Page 62 of Flash and Bang
Suki Chang was nowhere to be found when Tim and Sarah went out to bring her in for questioning later that day. Neighbors told them she and the baby had packed up and moved out of her comfortable Pasadena home the day before. Jarrett and Thayne briefed SAC Stanger about everything they’d put together with Sarah and Tim and after congratulating them on their hard work, he’d picked up the phone and called the director to fill him in on the plot they were pretty sure was brewing. Going directly to headquarters meant that the ATF would be able to follow up with jurisdictions all over the nation. FBI and Homeland would be called in to investigate as well, and Jarrett knew Stanger would make sure the director was treating what they’d found as a major domestic terrorism threat.
With Chang in the wind, Jarrett and Thayne were tasked with finding out everything they could about where the Mason crew were planning to stage their next attacks. San Bernardino county sheriffs were sent out to their residence to take them into custody and Jarrett wasn’t surprised when they reported back that the couple was long gone from their seedy apartment in downtown San Bernardino. From what they’d been told, it looked like they’d cleared out in a hurry. They’d abandoned all of their belongings, taking only what they could carry butthey’d made absolutely sure to take the massive Confederate flag with them. Unbelievable. Of course they had.
The task now would be to talk with Mary Mason to try to figure out what, if any, her involvement had been in the murder of her husband and where the militia was going to strike on the Fourth of July. The CIA man down at the border stated that they had credible sources that the militia was planning attacks beginning in LA and many other major cities. Mary Mason had access to the smuggled illegal fireworks her husband Greg had used in the Miramar show so at this point, she was their best lead. They decided she was either completely uninvolved in the plot and wouldn’t know who Reverend James was, or she hadn’t been forthcoming with information when they’d originally interviewed her and she was up to her eyeballs in the plot the reverend was cooking up.
They learned that Mary Mason had laid her husband to rest near their house in a Los Angeles suburb the day before, so after their meeting with Stanger, they headed out to her modest home in a residential neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley. They’d driven the black Crown Vic out to her home in Canoga Park and were parked in front of the small two-bedroom house by ten that morning. MaryMason was being treated as a person of interest in a domestic terrorism case, so Thayne and Jarrett called in serious backup. They only had to wait two minutes outside the residence before two large black SUVs and a black and white LAPD squad car came tearing up the narrow two-lane residential street and pulled up in front of the house, lights and sirens blaring. Two more LAPD units came up the road from the other side.Damn. That was serious backup.
Jarrett and Thayne stepped out of the Crown Vic and walked over to the lead SUV as soon as it drove up. Prepared to introduce themselves to the SAC in charge of the operation, they were totally shocked to see Lincoln Snow step out of the passenger seat followed by two other FBI agents. Snow gave them both a toothy grin and walked over immediately, holding out a hand for Jarrett and Thayne to shake.
“What are you doing up in LA, Snow?” Thayne asked.
Snow smiled broadly at his partner. “So good to see you two again. I heard there was fun and games to be had and since I happened to be in the neighborhood visiting Matt Terraciano’s family in LA, I decided to join my colleagues.” He turned and held out a hand to the two FBI agents who’d joinedhim. “I’d like you to meet ATF Special Agents Wolfe and Evans,” he said to the male and female agent who stood at his side. Jarrett and Thayne shook hands as Snow continued. “These are FBI Special Agents Jennifer Long and Terry Meyers.”
“Nice to meet you,” Long said, smiling at Thayne. “I understand you two are the ones who made the connection between the fireworks at the border and whoever is actually planning on carrying out the attacks. Well done.”
Jarrett watched her rake Thayne up and down with a pointed gaze and more than a little interest.
“Without Snow and Terraciano’s help, we wouldn’t have made the connection at all,” Thayne said.
“I just went down to San Diego to play with sparklers,” Jarrett deadpanned.
Thayne and Snow started to laugh while the other two agents looked at him like he was crazy.
“Why don’t you fill everyone in on why we’re out here to bring Mary Mason in for questioning and search her property for signs of illegal fireworks, weapons, and her ties to the Freedom Brigade and Reverend James,” Snow said, as the LAPD captain walked up and introduced himself.
Snow handed Jarrett the warrant for him to look over while Thayne explained the situation to the four FBI agents Snow had brought with him and the gathered LAPD officers. Jarrett read the warrant and then passed it to Captain Brown, the LAPD commander who was helping them out. He read the warrant and ordered two of the squad cars to either end of the street to set up a road block and seal the street off from pass-through traffic. Another two officers began to speak to the neighbors who’d begun coming out of their houses to see what the commotion was all about in the quiet older neighborhood. They advised the neighbors to go into their houses and stay there to be safe until the operation was over.
Once everyone was clear on why they were assembled, Lincoln Snow, the two FBI agents, Jarrett, and Thayne approached the front door. Special Agent Snow knocked on the door and announced himself. He glanced around to everyone else who’d drawn their weapons and waited patiently. After one last announcement with no reply, Snow nodded to an LAPD officer who was holding a battering ram. The man stepped forward and knocked the door open. Jarrett and Thayne rushed inside with the others.
They made quick work of clearing the smallhouse and very soon realized that Mary Mason wasn’t at home. Her house was neat and clean and it was no surprise to Jarrett that she too had a Confederate flag with the Freedom Brigade’s green logo sewn into it, stretched into a frame, and hanging over the couch in her living room. They holstered their weapons and began a thorough room by room search of the house while Special Agents Terry Meyers and Jennifer Long went out the back door to check the detached garage at the back of the house. Jarrett and Thayne concentrated their search in the front rooms, checking the kitchen and living room for anything that would tie the Masons to the Freedom Brigade. There wasn’t much to look at. Aside from a bedroom-sized pantry stocked with enough canned food to survive the Zombie apocalypse, and a refrigerator filled with beer and old take out containers from a Chinese restaurant, the kitchen didn’t give up any secrets.
Snow walked into the living room where Jarrett was checking out the books in a bookcase. “You two should come take a look at this,” he said to Jarrett.
Jarrett nodded. “Thayne, Snow wants us to look at something.”
Thayne stepped out of the kitchen andfollowed Special Agent Snow down the hall to one of the bedrooms. The minute Jarrett stepped into the room, he could see that it had been turned into some sort of office. There was a folding picnic table set up along one wall and it was covered with what appeared to be hand-sewn Confederate flags with the green Freedom Brigade logo stitched into the bottom right corner. A sewing machine was pushed into another corner, one of the flags still in the process of being sewn. There was a desk with a computer on it and when Snow walked over and touched the mouse, it hummed to life, the screen popping up with a green Freedom Brigade logo as the screen saver. The monitor was filled with icons and Snow used the mouse to click on one named ‘Phoenix Rally’. The instant he did, a video link popped up.
“They didn’t even password-protect any of this shit?” Jarrett said.
“It’s crazy, right?” Snow said.
“Revilla and Quinn had the same green logo stitched into the flag in their house.”
Apparently they thought they were above suspicion,” Thayne remarked, standing beside Jarrett. Jarrett could feel him prickling with anger the same way he was.
“It looks like the Masons not only were a partof the Freedom Brigade but were deeply involved,” Jarrett said. As Snow started the video, it began to play with the narration of a person using a voice changing device and showing pictures of the Confederate flag with the Freedom Brigade’s logo. The voice stated that the rally was in Phoenix, Arizona in May of 2015 and then the picture changed to a shot of a large meeting hall set up with chairs. There was a crowd of about twenty-five followers there along with a podium where Greg Mason could be seen holding up his fist and shouting about religious freedom and liberty and what he called a grassroots revolution. People in the crowd began to scream encouragement, clapping, hooting, and hollering. Mary Mason stood by his side and raised her fist, shaking it in the air and nodding as the crowd got louder and louder.
“Okay, that’s fucking frightening,” Thayne said. “I wonder if the guy using the voice changer is Reverend James. I really wish the bastard would show himself.”
Jarrett walked away as Snow closed the video and opened another one, walking over to some framed photos on the wall. They appeared to be family photos. One in black and white was larger than the others and it caught his eye. Judging by the clothing the man and woman were wearing, it must have beentaken in the early 1960s. They were standing beside an old green two-tone Rambler station wagon and holding a small girl, smiling out at the photographer. Jarrett plucked it off the wall and flipped the frame over. He took off the cardboard backing and read the inscription scribbled on the back of the photo.
“Well, I’ll be,” he said. He looked up and walked over to Thayne and Snow who were watching the video of another rally. “Hey, you guys might want to see this,” he said, handing them the photo which he’d taken out of the frame. Thayne took it and stared at the happy couple with their toddler and then flipped it over, reading the back before looking up with a frown. He handed it to Snow.
“What is it?” Snow asked. When he flipped the photo over, he read it out loud. “‘Reverend James, Maddie, and Mary Elroy. Wichita Falls, 1964.’ You think this is Mary Mason when she was a kid? That means this mysterious Reverend James is her father? Son of a bitch,” he exclaimed.
“That would make a hell of a lot of sense. If Mary Mason was born Mary Elroy and her father is the leader of the Freedom Brigade, no wonder she’s got all this shit in her house. It looks like she and Greg Mason were both an integral part of it. Obviously, he wouldn’t be with her at rallies if hewasn’t a part of it too,” Thayne said. “There’s video links to rallies in at least six states on their computer. We need to notify Homeland and our own agencies of what we found as soon as possible. It looks like this militia and its offshoots are larger than we thought.”
“Special Agent Snow, you should look at this,” Agent Terry Meyers said, walking into the bedroom.