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Well, damn. Not good. Not good at all. She had to figure out a way to handle this, because there was no indication he had a similar response. She wondered if he even thought about that one night any more.
“I might have a challenge or two for you,” he told the women in a teasing voice. But it was obvious he actually had something in mind. “Why don’t you finish lunch and then we’ll all meet by the big tent in thirty. I’ll give everyone a rundown about what’s on tap for this afternoon. That work for all of you?”
The women all nodded.
“And, Beck? Let’s include Leslie, too. I know she’s not into all the other activities but if she also ends up being a part of the organization, she needs to have all the facts from the git-go.” He looked around the table. “I thought she’d be having lunch with all of you.”
“I saw her just before we sat down. She said she wanted to do a little sightseeing and she’d catch up with us after lunch.” Beck frowned. “Leslie kind of likes to do her own thing, but she usually lets me know if she’s going off somewhere. I guess she’s off riding that mountain bike of hers again. I know she’s planning to participate in the afternoon’s activities though. Or at least check them out. Hmm.” She pulled her cell phone from her pocket and dialed a number. It was obvious from her reaction there was no answer. “It didn’t go through.”
“Cell reception isn’t the greatest out here,” Hank told her, “and I don’t like her off on her own. If she falls down a ravine or something, it could take forever to find her. If I’d known she was going to go haring off by herself, I’d have given her one of the sat phones.”
“Does that happen a lot out here?” Victoria asked. “Bad cell phone reception?”
“This is the first time we’ve used this place,” Hank told her. “I’m hoping eventually to start another Brotherhood Protectors in this area, so I wanted to test the waters, so to speak. I was worried about cell phone reception, but we have sat phones, and there are towers on two other mountains.” Hank shook his head. “But even losing reception once is too often.”
“And I sure don’t like her taking off like that,” Beck told him. When she got hold of her sister, she planned to read her the riot act. “She’s not tuned in to the dangers out here. My fault. I should have been more forceful in telling her she needed to check in with you or Roman before leaving the area.”
“And I should have been more definite about it. I didn’t—” Hank’s satellite phone dinged, interrupting him. When he looked at the screen, the muscles in his face tightened as he read the message that was displayed. “Damn it. Just damn it to hell, anyway. We don’t need this.”
“Need what?” Beck asked.
“Bad news?” Roman asked at the same time.
“I don’t know. I did a pretty thorough check of the area before starting to focus in on it,” Hank told them. “You know that. You went over everything with me. Nothing popped up. And I mean nothing. But now I’m really sorry I didn’t dig a little deeper. I just didn’t expect—I mean, this place has such a harmless reputation.”
“I want to know what’s happened,” Beck snapped. “Does it have to do with Leslie?” Every muscle in her body tightened, anticipating the worst.
“I should have insisted no one leave this area without checking with me first.” A muscle ticked in Hank’s jaw. “That goes for every single person. Leslie Morrissey’s not used to an organization like this, so I’ll cut her some slack by saying she didn’t know that was the procedure. But she should have told her sister before doing something stupid like going off on her own. I hope she’s a lot smarter at work.”
“Yes,” Beck agreed. “And we will definitely address that just as soon as we get her back here. But, Hank, there was nothing said about any danger in the area, and Leslie wasn’t really bound by the same restrictions as the rest of us.”
Hank nodded. “My bad, and I’ll remember that.” His phone dinged again, and Hank looked at the screen, the muscles of his face tightening. “Fuck. Just fuck.”
“Bad news?” Roman asked.
“I hope not. Depends. A message from Swede who says open this ASAP. Let me check with him. He’s the one who sent me the original message. I hope this isn’t bad news.”
He walked away to conduct his conversation in private, and, when he rejoined everyone, he didn’t look one bit happier.
“Okay.” Roman studied him. “So it must be really bad news.”
“That’s the damn truth. I can’t believe nobody gave us this information when I did my research and made these arrangements. Apparently someone made it their business to hide all the info about this. I’ll need to dial my contact in Washington in on this and get details. Chew his ass out for not being aware of this, or at least enough to pass it along. And also have them find out who is connected to a bad situation.”
“So, what is it?” Beck pushed. “From the look on your face, it must be pretty damn bad.”
“It is.” Hank blew out a breath. “Okay. Here it is, and it’s not good. Five years ago, a group of radical domestic terrorists, disgruntled former military called the Loyalists, had their own ideas about how this country should be run. They did not recognize this government as legitimate, did not pay taxes or obey any laws or recognize the authority of the police.”
“I’ve read about groups like that,” Beck told him. “Whatever sets them off really lights a fire.”
“Well, with this particular one, they were all in the military and did not fare very well behavior-wise. They all left their respective branches of service thoroughly pissed off.”
“That’s not good.”
“No kidding. They formed a group and made their headquarters here in these mountains for several months. And may still be here, but I’ll get back to that. They’re very very very good at staying under the radar, so they were able to set up their headquarters, recruit and plan their activities without sending out any warning signals. They used their base here to launch small terrorist attacks on military establishment and patriotic events over the past five years. Said this country had been corrupted and they were taking it back.”
“I’ve heard of them,” Roman said, “let me tell you. Those guys are the worst of the worst. Are you telling us they’re showing their faces again now?”
“Apparently they have contacts in high places who secretly support them. That’s how we didn’t find out they were here. That they’d set up their headquarters somewhere in these mountains.”
