From that distance, downtown looked quiet and peaceful. The fireworks had apparently stopped.
Jacinda Jones, Geronimo’s attractive wife, had made scrambled eggs and bacon for breakfast. She was obviously six to seven months pregnant with their first child. It was clear to Nate that she was peeved at Geronimo, likely because he’d told her what they were about to do. She kept her distance during breakfast to maintain civility, but she couldn’t help but ask Nate about his “circumstances.”
Men always asked what he did for a living. Women always asked about his family.
He showed her photos of Liv and Kestrel on his phone and her eyebrows arched.
“I didn’t know there were any Black people in Wyoming,” she said.
* * *
—
Tristan had been seated on the floor in the corner of the utility shed when Nate and Geronimo took him a plate of breakfast. Geronimo had cut the tape from Tristan’s wrists and removed the tape from his mouth so he could eat. He refused and said he wasn’t hungry.
Relieved of his black bloc clothing and heavy boots, Tristan looked even less impressive than Nate had imagined. He was pale, sallow, with a sunken chest and acne scars on his neck and jaw. His eyes darted toward them like a cautious ferret and he kneaded his fingers together to hide the fact that his hands were shaking.
Turned out, Tristan Richardson had grown up wealthy in the Highlands Ranch suburb of Denver. His father was an insurance company executive and his mother was a buyer for an outdoor sports clothing chain. He’d graduated from the University of Colorado in Boulder and . . . he lived at home.
Tristan hated his parents. He hated the government. He hated all politicians, whether local, state, or federal. They were all corrupt fascists, and their party didn’t matter. He hated the police. He hated capitalism most of all, and he was determined to “fight the fascists who benefitted from it at the expense of the downtrodden, the oppressed, and those without a voice or rights.”
He said he was “anti-fascist,” just like the Allied troops that invaded Hitler’s Europe on D-Day.
While he went on, Geronimo scrolled through Tristan’s iPhone 12 Pro. He’d gotten Tristan’s password earlier by pointing the triple-barrel shotgun at his knees.
Tristan seemed befuddled by the fact that Geronimo was distracted and wasn’t more sympathetic to his views.
Nate didn’t care about any of that.
“How do you know Axel Soledad?” he asked Tristan.
Tristan said his associates referred to the man by his first name primarily. Axel.
Axel was kind of a patron saint of antifa cells across the country, Tristan said. Axel had set up legal defense funds with sympathetic attorneys in most of the major western cities to bail out those that got arrested, and he funded the defense for antifa who actually appeared in court. Axel was influential with many local district attorneys and he encouraged them to release people who’d been arrested without charging them.
Axel had become more important in the past few years, Tristan said. He’d become more active. He was like a ghost who knew where to show up and when at just the right time to provide weapons, food, tents, clothing, and spiritual backup. He was unbelievably well-connected.
Even though no one was certain where he lived, Axel knew where to be. Whenever there was serious street action, Axel was there. Portland, Seattle, Denver, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Kenosha, Omaha, Louisville, Washington, D.C. His support kept the movement simmering at all times.
He was a legend.
Geronimo was more focused on the nuts and bolts of what had happened the night before.
“Who knew about the cache of weapons he dropped off?”
“Everybody. The geocache site went out over social media,” Tristan said.
“When you say everybody, do you just mean antifa assholes like you?”
“No—everybody.”
“They use Signal, Telegram, and Gab and other software to communicate,” Geronimo explained to Nate. “Encrypted shit no one can trace. Everybody knows where the weapons are located except for the cops.”
Tristan nodded his head in agreement.
Geronimo said to Tristan, “Looking through your contacts here, I can’t find his name.”
“He’s not listed by his name,” Tristan said, blushing with apparent embarrassment.
“What’s he listed under?”
“Shaman.”
Nate rolled his eyes while Geronimo located the contact details.
“Found him,” he said. “Does he know you well enough that if we sent him a text, he’d respond?”