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These young men, who ranged in age from twenty to twenty-four, were renting a house that had once been their frat house, now banned from the school because of an alcohol-related death not attributed to these four.
Jacobi had sent photos of the men in alphabetical order to our phones. We checked out the suspects: Neil Elverson, who had been three-quarters of the way through a degree in chemistry before flunking out his senior year; Bruce McConnell, a theater major; Mac Travers, who had a bachelor’s in political science; and Andrew Yang, who was a computer science whiz.
They looked like kids. Regular, cute kids who, when combined, happened to have a powerful skill set that could be used to disrupt and terrorize and kill. Individually, they had a history of posting angry screeds and radical comments on antigovernment message boards.
Until a few hours ago, nothing any of the four had said or done was illegal. They hadn’t threatened attacks. They were on no watch lists. However, when one or more of them posted a video as GAR and took credit for an explosion that had killed twenty-five people, they crossed the line.
The GAR video had gone supernova overnight, accruing millions of hits on all social media. It was not a stretch to say that the “kids” we were going after this morning fit the profile of self-radicalized, homegrown terrorists to a tee.
Had this group of angry former frat boys been instrumental in blowing up Sci-Tron? Were they affiliated with Connor Grant? If so, had they been the planners and Grant the doer? Or were these four young men, exactly the type GAR recruited, angry, disaffected young men, depressed or disappointed or both, armed and looking for glory in this life and the next?
My attention was drawn to two camouflage-green assault vehicles, as sturdy as tanks, that entered the parking lot and stopped. A man got out of one of the vehicles. He was tall, wearing tac gear from head to toe, and had the bearing of a man who’d been in the military for most of his life.
He came toward me, calling my name. We shook hands and I introduced SWAT commander William Niles, a.k.a. Billy Bob Niles, to my seven task force cops, several of whom had worked with him before.
We pulled maps up on our phones, and Niles assigned the task force to points around the target as our perimeter.
I checked in with Jacobi, and then our caravan pulled out.
The sun hadn’t yet come up.
Conklin asked, “What are you thinking?”
I shook my head. I didn’t want to say I’d been asking myself and God if I would see Julie and Joe again.
CHAPTER 20
NILES’S ASSAULT VEHICLE was leading our caravan as we sped up Ocean Avenue at sunup.
The military-style vehicles, the train of police cars, couldn’t be more inappropriate
in this very sweet-looking, all-American neighborhood.
Niles pulled to a stop at the intersection of Ocean and Plymouth. I saw the craftsman-style house we were targeting, two doors down from the intersection. It was white stucco with a green roof, sitting on an unmown lawn. An expensive SUV, a couple of years old, was in the driveway. Plates registered to MacCord Travers, one of the presumed terrorists.
The house was dark. No lights and no sign of activity.
I called Jacobi.
“Thanks for doing this. Come home safe,” he said.
Copy that.
Per the plan, three cars in our team blocked off the streets around the subject house, forming our perimeter. SWAT poured out of their vehicles and broke into their well-practiced maneuvers, four men covering the back and side doors, four getting into position on either side of the front entrance.
Niles pointed to me and then to the Honda SUV in the driveway. Conklin and I left the Bronco and used the Honda as a barrier twenty yards from the front door.
On Niles’s signal the tac team stove in the green door and flashbangs were tossed. Conklin and I took cover behind the Honda as the blinding, deafening grenades went off.
I looked up, saw the tac team storming the house, leaving Rich and me to wait while they cleared the scene. I knew well that the grenades had no shrapnel, were meant only to blind and stun the occupants of the house, but tell that to my startle reflex.
I held on to the side of the Honda, shaking like a baby mouse in a cat’s paws. This would not do. This would not do at all.
I looked over the hood, and beside me, Rich did the same. I heard the word “Clear” shouted repeatedly from inside the house as the teams went from room to room and up to the second floor. Only five minutes Niles came out to the porch and shouted, “Boxer, we’re all clear. You’re up.”
I said to Rich, “Ready or not, here we go.”
CHAPTER 21
