Under Cover of Darkness

by James Grippando

“Come on,” said Isaac. “Let’s not get personal.”

  “On the contrary,” said Lundquist. “Now is precisely the time to get personal. I sense that you’re leaning toward some kind of undercover approach. So the next logical question is, who is the right man for the job?”

  “At the risk of sounding like a bumper sticker, I’d have to say the right man is a woman.”

  “Is that so?” said Lundquist. “Andie, why don’t you relate to us your previous undercover training and experience?”

  She had none, but she felt compelled to say something. “I did some acting in college.”

  “Wonderful. You can be Eliza Doolittle in the cult revival of My Fair Lady. Isaac, how’d you like to play ’enry ’iggins?”

  “Enough,” said Isaac.

  “I’m not just taking potshots,” said Lundquist. “I like Andie. I think she’s got real potential. I just don’t want to see her killed on an assignment she’s not qualified to handle.”

  “I’m up for it,” said Andie.

  “Think before you talk, kid. You’re going inside a cult. Once you’re there, you’re on your own. Our surveillance agents can’t see through walls. And we can’t wire you. If they pat you down and find a wire, you’re dead. I’m not saying this to be a sexist pig. But with two dead men, three dead women, and another woman missing, maybe you’d better think twice before you walk into a cult that may have spawned a serial killer.”

  She looked at Lundquist and then at Isaac. “I have thought about it. This is what I want to do.” Her gaze fixed on Isaac. He’d been with her so far, and she expected his approval. She waited. Several seconds passed. She suffered through the silence, begging with her eyes.

  He said finally, “Let me think about it.”

  “But—”

  With a quick wave of the hand Isaac cut her off. Concern was evident in his eyes. Lundquist’s speech had gotten to him. “I said I’d think about it.”

  Andie watched with disappointment as he rose from the table and left the room.

  Forty-seven

  Gus had been awake since three A.M. That was when Morgan had finally fallen asleep. The nights were getting increasingly difficult. For a six-year-old, a week and a half was an eternity. Beth had been gone so long that Morgan was seriously beginning to doubt her return.

  For the most part, Gus had managed to keep his own doubts to himself. The advice he’d gotten was to remain positive in front of Morgan. That didn’t mean walking around the house with an ear-to-ear smile. Nor did it mean lying to her. She could see the worry in his face, so there was little point in telling her he wasn’t concerned.

  Last night, however, he might have been a little too honest. It was on their third late-night go-round, after the story-reading session at eleven o’clock and another glass of water at one A.M. Morgan was still wide awake. Clearly, something was weighing on her mind. Gus carried her from the bed and held her on his lap as they rocked in the glider. Her head lay on his shoulder. He could feel the warm breath against his neck, the baby-fine hair brushing against his skin. They rocked in the glow of her Little Mermaid night light. It took a few minutes, but finally she opened up. She spoke without looking at him, her cheek against his chest.

  “Daddy?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s a reward?”

  He knew where this was headed, so he answered carefully. “It’s like a prize that you give to a person who does a good deed.”

  “A kid at school said there was a reward for Mommy.”

  “That’s true. If anyone can bring Mommy back to us, that would be a good deed. So I’ll give them a reward.”

  “What are you going to give them?”

  “Money.”

  “How much?”

  “A lot.”

  “All the money we have?”

  “No. Not all of it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because we don’t have to give that much.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I just know.”

  “But Mommy isn’t back. What if your reward isn’t big enough?”

  “It’s big enough. But if they ask for more, we’ll give it to them.”

  They rocked in silence, then she asked, “How much more?”

  “Whatever it takes.”

  “Would you give them your car?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “How about the house?”

  “If we had to, I would.”

  “Would you give them Aunt Carla?”

  That elicited a half smile. “No, honey. We can’t do that.”

  “Would you give them me?”

  “Never,” he said firmly. “Not in a million years.”

  She nuzzled the nape of his neck and asked softly, “What about you?”

  “What about me?”

  “If they wanted you as their reward, would you go?”

  He didn’t answer right away. Not because he didn’t know the answer, but because he had never thought of it in those terms. “Yes. I would.”

  He felt her cling tighter. Her voice filled with urgency. “You would go, too?”

  “No. I would go instead of Mommy. Mommy would come back.”

  Her body shivered. “But what if it was a trick? What if both of you went away?”

  “That’s not going to happen. Don’t worry about that. I promise you that will never happen.”

  She nearly crawled inside him. She pressed as much of her body against his as was physically possible. This close, he could practically see her thoughts. He could definitely feel her fears, and it made him regret having said he might go away under any circumstances. All he could do was hang on tight and reassure her. They remained that way for almost two hours, till Morgan finally fell asleep.

  After putting her down, Gus didn’t even try falling back to sleep. He needed something to occupy his mind. Pre-dawn television didn’t cut it. The newspaper had yet to be delivered. His eyes drifted toward the framed photographs on the dresser. There were at least a dozen of them. The frames were old, some of them from the days when he and Beth were just living together. Over time, however, the pictures had changed. It was an interesting progression, he thought. It used to be him and Beth. The two of them snow skiing. The two of them at Haystack Rock. Then came the engagement and wedding pictures. The baby pictures followed. Morgan in her bassinet. Morgan and Mommy. He scanned the entire dresser.

  There wasn’t a single picture of him and Morgan.

  Curious, he went to the closet and dragged down the old shoe boxes that held all their photographs. Over the next several hours, he went through them slowly, box by box, oldest to newest. The old ones were familiar and brought back memories. The new ones, however, were truly new to him. He hadn’t been the photographer for any of them. He wasn’t in any of them. He hadn’t even seen most of them before.

  He returned to the older ones, back to a time when he was still part of the family. His favorite was one he had taken of Morgan in her crib when she was just eight months old, before things really started to tank between him and Beth. A ray of sunlight streamed through slats on the Bermuda shutters. It angled perfectly toward her crib, shooting like a laser beam. Morgan stared at it intently, reaching for it, trying to grasp it in her tiny fingers. Gus snapped a perfect shot that captured the moment exactly. Friends and family who saw it had the same reaction. “Just like her dad. Mad because she can’t have everything.”

  Looking at it now, Gus saw it differently. There was no anger or frustration in baby Morgan’s eyes. It was simple fascination. The look of determination was so strong that if you stared at the photo long enough, you couldn’t help but put aside your own grown-up notion of the laws of physics. You’d swear she could reach out and grab it, even bend it and twist it as she wished. She had the innate gift of making the impossible seem possible, but that didn’t make her a hopeless overachiever like her dad. As the years had made clear, she also had the wisdom to leave certain things be and enjoy them for what the
y were.

  That made her more like her mother—the Beth he remembered.

  “Daddy?” He looked up, startled. Morgan was standing in the doorway, still in her pajamas. “Are you going to take me to school?”

  He checked the clock and groaned. It was already after nine. “Oh, boy. We’re late.” He quickly started stuffing photographs back into the boxes. In his haste he spilled a bulging stack all over the rug. Morgan came to help gather them up. She handed him one after the other. It was slower that way, but Gus liked the teamwork.

  “Thank you,” he said as she handed him the last one.

  “Should I get ready for school?”

  He was about to say yes, then reconsidered. She probably hadn’t noticed that her father wasn’t in a single one of the dozen photographs she’d just handed over, but he certainly had. He had planned to take another run at Shirley Borge, but she probably could use another day to cool off anyway. “Morgan, why don’t you and I take the day off?”

  “And do what?”

  “Anything you want. Go ice skating. Go to the zoo. Anything at all.”

  Her eyes brightened. “You mean we’re going to play hooky together?”

  “Yeah,” he said with a thin smile. “I think it’s about time.”

  It took just minutes to fill his duffel bag with the basic necessities, though everything was folded and arranged with precision. One change of pants, two clean shirts. Extra thermal socks and underwear. Three long-sleeve cotton turtlenecks and a heavy wool sweater. A toothbrush and toothpaste. A straight-edge razor with just a bar of soap, no shaving cream. A Swiss Army knife, flammable steel wool, and some waterproof matches.

  His weekend in the mountains would require little more. The retreat was just one day away. Already, he could feel the increased flow of energy, feel the change in his level of vibration. Energy was power. Power was his sustenance—his power over others.

  The window shade was drawn and the room was dark, though not completely black. A four-watt bulb in the bathroom cast a faint glow that reached all the way to the bed. He could see only because his pupils had adjusted, and he could see quite well. The pattern on the bedspread. The curves beneath the covers. Her head resting on the pillow.

  He took a silent step forward, then another, till he was at the edge of the bed and standing directly over her. She was sound asleep. No surprise. After what she’d been through this past week, she couldn’t possibly know night from day.

  That was power.

  He laid his packed duffel bag on the chair, then rested a black leather bag atop the dresser and zipped it open. Inside was a pair of rubber gloves. A three-foot stick. A length of rope. A longer stretch of the same yellow nylon rope. And a knife.

  This too was power. But it was the easy way.

  This time there could be no props or tools, no worldly instruments of any kind. He would have to summon deeper powers. He was certain he could do it. He had that gift, he knew. All he had to do was will it. And it would be so.

  He drew a deep cleansing breath, closed his eyes, and focused. Slowly, he exhaled. His lungs emptied, but he continued to exhale. His body called for air, but the mind said no. The lungs began to burn, but he refused to draw a breath. He struggled with the pain until it became a numbness. Dizziness set in. He felt rocky on his feet. Just at the point it seemed unbearable, the blackness became a vision. He could suddenly see the tightness in the rope, the pressure around the neck. He could feel the woman’s body twitching, hear the pounding of her heart. He drew on all his powers of concentration, his powers of vibration—every ounce of mental strength and energy. Beads of sweat gathered on his brow. His face showed signs of strain. His grip tightened on the dresser’s edge. He grimaced one last time and fell to his knees, barely conscious.

  He groaned, gasping for air. He gobbled it up in quick, erratic breaths. After a few moments, he regained control. He took another deep cleansing breath and smiled to himself, his eyes still closed. It was the thin smile of the victor. His success was palpable, as real as ever before. The deed was as good as done. Such was his power over others.

  The power of the source.

  Forty-eight

  Andie was reasonably patient, but by mid-Thursday afternoon she could wait no longer. More than twenty-four hours had passed since Isaac’s announcement that he wanted to think about the undercover assignment. She wasn’t about to let him think it to death. The FBI was like every place else in that respect: too many decisions were made by not making a decision.

  “Got a minute?” she said, standing in the open doorway.

  He didn’t look surprised to see her, but he didn’t look thrilled either. He waved her in and signaled to close the door. She did, then sat in the armchair facing his desk. He leaned back in his leather chair and said, “You want my decision, I take it.”

  “Not to be pushy, but Blechman’s retreat is tomorrow.”

  “I can think of plenty of reasons to let you go. You’re the logical choice, since you’ve already got your foot in the door. For my money you’re the most talented young agent in the office. And to be perfectly frank, I don’t have a slew of agents willing to put their lives on hold and infiltrate a cult. Which makes me wonder. Why do you want to do this?”

  “Because I honestly believe it will lead us to Beth Wheatley.”

  He leaned forward, elbows on the desk. “No, I mean why do you really want to do this?”

  “You mean, do I think it will be a professional challenge? Good for my career? Better than another weekend of rented movies and microwave popcorn?”

  “I’m being serious. This is a dangerous assignment. I don’t want someone going into it for the wrong reason.”

  “What would be the wrong reason?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. But hypothetically, let’s say someone was still feeling a little hurt or embarrassed about a wedding that literally turned into a brawl at the altar. Maybe she’d jump at an undercover assignment as a convenient escape.”

  She was momentarily speechless. “That has nothing to do with this.”

  “Don’t be mad. I just want to be sure you’re going into this with a clear head. That’s my professional responsibility.”

  “I know it wasn’t that long ago. But emotionally Rick is so far behind me it isn’t funny.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Are you sure your interest is purely professional?” She wasn’t being accusatory. Just giving him another opening.

  Isaac softened his expression but remained all business. “This weekend retreat is probably the kind of place where new recruits are expected to talk about themselves. If I approve the assignment, you understand you’ll need a lot more than phony IDs. You’ll have to create a whole family history.”

  “That’s easy. I’m adopted, remember? No one has given more thought to another life than an adopted child. Don’t think I’m crazy, but I have plenty of imaginary parents to choose from.”

  “Cults tend to prey on the emotionally wounded. You’d have to invent something on the dysfunctional side.”

  “No problem. Going to Yakima has already triggered some thoughts along those lines.”

  “How do you mean?”

  She was thinking of the drunken prostitute at the hotel, but she saw no point in sharing her fears about the mother she’d never known. “It’s nothing, really. Just believe me, I can construct a phony family so dysfunctional they’ll name me cult recruit of the month.”

  “You wouldn’t want to overdo it. One of the biggest problems for an undercover agent is remembering the story she tells. It’s a good idea to stick to the truth as much as possible, at least on things that don’t matter. Like, do you have any brothers or sisters? Did you take dance lessons as a girl? What does your father do for a living?”

  “Am I a half-breed who was adopted and raised by middle-class white parents?”

  “Now that you mention it, that is a rather plausible background for someone who might have issues later in life. Someone who mig
ht eventually be drawn to a cult.” He saw the expression on her face, then backpedaled. “I didn’t mean you—”

  “It’s okay.”

  “I don’t want you to think you have to embrace any particular back story just to earn my approval. If I were doing this assignment, I’d obviously have to go as a black man. But you look white, you were raised white, you can be white. Or you can be Indian. Or you can be mixed. You have that unique luxury.”

  “It’s no luxury,” said Andie.

  “Bad choice of words, sorry.”

  Very bad. She could have told him how in college she’d gone to a powwow on the U.W. campus and was shunned as just another horny white chick on the prowl for a brown Indian warrior. How the scholarship committee had rejected her claim of Native American status because she had no idea what tribe her mother belonged to. How as a girl she’d kept an Ai-Ya-To-Mat, a hemp string diary that marked the most important days of her life with knots and colored beads, only to have her mother take it away and burn it out of fear that it was linked to some kind of devil worship.

  “Isaac, are you giving me this assignment or not?”

  “Yes. I am.”

  “Thank you.” She was startled but pleased.

  “You’re welcome. But you should probably thank Victoria more than me.”

  “Victoria?”

  “I had a talk with her about an hour ago, just to see what she thought about you taking the assignment. She’s been down in the dumps lately, which accounts for her lackluster performance on this case. I think she sees some of her old self in you. You play your cards right, you might just find yourself a mentor.”

  “She’d want to mentor me?”

  “She’s already looking out for you. Doesn’t want to see you passed over as a young and inexperienced female for risky assignments like this one, never getting the chance to build the kind of record you need to make it all the way to the top.”

  Andie knew about Victoria’s failed bid for chief of the Child Abduction and Serial Killer Unit, knew that no woman had ever been chief of a profiling unit at Quantico. “Funny, my toughest critics have always been women. It’s nice to have one on my side. Thanks for passing that along.”