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“Bought it for Morris, here. But two ought to do him.”
Morris gave the burger in the sheriff’s hands a look of regret before dipping the last of his fries into his ice-cream sundae.
“This is Morris Coopersmith,” said Trace. “Morris, this is Rylee Hockings. She’s with Homeland Security.”
Stanley Coopersmith was one of the persons of interest.
Morris’s brows lifted, and his hand stilled. When he spoke, his voice broke. “Nice to meet you.”
“Likewise.” Rylee accepted the wrapped burger Sheriff Trace extended. “Any relationship to Stanley Coopersmith?”
Morris grinned and nodded. “That’s my dad.” Then the smile waned. “He doesn’t like comics.”
Morris’s dad was on her watch list. He led a colony of like-minded doomsday survivalists, who had their camp right on the New York side of the border. It would be simple for such a group to transport anything or anyone they liked through the woods and over the border in either direction.
“Want some pickles?” asked Morris, offering the ones he had plucked from his burgers.
“No, thank you,” she said to Morris. Her phone chimed and she checked to see the incoming text was unimportant.
Morris pointed. “Do you have a camera on that?”
Rylee nodded.
“Take our picture,” he insisted and moved closer to the sheriff.
Rylee gave the sheriff a questioning look and received a shrug in response, so she opened the camera app and took a photo.
Morris reached for her phone and she allowed him to take it and watched closely as he admired the shot. At last, he handed her back her phone.
She asked the sheriff, “Are you two related?”
It was a blind guess. Morris was pink and lanky; his body type more like a basketball player. Axel’s blond hair, sun-kissed skin and muscular physique seemed nearly opposite to the boy’s.
She wasn’t sure why she didn’t delete the photo, but she left it and tucked her phone away. Then she turned her attention to her meal. She had a mouthful of burger when the sheriff dispelled her first guess.
“I’m transporting Morris from his home to the jail in Kinsley due to failure to report to his last hearing. He’s got to be in court in the morning.”
“Oh,” she said, forcing the word past the mouthful of food. She knew the shock was clear on her face. Did he usually stop to buy suspects dinner? She had so many questions but turned to Morris. “I’m sorry for your trouble. I hope the hearing goes well.”
“Doubtful. Not the first time I got picked up.”
“Oh, I see.” The investigator portion of her was dying to ask what exactly he had repeatedly been picked up for.
“I steal things,” said Morris and grinned.
“Morris,” said the sheriff, his tone an admonition. “What did I say?”
“Let my lawyer do the talking?” said the boy.
“And?”
“Don’t discuss the case.”
Axel Trace nodded solemnly.
Morris turned to Rylee. “But I wasn’t stealing for me this time. So that will be all right.” He glanced to the sheriff for reassurance and received none.
Axel Trace looked as if he were taking his dog to the vet to be put down. His mouth tugged tight and his eyes... Were they glistening? His repeat blinking and the large swallow of soda he took seemed answer enough. Sheriff Trace cared for this boy.
Rylee choked down the rest of the burger in haste. Morris finished his sundae and grinned, smacking his lips in satisfaction. On closer inspection, he did not seem quite a boy but a man acting like a boy. He certainly didn’t have a grip on the seriousness of his position. Why hadn’t the information on Stanley Coopersmith included that he had a boy with special needs?
“How old are you, Morris?” she asked.
“Twenty.” He showed a gap-toothed smile.
That was bad news. “I see.”
She glanced to Trace, whose mouth went tight. Then she looked back to Morris. Her gaze slid to the sheriff.
He motioned to Morris with two fingers. “Come on, sport. Time to go.”
Morris stood, towering over the sheriff by six inches. He was painfully thin. He wore neither handcuffs nor zip ties on his wrists. Trace pointed at his unit. Morris wadded up his paper wrappers and shot them basketball-style, as if hitting a foul shot. Then he cheered for his success and finally slipped into the passenger side of the sheriff’s car.
“Is that wise? Having him up front with you?” she asked.
“Morris and I have an agreement.”
Morris called from inside the cruiser. “Coke and comic for good behavior.”
She stared at the young man and staunched the urge to open the door and release him.
“You have a good evening, Rylee.”
“Thank you for the burger, Axel.” The intentional use of his first name seemed all right. He’d used her given name first. But he just stood there, staring at her. And her breath was coming in short staccato bursts; she regretted dropping the distance of formality.
He gave her the kind of smile that twisted her heart and then returned to his duty, delivering a boy who should be entering a group home to the court systems.
Rylee headed back to her motel but then veered instead into the Walmart parking lot. It wasn’t until she found herself in the books section that she realized she was looking at comics. The boy was spending the night in jail; he could at least have another superhero to keep him company.
Rylee made her purchase and used the GPS to find the jail in Kinsley. There, she was buzzed in and escorted back by a patrolman who allowed her to give Morris the graphic novel.
“You are a nice lady.” Morris beamed. Then his voice held a note of chastisement. “Did you pay for this?”
She would have laughed if not faced with a boy who should not have been there in the first place.
Chapter Four (#u33d6a793-5388-5215-9aa5-4545932e00cf)
Observe and report. Rylee took her chief’s directive to heart as she set off the next morning, the first Tuesday of September, to observe the next group on the watch list. The survivalists headed by Stanley Coopersmith. The group’s rhetoric centered around surviving the apocalypse triggered by foreign terrorists. Ironic, as that scenario might turn out much more plausible than anyone in federal law enforcement had thought until a few months ago and the very reason she was here today.
It was hard to believe that such a group might aid foreign terrorists until you recalled your history and cult leader Charles Manson’s attempts to begin a race war by murdering innocent affluent white victims, including Sharon Tate. It was terrifying, the lengths individuals might go to bring about their worldview.
At 7:00 a.m., Rylee left her car on the shoulder and hiked through the woods to a place where she could observe the central compound. Even though she was dressed all in earth colors for camouflage and was wearing a forest green wool sweater and a brown leather jacket atop her gray jeans and brown work boots with thick socks, she had underestimated the chill in the morning air. She had plenty of time to think about her inadequate wardrobe, among other things, as she lay on her belly in the pale green ferns. A cool September breeze shook the leaves overhead, sending down a cascade of yellow leaves through the fog.
“Should have worn a wool cap,” she muttered to herself.
Maple leaves fluttered through the shafts of sunlight, giving hope that the fog would lift, as she watched the compound through binoculars. From this position, she had a clear line of sight to a large crumbling former dairy barn that might have once been yellow, two new prefab outbuildings with metal exteriors and roofs and a weathered farmhouse, looking patchy with the graying wood peeking out beneath flaking white paint.
One of the newer structures was a dock with a covered large boathouse on the St. Regis River that flowed into the St. Lawrence. That structure meant that it was reasonable to assume that the survivalists did leave their land. Did they use their boats to traffic in illegal drugs or human beings? Operations needed funding and she had yet to discover theirs. They were no longer farmers. That much was certain.
Had Stanley Coopersmith headed to court to defend his son?
Her reports on this group said that their leader never left the facility and his younger brothers, Joseph and Daniel, both married with children, rarely left their land. Stanley, who was married to Judy Coopersmith, had two grown boys—Edward, who they called “Eddie,” and Morris, whom she had met on the night of her arrival.
She shivered with the cold as she counted occupants, noted physical descriptions into a digital recorder and snapped shots through her telephoto lens. As the morning stretched on and the sunlight finally reached her, she daydreamed about making a major arrest. Was it possible her runner had left Mohawk land? The Mohawk reservation land ended at the St. Regis River, just a short distance from Coopersmith’s property. Had this been the runner’s destination? The journey along would have been easy overland, or on the St. Lawrence River, with an escort of survivalists.
If she intercepted the shipment from Siming’s Army, her boss would have to promote her. Then Rylee might ask for an assignment in New York City. What would her father think of that?
She sighed. Would he be proud?
The sound of a trigger’s click dropped her from her daydreams like an acorn from an oak and made her stiffen. Her skin flushed hot and her fingers tingled. She held the binoculars; making a grab for her weapon seemed like suicide. Why hadn’t she placed her weapon nearer to hand?
“Lace your fingers behind your head,” came the order from a male voice behind her. The smell of the earth beneath her now turned her stomach and the ground seemed to churn as if heaved by an earthquake.
“Roll over,” ordered her captor.
“I’m a federal agent. Homeland Security.” For once, her voice did not shake.
There was a pause and then the command to roll over again.
She pushed off and rolled, coming to her seat. The man holding a rifle was the brother of the family’s leader—Daniel Coopersmith. She recognized him by his ginger beard and the scar across the bridge of his nose. He held the rifle stock pressed to his cheek and the barrel aimed at her chest.
“Stand up.”
She released her laced fingers as she did so. The blood pounding through her veins made her skin itch. This might be her only chance to reach her weapon. Her only chance to avoid capture.
“Don’t,” he advised.
The roar in her ears nearly deafened her.
He wasn’t taking her. That much she knew, because she was not creating a hostage situation on her first assignment. As she came upright, she swept her leg behind his and knocked him from his feet. As his arms jerked outward in reflex, she seized the barrel of the rifle and yanked. By the time Daniel recovered enough to scramble backward, she had his rifle pointed at him.
“It ain’t loaded,” he said.
She felt the weight of the firearm and gave him a look of disappointment.
“Daniel, have you had any visitors, other than me, recently?”
“What kind of visitors?”
“Smugglers.”
“Anyone crosses our land we know it. Got cameras everywhere. How we spotted you.”
“Your family likes their privacy?”
“We don’t assist illegals if that’s what you mean.”
“Why is that?”
“They’re carriers. Part of the scourge to come.”
She knew the dogma.
“You know your nephew is in court this morning?” she asked.
Daniel curled his fingers around his beard and tugged.
“I knew he run off again. He get arrested?”
“Shoplifting.”
“Comics again?”
She shrugged.
“Stan is gonna tan his hide.”
“Not if he’s in prison. Second offense.”
Daniel seemed to forget she was pointing his rifle at him as he turned to go.
“I gotta go tell Judy.” He glanced at her over his shoulder. “You best git. Leave my rifle on the road by your vehicle. That is if Stan don’t already got your car.”
“Stop.” She had her weapon out and it was loaded.
He stopped and glanced back at her.
“You threatened a federal agent,” she said to her retreating would-be opponent.
“I threatened a trespasser who’s also an agent. We got constitutional rights. Illegal search. Illegal surveillance. Just cause. Illegal seizure.” He continued speaking about rights and threats as he wound through the trees and out of sight.
She watched him go.
As it happened, when she reached her vehicle, she found Stanley Coopersmith waiting with his wife, Judy. Coopersmith was a man in his sixties, silver-haired, slim and muscular with a mustache that would have made any rodeo cowboy proud. His wife’s hair was short and streaked with silver. She had the body of a woman accustomed to physical work and the lined face of a smoker.
Coopersmith did not move the rifle he held resting over his shoulder at her approach. She kept her personal weapon drawn but lowered.
“You holding my boy?”
