T.J. turned out to be a middle-age guy with a florid face and bad breath. Pullo and Gracie spoke with him inside his office, which was a converted trailer. T.J. was denying Pullo’s accusations and insisting that nothing illegal was going on. That ended when Gracie suggested they invite the police to come take a look and settle the argument.
Next came the threats, as T.J. made a call that brought three beefy-looking mechanics to the cramped office. When Pullo flashed his gun, the tough guys took a step back. Pullo was still dressed in army fatigues and looked like G.I. Joe.
“This doesn’t have to get ugly,” Pullo said. “By the way, is Danny Vitroli getting a piece of your action?”
Danny Vitroli was the name of the mobster that ran western Pennsylvania. Pullo knew the name but had never met the man. If T.J. wasn’t cutting Vitroli in on the action, he was taking a risk.
T.J.’s florid face paled a shade at the mention of Danny Vitroli, he sent away his goons and settled in a chair.
“Tell me what you want?”
Pullo had desired an upgrade on his vehicle, and the Caddy was a cream puff.
Pullo and Tanner’s bags were still in the trunk of the car when Isaac sold it out from under them, so Pullo had transferred them into the Caddy.
Their wallets and keys had been found inside Isaac’s red Chevy Tahoe, which had been driven off the cult’s compound, and with their luggage recovered, and a better vehicle, Tanner and Pullo were whole again.
After returning to base, Pullo drove the car over to the tent he was sharing with Tanner. It was a large tent with wooden planks laid down for a floor. Until the new barracks were completed it would have to do for a home.
The tent was one of six; four were occupied by the newest recruits. A fifth tent had become Isaac’s new home after he’d been stripped of his honorary rank of captain. Logan had made certain that Isaac’s tent wasn’t near Tanner and Pullo’s accommodations.
As Pullo carried the bags in from the car, Gracie asked about Tanner.
“He said he was meeting Kate. Nick Cannon insisted that she learn how to shoot if she’s joining the militia.”
“Is Ray good with guns?” Gracie asked.
Pullo smiled. “You might say that.”
Tanner was putting on a show at the militia’s firing range. He had gone there with Kate to give her a shooting lesson. When the lesson was over, including a lecture on gun safety, Tanner was drawn into a shooting contest between himself, Briggs, and the man who killed Al Bellini, Sullivan.
Sullivan was a decent shot at fewer than fifty yards but had trouble hitting targets at long-range. After missing several times at one-hundred yards, the redheaded man cursed and stomped off while grumbling under his breath.
Briggs was a better shot than Sullivan, but Tanner was in a class of his own. After he’d hit twelve targets in a row at three-hundred yards, Briggs clapped him on the shoulder.
“Damn, you’re good, Ray. Where’d you learn how to shoot like that? I thought you had never been in the service.”
“I grew up shooting and have had a lot of practice ever since.”
Kate was impressed. She gave Tanner a congratulatory kiss after Briggs walked off. During her shooting lesson, while Tanner was teaching her the proper way to fire a handgun, their attraction to each other had become obvious.
They left the range and walked to the rear of the mess hall. Gracie had quarters there and she had invited Kate to bunk with her, as she had an extra room with a twin bed and a dresser.
“I’ll never learn to shoot that well,” Kate said, “but I do like it. Can we go back to the range tomorrow?”
“Sure, it takes practice to get good at it.”
Kate stared at him. “You have unusual eyes. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone with eyes like yours.”
“Is that good or bad?”
“I think it’s sexy.”
Tanner leaned his rifle against a corner in the living room and kissed Kate, while taking her in his arms. When they separated, Kate was grinning.
Tanner brushed back Kate’s hair. She had loosened it from its braid. Her long dark hair hung down her back to the level of her ass.
“Did I ever thank you for bringing me that sandwich when I was locked inside that Training Room of Shasta Shah’s?”
“I only wish I could have brought you food more often, but it’s hard to go anywhere alone back at the cult. Besides, you got me out of there. If I hadn’t left when I did, I don’t know how long I might have been trapped inside.”
“Don’t they ever leave that compound?”
“Oh, yeah, some do, but they’re either long-time members or monitors.”
“You took some risk joining then.”
Kate shrugged. “I was willing to do anything to find out what happened to my sister.”
“About that, when is Gracie sneaking you into Nick Cannon’s office?”
“It could be soon. I overheard that man Sullivan tell someone that he was driving Cannon to the cult compound today to speak with Shasta Shah.”
“They’ll be making plans to sell more of the cultists into slavery.”
“They have to be stopped. I don’t want anymore people to wind up like my sister.”
Tanner smiled. “I’m guessing their plans have been delayed. The man they had working for them in New York is dead. He died before Joe and I left to come here. They’ll have to send someone to take his place.”
“How did he die?”
“He tried to kill Joe when we went to confront him.”
“Oh, so you… killed him?”
“It was self-defense.”
Kate embraced Tanner. “You’re lethal, why does that turn me on?”
Tanner led Kate over to the sofa, where they began kissing passionately.
Inside Isaac’s tent, another couple were kissing. Isaac’s first visitor to his new home was Gracie’s friend, Linda. Linda dropped by to tell Isaac that she thought he’d gotten punished too severely by being demoted.
After she’d moved closer to him to study his black eyes and crooked nose, Isaac had leaned in and kissed her. Linda ended the kiss first and smiled.
“I’ve wanted to do that for a long time, but you were always hung up on Gracie.”
“Gracie sided with Ray Hollis and is screwing Joe Russo. I no longer care what happens to her.”
“That guy Ray, did he really kill Marcus and Miranda?”
“Yeah, but Nick wants it covered up. We don’t need the cops sniffing around here, and I’ll pay that bastard back someday.”
“You might be the only one that cares. The truth is, Marcus and Miranda didn’t make any friends here. I’ve heard people say they’re glad they’re gone.”
“And what are they saying about me?”
“You don’t want to know.”
Isaac’s face twisted into a look of disgust. “Bastards.”
Linda leaned in for another kiss. “You’ve still got one fan.”
Isaac kissed her, then he led her by the hand to his cot.
22
With Friends Like These…
After watching Nick Cannon leave the base to head to the cult compound, Gracie used a key to enter through the back door of the main building and sneak Kate inside. When she was sure no one had seen them enter, she led Kate to Cannon’s office, which she also had a key to unlock.
“Are you certain there are no cameras?” Kate asked Gracie.
“I’m positive, but we had better be quick before someone catches us.”
Kate went behind the desk and powered on Cannon’s computer. It took valuable time as the militia’s four-year-old desktops accessed the web with a dial-up connection. Kate had a pair of thumb drives that Gracie had picked up in town on the way to the car lot that morning. Kate would use them to download any information they might find within his email correspondence.
While waiting for the computer to connect, Kate had inserted a thumb drive into the computer’s lone USB port. The device held
64 megabytes of information. It should be more than enough space to copy Cannon’s emails and other documents.
Once the computer was on, Kate had to get past Cannon’s log-in security. She asked Gracie for help, since she had known the man her whole life.
“Try Mary Jane, that was his mother’s name.”
“No good, think of something else.”
“When I was a kid, Nick used to date a girl named Penny.”
Kate typed in the name. “That didn’t work either.”
“Have you tried just typing in the word, Password?”
“Seriously, does he have that little imagination?”
“Try it,” Gracie said.
It worked, and Kate was in. She discovered several emails between Cannon and Shasta Shah, but they were all about setting up times to meet. Then, she found the file folder labeled: Goddess.
Kate opened the file and discovered three subfiles categorized with people’s names, when she saw one with the name of her sister Joy on it, Kate opened it.
There were several pictures of Joy. Unlike Kate, Joy had been a blonde with large blue eyes. Kate ached after seeing her little sister’s face again and wondered if she would ever have her back in her life. The women in the other two subfiles had been young and beautiful too, and both had dark hair. There was a notation saying that all three were passed forward in May. It was in May when Joy went missing. The words, passed forward, meant that they were sold to someone.
By opening a folder on the desktop labeled, Sheep, Kate discovered another fifteen files. They were of people Kate recognized as members of the cult.
All the pass forward dates were blank, with a notation stating that they would first have to go to a way station in New York City. When Kate looked at the files of Anna and Anya, who were numbered as subjects 12 & 13, the two sisters from Minnesota reminded her so much of Joy.
“Have you found anything?” Gracie whispered. She was at the office door and peeking out.
“My sister was one of three people they’ve already sold, and I now have the other two women’s names, and there are photos. There are fifteen more picked out. I’m copying the text files now.”
“Hurry.”
At the cult compound, Nick Cannon was visiting the palace. He was meeting with Shasta Shah inside Shah’s massive bedroom suite. They were in a sitting area that contained two sofas, a pair of loveseats, and an antique, red velvet fainting couch.
Shah lounged atop the fainting couch dressed in a white satin nightgown. Cannon sat across from her while perched on the edge of one of the sofas.
He had come to the compound to straighten out the mess made by Isaac, while also hoping Shah would sleep with him again. Cannon’s hopes faded when he saw how angry she was, but it was not unexpected.
The self-proclaimed goddess only slept with him when he had money or drugs for her. He had no such goodies with him today, and so his anticipation of romance had been low.
“What happened to the man who killed two of your people?”
“He and his friend joined the militia.”
“The bastard threatened me with a gun.”
“Logan told me.”
“And you haven’t punished him?”
“No.”
“Would you do it if I asked you to?”
“That depends, what would I get in return?”
Shah laughed. “In some ways we’re two of a kind, Nick.”
“Only my people don’t worship me.”
“What’s happened to Isaac?”
“I demoted him. If Logan had his way Isaac would have been kicked out of the militia, but that would have been the same as killing him.”
“Why is that?”
“Isaac knows too much to allow him to wander around. If he was picked up by the cops on something, he might trade information about us for a lesser charge.”
“You would have killed him?”
“I would have had it done. I’ve never personally killed anyone, not even when I was in the army.”
“I have.”
“What? You’ve killed someone?”
Shah smiled at the shocked expression on Cannon’s face. “It happened when I was fourteen. My aunt had conned a woman out of several thousand dollars. When the woman’s husband found out, he broke into our apartment and started slapping Aunt Eleanor around. The money was gone. We had used it to buy a used car. Eleanor told the man that, but he wouldn’t listen. He was choking my aunt when I hit him on the back of the head with a frying pan.”
“That killed him?”
“It took about six whacks altogether, and I got blood on my favorite dress.”
“Damn, Shasta. What did you do with the body?”
“It burned up in the fire. Eleanor said we had to gut the apartment so the cops couldn’t get our fingerprints. We were both using fake names, so once we left, it was hard to trace us.” Shah laughed. “That fire gutted the whole building. I read in the paper later that the other tenants were lucky to make it out.”
“You were using a phony name at fourteen?”
“I still am, or did you think my real name was Shasta Shah?”
“I did, you’re sure as hell not the goddess Saisis.”
“The hell I’m not. You are who you believe yourself to be, and I’ve got followers who believe it too.”
“I wish my grandfather had started a cult instead of a militia, then maybe I’d be worshiped.”
“I owe it all to my aunt. When she saw how easy it was to con people, she decided we needed to start a religion.”
“Don’t you ever get nervous when you’re around the sheep?”
“What do you mean?”
“Logan said they nearly mobbed you yesterday.”
“They do resemble rabid dogs sometimes, but they obey my every word, and there’s always the monitors to protect me.”
Cannon walked over to sit on the edge of the fainting couch. He then slid a hand up under the nightgown to caress Shah’s thigh.
“Why don’t we move over to the bed?”
Shah pushed him away. “I’ll let you know when I want that.”
“Logan has plans to raid a group of drug dealers soon. If we score any cocaine, I’ll bring you some.”
“That might put me in the mood, but I’d rather have money.”
“Is money all you care about?”
“It’s all anyone cares about.”
Cannon sighed. “I can’t argue with that.”
The dial-up connection made the process of copying to a thumb drive take time but eventually Kate had the emails and had signed-off the computer. As Kate stood to leave, Gracie opened the door and stepped out into the hallway.
Kate was at the door when she heard someone call Gracie’s name. She moved to the powder room adjacent to the office and stepped inside.
Gracie had jumped in fright when Linda called to her. After calming down she sent Linda a smile.
“Hi, what are you doing here?”
“I’ve come to see Nick.”
“Oh, he’s not here.”
“Then why were you in his office?”
“I… I thought he might have been in the bathroom, but no one is in there, so I was leaving when you called me.”
“Doesn’t he keep the office door locked?”
“Maybe he forgot to do it, because it was unlocked when I tried the knob.”
Linda nodded, while appearing skeptical.
“I guess I’ll catch Nick later. I want to talk to him about Isaac.”
“What about Isaac?”
“Nick was too harsh on him and now he’s living in a tent like a new recruit. It’s not right.”
“I disagree. If anything, I think Isaac got off easy. I was hoping Nick would kick him out of the militia.”
Linda crossed her arms over her chest, and Gracie noticed that her cheeks had reddened.
“How come you’ve never liked Isaac?”
“I’m not sure, but he’s always rubbed me the wrong wa
y.”
“He’s over you, you know? Isaac had a crush on you but that ended when you sided with Russo and Hollis.”
“Good, I was tired of him hitting on me.”
Linda spun around and walked off toward the front of the building. “I’ll see you around, Gracie.”
When the sound of Linda’s footsteps faded. Gracie opened the office door and called for Kate to join her. Kate did so, and there was a sheen of sweat on her forehead.
“That was close; I thought we were about to be busted.”
Gracie gestured for Kate to walk in front of her while whispering. “You go first. We’ll leave the way we came in.”
Kate began walking as Gracie paused to relock the office door. The two women headed down the corridor where they turned left to reach the rear door. Before Gracie had disappeared from view, Linda returned to peek around the corner.
She was too late to spot Kate but did catch sight of Gracie’s back. She wondered why Gracie was headed toward the rear of the building. Returning to the office, Linda tried the door and found that it was locked.
“She must have her own keys,” Linda muttered, and she hadn’t believed Gracie’s story about looking for Nick.
If asked, Gracie would have said that Linda was her friend. However, like Logan, Linda believed in keeping her enemies close. She had always been jealous of Gracie and envied her. When Isaac had come along and been attracted to Gracie instead of her, Linda’s bitterness grew.
While wondering what Gracie was really up to, Linda headed off to tell Isaac what she’d observed.
23
Stop By To Say Hello
After Gracie visited the tent to see Pullo, Tanner decided to make himself scarce and give them privacy.
It was an opportunity for Tanner to do reconnaissance and explore the camp.
With his own clothing back in his possession, Tanner was dressed in jeans, although he wore a black T-shirt with the militia’s symbol, and he had acquired combat boots. His own stylish boots were left behind somewhere in Shasta Shah’s compound, along with the rest of the clothing he’d been wearing when he arrived there.
Tanner- Year One Page 11