"That doesn't surprise me," Rodgers said. He was angry, but he refused to be daunted. He recalled, from his extensive readings in history, how the Founding Fathers themselves were bitterly disappointed that independence didn't mean an end to inequality and hate. Rodgers remembered one quote from a letter Thomas Jefferson wrote to John Adams. To attain that goal, Jefferson had written, "Rivers of blood must yet flow, and years of desolation pass over; yet the object is worth rivers of blood, and years of desolation. " Rodgers would not permit himself or anyone serving beside him to buckle under the load.

"What are you thinking?" McCaskey asked.

"How I want to kick a bunch of damn-fool ass for Thomas Jefferson." Rodgers ignored McCaskey's confused stare. He cleared his throat. "Did anything else turn up on the Pure Nation computer?"

McCaskey went to the third and final folder. "No," he said, "and we're all kind of surprised how little new information there is."

"Bad luck or did they manage to erase it?"

'I'm not sure," McCaskey said. "Everyone at the Bureau is afraid to look this gift horse in the mouth. It looks like it's going to be great PR, especially among blacks. No one was hurt and we've got some bad guys behind bars."

"But it was a little too easy," Rodgers said for him.

"Yeah," McCaskey replied, "I think so. And I think the Bureau thinks so too. The biggest question is why an outside group was sent in to attack the Chaka Zulu people. One of the most virulent hate groups in the nation, the Koalition, is based in Queens. That's right over the East River, closer than Pure Nation was even in New York. Yet there appears to have been no contact between the two."

Rodgers said, "I wonder if this is similar to what the Axis used to do."

"What, disinformation?"

Rodgers nodded. "Bob and I have a file on it. If you have time look it up-- Das Bait. The essence of it is, if you want to mislead a foe, let them capture a unit loaded with misinformed soldiers. If the enemy buys into what they say, ten or twelve men can effectively tie up a division or even a whole army waiting for an invasion that never comes or hunkering down in the wrong place. The Allies refused to do this because of the harsh treatment accorded prisoners of war. But the Germans and Japanese did it regularly. And if the captured soldiers didn't know they were lying, there was no way the information could be drugged out of them. You had to put your people in the field and investigate. How many people did the FBI have on the case?"

"Roughly thirty."

"And now?" Rodgers asked. "How many people are checking down leads or investigating Pure Nation?"

"About seventy or eighty nationwide."