Radclyffe - Honor Reclaimed

"Then why?"

"It doesn't matter," Cam said, wishing that she could keep all of this from Blair. Pointing out that the assault had nothing to do with her as an individual, but only with what she represented, was like telling Blair she'd always been right. That who she was wasn't important, and all that mattered was what people saw when they looked at her. Just saying the words turned her stomach, but Blair did not want or need her protection. Not from this. "It wasn't about you. They came after you to make a statement."

"But Foster, Foster knew me." Blair couldn't hide the horror in her voice. A man she knew—a man who had sat beside her countless times in the car, walked with her on the streets, been there in the shadows as her guardian—had intended to murder her. Face-to-face. It couldn't be more personal. "Where did they come from?"

"We don't have the entire picture yet," Cam said gently. "We identified the men through tattoos that led us to the military academy that they attended as boys. Foster was part of their group." With Valerie, Felicia, and Savard working nonstop all day, they'd been able to access school records, interdepartmental memos, letters to families, interscholastic sports records, and applications to colleges—all manner of personal and academic information that had allowed them to profile the suspects. Eventually, they found the photo archives, and they'd found the faces.

"Tell me their names."

"Blair..."

"Tell me. I want them to be real. Not some ghosts, not some monsters without names or faces."

Cam took a breath and recited the names. She wanted to hold her. God, she ached to shield her. She was afraid to go near her, and that was the hardest part of all. "We think they might have been groomed for the patriot organization while they were at the school."

"You can't be serious. As boys? Recruiting boys to become assassins?"

"We don't know that they were trained from adolescence to be assassins," Cam admitted, "but they may have been indoctrinated into a way of thinking that made that next step possible. Don't forget the Hitler Youth and how effective they were in recruiting for the Reich."

Blair shook her head. It should have been inconceivable, but in her heart she knew it was a terrible reality. "Why did you come to that conclusion?"

"It's too much of a coincidence that all four of them have nothing in the public record to identify them. They don't even have driver's licenses." Cam wouldn't have believed the men actually existed if she hadn't seen their autopsy photos. "This, or something like this, was planned well before they reached adulthood."

Blair sat on the edge of the bed, her legs shaking. "It's horrible. I.. .What were they doing all this time? Why didn't anyone know this was going on?"

"With the exception of Foster, they've been living normal lives as ordinary citizens, doing nothing that would call attention to themselves. Ordinary jobs, no debt, no criminal records, nothing to make them stand out." Carefully, Cam crossed the room, watching Blair's face. She squatted down in front of her and rested her hands lightly on Blair's thighs. "None of them has ever been fingerprinted or photographed for any reason, even a credit card. They've never held a government or industry job where a security check would have been needed."

"But that could just be coincidence. It doesn't mean anything was planned," Blair insisted.

"If that were the whole picture, I'd agree with you, but it's not. We haven't been able to find applications to military academies for any of the four—-not West Point, not the Naval Academy, not the Air Force Academy—even though they surely would have been prime candidates. Well over ninety percent of graduates from NCMA go on to careers in the Armed Forces, and almost one hundred percent apply. Foster went into government service, but these men.. .It's as if they've been purposefully flying under the radar, just waiting." "Waiting to be called to do something like this?" "That's what we think." Cam eased up onto the bed next to Blair and loosely settled an arm around her waist. Blair didn't break her rigid pose, but she accepted Cam's touch. "They probably received all of their assault training at one of the paramilitary camps."

"Like a sleeper cell, only made up of Americans instead of... whoever?" Blair closed her eyes for a second. When she opened them, they were filled with pain. "This can't be. This doesn't happen here."

Cam didn't need to point out that what happened on September 11 didn't happen here either, because she knew they were both thinking it. "I'm sorry."

"What now?" Blair asked.

"We still have work to do. These men are dead, and they can't help us with much more. Hopefully, the commandant of the school they attended will have the rest of the answers. He's proving almost as hard to uncover as these guys were, even though we know his name and what he looks like."

"What happens if he's the one who...planned everything?" "Then he'll be arrested." Cam wasn't actually so sure what would happen to him, but she knew one thing with absolute certainty. She wanted the opportunity to bring him to justice. And her idea of justice was not delivering him to the FBI or the Justice Department, where he could cut a deal for leniency in exchange for information. In all likelihood, that was what the people in power would want, but their agenda was not hers. Her only interest now was Blair's present and future safety.

*

"I think I've got something," Savard called from the dining room, her voice tight with anticipation.

Cam levered herself off the couch where she'd been trying to take a nap, rubbed at her eyes, which felt gritty and dry, and shook her head to clear the cobwebs. "What did you find?"

"I've been sifting through Matheson's tax records. He paid a hefty inheritance tax fifteen years ago when his father died."

Cam peered at the screen, frowning at what appeared to be scanned copies of old documents. "You think he's bankrolling terrorists?"

Savard shook her head. "No. I traced back his parents, and then their parents. Matheson's grandfather held a deed for what looks like half a mountain in Tennessee."

"You don't say." Cam smiled. "And Matheson inherited the property. Do you have the precise coordinates for it yet?"

"It's almost midnight on a Friday night, Commander. No one's going to be available at the hall of records in Memphis."

"I'll bet their computer networks are running, because the law enforcement agencies will need access."

"Then we need Felicia for the extraction," Savard said, bowing to Felicia's skill as a computer cracker.

Cam checked her watch and grimaced. "She's only been asleep a couple hours, but I guess we'll need to wa-—"

"I might have a contact who can get the location for us a little faster," Valerie said. "I'll make a call."

"All right," Cam said. "And while you're at it, you might request a satellite image for us. You've got something up there with infrared capability, don't you?"

Valerie smiled. "I have no idea what's orbiting the Earth, Cameron. But I'm certain we have some sort of helpful toy up there. I'll see what I can do."

Savard waited until Valerie left the room to make her call. "You think there's a paramilitary compound on his property?"

"Don't you?"

"Yeah. I do. What are we going to do when we find out where it is?"

"I imagine it'll be out of our hands then." Cam kept her face carefully neutral.

"That's not how I want to see it go down." Savard regarded her steadily. "These guys may not have planned what happened at the World Trade Center, but they knew about it. And they sure as hell intended to kill Blair. I want to be there when they go down."