Binder - 02 by David Vinjamuri Page A

looking for is with them, I’ll tell you that you’re out of luck. There’s no way they’d let anyone in there without a warrant and a SWAT team.” Collins handed me both photos and the envelope as he spoke.
    My head was spinning. How could a girl who came to West Virginia to protest mining and moved to a commune end up with white supremacists? More importantly, why would a white supremacist join an environmental group?
    * * *
    “Are you certain, Orion?” Alpha asked, using my old call sign. I phoned him after changing motels. When Sheriff Casto and Deputy Collins finally left the parking lot in front of my motel room in Hamlin, I grabbed my bag and checked out, then left town. I drove the kind of route you use when you need to see if someone is following you, but nobody was. Then I headed north, got on the interstate and drove a few miles east before exiting to a chain motel just off the highway. I paid cash and parked around back, wedging my GTO between two SUVs where it would be harder to spot if much easier to dent. Not that a door ding was going to compare to the work I’d need to do on the rear quarter-panel since Little Boy Wright’s pickup spun it around.
    “Sir, you’d recognize the signature,” I said in response to Alpha’s question about the explosive device in my motel room. “Whoever built that device was definitely trained in the community. I got a good look at it. There was a tilt fuse with a mercury switch, triggered by a tension wire attached to the doorknob. It was double-primed. The explosive wasn’t mil-spec but the signature was clear. Whoever planted it came pretty close to getting me, too.” In fact, if I’d had one ounce less fieldcraft pounded into me in the Activity, I would have yanked the door to my motel room open without checking the telltales.
    “Unfortunately, this fits with some other information we’ve gathered,” Alpha said. “It appears you may have crossed paths with a group called the National Front. Anton Harmon is a member.”
    “The Sheriff’s office traced the name on this end as well, but I haven’t confirmed it’s the same Anton Harmon. It’s hard to imagine a neo-Nazi suddenly joining an environmental group. It’s even harder to imagine one dating a girl named ‘Hernandez.’ I got a picture of him, though, so I’ll run it by someone who knew him on this end,” I replied. I remembered the girl at CC Farms mentioning the tattoo of the swastika she’d seen on Harmon and my skepticism weakened.
    “Please do, but you should know we’ve established a second connection to this group. We were able to get the details on the phone conversation you overheard,” Alpha continued, obliquely referring to the call I’d intercepted on the listening device I’d planted on Little Boy Wright. “The call was made to the voicemail box of a prepaid phone. This particular phone falls under a monitoring warrant being run by another agency. The phone in question is one of a lot that was bulk-purchased at a warehouse club by a member of the National Front.”
    “Oh,” I said, frowning. “That complicates things.”
    “There’s more. Harmon has a military background. He was with the 26 th Infantry Regiment of the Big Red One during the first Gulf War. After his discharge, he completed a degree in civil engineering, then reenlisted after 9/11. He went in under the X-ray program and served with the Third Special Forces Group as an engineer sergeant. He was DD in 2008. That file was sealed, though we’re trying to get a copy of it.”
    “He’s an explosives specialist?”
    “Yes.”
    “So he could be the one hiring these men to keep me from finding Heather?”
    “It’s possible,” Alpha conceded. “At the very least, it suggests that Miss Hernandez may be in some real danger. And that someone doesn’t want you to connect the dots.”
    I cleared my throat gently and took a breath.
    “Sir, if we step back for a second, you’d have to agree that this trip has