Maureen straightened in her chair. “Fellas, fellas.” She turned to Detillier. “Let’s be straight about one thing. I know you said you’re bringing me an opportunity, and I’m not trying to sound ungrateful, but everyone here knows the NOPD is scared shitless of the feds these days. For reasons that have nothing to do with Katrina. Between y’all and the Department of Justice, we’re every one of us waiting to hear the ring of the blade in the air.”
Detillier folded his hands in his lap, leaned back in his seat. “Tell me your specific concerns.”
“As soon as I get my badge back,” Maureen said, “I’m talking to the FBI. The next day. How do you think that makes me look around the district, to other cops?”
“No one needed to know about this meeting except you and me,” Detillier said. His eyes shifted to Preacher. “You’re the one who brought a witness.”
Maureen laughed. “This would’ve stayed a secret? Because that would look so much better, a secret meeting with the FBI after I get my badge back. Please. Yeah, I brought a witness. So that when I’m back on the job and the rumors about me start I have an impeccable source to vouch for me. So y’all are watching us, but we’re watching y’all right back.”
“You agreed to this meeting,” Detillier said, “of your own free will.”
“We’re under a consent decree,” Maureen said. “Big Brother is watching. I’m a rookie. The only reason I’m not out on my ass already is because I’m a woman and I have dirt on the department.”
“Dirt on the NOPD,” Detillier said, “is not why I’m here. I’m interested in the future, Officer Coughlin, not the past. That’s not my department. And I think you already know that.”
“So what is it exactly about the Gage murder that interests you?” Maureen asked.
“Where he came from, for one.”
“LaPlace?”
“The Sovereign Citizens,” Detillier said. “And the Watchmen Brigade, specifically. They are of interest to us. You are of interest to them. You see where I’m headed with this.”
Preacher leaned forward in his chair, the plastic creaking under his shifting weight. “Interested in her? They tried to kill her.”
“We know that,” Detillier said. “It’s the reason we’re sitting here today.”
“You know something,” Maureen said. “What do you know?” Her heart rate doubled, tripping over itself in its effort to accelerate. “They’re going to try again. When? How?”
Detillier threw the quickest glance at Preacher before he spoke, his hands raised in a calming gesture. “We don’t really know anything. I have no knowledge of another planned attack. But we’re worried about it, an attack on you, or on another officer or officers. Losing the gunrunners Gage and Cooley from their own ranks, losing their local connection, the drug dealer named Scales, we don’t believe any of that has deterred the Watchmen from moving men and weapons into New Orleans. None of those three men were in charge. None of them made decisions. They were expendable.”
The agent leaned forward, elbows on his thighs, looking at his hands as he spoke. “The Sovereign Citizens, the larger, umbrella cause that the Watchmen align themselves with and claim to support, or represent, or whatever—it’s all very fluid—are a problem. They have been for some time. Until recently, they mostly confined their efforts to the courts—filing crazy lawsuits, clogging up the system with paperwork, suing townships and judges and anyone else, squatting in foreclosed houses and filing ownership claims—shit like that.”
“More recently, my ass,” Preacher said. “Timothy McVeigh was a Sovereign Citizen.”
“There have always been outliers,” Detillier said. “Individuals. Duos and trios. Cells, if you want to call them that. We’re starting to; the language is changing. The terms we use in the U.S. are becoming more familiar in ways that nobody likes. The outliers, the extremists, they’re impossible to predict, nearly impossible to find before they act. And yes, Sergeant Boyd, I admit, we spent recent years watching for international dangers and for threats coming into the country. As a result, we are now woefully behind on what’s been growing here at home. We’re human like you. There’s only so much we can do.
“What worries us much more now is the growth, the exponential growth of these armed and dangerous militaristic offshoots like the Watchmen Brigade. These patriot groups not only don’t fear law enforcement, be it local or federal; many of them antagonize law enforcement.” He gestured toward Maureen. “They target law enforcement. And their influence is growing.
Detillier ticked off names and places on his fingers. Maureen grew ill as they added up. “That rancher in Utah and his gun buddies. The Oath Keepers, who are now national, the West Mountain Rangers in Montana, the Indiana Rangers, the Massachusetts Fighting Wolves, the Radical American Patriots, the Guardians of the Free Republic in Texas.” He shook his head. “The list goes on, and it grows. Now we have the Watchmen Brigade in south Louisiana.”