Author’s note: This story was completed during 2019 – pre-covid and pre-Jan-6.
A flag lifted lazy in the breeze, revealing a solid white background adorned with a large black X stretching from corner to corner, an exact replica of the Confederate Battle Flag – a black and white symbol of hate.
With a deafening roar the last house on the left erupted in a ball of flame illuminating the sultry night. One split second separated the quaint depression-era Florida home from its conversion into fragmented matter and energy. In that instant the structure with its mildew slathered clapboard and dilapidated crawlspace skirting transitioned, transforming into a weapon of sharded glass, splintering wood and twisting metal mingled with swatches of clothing and body parts. The shrapnel wave shredded the vehicles in the driveway along with a large propane tank causing secondary explosions. The concussion rattled the bottling plant half a mile up the road and flattened trees out to the I-95 North on-ramp several hundred yards away. As the flames leapt up the walls of an unattached barn, the tattered League of the South flag sagged from a bent pole in the thick smoke.
#
Jacksonville, Florida
Special Agent Witt sat in the car marveling at the juxtaposition – order to chaos, calm to calamity, fire to ash, people to parts, a deafening clamor to stoney silence. He loved this job and hated it too. He chuckled inside. My days are spent reconstructing all things ‘former’. I’m surrounded by former windows and doors, former shirts, former people. Someday soon that’ll be me – the ‘former’.
At the crime scene tape, Witt flashed his credentials. They waved him through. He walked toward an above ground pool that had stood between the house and the road. One side had collapsed inward while the other stood riddled with holes. A piece of shirt dangled from the twisting top rail; a shoe with part of a foot floated in what water remained. The stench of blood and death mixed with diesel filled the air. He wrinkled his nose. This part of the job was what kept him up at night.
A deputy approached pointing Witt toward a Dolly Parton haired woman in the driveway who wanted a word.
He surveyed the damage as he headed toward the woman standing just inside the crime tape.
“Mrs. Thompson, the Sheriff’s deputy said you saw the explosion.”
She just stood there, mouth agape, staring at the devastation.
“Mrs. Thompson, what can you tell me about your neighbors?”
“Please call me Luella. Mrs. Thompson is my mother.”
The woman rubbed nicotine-stained fingers against a faded rose tattoo on her left wrist. “They were animals. Now they’ve blowed themselves up. Thank gawd.” She had an odd accent, most likely created by her vicious overbite.
She chomped a wad of gum.
“Sorry, can you spell your first name for me?”
“L-U-E-L-L-A, Luella.” She volunteered her last name, “T-H-O-M-P-S-O-N, Thompson.”
“Thanks.” Witt scrawled in an incident notebook as Luella spoke. He notated the rose tattoo as well and another on her upper right forearm – a skull very similar to the balaclavas worn by Atomwaffen members. “Did you see anyone unusual in the area last night?”
“You mean beside those boys who blowed themselves up? No. Just them.” Luella let out a soprano laugh. “I was walking my dog when the place went up. I was up there where the road ends.”
She pointed to a guardrail backstopped by underbrush and trees. She cracked her gum. Witt couldn’t explain it, but she really annoyed him.
“The blast knocked me down. My ears was ringing; they still are a bit. My husband took the dog to the vet. They say he may not recover his hearin’.”
“Any idea how many people were in there?” Witt asked.
“Not sure but you can see all them cars. The crowd was bigger than usual. I heard their leader was in from out of town.”
“Do you know who that was ma’am?”
“The signs at the end of the driveway said something about a guy from their HQ in Alabama.” She blew a bubble and popped it. “Those boys was always hootin’ and hollerin’ over there. Actin’ all educated and shit – callin’ for a second secession, white rule, and a Christian-only gumerment.”
Witt pulled a picture from his pocket. “Did you see this man go into the house?” He pointed to the picture. Hall grinned in a group photo in front of a Confederate flag. His military cut cropped off his wide forehead. He pointed right at Matthew Hall, the League of the South’s president.
“Yep, I saw that man go into the house.” She thumped an ugly brownish-yellow finger against the picture. “And that’s my neighbor next to him. Mike Smith.”
The gum cracked in her mouth. Witt physically winced. Why is this woman giving me the nails on a chalkboard effect?
“I guess this was their army headquarters.” She made air quotes around the word “army”.
“Do you know if Mr. Smith was in the house at the time of the explosion?”
“Oh yeah.” She poked her finger at Hall’s face in the picture. “Arm in arm, they was. I watched Mike walk this guy in the front door right before the house went up.”
“Mike?” Witt looked up from his notes. “So you were friendly with Smith?”
“Not really friendly. Introduced myself and met his wife. Waved from a distance a few times.” She paused, then said, “They tried to evangelize me to their cause, but I weren’t havin’ none of it.”
“And you live where?”
“In that single-wide right there.” She pointed to one of the dilapidated mobile homes across the street. In the yard sat a white F350 utility truck and matching utility trailer. The trailer alone had to be about twenty feet long, an A/C unit on top. Witt noted both looked relatively new.
“Can we walk over toward your place?”
“Sure.”
Witt took pictures from her driveway toward the crime scene. “Where did you say you were when the place exploded?”
She pointed to the place where the county-maintained road ended at a low metal barrier. “There’s a path just beyond that rail. I was gonna walk through the woods there to the other part of Cole Road.”
“Please join me,” Witt said, heading for the spot. He took several more pictures as they walked.
“That guardrail helped protect me.” Luella patted the blackened metal.
“Would you mind if I snap a picture of you for my notes?”
“Not at all,” Luella said, straightening her dress and faux coiffing her hair.
Witt snapped a photo and started to walk away but stopped. “This is going to be an odd question. Have we met before? Something about you seems familiar.”
“I sure don’t think so,” she said in a rather sing-song way. “I get that a lot. I must remind you of someone. Some folks say I look like Dolly Parton.”
“I don’t think that’s it.” His phone began to ring.
“Can I go now?”
Witt dropped his notepad and nearly dropped the camera as shouldered the phone.
“Hang on,” he groused clearly knowing who was on the other end. “Yes, you’re free to go Ms. Thompson.”
Luella flashed him a smile, turned and walked away.
“Witt here. What’s up boss?” He listened for several seconds before responding. “It would be easy to say Smith was storing explosives here. I doubt it though. If Smith’s supplies had been in there, a much larger area would be leveled.” Witt watched Luella make her way back down the road. Instead of entering the old trailer, she climbed into the white truck. It fired up a moment later and rumbled off. “We’re going to need the National Response Team in here to do forensics ASAP.”
#
“How many dead?” Witt tugged on a pair of blue nitrile gloves.
“Based on the vehicles and the shoes we’ve found so far, about twenty-five.” A tuft of grey hair poked out from under Donnelly’s coverall hood. Craig Donnelly was the best certified explosive specialist in the ATF. He had cut his teeth on the team that raided Mike Smith’s Jacksonville warehouse, an operation that had sent Smith to jail for five years in the early ‘90s. “Coveralls and booties are in the truck. Don’t contaminate my crime scene. It’s already a mess.”
“Since when do ATF investigators wear coveralls and booties?” Witt headed for the ATF utility truck.
“Hey don’t knock it. They keep your clothes clean and smelling nice.” Donnelly laughed. “Besides, it keeps the FBI from whining about tracking our DNA through ‘their’ crime scenes.”
“Twenty-five dead?” Witt called over his shoulder. “Wow, this must have been a regional gathering of LOS chapters.”
“Not sure how you figure that.”
“The League of the South is vicious, but it has fewer members in any given city than the local gardening club.” Witt zipped the coveralls up.
Donnelly had a look of admiration. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. Thank goodness for that.”
“This was an armed compound with cameras and dogs. There’s no way someone came in here uninvited and did this. Either it was an accident or an inside job.”
“Hard to believe it was an accident as experienced as Smith was with explosives.” Donnelly scratched his head. “On top of that, in what’s left of the shed by where the barn was, we found acetone, sulfuric and muriatic acid, and highly concentrated hydrogen peroxide.”
“Why is that strange? It’s all normal stuff for TATP explosives.”
“That’s just it. Everything indicates TATP was used in the devices that caused the damage, but that type of explosive isn’t part of Smith’s M.O. His go-to is stolen military-grade ordnance.”
“Well, as the neighbor lady so eloquently stated, this was their ‘army headquarters.’ I can only assume they were storing some supplies here. The dead are most likely LOS militia. Their Southern Defense Force, you know, those ‘combating the growing leftist menace to our historic Christian civilization’ and ‘keeping the peace’.”
Donnelly ignored the sarcasm. “You think the Southern Defense Force is evolving to use homemade explosives?” He gave a long, low whistle. We recovered a laptop and some drives. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”
“Show me the rest of the site.”
As they walked, Witt noticed something bright yellow in the weeds near a barn door hanging precariously by one hinge. He bent down and picked up a sticky note. He pulled an evidence bag from his coverall pocket. “For the cause. Best wishes. El Diablo.” He sealed the bag after depositing the note inside. “Dust this for prints,” he said to one of the Techs.
“Ever heard of El Diablo, Donnelly?”
“Nope. He might have just been an unfortunate guest bringing a gift to the big boss.”
“I’ll have someone check on deliveries to Smith’s house yesterday, and I’ll get the computer analyzed. Oh, and let’s have the Sheriff rundown everyone on the LOS membership list. He can help us account for the living and the dead.” Witt sighed, taking a final look at the rubble. “Let me know when your initial report is ready.”
Donnelly nodded. “Let’s hope this is a one off and it solved itself for us. An open and shut case.”
Witt nodded, “Yeah, open and shut.”
#
Washington, D.C.
Witt sat in his cubicle reviewing investigative feedback and lab reports from the Jacksonville investigation. He was feeling his age. He’d been doing this work for over three decades now. He was scheduled to retire at the end of next year.
- Twenty-five dead confirmed, constituting almost the entire north Florida membership of LOS.
- Matthew Hall’s remains identified.
- Michael Smith was in the video of the explosion, but his remains have not been identified.
- TATP confirmed as the explosive used.
- No deliveries to Smith’s house in the days before the bombing.
- The recovered laptop contained Smith’s surveillance video of the house. Video goes dark for a three-hour window during a period when Smith was confirmed to be in North Carolina.
- VICAP database search yielded no results on the M.O. or the moniker El Diablo.
Something was still eating at him about how familiar Luella seemed. He swiped right through his Jacksonville crime scene photos. Hand on the blackened guardrail, Luella smiled at him from the tablet. Was it an old case? What was it?
Witt tugged a file drawer marked 1980s; it creaked from disuse. He had started with the Bureau in ’82. He pulled a folder labeled ’83 to ’85 and began the process of leafing through old incident files.
In an incident notebook labeled June 1983, he fell into the notes on one of his very first cases in the field. Two years out of George Mason University he had found himself in the midst of the unexpected glamor of West Virginia. It had been an arson case involving the National Alliance – the leading Neo-Nazi, white nationalist group in America.
“Those boys.” He flipped through the pages. “Those boys was always hootin’ and hollerin’”. The soprano laugh and the gum. Could it be? No, Luella is too young.
Thirty-six years ago, Witt loved a woman, or at least he thought so. Margaret Thompson had been unforgettable. Auburn hair, green eyes, at thirty, the mother of a young teen. She didn’t turn his head; she dropped him dead in his tracks. Witt fell for her the minute he saw her. It had turned out bad. Her husband was in the National Alliance.
Witt shook the cobwebs from his mind. He hadn’t thought of her in over a decade, maybe even longer than that.
He had helped Margaret rescue her daughter even though he had never met the girl. Margaret had promised that, after she got Luella settled, she would leave her husband and marry Witt. Margaret disappeared without a trace in July 1983. Witt never heard from her. He had looked, though. Both for Margaret and for her daughter. He checked the notes again. Luella had been the girl’s name.
He swiped right again. The picture taken from the guardrail back toward the house gave no line of site to Smith’s front door. Had Luella misspoken or lied?
He requested an expedited background check on Luella Thompson and associates.
After lunch Witt checked the system. The preliminary background check had bounced back.
- No record of Luella Thompson.
- No Mr. Thompson in the Jacksonville area.
- No Jacksonville veterinary clinics had treated a dog after the explosion.
#
Las Vegas, Nevada
The ATF National Response Team had already cordoned off the scene and begun unpacking equipment. The hooded white figures moved through the rocky, charred desert like ghosts.
“Hey Joe! Good to see you.” Witt waved as he stepped over the caution tape. “I wasn’t expecting old-home week here. How’s the wife?”
“Ex-wife you mean.”
Joe Patterson had always been acerbic. Maybe that was part of his high IQ just like his sarcasm. Witt loved his sense of humor but didn’t want to tear at his old friend’s wounds. He diverted to business. “What do you know so far?”
“The Nye County Sheriff hasn’t given me a whole lot. The white supremist groups Atomwaffen Division and The Base were conducting one of their training camps out here. Early indications are that a bomb-making class went bad. Fifteen dead at least.”
“Any survivors?”
“None that we know of. We’re still checking clinics and ERs.”
“I didn’t think it was possible, but these guys are getting more radical and reckless.” Donnelly joined them, yanking off his rubber gloves after his preliminary walk-through. It had been a few months since Jacksonville, but Witt had asked him to fly out; he needed Donnelly’s expertise. “We found undetonated bags full of HMTD crystals over there in a cooler. They were clearly teaching how to synthesize and desiccate it.”
“Fucking fanatics.” A muscle twitched along Witt’s jaw. “These guys fetishize death, Nazism, violence, and mass murder. They’ve already committed at least five murders. To them, everything is binary, black and white. The only grey is Confederate.”
“It’s weird though,” Donnelly said. “We haven’t found any detonator materials here and there were none at the Jacksonville site.”
“You can’t transport this shit,” Patterson interjected. “Why produce explosives if you can’t use them? Maybe someone was bringing the detonators and got held up?”
Witt shook his head. “Who knows. They do these camps for hand-to-hand combat, small arms training, and now bomb making.”
One of the techs spoke up holding out a battered laptop. “We found cameras, what’s left of them. They had at least six posted, all wireless, probably to video the proceedings. It seems they all connected to this laptop.”
“Bag and tag it. I’ll have the investigative unit analyze it right away.” Witt hesitated. “Any chance you can access the computer now?”
“Probably not,” the tech said. “Let’s see.” He fired it up. “We’re in luck. They must have removed the password for filming. I’m in.”
The screen filled with young men in fatigues and skull balaclavas performing a Nazi salute. James Madison stood in front of them wearing a Nazi armband on one arm and an Atomwaffen armband on the other. He was accompanied by three men.
Witt growled audibly.
Patterson chuckled. “Hate these guys much?”
Witt remained silent, hyper focused on the video.
There was no audio but it was clear that Madison, a professorial looking man in his mid to late 60s, was getting them agitated. One of the men next to Madison turned and looked off camera, then walked out of view. Madison continued his no doubt hate-filled speech. Unexpectedly the ground erupted, the cameras shook. The screen filled with dust.
Witt frowned. “Did you see that man walk off camera right before the detonation? The scar on his forehead … he looked like the Chef.”
“You think it’s Markus out of Canada?” Patterson seemed surprised.
“The camera doesn’t lie. And these young guys didn’t have the military background or the skills to put this sophisticated type of training together. The Chef did.” Witt watched the video play through again. “Can’t say if he survived.”
“Maybe these guys blew themselves up.” Patterson shrugged. “Open and shut.”
Witt and Donnelly looked at each other. As if on cue, they simultaneously said, “Too easy.”
“We recovered Mike Smith’s laptop at the Jacksonville site,” Witt said. “As the leader of the Southern Defense Force, Smith set the strategy and direction for weapons and ordinance. There was no indication in his data that LOS was moving toward the use of homemade explosives.”
“Smith was videoing their meeting too,” Donnelly added. “No one was doing anything with bomb-making materials or ordnance. Just like here, the explosion looked spontaneous.”
“There was an eyewitness,” Witt said. “A neighbor, she claimed. Luella Thompson. But she’s in the wind. No record of her anywhere except for leasing a single-wide trailer across the street for a month before the bombing. We had her right in front of us. Hell, I interviewed her.” Witt paused. “She watched us investigate the scene.”
“Whoa, an arsonist’s dream,” Patterson quipped.
“No, a serial killer educating herself about potential pursuit.” Witt reached for his phone. “We need to get the FBI in on this.”
Patterson snorted. “Those FBI bureaucrats won’t provide resources for a joint task force.”
“Not even if it’s right-wing terrorists being targeted?”
“Off the record, Strayer is saying Justice is pursuing a different line of investigation.”
“How could that be? We haven’t seen them at either crime scene.”
Patterson shook his head. “Not sure. But that’s what I’ve heard.”
“Sir,” another tech said, jogging over. “We just got a positive ID on one of the bodies. It’s James Madison, or at least his upper torso.”
Donnelly let go with his trademark whistle. “Maybe that’ll get the FBI singing a different tune.”
A tech waved the three men over to a clump of underbrush near the base of a large hill.
“Three bodies sir. Two are badly burned, odd that the third is not burned at all. I think we can try a preliminary ID with the picture book.”
“No need. That’s Cameron.” Witt bent down and moved a red MAGA hat. “That’s Humber. And this guy is The Chef, aka The Exterminator, aka Patrik Markus.” He used his pen to lift Markus’ t-shirt, revealing a small wound in the chest. Witt rolled the body over. “One to the heart and one to the base of the skull with a small caliber weapon. No exit wounds.” Witt let the body roll back to its original position. “See the powder burns? Point blank shots but no exits. We probably won’t find any rifling on the slugs.”
“A zip-gun?” Patterson was shocked. “What do you make of that?”
“Only speculating, but Markus must have seen something that caused him to walk away right before the explosion. What if what he saw was a reflection or something. He walks over to check it out, and boom.” Witt pointed to the charred bodies.
Donnelly nodded. “The blast could have easily knocked Cameron and Humber over here.”
“While he’s disoriented, the bomber rushes down the hill and executes him with a zip-gun.”
“You really think this is a serial bomber?” Patterson inquired.
“Two explosions in two months take out the leadership of the LOS, the Southern Defense Force, Atomwaffen, and The Base along with James Madison, one of the most renowned Nazis in North America.” Donnelly sounded uncomfortable. “This is way too convenient to be an accident.”
“If it’s her,” Witt said, “she’d have left a note. It’s part of her M.O.” Witt turned to the tech who had brought them over. “Her signature has to be here. Look for scraps of paper or sticky notes.”
“We already have it, Boss.” The tech handed Witt an evidence bag. “We found it in Markus’ pocket.” Witt flipped it over; the message was clear: “For you, my Chef. Guten Appetit. El Diablo.”
“So it’s not just a serial bomber, but a woman who has dubbed herself the devil?” Patterson looked skeptical. “Female serial bombers are statistically unheard of.”
“We can’t rule out a man yet,” Witt acknowledged. “But whoever it is, this person is targeting the most aggressive neo-Nazi hate groups. That means they have to be connecting with these groups. It’s the only way they could know high-profile targets would be available.”
“Exactly,” Donnelly agreed. “Both of these events would have been invitation only – very hush-hush, dark-web stuff. How did these guys get to Vegas?” Donnelly pointed to the corpses at their feet. “Did they fly or drive? How did they get the supplies and equipment in here? Check the BDC database for similar cases.”
“We have the video of the Jacksonville explosion. Now we have a video of this explosion. Both explosions appear to be spontaneous, but we have notes from El Diablo at both sites. Both notes read like a gift was given.”
Patterson threw his hands up. “Okay, you two, so give me your best guess. If it’s a serial bomber, and it’s this woman, how’d she do it?”
“What if she posed as a benefactor and supplied everything, including the laptop and cameras?” Donnelly pointed around the blast site. It was a tight area that correlated to where the young men had stood in the video. “If she set up the site, she would’ve been able to control where the meetings were conducted. Based on the craters, the IEDs were buried – two in the middle and six around the perimeter. They could have been triggered remotely.” He looked around. “Most likely from the top of this hill.”
Witt nodded. “These kids would have been thrilled to receive these kinds of supplies.”
“Markus would have been in heaven,” Donnelly agreed.
Patterson wasn’t having any of it. “So not only is it a female serial bomber, it’s an unbelievably rich female serial bomber with the tech skills and connections to obtain these kind of resources. What are you two smoking?”
#
Travelers Rest, South Carolina
Two things struck Witt as he pulled off Cherokee Highway into the Dixie Classic parking lot. The first was The Cartman Flag at the top of the flagpole, a black St. Andrews Cross emblazoned on a white banner. The emblem of LOS and the new Alt-South. The second was that the building seemed intact except for the broken windows and fire damage through the roof. The Dixie Classic was a store based on ideology – hatred of all things not white and southern. Their products included flags, t-shirts, mugs, and bumper stickers.
Donnelly caught Witt as he opened his car door.
“This one is vastly different than the first two. It was an incendiary device made with reconstituted fireworks, lots of them.” Donnelly kept his voice down. “Everyone inside burned to death. Someone had sprinkled magnesium shavings around the shop. When the victims tried to put the fires out with CO2 extinguishers, the fire got hotter. ‘Lucky’ the sprinkler system didn’t work. The water would have intensified everything.”
An ashen Witt turned and walked toward a gathering of police and sheriff’s deputies. “Special Agent Witt with the ATF. Who’s in charge here?”
“Sheriff John Grey, thanks for coming.”
“Don’t tell me, Sheriff, this is an open and shut case of idiots blowing themselves up.”
The Greenville County Sheriff looked surprised. “Well, that’s what it looks like to us.”
“So nothing suspicious?” Witt asked.
“Well, there was this note on top of a laptop we found in the parking lot.” The sheriff handed it to Witt. “We assumed someone from your office left it for you.”
“Special Agent Witt, I don’t believe the cameras were working. El Diablo.”
“Hmm.”
“Do you think Cartman was here?” Donnelly asked. With the possible exception of Bruce Griffith of Occidental Dissent, Daniel Cartman was the best recruiter the North American white nationalist movement had seen since the mysterious 2002 death of William Pierce, founder of the National Alliance.
The sheriff cut in. “Hell yeah, he was here. There were fliers plastered all over hell and back about him coming last night.”
“Let’s look at what’s on this laptop,” Witt said, motioning for Donnelly and Grey to follow him back toward a shed behind the store. Cameras had been placed outside pointing at the front and rear access points.
Once again, Witt watched a screen fill with a room stuffed with Confederate memorabilia, about fifteen young men performing a Nazi salute. Standing in front of them was Daniel Cartman wearing a Nazi armband. He was accompanied by Bruce Griffith and the store’s proprietor. The room burst into flames and panic ensued. Cartman stumbled back, and one of the skinny kids up front grabbed a fire extinguisher. The foam hit the flames, and the fire flared white hot, leaping onto Griffith’s black jacket.” The screen filled with smoke and went dark.
The Sheriff turned white and looked away from the screen. “Shut it off.”
Witt looked at Donnelly. “In Nevada, the digital forensics indicate that the computer and cameras we found were not the property of either the Atomwaffen or The Base. Hardly anything left intact was their property. The supplies were gifted and used to lure them to that exact location for their training.”
“This is a completely different M.O.” Donnelly cut in. “Three attacks, three different M.O.s”
Several tattered copies of Pierce’s The Turner Diaries lay against the shed. Witt bent down and picked up a pristine copy of Cartman’s book, Our South Shall Rise. He flipped the cover open, and there it was – a yellow sticky note.
“The demons fear the devil for good reason. El Diablo.”
As he stood there a folded piece of paper fluttered from the book.
Witt read it aloud.
“A poem for the recently departed.”
#
You boys with binary lives,
Who cannot accept complexity,
Your loss of privilege opened you up
To the demons of supremacy.
Stop competing for the mythological zero sum.
Your saints are slayers
Who live within the either/or,
Whose terror reign drives your prayers
To the demons of mass-murder.
Cease with fetishizing death and uniformity.
Boys who oversimplify,
Victims of your own oppression,
Your trek through abandonment swirling
Blinds you to the devil’s rejection.
Cease your protestations of all things not white.
Grow up, you binary boys,
Who fancy yourselves supremacist philosophers,
Your hatred of the other, by demons deployed
Serves no greater good, only your evil choreographers.
Tremble before the devil, you who are about to die.
The demons make you stray; the devil makes you pay.
#
“Not much of a poet,” Donnelly quipped.
The sheriff just stared in disbelief, terror filling his eyes.
Without a word Witt walked toward the front of the property.
Fifteen or so local police and sheriff’s deputies had gathered in the sweltering parking lot forming a half circle waiting to hear Witt and Donnelly share their profile.
“We think our perpetrator is a woman who grew up among white nationalists and possibly survivalists. She is the equivalent of a pathological fire starter, which is rare, fewer than one percent of arsonists. Her mother was most likely abused by her father. She most likely was physically or sexually abused by the adults around her. She is highly intelligent and very well educated. She has severe emotional problems as a result of her upbringing. She will have difficulty maintaining relationships; she’s probably alone. Based on the complexity of the previous bombings, she most likely has a degree in engineering.” The crowd began to murmur. “Her victims are the leaders among white supremist groups. She is lurking around these groups. Make no mistake, this perpetrator is extremely dangerous. As of today, she has killed no less than fifty-five people.”
Donnelly picked it up. “This woman has dubbed herself El Diablo. In spite of the use of Spanish, she is definitely Caucasian. She could live in the south, but she could live anywhere. This is no Ted Kaczynski aka The Unabomber. This perpetrator is smart and organized, and she has access to extensive resources that she uses to cover her tracks. She is sophisticated and varies her MO. She is proud of these bombings. She is killing surrogates for her abusers over and over. She may be traveling in a late model white F350 pulling a 17-foot cargo trailer, also white.”
Witt stepped forward to close the profile briefing. “There’s another issue. This is especially for you, Sheriff. With this third incident, these groups may see themselves at war with one another. We can expect that the National Alliance and others will not only increase their security but also begin to seek and destroy their enemies.”
“If I was part of the National Alliance, I’d increase my security,” the sheriff commented.
“You never know, maybe the National Alliance will ask the FBI for protection.” Witt laughed. The other ATF guys cracked up.
#
Indeed Dorothy “Dot” Peters PhD was well resourced. She had parlayed her double major in electrical and mechanical engineering from MIT into a successful career in microcomputer design. She earned a small fortune selling her greatest achievement: proprietary designs for a microcomputer processor the size of a grain of sand.
As a girl growing up in West Virginia, Luella Thompson had escaped the men of the National Alliance thanks to her mother, Margaret Thompson. Mama had clearly been in love with the guy who helped Luella become Dorothy Peters and had promised to join Luella as soon as it was safe. But in July of 1983, all communication stopped; Luella never heard from her mother again.
The years that followed were filled with professional successes and personal setbacks. She had been hospitalized and diagnosed as schizophrenic with paranoia. The ER doctors moved her to the psych ward, where her arms and legs were bound to a metal bed with thick leather straps. When the psychotic break struck, and she began screaming at them to stop raping her, the staff had opted for sedation. She had woken up in a rubber room where she lived between shock treatments for the next six months.
But it had been two decades since then. She had not only recovered but thrived in a world that shunned the mentally ill and oppressed women and minorities. She was a success.
Her current situation started after she had sold her company. She wanted to remember; wanted to deal with her terrifying youth. Revenge was necessary.
Maybe it was her illness; maybe she needed to be frail again; maybe it was a simple choice. She decided to go back, to go off her medications and begin the slow descent into paranoia. She would have her undiluted revenge, without the dulling effects of medicine.
She took out a piece of paper and hand wrote a letter to her lawyer.
#
Mr. Lawson,
As your fees provide me with lawyer/client privilege I intend to use you as a safety net.
You understand I crave complex problems. Challenging work is my most powerful bulwark against my mental illness. Having said that, I have decided to take a journey to right several wrongs from my past. As part of this journey, I intend to stop taking all medications. This will make me quite vulnerable. I have made extensive preparations and have a well thought out plan. The most dangerous part of my journey will be near its end. That is when I will require your services.
Please use the contents of this letter to come find me twelve months from now. I’ll be at the Hillsboro House Bed & Breakfast in Hillsboro, West Virginia. I trust the sum I’ve transferred into your account will justify the inconvenience of a few days in West Virginia for you. You will most likely find me smelling fetid with a glass of wine in my hand. Whether I resist or not, transport me to my ranch without alerting anyone – absolutely no authorities should be engaged or alerted to my presence in West Virginia. The staff at the ranch will take things from there. Check on me in five months after that.
…
Thank You,
Dorothy Peters
#
She started the reduction of her meds. It took only five or so weeks for the memories and paranoia to begin flowing over her.
They are monitoring me, looking for vulnerabilities – the men of the National Alliance. She began gibbering and rocking forward and back.
I should have never had those appliances delivered and installed. That man with the skull and crossbones tattoo was clearly a white supremist – shaved head. He admitted he was a prepper. She screamed at the microwave, “Can you hear me, you sons-a-bitches?” A screaming groan, a vaguely human noise, started in her belly and scraped its way through her throat and out of her gaping mouth. “I’m going to kill you all,” she screamed into the open microwave.
“The situation is grave; they are coming out of the grave. Rapists from the grave. Tell the demons to stop. Time is over; stop time.” She moaned. “Rotting limbs pulling me down. Tell them to get away. I’m scared.”
The mad poet Rainer Maria Rilke refused help, saying, “Don’t take my devils away, because my angels may flee too.”
“Demons are fallen angels that rape and hurt all beings who are not pure white men,” she murmured.
#
Somewhere near Atlanta Georgia, she fell to her knees and cried.
I kill with my thoughts.
A nuclear weapon detonated in her brain.
I turned around and killed a rapist with a raised knife.
In Valdosta she stood in the rain at a truck stop vacillating between muttering and shouting, talking in ways that made no sense.
A trucker headed to Jacksonville gave her a lift.
“Memories are visitations,” she informed him. “They make certain points. The point is your head.”
The trucker laughed. “My friend Pat used to say that.”
“Have you killed anyone?”
“What? me? No.” The trucker looked worried. He pulled off I-10 at the McDuff Avenue exit, just west of Jacksonville. “This is the only easy off and on before the I-95 interchange. I head south from here.”
“Heaven is hell, and hell is here with all its demons. I am the devil.”
“See you, lady.” The trucker was scared. The airbrakes hissed. “I, I, I hope you find help.” He slammed the door and sped away.
“Welcome to the Florida sunshine hell. Demons to dance with. Sunshine hell, where there are lemons, oranges, and demons.” She twirled around.
She stopped abruptly and frowned.
Someone’s infiltrated my head.
We’ve got to search the point. Demons are burglars who break in through your memories.
She couldn’t settle down. Her head full of orange trees and memories would not get to the point.
Sitting by the road, she rocked back and forth, moaning in fear and isolation.
She covered her face and began shaking. Daggered demons perched in the trees waiting – for what? The mass murder I would be responsible for.
Writhing in agony.
Birth. The devil. She turned to the evil spirits hanging like fruit among the branches. “I will kill you. I will kill you all! What have I done wrong? Why did you create me?”
She collapsed with a hundred thousand thoughts seeking to interdict her metamorphosis.
Her life lay smashed and ruined.
I’m God, or I’m the devil. I give life, and I take it away. Forgive me, for I know not what I do.
Then Luella Thompson stood right there in the Florida rain. Her memories intact, she knew what she had to do.
#
Jacksonville, Florida
She could hear I-95 traffic in the distance as she unlocked the door of the dilapidated mobile home. The inside stank of mold. No wonder the landlord had been delighted to receive a month’s rent in advance. “Guess I’ll be sleeping on a cot in the utility trailer.” She walked outside and started the F350. It roared to life and idled at a low growl. Ahh, the sound of a well-engineered machine. She shut it off and walked to the back of the utility trailer.
She opened the padlocks and lowered the ramp. A generator and a satellite receiver sat at the back of the trailer. About three and a half feet in was a wall with a hermetically sealed glass door. She lugged the generator down the ramp and took it around to the front of the trailer, plugged it in, and fired it up. Once the ramp was closed again, she lowered the trailer’s awning and stepped inside.
The lights flickered to life; the AC had started with the generator. It was already cooling off inside. To her right stood a wall of neatly labeled lockers: Night vision, tranquilizers, jab stick pole syringe, darts, H2O2, Citric Acid, Fuel Tablets, C4, microprocessors, detonators, zip-guns, disguises-hair, disguises-tattoos, disguises-dental. To her left was another set of hermetically sealed doors beyond which was a clean room with Class 0 rubber electro-static discharge floors. She had designed and built that room to her specifications. After dark she would set up the powerful satellite receiver and the first Wi-Fi access points.
She sat down at the vanity and stared. She pulled the Dolly Parton wig and put it on a wig stand then removed the dental prosthetic. The tattoos and the age spots would stay for the duration in Jacksonville.
Inside the clean room, she opened a bright pink 140-quart cooler filled with water. Resealable plastic bags full of TATP crystals were submersed inside. Along the wall, cases of acetone, sulfuric and muriatic acid, and highly concentrated hydrogen peroxide were neatly stacked and strapped down.
A Gantt Chart was taped to the wall. She ran through the milestones and deliverables.
- Pre-work
- Meet the Smiths
- Hack their cameras and alarm system
- Deployment
- Sedate five 120-pound rottweilers
- Plant the explosive devices
- Plant TAPT bomb-making precursors
- Wait for the LOS/SDF gathering
- Kill the rapists, murderers, and racists
- Post Kill
- Transport equipment to next site
- I-10 to Mobile
- Mobile to Jackson
- Jackson to Fort Worth
- Fort Worth to I-40 via Abilene, Lubbock, and Clovis
- Pick up cache for next event
- Flagstaff farm
- Transport equipment to next site
She breathed deeply. “First order of business after the satellite setup is to hack into their systems.” She pulled a laptop from a case docking it on the workbench. Exhilaration was the only word she could think of to describe the sense of excitement and control that she felt. Growing up, she had felt constant fear and uncertainty. “El Diablo,” If I feel like this now … How will it be when it’s done? Luella was happy.
She sprinkled what looked like sand onto a microscope stand. A large, curved monitor attached to the wall displayed a magnified image of the tiny computer processors. She opened a locker and removed the package marked detonators. They looked like dressmaker pins with white plastic tops. Dot had designed these herself. Each was an electrode with a silicon wafer circuit on top designed to accept a microprocessor. Two of these in a chunk of C4, and you wouldn’t need a trigger or a receiver – just Wi-Fi and a computer, tablet, or phone. They could trigger any explosive with the added bonus of being completely obliterated by a mere firecracker.
She prepared fifty detonators and programmed them into pairs. That completed, she prepared ten veterinary darts with the correct dose of tranquilizer. She inspected the jab stick syringe and the dart gun. She unstrapped boxes along the wall and began moving the acetone, acids, and hydrogen peroxide into the toolboxes on the truck.
The time had arrived. The Jacksonville LOS chapter leadership, including Mike Smith along with his family, was headed to Pittsboro, North Carolina to protest the removal of a Confederate statue. Except for their dogs, the house would be empty. Luella loaded a small cooler filled with explosives into the cab of the truck and put her computer bag along with the detonators on the seat. She used her hack to kill Smith’s cameras and alarms.
The truck tires crunched along the gravel as she pulled across the road. Smith’s dogs snarling and barking as she pulled up. She used the jab stick on the first one and darted the other four. The dead-end road never had traffic. The other mobile homes sat dark on a Friday night..
Of the twenty-five devices, she placed twenty around the main living area of the house. The other five went along the perimeter of the back. With TATP’s sensitivity to pressure, heat, and sparks, none would misfire. She unloaded several precursor supply boxes into the barn, arranging them in a corner where traces would survive the blast. Then she drove off. Ready for the show.
#
Washington, D.C.
The reflecting pool and fountain were an azure blue. The willow trees along the walkway made the grounds look like a serene garden. There were few hard lines on the grounds or the building’s exterior. Instead, the fountain, the walkway, even the concave parking structure glided in gentle curves toward the softly rounded expanse of windows that was the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives headquarters.
Inside – in the air – there were hard lines everywhere. Bureaucracy and politics strangled serenity. Choose your poison: Will you die – bite-by-bite – by the soul-leaching book? Or do you prefer the cold steel of Et Tu Brute office politics?
“So let me get this straight.” Assistant Director of Field Operations Robert Strayer turned a deep red. A vein pulsed in the center of his forehead. “We investigated three major bombings that killed fifty-five people in three states. We spent tens of thousands of dollars, and the only hard evidence we have is three sticky notes that could just relate to gifts that the victims received?”
Witt felt blood rushing into his cheeks. “Well, not exactly. There were four notes all signed ‘El Diablo’. The first two read like they were attached to gifts. The third was addressed directly to me. It was a cross between a taunt and message attached to a gift for me – a laptop with video of the third explosion. The fourth note was cryptic. ‘The demons fear the devil for good reason. El Diablo.’”
“And an unsigned poem.”
“That’s it? A poem? No actionable evidence? Not one fiber of DNA? No money trail? No witnesses saw a thing? Nothing other than the notes and – and – and a poem?” Now it looked like Strayer’s face might explode.
“We have a profile and a photo of a person of interest who has disappeared.”
“The M.O. has been different at every scene. How can you be sure it’s even the same perp?”
“Each bombing is more sophisticated than the last and yet they have critical signature elements in common – like no detonators found at any of the sites. She’s building up to something big.”
“And you think it’s a hit on the National Alliance leadership. I can’t believe you have the temerity to come in here and request a protective detail and a large surveillance team because a has-been domestic terrorist group might be in danger.” Strayer had a bit of white phlegm at the corner of his mouth. “Do you hate me? Do you want me laughed out of the ATF? My career isn’t half over. I’m not taking to the director with this.”
Witt made one final attempt. “Sir, I believe if we get out in front of her, we can not only stop her, we can catch her and save lives. Besides, the President might like the idea of it.”
“Get out.”
Witt walked out. “Temerity my ass,” he muttered. “I’ve got balls.” And you don’t, he thought to himself.
#
West Virginia
“I’ll give you this truck, free and clear, if you go here and negotiate a rental space for my utility trailer.” Luella handed over a map with details written in the corner, a circle around Sewell Cove Road. “Say your name is Mike Smith. Drop the trailer, secure it, and get out of there.”
“Come on, lady. There ain’t no way you’re givin’ me a fifty-thousand-dollar truck for drivin’ a trailer from Beckley to Stamp Creek.”
“That’s the deal,” she said, raised an envelope. “Here’s the title; you can hold it. Come back after the drop, and I’ll sign it over.”
He eyed the envelope.
“O-kaaye.”
She pulled out a wad of bills and shoved them into the envelope. “Here’s cash to rent the space.”
She held it out for him.
He still hesitated.
“Keep whatever’s left after the deal.”
He took the package.
She turned to walk away and turned back. “How much for your car? Cash. Right now.” She pointed to the rusted-out 1993 Nissan Sentra.
He shook his head. “You gotta be kiddin’ me.” He laughed and tossed her the key. “Take it.”
“Report it stolen.” She drove the Sentra straight to a Walmart parking lot where she switched tags with a similar vehicle.
#
“It’s for my niece.” She inspected a simple sandstone headstone displayed on the counter. “Can you make it look about forty-years-old?” She fiddled with her hair. “I want it to blend nicely with her mother’s stone.”
“It’ll take a couple of weeks.”
“I’ll pick it up in two weeks. Have it ready.” The two weeks would give her plenty of time to do the prep work and deploy everything.
#
Luella turned onto Sewell Cove and drove right up to the waiting utility trailer. She fired up the generator and set up the satellite receiver along with several Wi-Fi access points.
She’d been back on her meds for weeks now. Her mind was crystal clear.
She sat down at the vanity. No need to transform herself this time. She would attend the festivities as herself.
A new Gantt Chart was taped to the wall. She ran through the milestones and deliverables.
- Pre-work
- Have trailer delivered
- Cut the trails to main house and church
- Hack the cameras and alarm system
- Sedate the dogs
- Order gravestone
- Deployment
- Plant the explosive devices
- Send out the invitations
- Replace the gravestone
- Wait for the gathering
- Kill the rapists, murderers, and racists
- Post Kill
- Destroy the evidence
- Retire, for now
A warm summer breeze rustled the treetops. She inspected a line of trees and undergrowth looking for a spot where she could start a trail without it being apparent to others. A bushy thicket jutted out into the clearing. Perfect. She cut into it several feet and then shaped the trail to veer off abruptly to complicate things for anyone who might try to follow her. Eventually she came across an animal trail going in the general direction she intended. Thorny vines clawed at her clothing and grabbed her hair as she macheted her way northwest. Thank god I don’t get poison ivy.
The dank forest floor reeked of rotting wood and leaves. The pungent odors filled her nostrils as she muscled her way through the underbrush. She breathed deeply. It smelled good. She sat on an embankment swigging water, covered in dust and sweat. There was nothing quite like a workout in the woods. She had made it to the gully she had played in as a girl. This was home. She was home. She felt innocent.
She walked in the dry creek bed for a few hundred yards until it bent sharply to the west. This is the spot. If she cut straight north from here, she would be just east of their main house in about a quarter mile. She slung the veterinary dart gun over her shoulder and continued north.
The sun was sinking west toward the mountains when she heard men talking. She dropped to the ground and slipped under her ghillie blanket. The voices drew near.
“I thought I saw something over here Ron.” The guy was maybe three feet away from her. “I guess it might a been a deer.”
“Yeah, prolly was.” The men slung their AR15s and headed back toward the main house.
She raised her head and watched them, members of the National Alliance on guard duty, retreat. Just beyond them, through a wall of knotted thorny vines, she could make out the clearing. The main house sat at its northern edge, tucked into the woods on three sides.
With the trail cut, she could now move back and forth with relative ease and complete anonymity.
The next day she dug a cache just off the trail east of the house. Lined with a tarp and covered with a ghillie blanket, it was impossible to see. After several trips, it was filled with wireless cameras, C4, detonators, a resealable plastic bag filled with what looked like sand, and Wi-Fi access points.
Over the next several days she hung cameras along the edge of the clearing and around the perimeter of the house. She also set cameras to monitor an old church that sat on the service road leading back to the house.
Waves of crippling emotion washed over her as she came upon the site. Was it disappointment, relief, or anger that she felt? This had been er goal for years – her main target – her mother’s grave. She had paid a substantial fee to buy information about her mother’s fate. An estranged National Alliance member, who had left the group a few years back, was more than happy to tell-all for the money she offered. She steeled herself and walked away, waiting for a more opportune time to visit.
A few days later under a new moon, the sky heavy with clouds, she wore night vision goggles and carried a heavy backpack. The grave, a mound of earth at the south end of the clearing, was marked with a simple headstone.
Margaret Thompson
B: April 1952
D: July 1983
Wife of Boyd Thompson IV
Fury came over her. The cocksure scum had owned the law around here. Now they were so irrelevant that no one gave them a thought. She put the pack down, dropped to the ground, and wept for the woman who had given her life to rescue her from hell. “I will avenge you, Mama. Thank you for saving me.”
She leaned into the old, weathered headstone dislodging it. Carefully she moved the tall grass away from the imprint in the dirt. She unpacked the new one, which was almost identical in color, and set it in place, making sure no grass was caught underneath. After about an hour she put the old headstone into the pack and retreated to the utility trailer.
#
It was a Saturday night in late July, a party night. The National Alliance people had gathered at their church on the service road. The main house was unguarded. Luella filled a daypack with darts and a couple of zip-guns as well as ammo. She grabbed the veterinary dart gun and a jab stick pole syringe.
At the edge of the clearing Luella overrode the cameras and alarm system. One solitary Doberman seemed to be patrolling the compound area. She peered through the night vision scope and dropped the dog with one dart. She quickly moved to the crawl space and set the charges, making sure they would direct upward toward the house and its inhabitants. She tested each processor along with its backup to make sure everything worked.
Satisfied, she pulled the dart from the dog and went down the path. The next day she would send out the invitations.
#
You are Invited!
To attend a Reunion
Hosted by Luella Thompson
At the National Alliance Main House
Festivities start at Monday 10:30 PM
Invitees Only – Sorry no guests
#
Six men stood around the living room. “Where the fuck is she?”
“I don’t know,” Will Johnson barked.
Johnson had been with the Alliance since his teens. He wasn’t in the highest echelons of the dying organization but had acted as a suckerfish for years. “We all got the same invitation.”
“Shut up, mother fucker. You’re lucky I don’t kill you on the spot.” Boyd Thompson looked like a vein might burst in his forehead. “You got a lot of nerve showing up here.”
At 10:45, the television came on. Luella Thompson was on screen. “Hello, boys.”
Boyd Thompson’s knees buckled. “Luella. You’re alive.” He reeled. Just two words made it clear to him that she was the spirit and image of his long dead wife. “Where are you?”
“Don’t worry, Daddy. I’ll be there soon enough.” She laughed. “We all have a little business to conduct before I come in.”
“What business is that, Luella?” Boyd’s voice cracked.
“I have it on good authority you killed my mother after I disappeared.”
“What business of yours is that? You little bitch!” Johnson’s hate boiled over. “You killed her when you left. She couldn’t be trusted.”
“Shut up, Will! I paid a lot of money to learn that you and my father murdered my mother and buried her in the clearing out there.” Her ferocity transcended the TV. “But there is the other small matter.”
The men looked at each other.
“Each of you raped me repeatedly. Don’t bother trying to deny it. There’s only one thing I want you to know.”
“What’s that, darlin’?” Johnson snarled. “Come on over and join us, we’ll do you again for old-time sake.”
“I turned Hall and Smith into confetti. I shredded Madison and shot Markus in the face. Cartman and Griffith melted into the floor.” She paused for effect. “And now I’m going to kill you.”
As understanding dawned on the men, chaos ensued in the room. Two seconds later the explosives vaporized the house.
Luella Thompson emerged from the woods to inspect her work. She looked down the road noting the flames from the Alliance Cosmotheist Church, the primary site of her abuse. Seeing everything completed, she felt washed clean of the past, purified by fire. She turned and walked down the path using her night vision goggles.
At the trailer, she changed into a summer dress, lit a fuse, and drove away. The night erupted into flames as the trailer consumed itself. She turned onto SR 39 and drove to Hillsboro. She passed through town and abandoned the old Nissan just to the south, walking back to her lodging.
While checking in at the B&B, she admired the fireplace mantle.
“That’s over 175 years old, pre-Civil War workmanship,” the proprietor volunteered.
“It’s lovely.”
“I see a note here that we are to notify a third party that you have arrived. We’ll take care of that right away ma’am.”
#
Witt was tired and stiff. He’d gotten up at 1 AM and made the five-hour drive in from D.C. It was easier than flying to Charleston and driving 130 miles to the middle of nowhere. He stopped in Hillsboro to drop his bag at the B&B where he’d be staying.
“This is a lovely mantle,” he ran his hands along the ornately crafted wood.
“It was hand-carved by one of my relatives before the war.” The proprietor had a look of pride.
#
The SUV turned off Boyd Thompson Road following the gravel lane toward the Cosmotheist Community Church aka the National Alliance tax-free religious arm that sat on 60 acres. Witt drove past the church remains, a basement full of water and debris. He turned north following the road toward the larger part of the compound. The cameras posted every fifty feet or so did not escape him.
The vehicle crunched along the winding lane leading to the main house on the 267-acre “farm”. After a half dozen switchback turns Witt came around one last line of trees and drove into a massive clearing. The ATF trucks were already onsite and unloaded. People were working everywhere in the clearing, but the majority were where the farmhouse had stood.
Witt found Donnelly speaking with the local sheriff and fire chief. He shook hands. “Hey Sheriff, Chief, I’m Special Agent Witt with the ATF. Thanks for having us in.”
“Well, I’m not sure we had a choice. We can’t investigate something like this. The chief here had a rough night what with three fires and all.” The sheriff spit. “Not to mention trying to figure out who was here and who is dead.”
Donnelly turned to Witt. “Did you notice all the cameras on the way in?”
“Yeah, no way she came up that road.”
“This time she used C-4. Based on what I smell, it was military grade.” Donnelly nodded at where the house had stood. “With the size of this crater, she probably came in with a backpack full.”
“So that means we should find RF triggers and receivers. Have the team do a grid search in a half-mile radius.” Witt looked frustrated. “Have you seen the property map? It’s huge and densely wooded. There’s no way we could have surveilled this place or protected them. Even with satellite coverage we wouldn’t have noticed anything until the explosion.”
“Body count is going to be tough. Almost everything in that house was vaporized, and anything that wasn’t got sprayed over the forest.”
“I’m sure the tech team will do their best.” Witt looked tired. “Do we have any positive IDs yet?”
“Based on vehicle registrations, she lured Will Johnson here in spite of the restraining order against him.” Johnson was an estranged member of the National Alliance. “It wasn’t a large gathering. Just a few of the old-timers – Johnson, Storm, Boyd Thompson, Guild, Andrew Macdonald, Markasia and few others.
“You need to come see this, chief,” the radio crackled.
Donnelly and Witt looked to the far end of the clearing where a small team had been working. Not far from a firepit, at the edge of the clearing, stood a simple grave marker.
Luella Thompson
B: April 1968 D: March 1983
Daughter of Margaret & Boyd Thompson IV
“This can’t be right.” Witt bent down and ran his hand over the weather-beaten marker. “It looks old but,” he tugged on a single blade of grass that lay trapped under the edge of the stone. “Has anyone moved this stone?”
“No sir, it’s as we found it.”
Witt plucked two sticky notes off the marker and stood up.
One read, “Special Agent Witt, Luella Thompson died of wounds from sustained abuse right here on this property.” The other, “The night hides a world but reveals a universe. El Diablo, I am the Night.”
There were two pictures on the marker. The first was a woman and a girl in her early teens. Witt flipped the picture over, “Margaret and Luella Thompson, 1981.”
Witt’s heart filled with pain and panic. 30-years of denied love caught in his throat, choking his words.
“Notice the picture isn’t weathered at all. She put it here last night,” Donnelly commented.
Witt stood silent fighting the urge to vomit. Loss gripped him for the first time. She was dead. He had known she was dead. But now he knew she was dead. Before, he had always clung to a faint hope that she was somewhere enjoying life.
The other picture was a group of men standing with William Pierce, founder of the National Alliance. On the back it read, “William Pierce died 2002. All others died today.”
“Pierce started this bullshit long ago,” Donnelly quipped. “She finished the Alliance today.”
Witt regained composure.
He cleared his throat. “I’m guessing that the vehicle registrations will match this picture. They were the real target all along.” Witt said. “She was evolving and working up to them.”
He handed the picture of his love’s murders to a tech, “Bag it and tag it.”
“If El Diablo grew up here, she’ll know these woods like the back of her hand.” Donnelly shook his head. “We’ll never catch up to her.”
“Based on boot prints, there’s been a lot of foot traffic in and out of here on a trail from the southeast.” The Tech pointed in that direction. “We followed it to a fork where one path heads toward the church. The other continues southeast toward a lot on Sewell Cove Road where a trailer burned this morning. We sent a team over there. It can’t be a coincidence.”
“How far is that?” Donnelly asked.
“As the crow flies, about a mile through really dense woods and rough terrain.” The sheriff interjected.
#
“You’re sure – it was a man who rented this spot?” Witt interviewed the neighbor on Sewell Cove Road.
“Sure ‘nough,” the man said. “A guy named Smith.”
Donnelly walked up. “Nothing left but the axles and frame, but judging by those it could be the same trailer used in Jacksonville.”
“The neighbor here says a guy named Mike Smith paid to park his trailer here.”
Donnelly looked stunned. “Could Smith be alive?”
“No way, he was in the video frame when the explosion happened in Jacksonville.” Witt looked flustered. “But we didn’t get DNA confirmation on him.”
Donnelly let out long, low whistle. “She’s making Smith the patsy, making it look like all of this has been a turf war.”
#
Washington D.C.
Witt sat in his cubical finishing up the paperwork.
Neither Luella Thompson nor Mike Smith had been found. The body exhumed from the grave at Stamp Creek was Margaret Thompson, the mother.
Other than the sticky notes, there was no evidence that the explosions were anything other than tragic accidents or infighting between rival fascists.
Good luck, Luella, wherever and whoever you are.
He noticed a small manila envelope in his inbox. It had no postage stamp or markings. A standard Avery label with laser printing read:
SA Witt
99 New York Avenue, NE
Washington, D.C. 20226
He opened the envelope and peered in. A page from a yellow legal pad.
“My Work is Done.
I’m glad we know what happened to Margaret.”
– El Diablo
PS: – Somebody had to do something about those binary boys. 😊
He flipped the envelope over. Handwritten on the back were these words.
The demons make them stray; the devil makes them pay.
Witt muttered to himself. “Open and shut.”
The End