The group wanted to make the development of engineering plans equal to the manufacture of the guns themselves.

Which would legally corner anyone putting plans online, unless they had a federal firearms manufacturing license. Which none of these rogue guys designing 3D guns in their basement did.

I thought about what Wolf had said when we were in the back of Chester’s gun shop. About the reason someone might use a 3D sniper rifle.

That might fall under the category of making a statement.

What better statement could you make against a potentially onerous 3D-printing law than to take out the people pushing for that law? And do it from a half mile away, using a 3D weapon.

“Shit,” I said to Remy. “That’s a game-changer if it becomes law.”

Malcolm’s Blazer slowed outside a large ranch-style home with confederate jasmine curling along a white picket fence that ran along the edge of the property.

Remy and I got out. Followed Malcolm and Wolf over to the door, where he introduced us to his friend.

Zach Obernick was white and six foot tall, with a neatly trimmed black beard and wavy hair. His wife, Flora, was Black and wore hospital scrubs that featured a pattern of tiny bears against a pink field.

“You’re a nurse?” Remy asked the wife as we walked through their home.

“I’m a pediatric neurosurgeon,” she said. “Just got off a late shift. You’re the detectives?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Remy said.

Her husband opened their back door, and we followed the couple from the home out into a huge backyard.

In the center was an all-glass room, about fifteen feet by fifteen feet.

“A greenhouse,” Remy said, just as we approached the structure.

“And wouldn’t that be nice,” Flora said. “Some beautiful flowers inside maybe.”

The husband, Zach, came around with a key and unlocked the greenhouse door.

But we didn’t see a garden full of daylilies or trays of hothouse tomatoes. Instead, we stared at a 1:500 scale replica of the city of Atlanta, set up on a mahogany ten-by-ten table, about four feet off the ground.

“Wow,” I said. It was a city of white plastic structures, perfectly molded to show off every window and rooftop pool, but not painted. In between the buildings, which were labeled with their addresses on tiny signs, were gray roads painted on the table.

The whole city stood about ten to twenty inches high off the board, depending on the actual height of each building.

Wolf and Malcolm were the last ones in the door, and Malcolm moved around the far side of the table.

“Right there’s the Georgia Aquarium.” Malcolm pointed. “Here’s the World of Coca-Cola.” Malcolm’s finger moved back to the courtyard. “And right here is the Center for Civil and Human Rights. That quad outside is the spot of Bleeker’s speech.”

I knew Atlanta okay, and I recalled spending time in this specific area. Lena and I had taken Jonas to the aquarium when he was six. I remember going on the behind-the-scenes tour and learning this was the only place in the country where whale sharks lived.