Thy Kingdom Come: Book One in the Sam Thorpe series Read Online Free Page A

eleven days. The Feds control all the media, so no one knows they killed the wife and kid. Finally, Bo Grites comes in and negotiates a settlement.”
    “Grites.” Sam paused for a moment. “Isn’t he the Special Forces officer?”
    “One and the same. Great guy. After all this, the government finally hauled Randy into court. And you know what?”
    Sam shook his head.
    “He comes out scot free. Bastards killed his wife and kid for nothing. People wonder why I hate ‘em.”
    Sam followed Oliver back through the kitchen and toward the front door. “Hard to believe the government set him up.”
    “Join the real world, Thorpe. It happens all the time. People just don’t know about it. Christ, FDR allowed 2400 guys to go to their death at Pearl Harbor so we’d enter the war. That didn’t have to happen.”
    Oliver pulled the front door shut and locked it.
    “And you know what, the same thing happened with Oklahoma City.”
    Sam glanced back at the door. “I’ll need the combination if you want me to use that facility to sleep in.”
    “You and Popeye each have a bunk in your offices in the main barn.”
    Sam nodded.
    “Our government knew that bombing was coming. No one tried to stop it.” Oliver pointed his finger at Sam. “At least two federal informants warned their handlers about the bombing. The damn government wanted to destroy the militia movement. They figured that was the easiest way to do it. The FBI didn’t act on the information, didn’t do a damn thing, so 168 people died.”
    Sam’s stomach lurched as he followed Oliver across the yard. One-hundred and sixty-eight people died senselessly, it made him sick, Clouds filled the sky. The wind had picked up. They could be in for a late-winter snowstorm. The same red-bellied woodpecker streaked low across the yard, probably hoping for one last insect from the sycamore tree before snow started falling.
    “You don’t believe me, do you? Read the testimony. Explosive experts, military personnel, and retired federal agents all indicated that the Oklahoma City bombing could never have been accomplished solely with a truck bomb made of fertilizer. How do you feel about your government now?”
    Sam waited.
    “Ever hear of Benton Parten?”
    Sam shook his head. The memory bank in his mental computer kept filling. He was ready to open another file drawer.
    “He’s a retired brigadier general. Spent his career in charge of the design and testing of every non-nuclear explosive device used by the Air Force. Know what he concluded?”
    Oliver turned and pointed his finger at Sam again. “The idea of two guys mixing barrels of fertilizer and fuel oil in a public park is crazy. Worse yet, exploding a bomb thirty feet from a hardened target and causing that kind of damage is absurd. That’s what he said. But the government discredited him. They wanted McVeigh and the militia to take the hit. The bastards lied. Did whatever was necessary to get at us.”
    Sam waited.
    “Well, you’d better wake up to what’s really going on before it’s too late. The CIA trains all those wild-eyed terrorists; then they use that training and the weapons we give them to come after us. Sam, we’ve got to stop these government bastards before they destroy us. And, you’re the guy to help me.”

     
    George Case picked his way around a patch of ice and walked up the stairs to the front door of the science building. March, and here he was, chilled to the bone, when he should have been in Orlando.
Why didn’t I take the security job at Disney World?
he asked himself.
Oh yeah. My wife wanted to stay here.
“But George,” she’d said, “all of our friends are here. We wouldn’t know anyone down there. And besides, they talk funny in Florida.”
    He had spent thirty years handing out parking tickets and freezing when the wind blew up the Susquehanna River. Thirty years. Finally he had worked his way up to chief of police. Wherever he went in town, he was a big deal. The