’re not hooked up to the grid at all. As far as we can tell, they have no electricity and no internet. They’ve even rigged their own system to bring in water. They’re totally off grid.”
What a way to live, Evelyn thought but didn’t say. Then again, there were plenty of cultists who lived without electricity while their leader had excessive luxuries.
And this group was supposedly made up of survivalists, so maybe they really didn’t need modern comforts.
The compound was nestled at the base of a steep, curved peak that would prevent anyone from approaching on either side. The rest of it was surrounded by a tall, chain-link fence, topped with barbed wire. But the gate at the entrance hung open.
“Well, this is kind of weird,” Jen said as she drove in.
“What is?” Evelyn asked, sitting straighter.
The group had cut down trees to put up the fence and to keep anyone from scaling a tree to hop over it; inside they’d left the environment alone. There wasn’t much more than a few scraggly pines, but they were still big enough for someone to hide behind. No one emerged. She didn’t see anyone at all. A nervous shiver crept up Evelyn’s spine.
“Usually they meet me at the gate,” Jen said, her tone wary.
“How often have you come here?” And how clearly had she advertised her suspicions?
“Just three times.”
That would make her interest obvious, Evelyn figured. But where was everyone?
“Maybe BAU was right about the Kool-Aid,” Jen joked. Her voice held no humor.
She parked close to the compound, took out her cell phone and started to call someone. She had her door open and was hopping out of the vehicle before Evelyn could suggest they wait.
Swearing, Evelyn followed. Even if Jen had made her suspicions obvious, she knew the people better than Evelyn did. They’d talked peacefully with her in the past, so theoretically they wouldn’t overreact to having her return.
Regardless, Evelyn didn’t like it. Not the open gate, not the stillness of the place, not Jen’s stubborn insistence that there was danger here.
Cold air stung her throat as soon as she slammed the car door behind her. Either because it was later now, or because of their elevation, it felt another twenty degrees cooler up here. In the Montana wilderness, she needed more than a wool suit and a pair of low heels. She’d taken barely five steps when her fingers started to throb from the cold.
Still, she unbuttoned her suit coat for quicker access to the SIG Sauer P226 strapped at her hip.
Jen followed the set of thick tire tracks that ran off the hard-packed trail and into the looser dirt. As she stepped around the corner of the building, she called out, “Hello?”
Evelyn picked up her pace to follow when she heard Jen exclaim, “Hey, I know you!”
Then Jen walked around the corner again, this time backward, with her hands up and held out to her sides.
Evelyn reached for her weapon, but before she could unholster it, a man came into view.
He was nothing more than a big blur of angry features and camo, because all she could focus on was the modified AK-47 aimed directly at Jen.
2 (#ulink_357d32d2-46e9-5e85-ad80-0264d976aef8)
“What are you doing here, Agent Martinez?” the armed man demanded, his voice a deep, harsh rumble.
Next to her, Jen jerked at the news that Butler knew her last name. Then she tried to recover, and her voice was surprisingly calm as she took another step backward, both arms up and out. “Just a friendly visit. Nothing more, Ward.” Ward Butler, Evelyn realized as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. The leader of the Butler Compound. The man Jen suspected of being a homegrown terrorist.
Standing there now, holding an illegally modified weapon, wearing a thick, scruffy beard and dressed in camouflage and a skull cap, he looked like one.
“Drop that,” Butler barked, ignoring Jen’s conversational tone entirely.
Jen’s eyes went to her phone. The readout was lit up, probably because she was on the line with whoever she’d started to call in the car.
“Drop it now!” Butler yelled, his voice echoing across the compound.
As the phone fell from her hand, Butler casually redirected his AK-47 and shot it, midair, blasting the phone to pieces.
Instinct made Evelyn lurch backward, and she went for her weapon.
Before she reached it, the AK-47 was pointed at her.
“I wouldn’t do that,” Butler warned. “Hands up.”
As Evelyn raised her arms, they started to tingle. Because of the cold or because she’d seen how good a shot Butler was, she wasn’t certain.
Although Jen’s boss certainly suspected she’d come up here, he probably wouldn’t expect her back at the office for hours. Maybe not until tomorrow.
And no one knew where Evelyn was.
“Let’s try this again, Agent Martinez,” Butler said slowly, a sarcastic emphasis on the word Agent. “What are you doing here?”
Most cult leaders were charismatic. Narcissistic sociopaths, too, but they had to be able to conceal that. They had to exude enough charm to get a group of people to give up everything they owned and follow them.
Not this guy. As far as Evelyn could tell, he was a hundred and eighty solid pounds of pure menace.
She didn’t have much experience with cults, but Butler was setting off all kinds of alarm bells. If he was a cult leader, where the hell were all his followers?
“I’m at the end of a shift, Ward,” Jen said. “I’m taking my new partner on the rounds.” She lifted her shoulders and gave a little smile. “You know, to meet all the neighbors before we head back to the office.”
Butler turned toward Evelyn, looking at her with a disgust he didn’t bother to hide. “You’re the newbie in the Salt Lake City office?” he asked, skepticism dripping off every word.
“That’s right,” Evelyn replied, uncomfortable with Butler’s tone. Had he mentioned the field office to let her know he was familiar with how the Bureau worked? Or was there more to this?
Jen put a little steel in her voice when she said, “There’s no need for this to get ugly.”
A sneer crossed Butler’s face. He didn’t move his gaze from Evelyn as he told Jen, “You made it ugly.”
The force of his hatred had Evelyn stumbling back on her heels, and Butler’s sneer turned to a tight smile.
But instead of saying another word to her, he looked at Jen again. “This is private property. Trespassing without announcing yourself isn’t very smart.” He made an apologetic face. “You’re likely to get yourself mistaken for an intruder and shot.”
