into the fire, stroking the thick brown beard he’d grown to cover chemical burns sustained during his time in the Gulf, Byrnes found himself wondering, as he had so many nights before, what it had to have been like to have been a part of that simpler and nobler past. Of one thing he was certain: back then the men who’d put their lives on the line to fight the Revolution had been treated as heroes and looked after once the war had been won. Nothing like today. No being shuttled through some uncaring bureaucratic maze; no denial of hard-earned benefits; no shameless attempts to dismiss claims of illness stemming from exposure to carcinogens and other toxins while in the line of duty. And all those years ago, Byrnes knew there had been no insidious attempts to silence those who might dare to band together to give their grievances a stronger voice. Back then, the notion of a citizens’ militia had been applauded and championed, not spit upon by self-serving federal agents and the brainwashed masses.
Byrnes felt he’d been born in the wrong century. And the penalty for his bad luck? Instead of being honored as a returned warrior, he saw himself viewed as a pariah. An outcast and fringe lunatic. Little wonder it had taken the isolation of the farm for him to find even the faintest glimmer of inner peace. And he knew that peace was as illusory as it was temporary. Soon he would be called upon to carry out his mission, and when that happened, all his memories of the past months would be just that: memories. The realization darkened Byrnes’s mood as surely as nightfall had begun to press its inky blackness on the cabin windows. Byrnes could feel himself tensing in the chair as his rage, like some roused beast, began to once again overtake him.
By now the fire in the hearth was blazing. Agitated, Byrnes began to fumble with the buttons of his coat. The buttons were made of bone, and it was no easy task to work them through the hand-sewn loops. He was struggling with the task when an overheated strip of bark was launched out of the fire at him. Startled, Byrnes let out a cry and recoiled, overturning the rocker in his haste to throw himself to the dirt floor. Panic seized him as he crawled away from the fire and curled into a fetal position, clutching his head protectively. Sweat beaded his face and his heart convulsed inside his chest. He was overwhelmed by a mad rush of flashbacks taking him back to the hell that had been Khamisiyah. The rattle of gunfire, the stench of diesel, men howling in pain, the splash of something hot as molten lava against his face—the sensory overload was as intense as it was sudden. Within seconds the beleaguered veteran gave in to the recurring nightmare and blacked out.
Moments later he came to, cold earth pressing against his bearded face. The ember that had triggered his blackout lay a few inches away, still glowing faintly. Byrnes watched the ember burn itself out with cold detachment, waiting for his mind to clear and for his pulse to return to normal. Finally he was able to struggle to his feet and right the toppled rocker. He sat back down again, drained, trembling, eyes trained on the fire. A racked sob shook through him. He clenched his fingers around the arms of the chair, determined not to give in to his sorrow and feeling of helplessness.
“No more,” he murmured aloud, his voice hoarse. “No more.”
For the next hour, Byrnes remained in the chair, rocking gently, transfixed by the fire, watching it slowly burn itself out. The lamp on the table beside him went out as well, and as the cabin grew dark, several more embers snapped out onto the floor.
Finally, as the last few flames licked at what remained of the charred logs in the fireplace, the evening chill crept back into the darkened cabin. Even colder and darker now, however, was the expression in Byrnes’s eyes. He had the look of a man at the end of his tether, a man who’d reached a point where he saw but one course of action and was steeling himself for the demands that course would entail. Byrnes was through waiting for the call from his superiors. He’d decided it was time to take matters into his own hands, to renounce his inner demons and seize control of his own fate.
Rising from the chair, the veteran relit the oil lamp, then crossed the room and stood on a small wooden bench set in the corner. He reached up and gently worked free two loose boards straddling the rafters that made up the cabin’s ceiling. There was a small cavity between the slats and the roof. Byrnes used the space to store several of his concessions to modern-day technology. He made frequent use of his cell phone and notebook computer, but this night it was a third item—which he’d been given just two days earlier—that commanded his attention. He reached deep into the cavity and carefully pulled out a forty-inch-long M-136 AT-4 rocket launcher.
The fifteen-pound weapon—a high-tech fiberglass-wrapped tube housing an 84 mm warhead—was equipped with a night-vision sight and had an effective firing range of nearly a quarter mile, roughly the same distance between the farm and the building located on the other side of the woods.
Byrnes stepped down from the bench and set aside the stolen launcher long enough to place his cell phone and computer into a backpack, then added a few more items before carrying both the pack and weapon outside. A light snow had begun to fall. The large, almost weightless flakes reminded Byrnes of the ashes that had once rained down on him from the fiery skies of Khamisiyah. He did his best to shrug off the comparison. Now was not the time to give in to the memories. He needed to keep his focus on the present, on the task at hand.
As he passed the lean-to, Byrnes could see lights through the woods, illuminating the outline of the building that would be his target. The wind had died, increasing the chances of his getting off a good shot. He’d fired AT-4s during his tour of duty in the Gulf, and prior to coming here he’d taken a few refresher courses with similar weapons at the American Freedom Movement compound fifty miles away in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains. He was confident he could hit his mark. After that? Byrnes had no set plan, but he knew that this would be his last night at the Michael Conlon Farm.
The roan horse was still out in the corral.
“Change of plans, Jefferson,” Byrnes called out as he hung his backpack on the corral’s gate latch. Clutching the rocket launcher in both hands, he told the horse, “It looks like we’re going to go riding tonight after all.”
2
Washington, D.C.
The Fourteenth Capitol Partners Spring Gun Show, one of the largest such annual gatherings held east of the Mississippi, had ended a little over an hour ago. The three-day event had been a rousing success, with sales running into the tens of millions of dollars, but there was still plenty of stock left over. A handful of larger suppliers had just finished taking down their stalls and were transferring leftover inventory into trucks parked behind the building, a one-time appliance superstore located in an isolated industrial park fourteen blocks from Georgetown University. The parking lot, like the surrounding neighborhood and the handful of other vehicles parked along the street, was lightly dusted with freshly fallen snow.
Inside a nondescript panel truck with tinted windows, Mack Bolan watched the activity taking place around the loading docks. Earlier, the Stony Man warrior had roamed the aisles inside the hall without spotting anything suspicious. Now, hours later, the crowds had dispersed along with most of the vendors, but he was still on the lookout.
The surveillance mission was a consequence of Bolan’s visit to the Wildest Dreams fantasy camp. As Bolan had feared, those who’d fled the camp in the BMW had eluded capture, and neither Louie Paxton nor Xavier Manuel had claimed to know who had been driving the vehicle. Since Marcus Yarborough was missing, along with the woman Bolan had seen with Mitch Brower, he suspected they’d ridden off together in the sports car.
Bolan had been on the lookout for Yarborough inside the exhibition hall, but he’d been even more intent on finding the missing AT-4 rocket launcher. According to evidence found in the fantasy camp’s administrative office, the launcher had been sold to a Viriginia-based militia called the American Freedom Movement. The AFM was already under investigation by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and
