by Sam Bourne
Christian radio, along with country music, was the one staple you could always rely on: even the remotest backwater, where there were no other stations on the dial, would always be favoured with the word of the gospel, beamed through the air. The mountain passes of Washington State were no different.
He was getting closer to the flood scene, he could tell.
The roads were becoming clogged and soon he began to see the flashing lights of emergency teams. Then, most reassuring of all, a fleet of white, liveried satellite trucks: local TV, confirmation that he had arrived at the site of the story.
He hooked up with a photographer who seemed to know what he was doing. For one thing, he had all the right equipment. Not just the regulation photographer jacket, with enough pockets to store the possessions of a nuclear family, but industrial-strength, thigh-high Wellington boots, waterproof trousers, polar ice-cap socks and gloves that looked as if they were custom-designed by NASA.
Will waded into the flood water after him, conscious of the chill creeping up his trouser leg. Before long they had hitched a ride on a police dinghy and were ferrying from submerged home to submerged home. He saw one woman winched to safety carrying the thing she valued most: her cat. Another man was standing, sobbing by his store front, watching a lifetime's investment wash away like leaves in a gutter.
A few hours of that and Will was back in the rental car, soaked and hunched over his keyboard. 'The people of the Northwest are used to nature's temper — but her latest mood swing has them reeling,' he began, before detailing the individual tales of woe. A couple of quotes from officialdom and a nice closing line about the fickleness of the climate, spoken by the man who had lost his stationery shop, and it was done.
Once back in the hotel room, he called Beth. She was already in bed. She talked about her day; he uncoiled the full story of his sodden journey into the flood lands. Both of them were too exhausted to restart the conversation they had never really finished.
He flicked on the local news: pictures of the Snohomish floods; Will picked out faces he recognized. His heart went out to the reporter doing the live-shot: that meant he was still there.
'Next up, more on the murder of Pat Baxter. After these messages.' Will turned back to his computer, only half listening to the words coming out of the TV.
The victim, fifty-five, found dead and alone in his cabin… police suspect a botched break-in… much damage, but nothing stolen…
Baxter had been under surveillance for years… was briefly prime suspect in Unabomber case… no family, no relatives…
Will wheeled around. One word had leapt out. Will Googled 'Unabomber', getting an instant refresher course on a bizarre case which had foxed the FBI for two decades. Someone had sent mail bombs to corporate addresses on the East Coast, leaving behind a trail of obscure clues. Eventually, the culprit released a 'manifesto', a quasi-academic tract which seemed to be the work of a loner with a deep suspicion of technology.
He also seemed to harbour a profound loathing of government.
There was a piece on The Seattle Times website, just posted.
That sentiment put the Unabomber in tune with an entire 1990s movement, one in which the late Pat Baxter had been a reliable player. For this was the age of the gun-toting militias — Americans arming themselves against what they believed was an imminent onslaught by the US government. They eventually spread throughout America, but they began in the Pacific Northwest.
Will started working his way through The New York Times' online archive. He was struck by the first pieces that appeared: quite benign, depicting the militia men as 'weekend soldiers', overweight, overgrown schoolboys huffing and puffing their way through war games. But soon the tone changed.
The 1992 stand-off at Ruby Ridge, where a white supremacist lost his wife and child in a Shootout with federal agents, like the siege at Waco, Texas a year later, revealed a world that most Americans — certainly those in media offices in New York — had never heard of. It saw Washington as the centre of a shadowy, new world order, embodied by the hated United Nations, which was determined to enslave free people everywhere. How else to explain the mysterious black helicopters spotted over rural America? What other meaning could there be to the numbers on the back of road signs; surely they were coded co-ordinates that would one day help the US army herd their fellow citizens into concentration camps?
The more Will read, the more fascinated he became. These civilian warriors believed the craziest theories — about freemasons, the Federal Reserve, coded messages printed on dollar bills, mysterious connections with European banks. Some of them were so sure the jackbooted bureaucrats of the federal government were out to get them that they had retreated into the hills, hiding in mountain cabins in remotest Idaho or wooded Montana. They had severed their links with the government in all its forms: they carried no drivers' licences, they refused to sign any official paper. Some moved, quite literally, off the grid — generating their own power, rather than living off the national electricity system.
And they were not playing games. On the second anniversary of the conflagration at Waco, the Alfred P Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City had shattered into dust, broken up by a mighty car bomb, killing 169 people. The culprits turned out to be not Islamist extremists but all-American boys whose heads had been filled with loathing of their own government.
The Seattle Times had an archive picture of Baxter at a rally in Montana in 1994. Except it looked more like a trade fair, down to the stands where exhibitors showed their wares.
Baxter was pictured manning a stall that sold MREs military-style, 'meals ready to eat'. Apparently, he did a fairly brisk trade in dried foods, portable tents and the like: survivalist gear that would keep the freedom-loving American in food and shelter during the coming confrontation. In the remote world of the anti-government movement, Baxter was, if not a celebrity, then a fixture.
'He was a great patriot and his death is a great blow to all those who love liberty,' said Bob Hill, a self-styled commandant of the Montana militia.
Wednesday, 9am, Seattle Worryingly, the phone had not rung. When he finally awoke at nine — noon New York time — he saw that his cell phone was recording no missed calls at all. He reached for his BlackBerry; just some unimportant email. This was not right.
He reached for his laptop, pulling it down from the table and onto the bed, stretching its cable to breaking point. He checked the Times site: no sign of his story. He clicked down to the National section: links to stories out of Atlanta, Chicago and Washington, DC. He clicked and clicked. Here was something, datelined Seattle. But it was only an Associated Press wire story, written that morning. No sign of his own piece.
He phoned Beth. The hospital had to page her.
'Hi babe, have you seen the paper today?'
'Yes, I'm fine thank you. How kind of you to ask.'
'Sorry, it's just — have you got it there?'
'Hold on.' A long pause. 'OK, what am I looking for?'
'Anything by me.'
'I looked this morning. I couldn't see anything. I thought maybe you were going to do more work on it today.'
Will tutted silently: of course he wasn't going to work on it today. It was an on-the-day news story, about weather for Christ's sake: there was no more perishable commodity in journalism than a weather story.
'You checked the National section inside? Each page?'
'I did, Will. I'm sorry. Does this mean they didn't use it?'
That was exactly what it meant: his story had been spiked.
He braced himself for a call to the desk. If anyone but Jennifer, the news clerk, answered, he would hang up. He dialled.
'National/ Jennifer.
'Hi, Jennifer, it's Will Monroe here, out in Seattle.'
'Oh hi. Wanna speak to Susan?'
'No! No. No need. You know that piece I filed yesterday, from the floods? Do you know what happened to it?'
Jennifer's voice suddenly dipped.
'Kind of. I heard th
em talking about it. They said it was very nice and all, but that you hadn't talked about it with them first. If you had, they'd have told you they didn't need a story yesterday.'
'But I did speak…' Of course. He had only talked with Jennifer, told her his co-ordinates and his plans. He had assumed they wanted him to file. Had Harden not told him to pack his galoshes?
Now he realized: he was in Seattle just in case. He was keeping Bates's seat warm. All that soaking effort yesterday had been in vain. He felt embarrassed, like an over-eager intern. It was a stupid mistake.
'Hold on, Susan wants a word.'
Three time zones away, Will readied himself for a roasting.
'Hi, Will. Listen, I think the rule ought to be no filing unless we've talked about it first. OK? Maybe just find something that interests you, poke around a bit and see what it's worth.
As for spot-news, keep your phone on and we'll call you if we need anything.'
Will ate a glum breakfast. He had screwed up and screwed up badly. By now Jennifer would have spread the word among the tiny circle of Times staffers in their twenties: they would be having a good laugh at his expense. The golden boy with a big-shot daddy had come down to earth.
There was only one solution. He would have to reel in a proper story. Somehow, from this far-off patch of snow, timber and potatoes, he would have to eke out a tale that would prove to New York that they had not made a mistake. He knew exactly where he would go.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Wednesday, 3.13pm, Washington State
The flight across Washington State had been brief, if bumpy, and the drive from Spokane gorgeous. The mountains were almost painfully beautiful, each cap dusted with a snow that looked like the purest powdered sugar. The trees were as straight as pencils, lines of them, so densely packed, the light almost seemed to strobe.
He was driving east, soon crossing the state line into Idaho — or at least the long, slender upper part of the state where the United States appears to be giving the finger to its northern neighbour, Canada. He drove past Coeur d'Alene, which sounded like a Swiss skiing village but which was most famous as the home of a racist movement known as the Aryan Nations. Will had seen the pictures in the cuttings: the men dressed in quasi-Nazi uniforms, the 'whites only' sign at the entrance. It would make a fascinating stop, but Will did not leave the road. He had somewhere to go.
His destination lay across the Idaho finger, in the western part of Montana. The roads were small, but Will did not get frustrated. He loved driving in America, the land of the endless road. He loved the billboards, promoting furniture stores thirty-five miles away; he loved the Dairy Queen rest-stops; the bumper stickers, advising him of the politics, religion and sexual preferences of his fellow drivers. Besides, he was planning his attack.
He had spoken already to Bob Hill, who was expecting him. Dutifully, Hill had conformed to the media caricature of a backwoods gun-nut. He asked to have Will's full name and social security number: 'That way I can check you out. Make sure y'are who y'say y'are.' Will tried to imagine what Hill's research would turn up on him. Brit? That would be OK.
Americans usually liked Brits. Even if they hated limp-wristed, faggot Europeans, Brits were OK: they were kind of honorary Americans. Father a federal judge? That could be problematic; federal officials were despised. But judges were not always lumped in with the rest of the hated bureaucrats who represented 'the government'. Some were even seen as the protectors of liberty, fending off the encroaching hand of the politicians. If Hill looked, though, he would find plenty in Judge Monroe's record that was bound to offend. Will hoped his host was not going to dig too deep.
What else? Parents divorced: that might rile the militia men. Mind you, this wasn't Alabama; the survivalists were not the same as the Christian right. There was some overlap, but they were not identical.
The daydream ended the moment he saw the signs.
'Welcome to Noxon, Population: 230'. He looked down at the scribbled note perched on his lap: Hill's directions. He had to turn left at the gas station, down a road that would become a path. The SUV began rocking from side to side, over the ruts of mud, earning, or so Will liked to think, the extra charge he, and therefore the Times, had had to pay for it.
Soon he reached a gate. No sign. He was about to call Hill, as arranged, but he was halfway through dialling the number when a man became visible in his windshield. Early sixties, jeans, cowboy boots, old jacket; unsmiling. Will got out.
'Bob Hill? Will Monroe.'
'So you found us OK?'
Will went into a hymn of praise for Hill's directions, seeking to break the ice with some shameless flattery. His host grunted his approval as he trudged up a hard mud bank, heading in the direction of what seemed to be a thick patch of forest.
As they got closer, Will began to make out a glow of light: a cabin, rather brilliantly camouflaged.
Hill looked to his waist, where a thick jailer's ring of keys was weighing down one of his belt loops. He let them in.
'There's a chair there. Make yourself comfortable. I've got something to show you.'
Will used the few seconds he had to look around: a metal shield on the wall, bearing a vaguely military insignia. He squinted: MoM. Militia of Montana. There were a few framed photographs, including one of his host holding the head of a dead stag. On the metal shelves, a box of leaflets. Will peered inside: 'The New World Order: Operation Takeover.'
'Help yourself, take a copy.' Will whisked around to find Bob Hill right behind him. Ex-marine, Vietnam; of course he would know how to creep up on a mere civilian like Will.
'Wrote it myself. With the help of the late Mr Baxter.'
'So he was… deeply involved?'
'Like I told you on the phone, a fine patriot. Ready to do whatever it took to secure the liberty of this nation — even if his nation was too duped, its brains too addled by the propaganda of the Hollywood elite, to realize its liberty was under threat.'
'Whatever it took?'
'By whatever means necessary, Mr Monroe. You know who said that, don't you? Or was that before your time?'
'It was before my time, but I do know. That was the slogan of the Black, Panthers.'
'Very good. And if that was good enough for them in their struggle against "white power" then it's good enough for us in our struggle to keep America free.'
'You mean violence? Force?'
'Mr Monroe, let's not get ahead of ourselves. You can ask me all the questions you like, I got plenty of time. But first, I have something to show you. See if this interests the great East Coast intellectuals of The New York Times.'
By now Hill was seated, behind a battered old metal desk, one that would not have looked out of place in the office section of an auto-repair shop. He handed Will, who was still standing, two sheets of paper, stapled together.
It took a few seconds for Will to work out what he was looking at. The notes on the autopsy performed on the body of Pat Baxter.
'Missoula faxed it over this morning.' Missoula, the nearest big town.
'What does it say?'
'Oh, don't let me spoil it for you. I think you should read it for yourself.'
Will felt a twinge of panic: this was the first autopsy report he had ever seen. It was almost impossible to decipher. Each heading was written in baffling medicalese; the handwriting beneath was just as inscrutable. Will found himself squinting through it.
Finally, a sentence he understood. 'Severe internal haemorrhaging consistent with a gunshot wound; contusions of the skin and viscera. General remarks: needle mark on right thigh, suggestive of recent anaesthesia.'
'He was shot,' Will began, uncertain. 'And he seems to have been anaesthetized before he was shot. Which does seem very odd, I grant you.'
'Ah, but there's an explanation. Read on, Mr Monroe.'
Will's eyes scoured the document, looking for clues. Scribbled handwriting, sent through a fax, did not make it easy.
'Second page,' Hill offered. 'Gener
al remarks.'
'Damage to internal organs: liver, heart and kidney (single) severe. Other viscera, fragmented.'
'What leaps out at you, Mr Monroe? I mean what word there friggin' jumps out and grabs you by the throat?'
Will wanted to say 'viscera', simply because the word was so undeniably powerful. But he knew that was not the answer Hill was looking for.
'Single.'
'My my, you Oxford boys are as bright as they say you are.' Hill had not been kidding about his research. 'That's right. Single. What do you think's going on here, Mr Monroe?
What strange set of facts do we have here which Montana's finest have so far chosen to overlook? Well, I'll tell you.'
Will was relieved; the guessing game was making him sweat.
'My friend, Pat Baxter, was anaesthetized before he was killed. And his body is found minus one kidney. Put two and two together and what do we get?'
Will muttered almost to himself, 'Whoever did this removed his kidney.'
'Not only that, but that's why they killed him. They wanted it to look like a robbery, a "break-in gone badly wrong" they're saying on the TV. But that's all a smokescreen. The only thing they wanted to steal was Pat Baxter's kidney.'
'Why on earth would they want to do that?'
'Oh, Mr Monroe. Don't make me do all the work here. Open your eyes! This is a federal government that has been doing experimentation with bio-chips!' He could see that Will was not following. 'Bar codes, implanted under the skin! So that they can monitor our movements. There's good evidence they're doing this with new-born babies now, right there in the maternity ward. An electronic tagging system, enabling the government to follow us from cradle to grave — quite literally.'
'But why would they want Pat Baxter's kidney?'
'The federal government moves in mysterious ways, Mr Monroe, its wonders to perform. Maybe they wanted to plant something inside Pat's body and the plan went wrong. Maybe the anaesthetic wore off and he began resisting. Or perhaps they put something inside his body years ago. And now they needed to get it back. Who knows? Maybe the feds just wanted to examine the DNA of a dissident, see if they could discover the gene that makes a real freedom-loving American and work to eradicate it.'