Michelle Gagnon - The Gatekeeper

Kelly dialed the volume back down, irritated by the flood of rhetoric. What was Burke’s game? Could he really have been involved in Morris’s murder? He’d ideally positioned himself to assume the Senate seat. If Burke had run against Duke Morris in an election, they were like-minded enough to split the conservative vote, something the Arizona GOP wouldn’t have supported. Still, murdering a friend to steal his job was cold, and there weren’t any guarantees that Burke would be appointed. Morris’s wife could have taken office until the next election.

Kelly flashed back on her, an anxious woman whose hands fluttered as she spoke, and realized that was unlikely. Mrs. Morris didn’t appear stable enough for a spot on the PTA. And all the groups she’d run across in the past few days, from skinheads to Minutemen, shared an anti-immigration stance. Blaming an MS-13 offshoot for Morris’s murder had forced the immigration issue back into the national consciousness.

Kelly powered up her laptop and searched for information on Jackson Burke. There were numerous photos of him at fund-raising events, arm in arm with celebrities, politicians and business magnates. Also, the text of a few keynote addresses, one given at his alma mater and the others at business conferences. They were all fairly mundane, focused on the future of various industries, with no overt references to his immigration stance. Interesting that the GOP had chosen him to fill the seat. Granted he was a major fund-raiser, hosting events for candidates-including Duke Morris-at what the society pages termed his “palatial estate” in Scottsdale. But Burke hadn’t held any chairmanship positions or run for elected office prior to his appointment.

Kelly sat back and thought for a minute. Her stomach grumbled, chastising her for not eating more at dinner. She dialed Leonard again but was sent straight to voice mail, and she hung up without leaving a message. Kelly considered calling Jake, but decided not to. She knew it was childish, but the way he’d behaved, distracted, barely listening to her…he should be the one to call and make up for it.

Kelly powered down her computer and stretched her arms above her head, trying to ease the stiffness in her neck. After the pace of the past few days, it was strange to be stuck with nothing to do. She ran over the case again in her mind, and decided to make one last call.

Her friend Mark had left the Bureau for a job with the Southern Poverty Law Center a few years earlier. He’d said that he wanted to leave before all the idealism and faith in mankind was sucked out of him. At the time she figured he was being melodramatic, but he might have had the right idea. Maybe that was the problem, she’d overstayed her welcome.

After a few tries the switchboard routed her to an extension. She left a message for Mark, hung up, and was surprised when almost immediately her phone rang.

“Kelly! Can’t believe you called, it’s been years!” Mark said.

Kelly smiled. It was nice that someone actually sounded happy to hear from her. “Hi, Mark. Listen, I’m in the middle of a sticky case right now, and thought you might be able to help out.”

There was a pause. Mark’s tone had shifted when he said, “So much for catching up, huh?”

“No, I didn’t mean…How are you?” Kelly asked awkwardly.

Mark laughed. “It’s okay, Kelly. I should’ve known better, you’re not the type to call for a chat.”

Kelly wanted to protest, but he was right. Since Mark had left the Bureau she’d barely thought of him. And not only had they been close friends, they’d even briefly dated. She wondered what that said about her. “I’m really sorry, Mark.”

“No problem. So what’s going on?”

“I need to know more about different anti-immigration groups-skinheads, Aryan Brotherhood, Minutemen.”

“Technically these days we refer to them as hate groups,” he said. “And this is for a case, huh?”

“It is. Why?”

“There have been some interesting rumors flying around the Web lately. Nothing too serious, but the chatter has definitely ticked up on some of the sites we monitor. One guy made a reference to something big brewing, and immediately got flamed by everyone else.”

“And that’s not normal?”

“The big claims are, but the flaming was surprising.” Mark sounded pensive. “Usually they love to get each other all riled up, kind of feeding off the hate. But they clamped down on this, went so far as to call the guy a liar and a troublemaker. Pretty out of character for that site. Made me think there might really be something in the works.”

Kelly flashed back on the blue powder. “Could any of the groups you monitor pull off something major?”

“Hard to say. Back in the nineties, a few redneck Klansmen almost succeeded in blowing up a natural gas processing plant in Texas. If one of them hadn’t got cold feet and gone to the Bureau, the explosion could have taken out hundreds, maybe thousands of people.” She heard the sound of typing in the background. “Can you tell me why you asked about those groups specifically?”

Kelly weighed what she could say without compromising the investigation. “There might be a connection between some ex-con Aryan Brotherhood members and some of the border militia guys.”

“Crap. That’s not good. What people don’t realize is that while hate groups have doubled their membership in the past decade, you people,” Mark’s voice turned harsh as he said, “have completely dropped the ball.”

“I’m sure that’s not true-” Kelly protested.

“It is,” Mark interrupted. “The attack on 9/11 initiated a complete reallocation of resources. Now you ignore the domestic militias we were all so afraid of in the nineties, instead it’s all about foreign nationals on our soil. When the truth is, we’re more likely to see another Oklahoma City before another twin towers.”

“Why has the membership doubled?” Kelly asked, trying to refocus him. That was one thing she’d forgotten about Mark, he went from zero to rage in seconds flat.

“Anti-immigration has been the great unifier,” Mark said, catching himself. His voice was more controlled as he continued, “And the Internet made finding like-minded recruits a hell of a lot easier. The good news is that, by and large, these people are all talk. They love to rant and rave, but when it comes down to actually doing anything about it, most of them are too disorganized.”

“But?” Kelly asked.

“But what we worry about is the possibility of someone smart and charismatic bringing all these disparate groups together.”

“Like an American version of Osama bin Laden?”

“Exactly like that.” Mark spoke in a rush, excited. “Imagine survivalists, skinheads and Minutemen. All heavily armed, all willing to fight. It would be like your own personal mercenary army. And if you had money to back it up, well…”

“Well?” Kelly asked when he didn’t continue.

“Let’s just say it would be really, really bad. People take for granted the stability of our country, but the truth is there isn’t a nation on the planet completely immune to a coup attempt. Given the right circumstances, someone could seize power and overthrow the Constitution.”

“That sounds a little far-fetched,” Kelly said.

“Does it? In the last decade alone there have been more than thirty coup attempts worldwide. Thirteen of those succeeded. Our government has only been in power for two-hundred years, not long at all in the grand scheme of things. The Romans ruled in one form or another for nearly a thousand years, and look what happened to them. And the people assigned to defend us, the National Guard and most of our military units, are currently overseas. At the moment, the United States has a very limited homeland defense.”