by Alex Kava
No, the real reason Justin had excused himself involved much more sinister thoughts than sore feet; illicit thoughts, according to the gospel of Reverend Joseph Everett and his followers. Jesus, would he ever get used to calling himself one of those followers, one of the chosen few? Probably not as long as he took breaks from handing out the word of God, only to sit back and admire Alice Hamlin’s breasts.
She looked up and waved at him as if she had read his thoughts. He fidgeted. Maybe he should take off his shoes to play up the sore-feet thing. Or had she already figured him out? She certainly couldn’t mind. Why else would she have worn such a tight pink sweater? Especially on a bus trip where they were to spend the day handing out godly propaganda. And then later, in about an hour, they’d be at the fucking prayer rally.
Jesus! He needed to watch his language.
He looked around, checking to see if any of Father’s little messengers could hear his thoughts. After all, Father sure as hell made it appear that he could. The man seemed to be telepathic or whatever that term was for reading people’s minds. It was downright spooky.
He grabbed one of the pamphlets so Alice would think he took their job seriously and maybe not notice that breast thing. The slick four-color pamphlets were pretty impressive with the word freedom in raised letters. What did Alice call it? Embossing? Very professional. It even included a color photograph of Reverend Everett and listed on the back the entire schedule of future prayer rallies, city by city. From the looks of the brochure, you’d think they could afford to eat something better than beans and rice seven days a week.
When he looked back at Alice, a new group of potential recruits had surrounded her. They listened and watched intently as her face and gestures became animated. She was three years older than Justin, an older woman. Just the idea gave him a hard-on. She didn’t have much street smarts, but she knew stuff about so many different things. She amazed him. Like all the quotes of Jefferson’s she had memorized. She recited them before they got up all the steps to read them off the walls. She kicked ass when it came to that history crap. And she knew that one-two-three thing about Jefferson. That he was the first secretary of something or another, second vice president and third president. How could she even remember that fucking shit?
It was one of the many things Justin admired about her. That had to be a good sign, that he didn’t care only about her great pair of tits, which had usually been the case with him and girls in the past. In fact, there was a whole list of things he liked about Alice. For one thing, she could make religion sound almost as exciting as if it were some fucking NASCAR race to heaven. And he liked the way she looked into her listeners’ eyes as though they were the only souls on earth for that moment. Alice Hamlin could make a suicidal maniac feel special and forget why he was out teetering on a ledge. Or at least, that’s how she made Justin feel. After all, he had been that suicidal maniac just a couple months ago.
Sometimes he still felt it, that restlessness, that urge to just forget about everything and stop trying so hard to make it look like he had his shit together. Especially now that Eric had left him and was off on some mission.
In fact, he had felt the urge as recently as this morning when he found himself wondering how he might take the blades out of his plastic disposable razor. He knew if the veins at the wrists were cut vertically instead of horizontally that a person bled to death much quicker. Most people fucked it up and did the horizontal thing. Cutting himself didn’t bother him. Getting his tattoo probably hurt a hell of a lot more than slitting your wrists.
Alice was bringing a group of girls up the stairs toward him. She’d want to introduce him. Earlier she had told him he was cute enough to convince any girl to attend Father’s rally. Words didn’t usually mean a fucking thing to Justin. Not after a lifetime of people telling him stuff. But when Alice said stuff, it was hard not to believe her. So he didn’t mind. Besides, he enjoyed watching girls walk up steps. Of course, he’d much rather be watching from behind, but this view wasn’t bad.
It was a chilly day and yet all three wore short-sleeved blouses. One even had on a tight knit top, cut short to show her flat stomach. It was a false indicator of a wanna-be wild side, since even from this distance, Justin could see the belly button was pierce-free. But it was still nice to look at.
Now, if they’d just shut up. Did all high school girls have that same high-pitched giggle? Where the fuck did they learn that squeal? It grated on his nerves, but he smiled, anyway, and offered a cute little tip of his baseball cap that only seemed to set them off again, but an octave higher. Dogs had to be pitching their ears for miles.
“Justin, I want you to meet some of my new friends.”
Alice and the three girls stopped in front of him, right at crotch level, and suddenly he forgot about sore feet or even Alice’s perfectly shaped tits—for a few minutes, anyway. The tall blonde and her shorter counterpart shielded their eyes from a momentary and rare appearance of the sun. The third one, a short girl with dark eyes, looked older up close. She wasn’t afraid to meet his eyes like the blonde and her bookend.
“This is Emma, Lisa and Ginny. Emma and Lisa are best friends from Reston, Virginia. Ginny lives here in the District. They never met each other before today, and see, we’re already good friends.”
The two blondes giggled and the tall one said, “Actually, her name is Alesha, but she hates that, so we shortened it to Lisa.”
“Well, my name is really Virginia,” the dark-eyed girl told them, only it came out as though it was a competition, and she needed to outdo her new friends.
“No way,” the blondes said in practiced unison.
“My dad thought it would be cute since we’re from Virginia. Which, by the way, my dad would kill me if he knew I was attending this sort of thing tonight. He hates this kind of stuff.” This she said to Alice, and like the name thing, she made it sound like a challenge instead of a simple statement.
Justin watched for Alice’s reaction. This girl wasn’t exactly a prize recruit, and Justin wondered why Alice had even invited her to stay for the prayer rally. Already Ms. Ginny-my-name-is-really-Virginia was showing signs of doubt. That was supposed to be a big red flag. Next there would be questions. Father hated questions.
“We can’t always rely on our parents to guide us in the correct direction,” Alice told her with a smile, sounding like a mother herself, and the girl nodded, pretending to know exactly what Alice meant, because Alice was too cool to disagree with or contradict.
Justin crossed his arms over his chest. It was all he could do to keep from rolling his eyes.
A scuffle at the bottom of the steps made them all jerk around, the girls rocking on ridiculous platform shoes while trying not to fall down the steps. Justin got to his feet, climbing a few more steps to get a better look. Down below, a James Dean look-alike was shoving at an older guy while he tried to yank the man’s camera out of his hands.
“Wow! He’s really cute,” the one called Ginny managed to say without a squeal.
Justin sat back down with a sigh of frustration that no one noticed. Leave it to fuckin’ Brandon to steal all the attention.
CHAPTER 8
Ben Garrison knew a thing or two about causing pain. The kid was younger and taller, but Ben knew he was stronger and definitely wiser. This hothead would last about five seconds if Ben shot a hand to his throat and squeezed in just the right place.
“No fucking reporters, Garrison. How many times do we have to tell you that?” the kid screamed at him.
He grabbed at Ben’s Leica, managing to yank the strap wrapped around Ben’s neck. The 35 mm camera was almost as old as Ben and probably tougher. Hell, it had survived a stampede of caribou in Manitoba and getting dropped in an Egyptian sand dune. It could certainly survive some pissed off religious freak.
“Why no reporters? What is your precious leader afraid of? Huh?” Ben egged him on. He knew this kid from the short visit he had paid to their camp at the foot of the Appalac
hian Mountains. Hell, he even kind of liked the kid. From what he had seen in the past, this kid, this Brandon, had a lot of passion, a lot of fire in his belly, but he didn’t have a clue as to what to do with it.
Brandon swiped at the camera again, and this time Ben gave him a shove that sent him onto his backside. Now the kid’s red face almost matched his red, goop-backed hair. He looked up at Ben like a bull, revving up and getting ready to charge. Ben could see his nostrils flaring and his hands balling into fists.
“Give it up, kid.” Ben laughed at him and snapped a couple of shots to prove the kid couldn’t rattle him. “Reverend Everett may have tossed me out of his hideout, but he isn’t gonna get rid of me that easy. Why doesn’t he send a real man to do a real man’s job?”
Brandon was back on his feet, his jaw and teeth clenched, his hands ready at his sides. Ben imagined little clouds of steam coming out of his ears like in the comic strips. The kid would need more than those accompanying bubbles of “Pow” and “Wham” to scare off Ben Garrison. Hell, he had survived an Aborigine’s blow dart and a Tutsi’s swipe of a machete. Like the Leica, he had seen a few death battles before, and this wasn’t one of them. Not even close. Poor kid. And with all his precious little friends watching. But there was no Reverend Everett to swoop in and save the souls of his little lost fools.
A crowd had gathered, hiking up the Jefferson Memorial steps to get a better look, but they kept their distance. Even the gang of young men, the redhead’s gang, circled like dogs in heat, but yellow-bellied dogs that stayed out of the way. Ben scratched his bristled jaw, bored with the whole thing. He had spent the afternoon getting some lame shots of tight-assed, hipless nymphettes. A few he had recognized. One he had even followed for a while, hoping for a risqué Enquirer shot, to embarrass her big-shot daddy. He’d stay and get a few of the prayer rally, with the precious, fucking Reverend Joseph Everett in action. This poor excuse of a rebel without a cause wouldn’t stop him. They couldn’t stop him, especially if they insisted on using public property.
He walked up several steps, leaving the hothead to snort and stomp and pretend to be choosing the godly thing of turning the other cheek. In the distance, Ben could see people starting to flock to the FDR Memorial.
It surprised him that Everett had chosen this spot for his rally in the District, especially over the Jefferson Memorial. Jefferson seemed more in tune with Everett’s philosophy of individual freedoms and limited government. Hell, hadn’t FDR put into place some of the very government programs Everett abhorred? The good reverend was a complicated piece of shit. But Ben was determined to expose the bastard for what he really was. And it would take more than this hotheaded punk to stop him.
CHAPTER 9
FBI Headquarters
Washington, D.C.
Maggie waited for Keith Ganza to finish the work she had interrupted. He was used to her barging into his lab at FBI headquarters, whether invited or not—usually not. And although he grumbled about it, she knew he didn’t mind, even late on a Saturday afternoon when everyone else had already called it a day and left.
As the head of the FBI crime lab, Ganza had seen more in his thirty-plus years than any one person should ever see. Yet he seemed to take it all in stride, unruffled—unlike his outward appearance—by any of it. As Maggie waited and watched his tall, thin frame hunched over a microscope, she wondered if she had ever seen him in anything other than a white lab coat, or rather a yellowed-at-the-collar, wrinkled lab coat with sleeves too short for his long arms.
Maggie knew she shouldn’t be here—she should wait for the official report. But four-year-old Abby’s tenacity had only strengthened Maggie’s resolve to find out who was responsible for Delaney’s murder. Which reminded her—she pulled out a string of red licorice Abby had given her and began unwrapping it. Ganza stopped at the sound of crinkling plastic and glanced up at her over the microscope and over his half glasses that sat at the end of his nose. He looked at her with a familiar frown, one that remained in place, whether he was delivering a joke, talking about evidence or, in this case, staring at her impatiently.
“I haven’t eaten today,” she offered as an explanation.
“There’s half a tuna salad sandwich in the fridge.”
She knew his offer to be generous and sincere, however, she had never gotten used to eating anything that had spent time on a shelf next to blood and tissue samples.
“No, thanks,” she told him. “I’m meeting Gwen in a little while for dinner.”
“So you buy licorice to tide you over?” Another frown.
“No. I got this at Agent Delaney’s funeral.”
“They were handing out red licorice?”
“His daughter was. Are you ready for me to interrupt you yet?”
“You mean you haven’t already?”
Her turn to frown. “Very funny.”
“I’m getting the file to A.D. Cunningham first thing Monday morning. Can’t you wait until then?”
Without answering, she folded the long string of licorice, holding it up in front of her to measure, then pulling it apart at the fold. She handed him one section of candy. He took the bribe without hesitation. Satisfied, he left his microscope, began nibbling at the candy and searched the counter for a file folder.
“It was potassium cyanide in the capsules. About ninety percent with a mixture of potassium hydroxide, some carbonate and a smidge of potassium chloride.”
“How difficult is it to get your hands on potassium cyanide these days?”
“Not difficult. It’s used in a lot of industries. Usually as a cleaning solution or fixative. It’s used in making plastics, some photographic development processes, even in fumigating ships. There was about seventy-five milligrams in the capsule the kid spit out. With little food in the digestive tract, that dose causes almost an instantaneous collapse and cessation of all respiration. Of course, that starts only after the plastic capsule is dissolved, but I’d say within minutes. Absorbs all the oxygen out of the cells. Not a pretty or fun way to die. The victims literally strangle to death from the inside out.”
“So why not just stick their guns in their mouths like most teenage boys who commit suicide?” Both images bothered Maggie, and Ganza raised his eyebrows at the impatience and sarcasm in her voice.
“You know the answer to that as well as I do. Psychologically it’s much easier to swallow a pill than pull the trigger, especially if you’re not so keen on the idea to begin with.”
“So you don’t think this was their idea?”
“Do you?”
“I wish it were that simple.” She ran her fingers through her hair, only now noticing the tangles. “They found a two-way radio inside the cabin, so they were in contact with someone. We just don’t know who. And, of course, there was a huge arsenal underneath the cabin.”
“Oh, yes, the arsenal.” Ganza opened a file folder and shuffled through several pages. “We were able to track the serial numbers on about a dozen of the weapons.”
“That was fast. I’m guessing they were stolen instead of bought at some gun show, right?”
“Not exactly.” He pulled out several documents. “You’re not going to like it.”
“Try me.”
“They came from a storage facility at Fort Bragg.”
“So they were stolen.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Then what exactly did you say?” She came to stand at his side, looking over his arm at the document he had extracted.
“The military never knew they were missing.”
“How is that possible?”
“They retired the weapons long ago, sent them to storage. Whoever got ahold of them would have had to have high-level clearance or some type of official access.”
“You’re kidding!”
“It gets even more interesting.” He handed her an envelope stamped Document Department and motioned for her to open it.
Maggie pulled out several sheets of paper, which include
d a land title from the state of Massachusetts for ten acres of property, as well as for a cabin and docking rights to the Neponset River.
“Great,” she said after scanning the copy. “So the land was donated to some nonprofit organization. These guys really know how to hide their tracks.”
“Not that unusual,” Ganza said. “A lot of these groups filter weapons and money, even property, through bogus NPOs. Saves them from paying taxes and allows them to thumb their noses at the government they profess to hate so much. That’s usually all they have the courage to do.”
“But this group is into more dangerous stuff than tax evasion. Whoever is behind this, this maniac’s willing to sacrifice his own men…boys, really.” Maggie flipped through the pages. “So what in the world is the Church of Spiritual Freedom? I’ve never heard of it before.” She looked back up at Ganza, who shrugged his bony shoulders. “What the hell did Delaney get in the middle of?”
CHAPTER 10
Justin wished he didn’t have to stay for the prayer rally. After all, they had worked all day to get a good crowd here. Didn’t they deserve a break? He was beat and starving. Would Father really be able to tell if he and Alice ducked out? Except he knew Alice would never go for it. She lived for these yawners and really seemed to get into the singing and clapping and hugging. Actually, he had to admit that he did enjoy the hugging. And tonight they had gathered some serious babes.
He watched Brandon talking to the blond bookends. Brandon was pointing at one of the granite walls. The one that had carved: Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Religion, Freedom From Want, Freedom From Fear. Justin had heard Father repeat those same words many times, especially when he got on a roll about the government and its conspiracies to suppress people. In fact, for a while Justin had thought the reverend had been the one who had come up with the words.