“Adam Humphrey Carter.” Faith finally felt like some of her questions were being answered. “You got him early release off his rape charge so he could serve as your informant.”

Van nodded. “You’ve got to understand there’s a pattern to these groups. They usually burn themselves out. There are constant power struggles. One guy isn’t racist enough. Another guy gets caught looking at gay porn. The internal squabbling leads to disbandment, splintering. They’re basically fuck-ups and losers. There’s a reason the only thing they’re holding on to is the color of their skin.” He leaned across the table. “The IPA felt highly organized. Very focused. The way Carter talked about Dash was the same way these guys talk about McVeigh. And we had nothing on him. No photos. No files. No nothing.”

Faith had hit the same dead ends last night, and Van had spent a hell of a lot more time on it.

Miranda said, “You might think it’s good that Dash and the IPA are not in the system, but it’s really, really bad. In our experience, the more these guys talk, the more full of shit they are. It’s the quiet ones who do the most damage.”

Van added, “It’s only through Carter that we found out what little we know about the IPA. Dash didn’t start the group, but he’s the one who gave it direction. He has them radio silent. They keep their names and affiliation out of the chat groups. There’s an aura of mystery about them that the other white power guys really key into. We’re one day out from the bombing and the online groups are already saying the IPA is responsible. Half of Totenkampf is already on their way to Atlanta to take advantage of the chaos. We’ve got a Polish white nationalist we were able to turn back at the Canadian border. A group from Arizona tried to hire a private plane so they could transport their weapons.”

“Arizona.” Faith had read about a citizens border patrol from the state just a few short hours ago. “Who started the IPA? Was it Martin Novak?”

Van shrugged. “It doesn’t matter who placed the fuse. Dash is the match that’s about to light it up.”

“He’s right.” Miranda’s demeanor had turned deadly serious. “If you asked me what keeps me up at night, it’s knowing that Dash is out there planning something, and we have no idea what it is.”

Faith asked the obvious question. “If you’re so worried about him, why isn’t there a task force or—”

“The FBI can’t fund hunches,” Van said. “There are plenty more bad guys out in the open they can go after. I had to get on my knees and beg my bosses to let me turn Carter into an informant. Like I said, he gave us a lot of high-value information on other groups. We were able to crack open a lot of cases. But as far as the IPA, Carter was always very tight-lipped. What I got from him is that they’re planning something big and there’s one guy at the top calling the shots.”

Faith asked, “Why did they take Michelle Spivey?”

Van said, “Carter took Michelle Spivey. We don’t know that Dash ordered it.”

Faith wasn’t going to swim in that bullshit again. She nodded to the stack of folders in front of Miranda. She’d only opened one so far. “What else does Pandora have in her box.”

Van nodded.

Miranda opened one of the folders. “This is the only photo we have of Dash.”

Faith walked across the room. Her stomach had turned queasy. She didn’t know why the thought of looking at Dash made her nervous. She was expecting a mugshot, but what she saw was a glossy snapshot of a college-age kid standing on the beach in shorts and a T-shirt.

Miranda said, “This was taken on the western coast of Mexico in the summer of 1999.”

Faith wasn’t buying it. “Mexico doesn’t seem like the right vacation spot for a future white supremacist.”

Van supplied, “Hate the sinner, love the sin.”

Faith studied the kid’s face—angular and goofy with a patchy goatee and mustache. He could’ve been one of her son’s annoying fraternity brothers.

Or he could’ve been one of the innocuous-looking young men in Charlottesville.

Miranda showed Faith another image, this one with the patchwork quality of an Identikit. “Here’s what the FBI came up with when we asked for an age progression of what Dash would look like today.”

Faith was not impressed. “How old is Dash now?”

Miranda shrugged. “Mid-forties? But we’ve done a hell of a lot with very little. Our Naval analysts believe, based on the landmarks in the distance, that the beach Dash is standing on is on Isla Mujeres. There’s technical stuff about erosion and the angle of the sun that I won’t bore you with, but they’re damn good at their jobs.”

Faith returned to the beach photo. “This isn’t a surveillance shot. It looks like it’s from a vacation album.”

Van pulled out her chair. He waited for Faith to sit down.

He said, “In June of 1999, a guy named Norge Garcia was staying at the Mujeres La Familia Resort with his wife and kids. He noticed a preponderance of single, young, white, male Americans hanging around the beach. As the name implies, this is a family resort. Real kid-friendly. The frat boys are usually at the adults-only places because that’s where the girls are. So, Garcia starts asking around—Where are these guys staying? What are they up to? Why are they here?” Van paused to ask Faith, “Are you following me?”

“Not really,” she said. “Why was this Garcia poking around? And how do you know so much about him?”

Van gave her an appreciative nod. “I know about him because I flew down to Mexico to interview him. And he was poking around the resort because, in 1999, Garcia was an inspector with the Federales. That’s Mexico’s version of the FBI with a dose of the Army.”

Faith knew about the Federales from a heavy addiction to Netflix narco-porn. “How does Dash fit into this?”

Instead of answering, Van nodded toward Miranda.

She slid another beach snapshot across the table. The lens had focused on a bunch of kids building a sandcastle. About ten yards behind them, the blurred image of a man was circled in red Magic Marker. Dark hair. Sunglasses. Stocky build. He was waving to someone behind the camera. Both arms in the air. More like a semaphore. His face was shadowed by a baseball hat, but it was crystal-clear that two fingers on his left hand were missing.

Faith leaned back in her chair.

Martin Elias Novak was missing two fingers on his left hand. He had blown them off while he was serving as an explosives expert in the United States Army. In 1999, he would’ve been forty-one years old.

She looked up at Van, searching his face for confirmation.

He shrugged. “Who’s to say?”

Faith motioned for him to continue.

Van said, “This mysterious, older white guy with the missing fingers—Inspector Garcia gets a bad vibe off of him. What’s he up to? He’s always got this revolving group of frat boys around him. He’s not a guest at the resort, but he’s on the beach right in front of it every day. He rents a chair and watches the kids playing in the water. Single guy. No wife. No kids. Garcia’s Spidey senses tell him something ain’t right. He starts asking questions, and the locals working at the resort tell him ‘Oh, don’t mind him. That’s just Pedo’.”

“Pedro?” Faith clarified.

“No, Pedo, like pedófilo.”

Faith’s stomach dropped. She could see the beach. The laughing children. The creepy middle-aged man intently watching the kids jumping over the waves outside of a family resort.

She felt herself starting to shake her head. Nothing in the Martin Novak briefing had even hinted at pedophilia. The man had a daughter he’d raised on his own. He’d served in the military. Yes, he was a bank robber and a murderer, but that made him a criminal. This new information, if it was true, made him a monster.

Van said, “They called him Pedo because of the way he looked at the children. Sometimes he gave them candy—no kidding. Sometimes he would offer to watch the kids while the parents went for a walk.”

Faith nearly gasped. “They let him?”

“It was the late nineties. Nobody knew that clean-cut, all-American men could be pedophiles. Priests were still saints. Hell, we still thought Columbine was a one-off.”

Miranda had another snapshot. “This is the only other image we have of Pedo.”

The man who had to be Martin Novak was turned away from the camera, but Faith recognized the same T-shirt and build from the earlier image. His three-fingered left hand was at his side. He was talking to a kid whose face was angular and goofy with a patchy goatee and mustache.

Dash.

Van said, “Pedo was renting a villa about three hundred yards from the resort. He paid cash, signed the rental agreement with the name Willie Nelson.”

He gave her a second to let that sink in. At the car accident, Carter and the rest of the men had given Will fake names taken from country music singers.

You didn’t get more country than Willie Nelson.