“Thank you all for coming on such short notice,” Stone said. “I apologize for the late hour, but the subject matter demands it.” He made eye contact with everyone seated around the table. “I’ve called for this meeting because of a critical new development. I’ve already been briefed, but everyone here needs to know about the new threat.”

The CDT consisted of a hardworking group of five men and four women, all handpicked by the senator. Each of them represented a federal law-enforcement agency. It was the first group of its kind. A prototype. In theory, having a representative of each agency encouraged mutual cooperation and sharing of information. In reality, tension often filled the room. But despite their many differences, they all shared one thing in common: loyalty to the United States of America. Without exception, everyone seated around the table shared a strong resolve to defend and protect the security of the nation.

Stone turned his radar toward his right-hand man, the FBI’s member, Special Agent Leaf Watson. Watson was a career fed who’d entered the FBI academy after spending seven years in the Air Force as a herky bird driver. He was a no-nonsense guy who didn’t mince words. In his mid-forties, he walked with a slight limp from a helicopter accident dating back to his Air Force years.

Watson shuffled some papers and cleared his throat. “The FBI has had an undercover agent on the inside of an arms-smuggling group called Freedom’s Echo for several months now. Until now, Freedom’s Echo has dealt in small weapons. Many of the guns aren’t even illegal until they’re modified to fire on full auto, which this group does. The group’s located in Lassen County in Northern California and operated by two brothers, Leonard and Ernie Bridgestone. You can read about this pair in your briefing packet, if you haven’t already. To summarize, they’re both in their mid-forties and the older brother, Leonard, is a trained Army Ranger, retired. Ernie Bridgestone was a Marine drill instructor and got himself court-martialed for killing a pedestrian while driving drunk. He spent five years in Fort Leavenworth. Both brothers had plenty of disciplinary citations in their files, and both left the military without looking back. Neither they nor their younger brother, Sammy, who works for them, got much attention from law enforcement until they came into possession of a large quantity of Semtex.”

Stone McBride nodded for Watson to continue.

“Semtex was originally manufactured in Communist Czechoslovakia. As some of you might recall, when that regime toppled the new government gave the world some very bad news. The old Communist regime had exported at least nine hundred tons of Semtex to Qaddafi’s Libya and similar amounts to rogue states such as Syria, North Korea, Iran, and Iraq. Worldwide, there could be as many as forty thousand tons of Semtex out there.”