Mercy’s heart dropped.

“Why?” she managed, struggling to keep her voice calm.

“Dunno.” Sean wouldn’t look her in the eye. He finished cleaning her face but didn’t look satisfied with the results. Blood still oozed from the right nostril, and she couldn’t breathe through her nose.

He took a firm hold on her arm and jerked, making her stumble, leading her away from the vehicles. Mercy had a feeling her undercover assignment was over.

They know.

Sean didn’t say a word as he escorted her through the compound. People stared. Actually, the men stopped and stared. The women looked and then quickly averted their gazes. Sweat beaded on the back of Mercy’s neck, and her pulse raced.

She felt as if she was marching to her execution.

Maybe I am.

Chad was gone. She was on her own.

The plastic bricks she’d seen in the second van flashed in her memory.

Explosives.

What will they blow up?

She fought to clear her head. Panic was of no use. Focus. She tripped on the first step at the command center and would have landed on her face if Sean hadn’t kept a death grip on her arm. He opened the door and thrust her through. Stumbling, she caught her balance and found the other three lieutenants, Vera, and Beckett in the room outside Pete’s office. The eyes of all five judged her. Mercy automatically looked to Vera, hoping for a break in the woman’s tough shell. Vera’s expression was stone. Mercy would find no ally there.

As if I didn’t know that.

“He’s waiting for her,” Beckett rumbled. The large man’s arms were crossed on his chest, anger blazing from his icy eyes.

Vera opened Pete’s door and stepped back, condemnation radiating from every pore. Sean pushed her forward into the room, where Pete sat on the edge of his desk, facing her. Judge and jury.

The door shut, and she glanced back. Sean had left.

She was alone with Pete.

“What happened to your nose?” Pete asked.

“It met Sean’s fist.” Mercy kept her expression neutral. Pete was doing the same.

“I didn’t order that.”

“Did you order the cuffs?”

“No.” A brow lifted. “I take it you didn’t come willingly?”

“Sean scared me. He silently came up from behind and grabbed my arm. My instincts kicked in, and I fought back.” She tipped her head toward him, her gaze earnest. “With Chad gone, I’m on edge. I’ve never lived in a place where I’m completely surrounded by men I don’t know.”

“My men wouldn’t do anything.”

Mercy said nothing.

“I don’t allow it,” he emphasized.

“You can’t police them every second,” she said softly.

“This wasn’t how this interview was supposed to start, Agent Kilpatrick.”

A shrill noise erupted inside her head.

The sound of terror.

The room spun, and she felt as if she were falling, but her feet were planted firmly on the ground. Her hands turned to ice as sweat dampened her neck and lower back.

He knows who I am.

“What does the FBI know about us?” he asked calmly. “What information have you passed on?” He pushed off the edge of his desk and slowly paced around her. “How are you communicating?”

Her heart was trying to beat its way out of her chest, and she could barely hear his words over the clamor in her skull. He stopped directly behind her, and his breath moved her hair along her jaw, making her skin crawl. She briefly closed her eyes, fighting a shudder. He’s too close.

“I don’t know why you’re even here,” he said quietly into her ear. “I thought the ATF was monitoring us. There’d been no mention of the FBI. Until now.”

How did he find out who I am?

She stood silent. He continued his walk and stopped two feet away in front of her, his eyes staring daggers into hers.

“Once I knew your name, you were easy to research online.” He smiled, keeping his focus steady. “How’s the leg? Your shooting was all over the web earlier in the year.”

Her healed thigh twinged in response.

“Digging a little deeper gave me insights into your world. A niece . . . a fiancé . . .”

Blackness swamped her peripheral vision, and the office faded away. Anger replaced her terror, and all her senses homed in on Pete’s face.

If he touches my family . . .

The cuffs bit into her wrists as her hands strained to get loose.

“I like to know about the families of my people. Information is power.” He tilted his head to one side, reminding her of a bird. “A little whisper here and a quiet word there. My men perform best when reminded that no one is outside of my influence. I may sit up here in these hills, but my reach has no limits.”

He waited for her to speak. Mercy counted her breaths, trying to slow her racing lungs and heart. Her priority at this moment was to stay alive. Pete wanted information. He wouldn’t kill her until he had it.

“The government has no business spying on its people. This country was built on freedom. Our leaders seek ways to quash and keep us silent while they stomp on our rights.” He stepped back and sat on the edge of his desk again, his arms crossed, his eyes hard. “We have the right to bear arms, but the government can’t keep their noses out of it. Their weapons data collecting process is illegal.” He snorted. “The ATF doesn’t follow its own rules, which say they are to eliminate certain identifying information from some weapons sales after a set time period.” He paused. “Guess who is hoarding information on gun owners when they’re not supposed to? It’s up to us to destroy their illegal record keeping if they won’t do it themselves. Those records belong to the people, not the government.”

Mercy tried to keep up with his twisted logic, wondering where he believed these illegal records were being kept. Records weren’t solely stored in file cabinets in a back room anymore; most records had digital backups.

What did he plan to destroy?

Was that the purpose of the explosives in the van?

“You agents of Babylon try to suppress us when all we want is to be left alone.”

Agents of what?

“We are peaceful. We can govern ourselves. We deserve our own place to live in the US apart from the rest of you. It’s not out of line to demand such a place. Even Martin Luther King Jr. suggested a separate nation for the colored.”

Racist and wrong.

She swallowed and spoke up. “King supported an integrated community. You’re thinking of Malcolm X.”

His face flushed red, and fury lit his eyes. Fear ignited all her nerves.

Why did I open my mouth?

“Cunt.” He stepped aside and swung a steel-toed boot at the edge of her left kneecap.

Pain radiated through her body and exploded in her brain like a firework. She collapsed to the floor, blind from the tears. She rolled onto her right side as an inferno raged in her leg.

“Racist asshole,” she managed to say between clenched teeth.

The steel toe connected with her stomach.

She couldn’t breathe, her diaphragm refusing to function.

The door swung open behind her.

“Lock her up,” ordered Pete. “She won’t need rations.”

TWENTY-ONE

Truman entered the medical examiner’s office the morning after the discovery, ready to observe the newest John Doe’s autopsy. He had a body to identify.

After interviewing Gerry Norris’s girlfriend, Kim Fuller, Truman and Bolton had driven to the friend’s home where Norris had been dropped off the night before. A bleary-eyed Norris answered the door. He wasn’t dead; he was just pissed at his girlfriend.

For once, Truman had been relieved that Royce was wrong about something.

Truman chose to be present for the autopsy. It was his case, and he felt an affinity to the victim, who appeared to be about his own age. He hated that the man had been left alongside the road, and he kept comparing the death with that of the man found in Britta’s field. Both had been shot and dumped recently. Why?

He stuck his head inside the lone autopsy suite. Dr. Lockhart worked in a small facility, just herself and three other employees. Truman had been afraid she’d send his victim to the bigger office in Portland, but she’d worked on the other two John Does that Truman suspected could be related to his case, and she wanted to see the third.

“Hi, Truman,” Dr. Lockhart said cheerfully as she lifted something out of the torso of the body on her table. She set the organ on a scale hanging from the ceiling, and her assistant made a notation. An eighties rock anthem played in the background, and the aseptic room smelled of strong disinfectant with an undertone of something very, very foul. “Protective gear is to the right of the door.”

Truman had just grabbed a gown when his phone buzzed. He checked the screen, intending to let it go to voice mail, but Detective Bolton’s name appeared.

“Daly here,” he answered.

“Truman, I’ve had an unusual turn in the second John Doe’s case.”

Truman looked over at Dr. Lockhart. She was concentrating on her work. “What do you have?”

“Something a bit hard to believe. You at your office?”