‘True enough. If you have children, I’m sure you will welcome a two-year battle against the behemoth of the federal government to enjoy the freedom to keep them. Not that we have many freedoms left in this country. Those of us who defend American values wind up here.’

‘You’re here because you didn’t pay your taxes, aren’t you?’ Cab asked.

‘I’m here as a scapegoat, because the government needed someone to blame for a murder they couldn’t solve.’

That was what Cab expected Brock to say. It was the standard excuse of a guilty man. The trouble was, based on everything he’d read about this man, he expected him to be proud of what he’d done. To tell everyone, to take credit. Not to deny it and hide behind a lie.

‘Most people think the government solved the murders,’ Cab said, ‘but they couldn’t make the case because you and your allies stonewalled the investigation and destroyed records. Dozens of militia members disappeared. Including, most likely, the shooter.’

‘We were standing up against a witch hunt,’ Brock said. ‘This was a vendetta.’

‘Even Chuck Warren thinks the murders could have been committed by one of your Alliance members acting on his own.’

‘That isn’t true.’

‘Actually, I believe you,’ Cab said, ‘because I don’t think anyone in your group would go forward with a plan like that without your say-so.’

Brock nodded. ‘That’s why I know it wasn’t one of us.’

‘Are you really saying you didn’t want Birch Fairmont dead?’ Cab asked. ‘Birch and the Common Way Party were ferocious enemies of your movement. Their policies on gun control and immigration were anathema to your group. Birch was a supporter of aggressive legal authority to combat domestic terrorists. That’s what he called you, Mr Brock. Birch Fairmont said you and the Liberty Empire Alliance were the poster children for domestic terrorism. And he was on his way to joining the United States Congress, where he would have had considerable power to target groups like yours.’

‘If you’re asking me to say I’m sorry that Birch Fairmont was killed,’ Brock said, ‘I won’t do that. He was an enemy of free people.’

‘But you didn’t kill him.’

‘I’m not in the business of making martyrs of my enemies. That just gives them more power.’

‘Do you know who did?’

‘I assume it was someone who wanted me in here. They got their wish. They took down a patriot like Chuck Warren at the same time. Obviously, we had a mole inside the Alliance. Someone who was able to point the authorities at us. As it is, they had to settle for trumped-up tax charges when they couldn’t link us to the murders.’

‘So you think you and the Alliance were deliberately targeted. Set up as fall guys.’

Brock shrugged. ‘Here I am.’