Temple

'The Texans train constantly,' Demonaco said. 'In the desert, in the badlands of Texas and Montana, and sometimes, up in the mountains in Oregon. They figure that when the time comes to launch a full-scale war against the United States government-or the U.S. government in conjunction with the United Nations—they want to be ready to fight in all kinds of terrain.

'What makes it worse is that they have money too. After the government screwed him on an oil deal, the Texan oil tycoon Stanford Cole left Bittiker and the Texans something in the vicinity of forty-two million dollars and a note that said, “Give 'em hell”. It's no surprise then that Bittiker and his cronies are often seen at black market arms bazaars in the Middle East and Africa. Hell, last year, they bought eight surplus Black Hawk helicopters from the Australian government.'

'Christ,' Mitchell said.

'Still,' Demonaco went on, 'that doesn't stop them stealing some heavy-duty hardware every now and then. For example, although we can't prove it, we believe that the Texans are responsible for the theft of an Abrams M-1A1 main battle tank while it was—-'

'They stole a tank?' Mitchell said, incredulous.

'Off the back of a semi-trailer while it was being transported from the Chrysler plant in Detroit to Tank and Automotive Command in Warren, Michigan.'

'Why do you suspect them?' Mitchell asked.

“Because two years ago, the Texans bought an old Antonov An-22 heavy-lift cargo plane from an arms market in Iran. The An-22 is a damn big plane, the Russian equivalent of our biggest lifters, the C-5 Galaxy and the C17 Globemaster. Now if you wanted a regular cargo plane, you'd go and buy yourself a smaller An-12 or a C-130 Hercules, not an An-22. You'd only need a '-22 if you were intending to move something big. Something really, really big. Something like a 67-ton tank.'

Demonaco paused, shook his head. 'But that's the least of our worries now.'

'Why?'

'Because lately we've been hearing some disturbing rumours about the Texans. It seems that they've found something of a soulmate in the Aura Shinrikyo cult in Japan, the group who released sarin gas in the Tokyo subway in 1995. After the Tokyo attack, some members of the cult came to America and infiltrated a few of our militia groups. We have reason to believe that several members of Aura Shin° rikyo joined the Texans.'

'What does that mean for us?' Mitchell asked.

'It means that we now have a very big problem.'

'Why?'

'Because the Aum Shinrikyo cult is a doomsday cult. Its only goal—indeed, its only reason for being—is to bring about the end of the world. We only know about the Tokyo subway incident because the networks got film footage of it.

Did you know that in early 1994 Aum Shinrikyo managed to seize control of a remote Chinese missile silo? They almost launched thirty tactical nuclear missiles at the United States in an attempt to initiate a full-scale thermonuclear war.'

'No, I didn't know that,' Mitchell said.

'Commander, we've never really had a genuine doomsday cult in America. We have violent antigovernment groups, anti-UN groups, anti-abortion, anti-Semitic and anti-Negro groups. But we have never had a group whose sole ambition is to bring about the mass destruction of life on this planet.

'Now, if Earl Bittiker and the Texans have decided to adopt a doomsday philosophy, then that leaves us with a big problem. Because then we'll have one of the most dangerous paramilitary groups in America running around with a death wish.'

'Okay, then,' Mitchell said, 'so how does all this relate to this robbery?'

'Eas Demonaco said. 'The group which carried out this robbery was a highly trained, highly skilled assault squad.

The tactics that they employed were pure Special Forces— large-scale SEAL stuff—which would point to an organisation more like the Texan Republican Army and not the Freedom Fighters.'

'Right.'

'But whoever did this left us a single tungsten-cored bullet-to point us toward the Freedom Fighters. If the Texans really did do this, don't you think it would make sense for them to throw us off the scent by framing their enemies—the Oklahoma Freedom Fighters?'

'Yeah…'

'What really scares me, though,' Demonaco said, 'is what they were after. Because if the Texans really have acquired doomsday tendencies, then this Supernova of yours is exactly the kind of thing they'd go for.'

'The other thing we have to think about,' Demonaco went on, 'is how they got in. They had someone on the inside, someone who knew the codes to, and who could get card- keys for, all the security locks. Do you have a record of the names of everyone working on the project?'

Mitchell pulled a sheet of computer paper from his breast pocket and handed it to Demonaco.

'That's a list of all the people working on the Supernova project, Navy and DARPA.'

Demonaco looked at the list.

PROJECT NAME: N23-657-K2 (SUPERNOVA)

CLASSIFICATION: RED (ABSOLUTE SECRET)

RELEVANT AGENCIES: NAVY / DARPA

PERSONNEL INVOLVED:

NAME POSITION HELD AGENCY SECURITY NO.

ROMANO, Julius M.