Fires In The Night – Matthew Wolfe

When he was questioned in December 2001, Ferguson had claimed to have never lived with Josephine Overaker. This was, Ferreira pointed out, demonstrably untrue, and the penalty for Ferguson’s deceit was five years in prison. Though Ferguson didn’t know it at the time, the threat was somewhat of a bluff. While the harshest possible sentence for the crime of lying to a federal officer was, indeed, five years, in practice this was rarely the sentence administered.

Proving that he had intentionally lied was tricky, and, even then, judges seldom handed down the maximum. But Ferreira and Harvey estimated that it was the best leverage they had against Ferguson. If they could scare Ferguson enough, they could maybe convince him to admit to his crimes in exchange for leniency. In truth, though, if Ferguson refused to cooperate, Ferreira reckoned they had almost zero chance of cracking the case. Ferguson was, indeed, frightened. Everything felt different after 9/11.

The FBI had a blank check and unlimited resources and a mandate to crush every form of terrorism, even monkeywrenching. Ferguson’s fear only grew when investigators suggested that it was only a matter of time before they had enough evidence to formally charge him with some of the arsons. They knew, Ferreira told him, bluffing, that he had been involved in Romania. And, while they hadn’t caught Overaker yet, it was hard to stay a fugitive for very long. When they brought her in, Ferreira asked, how confident was Ferguson that she wouldn’t start talking?

Or that they wouldn’t catch someone else? Given the number of ELF arsons—many against federal facilities, where the punishment could be thirty years per device—the five years that Ferguson was facing could become a hundred. The alternative, Ferreira explained, was for Ferguson to tell them what he knew about the group. If Ferguson was candid about his involvement in the ELF, he could have a clean slate.

It was a golden ticket. Ferguson, seeing red, refused and left the room. For many years—ever since, perhaps, he’d first become involved in the ELF—Ferguson had been eaten by a gnawing dread that things would not end well. The fear would often get washed away by adrenaline, but the question was always lurking somewhere underneath: Would this be the day that the FBI kicked in his windows? When it finally happened—when Ferreira finally tapped his shoulder in the grocery store—Ferguson was almost relieved.

But now he was looking at the very serious possibility of life in prison. To Ferguson, his situation appeared profoundly unfair. He had, as he saw it, made no mistakes. He had never botched a mission, never screwed over a fellow Elf, never bragged to a woman at a bar about his crimes.

Now, somehow, he was suspect number one.

Copyright © 2026 by Matthew Wolfe Penguin Random House values and supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission.

You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader. Please note that no part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner for the purpose of training artificial intelligence technologies or systems. VIKING and VIKING ship colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC. Portions of this work originally appeared in a different form in the article “The Rise and Fall of America’s Environmentalist Underground” published in The New York Times Magazine on May 26, 2022. Image credits: 1 and 2: Kurt Jensen; 3: Tim Lewis; 4, 5, 6, 7: Law enforcement and investigative files; 8: Eugenean Yearbook; 9: Mark Mobley/Vail Fire & Emergency Services; 10: Courtesy of Greg Harvey; 11: Beth A.

Keiser / Associated Press © 1999 AP, all rights reserved; 12: Chief Roy Milburn; 13: © Paul Carter – Eugene Register Guard via Imagn Images; 14: Robert Couse-Baker, Flickr via CC BY 2.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/); 15: Sallie Ann Glassman; 16: Courtesy of Katie Nelson; 17: © Brian Davis – USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images; 18: Photo by Joe Brusky; 19: Matthew Klint. Cover design: Colin Webber Cover image: Mark Mobley Book design by Daniel Lagin, adapted for ebook by Cora Wigen library of congress cataloging-in-publication data Names: Wolfe, Matthew author Title: Fires in the night : the Earth Liberation Front, the FBI, and a secret history of eco-sabotage / Matthew Wolfe.

Other titles: Earth Liberation Front, the FBI, and a secret history of eco-sabotage Description: New York, NY : Viking, [2026] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2026018870 (print) | LCCN 2026018871 (ebook) | ISBN 9780593654552 hardcover | ISBN 9780593654569 ebook Subjects: LCSH: Earth Liberation Front | United States. Federal Bureau of Investigation | Ecoterrorism—United States | Deep ecology—United States | Environmentalists—Political activity—Oregon | Ecoterrorism—Oregon Classification: LCC GE197 .W65 2026 (print) | LCC GE197 (ebook) LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2026018870 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2026018871 Ebook ISBN 9780593654569 The authorized representative in the EU for product safety and compliance is Penguin Random House Ireland, Morrison Chambers, 32 Nassau Street, Dublin D02 YH68, Ireland, https://eu- contact.penguin.ie.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

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