Page 53 of Edge of Danger

“Who’s the founder?” he asked.

Wow. That made her whole body go tense.

“Guy named Joseph Brothers. Born and raised on a farm in Pennsylvania in the middle of Amish country. He was exposed to a fair number of Amish, so he was familiar with and presumably admired their non-technological way of life.”

“Why didn’t he just join them, then?”

She shrugged. “He was more ambitious than that. Thought in larger terms. It wasn’t enough to choose that kind of life for himself and quietly go about it—which would have been the Amish thing to do. Instead, he got the notion that he should share the wisdom of choosing that lifestyle with others.”

“Does he have a family?”

“Couple of kids.”

“Let me guess. He wouldn’t let his wife go to a modern medical facility and she died of some totally preventable complication.”

“Actually, no,” Piper surprised him by replying. “His wife left him.”

Ian nodded in comprehension. “Fled to the land of blow dryers and cell phones, huh? That must really toast his muffins.”

“He was well on his way to rejecting technology before his wife’s…defection. That was merely the event that pushed him over the edge into action.”

Why the hitch in her voice? He opened his mouth to ask, but a knock on his door announced the arrival of the pizza guy. He got up to carry the flat cardboard boxes to his coffee table. In bachelor fashion, he tore the top off the first box and used it as a makeshift plate. He dragged several sloppy slices of pizza onto it. Piper ate more daintily, taking one of the napkins that had come with the boxes and cradling a slice of pizza in that.

He picked up the narrative. “Okay. So Joseph’s wife leaves. The crazy switch flips on in his head, and he moves out to Idaho to start his little group. Where’d his followers come from?”

“Not followers,” she corrected dryly. “Fellow patriots.”

Was that a hint of bitterness in her voice? What in thehellwas going on with her? “Do you not like these guys or something?”

“Or something. I think they’re the worst kind of ingrates. They’ve got this great country to live in that was built on the blood, sweat, and tears of generations of actually patriotic Americans, and they want to throw all that progress and innovation away. I think that’s insane. I don’t want to go back to one in three women dying in childbirth and its complications. And Ilikehaving all my teeth. I like phones and cars and electricity. Heck, I like air conditioning and the Internet!”

He grinned as he picked up another slice of pizza. “You don’t have to convince me. I’d be lost without ESPN and my truck. And a refrigerator for my beer.”

She smiled reluctantly. He let her eat pizza for a few minutes until her shoulders came down from around her ears and a more open expression filled her face.

“How much money do these PHP guys have?” he asked casually. That seemed like an innocuous enough question.

“Hard to tell. They spend practically nothing on their lifestyle. Some of them came to the compound with assets that have probably been sitting in banks and compounding for a while. They also sell a self-published guide on how to live off the grid. For all I know, they could be making good money from that.

“Enough money to have purchased a helicopter and paid to train someone to fly it?” he asked lightly.

“I’ve never seen any evidence that they have that kind of capital.”

“Let’s assume they don’t have that kind of cash lying around. Where would they get it? They don’t strike me as the types to get a loan from a bank.”

She snorted. “What bank in its right mind would give them a loan?”

“Good point.”

She stared off into space for a while before announcing, “I’m stumped.”

“Has someone new joined the group? Radicalized it in some way? Brought significant cash resources to the PHP?”

“Possible,” she answered slowly. “I’d have to get eyes on the compound. See if there are any new faces I don’t recognize.”

“Let’s do it, then. While we wait for Alex and his hackers to trace the money trail for that helicopter, let’s go to Idaho and check out these guys.”

“It’ll be dangerous,” she warned.

---