She quickly sketched in what he'd missed. 

How the book groups were part of The Movement. How The Movement was a loose nationwide alliance of book groups, music societies, fringe religions and health food fanatics--with a lineage dating back hundreds of years. Sons of liberty. Abolitionists. Civil rights groups. 

The Movement's deep and powerful secret was this: It was America's conscience. 

When conditions became intolerable, they mobilized. It might be nonviolent, it might be bloody, but there was always an epic upheaval. 

"When the book is missing," she concluded, "it's The Sign. The Sign for The Fourth Great Cataclysm.

"We should have seen it coming--Ashcroft; SUVs; those damn news crawls. But I can't be certain without confirmation from John."