The team was sitting around Roma, finishing off the last of the wine and cannollis. Frank was wondering just how annoyed Sheriff Lane was about the DHS taking over his case. The hint of a grin skidded across his face. He knew just the way to irritate Agent Stevens, if the sheriff was interested. He could help bury the DHS under a mountain of paperwork.... A little before 10pm, Frank told the others he was heading up to Port Huron to see the sheriff, and Leigh volunteered to go along. Angie wasn't about to be left out, and since Aiden was working anyway, she didn't have anything to hurry home for. Justin was just about to suggest him and Karen going too, but when he looked over to ask Karen, he could tell that she wasn't really interested in hanging around Port Huron in hopes of getting the case away from the DHS. Besides, he was going to be spending Sunday afternoon with Tom Harper and his buddies, so he wanted to spend the rest of the weekend, starting that night, with Karen. Frank called to see if Terry was interested. She'd had a long day at work, and was beat enough that she didn't even join the others for dinner. She had another long day of management reviews and paperwork tomorrow, she told Frank. So she wasn't planning on going anywhere that night but to bed. Tony was bored enough to want whatever excitement Port Huron could offer, so he asked what Frank was planning and offered to help.

Frank told them that there was a limit to what DHS was allowed to do. For one thing, it was not allowed to move in on a local case unless invited by the local authorities. Obviously the authorities had not asked for their help this time. But most police agencies had no idea what could be done in a situation like this—and DHS certainly wasn't forthcoming with that information. Frank paused and smiled broadly. If there was one thing he was very good at, though, it was paperwork. He knew exactly what forms needed to be filled out, and where they had to go for processing. And if the sheriff wanted it, Frank would be more than happy to offer his 'advice.' Justin jokingly warned him not to let Tony and Angie to sit together in the back seat. Angie's jaw dropped and she just stared as everyone else started laughing. Everyone but Karen thought Justin was suggesting that Tony and Angie would end up making out back there, and when they stopped laughing long enough, they started teasing Justin about his mind being in the gutter. What he'd really been suggesting was that the two would end up playing with explosives back there, not each other. Karen tried to point that out, but all that did was shift the focus of the teasing. As they all gathered their things, Justin tried to explain how he'd had a cousin who blew up tires for “fun” and how he wouldn't put that past Tony and Angie if they were given the chance. Of course, he continued, he also had always thought that that cousin's parents were first cousins to begin with. Besides, they were talking about Cheks and Polacks, after all....

Justin told the others that he'd be leaving his phone on, in case they needed him and Karen. Then the two headed home, stopping at the video shop along the way to pick up a copy of Leni Riefenstahl's “Triumph of the Will,” research for his 'date' with Tom. The other 4 took Frank's Lincoln and hopped on I-94. When they got to Port Huron, Frank cruised slowly along the main drag. At this hour, the sheriff was most likely at the local 'cop bar.' They stopped a couple times to check places out before Angie spotted the right one. The four parked and went to the door. While Tony and Frank jockeyed to be the one to hold the door for the two women, Angie opened the door and held it for Leigh, then dropped it as the guys moved to go through it. They followed the women in, but they might as well have been invisible. Most of the men in the place had their eyes on Angie and Leigh, and the ones that didn't were too drunk to notice much of anything. Frank scanned the room. There were a fair number of off-duty cops there, but they were by no means the only patrons of the bar. He spotted the sheriff sitting at the bar, his shoulders hunched over as he stared into his glass of beer. He looked tense, but the tension looked more like controlled anger than depression. Tony followed Frank over, and the sheriff looked up as they came up next to him.

He offered his hand to the two. As they settled onto the bar stools next to him, he asked if he could buy them a drink, then signaled the bartender to bring over 3 shots of whiskey. “There are two types of things in this world,” he told the other two men philosophically as he fingered the shot glass, “things you can do something about and things you can't.” He threw back the shot and Tony and Frank followed suit. “What could I do but lay down and let them roll over me,” he asked Frank rhetorically. The corners of Frank's mouth turned up slightly. “The DHS must prove a terrorist threat is involved before moving in on a local case,” Frank mused, glancing sideways at Sheriff Lane. Dan Lane smiled. “Why don't we get some fries?” he asked the two; “they're really good fries.” Angie had scanned the room and noticed a pool table at the far end. She made her way over to it with Leigh right behind, digging quarters out of her pocket as she went. The guys that were using the table stepped aside slightly, watching her, as Angie approached the table. She set a small stack of quarters on the edge of the table, then stepped back and crossed her arms.

One of the guys offered to let Angie join him and his buddies, and Angie told them that her friend, nodding toward Leigh, wanted to play too. He looked both of them up and down, then offered to teach Angie how to play. She agreed, knowing full well that she already knew how to play pool. She was flirting with these guys, and Leigh joined in the fun. Carl and Pete were more than happy to 'teach' Leigh how to play, and they actually behaved like gentlemen and resisted the urge to cop a feel as they helped her learn how to hold the cue stick and line up a shot. Soon, Angie had three different guys competing to show her how tough they were. She egged them on with a malicious twinkle in her eye. Leigh took a softer approach with Carl and Pete, being careful not to let them think the flirtation would lead to anything more serious. At the bar, over a basket of some really very good fries, Frank explained that what Dan needed to do was request a jurisdictional hearing, to let a court determine which department had the right to work the case. He could tell Dan what paperwork to fill out, and he happened to know a judge, Judge Porter, who didn't really appreciate the way the DHS did things. All he asked was that the sheriff didn't include his name on any of the paperwork. Frank gave Dan the judge's number, and he stepped outside to give her a call.

The judge was more than happy to see the sheriff, even that late on a Friday evening. She'd sign the paperwork as soon as he could get to her place. He told her he'd be there within the hour. When he went back inside, Dan asked if Frank and Tony had any ideas about what was really going on with this case. It smelled like a cult to him, but he hadn't been aware of any being in the area. And they didn't need them, either, he told the two. His people had enough to do just dealing with the Militia. Besides, cults usually had a message, right? “What was the message here,” he asked Frank, genuinely unable to fathom what someone could be saying by burning a bunch of kids. Frank told him that he honestly wasn't sure yet. “Well, I'd better get someone to drive me to the judge's house,” Dan said to Frank and Tony. “Wouldn't do to drive there myself after I've been drinking.” He turned and scanned the room, then pointed out one of the guys surrounding Angie. “My nephew,” he explained to Frank and Tony. “Harper, get your hands off that woman.” he shouted across the room. “ You need to drive.” He shook hands with Frank and Tony, and dug a roll of breath mints out of his coat pocket as he walked to the door and waited there for Harper. With a curt nod at Frank, he went out, his nephew on his heels.

Frank and Tony moved to a table, and watched Angie and Leigh work the room for a little while longer. Finally, Frank went over and asked the girls if they were ready to go yet. Angie almost pouted when she accused Frank of being “no fun.” With all the noise, it took Frank a moment to realize that his cell was ringing. It was about 11:30pm. Judge Porter had already had the proper forms filled out and signed when the sheriff had gotten there. Now he wanted to know if Frank wanted to be there when he served the papers at the crime lab. Frank did, and Dan said he'd meet him at the lab at 11:50. Leigh immediately asked if the other three of them could come along. Frank hesitated. It might not be politically prudent for him to show up with his 'team' when the local police kicked out the DHS. He was trying to keep a low profile, and was more than happy to let the sheriff's men do the dirty work. He was planning to stay in the background until the DHS people were gone. He was about to tell them “no,” when they all noticed that half the guys in the bar were checking their pagers and grabbing their coats. It looked like there was going to be a crowd there anyway, so as long as the three stayed in the car and out of the way until the lab was secured.... Frank had to wait to tell Leigh and Angie this. As the guys were leaving, they were all trying to get the girls' numbers. When each one came to Angie, she would crook her finger and draw the guy closer until she could whisper in his ear “Only if my boyfriend can come along, too.” A few of them actually looked like they might accept those terms in order to spend more time with her. Leigh wouldn't give her number out, but she was willing to take numbers from the guys. After what happened to her husband and then Reg, and then that nightmare last night, she was feeling a little like Typhoid Mary. But she figured that if they were cops, then they ought to be able to protect themselves well enough to risk dating her.

As the bar cleared out, Frank let the others know that they could come along. They promised to stay in the car, but asked if Frank had any spare binoculars in the trunk. At the very least, they all wanted to see the look on Stevens' face when he got the court order to clear out. Besides, if Frank was out front with the sheriff, they could be in back, keeping an eye out for anyone trying to slip out the back with evidence. The street in front of the crime lab was lined with cars when they got there, and the sheriff was standing across the street from the front door, surrounded by his deputies. They all fell in behind Sheriff Lane when he strode up the driveway, Frank 'hiding' himself in plain sight among the rearmost group of deputies. Like when Frank got there Thursday morning, the sheriff was met about halfway up the drive by 2 agents. They blocked his path and he slapped the court order against the chest of the one he came to first. That one glanced through it, handed it back to Sheriff Lane, and turned to go inside, his partner still trying futilely to keep the sheriff back. A moment later, a brown-haired woman in a lab coat came out. She looked familiar to Frank as someone he knew from DC, but he couldn't place her name. The moment she got close enough, Dan tried to hand her the court order. She brushed his hand aside, insisting that he had no right to interfere with her analysis of the evidence. “This is a crime scene....” she objected. “Yes, ours,” the sheriff said calmly. “I'll be calling....” “Of course you will,” Dan said, cutting her off.

Virginia Collins. It had taken Frank a few minutes of watching her vocal disagreement with Sheriff Lane before he finally figured out who she was. She was one of the top forensics people in the department. She'd been in the FBI, and had risen slowly but steadily through the ranks. Her work was really good, but not so much her administrative skills. That was probably what had kept her from going farther. The sheriff had been easing his way toward the door, and when she tried to block it, he gently moved her aside to let his men go in. In short order, about a dozen lab techs came out, fumbling to close up their kits as they were herded out by the deputies, and complaining about the chain of evidence. The cops were all VERY polite the entire time. Once the last of the DHS people was out, Dan tipped his hat to Collins. “Good day, ma'am. You'll have to leave the crime scene now.” She sputtered about how she was going to be back with a court order of her own, but took her things when they were handed to her and went to her car. Frank had gone in with the deputies, and from the background kept an eye out for anyone trying to remove evidence. Collins hadn't seemed to notice him at all, and he saw no one taking out anything of importance to the case.

When the last of the lab techs' cars had pulled out, Frank asked Dan if he could have a favor. The sheriff grinned. Now that he had his crime lab and this case back, Frank could have anything he wanted. It was clear that Frank was now the sheriff's new best friend. Frank asked to bring in the rest of his team, and Lane was more than happy to let him. Frank called Angie, who pulled the Lincoln around to the parking lot. No one was hanging around out there watching them, either, she noted. When Angie came in, all she could do was stand beside Frank and join him in staring at the bus. Leigh and Tony weren't sure at first what they were looking at since they hadn't seen the bus before, only heard about it from Frank. Then Leigh realized that there was nothing painted on the side of the bus anymore. The original name on the side was still painted over with black spray paint, but the word TRANSFORMATION, which had also been there was now gone. In fact, it looked like the whole thing had been cleaned off and repainted to remove TRANSFORMATION. They all circled the bus, then went inside. Now there was graffiti inside that hadn't been there before, Aryan Nation-type stuff scratched and painted and drawn with markers, scribbled in corners like kids are wont to do. Oh, it was subtle, but noticeable. It wasn't like the bus had gone from no graffiti to HUGE graffiti. But Frank was certain that there hadn't been anything like that before, and he had pictures he'd taken with his camera phone to prove it.

Tony took a deep breath as he climbed the stairs into the bus, and he knew right away that they'd used rocket fuel as the accelerant. “No,” Angie insisted. “There was no accelerant.” But Tony pointed out several places where he could feel the residue, places showing a well-defined burn-spread pattern. Angie didn't want to believe her eyes, but she could see not only the original scorch marks, but also new ones meant to prove that the people on the bus had been doused with fuel. Frank went back out. On a nearby table, burned up pieces of paper were being reassembled. It was obviously hate-group literature, some of it remarkably similar to stuff they'd picked up at the gun show. But none of that had been there when the bus was first discovered. It was made to look like the stuff had been on the bus and burned when it burned. Frank went and got Dan. Someone had decided to misdirect the investigation, and they were doing a very good job. Tony asked why DHS would want to. No one had an answer they were willing to give voice to. If they were trying to cover this up, Dan said, he wasn't going to get much traction on solving it. Frank told him that he expected that they would lose the lab again by Monday. Sooner, if they could find a judge sympathetic to their point of view. Dan shuddered. He was genuinely spooked, and looked like he'd just stepped off a curb he hadn't known was there. It was just a pissing match before, but he may have gone too far now, he said, more to himself than to the others standing around him.

Frank knew what he had to do. They might not have much time, so they were going to have to document everything they could before DHS took back over. He would share everything, he told Dan. Dan agreed. They would have open, if covert, lines between them. Whatever Stevens was doing, it couldn't be good. Frank and his team was welcome to stay as long as they wanted, Dan told him. He was going to go through all his original paperwork and computer files, what little they might have left him, anyway. Frank got everyone hustling. “I want the name of the person who filled the gas can,” he told Angie, by way of telling them that no detail was too small. So much had been changed about the bus, that Leigh asked if there was some way to tell if it was even the same vehicle. That was a good point, Frank realized. And since they had a master mechanic on the team just a phone call away.... It was about 12:45am when Justin was woken from sleep by the buzz of his phone vibrating on the nightstand. Frank wanted both of them and their extensive investigation skills. Justin got the lab's address and and asked Frank for the make of the bus. That would narrow down the number of books he'd need to pull off the shelf to check the VIN number and registration numbers of the major parts. He hung up and woke Karen, who mapped the lab address while Justin sorted through vehicle manuals.

By 1:30am, the two were arriving with some good, hot coffee. Leigh had already set up a rudimentary grid, and now Karen set to work with Leigh, using the photos Frank had taken before to document the changes that had been made. Justin was under the bus before half the team even knew he was there. The team worked through the night. At some point they noticed that they'd lost most of the cops, and found the sheriff fast asleep in a chair in front of the computer. By the time they finished at 5:30am, they knew for sure that someone had ordered a significant effort to make it look like the bus had been burned by one particular white supremacist group. Looking at it strictly academically, it was a very well-done job, but.... When Karen lamented the fact that someone who was obviously a brilliant forensics expert would resort to falsifying evidence like this, Frank pointed out that most likely the forensics people were only brought in at night to validate the stuff that the day shift, under Stevens, had faked. Justin was able to determine that it was definitely the same bus. There was still mud and straw stuck to the undercarriage, and Justin had been able to match the engine number to the frame number to the transmission number to the VIN. But a great deal of stuff had been changed from what Frank had documented Wednesday night. And the silver necklace was gone. Frank had Dan check, and it had even been wiped from the list of evidence.

By now, the Envoys were all wondering just who this Stevens guy was. Frank hadn't pushed the issue by checking before now, but he'd long suspected that Jared hadn't closed all the doors behind Frank when he'd gone on leave. He tried accessing DHS personnel records and found that Jared had conveniently forgotten to shut down his account. Stevens, Mackenzie. The picture showed a blond, tall, good-looking man in his early thirties. Justin peered over Frank's shoulder. “Kinda looks like Kiefer Sutherland, back when he was in 'The Three Musketeers',” Justin told the others. They all came to have a look. Frank scrolled through the records. Single. The guy hadn't come from either the FBI or the CIA. Nor from the military or any civilian police force. It appeared he was a patronage appointment, some wunderkind hired in straight out of college. Bachelor's in criminology from Georgetown. His resume looked like either he or it had been groomed for the job. There was nothing extraneous on it. Everything he'd done, either in school or work, was tailored for getting him to where he was now...and beyond. Now he was a major comer in the department. He'd rocketed up from new hire to lead agent on a number of jobs in the DC and Virginia area. Frank scanned the case files. Once in DHS, he'd gotten plenty of on-the-job experience, but there were no details about the cases he'd worked. So, it was either espionage or “wet work.” From what Frank could piece together, Stevens main area of expertise was in taking credit for other peoples' work. He was undoubtedly making friends in higher and higher places as he moved up the ladder, and he had someone making sure that he looked good to those new friends. This guy wasn't just aiming for Frank's job or Jared's; he was aiming much higher than that. It was time to call Jared.

Well, not exactly. It was still a little early for that. Frank helped gather all the notes , samples and photos the others had collected, and made sure Dan had copies of everything. They'd gotten just about all they could from the bus and the other evidence, what was left of it anyway, and also documented all the changes that had been made to cover up what had happened. Justin and Leigh were questioning why the DHS was going to so much trouble to destroy the real evidence and plant fake stuff, and Karen laughed. It wasn't entirely a bad thing that Stevens was trying to cover this up. It wasn't like they'd be able to tell anyone that some Elder God had caused the whole thing anyway. Justin looked at her like she had just sprouted a set of horns, but Frank agreed. Stevens wasn't doing anything that the team wouldn't have had to do eventually themselves. In fact, it made him wonder just which side Stevens was really on. About 7am, Frank called Jared. Jared sounded a little groggy, and a second later Frank could hear his alarm clock going off in the background. Frank told Jared that he wanted to get together to chat, since they hadn't seen each other in a while. “Ya know, I was just thinking the same thing,” Jared said. Frank suggested a Detroit diner where the two had gone before, and Jared agreed to meet him there in an hour.

When Frank got off the phone, he asked who wanted to be on 'spook detail.' Angie was the first to jump at the chance. Frank was curious if someone was keeping tabs on Jared, and anticipated that they wouldn't be staying at the diner for long. Everyone else was more than happy to mess with anyone that might be tailing Jared, and they headed back to Detroit to pick up a couple more vehicles and set up an interference pattern around the diner. Frank got to the diner first, and got a quiet table in a corner. When Jared came in, Frank noticed that he was walking without the cane now, though his stride was still slightly off. The two talked sports. Frank told Jared about how his residency was going. And Jared told Frank about how he was still dealing with Kat's death. How every holiday something happened that he wanted to tell Kat about, and how he'd stop and realize that he couldn't, and how he thought that would have ended after a year. The conversation was generally 'guy stuff,' if a little more on the 'touchy-feely' side than one would have expected. Finally, Jared got up and told Frank he was going to hit the restroom on his way out. He patted Frank on the shoulder as he went by, and slipped Frank a note. He went into the restroom, and a minute or two later headed out the door. Frank checked the note as he dug through his wallet to leave a tip. It was simply an address, which Frank recognized as being in a more run-down section of town.

Since the whole point of the others waiting around outside the diner was to spot and intercept anybody tailing Jared, Karen opted to drive and let Justin look for tails. She would have had no idea what to look for. They were all wearing their com units, and they went on alert when the first person saw Jared push through the diner's door. Everyone but Karen spotted the first guy. He was an older white man; and even though he was in a car, he had an edge of 'cop' about him that the others all noticed—it made him stand out like wearing polished black dress shoes with jeans and a t-shirt. It wasn't that he was doing that bad a job. He was actually quite good. But the Envoys were all tightly focused on spotting anyone who threatened the safety of their friend. Justin pointed him out to Karen. She wouldn't have picked the car out from any others on the street that morning by herself. But once she knew which one it was, she had no problem messing with him and getting him separated from Jared's car. He was hanging back a little to keep from being spotted by Jared, so Karen got between him and Jared and pretended that she was just another “woman driver” who wasn't quite sure where she needed to turn. When he finally got frustrated enough by her slowing down at every corner and decided to pass her, she sped up and blocked his view while Jared turned a corner. When he got far enough ahead of her to realize he'd lost Jared, he tried to turn at the next corner and Karen cut him off, turning past him from the wrong lane. A couple more blocks of this and he finally gave up, speeding away angrily; and Karen and Justin drove away grinning.

The second guy was a little harder to spot. He looked like any other black kid hanging around the street on his bike. He was younger, and the baggy pants and hoodie would have allowed him to blend right in if Angie hadn't been looking for even the slightest 'tell.' It was only one little gesture that gave away the fact that he was trying to keep an eye on Jared. Leigh was riding with Angie, and asked her to get ahead of him and pull over. Then Leigh got out and stopped him to ask for directions. It was perfect. Leigh was obviously a lost foreigner, and though he hid it pretty well, it was easy for the women to see the guy's growing frustration as Jared got further and further away. Finally, Angie signaled Leigh that Jared was gone, and Leigh let the kid 'get away.' He rode off like a bat out of hell, but it was too late. Frank had been listening in as the two teams worked over the tails, and he called Jared to let him know what was happening. He didn't sound surprised, and the two managed to meet up at a non-descript office building in a ragged part of town without being followed. From the hallway, Jared's office looked like every other one in the building. When he opened the door, he signaled Frank to wait quietly just outside it while he went in and swept it for bugs.

He motioned Frank in when he was sure the room was clean. His usual office was bugged, he told Frank, still talking in a low voice as if he was used to being watched. Sometimes, he wondered if his underwear was bugged, too, he said. But it was clean when he'd put it on that morning, he laughed. But the laugh was forced, and Jared was obviously tense. “Something sinister is going on,” he told Frank. And he thought it might have something to do with why Kat died, he continued. If it weren't for that, he would just walk away. Jared paused. “They brought in some guy from DC,” he told Frank. Frank told him he knew that, that there was a cover-up going on with the bus-burning case, at the very least. “It's the same kind of stuff Kat used to work on, isn't it? Jared asked. Frank nodded. Jared knew as much as he needed and wanted to know, and he knew better than to ask for anything more. Frank certainly wasn't going to offer it freely. Jared told Frank that he was trying to hang on so that when the wave went through there would be someone left behind who knew what was going on. Anyone showing any self-confidence and initiative was being shunted off into a useless corner. Frank asked if Jared knew that Virginia Collins was in town. He hadn't known. The look on his face told Frank that before he said so. “The new guy, Stevens, doesn't play well with the locals,” Frank said. One corner of Jared's mouth turned up in a wry half-smile. “No, he doesn't,” Jared replied. “He knows he's bulletproof. I'm not sure who or how he's being protected. Maybe Cheney?” Frank wasn't sure either, but he'd also suspected it might go that high or higher. “I was told to get rid of you because you were a 'liability',” Jared told Frank. “I put you on leave to protect you.” Frank nodded. He'd known that from the beginning. Then he smiled. “I'm used to getting the lousy jobs anyway, if the shit hits the fan,” he told Jared. “I feel like I can't trust anyone anymore,” Jared said. It was Frank's turn to smile wryly. It was a lesson Frank had learned a long time ago. “I have my license now, if you ever need to talk about it,” he told Jared. Jared grinned. The two shook hands, and left the building separately, knowing that they probably wouldn't be able to meet there again. In fact, Jared was sure that he'd have new tails before the end of the day. It was something he'd become accustomed to.

JUSTIN’S WAR JOURNAL
Entry 65 [>>>transcribed from digital audio]

>>>Friday October 13th; it’s after 10pm. Karen and me are headed home to bed while the rest of the crew heads up to Port Huron. Frank wants to talk with Sheriff Dan about a way to make Agent McKenzie sweat. Frank was saying that Homeland Security has to prove a couple of things before they can take over a crime scene but most people, even in law enforcement, don’t know all the facts. Considering how heavy handed McKenzie was in taking control of the crime scene, I’m thinking Frank may find an ally in Sheriff Dan. When will people learn? Pissing off the local Sheriff is a very bad idea.

I want to be there to back up our friends but at the same time, I feel like I could really use the sleep. I feel exhausted from keeping a lid on myself the whole time we were walking around the flea market. It’s like I’ve had my jaw clenched all day and it spread down through my whole friggin’ body. I feel like one big knot and I can’t make up my mind if I want to yell, cry or fight. Maybe all three at the same time? What I really want is for Karen to hold me in her arms and tell me I’m not a bad person. ‘Cause that’s how I feel. Like I should have spoken up, or at least walked away from those racist idiots. I wanted to cram their pamphlets their throats. But at the same time, this is America and they have the right to talk their closed minded idiot bullshit. Goddammit, I fought for their right to spew their crap. Freedom of speech is one of the things this country was built on. I gotta the game face on, keep soldiering to the goal. Gotta remember we’re not looking to ferret out every racist idiot in the Detroit area. We’re just looking for the one group that put themselves in the service of something from the Dark that wants to burn up little kids. We’re fighting the monsters, not the idiots. ‘Course, if I get to smack some racist idiots’ heads together along the way, so much the better. Oh, god… those kids. Oh god…

>>>No rest for the weary I guess. Well, at least no more than a couple hours. Karen talked me down some and the massage helped a LOT. She practically needed a hammer to get some of the knots out of my back muscles. She said it was like my whole upper body was a clenched jaw. I almost laughed myself sick and then we finally got to sleep.

Frank called and woke us up about quarter to one. It’s Saturday morning now. We’re on our way up to Port Huron. Sheriff Dan got his crime scene back and brought Frank in as some kind of “expert consultant.” Frank got authorization to bring in the rest of the crew since we’ve got some expertise that can be helpful. Frank wants me to check the bus over and make sure it’s the same one they was before. I’ve got the books that tell where all the VIN numbers are located on that make and their suppliers. Karen and Leigh are going to grid the bus like an archeology dig I guess. And mainly, we’re all going to get a chance to check the bus over with a fine tooth comb to look for anything that only somebody like us, who know about the Unknown, would notice. More later.

>>>Well, it’s about 5am and things are looking interesting. We’re doing breakfast after a long night checking over the bus. Looks like Agent McKenzie has been a bad little fed. His people have been manufacturing and planting evidence on the bus. That’s why Frank wanted us to go over it so close. And if Frank and the local crime scene techs didn’t have their own files, nobody would have known. Um, I guess I need to fill in some blanks.

Frank and the rest of the crew found Sheriff Dan and most of his boys and girls in the local “cop bar” hangout up in Port Huron. They sat and talked for a while and Frank let Dan know how he might go about getting his crime lab back from the pushy feds. Filed for some kind of Jurisdictional Hearing with a judge in Detroit. Can’t remember her name right now, but she doesn’t pull her punches when she thinks the suits and shades are getting out of hand. Sheriff Dan called and pleaded his case. She told him to start driving for her place and she’d have the paperwork ready to put in his hand soon as he got there. She was as good as her word too. I wonder if it’s okay to send flowers to a judge. Does FTD have a “Thanks for being a real Judge and not just a friggin’ tool” bouquet? Hah! If they don’t, maybe they should. Yeah, I’m feeling a bit punchy.

Anyway, Dan asked if Frank and them wanted to be there when he took back his crime lab. ‘Course Frank said yes. They said that the lady agent in charge of the night shift, Agent Virginia something or other, was about fit to be tied when they shoved those papers under her nose. Sheriff Dan’s people moved right in and made everybody stop what they were doing and just get the heck out of the building, right there and then. Frank thinks Dan might only have control of the sight for a day, maybe two, before McKenzie figures out a way to take it back again. That’s why everybody’s working double time on the overtime.

Frank and Angie started spotting stuff that wasn’t there before as soon as they started going over the bus again. It’s mostly little stuff that could maybe have been missed the first time through. But Frank and Angie had their own pictures and there’s been some changes made.

One- The world “Transformation” isn’t painted on the side of the bus anymore. Just black spray paint over the school name. Even the alternate light source thingy they used to find it before doesn’t show anything. But it also doesn’t look like fresh paint.

Two- There’s graffiti scribbled inside the bus in different places. Lots of different symbols that are pretty small and not all that easy to spot right off the bat. Definitely racist stuff. Karen and Leigh called them pseudo-religious symbols that different white supremacist groups have used. None of the stuff is obviously Odinist. More like Aryan church and stuff like that.

Three- Tony said there’s now evidence that they used an accelerant; liquid oxygen. Angie verified what Tony found but she said that was definitely not there before. No way, no how. And there are traces of burn spread and stuff now where there wasn’t before.

Four- The feds’ investigators seem to have “turned up” a bunch of scraps of scorched paper in several places on the bus. Definitely weren’t there before. The scraps were “analyzed” and what do you know, they’re the remains of racist, white supremacist propaganda pamphlets.

Frank called me and Karen in as soon as it was obvious the feds had been making up their own evidence. The bus did turn out to be the same one as far as I could tell. I found all the VIN numbers, right where they were supposed to be. Everything put all together sure looks like McKenzie’s people were planning on aiming this crime at some particular group.

Frank started doing some digging into the background of that Agent McKenzie. He’s a young agent who just got into DHS not too long ago and he’s been practically breaking land speed records on his way to the top. He’s got several real good cases under his belt and he’s climbing the ranks fast. But Frank took a little closer look at his case files. At least what’s more or less public record. He says that he sees the “fingerprints” of a lot of other agents and techs all over McKenzie’s cases. Looks like what this guy is actually good at is taking credit for other peoples’ work. Far as Frank can find out, this guy doesn’t even put together his own teams. Somebody is making sure this little pipsqueak looks real good and climbs the ranks quick like.

After we’d had time to talk over breakfast, Frank decided to give his old friend Jerrod a call. Because they’re buddies and just want to hang out and talk over breakfast. Yeah, that’s the ticket. At least as far as anybody’s going to hear over Jerrod’s phone that’s why they’re getting together. Jerrod didn’t even seem sure about the security of his own office last time him and Frank talked and you can betcha Frank’s going to err on the side of security, big time. The rest of us are going to split up into “free safety” teams to keep an eye out for tails. More later.

>>>It’s after seven in the morning. Frank and Jerrod had their “official” meeting. Just sat and talked about things. Things that didn’t involve federal security or anybody trying to undermine our government, or anything like that. Just two buddies talking over breakfast. Just exactly what Frank and Jerrod wanted whoever was watching to see.

And there were people watching. Jerrod may not have known it but he had two tails following him. To tell the truth, if we hadn’t been specifically looking for them, we probably wouldn’t have spotted these guys. They were good. The first one was an older white guy in a pickup. The guy and his vehicle blended in pretty good, but not quite good enough. The second looked like one of the local black kids. Unless DHS is hiring real young, this guy had to be older than he looked. He was on a bicycle and he had the whole “urban youth” uniform going on; baggy pants half way down his ass, oversized Pistons jersey, ball cap on at a screwy angle. Looked just like all the rest of the idiots today that don’t know how to dress themselves. I couldn’t say exactly what it was that gave him away, but he was definitely NOT a for real local kid.

Frank gave us a heads up as they were leaving the diner. As he was getting up to leave, Jerrod passed him a note to meet at another location. We told Frank about the tails and he asked if maybe we could try and divert them. Maybe give Jerrod a little head start to get away from them? I think we did a pretty good job. Leigh and Tony pulled up next to the kid on the bike and Leigh laid it on thick. She played the “lost hot tourist chick” to the hilt. The guy may have had government training but if he turned his back on a hot chick like that, leaning way out of the car window like that, his cover would have been blown. Never underestimate the power of cleavage. Last we saw of him, that kid was pedaling like crazy in the same direction Jerrod drove off. And I could just about swear he was talking into his shirt cuff.

Karen and me, and Angie and Aiden took care of the guy in the pickup. Wasn’t hard to get into position and then almost have an accident right in front of the guy. We cut him off in the middle of a block where he could just swing around us and then laid on the horns and yelled at each other for a couple minutes. By the time he got around us, I figure Jerrod was long gone. We should hear back from Frank pretty soon. More later.

>>>Jerrod and Frank had their private meeting. Frank said they ended up at a building in some anonymous part of town that nobody would have looked at twice, and Jerrod “just happened” to have the key. Yeah; safe house. Frank mentioned that Jerrod wasn’t wearing the same coat he’d worn to breakfast so it looks like somebody is definitely keeping close tabs on our boy and he knows about it. They also swept for bugs before they got down to some real talking.

Jerrod told Frank that he is sure he’s being watched and bugged. He said that it’s looking like more than just politics. Thinks maybe somebody might be gunning for his job. All his best people, Frank mainly, have been moved. Jerrod said he’d been told to fire Frank, in no uncertain terms, but he put him on leave before they could push that through; which is pretty much what Frank and the rest of us figured. There’s some possibility that things might change after the elections come November.

Jerrod confirmed that McKenzie definitely has a “mentor” somewhere who is making sure he looks good. The guy gets plum cases, somebody puts together just the right people to get the job done and then McKenzie steps in at the end and claims all the credit. And not just saying that he’s got good people working under him kinda credit. He’s actually claiming other peoples’ work as his own.

Jerrod said somebody is really messing with Homeland Security. He said that it seems like people are getting promoted into useless desk job positions as soon as they show any real competence in their job. And then they bring in a bunch of green puppies to work the field jobs. Jerrod also wasn’t real happy to hear about Agent Victoria being at the crime lab. Turns out she’s actually known as one hell of a good crime scene technician and bringing her in from Washington should have needed his approval. They didn’t just go over his head, they bypassed him completely. He said the reason Agent Victoria was so peeved about being kicked out of the crime lab was probably because she takes some real pride in her job. Wonder if McKenzie brought her in to legitimize his bullshit evidence. Name recognition could carry a lot of weight I guess.

So, we’ve got a little nebbish manufacturing the solution to his cases. Wonder how much of his record are “fixed” cases. Pisses me off. Like we don’t have enough problems dealing with the Unknown, getting down in the muck with the white supremacists to investigate this case, and now we gotta deal with a crooked fed. Well I hope the little twink ends up getting nailed. Right now, I want to get a couple things done and then get some sleep before tomorrow. I want to look my best when I go to meet Tom and his buddies. As if I didn’t feel dirty enough as it is, I gotta go to this goddam half-ass nazi wannabe meeting on a Sunday. Just great. Wonder if I can confess ahead of time. Is there such a thing as pre-emptive confession? Either way, I’m talking to Uncle Jerzy before I go in there. More later.

As soon as Leigh got up, she tried calling Reg in a panic. He was usually up by this hour. The call went straight to voice mail, and it wasn't until Leigh had left her message and was hanging up that she remembered that California was 3 hours behind Michigan. It was only about 1:45am there right now. She shuddered. She could almost still smell burning flesh, and she checked every room to make sure she was just imagining it. That dream was far too real for her. She took a shower, and used every 'product' she had in the cabinet. When she was done, she sent Reg an email. She needed to make sure he was alright. But short of getting the next flight to 'Frisco, there was nothing more she could do beyond waiting for Reg to call or write back. She drifted around the condo until she ended up in the kitchen. She was frustrated that there was nothing she could do to burn off her nervous energy at 4:30 on a Friday morning, so she started getting out the sauerkraut fixings she'd bought a few days before. She'd been planning on making it that coming weekend, but pounding the cabbage would give her something to do at least until it was late enough to call someone else.

Frank woke to the sound of Terry showering. When she came into the bedroom and saw he was awake, she asked how he was. He'd been mumbling all night long, she told him, and she'd eventually gone to sleep out on the couch. That was probably safer for her, Frank said with the hint of a smile, in case he'd spontaneously combusted. Terry didn't find that terribly funny, and she went over to check his temperature. She put the back of her hand against his forehead. He didn't feel feverish, but both his pajamas and the sheets were drenched in sweat. Frank assured her that he was fine, and she continued to get ready for work. She left about 7am, and a little while later Frank's phone rang. It was Leigh. She just needed to talk, she told him. She'd had a bad dream.... Frank interrupted, asking where they needed to go to check it out. But it wasn't like the dreams he had, she explained. They'd have to go to Denmark to check some of it out, and it wasn't that pressing. But she wondered if it would be OK for her to come over and talk. Frank didn't have anything else planned for that morning anyway, so.....

When Leigh hung up, she checked her email one last time. Finally! There was an email from Reg! He'd gotten to San Francisco fine, and gone to see Claire first. Then he went to see the girls, and ended up spending the evening with them and their foster family. By the time he got to his hotel room, it was too late to call. At least he was OK! She sent a quick response to let him know that she'd gotten his email, and asked him to say hi to the girls for her. Then she went to take another quick shower before heading over to see Frank. When she got to Terry's place, Frank noticed right away that Leigh seemed more squeaky clean than usual. There was a faint aroma of herbs about her that he'd never noticed before. He didn't comment on it, but when she described her dream to him, he understood why. She must have taken at least a couple showers that morning. When Leigh had said all she really wanted to about the dream, Frank asked her about the other men in it besides Reg. When she mentioned that Aiden was one of them, Frank called the hospital to check on him. He'd been scheduled to start back on his rotation that morning. The receptionist checked, and Aiden had checked in that morning. But he was with a patient at the moment and couldn't come to the phone. Frank thanked her and said he didn't need to leave a message. He'd just wanted to make sure Aiden had gotten there alright after his 'long weekend.'

Then he and Leigh started talking about gun shows. Justin had heard about one at Birch Run that weekend, but she wondered if there might be one closer to home. The first place that came to Frank's mind was the Gibraltar Trade Center. It seemed like they had a gun show at least once a month out there. He checked online and there was one starting at the Mt. Clemens center that day about 10am and running all weekend. Leigh called Justin, who'd just gotten in from his run, and the three agreed to meet for breakfast at the diner before heading out there, to discuss their 'plan of attack' for the show. Frank had realized as he was checking the Trade Center website that there might be other people there who could give him an outsider's view of the people that frequent gun shows. There was a large Chaldean population in the suburbs, and they were well known as merchants. He had no doubt that there would be a number of them at the Trade Center. He could talk to them while Justin and Leigh went in and talked to people in the gun show, and maybe get some information that the gun show vendors would be less than forthcoming with. Justin called the shop to let Jerry know he wouldn't be in, then let Karen know that he was going to the gun show and would be getting a haircut on the way. He didn't want her to freak out when she saw him that evening looking like he did in pictures from when he'd just gotten out of the Army. He had decided to make himself look like the fresh-faced young vet again, thinking that it might make some of the gun show vendors a little more open with him. If he was going to go in there and play 'naive and not-sure-if-he-should-be-angry', he ought to look the part. He dressed it too, with his well-worn combat boots and old field jacket.

Over breakfast, Frank told them that he was going to ask around if any of the Arabic population had heard anything about groups targeting minorities. He was going to be open about who he was, and let them know that he was trying to be proactive in preventing anything from happening. Leigh was going to be the 'perfect Aryan mate,' and see if she could charm information out of the 'mouth-breathers' she was pretty sure would be falling over their tables to talk to her. She'd dressed the part as well, with her hair in long braids, and wearing a Mundan, Germany, soccer team jersey over a black turtleneck sweater, a German army surplus jacket over that, and carrying an army surplus messenger bag. She even practiced her German accent on the two men, who agreed that even if she knew it wasn't perfect, no one at that show would even notice. The three left the diner just before 10am, and each drove separately out to Mt. Clemens.

Tony had checked his voice mail as soon as the charter plane landed in LA on Thursday afternoon. He'd had the plane take Reg to San Francisco first, and by the time he got to LA, CDI had decided they didn't need him in LA anymore. Apparently the building he'd been sent to consult on had fallen on its own. So...he told the pilot meet him back at the airport in the morning, and they got scheduled for an early takeoff for Detroit. He was landing at City Airport at about the same time that Karen was starting her morning class and Justin, Leigh and Frank were heading out to the gun show. He took a cab home, and on the way he thought about who would be the best person to call to find out what was shakin'. Like all the others, he'd learned Karen's schedule by now and knew that she didn't answer her phone when she was teaching. Frank and Terry were right out, being cops. He smiled as he handed some cash to the cabbie. He'd call Leigh. Maybe with Reg gone again....

The Trade Center was pretty quiet at that hour on a Friday morning. The real crowds were there on the weekends. Each made sure they weren't parking near the others, and they were 'in character' from the moment they stepped out of their cars. Justin drifted past the entryway to the gun show several times, acting like he wasn't sure if he should be going in or not. Leigh had come in on the opposite side of the building, and asked at a couple booths to find out if the gun show had started yet and where she went to get in. It didn't hurt her cover story that she really didn't know where she was going. She'd never been out to the Trade Center before. It was kind of amazing, like a huge 'open-air mall' inside a building. There were well-organized aisles through the place, and booths with all kinds of stuff for sale, Oriental rugs next to juicers next to used books. She made her way to the gun show entry booth and paid her fee to a somewhat disinterested young man, who handed her a brochure with an almost useless map before going back to playing his hand-held video game. She was just about to start wandering up the first aisle when her cell rang. It was Tony. She stepped away from the booths and told him that she, Frank and Justin were out at the Mt. Clemens Gibraltar Trade Center gun show. Tony vaguely remembered her and Justin talking about that the other night, about finding out more about groups who might have anything to do with the wackos who set the bus on fire. He asked if she could pick up some ammo for him and started to give her a list, then told her to forget it and he'd see her later. Leigh went back to the first booth at the end of the aisle.

When Tony got off the phone with Leigh, he made a couple other calls. He knew a few people in the construction industry who might know a few things. But nobody had heard of anything going on lately. Oh, they'd heard about the bus burning, and there had been a little 'chatter' about that. But they hadn't heard about any new white supremacist groups in Detroit. Tony decided to go gather a little information out at the gun show himself. He shaved his head, and put on a white t-shirt, jeans, and his black leather jacket. He didn't have a ton of tats like some of the skin-head weirdos he'd seen, but this would do fine. He headed out to Mt. Clemens and went straight in to wander around the show. He figured he'd see the others eventually. And he did. He spotted Leigh at a booth, but he'd never seen her like that before. She was as hot as ever, but now she wasn't trying to cover it up under some dowdy dress. She was trying to charm the pants off the guy she was talking to. And it seemed to be working. Tony made his way over.

It had been working quite well for Leigh, though she'd only made it to 8 booths so far. Every guy she'd spoken to wanted her to have his babies, though they didn't say it in quite that way, and she could easily have wormed her way into any of their groups. Her story, or so she told them all, was that she'd come to the States to attend college. But after she got here, she'd found that the scholarship she thought she had was given to someone else because she 'didn't fit the profile' for their diversity requirements. They were all very sympathetic. She was told more than once that they didn't often see 'quality women' like her around there. They all wanted to buy her lunch, and more than one put his arm around her and let it drift down her back. She stopped each one before he got very far, letting him know that she didn't take herself lightly and that any man would have to work hard to deserve her interest. That only seemed to make them all the more interested in her. Tony tried to get closer to her, and that made the guys in the booths hover that much closer to Leigh and try to give Tony the brush-off. It seemed obvious to them that this punk was trying to horn in on the babe they'd 'culled from the herd.' Leigh managed to maneuver toward one of the 'non-scary' booths, and Tony followed her.

“Ya need a couple tats,” he told her when she let him get close enough. She'd seen a few temporary ones at a couple of the booths, but she wasn't ready to go that far for a role she didn't plan to stay in for long. She knew Tony had one on his left bicep, probably from his Army days since it was something about “who cut the blue wire?!” She explained that she thought she might have better luck getting the info she wanted if he wasn't hanging around. The guys in the booths seemed to get a little too possessive when he was there. So Tony drifted away, and Leigh continued to look around the booths, talking more to the guys who had Odinist lit displayed or who seemed more anti-Christianity. In those booths, she would play up how she found it overwhelming that American “Free Speech” allowed them to sell books openly that weren't even available “at home.” Tony made a point of following a couple booths behind her, to see if he could catch any of the guys with their guard down after she'd flirted with them. They were all more than willing to make comments about her and what they'd like to do with her, but that was all. Tony obviously didn't have the smell of fresh meat to them. He spewed a few racial epithets, stuff about how the Pope was organizing the Jews, and they pushed lit at him. A few even gave him phone numbers with a time and place scribbled on the back. But Tony's collection of numbers didn't even come close to the phone-book's worth of numbers Leigh was collecting. Most of hers were given for personal reasons, though.

Frank was spending most of his time in the main portion of the Center. This was a perfect opportunity to practice his Arabic, and it seemed to please the people he spoke with that he knew their language. What made him even more welcomed was the fact that he didn't treat them like most American shoppers did. Frank actually knew the proper way of haggling, giving the appropriate response to their 'calls', commenting on the quality of their wares. He understood how to play their game with them. This made them more open to answering his questions when he finally asked them. And it also garnered him a few friendly cups of tea and some fruit and baklava, as they chatted about his time in the Middle East. He asked them if they'd been having any trouble with any of the 'gun nuts,' and was told that there was a sort of forced neutrality in the Trade Center. They tried to stay below the radar of the people that frequented the guns shows, and those people tended to ignore them. And with an election coming, that helped keep their attention directed elsewhere. Frank asked who they might expect the trouble to come from, if there was any. They asked if he was expecting any and if they should be worried. He assured them that he was only trying to stay ahead of these people to stop trouble before it could be started. In the end, he got a variety of answers; but a few dozen names seemed to come up repeatedly, groups with nice Aryan-sounding names or with “militia” in the name. And Frank had also managed to make a few new friends in the local Arabic community.

When he'd spoken with everyone outside the gun show, Frank went inside, wondering if he might come across any of his conspiracy theory contacts. But even if he didn't, the show could be entertaining. He spotted the other three right away, Leigh charming the gun nuts like a Pied Piper, Justin looking all fresh-faced and innocent, and Tony—who he hadn't expected to see—looking rather menacing as he trailed a few booths behind Leigh. In fact, Frank could see the surprise on Justin's face when he bumped into Tony in one of the booths, though he had to admit that Justin did a good job of disguising it so that he was probably the only one that did notice. As Justin was moving around the booths, he would pick up things and look them over, then set them down. It was obvious that he knew what he was looking at when he picked up guns or other hardware. It appeared just as obvious that he wasn't sure what to do with the brochures and books he looked at. He would leaf through them, then set them down, then come back to them a few moments later and leaf through them again.

One guy in particular took an interest in Justin. As he watched Justin leaf through a book for a second time, he struck up a conversation with this kid who looked freshly back from a tour somewhere in the world. He commented on Justin's tattoo, which included his old unit's motto, and showed off his own. It seemed both men had been mechanics, the older one in 'Nam. It was harder than Hell to keep the vehicles running in that fucking jungle, he commented to Justin. And Justin replied with his own invective-filled commentary on the desert, with the sand that got everywhere, even places it shouldn't have been able to, and the ever-present smell of goat shit in the air. He introduced himself to the older man, who told Justin his name was Tom Harper. The two chatted for about 15 minutes, and most people would only have heard the most obvious part of a conversation filled with military lingo. About how people didn't appreciate what armed servicemen did, and how not even their own government did enough for them. The conversation gently wound around to an invitation for Justin to come hang out with Tom and some of his buddies, kind of an informal veterans' support group. Tom never came out and said that it was a WHITE vets only group, but that was certainly the slant that he gave to his comments.

The guy was persuasive. What he said seemed completely reasonable, almost soothing and rather Zen-like when he said it. Justin was almost convinced that this would be a good group of guys to hang out with, until his 'bull shit' radar lit up. Several times during the conversation, Tom brought up the question of what Justin would do if he could live forever. Wouldn't it be great? But it wasn't the basic fantasy of the idea that stuck with Justin. It was the way he asked. He impressed on Justin that a person could have anything he wanted if he was only willing to do what it took to get it. What would Justin be willing to do or give for a chance like that? Was there a line he wouldn't cross, or would he do anything? When Tom said it, Justin couldn't help but smirk. Tom might have gotten the feeling that the smirk meant that Justin didn't have that “line,” but he had no idea that Justin had already considered that sort of question. No one else could possibly know that the only thing that kept him from crossing that line already was Karen. If anything ever happened to her, he'd have no reason to live forever and he'd do anything he could to take as many of the bad things with him as he could when he went down. But Justin hadn't forgotten why they'd come to the show. He was studying this guy while they talked. Tom was wearing a necklace of some sort; Justin could see the chain loop around his neck, but whatever was hanging on it was invisible inside Tom's shirt. In the end, Justin took a few brochures, and Tom slipped him a card with a phone number on it. This wasn't the only number Justin got, but it somehow seemed like the most solid lead he got all day.

When the vendors all realized that Leigh knew what she was doing when she looked at the guns, they were even more impressed with her. Not only was she getting numbers and invitations for lunch, she was getting invited on 'range' dates, too. All of them asked for her number, and she heard innumerable variations on how “the beauty of the white Aryan woman must not perish from the earth.” But she managed to fend them off by insisting on taking their numbers instead, throwing down the 'gauntlet' of how each one “must be a strong Aryan warrior to win this prize.” She only gave out her own number if the lead felt like it might actually be a useful one. She even managed not to choke on all the subtle racist looks and comments she made throughout the day. She saw lots of jewelry for sale, but nothing that looked like what Frank described having seen melted on the bus. And when she left, her messenger bag was stuffed with 'research,' books and pamphlets and brochures with hand-written names and phone numbers that would mostly end up in the recycling bin. She also left with a new shotgun, which had every Aryan eye in the place on her as she walked out. Tony and Justin had their own arm-loads when they left, including Tony's ammo and Justin's 'conversion kits'...”just in case.” Frank left with only a couple dozen names, having spent more time handing out his own card than collecting other people's. The most important names he got were those that overlapped with the ones he got from the Arabic merchants. One group was Der Hain, which roughly translated to The Grove. That one was a little too coincidental considering Leigh's dream. Another was Der Baum, or The Tree.

All four were on their cells as soon as they hit the freeway. They agreed to meet for dinner at the back room at Roma and to bring all the 'literature' they collected. Justin would be bringing Karen and Frank, Terry, and Leigh would call Aiden and Angie to let them know. Leigh and Justin both admitted to feeling a little icky after what they'd had to listen to there, and wanted showers before going back out again; so they all agreed to meet at 7pm. When Karen saw Justin's haircut, she couldn't resist rubbing the stubble and making jokes about being stabbed by it. She told him that he could keep it any way he liked, but she admitted that she kind of liked his hair a little longer than the military flattop he was now sporting. When they all got to the restaurant, it was a little like kids on Halloween comparing their 'loot.' Each of the four described what they'd seen and heard at the show. And after they'd eaten their food, they started pulling stuff out of their bags and passing it around. There was a lot of duplication among the stuff each had collected, and they set aside a couple of the emptied bags to collect the extras for recycling. Justin wondered if they should wear gloves to handle the stuff so it could be fingerprinted later, but Frank pointed out that there might be hundreds of prints, especially if other people had picked them up and thumbed through them and set them back down before one or another of the Envoys finally picked them up. And most of those would either be useless or dead-ends. It wasn't worth the time and effort. And Terry was the only one with easy access to AFIS right now, and it would look a little too suspicious for her to be running tons of prints anyway.

But maybe if they narrowed it down to a few of the more important items, Karen suggested, like the things they'd picked up at booths they all agreed were good leads. It certainly sounded like the guy Justin had talked to, Tom Harper, might be someone they ought to know more about. As they all leaned over the table, sifting through the pile, they began to notice something strange. A number of the items had the same small mark somewhere on the paper, an imprint about the size of a pencil eraser. They sorted all the pieces out that had that mark and studied it, but none of them could make out what it was because it was so badly reproduced and so small. Was it a thunderbolt, or maybe a stylized tree? Either could have a connection to the group they were looking for. The mark was similar in the most vague way to the remains Frank had found on the bus, and they all felt that it could be important. They also noted that the items seemed to have come from booths that one or another of them felt might be a useful lead, including Tom Harper's. Karen looked through the items for the least degraded of the images. She wasn't a computer graphics whiz by any means, but she'd seen programs used at U of M for cleaning up images on ancient manuscripts and scrolls and hoped that she might be able to use something like that to make sense out of this image. It wasn't going to happen overnight, but she'd be making a call to Professor Gagos at the U of M Library on Monday to get started on the project.

JUSTIN’S WAR JOURNAL
Entry 64 [>>>transcribed from digital audio and ---typed]

>>>Um, it’s the morning of Friday, October 13th and we’re going to the Gibraltar Trade Center. No actual gun show til tomorrow and that’s not at the Gibraltar. But there’s a flea market going on there today and guns and memorabilia are the features. So we’re hoping to find some of the white supremacist slash racist types there. Shouldn’t be too hard; some of them advertise. But the group that did this bus burning thing; I don’t think they’re the advertising type.

We had a breakfast meeting to get our heads together. Me and Leigh are going in to try and test the waters in different ways. I guess you’d say we’re trolling for cultists. She’s sure as hell going to catch something, the way she’s dressed. She’s wearing a soccer jersey from some German team. From a part of Germany that’s having all kinds of “we hate you cause you’re not white” underground movement. And her accent can sure pass for German pretty easy, especially when she tries for it. I think with the jersey, the accent and those freaking boots, she’s probably going to come off as every neo-nazi, soccer hoodlum’s wet dream. From what she was saying, she’s going to try and come across with the attitude of the foreign exchange student in the land of free speech, finally able to say what she really thinks.

I hit the barber this morning and had him bring my haircut back to something close to drill sergeant regulation. Khaki t-shirt, blue jeans, well worn black boonies, my O.D. green field jacket with the patched bullet holes and my unit tattoo all add together to pretty much scream that I’m a veteran. Not like there’s a lot of call for tattoos with wrenches otherwise. That’s the angle we’re working with me. Young vet who’s just starting to dip his toe in the water when it comes to the White Power stuff and like that.

Frank is working the other side of the angle. He said he’s going to check with the folks from the Muslim and Arabic communities. It’s an open flea market so there should be a little bit of everybody there. Frank’s going to ask them if they know about any white supremacist type groups in the area that they know of. Good idea. If the bad guys don’t go for me or Leigh as bait, maybe Frank will be able to find something. Just hope this works out one way or the other. More later.

---It’s possible we were TOO successful in our “trawling for racists” field trip. Sorting through all the notes, phone numbers and business cards we collected could have taken a heck of a long time. Okay, Leigh was the one who got most of the notes and phone numbers, me and Tony got mostly business cards. Almost forgot to mention that Tony showed up while we were at the Gibraltar. Same story, different day. He flies out west for a job and they end up not needing him so he has to turn around and fly back. I hope he’s got some kind of base rate that they have to pay whether he does any work or not.

Anyway, Tony called Leigh when he landed here. She gave him a quick rundown on the plan and he said he’d try and help out too, soon as he stopped by the safe house to change his clothes. I gotta admire Tony’s dedication to the cause. Even knowing we were looking for the “skinhead” type of crew, I wasn’t willing to shave my dome. Tony did. And I gotta say, he looked kinda scary. Clean shaved head, half pissed off look on his face, leather jacket, romper stomper boots, the whole nine yards. He could have passed muster with just about any of them I think. Course, he also looks even younger without the hair. And evidently, the white power types aren’t hung up on Aryan blood lines and all that. The smarter guys we talked to didn’t have much trouble picking up on the fact that Tony’s got Italian blood and I’m a Polish/Chek mix. C’mon, a last name like mine in Detroit? What else am I gonna be? But they didn’t care. As long as we were White, and the capital W was implied.

And, again, giving credit where it’s due. Leigh played that bunch of mouth breathers like a friggin’ violin. I wasn’t close enough to hear what she was saying most of the time, but it sure seemed to be doing the trick. From her body language it looked like she had some kind of “you have to prove you’re worthy before you can even kiss my boots” attitude going on. She had most of them tripping over themselves trying to prove what fine upstanding examples of virile Aryan males they were. I think just about every guy in that place wanted to do her and the Aryan dorks wanted to make her their freaking poster girl. Those racist homophobes would completely flip out if they knew her boyfriend was bisexual. Not to mention, Reg can probably kick the crap out of half of those turkeys.

The funny thing is, other than some comments under their breath after Leigh had moved on to another part of the hall, these guys were pretty much ALL being fairly nice guys. No leering, no nazi salutes, no tirade speeches, nothing. They were really on their best behavior. I was half expecting at least some of these guys to be frothing at the mouth and quoting Hitler. But you don’t want to do that kinda thing at first. Nope, cause that kind of thing could scare off any new recruits. So they must keep a lid on it. I guess they leave the lynching ropes and crap at home when they’re out recruiting.

Tony got a decent amount of attention too. Seemed like mostly from the more militant types; the guys dressed the way he was. I never thought about Skinheads in Detroit, but it sure looks like they’re here. Just what Detroit needs; ANOTHER gang that thinks they’re a friggin’ army. Some of the phone numbers Tony got also had addresses and times on them. Meetings I guess. If nothing else, we’ve got a pretty good size pile of addresses and phone numbers of possible “domestic terrorist” types that Frank can keep an eye out for if he gets back into Homeland Security.

I’m almost sad to say that it was me that ended up getting the proposition that I think may lead to pay dirt. We all went in separately of course. Too many people acting maybe a bit too interested might have tipped these guys off. I was sort of following in the wake of “Hurricane Leigh” and she really seemed to have those guys loosened up pretty good. Some of them seemed honestly interested in me. I guess I look like “good solid recruit” material to them. I heard some half way interesting tidbits but nothing that sounded like exactly what we were looking for. At least not until I met Tom.

Dammit, Tom looks like just another regular guy. He’s a Vietnam vet, in his late sixties from the looks. I had my field jacket off and he spotted my unit tattoo under the edge of the t-shirt sleeve. He served in practically the same unit back in his day. The work on his tattoo wasn’t quite as nice and it was real faded with age. Fuck! I should be happy to go out and have a beer with this guy but I think he’s one of the fruit cakes we’re looking for. We stood there and traded war stories for a while; bitching about how hard it was to keep vehicles working in crap conditions and that kind of thing. He didn’t have what I guess you’d call a recruitment speech. We just talked and he eventually brought up the idea that maybe I might like to meet with his group. Sounded like just another Veteran’s support group at first. But there was all kinds of implied stuff and sometimes it wasn’t what he said so much as how he said it and what he left out sometimes. He never came right out and said it but it sure sounded like he was definitely talking about a racist type group.

The clincher was the weird stuff he said right towards the end of our talk. And he worked it in so naturally that somebody who didn’t know what I did would have just thought he was using a figure of speech or something. I mean, he flat out asked me what I would do if I was immortal. Considering all the other stuff we’d been talking about by that time, I just answered truthfully. That I’d have that much more time with my wife and I’d maybe have enough time to set some things right. I mean, it was like I was drinking beers and talking “what ifs” with a buddy back in high school. The last thing he said to me was to think about it. “Think about that. What would you do?” It just didn’t seem like he was using a figure of speech. It really felt like he honestly believed he was offering me the chance to be immortal. Yeah, we’re talking Twilight Zone theme music type weird here.

After we left the Gibraltar, we called and got everybody headed to Roma for dinner so we could bring them up to speed. I think running up a darn big bill and tipping real well is a good investment in the end. The staff didn’t ask questions and got us set up in the back room without a hitch. Yeah, I think we’re definitely going to be sending the whole staff Christmas baskets again this year. We talked some while we ate but didn’t really get down to brass tacks til after the plates had been cleared and we were nursing coffee and canolli. With all that table space, it was real easy to spread the different cards and scraps of paper out to see if we had any connections we didn’t already know about.

There were some duplicates but we expected that. I was wondering if we could get finger prints off the cards but it only took a couple seconds to realize that wasn’t such a swift idea. And the rest of the guys figured it out before I did. For one thing, these cards could have been handled by all kinds of folks since they’d been printed. And the other thing is that there aren’t any fingerprints to compare to. There were no prints from the bus or anything like that. I was thinking too much CSI and not enough Dead Zone. Other than Terry, and hopefully eventually Frank again, we’re not cops. We don’t have access to all those databases and stuff. Terry would need case numbers and clearances to get that kind of thing done and if she tried to slip something in for “personal reason” she could lose her job. So we won’t be “running fingerprints through AFIS” any time soon.

But taking a closer look at the stuff we collected today did turn up something interesting. There’s a little mark on a lot of the cards, usually off in one corner. It looks like an ink stamp; about as big around as a pencil eraser. It’s not real clear. The ink had bled some and it looked like maybe the stamper wasn’t in the best shape. It looks like a tree but not realistic; more symbolic. The tree is inside a circle and it looks like there’s a wavy shape through the middle. Like maybe a yin-yang kind of symbol was mixed in with a tree symbol? Like I said, none of them was real clear. But clear or not, the symbol was definitely on the card Tom gave me. We’re going to do what we can to see if we can track down that symbol. And it looks like I'll be going to a meeting before too long. More later.

JUSTIN’S WAR JOURNAL
Entry 63 [>>>transcribed from digital voice recording and ---typed entry]

>>>Saying so long to Reg and Tony for right now. Reg headed out to take care of his family. The girls need him more than we do right now and he said he can always try to keep in touch and help us with the Fight by internet connections and all that. And maybe while he’s out there he can try to track down his brother-in-law. We told Reg not to worry about us. Keep his family safe. And if he finds that brother-in-law of his, give us a call. Gonna miss Reg. Just got him back and now he’s gone again. But at least we know where he is now.

We’ll miss Tony too, for that matter, but he’ll probably be back quicker than Reg. His job is always bouncing him around all over the place and then leaves him with down time. Tony got a call for a job out West so he’s flying with Reg. May as well, since they’re both going the same way. Phil and Audra are headed back home. They just came up to see Reg. I think they might have thought about going back to Cali with Reg, but Phil said something about not wanting to have to break in another physical rehab therapist again, which is understandable I guess.

We’re headed out to the crime scene right now. No way the Feds are going to let us near the lab and Frank doesn’t want to deal with this new Agent Mac, whatever his name is. Frank rented a nice big black Suburban so we can make a good impression. Besides, none of our vehicles we’ve got with us right now will carry all of us. We kinda thought about picking up a bunch of matching windbreakers and shades so we’d look like the typical Fed team of investigators. But then we thought that’s not such a good idea. We are gonna stop and get coffee though. Leigh and Frank said we should pick up enough for whatever cops are still stuck out there watching the scene. Good idea. More later.

>>>Coffee turned out to be a REAL good idea. County Deputies are still in charge of the crime scene and it sounds like Sheriff Dan is really not happy about the Feds hijacking his case. Sounds like they’re basically using the Sheriff and his guys as their dogs. This Agent Mac must be some kind of a dumbass. NEVER piss off the locals. Anyway, Frank was nice to the Deputies, shared out the coffee Leigh had picked up and asked politely if they’d ask Sheriff Dan if we could look over the crime scene. Sheriff’s response was something along the lines of the Feds not seeing fit to officially take possession of the scene yet and just leaving his boys hanging in the breeze. Long as we don’t remove anything, he said we could walk all over the scene and if the Feds don’t like it, screw ‘em. Me and Angie got the field. Gonna see if we can find any tracks that this drizzly rain didn’t wipe out. More later.

>>>Well, things at the field went kinda weird. We didn’t find any physical evidence but Frank found something. Or it found him. Frank tried to stand in the same spot his view was from in his dream. We thought that might trigger something for him or maybe there was a specific piece of evidence there that nobody had found. Frank said he was trying to get a feel for the place. Boy did he. He said it felt like the hairs on the back of his neck started to rise and fall like the rhythm of waves on the beach. Pretty metaphor for a creepy feeling. He said that he felt like he was going to pass out or something and he was thinking about what was doing this. Well, he didn’t exactly pass out. He seized up solid and fell over like a plank. Leigh said when she got to him Frank was like shaking or quivering. Not like a real medical seizure, more like just twitching in his sleep or something. Don’t ask me, I didn’t see it. By the time we got to him, Leigh had done a Mental Shield and he snapped out of it just like that. Played it off to the Deputies that Frank had just gone too long without sleep and it caught up with him hard.

Aiden took over. Deputies tried to get Frank to sit in the back of a patrol car but he wasn’t going for that. Said he was really okay and wanted to sit in our vehicle so we could head back to town. I think he also didn’t want them knowing his skin was hot to the touch. Once Angie shoved Frank out of the driver seat we got him in the back and Aiden started taking his vitals. Frank said the real reason he didn’t want to sit in the cop car was because he didn’t want the Deputies seeing the thermometer. Good thing too. The first reading was like a hundred and two and that’s a major fever in anybody’s book. The cops would have called an ambulance. But Frank said he didn’t feel all that bad. His skin was kinda pinkish but that’s about it. Really weird thing is when Aiden stuck the temperature strip on Frank’s forehead. It went straight across to red in a couple seconds. Frank’s outsides were hotter than his insides. But then his temp dropped back off real quick and was back to normal in like ten minutes.

Frank said that when he passed out it triggered one of his weird dreams. The dream was somewhere cold and snowy. He was watching from up on a hill as a circle of barbarian looking people, you know, wearing furs and stuff, were dancing in a circle around a big bonfire during a snowstorm. One guy got up on a platform or something near the fire and then jumped in. Frank said this guy didn’t scream or flail around or anything like that. Said he stood up in the flames, on fire, and in like a victory pose or something. Like the guy was happy he was in the fire or maybe showing off? Hey, anything somebody does inside a bonfire that doesn’t involve screaming and rolling on the ground is kinda freaky if you ask me. Frank didn’t see anything else because that’s when Leigh brought him out of it. She started apologizing but Frank told her it was okay. Considering the thing in the field was probably trying turn Frank into his own little bonfire, no prob.

Leigh said that there’s been fire worshipping going on for lots of years in lots of northern regions where they get lots of snow. Some cults, some just part of another religion. Karen said that she remembered hearing something about a real, real obscure legend once. Something about a cult that believed that they could burn themselves up in a fire and then come back as beings made of smoke and fire. So, it looks like we’re maybe going to have to deal with people who are on fire and okay with that. Great. So anyway, on the drive back to Port Huron, we stopped and picked up a couple cases of boat fire extinguishers. Got the A, B, C kind so they should handle most fires as long as they’re just using regular fuel. If it’s some kind of magic fire, who knows?

We’re getting everything repacked to head back to Detroit. Frank explained, after he woke up from his little nap on the drive back from the crime scene, that he didn’t want to go up against Agent Mac just yet because it wouldn’t be a good idea right now. Said he’ll only get one shot at Agent Mac and he’ll have to make sure it counts. And until we find out which way the elections go in November and Jarrod figures out if he can give Frank back his job, Frank has no standing in D.H.S. We’ve got all the info from the crime scene investigation that we’re ever likely to, so we may as well try and pursue the other end of the story. The bus was stolen in East Pointe, so maybe the cult is in that area and we can track them down. More later.

>>>Frank had a good idea and passed it on to me to look into. Wanted to know if I could maybe get hold of some of that gel that stuntmen use for fire walk stunts. So I gave CJ a call and she gave me the number for a stunt coordinator. I gave him a call and he gave me the number of a supply house where I could buy the gel and some directions. How much gel for how much body area and all that. I’m also going to drop by my race track supply store and get some Nomex long johns for everybody. Not quite as good as the fitted suits the drivers have but fireproof underwear is better than nothing.

Angie drove Frank to Terry’s place and put him to bed. Yeah, and I’m sure he stayed there. Phooey. Probably online looking things up right now. Karen and Leigh are on the computers. Looking up the reference material Leigh used in some of her research papers a while back. She’s pretty sure some of them had references to the fire cults. And I’m on the road doing our shopping. Glad I got something to do. More later.

>>>We’re on the road again. Me, Karen and Leigh are headed up to Ann Arbor. They did several hours of research online for Leigh’s reference material. Problem is all the online references are gone. Some kind of connection with Ghost in the Machine? If this fire cult thing is connected to the doomsday cults somehow, then that’s a good chance. So, since we can’t find it online we’re going after the hard copies. They found most of the books in the reference catalog up at U of M so that’s where we’re headed. With traffic and looking for parking, we’ll get to the library by maybe five I think. More later.

>>>Okay, screwy again. Somebody ripped off the books we were looking for from the college. They’re reference only so they’re not supposed to leave the library. But they’re not there. As far as their records are concerned, they ARE there. But if Karen, Leigh, the head librarian and three aides can’t find them, then they are for sure gone. Yeah, I helped ‘em look too but I don’t know how much help I was. And we can’t find out who checked the books out last cause they don’t keep those records anymore. Something about the government trying to access their records to find out who’s read what books. I guess I can see where that’s a bit over the bounds and they don’t want to help a “Fahrenheit 451” slash Big Brother scenario happen. And I personally don’t think what somebody reads necessarily shows who they are. I mean, c’mon, I had to read “Mein Kampf” back in college but I don’t wanna be a Nazi or anything.

So on the drive back home we started thinking about some other ways of coming at this thing. Since this Odinist thing seems to be appealing to the white supremacist types, we thought maybe we should take a closer look at them. They’ve got their hate sites all over the internet so that should be easy to check. I also thought maybe we should find a copy of that “Turner Diaries” novel that all the white supremacist slash racial purity types are supposed to all think is their friggin bible. Tried finding it in the bookstore but they didn’t have it. And then it hit me. I’ve seen that book before. Behind the table of some guy at some gun show. He had a small box of them. Yep, brainstorm from the Pollock wrench monkey. We need to go to a gun show. Like I said before, the odds are there’s one going on this weekend somewhere within an hour’s drive.

So that’s the plan as far as it goes for right now. We’re headed over to Terry’s. Leigh called Frank. She wants some fake I.D. for the gun show in case somebody thinks to do a background check on her. Getting in with some of these racist idiots might be the way to get the next step in this case. Me and Leigh are going to be the main stalking ponies for this gig. We both look about as white as a person can get. I’ve been to enough of these gun shows that somebody would probably recognize me, so no fake I.D. for me. Heck, I’m white and grew up in Detroit and I’m not pretending like I’m a rap star and I keep going to gun shows. Good chance they’re going to think I’m just too shy to ask for my militia membership card out loud. Long as I don’t actually have to outright lie, I might even pull it off. And Leigh looks like a white supremacist’s idea of the perfect Teutonic goddess or something. Course it helps that she’s from the land of Death Metal bands. They may offer to make her their poster girl before we leave the show. More later.

By the time Frank rejoined the rest of the team at the hotel around 10am that Thursday morning, Oct. 12, Terry, Reg and Tony had left. Reg needed to go to San Francisco to see for himself that his nieces were OK. And he felt sort of obligated to see Claire, too. Since Tony got a call to consult on a job in the LA area anyway, he called and let the air charter company know they'd be carrying an extra passenger and making a quick stop in 'Frisco along the way. Leigh made sure that Reg had enough spare cash in his wallet, then Terry dropped the guys at Tony's place before she went in to work. Frank had agreed with Justin and Karen's suggestion that maybe they should check out the 'crime scene' from the same vantage point where he'd watched it in his dream. There might not be anything there to see, but they should check it out just in case. Rather than all going in different cars, Frank called a rental place and got the team a large black SUV. They weren't going to try disguising themselves as Federal agents, but making an “impression” when they got there might not be a bad idea. He hadn't thought to ask Sheriff Lane if the DHS had taken over security at the site or not.

As they headed south, Leigh suggested they stop at a coffee shop along the way and pick up a 'six-pack' of good, hot coffee. There was more than one way to make an impression on cops, and she thought they should cover every angle. There were still 2 Sheriff Department patrol cars parked across the path plowed into the cornfield; and there were still 4 deputies there, one sitting on the hood of the car with a cup of coffee, though they were different guys than had been there yesterday. As the SUV pulled off on the opposite side of the road and slowed to a stop, all 4 deputies went on 'alert.' They didn't move from their positions, but their body language let the Envoys know that they were being studied carefully. Frank got out and took the coffee from Leigh as the others got out to stretch their legs. He checked for traffic, then, sipping from one of the cups, ambled over to the deputy on the hood, who slipped off to stand in front of the car as Frank approached. He told Frank that the area was a closed crime scene and he'd have to leave. Frank told him he was a little surprised to still see county deputies out there. He'd hoped that the DHS guys had relieved them by now so they'd be the ones freezing their butts off in the cold. Frank introduced himself and handed the deputy the carrier full of styrofoam cups. His name was Parker, and he told Frank that he figured they'd be releasing the scene later that day anyway. It wasn't like there was much going on. He'd seen 3 deer, 27 squirrels, 4 raccoons, and one late-returning 'possum, he joked with Frank; and the only ones he'd been concerned about were the raccoons...because they were wearing masks.

Parker told Frank that no one from DHS had even been out there to look at the site yet, and Frank asked if he could radio the sheriff and check if it was OK for him and a few of his people to go walk around it. Parker motioned for his partner to roll down the window, and handed him a cup of the coffee and asked for the radio mike. A moment later he told Frank that he must have really made a good impression on the sheriff, because the sheriff said that Frank was welcome to walk all over the scene and look at every piece of straw if he wanted to, at least until the DHS guys showed up to take over. Then he went over to the other car to let that team know that Frank and his people had clearance to be there, and to share out the rest of the coffee. Frank went back to the SUV. He wanted Justin and Angie to check out the area for anything they could find—Justin to look for tracks that the cops might have missed, if there was anything left after yesterday's rain, and Angie to see if she could find anything that might have fallen or been blown off the bus that the other investigators might have missed. Aiden went with them and checked the area right under where the bus had been, to see if there were any remains that might have been dislodged when the bus was moved.

It was cold out that morning, the sky a leaden grey, and the wind cut through Frank's jacket like a cold knife down his spine as he stood there watching his fellow Envoys work. Leigh had come over to stand beside Frank, and they both opened themselves to sensing if the creature they'd felt yesterday was still there. Karen stayed at the car, since she didn't feel there was much more she could do and she didn't want to get in the way. She also thought about trying to sense the creature, but subconsciously she must have been blocking her own efforts, because she didn't feel anything but the cold. Both Leigh and Frank realized as they stood there that their skin was crawling. They hadn't noticed it though, until they thought about the creature and felt the hairs on their necks and arms rising and falling. As Frank stood there wondering what the thing was, his vision began to swim like he was 'zoning out.' It was almost as if he were about to nod off to sleep, and he focused his attention on the question of what the creature was, even as he half-wondered if it was the creature's touch that was pushing him over the edge of sleep. All of a sudden Frank went rigid and dropped over like a felled oak, stiff and flat on the ground, and began to seize.

Both Leigh and Karen had seen Frank stiffen, and thought he'd spotted something...until he fell. At the same moment, the two women shouted Frank's name, drawing the attention of the 3 in the field and the 4 cops. Luckily there was no traffic on that remote road on that cold morning, because Karen didn't even look for it before darting across the street. Leigh was already kneeling beside Frank, trying to make sure there was nothing on the ground on which he could hurt himself as he convulsed. She threw out a Mental Shield, hoping that it would protect Frank from whatever caused his seizure. As the others rushed toward him, Leigh and Karen could now tell that it wasn't a seizure like epileptics have; Frank's body was shaking with strong, violent tremors. The moment the Shield went up, the tremors stopped. Frank laid there a second, then opened his eyes to see Leigh and Karen looking down at him worriedly. His muscles felt bruised, like he'd just been beaten up. He was flushed , and the women helped him to his feet as the others got there, amazed at how hot the skin of his hands felt. Parker insisted Frank come over and sit in the back of the patrol car. Frank was insisting that it was just lack of sleep, explaining that he'd been up all night puzzling over the case. When Parker took Frank's arm to lead him over to the car, he noticed the heat rolling off him too, even through the jacket. He told Frank that he really ought to just go home and call it a night. Frank realized he'd bitten his tongue, and he spit a little blood out onto the ground as they walked. Aiden followed the two over to the car and when he took Frank's wrist to check his pulse, he dropped it immediately and grabbed a thermometer and shoved it into Frank's mouth. Still insisting that he was fine, Frank got up and started walking over to the SUV to prove it, pulling the thermometer out and waving off help from the deputies. He felt that they weren't really going to get anything else from studying the scene, he told them, and said they'd be on their way, motioning for the others to join him over at the SUV, too.

What he really wanted was to not shock the deputies when Aiden read the thermometer. Frank knew he felt feverish, but lack of sleep wasn't the thing that caused it. It was the creature, and in the few seconds he'd been out, he'd had a flash of a vision that might set them on the right track for solving this one. The thing was from somewhere in Northern Europe, he told them. When he got to the car, he dutifully put the thermometer back in his mouth. Aiden was already pulling out his stethoscope, and he checked Frank's heart rate while he waited for the thermometer to beep. When it did, he was shocked to see that Frank's temperature was 102. He pulled out one of the instant-read strips and slapped it on Frank's forehead. The band of color shot across the strip until it ran out of space at the far edge. Frank was hotter on the outside than on the inside! Frank started to climb into the driver's seat saying he'd drive them back to Port Huron. Angie pushed him out of the way and said that SHE would drive. There was a 'wolverine' sort of look on her face that dared him to try and stop her. Aiden eased Frank into the back seat where he could keep an eye on him, with Leigh on his other side. Karen and Justin climbed into the front. Aiden checked Frank's temperature again as Angie started the car. It was down to 101 already. Frank told them what he'd seen before Leigh woke him. He'd been standing outside looking down from a hillside. There was a blizzard swirling around him. Below, there were people crowded around a giant bonfire. They were wearing furs, but he couldn't tell any more detail about them. There was one man standing on a platform that overlooked the bonfire. All of a sudden, he jumped in. A second later he stood up in the center of the fire, raising his arms triumphantly. He appeared to be on fire himself, but he didn't behave like he was. Then, Frank woke on the ground.

Leigh apologized for having ended his dream, but everyone agreed that it was better that than having Frank light up like a candle himself. Leigh and Karen began mulling over what Frank had seen in his dream. Leigh knew that there had been instances of fire-worshiping cults throughout the history of the Nordic countries. And that fire was widely accepted as an element of cleansing in those cultures throughout history as well. In fact, she'd done several papers exploring both that idea and the cults that grew out of it. But she couldn't recall ever hearing of a cult leader or god standing in the center of a raging bonfire like Frank had seen. Perhaps it was some secret cult she hadn't heard of. The only thing that Karen could think of was extremely obscure. She'd once heard a story of a story of a story about a cult that claimed they could burn their physical selves and transcend death to become 'creatures of smoke and fire.' There was no talk of wild successes in that department, and she gathered that most of the cultists who tried it just burnt up. And then the cult and the stories just kind of faded away. Karen couldn't even remember if this was a tale she'd heard from a tribal lore-keeper or something she'd heard about at some conference or another. The team discussed the way cults work, and it sounded like this cult that Karen had heard of was a type that had trouble with recruitment. Most don't actively recruit, Frank explained; no advertising or membership drives. They tend to rely on 'like-minded people' finding them due to interest or membership in similar sorts of organizations or activities. But the one Karen knew of must have been even more low key than that.

They'd been driving for about 15 minutes now, and Frank asked Angie to stop at the next gas station she saw so he could get some water. He was feeling parched and knew he needed to rehydrate. Aiden checked his temperature again, and it was down to 99 degrees now. Frank didn't mention it, but he felt a headache coming on, most likely from the stress combined with the lack of sleep. The gas station had liters of water on sale '2 for the price of 1', so Frank got 2 bottles and a small package of aspirin. He popped a couple aspirin into his mouth and washed it down with some water on the way to the car, then finished the first whole bottle of water after getting in. He began to drift off to sleep and he didn't bother trying to fight it or control it this time. As they got closer to Port Huron, Justin asked if anyone minded them stopping at a WalMart or Sam's Club. If people were going to start bursting into flames around them, he thought some fire extinguishers might be useful. Angie pulled up in front of Sam's Club and let Justin out before she parked to wait for him. He came back with 3 cases of 6 small ABC-type extinguishers, one case for each of the team's cars. Leigh had been thinking about Justin's suggestion and thought that some fire-resistant blankets might not be a bad idea too. Especially since the warning on the side of the extinguisher cases said not to spray the extinguishers directly on a human being. With the blankets, they could try to suppress the fire that way first, then spray them if necessary. And since ice was another common theme in Nordic cults, the blankets could keep someone warm if necessary, as well. She wanted to go to Meijer for them, rather than WalMart, though. She didn't really elaborate on why, but they all knew that Leigh had very socialistic ideals and was strongly pro-union, and they all figured that was her reason.

When she got back, Frank was still asleep and Aiden was checking his temperature, respiration and pulse again. He was so deeply asleep, he didn't notice the car stopping and starting, and people coming and going from it. Aiden let them all know that Frank was fine, and they continued on toward the rental place. They couldn't tell from the outside that Frank was having nightmares. He was wandering in a cold, grey wasteland. The ground was crunching under his feet, and he looked down expecting to see crusted snow. What he saw was human remains—arms, hands, legs, feet, skulls.... He looked up and found himself surrounded by the bones, as far as he could see. The smell of charred flesh hung in the air and stung his nose. He was filled with a sense of hopelessness, that all his efforts would never be enough, that it was all too little, too late. He jerked awake when the car was shut off, to hear Aiden saying “I thought he was going to hand that Stevens-guy his ass.” The conversation had started because Justin speculated that they'd be heading back to Detroit now, to work on some other possible angle of the case. Aiden had been surprised that Frank had given up so easily when he'd been turned away from the crime lab earlier. He'd figured that Frank would put up more of a fight. Karen, Leigh and Justin all disagreed. Basically, they all thought that even though he could hang on like a pitbull when he needed to, he only did it when it was necessary and would get results. They all figured that they probably wouldn't have gotten any more information out of the bus or remains, and Frank must have known that too. Fighting Stevens now would only have made them an enemy and not gained them anything useful in return.

“I'm on leave,” Frank told them, still sounding a little groggy. He stretched as much as he could sitting between Aiden and Leigh. He would only be able to fight Stevens once, he explained, so he needed to do it right and for a good reason. Justin suggested that he might also want to stay under the radar a while longer. Karen said that she figured Frank was already on this guy's radar, if he'd taken over when Frank had been pushed out. But at least the rest of them were probably still off the screen. Frank didn't think so. They'd all been instrumental in several of Frank's 'cases,' and they'd all taken the reward money for the 'terrorists' they'd captured. Though Jared was still nominally this guy's boss, he wasn't the one who chose him. Stevens was put there by the same people who'd forced Frank out, the same wing-nuts who had connections to Harrington and seemed to be taking over the government, among other things. He had no doubt that ALL of them had been on this guy's radar since the moment he was picked to take over. Frank went in and turned in the car keys, and they all headed for their cars. As they walked, Frank asked Justin if he could go on-line and find a way to get some of the fire-retardant gel that stunt men use for getting set on fire. Justin said he could do better than that; he called CJ. She was happy to help. Justin didn't go into detail on the phone, but he explained what he was looking for and she said she'd set him up with her favorite stunt coordinator. She gave Justin the guy's name and number, and said she'd call and let him know to expect Justin's call and ask him to give us any help he could. When he was done talking to CJ, he told the others he'd also get the team some of the Nomex fire-resistant underwear that race car drivers wear.

When Justin got off the phone after leaving a message for the stunt coordinator, Karen and Leigh were already discussing how to tackle the research they wanted to do; and Frank agreed that going home and getting some sleep was the best thing he could do for now. Aiden was busy giving Frank his usual 'doctorly' advice, then began to wonder if he should drive Frank home himself, to make sure that Frank followed it. Besides, he pointed out, Frank couldn't really drive himself safely right now. Angie told them that she would drive, and that Frank would be going to Terry's since she'd be there later to keep an eye on him. Frank hadn't really said anything about it, but he'd been thinking of going there anyway. Frank teased her that if she didn't watch out, he could still cuff her. There was some joking about that, and the look she gave Aiden at the suggestion of cuffing made him turn pink. Angie took Frank's keys and the three got into the Lincoln and headed for Detroit. Leigh and Karen got in Charlie so they could continue planning their research, and Justin followed them down I-94 to make sure nothing happened to them on the way.

When Angie, Aiden and Frank got to Terry's place, Aiden decided to wait in the car. Angie had gotten all protective of her “boss,” and Aiden was sure that he'd start laughing about her behavior and one or the other of them would kill him. He called for a cab to take him and Angie home, and he also called to warn Terry that Frank would be there and to give her 'care instructions.' Angie followed Frank inside, then stood there giving him orders, making sure he changed and got into the bed, and tucking him in before she left. Frank promptly got back up as soon as he heard the cab doors slam shut. He was going to wait for Terry to get home before he went to sleep again, just in case. The others got back to Leigh's place about noon. Justin called and ordered them a pizza, since Leigh and Karen already had their laptops open and booting up before they'd even taken their coats off. The two women started searching for anything they could find about the cult that Karen had heard stories about, other fire cults, and other Nordic cults in general. Since Leigh had done research on the subject before, she pulled out her old papers and started tracking down some of the items in her bibliographies. But the stuff she'd referenced before was no longer there. In fact, all their searches seemed to be leading to dead ends. The information they were hoping to find just wasn't out there. But it wasn't just a lack of information; it appeared that information that should have been readily available had disappeared. It was just like the research they'd been doing about the electrical creature. Someone seemed to have gone through and eliminated the references they needed to find.

By 4pm, the women had decided they needed to look at the hard-copy references. It was time for a trip to Ann Arbor. Leigh checked U of M's library site, and it looked like they had copies of many of the books she'd used before in Oslo. Most of it was now out of print, but Michigan's copies should be on the shelves, according to the book searches she did. Justin had pretty much stayed out of their way all afternoon. But he wasn't going to let them go wandering off alone if some wacko was out there wiping info off the web and toasting people. Between ongoing construction on M-14 and the fact that they'd be hitting rush hour traffic, they decided to stop for dinner on the way, to kill a little time. When they got to Ann Arbor, it took them a while to find parking but they were finally crossing the Quad about 6:30. Their first stop was the reference section. That's where a copy of the primary text that Leigh had used was supposed to be. But when they got to the shelf it should have been on, it wasn't there. Both women knew that students weren't always very good about returning books to their places when they were done with them, so the three set about checking all the study carrels in the reference area. No luck. They checked the shelves around where it should have been, in case it had been mis-shelved. Nothing. The book shouldn't have been taken out of the area, but it had disappeared.

They found the reference librarian and told her about the problem. She checked the computer and the shelf. The book should have been there, but it wasn't. She went and rounded up 4 of the student aides and set them to doing a shelf audit to find the missing book. While they were doing that, Karen and Leigh went to find the other books on Leigh's list. In every case, the book was not on the shelf where the computer system said it should have been, and it was nowhere to be found when they did a physical search for it. By 10:30pm, they'd exhausted all their options. The shelf audit had turned up nothing, and when Leigh showed the head librarian her list and explained that every one of the books was missing, none of them could come up with a reasonable explanation. The librarian wondered if maybe Leigh had some weird fan who had stolen all the books she'd referenced in her works. The three Envoys knew that it was nothing so mundane as that. Karen asked the librarian if she knew of any private collections that might contain the books they were looking for. She didn't off-hand, but she took Karen's name and number, and said she'd find out and get back to Karen. On the way out of the library, Karen called to start the process of getting hold of Weeping Sparrow, to see if she or one of the other lore-keepers knew the story Karen had remembered hearing. The Tribal Police officer who answered this time told Karen it might take a day or two to get Weeping Sparrow. He couldn't figure out why she insisted on living out in the middle of nowhere with no utilities. Karen laughed. Not EVERY Indian was 'in tune with nature' like the stereotypes portrayed them!

The three headed back to Detroit, and on the way Justin's game of 'phone tag' with the stunt coordinator finally ended when he called Justin back and Justin was in a position to answer right away. Justin explained what he needed, and the guy told him that the easiest way to get it was by mail order. He had no problem with setting up an order for Justin and having it shipped directly to him, and said he'd get that taken care of that evening. When they got back to Detroit, they stopped back in at Leigh's. Leigh had thought about another possible angle for their research. She started pulling up some information about the Odinist/white supremacist groups, particularly a Danish woman named Else Christiansen who founded the Odinist Fellowship. She had actually lived for quite a long time in Florida, Leigh explained. As they browsed through the list of links that came up, one mentioned a book called The Turner Diaries. It was a novel about race wars and the beginning of a white supremacist utopia. The site mentioned that the book could often be found for purchase at gun shows, as well as being for sale on the website. Justin realized that gun shows would be a perfect place to find out more about these groups. Justin and Leigh agreed that both of them would have no problem passing for the type of person who might join fringe groups like that; and there just happened to be a gun show going on in Birch Run starting Saturday. Justin would just have to keep the chit-chat to a minimum so that no one would inadvertently push one of his buttons in conversation and make him blow his 'cover.' Karen gave him a hug. He might not be very good at lying, but she found that utterly charming and wouldn't have wanted him to be any other way, even if lying well might make him better suited to some of the 'work' they needed to do sometimes. Karen, on the other hand, could lie fairly well when she needed to; but she didn't think she really looked like the 'white supremacist type'.

Terry got home about 8:30 that evening, and had brought their favorite take-out and a bottle of good wine. As she changed into her sweats, she told Frank about her day, which consisted of paperwork and more paperwork. That was one of the downsides to her new rank. That and the amount of 'shit' that rolled downhill and onto her desk. But, the pay was much better, and the title really sounded nice in front of her name. Frank told her she could always delegate some of the paperwork, and she replied that she already had. Then Frank told her about the creature attacking him at the field and about the start of the dream he had as it was happening. She checked his forehead and cheek with the back of her hand. He was still a tiny bit warm, but not enough to worry about. She asked if she had to worry about something else kidnapping her, and Frank told her that this one was more prone to burning people. She grinned and asked if the thing was worshiped by a stunt-man cult. Frank shook his head and gave her “the look.” She laughed and went to get them plates and utensils to eat in front of the TV.

The two had long since finished eating and were curled up watching the end of the 11:00 news, when the phone rang. It was Leigh. There was a favor she wanted to ask Frank, but she really didn't want to talk about it over the phone and wondered if it would be too much of an imposition for her, Justin and Karen to come over there. She'd just been thinking that maybe some of them should have new ID cards. After looking over to check with Terry, who nodded as she got up to start cleaning away the remains of their dinner, Frank said it was fine. The three got to Terry's about 11:45pm, and Leigh and Justin explained their plan of getting more cult info at a gun show, since a lot of the literature about the cults is spread that way. But Leigh really didn't want to give out her real name and personal information. She didn't want people there to be able to track her down, but she also didn't want her attendance at the show to affect her resident alien status. She wondered if Frank could make her a fake ID with the name Kristen Erickson. Frank told her it was no problem and pulled out his computer. When he asked where she wanted to be from, she told him London. There had been quite a bit of racial unrest there lately, and that would make her cover more believable. Fifteen minutes later, the three were walking out, Leigh with her new identity.

Most of the team had nice, quiet nights at home. Unfortunately, Leigh must have been feeling a little lonely when she went to bed that night, and that plus what they'd learned in the past day and a half combined to give her a horrifyingly vivid nightmare. She was lying on the ground with her lover in a forest glade. There was a brook chuckling over stones somewhere nearby, and the air was filled with the smell of fragrant herbs. She was entwined with her lover—sometimes it was her late husband, sometimes Reg, sometimes other people she'd had fantasies about. She could feel the warmth of the sun that dappled the two of them through the forest canopy above. They had reached that ultimate moment, her eyes closed, her head thrown back with ecstasy, when she heard what she thought was the crinkling of cellophane. Before she could even open her eyes, the smell of burning flesh assaulted her nose. Her eyes flew open to see the man in her arms go up in flames like a human torch. The flames never touched her, though she could feel their heat. As she laid there, willing what was before her eyes to be untrue but unable to move, she was forced to watch and feel him burn, shriveling and blackening then falling into charred pieces against her, in her arms, inside her. She opened her mouth to scream...and she woke, there in her own bed, but with the stench of burnt flesh lingering in her nose.

JUSTIN’S WAR JOURNAL
Entry 62 [---typed and >>>transcribed from digital audio]

---Something really odd just happened, but I for one am not looking the gift horse in the mouth. Reg just called Leigh. Cell phone, not tela-whatsit mind-to-mind talking. It’s still October 11th, but only for about another ninety minutes or so. Reg says he just woke up in a hotel room in Detroit, near the airport. Doesn’t know how he got there and has no memories at all of the last nine months or so. Last thing he remembers is being in his plane over the Gulf. All the clothes he’s wearing are brand new and not something he would have bought for himself.

Frank said Terry would be able to get there faster than us and he gave her a call. And then Tony called me. He just landed in Detroit and was wondering what everybody was up to. I flagged Frank and asked him if Terry would mind picking up Tony too. Ended up with Terry calling Tony so he could get a cab over to Reg’s hotel and she’d pick them both up there. Tony asked me if we were sure if Reg was still Reg or not. Good point. Me and him agreed it would probably be a good idea if he sort of took a look at Reg from “the other side” when he gets the chance. After what the others said about the Thing out in the cornfield, I warned Tony that he better make sure he doesn’t do any out of body stuff up in this neck of the woods. ‘Cause something big and nasty might be waiting.

I hope this really is Reg. Leigh seemed kinda brittle around the edges for a while there right after Reg disappeared. Like the only thing that was keeping her in one piece was talking with Frank and looking after the rest of Reg’s family by long distance. But it seems like she’s been getting lots better. If this turns out to be some Thing posing as Reg or even Reg taken over, and we have to destroy It, Leigh might just completely fall apart. And she wouldn’t be the only one. Please, let this really be Reg.

Frank was on his computer and checking records before Leigh even got off the phone with Reg; looking to see who rented the room Reg woke up in for starters. Reg’s credit accounts were turned off right after he went missing; which ends up being like the fastest way to find a missing credit card. Since the account is turned off, if somebody uses the card the company gets an automatic alert. According to what Frank found, Reg’s AmEx account got turned back on around 4pm today, which was just a couple minutes before the card was used to reserve the room online. Freaking weird. Welcome back to the deep end of the pool guys. More later.

>>>Um, it’s after eleven, still October 11th. We all just got done talking with Reg, Tony and Terry on speaker phone. They’re on their way up here now. Me and Leigh are going to pick up a phone and laptop for Reg. There’s a Wally World, sorry, Wal-Mart all-night not too far from the hotel. We were in there for some munchies and stuff earlier. We can get the basics for Reg there at least. No great shakes, but the laptop will at least get him online to the places that can really outfit him. Tony said they got Reg a quick shave and haircut before they left the airport hotel. Said his hair and beard sure looked like they’d been growing free the whole time he was gone. And I guess he’s got an all over tan, so he was somewhere warm. Tony also said Reg was skinny as a rail so they were going to pick him up a six pack of Coney Chili Dogs for the road. The clothes Reg woke up in are all brand new, tags from Wally World and not something Reg would have bought.

About the only thing he’s got from before the crash is his wallet and Terry said that looks worn and salt stained. Like it had been waterlogged and dried, maybe more than once. About the only thing in the wallet were some plastic. Terry said his license and his Amex look like they’d been used for scraping something. A LOT of scraping. I was just thinking that Reg used to carry a fist full of plastic in there and he came back with only his license and one card. So, where are the others? Made me wonder if maybe the license and the AmEx were just the last ones left. As I was getting ready to go out the door Reg was giving Frank what personal info he knew about Ramón. Frank said he’s going to do another search to see if Ramón has all of a sudden popped back up on the radar too. Oh yeah, and Tony said this is really Reg as far as he could tell. Thank you God. He’s actually one of the newest of the crew but he became a real good friend real fast. Thank you for leading him back to us. They should be rolling in here right around midnight and I’ve got some shopping to do. More later.

>>>They’re here. It’s really Reg. He doesn’t look good this skinny. Gotta get him some food. Gave him some beer, but that’s just empty calories, even if it is Sam Adam’s Double Bock. Have to get him a good breakfast in the mornin’. We brought Terry, Tony and Reg up to speed on what little we know from Frank’s dream, what Karen, Leigh and Frank saw out in the field, and what they found out from the CSI lab. I think we’re at a dead end for right now though. Nothing yet that says for sure whether or not those Odinist guys are involved. And no other real leads. At least nothing up here. We’re going to have to wait and see if they find anything else out from all the samples they collected at the lab or if some kinda clue pops up here or back down around East Pointe. I’m itching to get a closer look at that bus. But those guys are like PHD scientists and all. So what would a Polish grease monkey find that they wouldn’t have already? I dono, but maybe I could find something. Just feel useless when I’m not actually doing somethin’.

I gave Tony and Reg they’re new toy boxes. I figured as soon as the shit started hitting the fan that Tony would be around to back us up soon enough, so I packed his box when I grabbed the others. They were the last two boxes and they were packed together so it was easier to just take both. Glad I brought Reg’s too. Tony looked more happy to see the contents of that Pelican box than Reg did but I think Reg’s thinking more about other things right now. Like his dad and his sister and where the fuck his jackass brother-in-law ran off to. Anyway, I think they liked the splat guns. They both kinda smiled when I told ‘em they’re patent pending. I don’t think the rest of the world is going to beat a path to my door to buy 'em though. Heh heh. I think Tony liked the sawed-off double barrel more than the splat gun. Yep, nothing proves friendship like a breaking a federal law to make toys for your buddies. Heh. There’s enough ammo for both weapons in there to get them through for right now. All double ought buck for the doubles but only half of them silver. Don’t want to waste silver shot if you’re just blowing through a door lock after all. Those Pelican cases should keep everything safe and dry for them too. They’re good cases. I figure, good enough for the Coast Guard, good enough for me.

Feeling a little punchy. Glad I quit drinking when I did. Did I mention the Sam Adam’s? Double Bock’s some good tasty stuff. We’ve been doing a lot of therapy talking. Yup; doing some talking while we drink down some therapy. Eh, not all that bad really. Don’t think any of us drank more than a four or six, if that. And lotsa water. Be running to the john a couple times during the night but at least no hangover. ‘Sides, peein’ after drinkin' is good for ya. Grampa always said ya gotta keep you pipes clean. Oh, fer Pete sake. I must be half lit if I’m quoting Grampa. Have to make sure I edit this before I download it. I’ll do that later. Bed now. More later... [muffled thump then recording ends]

>>>Hmm. Looks like not everybody went to bed when I did last night. This is morning of October 12th, in case that matters. I can understand Reg not being sleepy. He said he’d just woke up when he called us yesterday. But Frank never went to sleep last night. We agreed we should have a watch but Frank never woke anybody else. His nightmares must be real whales if they can rock Frank. Wonder if he’d like to talk to Uncle Jerzy about it? I mean, who helps the shrink when the shrink is afraid to go to sleep? Maybe he talks things out with Terry? I dono but I hope he’s got some kind of safety valve. If Frank ever went postal it could get real nasty real fast.

I think maybe Reg and Leigh had a bit of a reunion last night after the rest of us turned in for the night. Can’t blame them and I don’t care. Don’t ask, don’t tell; ya know? They’re both consenting adults and I think they both look lots happier. And there was another reunion last night. Audra and Phil were here by the time I got up. Reg called her last night and of course found out that Audra moved in to take care of Phil. She’s a good gal. Sure seems to be doing good by Phil; keeping him healthy and all. Drove up as soon as she figured out it was really Reg and not some sick joke. I wouldn’t blame Reg if he decided to do like Harvey and leave the Fight behind for a while to protect his family. I think they actually need him even more than we do right now.

Oh, yeah, and there’s this weird case where a bus full of kids got torched. Jeez. Wander far afield much Justin? Anyway, at breakfast we heard the word is that the Department of Homeland Security is supposedly taking over the investigation, not the State Police. Not sure how this case could be under their jurisdiction. Are deaths that MIGHT be cult related some kind of domestic terror threat now? This doesn’t sound like Jerrod’s way of doing things. So I wonder if he’s still in charge. Pretty sure his job is appointed, not elected. Damn, I hope this isn’t some kind of political bullshit. More later.

>>>Okay, something kinda froggy going on here. Just heard from Frank that DHS has definitely taken over. They wouldn’t even let him get close to the lab. Couple of guys in DHS jackets stopped him in the parking lot and basically gave him the bum’s rush. Said nobody in without authorization and he’s not authorized. Said they would let the Agent in charge know he’d stopped by and maybe he’d get back to Frank later. Yeah, but don’t hold your breath I’ll bet.

Now, that could have just been some guys making sure things were done by the book. I mean, after all, Frank IS on leave as far as they’re concerned. It was what Frank heard from Sheriff Dan that kinda put the hackles up. Frank said Sheriff Dan was sitting in his patrol car across from the parking lot and he did NOT look happy. Waved Frank in to sit with him and gave him the skinny. Sheriff says the DHS crew swooped in about six this morning and took the whole lab over; lock, stock and “thanks for your work, but get the fuck out” barrel. The Agent in charge is some stuck-up prick from the Detroit office by the name of Stevens. Frank’s never heard of this guy and he really doesn’t sound like somebody Jerrod would’ve hired. But this is a government agency, not some firm where the boss gets to hand pick all his recruits. I really hope this isn’t political or some little weasel looking to make his bones. Wait a minute. What am I saying? Of course he is. This case could end up high profile, even if just in the DHS records. This case could make this guy’s career and he knows it. Great, just freaking great! Now what? Later.

It was about 10pm, and the conversation among the crowd in Justin and Karen's room at the hotel in Port Huron was just about winding down. It had veered off on a tangent about ancient gods and how it seemed that rather than easing into their jobs as Envoys, they had gotten thrown head first into the deep end and kept running up against extremely old and powerful entities. Leigh was just about to say something when her phone rang. She answered, and for a moment she couldn't believe what she was hearing. She shushed everyone else, saying “It's Reg!” The others fell into amazed silence, and Leigh switched the phone to 'speaker phone.' “Hi, Leigh. Um, where are you? I'm at the Radisson at Metro. Could you come get me?” She tried to get him to explain, but he really wasn't sure of anything himself. He'd just woken up on the bed there, fully dressed in clothes that weren't his, with shoes his size on the floor beside the desk on which his wallet was lying. He had no idea how he'd gotten there or where he'd been. He also warned Leigh that he didn't look exactly the same as when he'd last seen her. He had a full beard and long hair, and he'd lost a great deal of weight. Leigh confirmed for him that it was indeed now October, and that he had been missing since his plane had disappeared over the Gulf back on Dec. 29. Reg asked if she knew anything about his dad or sister or nieces. He'd tried calling both Phil and Claire and couldn't get hold of them.

As Leigh was telling him what she could about his family's condition, that the girls were fine and in foster care and that Claire and Phil were both in rehab, Frank speed-dialed Terry. There was no point in one of them running all the way back down to Metro when Terry was still down in Detroit. He asked Reg for his room number (“Oh...Hi, Frank. It's 421.”) and asked Terry to pick him up and bring him up to Port Huron, then told Reg to hang tight and Terry would get him. Frank was just hanging up when Justin's phone rang. “Yo, Justin! How's it hangin'?” Tony asked him. “Uh, fine...?” Justin replied. Tony told him that he'd just arrived back in town at Willow Run and he wondered if Justin could come out and pick him up. Justin told him that Reg had just shown back up in the Metro Airport Radisson and that Terry was going to be picking him up. She could probably swing out and get Tony too, since everyone else was on a job up in Port Huron. Tony wondered who was bringing the shotgun and if he should pick up some rock salt. He was quite sure that whatever was in that hotel room at Metro, it wasn't really Reg. Frank figured out from listening to Justin's half of the conversation what Tony was talking about. He told Justin to let Tony know that the aliens had finally finished probing Reg and that was why they'd sent him back. Reg could hear some of what Frank was saying, and he was getting more confused by the minute. Justin told Tony to just stay put, don't buy any rock salt and Terry would get him.

Frank was still chuckling when he called Terry back. “I'm already on my way,” she said exasperatedly when she answered. Frank told her that Tony needed a ride too, from Willow Run. Terry complained that it wasn't really on her way, then sighed and said she'd take care of it. A moment later, she called Tony and told him to get a cab to the Metro Radisson and meet her at Reg's room, number 421. Leigh told Reg they'd explain everything they could when he got there. In the meantime, he'd just have to sit tight. Before Leigh hung up, Justin asked Reg if he needed anything. Reg told them he had nothing but the clothes he was wearing and his wallet. Justin told him he'd go get a cell phone and anything else he could manage to find at that hour. Leigh closed the phone and immediately volunteered to go with Justin. She was too wired now to just sit around the hotel. When Tony got to the Radisson, he saw no sign of Terry. He stood to one side of the door to room 421 and knocked. No answer. Tony waited a moment. Reg had heard the knock, but when he looked out the door's spy-hole, there was no one there. He had started to walk away when there was another knock. Reg turned back to the door. Again, there was no one there when he looked through the spy-hole. This was starting to weird him out.

Terry was coming up the hallway when Tony knocked the second time. She understood right away what he was doing, and she went to the opposite side of the door. This time, she knocked and called out for Reg to open the door. Reg was nervous now and, from half-way across the room, he told her to step in front of the spy-hole. She told him to do it first. He stepped up to the door, and Terry saw the light coming through the hole get blocked. She held her gun out, aimed right about where Reg's chest would be, then followed it out to stand in front of the door. As soon as Reg saw that it really was Terry, he opened the door and saw Tony step out behind her from the other side of the door. Reg almost didn't look like Reg to the other two. The last time they saw him, the hair on his head was just growing back after the attack at his house and he weighed quite a bit more than he did now. He was down to about 135 pounds and was so thin he looked almost skeletal; he had a deep tan, his hair hung down his back, and he had a long, full, thick beard. Terry looked around the room. Reg told her and Tony the same thing he'd told Leigh not too long ago. He just woke up there on the bed in brand-spanking new clothes with his wallet lying on the desk. The last thing he remembered was dawn breaking over Mexico as he flew off to San Francisco. Terry and Tony stood there for a second. Something didn't sound quite right. Oh...wait...dawn breaks over the Gulf, not over Mexico...unless Reg was flying over the Pacific, Terry and Tony both pointed out.

Terry picked up Reg's wallet and started studying it. Maybe it could give her a clue to where Reg had been. It was water-stained, and all the paper stuff inside looked like it had been soaked and dried several times. The plastic cards were intact, but the edges of some of them looked like they'd been used to scrape something hard. Tony asked them to keep an eye on him for a second as he went to sit in the desk chair. A moment later his body slumped, and he went to check out how Reg looked in the 'astral' plane. He looked totally normal. In fact, he looked exactly like he had before he'd disappeared—heavier, fairer, and much less hairy. Tony decided to look around the rest of the room, too, but found no sign of any Unknown presence in or around it. When he got back into his body, both Reg and Terry wanted to know how he looked. “Much better over there,” Tony told him. Reg was speechless for a minute. But it made sense. His own image of himself hadn't changed. He hadn't had any time, or a mirror, to change it. Last thing he knew, he'd just taken off from Cancun's airport and turned away from the sunrise to head for San Francisco. “That's probably good,” he replied. Terry asked him if he had any idea why someone was burning buses full of children in Port Huron. All he could give her was a blank look. She asked if he had thought to check who had rented the room for him and when. He hadn't. First, he'd tried calling Claire and Phil, then he called Leigh. Then, he tried to remember anything he could.

Terry ran down to the front desk. The clerk, Hopkins, told her that the room was reserved online at 4:20pm that day and paid for with Reg's AmEx card. But he didn't actually remember seeing who picked up the key. Terry went back up to the room and told Reg and Tony. Frank called a second later. He'd been monitoring Reg's credit cards and personal bank accounts for activity. The cards had all been canceled soon after Reg disappeared. But Frank just checked and found that Reg's AmEx had been reactivated at 4:15 that afternoon. Tony suggested Terry try to get the security tapes to see if they could tell when Reg came in and who had picked up the key. Terry went back to the desk and flashed her badge. Technically Metro Airport wasn't in Detroit, but the Romulus Police and the airport security were both quite used to working with the Detroit Police. Terry was told that she'd have the tapes within 48 hours. The footage was automatically downloaded every couple hours to a centralized data storage facility managed by the hotel's security company. So they didn't have immediate access to the footage from 4-6pm, but they could get it. Terry checked Reg's clothes to see if they'd held any clues. They fit perfectly, but they weren't exactly his style, and the tags indicated they came from WalMart.

Reg asked Tony if anything of interest had happened during his extended absence. “Nuttin',” Tony said. “I just been workin' a lot.” Terry chimed in with “Up until this morning, no.” She thought for a second. “Let's see...” she continued, “I got promoted...” “Captain?” Reg asked. When she nodded, he said “Congratulations.” “And Frank hasn't moved in yet, but he's been staying over,” she added. Reg wasn't quite sure what to say to that, so he just grinned. “Oh, and some sick SOB torched a bus of kids in New Baltimore.” She explained to the two men what she knew about the case so far. When she finished, Reg thanked her for looking into the foster home that his nieces had been placed in. She really hadn't done much, she told him, just gone with Leigh to meet the mom. But Frank had really checked them out. Oh, and he was still on leave, too. Aiden was now Senior Resident at Receiving, having taken on so many extra shifts that he blew through his first year requirements in less than that. Miraculously, Justin and Karen were still married, and they hadn't yet killed any of their family. But no, they weren't pregnant yet. There was still no date set for Edward and Cathy's wedding, but Cathy was becoming more “Stepford” every day. And Leigh appeared to have given up dating, at least for the short term. Reg was touched, thinking she'd done it because of missing him. Terry told him she thought it was because Leigh was just afraid she was cursed.

Reg said that he'd heard from Leigh that, obviously, Terry had been rescued. Terry told him that she was tired of being the 'damsel'. She was starting to wonder if there was a tattoo somewhere on her that she couldn't see, that labeled her as good sacrifice material. Tony suggested that they get going and stop on the way for a six-pack of Coney dogs for Reg. He needed to put a little weight back on. And maybe they could find a barber shop open for Reg to get a 'trim'? Tony also wondered if they could swing past his place to drop off his bags (both Terry and Reg figured there was 'something' in them that Tony really didn't want to carry around in public), and asked Reg if there was anything else he needed to stop for on his way. What he really wanted was his usual complement of electronic 'toys'; but he'd have to get them later. He'd left a few things at Leigh's after the fire, but everything he normally carried with him was lost (or taken, they'd all thought without giving voice to the suspicion) when he'd disappeared. They were in Terry's car headed for Tony's place (they'd stopped calling it the “Bat Cave” ever since the incident in Cancun), when Reg suddenly asked “So, who's been running my company?” Terry suggested that it was probably his staff, who must be pretty good, because the company hadn't gone belly-up yet. “What about my house?” he asked. Terry handed him her voice recorder, so he could make notes of all his questions in case she couldn't answer them. Nobody had really taken much interest in it since the creature had been buried there, she told him, except for Leigh, who'd persuaded Phil that they should just plant a garden there and leave it until Reg got back to figure out what he wanted to do with the property. And no one knew where his brother-in-law was yet. Reg's only comment to that last item was “Good riddance.” But his dad was in rehab in Detroit and Claire was in rehab in San Francisco so she'd be close to the girls, Terry said.

Terry's phone rang and she expected to hear Frank's voice when she answered “Worth.” It was Leigh, who wanted to talk to Reg. Terry handed her phone to Reg. Leigh asked Reg if he knew where Raimon ended up. Reg had no idea where Raimon was now, but he'd been living in NYC before they'd gone to Cancun. She also warned him that Tony had some fantasy that she'd been with him and the 4 co-eds that night before Reg disappeared, and not with Reg and Raimon. Reg glanced over his shoulder at Tony, but didn't say anything. Then Frank asked what Raimon's last name was; he'd try running a trace on him. Leigh put her phone on 'speaker phone' rather than have to relay Frank's questions. Frank asked again and Reg told him. Did he have any idea what Raimon's Social Security number was? Reg didn't, but he did have one of Raimon's credit card numbers, and his last address. While Frank was doing a rudimentary search, Leigh mentioned Reg's “Nice coconuts” comment. Reg said they were, but he wouldn't have called them that. Frank reminded Reg that they were still on speaker phone, and Reg told him he had nice coconuts too, even if they were smaller. Justin raised his eyebrows. “Frank has coconuts too?” Frank laughed and told Reg that he'd managed to raise a nice color change in Justin's face. Reg was glad that at least some things hadn't changed! Frank let them all know that there was no sign of Raimon having turned up yet.

Justin and Leigh had gone out to get a cell phone and any other electronic toys they could find for Reg, and they ended up at WalMart, the only place open at that hour that might have what they wanted. Justin had been studying the tags on the couple of PDAs that the store had available, and turned around to see Leigh doing a “happy dance” there in the aisle. Granted, it was a low-key happy dance, but Justin was sure the others would find it amusing and pulled out his phone to record it. Leigh happened to turn around while he was doing it, and warned him that she could still hurt him. All he was doing was recording it so that Reg would know how happy she was that he was back OK, he complained. That really didn't justify her doing bodily damage to him. She told him it wasn't an immediate threat; just a warning that he should be careful what he did with the recording. The other three still weren't there yet when Justin and Leigh got back to the hotel. Justin commented that he hoped that Reg hadn't been 'probed' wherever he'd been the past 9 months. And that he still had both his kidneys. Karen started laughing about the reference to the hoax stories about people waking up in bathtubs full of ice and missing organs that had supposedly been stolen from them. Aiden laughed and said that if Reg hadn't been probed before, he could be now since he and Frank were both qualified to do it.

They were all still laughing when Terry knocked on the door. Frank peeked out the spy hole and opened the door. Reg never even made it through the doorway. Leigh practically flew across the room and wrapped herself around him. When she straightened her back, she lifted his feet clear of the floor, since he was a great deal lighter than he had been. He wasn't much more than bone and sinew...and a lot of hair. They hadn't found an open barber shop, but Reg and Terry managed to trim several inches off Reg's hair and beard while they waited for Tony to drop off his bags and repack what he'd need for the night in Port Huron. But it was still a great deal longer than it had been last time they'd all seen him. When Leigh finally let go of Reg, he hugged Karen, Justin and Aiden and shook Frank's hand. When he hugged Angie, she grabbed his butt, but found there wasn't much left there to grab. Then they ordered some food from room service and chatted for a while, everyone bringing Reg up to speed on everything they could think of that had happened in the last 9 months. Leigh described what she'd done to the lot in Grosse Pointe, with Phil's approval. She just figured that a garden would look better than an empty, weed-covered lot. That might attract kids and who knew who else, and that might be bad considering what was buried there. Paz was getting therapy because she was blaming herself for Phil's injuries, but the girls were doing well under the circumstances. At one point, Justin asked Reg if he wanted word to get out yet that he was back. He thought about it for a second, then said he didn't. Frank warned him that it might already be too late. Since his AmEx card had been reactivated that afternoon, people might already be figuring it out. While they talked, Aiden gave Reg a quick check-up. Other than the weight loss, he seemed healthy enough. He gave Reg a vitamin, and he gave him something that worked like Beano, much to the relief of everyone else. And Justin gave Reg and Tony each a case with one of the 'splat guns' he'd been working on, plus one of the neatly sawed-off and rebuilt shotguns he'd made. That one, he warned them, they had to keep under wraps as much as possible, since having one was a federal offense. Frank asked if Reg's brother-in-law, Robert, was prone to fanaticism. Reg replied that he was too “milk-toast” for that kind of stuff. And no, he said when Frank asked, there was no family history of Spontaneous Human Combustion in his family either.

It was past midnight by now, and everyone was getting tired since they'd all been up since Frank's 6am phone calls. Other than the mysterious bus fire, nothing untoward had happened that day, but what Karen, Frank and Leigh had felt at the cornfield had all of them a little on edge. They decided to set a watch, and it turned out that Reg was the only one really ready to stand it, since he'd just woken up a few hours before. So he walked the halls with the splat gun, keeping watch. Most of the time he was also mumbling into the voice recorder, leaving himself notes of things he needed to look into the next day. He also tried to remember as many names and numbers as he could, and plugged them into the PDA Justin and Leigh had gotten him. Justin had already loaded all of the team's numbers into the phone and the PDA. When Reg ran out of other things to work on, he wondered if there was anyone he could call and talk to. He wasn't sure he was ready to talk to Audra yet. She would want answers that he just didn't have. But his dad was probably asleep, and he would need his rest. Finally, he gave in and dialed Audra's number. She picked up after only 3 rings, but when Reg told her it was him, he heard the phone hit the floor. In the background, he could hear his father's voice asking who it was. So...she was still with him. Well, that was good he supposed.

When Audra picked the phone back up, she wanted to know who he was and why he was playing such a horrible and cruel joke, because she didn't think it was funny at all. It took him a couple minutes to convince her that it really was him. “Where the fuck have you been?!” Audra nearly screamed at him. “And where are you now?” Reg told her that he was in Port Huron and she wanted to know why. So far he was one for three in the question-answering department. He finally told her that he was with Leigh and the others, and she demanded to know his precise location. His father wanted to see him, she said, and so did she. She hung up as soon as the hotel name and room number was out of his mouth. Reg went down to the front desk and reserved a room for them. He knew Audra well enough to know that she was on her way before the phone even made it back into her pocket. About 5am, he almost ran into them as they came off the elevator. His dad was in a wheelchair, but he looked better than Reg was expecting, considering the others told him that Phil had been burned over 60% of his body. Obviously he was getting the best of care; Audra would have seen to that. In some ways, he even looked better than Reg did himself, since Reg knew he looked like only about half of himself right now. When Phil saw Reg, Reg at first thought he was choking. But the raspy sound his dad was making was actually crying. Phil held out his arms, and Reg knelt beside him to hug him. Behind Phil, Audra had tears running down her cheeks. Reg stood and hugged her too.

Reg handed Audra the key to the room he'd gotten them, and said he be there in a minute. He went to Frank and Terry's room and hoped he didn't interrupt them in the middle of something. But Frank opened the door after the first light knock, like he'd been standing right behind it. He hadn't actually been that close to it, but he had already been awake. In fact, he'd never gone to sleep. He knew he'd be having another nightmare, and he was trying to put it off as long as possible. Terry was snoring softly as Reg whispered to Frank that Audra and Phil were there and that he needed to join them in the other room. Frank went out and took over the 'watch.' A short time later, Leigh came out of her room looking like she needed some strong coffee. She was surprised to see Frank in the hall and asked if he'd had a bad dream too. She'd dreamed that she was in a gorgeous Renaissance cathedral that was lit by hundreds of candles. The place was filled with people of all sorts and they were all singing, in German. The hymn seemed familiar somehow, something of Wagner's, but Leigh couldn't put her finger on the name of it. She thought she'd heard every published piece of Wagner's, but this was one she'd never heard before. As she watched them sing, they began bursting into flames around her, lighting up in a horrific imitation of the candles that surrounded them. When she'd finished telling Frank about her dream, Leigh asked where Reg was. He pointed her toward the room Reg had gotten for Audra and Phil. Leigh heard him wondering aloud as she walked away just how paranoid Reg must be feeling after what had happened to him.

Leigh went to the door and listened. If they were sleeping, she didn't want to wake them. It took her a minute of careful listening to hear the sound of voices talking quietly. She knocked lightly and Reg opened the door. He let her in and gave her a hug. Audra came over and hugged her too. When Audra backed away from Leigh, Leigh's shirt was wet with Audra's tears. Phil's voice was rough with emotion as he told his son about his “sadistic bastard” of a physical therapist. Of course, the therapist, with Audra's help, was the reason he could walk already. To prove it, Phil pushed himself up from the wheelchair and shuffled a few feet. It wasn't much yet, but it was much better than his doctors had expected so soon. Audra was already there behind Phil when he reached back to feel for the chair and sat down heavily in it. The girls were traumatized, of course, Phil told Reggie, but they were fine and getting better. And he was much better now than 9 months ago, though he might not look it and still needed more time in the hospital, Phil said. He'd just needed to see Reggie with his own eyes. “And I you,” Reg replied. Reg could see that his dad was already tired from the exertion of the trip up to Port Huron and of seeing him again. So he wasn't surprised when Phil said he needed to lie down. Audra was right there again, practically lifting Phil into the bed. This wasn't the Audra Reg remembered. She was gentle and compassionate and kind...and strong! She came over and laid her hand on Reg's cheek in a gesture that was almost motherly, and kind of creepy coming from Audra. Reg and Leigh gave Phil and Audra hugs, and left them to get some rest.

Reg asked why Leigh was awake, and she told him about her dream. Frank had thought the music in his dream was something of Mozart's. If so, then the music in his was much different than what she'd heard in hers. That music was heavy and had an 'epic' feel to it, not at all light and airy like Mozart's. But Leigh wasn't actually interested in a discussion on music theory right now. She'd been looking for Reg for another reason entirely. Now she finally had him to herself, and she dragged him back to her room. Terry was just getting up at 5:30am, like usual, as Leigh and Reg were going back to Leigh's room. She wasn't surprised that Frank was already up, though she hadn't heard him leave the room. She poked her head out into the hall to make sure he was out there, and he followed her back into the room. Terry gave Frank a little back rub as he filled her in on what he knew of the night's events, then she headed for the shower. None of them were quite sure where the investigation of the bus fire was going to take them next; but she had enough cases on her desk already, so she was going back down to work. Frank promised he'd keep her updated. And she warned him as she headed out the door that he would have to sleep eventually. She'd been with him long enough now to know what he was doing.

Aiden had a couple days off; and since his original plan mostly involved the bedroom, he didn't much care whether he spent the time in Detroit or Port Huron. But Angie couldn't have been pushed away when there was a case like this involving weird accelerants. Since it was a Thursday and Karen only had office hours scheduled, she didn't mind calling in again. And Justin just didn't bother mentioning that he was 'vacationing' in 'beautiful and exciting' Port Huron when he called to let Jerry know he'd be out again. Leigh had done both a Mental Shield and a Sphere of Protection on Reg and he didn't flinch or run or disappear, and he was still as confused about what had happened to him as he'd been when he first called her last night. So, whatever had happened to him, he hadn't been replaced or taken over by something Unknown. They all gathered over breakfast, and Frank told them he was going to go back to the crime lab and see if they'd found anything new. The sheriff had told him that they'd been warned that “someone” from DHS would be arriving soon and that “he” would have proper credentials, so Frank wanted to find out everything he could before he was shut out of the case. The others agreed to hang out in Port Huron at least until Frank was done at the lab and they could decide where to go next.

When Frank got to the lab, he was stopped in the parking lot by two 'buff' guys in DHS jackets. This was a closed site, they told him, and only people authorized by the Agent in Charge were allowed in. Frank handed them his card and asked who the Agent in Charge was. “Agent Stevens,” he was told. They checked the list on their clipboard, and informed Frank that he was not authorized to be there and he would have to leave. He asked just how one got hold of Agent Stevens to get authorized, and they told him they'd pass along his card. Frank was perfectly polite with the two agents, and willingly turned to go when they asked him to. No point in pissing these guys off. As he turned to go back to his car, he saw the sheriff sitting in his patrol car parked just outside the parking lot, looking very disgruntled. Frank strolled over, and when he got close to the patrol car, the sheriff motioned for him to get in. He told Frank that the DHS guys had showed up about 6am, led by some peacock by the name of Mackenzie Stevens from Detroit. Frank had never heard of the guy. Jared was still in charge of that office, at least nominally, but he'd never spoken about work when Frank saw him. In fact, it was obvious he was still mourning Kat, and she was mostly what he talked about with Frank. In any case, he was, unfortunately, shut out sooner than he'd hoped for. They'd have to find some other angle to work the case from now, and that most likely meant heading back to Detroit.

Frank went back to Terry's place and scanned the article. The paper only had sketchy details about the bus being found late last night, just inside St. Clair County. There was nothing about the number of people involved, how many were dead, alive or missing, nor any speculation from the police about exactly what had happened. Frank heard Terry's alarm go off at 6am. He was sitting in the living room, and a few minutes later, Terry shuffled by and dropped a kiss in his general direction on her way to the kitchen and the coffee machine. He heard her flip the switch, then she shuffled by in the opposite direction heading for the shower. Frank was still sitting in exactly he same spot when she came out. She went back into the kitchen, from which he could smell the aroma of coffee, and he heard her making toast. Ten minutes later, she waved a couple plates in his direction as she went to sit at the table. She'd made her usual breakfast of toast with peanut butter and homemade jam (not her own—she'd gotten it from someone at work), and she'd made enough for him too. He came to the table and laid the paper by her elbow. It took a second, and a few sips of coffee, before what she was looking at registered in her brain. “Oh my God! This was your dream,” she said as she studied the photo. He waited while she read the article, then debated aloud who might be least likely to grab a gun and shoot the phone (or him) when he called them. Because, they did need to tell the others. If something like this was turning up in Frank's dreams, then it wasn't just the work of your average homicidal maniac.

Terry suggested that he try Angie first. Frank dialed, and he heard a muffled answer. She sounded wide awake but tired, like she hadn't been to sleep yet. In the background, Frank could hear a muffled chuckle, then the sound of a pillow hitting someone. Had Angie seen the morning paper yet, Frank asked her. There was an interesting article on the front page, and he recommended she take a look at it before she met him for breakfast. Angie asked when and where, and they agreed to meet in two hours at the team's usual diner. Frank dialed Leigh next, and was a little surprised to hear her sounding bright and chipper at that hour. She told him she'd gotten up early to get a little work done. He suggested she read the paper and meet him and the others for breakfast. Frank tried Tony, but the call went straight to voice mail. He'd been hard to get hold of all summer, too, so this didn't surprise Frank. Frank left a message that Tony should call when he got “done with whoever” he was “doing.” Finally, Frank called Justin. He was still trying not to antagonize Karen too much, since it had taken a while to regain her trust. Besides, he'd always figured it was the quiet ones you really had to watch out for anyway. He'd let Justin take the grief for this early morning call rather than call Karen directly. It was past 6:30 am by now, and when Justin answered he sounded slightly out of breath. Frank apologized for 'interrupting,' and Justin snorted and told him he was just out for a jog, nothing else. Karen was still asleep at home. Pretty much everyone knew that she wasn't a morning person, and she usually set her alarm as late as she could to still get to her office on time. Frank told Justin that he should pick up the paper on his way home, and bring his wife along for breakfast at the diner at 8:30am.

On the front page of the Free Press, there was a big picture of a bus in a cornfield. There were smudges on the side of it like the stains left by smoke. The name on the side looked like it had been painted over. The article was much smaller than the picture, and it was mostly “police are withholding details.” It did state that the bus had been discovered late last night in a field off Springborne Road between Church and Meldrum, outside Anchorville. and that there were no survivors. Neither the number of victims nor anything about them was being released pending notification of relatives. And arson investigators had been called in to help with the on-going investigation. By the time the team met for breakfast, everyone had read the article and studied the picture. As soon as the waitress had taken their orders, Frank played back the recording he'd made as he described his dream. It was time-stamped 3:30am. Moments later, all the others had called in to work and taken the day off except for Terry. She had plenty of work on her desk and a boss who wasn't going to wait while she took on cases from 2 counties away.

The team debated their options. Frank wouldn't have gathered them if there wasn't something weird about this case. But they couldn't figure out how they could get anywhere near the scene. Even if Terry had had the time to help, that was way past the edge of her jurisdiction. Finally, they decided to at least drive up there and see what they could find out. Leigh, Aiden and Angie piled into Charlie, which Leigh was still using in Reg's absence. Justin and Karen were in Justin's truck, and Frank was in his car. Before they left, Frank suggested they all put on their comm units, so they could keep in touch along the way. That was why they were all able to hear Frank when he called the St. Clair County sheriff, Dan Lane, to offer his services. He'd read about the incident in the paper, he told the officer who answered, and thought that perhaps he could help in some way. He was currently on leave from the DHS while working on his medical residency, he told her; and ,given the unusual nature of the crime, he thought that the sheriff might appreciate help from someone with his expertise who had no interest in being the lead on the case. Obviously the sheriff was busy at the moment, the woman who answered told Frank, but she would make sure he got the message. It was obvious as the three vehicles came to a stop at the top of the exit from I-94 that this was the far outskirts of the Metro area. There were several new subdivisions visible from the ramp, but they were all surrounded by fields of corn, late wheat and soybeans. Frank had a detailed map of the area, and he led the way to the section indicated in the article. As they turned onto Springborne Road, they could see a couple Sheriff's Department cars pulled off the side of the road in the distance. They slowed as they neared them. If she could get a look at the area where the bus was, Karen suggested, maybe she could see if there were any spirits of the victims left to talk to.

The two cops cars were angled across the opening the bus had created in the standing corn. There were two deputies in one car, and the other car had one deputy inside and another sitting on the hood holding what was most likely a cup of coffee. He took a sip and glanced up at the three cars rolling by. The look on his face told them that they weren't the first 'gawkers' to drift by the scene of this horrific crime that morning. As they passed the opening, those who looked could see that the bus had been removed from the scene. At almost the same time, Aiden saw Leigh gasp then pass out cold in the Land Rover's front seat, and everyone heard both Karen and Frank gasp as well. Justin and Angie, each driving and unwilling to take their attention off the road, asked what had happened. Frank started to say something, then hesitated, not quite sure how to describe it. What Karen had seen had been a blinding flash as she looked at the spot where the bus had been. But it wasn't a visible flash of light. It was pure, undistilled Evil. And when she saw it, she realized that it saw her too, and she got the feeling that it knew she'd seen it and that to it she was already dead and that the only reason she was still sitting there breathing was because she didn't know she was dead yet. Aiden roused Leigh, and the three who'd 'seen' it all seemed to start talking and stop at once, trying to confirm with the others that they'd felt what they'd felt. All three had gotten the 'message' that if they crossed this thing, they were dead, and that it WOULD have them. The thing was strong, whatever it was. And it felt old. Not quite as old as the 'Hellmouth,' But it was more.... “aware,” Leigh offered, and the other two agreed. Karen told them that she'd seen no spirits left there, and she had the feeling that the thing had done something to them, or with them. In any case, she whispered, as if the thing could hear her, there was no way she was doing a séance to try to contact any of the victims, even if they did find out their names. Justin stiffened. Damn straight she wasn't! Whatever they'd seen, if it spooked even Frank that much, he wasn't going to let her do anything that dangerous no matter what the others said. But Frank agreed. They definitely didn't want to draw any more of this thing's attention.

They'd slowed almost to an idle as they passed the opening, and as they started to speed up a little, they saw a car come up from behind them and turn in next to the cop cars. Frank's phone rang, and it was Terry. She would be free about 2pm if they needed her, she told him. He said that there wasn't much they could do at the moment anyway, but that he'd call her if anything changed. The deputy on the hood of the car slid off and went to the driver's open window. What transpired couldn't even be called a “conversation.” A moment later, the deputy was taking his position on the hood again, and the driver was backing out with a disgusted look on his face. They guessed that the guy was a reporter looking for more info. Frank increased his speed, and the others followed him back to the freeway. The sheriff's office was in Port Huron, so that was the most likely place the bus and any remains had been taken. Hopefully Frank's offer would get them a foot in the door of this investigation. They drove up there and found a nice diner to hang out in until then.

Frank's phone didn't ring again until 5:30pm. It was Sheriff Lane. He'd finally gotten a chance to respond to some of the messages he'd gotten that day. When Frank explained his background with the FBI, some of the...unusual cases he'd worked for the Bureau, and that he was currently unattached to any Department while he was on leave, the sheriff told him he'd be grateful for any help Frank could give him. Ultimately he'd be kicking it up to the State Police, but he'd like to give them as much as he could when he did that. Then he gave Frank the basics of the case. The bus had been stolen from a church school in East Pointe sometime after the regular driver had dropped it back there yesterday afternoon and everyone had left the school for the day. It was reported missing this morning. There appeared to be the remains of 8 children and 2 adults burned to death on it. The arson investigators were still looking for signs of what accellerant had been used, because the fire had burned hot enough to melt the bus's frame in places and to almost completely consume the victims' bodies. In fact, they didn't even have enough left to identify the victims through dental records or to be able to tell for sure if the 2 adults were one male and one female as they suspected. But they were concerned that the accellerant might have been so completely consumed as well that they might not find any trace. At the moment, the bus was in the State Police crime lab in Port Huron being processed, and he could take Frank there and introduce him to the officer in charge of that operation. There was no sign of this being a terrorist attack, the children weren't from the school from which the bus had been stolen, and there had as yet been no reports of a group of 8 missing kids, so they must have gone missing in ones and twos and could have been from just about anywhere. There were no footprints around the scene except for the ones left by the police, and no sign that anyone had gotten on or left the bus during the fire. A guy on his way to work at the crack of dawn had spotted the bus and thought it might be a prank, but called 911 anyway and reported it. When the police got there, the metal was still warm.

Frank suggested that Sheriff Lane look for a missing family, maybe one that home-schooled. If this was some sort of cult activity, that sort of family better fit the profile. If it was a cult, it was most likely a very small one, since the number of victims was so small. The sheriff told him that he'd gotten reports of 4 missing kids just that day, and they were from Detroit, Pontiac and Port Huron, so they were going to have to run a pretty wide search. But if Frank wanted to meet him at his office, he could take him to the crime lab. Frank asked if it was OK for him to bring along a colleague who had experience with explosives, and the sheriff agreed. When he was done on the phone, Frank let the others know that the fire had created crematorium-level heat, yet it sounded like the bus itself hadn't also been consumed. Angie could think of a few incindiaries or explosives that could generate that kind of heat, but nothing that could have still left the exterior of the bus intact. Frank asked the others to get rooms at a local hotel and start doing what research they could on the church the bus had come from and any fire-related cult activity they could find. Then he and Angie left for the sheriff's office. When the other 4 got settled into rooms, they called Terry and enlisted her help. A short time later she called back to let them know that the church was the Church of the Redeemer. The school had about 150 students. They were part of a Protestant sect that were Bible literalists, pretty right-wingy, and they weren't very trusting of the government. She'd called the sheriff's department to get the info from the stolen vehicle report, and raised a few hackles because they thought that the DPD was trying to step on the 'small-town sheriff's department's toes.' So she was going to just stay down there in Detroit rather than driving up that evening. She'd leave the phone on, in case they needed her, and plug in the electric blanket. She sounded just slightly grumpy to Karen and Leigh when she mentioned the blanket, like it was a bother that Frank wouldn't be there. The two just grinned and winked at one another. No point in telling the guys because it would just cause trouble—for Frank and then for themselves.

Sheriff Lane took Frank and Angie directly over to the crime lab. There were several people in 'clean suits' working in and around the bus when they got there. There were smoke stains up the sides of the bus from every window, and an oily smell of burnt flesh. But the bus frame appeared intact. John Hunter was the tech in charge, and he handed Frank and Angie clean suits of their own so they could take a closer look. After they put them on, Hunter called Susan Fellows out of the bus. She was the local ME. It didn't look like a terrorist job to her, and Frank agreed. It sounded like a death cult, he suggested to her. She led the two Envoys into the remains of the bus, to the driver's seat. She pointed out how the side window was burnt and buckled right where the driver's arm would have rested. His shoe had melted right to the accelerator pedal and the seat itself was melted. But nothing else in the area was as badly damaged. And what little was left of the body looked like it had burnt from the inside out. The only thing she could think of that might cause that sort of pattern was Spontaneous Human Combustion. It was the same with all the other bodies as well.

The other thing she'd noted was that it looked like these people all just sat there and burned alive. Usually someone who's on fire will move and struggle, try to put the fire out; especially children. But there was no sign that any of them had moved at all. The fire damage was localized to the seat and the windows and sheathing beside them. The remains were left in neat little puddles. She led them out of the bus and picked up a small jar that was sitting on a tarp nearby. That was all that was left of one of the children; not even enough to check for drugs, but she was going to try anyway. It was the only way she could think of to have kept the kids from moving around. Next she pointed out a hand mark on the support bar of one of the overhead hand rails. Someone had stood there and held on while they burned. Frank asked if it was possible that the person had been restrained there somehow and the restraints had been fully consumed. She thought about that. Admittedly, there were plenty of stories of Buddhist monks sitting still and meditating as they self-immolated. But never kids.

When Frank asked if there was any other evidence that had survived, maybe of cult activity, Fellows told him that she hadn't found anything and that she hadn't heard of any cults active in the area. Frank figured they would have kept their activities quiet, but maybe this was some sort of message from the leader. The unusual things were that there weren't more victims and that the message still wasn't apparent, if there was one. Normally one smaller part of a larger sect wouldn't do this on its own, so it had to be small. The only things she'd found inside were little odd items—a coin purse, part of a backpack, a melted cross necklace. Angie asked if she could take samples too, and Hunter said it was OK as long as she shared any answers she got from them. Frank want back inside the bus and looked around. Everything he saw confirmed what the ME had told them. He glanced down at the driver's seat again, and something caught his eye. It was a glint of metal. He looked closer and found what might have been a fairly good-sized silver pendant had melted into the seat. It was warped and runny-looking but Frank could make out the shape of a thunderbolt or lightning bolt. He called Fellows back in and pointed it out. She'd missed that, thinking it was just part of the seat frame. She called a tech over to collect it and Frank went back out.

Angie was carrying around a clipboard and doing calculations and mumbling. She couldn't figure this out, because the damage wasn't adding up to any of the incindiaries that she knew of. Frank walked around the outside of the bus. He was still looking for the message he was sure the cult leader would have left. Then, as if it were a trick of the light, Frank saw it. He'd stepped out as he came around the side of the bus and was thinking about why they would have spray painted over the school's name on the side. When he looked at it again, he saw how there was something more to the pattern of the paint. They'd first sprayed over the name, then painted the word TRANSFORMATION over that using the same paint. No doubt about it...this thing had the stink of death cult all over it. Frank pointed this out to Hunter, who was amazed that Frank had been able to spot it. Now it seemed all too obvious. Finally, after they'd been there a couple hours, Frank gathered up Angie and told Hunter, Lane and Fellows that he'd contact them immediately if he came up with anything else useful, and the pair took off. As Frank started the car, he called the others to find out where they'd gotten room, and they headed over there, picking up some take out on the way.

That evening, the conversation was all about death cults. All the laptops were set up and running searches on Detroit area death cults, with the key words “transformation” and “fire.” Leigh shared what she already knew about Norse cults of this sort, with the phrase “Soul Forge” springing immediately to mind. It was out of Norse mythology, and was an idea that had been gaining popularity among American prison inmates, who embraced 'worship' of the god Isactru or Odin. Inmates joined seeking power, protection and unity. Odinists, as they're sometimes called, who tended to be White Supremicists, believe in becoming martyrs for their cause and used a thunderbolt as their symbol. One of the key concepts in Norse mythology overall is that of Ragnarok. It was the Norse version of the End Times, but as a beginning as well as an ending, a time of transformation. This led them to add recently released prison inmates with families in the area to their computer searches, and also people (and their families) who might have helped put those men in prison. Justin called Fr. Jerzy, to see if he knew anything about the church where the bus was stolen or about any strange death cults in the area. He told Justin that he'd see what he could find out. Frank called and asked Terry to see if she could find out anything about possible discarded spray paint cans in the area where the bus was stolen. And Justin suggested that the next day they go back and try to take a look at the fire scene from the precise spot where Frank saw it in his dream, to see if they could find any new clues there.

JUSTIN’S WAR JOURNAL
Entry 61 [>>>transcribed from digital audio and ---typed]

---September 9th, 2006. Just thought I should make a note of the day that I officially and with forethought knowingly committed a criminal act. Technically I’ve been doing it for a couple months now, but today was when I got them all done, so I figured that made it official. In the back of my head, I always knew that it was fairly easy to get hold of guns in America but until I actually tried, I didn’t realize how easy. There’s just too many times that I think the splat guns aren’t going to be enough. They’re fine if we’re knocking down people without killing them but they’ve got no punch otherwise. Can’t take out a door lock with a splat gun for example. And some things just don’t fall down til they’ve been blown apart. Not to mention, making silver buckshot is fairly easy. So, I’ve been making us our very own sawed-off shotguns.

Like I said; it was way too easy. This is Michigan. It’s like a hunter’s paradise. I think that used to be on the billboards even. There is a Gun and Knife show just about every weekend, somewhere in this state. And you don’t need a purchase permit for a good old fashioned shotgun. Double barrel, 12 gauge, over and under was my preference. I think most of them were second hand skeet guns. Well made and being sold pretty darn cheap compared to their original price. It about made me cry to cut down the barrels on those babies. And I did it careful. No crap hack jobs. Swapped out the butt stocks for over sized grips. Found a sling that will work good for them too. Combat rigs made for carrying the old Uzis. Drill and tap a hole to take the sling swivel nuts and those slings don’t even know the difference. Again, found them at the gun shows. Military surplus from Israel or Germany or some former Eastern Block country or another. Nice anonymous cash buys and none of them in large quantity. I think Frank would be proud. Ha ha. I think I’m going to confession. It’s not that late yet. Uncle Jerzy should still be up. More later.

---September 30th, 2006. Still no Fight, still not complaining, still trying to have a normal life. Which means I’m going hunting tomorrow. First day of bow hunting season. I got invited to join some of the folks from Karen’s tribe. They said I’m part of the tribe since me and Karen got married but I still think of them as “Karen’s tribe” most of the time. Anyway, they invited me out to their patch after they found out I knew how to bend a bow. Least that’s what they said. I got a sneaking suspicion my loving wife just maybe had a hand in it. Trying to make sure I wasn’t out in the woods completely alone. I may be Polish but I ain’t stupid. Just hope weather is halfway decent so we spend more time actually hunting than we do in camp. And of course, now I’ve got “Second Week of Deer Camp” by Da’ Yoopers running through my head. More later.

>>>The Fight is back on. It’s October 11th, uh, some time really early in the morning. Not important really. Just about finished with my workout when Frank called. He said to look in the morning paper and we’d all meet at the diner for breakfast. Frank didn’t say which story. He didn’t have to. Picture of a burned out school bus on the front page. Story says kids burned in that bus. Dammit! No wading for us. Right back into the deep end. Oh God; little kids [choke] burning… [choked whimpering and recording ends]

>>>We’re getting on the road. Quick trip to pick up any extra equipment we think we might need and then we’re out of here. Tony’s not with us. Couldn’t get hold of him in person. Guess he’s on assignment in the middle of nowhere and real busy. Left phone messages and I guess he’ll find us when he can get here. Terry’s not with us right now either but she might be joining up later. She went in to the office to see what she could do from the official cop end of things. She said if she doesn’t have an immediate assignment, she’ll try to join up with us later.

Breakfast was interesting. Frank has definitely got some kind of second sight dream thing going on. He handed around ear buds and played us a recording he made of himself telling what he saw in his dream. It’s pretty darn close to what’s in the newspaper story. Considering that we’ve been put on the trail of this, I’m thinking Frank’s version is probably closer to the truth. In Frank’s dream, he saw the bus turn off a paved road onto a dirt farm road and then turn into a field. In the dream the kids on the bus are singing a hymn. He sees the kids catch on fire, one by one but they just keep on singing. None of them moved. Just kept on singing. Seemed like the assumed story was that the bus driver had set the kids on fire but didn’t go into much more detail than that. Withholding names until they can notify next of kin and all that. Didn’t even say where the bus was from. They found the bus up near New Baltimore, north of here. So that’s where we’re headed. Going to swing by a store on the way up and get everybody a hunter orange vest. It’s still hunting season and I’d hate any of us to get shot by some redneck with too many beers in him and not enough sense. More later.

>>>Almost there. About half hour drive. We’ve got my truck; Angie’s driving Reg’s Land Rover and Frank brought his Lincoln. Split up the resources and personnel so we’ve got three fairly even mini-teams split between the vehicles. I’ve got the arsenal and the tools; Angie’s got the camping gear and medical supplies and Frank’s got the rolling forensics lab in his trunk. We just got passed through the local sheriff’s roadblock near the crime scene and I guess that means Frank’s phone call on the way up here was more or less successful. At least they didn’t tell us to go away. Frank called up the St. Claire County Sheriff’s office. Gave them a run down of his credentials and offered to help out by consulting on the case. I’m thinking that when something like this happens in your back yard and a real smart guy with federal credentials, whether he’s on leave or not, and experience with weird death cult killings kinda things calls up and offers to help you out, you say yes. Or at least, we’ll see.

That’s the plus side. The minus side is what happened just after we passed through the checkpoint. Those Sheriff’s cars must have been parked just about where Frank saw the bus turn off the pavement in his dream. I know there was a dirt road right there and there’s nothing else out here but fields and stands of trees. No wonder nobody saw the fire when it happened. Just after we passed the cop cars Karen, Frank and Leigh all got something like Defcon 3 alerts on their Unknown alarms. It hit Leigh hard enough that she passed out. They all said about the same things. There was something out in that field and it seemed to know that we saw It. They said it felt very strong, very evil and actively nasty. Like it would gladly take us out if we crossed it. About the only silver lining to that is that at least it didn’t feel as old or powerful as the Thing under my house. Yeah, [chuckle] because fighting a grizzly bear is SO much easier than fighting a Kodiak bear. Hoo boy. Anyway, Frank says we’re going to have to wait until the Sheriff calls us before we can get a look at any of the physical evidence. Hope this town’s got a good coffee shop or something. More later.

---Man, I guess Sheriff Dan must have had one busy damn day. It’s almost 5:30 and him and Frank just got done with maybe a 20 minute phone conversation. Sheriff Dan said they’re bringing the State Police in on this so he can let Angie, and by extension Frank, onto police grounds to take a look at the bus. Said he’s happy for the help. No official standing for the rest of us so we’ll have to wait and see if Frank can maybe get “call in some experts he just happens to know” or something. The Sheriff did share some preliminary data with Frank while they were talking, so the rest of us do have something to work on while Frank and Angie are getting a closer look.

Here’s what we’ve been able to put together about the case so far.

Terry called not long after Frank and Angie left. Told us the bus was stolen from a church school in Eastpointe; the Church of the Redeemer. She says they’re a Protestant sect and they’re kinda Right Wing. They don’t trust the government and actively keep them out of their church dealings. Said she’d get back to us if she finds anything else.

The evidence is at a lab in Port Huron. From what little the techs have been able to piece together from the remains they’ve got there were 8 kids and 2 adults burned up on that bus. The fire burned so hot that they’re not sure if they’ll be able to get any intact DNA for testing, so identification is going to be difficult. Not even enough intact bones to say for sure which were male or female. They’re working through some missing children reports but they’re not certain of any connections yet.

The fire on the bus got hot enough to cremate bones so they figure there HAD to be accelerants used. Parts of the bus were melted as well. But they can’t find any trace of accelerants at all. Which just makes no sense from their point of view. Hope we can come up with something believable. Otherwise we’ve got more innocent people looking into Unknown crap and getting dragged into the Fight. Maybe liquid oxygen?

Pretty much no chance whatsoever of finding any tracks. Drizzly rain since last night has made that field nothing but mud. Not solid enough to hold any decent tracks. Don’t know how much help I’m going to be on this run. Well, there will always be a need for somebody to run for coffee I guess. More later.

---Heard from Frank and Angie. Sounds like the techs examining the bus could maybe be halfway convinced this was some kind of spontaneous human combustion. The heat was very localized to where the bodies were located. They’ve got burn patterns that look like the bodies never moved once they started burning. But there’s no sign of any restraints either. They figure these folks MUST have been drugged. But none of the remains are intact enough for any kind of tox screen. All in all, it sounds like Frank should have a pretty easy time selling them on the idea this was some kind of death cult incident.

Some odd bits survived the fire. They found a gold necklace, part of a backpack and a coin purse; stuff that they would have had on their person. These were items that were on somebody while they burned. They were heat damaged but not burned up; why not?

While he was checking out the bus himself, Frank found something; a couple of things actually. The first thing he found was up front of the bus. It looked like the driver’s foot was still partly intact in a shoe that was melted to the gas pedal. He found a bit of metal that looked only partly melted, sitting on top of the foot. It looked like it was lightning bolt shaped, like a necklace charm or something like that.

The other thing Frank found was on the outside of the bus. The name of the school had been painted over with black spray paint. But they noticed it looked like there was something else under that paint. They brought in an alternate light source and fiddled with the frequency of the light until they could tell what it was. Somebody had spray painted the word “Transformation” on the side of the bus and THEN painted that over with the same spray paint. Only reason they could find anything was that the extra layer of paint reacts with the light differently.

Frank put all this stuff together in the old brain box and remembered something about some cult based in Norse mythology. Yeah, Thor, Odin, Loki; that Norse. He said it’s becoming popular with white supremacist prison inmates here in the states. Leigh knew the group Frank was talking about. She says it’s called Odinism or the Odinistic Rite. Not sure of the origins. Seem like the skinhead types go for this religion because of the “violent” imagery in the Old Norse mythology stories. And this whole thing could be nothing more than a wild goose chase. This Odinism group could have nothing to do with this at all. We’ve got some more reading and some more investigating. More later.