Prologue

Despite his outward demeanor of beaten down acceptance; the man raged inside as he carefully negotiated the crowd in the airport concourse. He looked like an older man; white hair could be seen below the brim of an old-fashioned dress hat. His shoulders were stooped slightly, as if the weight of the world were resting on them. His shuffling walk explained the need for the cane, and his glasses were tinted enough that his fellow travelers couldn't see his eyes. That was fortunate, because anyone seeing his eyes would recognize the lie his appearance tried to hide.

Until recently, he had been powerful. Until recently, he had commanded men and women. His word had been law, and he had held the power of life and death. It had all been stripped away in a moment. Until a few days earlier, he had been Brigadier General Robert Branch.

That man was dead. He had died in the office of Lieutenant General Frank Key, Commanding General of the Arizona National Guard. His murderers were a has-been soldier and a National Guard Captain who was also a doctor with poor taste in men. A US Senator could share the blame for getting involved in affairs he shouldn't have. Frank Key, bore some responsibility, too. They would all pay. They would all rue the day they were born. Robert Branch was dead, but his ego was alive and well, and very angry.

Robert's mind drifted back, considering his life, as he began formulating plans for his next step. Several details were a given. The two men that he had killed earlier in the day, while escaping incarceration, would not be the last to die.

The man born as Robert Blanchard had become Robert Branch twenty-four years earlier. He joined the US Army as an officer with a college degree, though he had never even finished high school. Robert had learned how to create false identities while living in a commune. The members of that commune had once helped draft dodgers get to Canada, and provided identities for the violent protest groups that were active during and after the Viet Nam war.

Robert was very intelligent. In the four years Robert spent at the commune, he absorbed high school and college courses with equal ease. Becoming proficient with more esoteric skills: lock picking, creating false identities, using disguises, and self defense, including weapons use, was no more difficult.

Robert Branch killed his first person only ten days after leaving the commune. It was his mother. She was a whore, and blamed Robert for her place in life, until he ran away and began living in the commune. He considered her murder as his first step into his adult life. She was the first link to Robert Blanchard that he broke. The john who was with his mother just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Robert Branch joined the Army, breezed through Officer's Candidate School, and the Airborne Training that he volunteered for. Special Forces Training was his next goal, and like everything else in his life, he absorbed the knowledge 'like a sponge', nearly as easily as his body absorbed the physical hardships of the training. During leave times, while his comrades visited friends and families, Branch continued working on severing the ties with his past.

In the years that followed, members of the commune began to suffer apparent accidents. The first was an over-filled propane tank with a faulty check valve that killed seven of Robert's former mentors. A few members of the commune actually did die of natural causes, but those who didn't conveniently die within the first four years of Branch's enlistment were assisted by their former protégé.

The last were a husband and wife in their sixties. They had enjoyed using ropes when they took their pleasure from the boy. Their deaths were the only two that he did not make an apparent accident. They lasted nearly a week, and they didn't die easily.

Robert Branch wasn't the only false identity that he created. He also created Robert Sinclair and Gerald Fleming. All three names belonged to children who had died within days of being born. Robert had simply 'corrected the record' that had 'falsely' recorded their death. Judicious break-ins were used to insert false paper documentation at schools.

His years in the Army had been profitable for Robert Branch, but the monetary rewards hadn't flowed only to the coffers of Robert Branch. Deposits, withdrawals, purchases, tax returns and other transactions were also made in the names of Robert Sinclair and Gerald Fleming. The false personas were groomed over the years, so Robert could step into them at will. He did step into them during his annual vacations to further bolster their reality. A benefit of military service was thirty days per year for vacation, and Robert took full advantage to maintain and advance his alternate personas.

Robert Branch had parleyed his Special Forces credentials into a de facto position as the 'go-to' person for the CIA and Military Intelligence. Robert and his aide, Dick Denison, were used when incursions were necessary in dangerous locations. They had led teams into countries in South America, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. They were especially in demand when an incursion might get 'wet, ' as in bloody.

On February 26, 1993, the World Trade Center was bombed, and Robert realized that Islamic fundamentalists were at war with America. It soon became apparent that it was a one-sided war, because America wasn't at war with Islam. He began grooming his Robert Sinclair persona as an Islamic sympathizer. He didn't know who would win the war, but he had no intention of landing on the wrong side of any conflict.

Chapter 1 »