The detective’s lips tightened, just a little, and he squinted in the hot sun. It occurred to Rod that the polyester suit he wore must have been like wearing a sauna, but Rod wasn’t much more comfortable in the linen blazer he used as summerwear. Rod wasn’t about to take it off, though, despite the sweat that trickled down his back, tickling him. He wasn’t going to sacrifice an iota of his edge in dealing with the police. Police respected a man in a suit; he’d learned that lesson quite completely over the years. They would treat a man in a suit a hundred times better than a man in blue jeans, and they were significantly more likely to listen to him than a man in shirtsleeves.

“Why would a troublemaker, Indian or not, go and blow up his own people?” the detective asked, finally.

“Why do terrorists do anything?” Rod countered. “I’ve never seen a fanatic who wasn’t willing to sacrifice a few of his own to get the enemy. What’s more, if you take out a few people, it tends to make others take you seriously when you make a threat in the future.”

Slowly, the detective nodded. “Sounds like you’ve studied the situation.”

Rod let a tiny hint of a smile creep onto his face. “You know what they say; know your enemy. These days, a developer never knows who is going to decide he’s oppressing them. Animal-rights nuts, ecology freaks, special-interest groups—we’d already had some problems before we started clearing this land. Troubles with the eco-freaks and the Indians, over the eagles and what have you. Maybe this is just an extension of that kind of thing.”

The detective didn’t look as if he was convinced. “I can’t see where a bunch of back-to-nature nuts is much of a threat—and I can’t imagine why they’d plant a bomb in a bulldozer.”

There; he’d let it slip. They had found the remains of the bomb. Rod schooled his face not to let his satisfaction show.

“You should ask loggers about that,” he replied, allowing himself to look and act a little heated. “Ask them about the tree-freaks driving railroad spikes into trees they’re about to cut. You know what happens when a logging-grade chain saw hits one of those spikes?”

Evidently the detective had handled a chain saw or two in his lifetime; he winced. “But a bomb?” he persisted.