Elizabeth Heiter - Seized

“I know. The maps, the guns, the supplies.” Bobby repeated John’s words from earlier. “I’ll get rid of everything. We’ll be set as soon as we’ve got the go-ahead.”

“Good.” Before they left, John would double-check, of course, and he’d empty his own bunk, too, although he never wrote anything down. He kept it all where it belonged, locked in his mind, where no one could accidentally discover it.

Never leave behind anything they can use.

The reminder ran through his head, but he didn’t need reminding. He’d been training for this mission all his life. He just hadn’t realized his true purpose until recently.

And his purpose was great. The lesson he would help teach this country was crucial.

“No one will suspect a thing till we get back.” Bobby’s words interrupted his thoughts.

John grunted noncommittally. Bobby was willing to die for the cause, but John knew the kid imagined himself returning a hero.

John was resigned to the truth. They’d never be coming back here. If they made it through their mission alive, they’d spend the rest of their days in hiding. But it would all be worth the sacrifice.

He pictured the final target, the one he’d never get to personally see, and he felt his anticipation shift into something hard and powerful and bigger than any one person.

He’d seen a video of the target once, from a long time ago, taken with a shaky old video camera. An elite group of men, so cocky and righteous. Standing on land that wasn’t theirs, using bullets to enforce their pretend authority.

He could almost see them now, still thinking they were untouchable. Thinking their bloody hands had somehow come clean.

They were wrong.

And soon, very soon, the whole world would know it.

1

Lee Cartwright wanted to kill her.

Evelyn Baine didn’t need to be a profiler with the FBI’s elite Behavioral Analysis Unit—BAU—to know it. All she needed to do was stare into Cartwright’s angry, narrowed eyes and look at the snarl quivering on his lips, the thrust of his jaw as he leaned toward her across the table.

The bare bulb flickered overhead, deep in the bowels of the Montana State Prison. The distant chorus of prisoners’ voices reached her ears, but it was just the two of them in the tiny, dingy interview room. Just her and the convicted bomber. They were separated only by a flimsy table and a pair of standard-issue handcuffs. Those were bolted to the table, but looked as if they’d barely closed around Cartwright’s meaty wrists.

His eyes skimmed over her once more and she knew exactly what he saw—a perfect victim.

She gave him steady eye contact, refusing to react as he flexed his hands. He seemed to be testing the strength of those cuffs. The fact that Cartwright wanted to kill her was one of the reasons she’d been chosen for this interview.

Lee Cartwright had been convicted of bombing two black churches and one mosque. Two people had died, and dozens more were injured. It was his way of sowing fear; like a lot of bombers, he wasn’t just targeting a specific group, but also seeking notoriety. He’d wanted people to fear him, the man who’d been dubbed the “Nail Bomber” because of the materials he used.

He was antifederalist and anti-anyone-who-wasn’t-white. Sending her—a biracial federal agent—was her boss’s way of telling Cartwright that he didn’t call all the shots. The idea was to piss him off enough to get him to brag. He’d told prison officials that he had a copycat, and the FBI wanted to find out if it was true.

The other reason the head of BAU, Dan Moore, had sent her was that she was on his shit list.

Interviewing felons, even felons who claimed a copycat was contacting them, wasn’t usually a BAU job. But the file had crossed Dan Moore’s desk and apparently it looked like yet another suitable punishment for her refusal to follow orders three months ago.

She’d never been his favorite person; she was too young, too female and too poor a team player. He’d always treated her like the newbie who needed babysitting, but lately, it had gotten much worse. Lately, she felt as if she wasn’t even on the team anymore.

Worse, she wasn’t sure she wanted to be. And that was something she’d never questioned, not since the time she was twelve years old and her best friend, Cassie, had gone missing.

“I have nothing to say to you,” Cartwright muttered for the third time in the half hour they’d been having this little staring contest.

“You told two guards you had a copycat, Lee. You said you wanted to talk to someone about it. I’m here. Talk to me,” Evelyn pressed, trying to sound earnest.

The truth was, she felt discouraged. She’d already asked the warden about Cartwright’s incoming mail and his visitors. Since the only person who visited him was his mom, and his mail had never been flagged as suspicious, she was pretty sure his request was more about attention than a real threat.

But someone had been setting off explosions in the Montana wilderness about an hour away. There was no indication these had anything to do with Cartwright—he used a distinct method for creating his bombs, as telling as a signature, that local law enforcement hadn’t found this time.

The current explosions were a nuisance, but they’d happened far from anyone. And the reality was, this area had several groups with fringe militia ties, and explosions like the ones in the wilderness had happened before. Cartwright’s claim of a copycat was unlikely.

Still, he’d been convicted of hate crimes and murder. If there was even a tiny chance he was telling the truth, someone had to check it out.

That someone shouldn’t have been her. There was no reason to fly her across the country when there were perfectly capable agents here, and the case didn’t need a profiler at all.

And she was tired of the bullshit assignments when there were plenty of real cases she could be profiling.

Maybe, if she could ever get back to those legitimate cases, she could figure out whether she still belonged. Maybe it would tell her if, after finally unraveling what had happened to her best friend when she was twelve, she had any drive left for profiling.

Cartwright did nothing but snarl back at her, the muscles flexing in his prison-pumped arms.

Evelyn held in a sigh and leaned forward. “Who’s been contacting you, Lee?”

“I’m not telling you shit.”

Frustration built up. He should’ve seen her—exactly the kind of person he’d love to target at one of his bomb sites—and wanted to brag about the copycat. They hadn’t expected him to hand over a name, but they had expected him to taunt her with whatever he might know. Assuming the threat was real, which seemed more and more unlikely.

This complete refusal to talk was surprising.

“What’s your copycat planning to target? If he’s really copying you, he doesn’t seem to be doing a good job.” She tried to appeal to his vanity and his need to prove himself at the same time.

Cartwright scowled at her. “Forget about it.”

“Did you teach someone how to make a bomb?” she asked, leaning back in her chair. She tried another route. “It’s not like you used the most sophisticated method we’ve ever seen.”

“Yeah?” he barked. “Have you tried it? Packed in all those nails...?” He cut himself off and smirked at her. “My method was just fine.”

“But not so complicated that you’d need to teach someone else to do it, right? I mean, they could just figure it out on their own?” It probably wasn’t true. Cartwright had used easily accessible materials to create his bombs, but they’d been sophisticated in the detonation. The FBI hadn’t seen anything quite like them before—or since.