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the first battle.”
    Larson waited for more, but Van fell silent. He looked up and stared at the concrete underside of the turnpike.
    â€œYou want to explain that?” Larson asked. “Who’s fighting this war?”
    The biker didn’t answer right away. He seemed to be lost in some profound meditation. Finally he stopped staring at the highway and lowered his head. “They’re connected to methamphetamine dealers in the Midwest. One gang is based in Michigan, the other in Ohio. Both of them are branching out, trying to sell their shit farther east. They already got operations in Philadelphia, and now they’re coming to New York.”
    â€œSo this is a turf war?”
    He nodded. “Yeah, and both sides have plenty of soldiers. Some are gangbangers from Philly, but most are white dudes from the sticks. For the past year or so, they’ve been loading up on weapons. They got some military hardware, M16s, M4s.”
    Larson perked up when he heard this. Most of the shells collected at the scene were from 5.56-millimeter M4 cartridges. This fact hadn’t been revealed to the news media, so Van couldn’t have learned it from watching TV or reading the paper. “How do you know about these guys?”
    â€œThe gang from Michigan did some business with the Pagans in upstate New York. They bought a few dozen assault rifles that the Pagans had smuggled out of Fort Drum. Ammunition, too. If you check the headstamp codes on those shells you found, I bet you’ll find they came from Drum.”
    By this point Larson was very interested. This kind of activity went way beyond the usual gang crimes. If midwestern drug cartels were stealing M4s from U.S. Army bases, that was pretty damn close to domestic terrorism. And if Agent Larson uncovered a terrorist plot, it could definitely resuscitate his career. “Well, that’s interesting,” he said, trying to sound casual. “So who won the battle last night?”
    Van shrugged. “Hey, I don’t know everything. I’m just telling you what I heard on the street. What people are saying.”
    â€œDo you know how they got out of Bushwick so quickly? By the time the NYPD got to the scene, only the corpses were still there.”
    â€œWell, a lot of these fuckers are ex-army. So they have some training.” He raised his eyebrows, which were as gray as his hair. “But the word on the street is that one of them screwed up. He parked his car right in front of the hotel, then took off once the shooting stopped. He was in a beat-up old Kia with Pennsylvania plates. Some neighborhood kid saw the license plate and remembered the number.”
    â€œDid he tell the police about it?”
    â€œAre you kidding?” Van looked askance. “The kids in Bushwick aren’t big fans of the cops. But he told his friends, and it spread from there.”
    Larson felt a rush of adrenaline. “Do you know the plate number?”
    The biker reached into the pocket of his bomber jacket and pulled out a folded slip of paper. “It wasn’t easy to get. I had to talk to a lot of people. Ask a lot of questions. It was a fair amount of work.”
    â€œSo I guess you’re looking for some compensation?” Larson had to be careful. If he sounded too eager, the price would go up. “What do you want?”
    Van thought it over. He looked up again and scrutinized the underside of the highway. It looked like he was doing some arithmetic in his head. “Five hundred,” he finally replied.
    The price was steep but not prohibitive. Larson went to his SUV, opened the passenger-side door and reached into the glove compartment. That’s where he kept his petty cash envelope, which held a stack of twenty-dollar bills. Larson removed twenty-five of them, then returned to Van. “Here you go.”
    The biker handed him the slip of paper and took the money. “They’re vanity plates,” he added.