Judas Horse_ An FBI Special Agent Ana Grey Mystery - April Smith [26]
“Asatrú,” says Donnato.
“God bless you.”
“Don’t push it,” he warns.
“What’d I say?”
“Asatrú is a modern-day religion based on ancient Norse beliefs.” He reaches for a habanero and cheese fritter. “Its adherents practice a pagan philosophy that talks about preserving nature. The white supremacists have adapted a form of it and switched it around to justify their views.”
“There were neo-Nazis at the bar.”
“What were they doing?”
“One of them was eating an ashtray.”
This doesn’t register as anything strange.
“Barriers are coming down,” Donnato muses without missing a beat. “Interesting alliances are starting to form between terrorist groups. Right there you have a potential affinity between environmentalists and right-wing thinking. It’s not beyond the realm of possibility that these groups could get together. ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend.’”
“You have blood enemies at Omar’s who should be tearing each other’s throats out.”
“It’s called business.”
“You can buy anything there. Hookers, dope, hazelnut brittle—”
“Hazelnut brittle? Pretty damn subversive. That’s it. Now I’m hooked.” He rolls his eyes.
“Shut up. Megan Tewksbury is our way in. She will lead us to FAN.”
“Why?”
“She’s accessible. Funny. Openhearted. I liked her.”
“She is not supposed to be your mom.”
“I know that.”
“It’s my job to remind you that in isolation the bad guys can start looking pretty good.”
“That’s not it. Look.”
I flash him the latest issue of Willamette Week, a liberal throwaway I snagged at the vegan Cosmic Café. There were piles of it near the bulletin board, underneath an unpleasant chart of a side of beef. The whole front page of the newspaper is a poster in the style of the Old West: WANTED—FOR GETTING AWAY WITH MURDER, with a photo of BLM’s deputy state director, Herbert Laumann.
“Megan gave me the heads-up that FAN would break the story, and here it is. Laumann has been illegally adopting mustangs under his relatives’ names and selling them to a slaughterhouse in Illinois.”
Donnato studies the paper.
“She rescues animals on a farm; she’s hooked in. They don’t like visitors, which is an excellent reason for me to get my butt out there and see what’s going down.”
He still doesn’t like it.
“Sounds weak. We commit the resources, and your friend Megan turns out to be a housewife who likes cat calendars.”
Donnato brushes his tie of crumbs. He is maddeningly fastidious about his Calvin Klein suits and fine tasseled loafers, even in a sleazoid motel. But today his meticulous mannerisms are pissing me off.
“What would be solid enough for you?”
“Give me Bill Fontana.”
Bill Fontana is a leader in the movement who did two years in prison for setting fire to 250 tons of hay in an animal-husbandry building at UC Davis. Fontana is a scrawny, bright-eyed kid, still winning hearts and minds with his “fearless saboteur” shtick. The prison sentence only added to the mythology.
“Wonder Boy Fontana is speaking here at a big animal rights convention. I met with the Portland task force that has been assigned to FAN—”
“Wait a minute,” I say stubbornly, interrupting him. “Can we go back to Megan? We’re looking for me to make my bones. This is a legit way in. Megan is a can-do person, the type who gets things done. I’m telling you, she’s good.”
“She may be good, but Angelo will say she’s weak.”
I don’t like the innuendo. Weak because we’re talking about the two of us establishing a female relationship? Weak because she doesn’t fit the prototype of the male junkie informant guys like Angelo understand?
I lift my chin. “I’ve identified a true believer and I’m getting close to her. That’s procedure, absolutely! I need your help to find a way of getting out to that farm.”
Donnato stands, thoroughly irritated.
“Tell me something, Ana. Why is it always your agenda?”
I am dumbfounded. “My agenda?”
“You are fixated on this woman, and I know why. Not because it’s a knockout idea, but because it’s yours. Yours