“Can’t you go any faster?”
“I’m already breaking the speed limit,” Jeremiah said. “With the traffic on the road it’s not safe to go any faster than I am.”
Mark thrummed his fingers on the backseat and tried to ignore the pounding in his head. In the front passenger seat Cindy was also fidgeting.
“You don’t think he’ll try to kill Frida, too, do you?” she finally asked.
“I don’t know. I could maybe answer that if I had any idea why he killed her father and grandmother,” Mark said.
“I don’t think we can rule it out,” Jeremiah said, his voice maddeningly calm.
“What about her brother?” Cindy asked.
“Out of town according to his rabbi. Went on vacation with his family last week.”
“Do they know that for sure? Has anyone checked their house to see if they’re dead?” Cindy asked.
Mark paused. “No, but we’ll get his number from Frida and call him.”
When they finally made it to the synagogue they ran into Rabbi Ezra as they were heading for the office.
“Back so soon?” he asked Cindy and Jeremiah.
“We’re here to talk to Frida,” Cindy said.
“And make sure the synagogue is safe from the arsonist,” Jeremiah added.
“I just saw Frida in the office. Is there something wrong? Can I help?”
“Just keep an eye out for anything suspicious,” Mark said.
“I’m a rabbi. I do that already,” Ezra said with a smile.
They found Frida in the office. She looked nervous, but she shook Mark’s hand with a firm grip when introduced.
“Please sit down,” she told them.
“Do you have your brother’s phone number?” Mark asked as he claimed a chair.
“Yes. He’s out of town, though.”
“Do you know that for sure?” Cindy asked.
Frida nodded. “I drove him and his family to the airport last week. He called when they got to their destination. Last night I called him to tell him about our grandmother. She died.”
“We know,” Mark said.
“We’re very sorry for your loss,” Cindy said.
“She was sick for a long time, although apparently there was something odd about the way she died. I haven’t been told all the details yet.”
“So your brother is definitely out of town. Good. I’m still going to need his contact information to get in touch with him later,” Mark said. “First, though, we have some questions.”
“So do I. What exactly is going on?” Frida asked. “And how did you know about my brother?”
Mark cleared his throat. “I’ve been investigating several things linked to the cult kidnappings for the last couple of years.”
Frida shook her head. “I’m sorry. I won’t be much help. I was five at the time and my parents tried to shield me. Afterward, they avoided the topic unless they were fighting. They’re both gone and with my grandmother passing I’m not sure there’s anything I can tell you that will be helpful.”
Cindy leaned forward. “We think the fires are linked somehow to the kidnapping.”
“What? Why?” Frida asked, startled.
“Would anyone have had a grudge against your family?” Mark asked.
“I don’t know, maybe. I’m not sure what all my father did for a living. I know it was a business of some sort and whenever someone asked he’d just say textiles.”
“What about your grandmother? Would anyone have a reason to be angry with her?”
Frida thought about it for a moment, then nodded slowly. “Yes, I think probably so.”
“Who?” Mark asked.
“I would think the kidnappers would.”
“Why is that?
Frida’s voice twisted with grief. “She was the one who told my parents not to pay the ransom.”
20
Cindy stared at Frida in surprise. Why on earth would her grandmother have done such a thing?
“Your grandmother advised your parents not to pay the ransom the kidnappers were demanding for Dietrich?” Mark asked.
“It was more than that. She refused to give them the money. My parents’ money was tied up in investments. My grandmother had enough, more than enough, just sitting around in bank accounts. She refused to pay the ransom and she told the kidnappers directly the second time they called.”
“How do you know all this?”
“My parents fought about it for years. My mother thought my father should have stood up to his mother and they should have paid the ransom. Plus, everyone thought I was asleep the night of that phone call, but I had snuck down the stairs to listen to what was going on. I was worried about my brother and no one would tell me what was happening.”
Cindy reached out and grabbed Frida’s hand. The other woman’s grief was raw and overpowering.
“I’m so sorry,” Cindy told her. “I can’t believe your grandmother wouldn’t pay.”
“Father told me that my grandmother had been in a concentration camp in Germany. She survived, but she was a hard woman. I think it changed her. I think she wrote Dietrich off as lost, dead, the moment he was kidnapped. She lost all her siblings and her parents in Auschwitz and when someone, a relative got really sick it’s like she just cut them out of her life as though they were already dead. I don’t know. I guess maybe that was the way she would cope with the horror and the loss. She was so bitter, so severe. There was no hope, no joy in her. She passed that on to my dad and growing up I thought that was what it meant to be Jewish.”
~
Something was bothering Jeremiah, worrying at him bit by bit. The kidnappers had no reason to come after this family. Not now after so much time had passed. The cult leader, Matthews, had been off the grid for decades. If this was about the money, why not threaten the family now in an attempt to get it? Make them pay for their lives, their safety?
This was revenge, pure and simple. Revenge was driven by hatred, a feeling of having been deeply wronged. Matthews and his group had kidnapped a kid and failed to get a ransom for him. That didn’t seem revenge worthy so many years later. At the time he could have seen them lashing out, maybe threatening to harm or kidnap another one of the kids. But now?
Where was the hurt and anger in that whole situation? Where was the betrayal that would drive someone to want to hurt not only this family but also their communities, Jewish people in general?
“Mark,” Jeremiah said sharply. “Dietrich’s body was never found, right?”
Mark turned to him. “No, it wasn’t.”
“Which means it’s entirely possible he’s still alive,” Jeremiah said.
“It is, although he’s most likely buried somewhere else at that camp and we just haven’t found the grave yet.”
“I don’t think you’re going to find any grave.”
“Why not?” Cindy asked.
“I think he’s very much alive and angry at the people who should have done anything to get him back and didn’t.”
“What are you saying?” Frida asked, the color draining from her face.
Jeremiah looked at Mark. “How would you have felt if you were kidnapped as a kid and then found out that the people who should have done everything in their power to get you back refused to? What if they said you weren’t worth it?”
Comprehension dawned in Mark’s eyes. “I’d hate them. I’d blame them for the bad things that were happening to me.”
“And what would you do about it?” Jeremiah asked.
“I’d want to hurt them, find a way to make them pay for abandoning me.”
“You’d take revenge,” Jeremiah said.
“You think my brother wants to hurt me, our family?”
“I think he’s the one responsible for killing your father and grandmother,” Mark said.
Frida gasped and started shaking. Cindy hastily got up and went to put her arms around her.
&n
bsp; “And what would you do if you were the one who kidnapped that boy and was cheated out of a ransom?” Jeremiah continued.
“I’d turn that boy against his family and everyone like them. I’d turn him into…”
“An acolyte? A soldier?” Jeremiah suggested.
“A son,” Mark whispered. “Matthews told Dietrich about how his cold, unfeeling, stingy Jewish family didn’t care and left him to die.”
“Exactly.”
“Why would he do that?” Frida asked as tears slid down her cheeks.
“There are three ways to inspire loyalty: love, fear, and hate.” Jeremiah paused and then continued. “Fear can be overcome. If you get someone to love you, even if you have to twist them around to get it to happen it’s far more powerful. But if you can convince someone that you have the same enemies, channel and direct their hatred, they’ll follow you blindly to the ends of the earth.”
“I thought Matthews killed all his followers, that was what the mass grave was about. He killed them or talked them into committing suicide,” Cindy said.
“Most. Those he couldn’t be certain he could control completely,” Mark said.
“But there were a select few who he knew would never betray him,” Jeremiah said.
“And they’re out there now,” Mark said. “Dear heavens, Matthews still has followers.”
“And Dietrich is one of them,” Jeremiah said.
“To turn a young boy into a weapon, that’s monstrous,” Cindy said.
“Where I come from, our enemies do it all the time,” Jeremiah said grimly.
“Okay, I buy it, but let’s step back for a moment,” Mark said. “If this is Dietrich, why now? Why not take his revenge ten years ago, twenty years ago?”
“Maybe he was planning how or learning the skills?” Cindy suggested.
Jeremiah knew there was an even more ominous possibility. “Maybe someone finally gave him permission to act now.”
Mark jerked as though stung. “You mean, Matthews set this in motion?”
“We have to consider it a possibility, I think,” Jeremiah said.
Mark shook his head. “No, I refuse to accept it.”
“Why?”
“Because that would mean that Matthews is alive out there somewhere and has a lot more power than I want to even contemplate.”
Jeremiah understood Mark’s fear. When confronted with a horrific possibility many people opted to bury their head in the sand rather than face it. He had seen it time and again.
Something’s not right, he realized.
He looked around. Something had changed in his environment and his subconscious was trying to warn him about it. He saw nothing out of place.
Smoke. He smelled smoke.
“Fire!” he said, lunging to his feet.
“Where? I don’t see anything.” Mark asked, trying to stand and nearly falling sideways.
“I don’t know, I can smell it,” Jeremiah said, moving to the door of the office.
“I smell it now, too,” Cindy said.
Jeremiah looked out the window next to the door, scanning the courtyard outside for signs of movement or smoke.
Frida got up as Cindy let go of her. The woman grabbed the phone on her desk and called 911.
“Hello, this is the Yeshua Messianic Synagogue. There’s a fire. It’s the arsonist.”
She listened for a moment and then hung up.
“Do you see anything?” Cindy asked.
“No, nothing,” Jeremiah answered.
Mark made his way over and reached for the doorknob. “We need to get out of here,” he said.
Jeremiah put a hand on Mark’s chest. “Don’t!” he warned.
“What is it? What do you see?”
“Nothing,” Jeremiah repeated.
“Then we need to get out of here.”
Jeremiah shook his head. Something didn’t feel right. He glanced around the room. There was another door back and to the left. He turned to Frida.
“Where does that door lead?” he asked as he pointed to it.
“Into a hallway where there are classrooms.”
“Is there another way out of the building that way?”
“Yes.”
Jeremiah ran over to it. He hesitated when he reached it. The smell of smoke was much stronger. He put his hand against the door. It felt distinctly warmer. He dropped down onto the floor and looked at the bottom of the door. Thin wisps of smoke curled under it.
He scrambled back to his feet. “Fire’s over here. We can’t get out this way,” he said.
“That’s okay, because we’ve still got the front door. Can we go already?” Mark asked.
Jeremiah shook his head. “I think that’s what he wants us to do.”
“What?”
“I think he purposely only gave us one exit. It’s a trap.”
“How do you know that?” Mark blurted out.
“Because it’s what I’d do!” Jeremiah snapped as he moved back toward Mark. “We step foot out that door, we die.”
“As opposed to burning to death in here?” Mark said.
“Move away from that door. There has to be another option,” Jeremiah said.
“Yeah, you’re paranoid and this is our way out,” Mark said opening the door.
Jeremiah leaped forward and slammed Mark to the ground just as a bullet passed through the place where he’d been standing. Jeremiah kicked the door shut with his foot before getting up off Mark who groaned and looked like he was going to be sick.
“Not the head,” Mark said.
Jeremiah called him a few choice names in Hebrew and ended with, “Pigheaded idiot. When I tell you to do something, you do it!”
Jeremiah moved to the back of the room where there was a small window looking out on a lawn. It wasn’t large, but he was sure Cindy and Frida could fit through it at least. He grabbed a heavy, brass lamp off Frida’s desk and hurled it through the glass. It shattered and he used the sweater on the back of Frida’s chair to wrap his hand in as he knocked the jagged edges out.
“Okay, Cindy, take Frida out this way,” he said, his mind racing.
The officers on patrol at the synagogue should have heard the shot and come running unless they were completely occupied with the fire. Where was Liam? He should have arrived already.
Cindy drug Frida forward. The other woman was shaking uncontrollably.
“Come on,” Cindy said.
Together they pushed Frida out the window. It was a tight squeeze, but she made it. There was just a short drop to the grass outside and the woman landed safely.
“Now you,” Jeremiah said.
“Just like the porthole,” she said, referencing the sinking ship they’d been on at Pearl Harbor. She kissed him and then heaved herself up and through the window without his help. As soon as she landed outside she bounced to her feet.
“I think your shoulders are too broad, but what about Mark?” she asked anxiously. “I can catch him so he doesn’t hit his head again.”
Jeremiah shook his head. “I don’t think he’ll fit. We have to find another way. Get to safety.”
Cindy nodded, and he was grateful that she took off immediately, dragging Frida with her.
He turned back to the room, looking for anything they might use to help them get out of there. His eyes landed on a shelf full of books. He turned to the desk and started opening drawers until he found what he was looking for.
“On your feet, Mark,” he snapped as he grabbed the duct tape from the drawer.
Mark struggled up, swaying unsteadily.
“Get over by the bookshelf,” Jeremiah said, wondering how much time they had before the fire forced them from the room.
Mark was off balance, but he managed to make it over there.
“Hold out your arms,” Jeremiah instructed.
Once Mark did, Jeremiah grabbed the thickest book he could find and pressed it against Mark
’s chest, over his heart. He used the duct tape to keep it in place, wrapping it as tightly around Mark’s body as he could.
“What on earth are you doing?” Mark asked.
“Giving us a chance of making it out of here alive.”
“Books can’t stop bullets,” Mark said incredulously.
“Depends on the thickness of the books and the type of bullets and guns,” Jeremiah said.
“Do you know what gun he was firing and what type of bullets? Could you tell by the sound?”
“No. I was a little busy saving your life at that moment.”
Three minutes later Mark had about twenty pounds worth of books covering his vital organs from the front and back. There was nothing Jeremiah could do for his head, so he’d just have to keep it down and covered as best he could. The room had become visibly smoky and both Mark and Jeremiah were starting to cough.
“This isn’t going to work,” Mark said.
“If you’ve got a better idea, I’m all ears,” Jeremiah snapped.
“Yeah. Fire and police should be here any second. They’ll take care of the guy.”
“You willing to bet your life on that? Or mine?”
“Where are your books?” Mark asked.
Jeremiah shook his head. “We’re out of time.”
“I’m not going out there with you unless you’ve got some protection, too.”
Jeremiah grabbed a massive hardcover Bible off the shelf. It was obviously meant to be a showpiece sitting out on display. With Mark’s help he managed to tape the book over the majority of his chest.
“There, now we both look like idiots in a shooting gallery,” Mark said.
Jeremiah still hadn’t heard any sirens which had him worried. He had no idea what was happening outside the room and that made his skin crawl.
“Okay, ready?” he asked, moving toward the door.
“I got to tell you that the condition I’m in I’m going to slow you down,” Mark said.
“Just shut up, cover your head, and keep moving,” Jeremiah said.
“Okay.”
They crouched down behind the door. Jeremiah counted to three and then yanked it open. He burst outside, Mark right behind him. They’d covered half the distance to the parking lot when something hit him in the chest. Pain exploded as he fell.
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