Masked Prey (Lucas Davenport #30)(28)

“I do,” Lucas said. He showed her his ID case, with the marshal’s badge and the plastic ID card. She took it and actually read the card, then handed it back.

“I should tell you a few things before we get started,” she said, knitting her fingers together on the tabletop. “I can’t help you in identifying my clients. I repeat that: it’s not that I wouldn’t, it’s that I can’t. I was recommended by somebody, I don’t know who, to Old John. He interviewed me by telephone, hired me by telephone, and pays me in cash, which I carefully record so I can faithfully report it to the IRS. I get an envelope with two thousand dollars in it shortly after the first of each month, plus whatever expenses I’ve incurred, usually printing expenses. I have a series of ANM position papers that I send to people I’m told to send them to. They’re not recruiting documents, they’re arguments.”

“Two thousand dollars a month doesn’t . . .” Lucas shrugged.

“Sound like much? It isn’t. That’s because we don’t do much for them,” Miller said. She waved at a waitress, pointed at Lucas’s glass, and mouthed, “I want one.” The waitress gave her a thumbs-up, and went to get a beer.

Turning back to Lucas, Miller said, “As I mentioned on the phone, I run a small public relations group, oriented toward conservative causes. I have five associates and we represent thirty-two different groups—everything from nonprofit conservative advocacy groups to small businesses to alt-right organizations. We began by representing some lesser-known guns-rights groups and then some smaller gun manufacturers, then other general small businesses, and so on. A couple of the alt-right groups, over-ground groups, got in touch, and we took them on, and then Old John called. We have no information that the American National Militia is engaged in any kind of illegal activity. If we learned that they were, we would drop them immediately.”

“You say you don’t know who they are, but you must be able to get in touch—I assume you’re here with Old John’s permission.”

“I was asked to meet you. I can get in touch much of the time; other times, I can’t. Somebody will send me a Gmail address. It’s good for exactly one outgoing message, as far as I can tell. They always read the first email, but I’ve never gotten a response to a second one to that address. Then sometime later . . . sometimes days later . . . another address will pop up in my email. Going the other way, from them to me, isn’t a problem, of course. They send what they call ‘white papers’ to my email. I take the papers to a printing company and then send the printed documents to congressional or other influential leaders at their office addresses. Whether or not anyone reads them, I have no idea.”

“Do you have a contact address now?”

She shook her head: “No. I used the one I had to tell the ANM person at the other end of the line about Charlie Lang’s call, about you. Charlie said that you’re investigating this 1919 group. I gave the ANM the website address for 1919. ANM got back to me and told me to get in touch with you and to tell you that they are not 1919 and have no idea who might be behind the website.”

Her beer arrived and when the waitress had gone, Miller took a sip, said, “Good, it’s been a long day,” and then added, “I told them what Charlie said about the website—that it seemed to be an invitation for somebody to shoot a child, possibly as part of a vote extortion scheme.”

“Did they react?”

“Yes. They said that was crazy.”

“They’re right about that. Now it’s out in the media.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Won’t last long, as a story, unless something happens. With all the insane politics going on, the cable networks will have moved along in two days.”

“I hope.”

“So do I, or you might actually get an attack from a crazy person. Anyway, Old John or whoever is on the other end of the email said I should give you the white papers so you could see who they were.” She reached down into her bag and pulled out a stack of computer paper, maybe twenty-five sheets, stapled in separate packs of three or four pages each. There was a simple “ANM” in large type at the top of the first page of each pack, with blocks of professionally laid-out type filling the pages. “They send us the material, we edit and format it and send it to the printer. I pay the printer, send the billing amount to the ANM when I get an email address, and they pay me.”

Lucas took the paper, but said, “This is not going to help much. I don’t care what their papers say—I need to talk to one of the leaders, preferably Old John, if he’s a real person.”

“He is,” Miller said. “Or at least there’s a person who calls himself that, and the three times I’ve spoken to him, it’s the same voice. He sounds older and gruff.”

“Then when you get an address, give him my number and tell him to call me. There’s a reason that I need to talk with him.”

“Which is?”

“I’ll tell him,” Lucas said. “He might not want you to know.”

“Okay.” She took two large gulps of beer, then pushed the glass away and slid out of the booth. “I don’t know when they’ll send me a new address. I don’t even know if they will, since I’ve been talking with a federal marshal. If they do, I’ll give them your phone number.”