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could possibly write. That’s when they told me how it really worked. It didn’t matter that my CO was an evil asshole. He was my superior. They love that word in the army. You know how much they love it. Superior. The prick had more gold on his lapels than I did, and that meant he was better than me. So I had to go to prison, not because I was wrong but because I was inferior.
    â€œI’d heard that kind of logic before. I’d heard it from my father. He talked about who was superior to who all the time.
    â€œThat was the day I figured out what hatred was really for. That you can’t escape it because the world is just so fucked up, you’re going to feel it for one thing or another. You have to embrace it. Use it. And now I had two things to feel hatred for. White-­power assholes, and the United States Army.”

 
    CHAPTER FIFTEEN
    â€œT his doesn’t make a whole lot of sense,” Chapel said. “You’re one of the most respected members of the white-­separatist movement—­”
    â€œNobody’s life makes sense if you just look at what they do in public, Agent. Especially if they’ve got a secret to keep.”
    Belcher turned away from the tombstone. He reached down and picked Chapel up, setting him on his feet. “Get in the vehicle, all right? If you try to run or anything, you’re going to get hurt.”
    Chapel knew better than to argue. He walked over to the car and—­not without some difficulty—­wedged himself into the passenger seat. Belcher climbed into the driver’s seat and started the car up. He headed north, across the desert. The car jumped and bounced until they got back on the road. “I wish I had more time to explain this all. Your part in it, especially. See, I’m going to die today, along with a lot of other ­people. But you’re going to live, I hope. You’re going to live so you can tell ­people who I really was. And why I did all this.”
    â€œDid all what?” Chapel asked. “You still haven’t told me what you’ve got planned.”
    â€œWe’ll get to that. There’s more of my story still.”
    Up ahead, on the road, Chapel saw a long convoy of pickups, cars, and panel trucks. He saw men crowded in the beds of the pickups and recognized some of them. It looked like every able-­bodied man in the town of Kendred was on the road, headed north, back toward Pueblo. He was afraid to find out why they were going there. He was certain it wasn’t just that they wanted to get away from the attack that was sure to come after they blew up the drone.
    â€œWhen I got home,” Belcher told him, “with a dishonorable discharge, well, there weren’t a lot of opportunities for me. I was a little surprised, mostly just sad, to find out that my fellow Americans barely knew there had been a Gulf War. Oh, they’d watched CNN and seen Patriot missiles duke it out with scuds over the Kuwaiti border. But they didn’t seem to understand there had been real men, real soldiers over there. I couldn’t find a job, couldn’t get any money together. I’d gone to Kuwait with nothing and came back to less. I was homeless for a while, even. The only ­people who would give me the time of day were ­people I hated. My father’s fans.
    â€œThey wanted to help me. They wanted to take me into their homes, and all they wanted in exchange was to hear stories about how great and wise and forward-­thinking my father had been. They treated me like I was a Second Coming. I wanted to spit in their faces. But when the option is to go sleep under a bridge and eat out of Dumpsters, well . . . I told myself I was taking advantage of them. Using them, the way the officers in Kuwait had used us. I told myself I was just going to put up with their white-­supremacy nonsense long enough to get back on my feet.
    â€œA ­couple years passed like