by Bob Mayer
Chase questioned Beth Wilson a while longer, but she didn't have much more. She had just seen the cab and someone get out. She had noted that the person headed across the lot in the direction of the library. Beth had a big economics test the next day and had returned her attention to studying.
Chase hung up. He looked through the rest of the messages and they weren't even worth the time. He closed the folder. Chase found the picture Jeffrey Stevens had given them and stared at it a while. His attention was too focused because when he looked up Donnelly was watching Chase with a mild, worried frown. "Do you think she's going to send you a message from beyond the grave and tell you who did it?"
Chase hadn't even realized the LT was around and it bothered him to be caught in the act of looking at Rachel's picture.
“I just received a call from Agent Fortin,” Donnelly said.
Chase waited through the pause. He didn’t know how much Fortin had told Donnelly and despite his limited experience, he had interrogated enough suspects to know better than fill in the gap with an explanation that might tell Donnelly more than he already knew.
“I was called the other night to say you were working full-time on a CT mission involving that deputy who was killed.”
Again the pause. Donnelly couldn’t have gotten a confession from one of the phone-in’s, he was so bad at it. Chase was staring at a point just to the left of the lieutenant’s head, another technique learned as a plebe at West Point.
“Then Fortin called this morning to inform me that you were off the CT assignment and back with us full-time.”
Chase nodded. “Then I’ll proceed with the Stevens’ investigation.”
“Did something happen?” Donnelly asked, finally giving up his feeble fishing attempt. “They still haven’t caught those guys yet.”
“They didn’t need me,” Chase said. “Anything else, lieutenant?”
“No.”
Chase left the office. The foreplay was beginning. Fortin was going to screw Chase, but he was starting slow. The fact that they hadn’t caught the Patriots yet meant he had other priorities right now and Chase was just a sideshow.
Chase waited until Donnelly was gone, then went back to the squad room. He called around to the various cab companies. He found the one that had dropped off someone at the right place and time-- the driver would be on duty that evening. He arranged for a meeting.
Then he dialed another number at the Jefferson County airport.
“Masters. You call, we haul.”
“Hey, bud, it’s Chase.”
“Fuck,” Masters said. “You sure pissed off the boss.”
“How come you aren’t in Wyoming?”
“They’re using the state police chopper on stand-by,” Masters said. “And they wanted me back here, in place, you know, in case fucking Al-Qaeda decides to take out the Pepsi Center or something. Plus, you know, I got a real civilian job.”
“What have you heard?” Chase asked.
“Fortin thinks you fucked up. Of course, what he thinks isn’t necessarily what everyone else thinks. You were the man on the ground. Your call.”
“And the Patriots?”
“No one’s seen anything and Fortin doesn’t want a blood bath by going in. So the State Police have roadblocks up—fat lot of good that will do them—and the rest of the team is sitting around jacking off. You’re better off back in Boulder.”
“Anyone have an idea why those Patriots were here in Colorado? Why they killed the cop?”
“Nope.” There was a short pause. “But if you want to know more about them, you might want to talk to Thorne.”
“Colonel Thorne? Merck Magazine?” Chase remembered the article he hadn’t had time to read.
“Yeah. He’s a tough old son-of-a-bitch, but a straight-shooter.”
“All right.”
“Hey, bud, you need anything, give me a call.”
“Thanks.”
Chase hung up and left the office.
* * * * *
Chase drove his Jeep east on Arapaho listening to Warren Zevon sing about Lawyers, Guns, and Money. Past Scott Carpenter Park, named after one of Boulder’s favorite sons, until he reached an industrial area. He cruised around several buildings to a bland, nondescript, cinder-block two-story structure. A small sign on the door indicated it was home to Merck Enterprises.
He pressed the buzzer.
“Yes?” A voice crackled out of the speaker above the buzzer.
“I need to see Colonel Thorne.”
“And you are?”
“Horace Chase.”
“Wait.”
Like he was going to do something else. A minute passed, then the door clicked open. Chase stepped into a small foyer. Another door at the end, another buzzer. A video camera watched Chase walk the ten feet to the next door. It opened with a click. A middle-aged woman sat behind a receptionist’s area.
“Colonel Thorne will see you now--” she inclined her head to the right, at a set of large wooden doors. Chase walked over, swung them open and froze as a pair of pit bulls snapped and growled at him at the end of their chains, bolted to opposite sides of the doors.
“They’re harmless,” the man behind the desk informed Chase. “Unless you piss me off.”
“I’m not here to piss you off.” Chase still hadn’t crossed the threshold of the doors and his eyes were on the dogs. He could now see that the leashes allowed about a three-foot gap directly in the center.
“Come on in. Sit down, detective.”
Chase walked between the snapping teeth, knowing he’d lost points already and that was what the dogs were for. The man behind the desk wanted to control any meeting in his office and this was like a big executive in New York having a view of Central Park in the window behind him, except a lot less subtle.
Thorne was a short, fireplug of a man, seated in a black leather chair. His face was weathered, his hair totally gray and shorn into a crew cut. The walls of the office were completely covered with plaques and photographs. The ultimate ‘Look At What I’ve Done And The Places I’ve Been And The People I Know’ display.
It worked. Just the glance Chase had on the way to the chair in front of the desk impressed the hell out of him. Chase recognized plaques from Special Operations units all over the world-- Israeli Commandos, German GSG9, Norwegian Yaegers, Thai paratroopers, Canadian 1st Parachute Regiment, British SAS, just about every top-notch unit there was. Chase had a similar, albeit fewer, bunch that he kept in a trunk in the same closet as his CT gear.
The two pit bulls sat as Chase did, tongues hanging, breathing hard, their beady little eyeballs on him. Above Thorne’s head was a framed guidon-- 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne). A green flag with yellow crossed arrows. It was the last unit Thorne had commanded before retiring and beginning his new career. Thorne published Merck Magazine and several handgun magazines. Chase had always though it quite bizarre that Merck was published in Boulder, the bastion of left wing liberalism in Colorado, but Thorne had been in Boulder longer than most of the left-wingers, when only 10,00 kids went to CU, not the current 70,000.
“You’re a FLI,” Thorne said. “Does that make me a pile of shit since you’re buzzing around here?”
“No, sir.” It figured he knew who Chase was.
Chase read Merck. Those who didn’t dismiss it too easily, as ignorant people tended to do. Merck was the only magazine of its kind-- dedicated to covering Special Operations the world over. The articles were written by guys who went there and saw first-hand what was going on in most of the world’s hot spots. It was right wing for sure, but smart right wing, and the people who ran the magazine weren’t what Chase called “wanna-be’s”. Particularly Thorne. The wall and what Chase knew of him from the Special Operations old-boy network said he was the real deal.
“Then what do you want?”
“I need information on the Patriots.”
No sense beating around the bush. Thorne had a column in the front of each issue where
he discussed whatever was grating his ass that month-- sort of like Jon Stewart’s rants on TV, but with a lot different subject matter and a different perspective. And sometimes more realistic because Thorne actually got out of that chair and went where the bullets were flying to take a look. Chase knew Thorne was card-carrying NRA, and held many other beliefs of the right, but Chase also knew he wasn’t one of those New World Order people who thought the UN was training a secret army to take over the United States. Thorne had been around enough crap-holes in the world to love the United States more than most. And he’d bled for the country.
Thorne stared at him. “You were in Tenth Group, weren’t you?”
Chase nodded. He’d been there long after Thorne retired, but he’d heard stories about the colonel.
“Afghanistan?”
Chase nodded again.
“You were on ODA zero-five-five during the invasion,” Thorne said. “We did an article on your extraction.”
Chase had read the article. The reporter had interviewed one of the other guys who’d been with Chase and the Nightstalker crew that had picked them up. Just reading about it had given Chase the chills as it pulled him back to that long night.
“And then you were in Delta, weren’t you?”
Chase shrugged. “I can’t discuss that.”
Thorne laughed. “Part of Delta’s Task Force Eleven in the ‘Stan for a second time, weren’t you?”
“I can’t discuss that.”
“That’s the only reason I let you in,” Thorne said, ignoring Chase’s denials. “Because of what you did, not what you’re doing. I don’t like the FLI program. We’ve got the federal government down our throats enough; we don’t need you guys in the local police station.”
For the second time in an hour, Chase remained quiet.
Thorne leaned back in his chair. “But I don’t agree with the Patriots’ methods either. And I don’t agree with the Federal government’s response either.”
“It’s people,” Chase said. “People can go too far trying to accomplish their goals no matter who they work for or what they believe. Like killing a cop.”
“You sure it was the Patriot’s? The Patriot who that Blazer was registered to has been in jail for over a year now, serving a six-year term for tax evasion. Your buddies in the FBI found it abandoned.”
“How do you know that?”
Thorne laughed. “CNN reported it two hours ago. They say Saddam watched CNN throughout the war. Best intelligence he could get. Sometimes we’re our own worst enemies.”
“Sometimes,” Chase agreed.
“Maybe it’s the CIA setting the Patriots up.”
“The CIA killing a cop?”
Thorne shrugged. “Or the UN. ATF. Any of the alphabet soups. Maybe something went wrong. Who knows? You’d be surprised at some of the stuff that’s really going on.”
“It was the Patriots,” Chase said. “I saw them just south and east of the Medicine Bow Mountains.”
“You saw them? And they’re still alive and you’re still alive?” Thorne considered that. He shrugged. “Yeah, it was probably them. You know the CIA has been pretty interested in the Patriots.”
Chase thought that odd given it was a domestic group, not the CIA’s area of operations. “They’re the FBI’s case.”
“The CIA and FBI don’t like each other much,” Thorne noted.
“Why were the Patriots in Colorado?”
“What do you know of the militia movement?” Thorne didn’t wait for an answer. “It’s not one group. There’s a whole bunch of different organizations out there. Some of them hate each other worse than they hate the federal government. Some say the Klan is a militia group. The resurrected Black Panthers too. Can’t see those two groups sitting in the same meeting hall, can you?
“People have tried to consolidate the groups. Some for good reasons, some for not-so-good reasons. Any time you get organizations like that, they’re subject to being corrupted by outside influences, especially if those outside forces have their shit together better than those on the inside.”
Chase knew all that but he waited.
“The Patriots have splintered ever since the invasion of Iraq,” Thorne finally said.
“Meaning?”
“There’s a strong, radical cell among them that believes they were betrayed by the government. Sent to fight a war in Iraq to line the pockets of chicken-shits in Washington who got deferments for Vietnam and hide behind the flag. You know Cheney got five deferments during Vietnam—says he quote ‘had better things to do’ end fucking quote? Tell that to the kids screaming in Walter Reed with no fucking legs.”
Chase said nothing. He’d heard those screams. And he knew about Halliburton. Seen the contractors in Iraq. Seen the pipeline in Afghanistan.
Thorne wasn’t done. “Wolfowitz got deferments. Ashcroft had seven. Rove. All the fuckers who pushed for the Iraq war with lies. But they can wave the flag and make a speech. Send others to do the dying while they make the money.”
“And this cell?”
“You think I’m pissed about it?” Thorne asked. “Most of them were wounded. All lost buddies over there. Careers in the military trashed.” He tapped the side of his head. “PTSD. Some of those guys did two, three tours like you did.”
“So what are they doing now?”
“The same thing the fuckers who sent them did. Looking out for number one.”
Chase frowned. “How?”
Thorne shrugged. “However they can.” He leaned back in his chair. “Your father was in Special Forces, wasn’t he? Bill Chase?”
“You knew my father?” Chase reached in his pocket and pulled out the black and white photo. He handed it to Thorne.
The old man looked at the photo of the young man wearing a green beret and nodded, almost to himself. “Yeah, I knew him. He was awarded the CMH.” He handed the picture back. “That was other reason I let you in.”
“Tell me about my father.”
“Now’s not the time to get into that.”
Chase started to object, then remembered the real reason he was here, although the way Thorne phrased it seemed odd. “All right. Some other time then.”
Thorne let out a deep breath, then spoke. “Do you know Arty Rivers?”
“I’ve never met him,” Chase said, confused at the abrupt switch, “but I’ve heard of him.”
Rivers was another legend in the Special Operations community, an old warrior dating back to Vietnam who’d stayed in Special Forces for over three decades.
“Arty Rivers is interested in the Patriots too,” Thorne said. “Might be affiliated with them.”
“What does affiliated mean?” Chase asked.
“Mean’s he’s either too chicken-shit or too smart to put his ass on the line yet. You figure which.”
Given that Rivers had won a Distinguished Service Cross in Vietnam, spent over thirty-five years on active duty in infantry and Special Forces, Chase was sure it was the latter.
Thorne pulled a thick cigar out of an ornately carved box. He didn’t offer Chase one. He clipped off the end with an expert snip, then fired it up. “Let me tell you something about Arty Rivers. I knew him way back when you were still in diapers. We were young bucks, in the Highlands, working with the Montagnards. That was my first and only tour in Nam. He’d done a tour enlisted in the 101st prior to that as a tunnel rat so he had combat experience before coming to Special Forces. He started out enlisted, worked his way up through the ranks. The village Arty’s team was working was about fifteen clicks from where I was.”
Thorne puffed out a large cloud of smoke and chuckled. “You wouldn’t believe it. We were arming those people with World War Two vintage M-1 carbines. But a lot of the warriors still wanted to use their crossbows. And we weren’t sure who they wanted to fight more-- the VC or the South Vietnamese government. It was a pretty touchy situation.”
Chase knew some of that history of Special Forces in Vietnam. The Montagnards were a hil
l tribe, and Special Forces’ A-Teams had been sent in to train them to defend themselves. The big problem, as Thorne had just noted, was that the South Vietnamese government viewed the Montagnards to be as much of a danger to their regime as the VC.
Thorne walked over to the wall and pointed with his cigar. Chase got up and joined him. A black and white photograph-- a half-dozen white men in tiger stripe fatigues towering over smiling dark skinned men. Some of the Montagnards were indeed armed with crossbows. Chase looked closer. One of the men was Thorne with a full head of dark hair and a large, mustache. A Swedish K submachinegun was tucked under one arm, the other hand was resting on the native to his left’s shoulder.
“That’s Rivers,” Thorne tapped the photo, indicating a tall, thin man with a wide smile standing next to Thorne.
Thorne pulled back his right sleeve. He had a bronze bracelet on the wrist. Chase had seen the like before on old, retired SF veterans. They’d been given by Montagnards to those they’d welcomed into their tribe as honorary members.
“They were good people,” Thorne continued. “Innocent and naive about the world outside of their hills, but damn good fighters when someone threatened them. They didn’t give a shit about the VC. Hell, the South Vietnamese tried to wipe them out every chance they had. They fought because we asked them to. Because we became part of them, like Special Forces is supposed to do. Not like the bullshit recons you guys were pulling in the Gulf the first time around.”
Chase didn’t say anything because he was right. The primary mission of Special Forces was to be a force multiplier, teachers who trained others to fight for themselves. In the First Gulf War, they’d sent two battalions from the 5th Special Forces Group among the Kuwaiti refugees to train them to fight for their own country, but it had not been a very successful effort. Not because the 5th Group guys didn’t do their job, but because the Kuwaitis would rather let the Americans do the fighting for them. As the South Vietnamese had eventually done also. And the Iraqis were doing now. And the Afghanis.
Thorne went back to his chair. “Art’s team had just finished a MEDCAP to a nearby, smaller village about five clicks from his base camp, hoping to get them into the fold. You know, the usual. Fixing minor injuries and infections, dental work, inoculations. Improving the village well, teaching sanitation. Spreading good will and helping the people.