Now, however, as Werner sat in the van watching the minute hand of his watch race to the appointed time, he was having second thoughts. There would be hell to pay when the head of the Idaho state police found out after the fact that the FBI had been conducting a major investigation on his turf without being informed. Years of goodwill and close cooperation would be swept away. But it was too late to worry about such things, Werner told himself. Nor was that the most pressing concern he had on his mind at that moment as he glanced up at the gun shop.

John Doherty, and the gun store he ran, had come under surveillance after three of the Wyoming suspects had been observed frequenting the shop. Added to Werner’s growing list of targets, it was quickly discovered that Doherty, a former Navy SEAL, was a member of the same militia group that all of the Wyoming suspects belonged to. With the cooperation of the ATF and the FBI’s center in West Virginia, Werner was able to obtain a listing of the shop’s inventory. This listing quickly showed that a large number of weapons in Doherty’s shop had no place in a recreational hunter’s gun safe. “There are national liberation organizations,” Albert Zimmerman mused after seeing the inventory, “that would cream their jeans if they had an arsenal like this.” While no direct connection had yet been established between Doherty, weapons he sold, and the Wyoming raid, Tim Werner was convinced that it was only a matter of time before his people would come across something that would tie them together.

Even with the prospect of putting his hands on some of those weapons looming before him, Werner was beginning to have second thoughts about storming the gun shop. It had been over an hour and a half since they had seen a hand flip the sign in the window over from “Open” to “Closed.” In four weeks of surveillance, without fail Doherty had emerged within thirty minutes of that, making this suddenly change in routine ominous.

Glancing over at his superior, Special Agent Zimmerman couldn’t help but notice the concern that creased Tim Werner’s face. “Why don’t we back off here,” he suggested, “and have the team at his home pick him up?”

Werner looked over at his fellow agent, but said nothing. They had gone over all their options the night before when they had been planning the arrest. Since they were dealing with a felon suspected of being armed and dangerous establishing the possibility that there could be gunfire, Werner had made the decision to take Doherty in the commercial district where an inordinate number of strangers would not be noticed and at a time when there would be few civilians around. The plan, as envisioned then, called for Doherty to be apprehended after he had left his shop, locked the door, and was alone on the street with nothing more than the 9mm automatic pistol he carried. “Even if he does make an effort to resist,” Werner had stated, “he’ll be outgunned and in a position where the chances of collateral damage will be all but nonexistent.”