Chapter
33
THE AIRPORT WAS SMALL AND the car rental options stood at one. Robie got the car while Reel retrieved the hard-sided bag containing their weapons.
She handed Robie his pistol while she slid into the seat next to him. He holstered the weapon and said, “What are the gun laws like in Alabama?”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“No, I’m being serious.”
“Basically, in Alabama if you have a pulse you can have a gun, as many of them as you want.”
She thunked the door closed and Robie started the car. “Thanks for the clarification,” he said curtly.
“You’re welcome.”
The ride to the prison would take an hour. Reel had called ahead and they were on the visitors’ list.
He gave her a sideways glance. “You ready for this?”
“No.”
“When was the last time you saw him?”
“When I was a little girl.”
“Then he’s changed a lot. I mean physically.”
“I’ve changed a lot more. And not just physically.”
“Decided what you’re going to say yet?”
“Maybe.”
“I won’t ask any more questions.”
She reached over and gripped his arm. “I really appreciate you coming with me, Robie. It…it means a lot to me.”
“Well, we’ve been through a lot together. If we don’t watch each other’s six, who will?”
She smiled at this comment and sat back against the seat. “I haven’t been back to this part of the country for a long time.”
“DiCarlo said you were a teenager when you went undercover and busted that neo-Nazi gang. Pretty remarkable. And the CIA found out about it when you were in WITSEC and recruited you.”
Reel was silent for a few moments. “My father believed in all that shit too. White supremacy. There’re many things to love in this country. The skinheads are not one of them.”
“So your father was a skinhead too?”
“I’m not sure he was that specific, actually. He basically hated everybody.”
“So the gang you busted all went to prison?”
“Not all of them. The head guy, Leon Dikes, had a good lawyer and only spent a few years in prison. When I was in foster care the ‘dad’ was related to someone in Dikes’s hate group.”
“A guy like that is eligible to be a foster parent?” said Robie.
“It wasn’t like he advertised it, Robie. And it was a perfect way to get teens in there to basically be slaves to their cause. Cooking, cleaning, delivering messages, sewing their ugly uniforms, xeroxing their hate pamphlets. It was like being in prison. Every time I tried to get away they caught me, beat me, terrorized me. Dikes was the worst of them by far. I hated him even more than I hated my father.”
“But you finally turned the tables on them, Jessica. And brought it all down.”
“Not all of it, Robie. Not all of it.”
She looked down, her eyes closing and her face wrinkling in pain.
“You okay?”
She opened her eyes. “I’m fine. You want to pick up your speed? Let’s just get this over with.”