Seized

“The leader, Ward Butler, was friends with Lee Cartwright when they were kids,” Jen explained as she sped along the barely paved roads.

Evelyn stared at her. “You know Cartwright’s claiming he’s got a copycat, right?”

“Yeah, I heard. I wouldn’t take anything that guy says at face value, though. He’s not exactly the type who’d warn the government. He’s more likely to watch the news from prison and cheer when it happens. Or taunt law enforcement, acting like he knows who’s copying him, just to get a rise out of us.”

“Okay,” Evelyn said. “I can see that. But if Butler and Cartwright are friends...”

“Were friends,” Jen corrected her. “Like twenty years ago. They grew up together, but there’s no indication they’ve been in contact in a long time. Then they had a complete falling-out when Cartwright went violent, and Butler started his compound.”

“So you’re saying Butler’s group isn’t violent,” Evelyn said, getting frustrated. “Why are they a threat?”

“They haven’t been violent yet,” Jen replied. “But I think they’re going to be.”

“Why? And how long have they been nonviolent?”

Jen slowed the SUV and turned off onto a dirt path. “Just because they’ve been quiet for a few years doesn’t mean they plan to stay that way. Butler refers to the place as a ‘refuge’ for other survivalists. And we have a lot of those—people who want to live off the land, with no interference from anyone. Most of them wish they’d been born a couple of centuries ago, with no law except maybe a local sheriff, and the chance to be as isolated as they want.”

“I know about survivalists,” Evelyn said. “And sure, some of them are a problem, but plenty of them just want to be off the grid. Leave them alone and they leave everyone else alone.”

The SUV bounced along the potholed trail, and Jen’s silence dragged on until she said, “You know the Unabomber’s cabin was only about twenty miles from here? His neighbors probably thought he was harmless and just wanted to be left alone.”

Evelyn held in a sigh. “You still haven’t told me why you think this particular group is more dangerous than any of the dozens of other cults we’ve got.”

Jen’s knuckles whitened on the steering wheel. “You’re too young to remember some of the crap from the nineties, but...”

“I know enough.” Evelyn could see where this was going. “And yes, there’s been an uptick in homegrown terrorism chatter over the past few years, but...”

“Officially, the Butler Compound is a low threat,” Jen broke in. “The FBI thinks Butler is more likely to feed his followers Kool-Aid than plan an attack against anyone. But I’ve been around cults. One of my very first assignments was in Waco, Texas.” She gave Evelyn a meaningful look.

“The Koresh disaster? You were there?” David Koresh and his followers had been in a fifty-one-day siege after Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents tried and failed to deliver a warrant. Koresh and his followers had fired on the ATF agents and barricaded themselves in the Apocalypse Ranch—a name that should’ve set off warning bells from the start. The FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team had eventually surrounded the place. In the end, Koresh and the cultists had set their own compound on fire, and most of them died.

“Yeah, I was there. Mostly getting senior agents coffee, but trust me, I have experience with cults. I heard the crazy ranting, I saw the few cultists who came out, I saw the place burn. Hell, I even walked through crowds of protesters and had egg thrown at my face. But this compound is different. It’s got some of that same creepy vibe, but I’m telling you, this is more than a simple cult. There’s just something off about the place. I know there’s more happening. And I’m not going to be the FBI agent who overlooks it.”

No wonder BAU had refused to take on the file. The Butler Compound had already been evaluated and Jen had nothing but her gut to say there was a genuine threat.

Evelyn was probably going to find a group of survivalists who wanted nothing to do with her or Jen. She’d come home with nothing useful from Cartwright, and an unsanctioned side trip that would make her miss her flight.

Jen must have sensed her frustration, because she said defensively, “See for yourself.”

The SUV rounded another bend and the compound seemed to appear out of nowhere. It was a larger building than she’d expected in such a remote place, and much more sophisticated, too. Usually survivalists built small, and used the materials they found in their immediate vicinity. Not this group.

The compound looked more like an aboveground bunker than a house. Windows were barred as if they lived in the city instead of the wilderness, and there was a tower at the center, rising high in the air, that Evelyn hadn’t seen until they’d gotten close. But if anyone was up there, they would’ve seen her and Jen coming for miles—a single set of headlights approaching through the darkness.

Evelyn peered through the windshield, squinting at the rooftop. “Are those...?”

“Solar panels,” Jen broke in. “Yeah. Judging from the chimneys, they have a couple of fireplaces. And I know they’ve got some massive generators, but they’re not hooked up to the grid at all. As far as we can tell, they have no electricity and no internet. They’ve even rigged their own system to bring in water. They’re totally off grid.”

What a way to live, Evelyn thought but didn’t say. Then again, there were plenty of cultists who lived without electricity while their leader had excessive luxuries.

And this group was supposedly made up of survivalists, so maybe they really didn’t need modern comforts.

The compound was nestled at the base of a steep, curved peak that would prevent anyone from approaching on either side. The rest of it was surrounded by a tall, chain-link fence, topped with barbed wire. But the gate at the entrance hung open.

“Well, this is kind of weird,” Jen said as she drove in.

“What is?” Evelyn asked, sitting straighter.

The group had cut down trees to put up the fence and to keep anyone from scaling a tree to hop over it; inside they’d left the environment alone. There wasn’t much more than a few scraggly pines, but they were still big enough for someone to hide behind. No one emerged. She didn’t see anyone at all. A nervous shiver crept up Evelyn’s spine.

“Usually they meet me at the gate,” Jen said, her tone wary.

“How often have you come here?” And how clearly had she advertised her suspicions?

“Just three times.”

That would make her interest obvious, Evelyn figured. But where was everyone?

“Maybe BAU was right about the Kool-Aid,” Jen joked. Her voice held no humor.

She parked close to the compound, took out her cell phone and started to call someone. She had her door open and was hopping out of the vehicle before Evelyn could suggest they wait.

Swearing, Evelyn followed. Even if Jen had made her suspicions obvious, she knew the people better than Evelyn did. They’d talked peacefully with her in the past, so theoretically they wouldn’t overreact to having her return.

Regardless, Evelyn didn’t like it. Not the open gate, not the stillness of the place, not Jen’s stubborn insistence that there was danger here.

Cold air stung her throat as soon as she slammed the car door behind her. Either because it was later now, or because of their elevation, it felt another twenty degrees cooler up here. In the Montana wilderness, she needed more than a wool suit and a pair of low heels. She’d taken barely five steps when her fingers started to throb from the cold.

Still, she unbuttoned her suit coat for quicker access to the SIG Sauer P226 strapped at her hip.

Jen followed the set of thick tire tracks that ran off the hard-packed trail and into the looser dirt. As she stepped around the corner of the building, she called out, “Hello?”

Evelyn picked up her pace to follow when she heard Jen exclaim, “Hey, I know you!”

Then Jen walked around the corner again, this time backward, with her hands up and held out to her sides.

Evelyn reached for her weapon, but before she could unholster it, a man came into view.

He was nothing more than a big blur of angry features and camo, because all she could focus on was the modified AK-47 aimed directly at Jen.

2

“What are you doing here, Agent Martinez?” the armed man demanded, his voice a deep, harsh rumble.

Next to her, Jen jerked at the news that Butler knew her last name. Then she tried to recover, and her voice was surprisingly calm as she took another step backward, both arms up and out. “Just a friendly visit. Nothing more, Ward.” Ward Butler, Evelyn realized as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. The leader of the Butler Compound. The man Jen suspected of being a homegrown terrorist.

Standing there now, holding an illegally modified weapon, wearing a thick, scruffy beard and dressed in camouflage and a skull cap, he looked like one.

“Drop that,” Butler barked, ignoring Jen’s conversational tone entirely.

Jen’s eyes went to her phone. The readout was lit up, probably because she was on the line with whoever she’d started to call in the car.

“Drop it now!” Butler yelled, his voice echoing across the compound.

As the phone fell from her hand, Butler casually redirected his AK-47 and shot it, midair, blasting the phone to pieces.

Instinct made Evelyn lurch backward, and she went for her weapon.

Before she reached it, the AK-47 was pointed at her.

“I wouldn’t do that,” Butler warned. “Hands up.”

As Evelyn raised her arms, they started to tingle. Because of the cold or because she’d seen how good a shot Butler was, she wasn’t certain.

Although Jen’s boss certainly suspected she’d come up here, he probably wouldn’t expect her back at the office for hours. Maybe not until tomorrow.

And no one knew where Evelyn was.

“Let’s try this again, Agent Martinez,” Butler said slowly, a sarcastic emphasis on the word Agent. “What are you doing here?”

Most cult leaders were charismatic. Narcissistic sociopaths, too, but they had to be able to conceal that. They had to exude enough charm to get a group of people to give up everything they owned and follow them.

Not this guy. As far as Evelyn could tell, he was a hundred and eighty solid pounds of pure menace.

She didn’t have much experience with cults, but Butler was setting off all kinds of alarm bells. If he was a cult leader, where the hell were all his followers?

“I’m at the end of a shift, Ward,” Jen said. “I’m taking my new partner on the rounds.” She lifted her shoulders and gave a little smile. “You know, to meet all the neighbors before we head back to the office.”

Butler turned toward Evelyn, looking at her with a disgust he didn’t bother to hide. “You’re the newbie in the Salt Lake City office?” he asked, skepticism dripping off every word.

“That’s right,” Evelyn replied, uncomfortable with Butler’s tone. Had he mentioned the field office to let her know he was familiar with how the Bureau worked? Or was there more to this?

Jen put a little steel in her voice when she said, “There’s no need for this to get ugly.”

A sneer crossed Butler’s face. He didn’t move his gaze from Evelyn as he told Jen, “You made it ugly.”

The force of his hatred had Evelyn stumbling back on her heels, and Butler’s sneer turned to a tight smile.

But instead of saying another word to her, he looked at Jen again. “This is private property. Trespassing without announcing yourself isn’t very smart.” He made an apologetic face. “You’re likely to get yourself mistaken for an intruder and shot.”

Chills danced across Evelyn’s skin. After Butler’s display with the phone, she absolutely knew there was no way she could get her gun out of its holster before he pulled the trigger on both of them.

If he did, she’d never get the chance to decide what to do about her FBI career. Never get to say goodbye to her grandma. Never get to figure out where her brand-new relationship with fellow agent Kyle McKenzie was headed.

She should’ve taken more time off after solving her friend’s case. She should’ve extended that vacation with Kyle, never mind what the FBI wanted. She thought of that quiet, secluded beach, with nothing for miles but ocean and sand and Kyle’s deep blue eyes staring back at her...

For that one brief week, she’d felt like a different person. Someone whose life wasn’t completely consumed by her job. Someone who didn’t have an overwhelming need to chase down the demons of her childhood until they were all she could see.

She’d felt normal, something she couldn’t remember feeling in a long, long time. Not since her best friend had disappeared from her life, which had started her down the path to becoming a profiler.

With Kyle, she’d felt as though the whole world was finally beginning to open up. Then she’d gone back to work, thinking everything would be different.

But for the past three months, she’d felt lost. Without purpose. A feeling she’d never experienced in her life.

And now, here she was, back in the job that had taken everything she had. And if she didn’t get her profiling instinct back, it just might take her life.

“Now toss over your gun. Real slow,” Butler said.

Jen reached for her weapon and Evelyn tensed as she watched. She readied herself to dive for the ground if Jen didn’t toss it. Readied herself to reach for her own gun as a desperate last effort if Butler’s finger moved inside the trigger guard of his AK-47.

Jen hesitated only a second before tossing the gun into the brush.

Then the sudden rumble of a powerful engine sounded from around the corner. A big black truck hurtled past her, close enough to blast heat across her back and rip hair loose from her bun.

It kept going, through the gate and out of the compound. A moment later, another man turned the corner, arms swinging loosely, an AK-47 slung over his shoulder.

This guy looked like a cult leader. Taller and leaner than Butler, he had sandy blond hair that curled around his ears and a face that was probably attractive when he wasn’t scowling.

Evelyn risked a glance at Jen, wondering who the newcomer was, but Jen stayed silent.

Still, Jen and Butler were obviously familiar with each other, so this must’ve been the person Jen had spoken to when she’d first left the SUV. The one she’d claimed to know, sounding surprised.

“We’ve got to take care of them,” Butler said in the sort of casual tone that was more appropriate for ordering dinner than discussing the murder of two federal agents.

The new guy shook his head. “I don’t think you should do that.”

“They could ruin things for us.”

“It’s a problem,” the blond guy agreed. He was dressed in camouflage, too, but wore no hat or gloves. Although his pale skin was ruddy from being outside, he looked comfortable.

Evelyn spoke up. “There’s no problem here.”

“Shut up!” Butler shouted at her. “This is the start of everything,” he said to his companion. “It doesn’t matter what we do with these two.”

“Killing them will just bring more feds,” the other man argued as Evelyn tried to work out his role.

Other than as a possible voice of reason. She inched her hands down slightly, praying that this guy could convince Butler to let them go.

If this was set up like a typical cult, maybe he was a trusted higher-up who took orders from Butler and enforced them with the followers? Cults often referred to guys like that as lieutenants.

Evelyn glanced quickly around. But if she was right about that, where were the followers? Were there any? If so, why hadn’t they appeared when the gunshot went off? And what did Butler mean when he said this was “the start of everything”?

“That one—” Butler waved his gun at Evelyn “—is the newbie. The other one, Jen Martinez here, has been sniffing around our place for months.”

“Who cares? We’re not doing anything wrong,” the new guy said smoothly.

Except owning illegal weapons, but Evelyn didn’t mention that.

“Well, now I can’t let them leave,” Butler said, and there was a little too much glee in his tone.

Evelyn glanced at Jen again, willing the other agent to look at her. How were they going to get out of this? Did Jen have any kind of connection with Butler or the new guy that she could use?

Talking seemed like their best bet, especially now that there were two cultists with weapons and Jen was unarmed. But Evelyn couldn’t decide which approach to take.

Jen kept her gaze firmly on Butler. “Of course you can let us leave,” she told him. “You haven’t taken things too far. Not yet. Let’s keep it that way.”

“Maybe you should lock them up,” the blond guy suggested, ignoring Jen. “Drive their vehicle out of here.”

“Why would you need to do that?” Evelyn asked. “If nothing’s happening—and we certainly haven’t seen anything that would require our attention—why would you want the FBI out here searching for us?” Before he could respond, she added, “And if you think her supervisor doesn’t know we’re here, you’re mistaken. This is the first place they’ll look if we don’t show up in the next hour.”

Butler shrugged. “Can’t be helped.” He nodded at his lieutenant. “Maybe you’re right about hanging on to them for a bit. Check them, Rolfe.”

“Ward.” Jen tried again as Rolfe frisked her for any hidden weapons. “I’ve always been straight with you. This isn’t necessary.”

He ignored her and then Rolfe was standing behind Evelyn, close enough to make all her muscles tense. He emptied her holster and took her cell phone. Then he patted her down so thoroughly that Evelyn knew he was practiced at carrying concealed.

She was convinced he had another weapon on him. Not that she could do anything about it.

He gestured toward the building, and she and Jen began walking in that direction. Jen looked shell-shocked and furious, but she stared straight ahead as her shoes crunched on the frost-covered grass. She made no further effort to protest, almost as if part of her was glad they were getting to see inside the compound.

Butler walked close behind them, his AK-47 leveled inches from Evelyn’s back.

“You staying?” Butler asked gruffly, and it took Evelyn a minute to realize he was talking to Rolfe.

She frowned and glanced over her shoulder.

Rolfe had fallen into step behind Butler, but his eyes locked on Evelyn’s as soon as she looked at him.

She stumbled, then averted her gaze. Why wouldn’t Butler’s lieutenant stay? Unless he wasn’t a lieutenant. Unless he had some other role at the cult. But what role would require him to leave? Then again, why had the driver of the truck left?

What the hell was going on at the Butler Compound?

* * *

“You’re going to Montana,” the head of BAU told Greg Ibsen as soon as he walked through the door of his boss’s office.

“What?” Greg stopped abruptly in the dull gray room. “Did Evelyn’s interview with Cartwright give us something?”

Greg tried to keep the surprise out of his voice. He’d been a profiler with BAU a long time. Long enough to know when Dan Moore was sending someone on a long-shot assignment as punishment.

Dan frowned at him, probably able to read every thought running through his mind, since he was a profiler, too. “No.” He tapped his pen against the towering pile of legal pads on his desk. “There’s another situation in Montana.”

“If Evelyn’s already there, maybe she should take it,” Greg suggested. He’d trained Evelyn, and he knew her as well as anyone could. Whatever the case was, she could handle it. And if Dan didn’t start giving her real assignments again soon, he was afraid she’d leave the unit.

“Too late. She’s on her way back,” Dan dismissed him, draining his cup of coffee as if it was water. “You’ll probably pass each other in the air. Besides, she doesn’t have much experience with this kind of case.”

“What is it?” Greg asked, dreading the call home he’d have to make, telling his son, Josh, that he’d be missing his first hockey game. Greg’s family was used to it; this was the life of an FBI agent. But it still wasn’t easy to hear their disappointment, shaded with resignation—as though they’d expected him to cancel.

“The Salt Lake City office has an agent who went off on an unsanctioned call. Her boss says she’s got a hard-on for the Butler Compound, a cult out in the Montana wilderness that’s technically under the Salt Lake City office jurisdiction. He’s pretty sure she went there. About an hour ago, her supervisor got a call from her. Apparently, she didn’t say a word when he picked up, but he heard part of a conversation, then a gunshot.”

“Okay,” Greg said slowly. “And they want a profiler because...?” It sounded like they needed the Salt Lake City SWAT team, fast.

“Because they haven’t had contact with the agent, and they don’t know her status. They aren’t a hundred percent sure she’s there, and the cult is a survivalist group. Completely antigovernment and, although they’ve never displayed aggression before, these people are skilled with their weapons. The Salt Lake City office is afraid a show of force will start a firefight.”

“Then shouldn’t I be reviewing the Butler Compound information from here to give them a profile?” Greg asked. He didn’t mind going to Montana if they really needed him, but he didn’t see how being on-site would help in this case. Especially since there wasn’t even a confirmed “site” yet.

Dan sighed and opened the top drawer of his desk, where Greg suspected his boss kept endless bottles of antacids. But instead of popping any, Dan closed the drawer again, looking pensive. “You’re heading out with a CIRG contingent. A hostage negotiator and a group from HRT.”

The Critical Incident Response Group was a special group within the FBI, made up of teams that could respond instantly to any serious emergency, anywhere in the United States or abroad. BAU was part of CIRG, the only part not located in Quantico, the next town over.

If he was going with a hostage negotiator and a bunch of Hostage Rescue Team agents, that meant someone high up expected things to turn very, very bad. The kind of bad that required more than just a local SWAT team. The kind of bad that required HRT agents, who did absolutely nothing but train for and execute tactical missions.

Unease settled in Greg’s stomach, along with the hint of anticipation that always came with a new case to profile. That was what had kept him in BAU for going on nine years. “What don’t I know?”

“Most of it you do know,” Dan replied, just as his phone began to ring. He tapped a button to silence it. “We’re looking to avoid an armed standoff here. But if this agent is inside that compound, we have to get her out.”

Greg nodded. The last time someone from the antifederalist movement had stood up to the government, it had become a media spectacle that seemed likely to turn violent at any minute. But the FBI, as well as local and state police, had walked away.

That incident in Nevada had driven all the wackos out of the woodwork. They’d shown up to pledge their support to the rancher who’d refused to move his cattle off federal land. And then they’d hidden in the surrounding brush, aiming rifles at federal agents from all directions and posting the images online.

It was a miracle no one had fired a shot. Greg knew the chances of another ending that peaceful were slim.

“I assume I need to head over to Quantico?” Greg asked, starting for the door.

“Hold on,” Dan said, his tone weary. “There’s one more thing.”

“You have a file on the Butler Compound?”

“Yes, but it’s thin. We evaluated the group last year, at the request of this Martinez agent, the one who’s missing now.”

“And?”

“And we considered them a low threat, basically a cult that wanted to be left alone to live without federal interference. They’re bound together by their desire to live off the grid. There’s probably a religious component tying them together, too, although we don’t have evidence of that yet. It’s a group that wouldn’t strike out unless the government showed up on their doorstep, but a genuine danger if that happened. Vince did the analysis.”

Vince was one of their old-timers, a legend who’d finally retired and gone into the private security consulting business a month ago. BAU was still looking for his replacement.

“That’s good, as long as we can stay off their doorstep,” Greg said slowly, because he sensed something worse was about to follow.

“Martinez kept insisting Butler was a Bubba.”

Bubba was slang in law enforcement circles for a homegrown terrorist.

Greg was skeptical. “She thought a cult leader was a Bubba?”

“Not just him,” Dan replied. “The whole group of them.”

“That’d be pretty unusual, especially for survivalist types.”

Precedent said that kind of personality—an extremist antifederal homegrown terrorist—was a lone wolf. Someone who’d try and fail to fit into fringe militia and survivalist groups, then finally set out on his own to wreak havoc.

Not a cult member, who looked to a leader to provide identity. And certainly not a cult leader, who derived power and purpose from having a group of people to do his bidding and treat him like a god. If that cult leader sent his followers out to commit terrorist acts, he’d be breaking up his little kingdom. With no one left to worship him, what would be the point of his cult?

Greg took the file Dan handed over. “You now think Martinez could be right?”

“No. But I think her constantly going there for answers might’ve pushed the group into endgame mode. We could be looking at people who are ready to barricade themselves in their compound and defend it to the death. Or mass suicide.”

Greg frowned, suddenly understanding why he was being sent to Montana. “And if there’s a chance Martinez is there, we have to go in, anyway.”

Dan nodded grimly. “Exactly.”