No gun, though one would have looked right at home on his belt.

“Which unit you from?” he asked.

March shoved his Glock into the man’s thick chest. Pushed him back into the room.

“Fuck. No. What is this?”

“Shhh.” March frisked him. Then collected the gym bag, closed and latched the door behind him.

Five minutes later the heavyset man, crying, was lying on his back, hands and feet bound with duct tape.

“Please, don’t hurt me. I don’t—what do you want? Please, no!”

March got down to business and soon had his answers. Stan Prescott was not, of course, a terrorist. He was a Christian. A well-thumbed Bible sat beside a well-sat-in armchair. By profession, a bartender. But his avocation was—he might have said—patriot.

After being caressed by the muzzle of March’s Glock, he’d admitted he’d posted the images and claimed credit in the name of Allah, or whatever the fine print read, to arouse anti-Islam sentiment in the country. Was he crazy? March reflected. Everyone with half a brain would see through the plan. And those who believed the claims? Well, that was one group that nobody needed to convert.

Stupid on all fronts. Not the least because he’d picked the wrong person to draw attention to.

But, of course, Prescott had his own Get: the need to keep his country safe and free…from anyone who wasn’t American. That is, Christian American. That is, white Christian American. What he hadn’t learned was that you need to treat the Get like an animal that’s only partly domesticated. You can’t be stupid; it’ll kill its owner as fast as anyone else.

“Give me your passcode. Your computer.”

The man did, instantly.

March was surveying Prescott’s files. Looking at all the man’s pseudonymous diatribes against America. He looked over the dozens of grim photos of beheadings, bombs and other supposedly terrorist attacks that no self-respecting jihadist would have been behind. He had quite the collection of gruesome pictures.

He got the passcodes to Prescott’s Vidster account and blog, and took everything down.

“What’s this about, man? Come on! Are you working for them? You seem like one of us!”

Them…

It occurred to March that there might be a benefit here—if the authorities had seen the post, the terrorism angle would lodge in their minds as a motive for what had happened. That would obscure just a bit more the real reason for the attacks in Monterey, which had to, of course, be kept completely secret.

“I’m sorry. I’ll do whatever you want. Jesus, man. Come on. We’re both…alike, you know.”

White.

March shut down the laptop. He looked around the room and then dragged a pole lamp over, positioned it above the man’s sweating face.

“What’re you doing?”

March walked to the front door and fetched his gym bag.

“What’re you doing?” Prescott repeated, more desperate.

March crouched down and examined the man’s face closely. He patted him on the shoulder, said, “Don’t you worry.”

And unzipped the bag.