Cult

by Warren Adler

  “We won’t settle for anything short of returning our people to us,” Jeremiah said sharply. He stood up. “Intact.”

  “I’m no miracle maker,” the Sheriff protested.

  “Then become one,” Jeremiah said, his dammed-up anger showing signs of spilling over. Holding himself back made him rigid, and he had the look of cold marble.

  I have them scared, the Sheriff thought. He supposed there was little victory in that. And he had successfully resisted their intimidation… for the moment.

  Again the idea floated in his mind. What had they avoided saying?

  “I can’t guarantee anything.”

  “Neither can we,” Jeremiah said, with an ominous emphasis on the “we.”

  Like a dark cloud pregnant with storm, he watched them recede from his office. He dipped his hand into a bottom drawer and drew out a half-full bottle of Jack Daniels, pouring a stiff drink into his now cool coffee, swallowing it in large gulps. He swiveled back to face the window, observing the lawyer and Jeremiah striding purposefully to their car in the dusky fading light. Partners in evil. The killer and his mouthpiece. The image disturbed him and he turned away.

  Maybe he’d better call the whole thing off. Still, what nagged at him could not be netted by his conscious mind.

  Chapter 15

  O’Hara, pale and ghostly in the dappled moonlight, leaned against a tree, looking like some twisted aberrant outcropping. Near a fringe of evergreens at the perimeter of the cabin, the Sheriff parked his car on a hard dirt rectangle cluttered with rusting debris of another era. There were lots of neglected cabins in this part of the country, used more frequently back in the ’60s, when drifting and living off the land was fashionable.

  Seeing O’Hara waiting, the Sheriff moved toward him. At close range, O’Hara’s eyes seemed hidden in dark shadows.

  “Anything?”

  “The man will blow out first,” O’Hara said. “Maybe tonight.”

  “And the woman?”

  “A hard case,” O’Hara shrugged. “She’s in it real tight. I need more time.”

  “They’re leaning on me.”

  “If we break them and it’s all lies, they’ll stop leaning,” O’Hara said, his words harsh and hurried.

  “And if they aren’t lies?”

  “Heavenly deception, remember? They’re programmed to lie. There is no ‘if.’”

  “Hope you’re right, O’Hara. It’s my ass if you’re not.”

  The Sheriff was sorry he had revealed the cutting edge of his worry. In the dark, under the pale, mysterious moon, he felt his courage begin to wane.

  “I’d bet my life on it,” O’Hara said.

  “That’s a big bet. How can you be so sure?”

  “Hell, not long ago, you were more sure than me.”

  In the pause that followed, he felt O’Hara’s inspection and the discomfort of his own vulnerability.

  “If you want, I can stop now,” O’Hara said. “It’s a freebie anyway. I can pull out.”

  The Sheriff avoided a response, shifting his weight. He was in it now and at least four people knew it, four strangers. He had never before given his trust to strangers. Any one of them could turn him in for collusion, a vile form of corruption. He had abetted a kidnapping. Exposed, he could not possibly avoid the consequences.

  “It’s important. The truth is always important,” O’Hara said, as if to bolster him. Above all, he knew O’Hara was right.

  “It could have been just a suicide,” the Sheriff said, going through the motions.

  “Just?”

  “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “Or it could be murder.”

  The Sheriff sighed. He had turned over all the possibilities in his mind.

  “And if you crack them? What about after?”

  O’Hara scratched his wispy beard in contemplation, “I was thinking protective custody.”

  “Maybe,” he agreed. It was always a possibility, but he’d have to convince some judge it was absolutely necessary. All he wanted was a weapon against them, something to use if necessary. “But if I can’t?”

  “There are rehabilitation places. The problem is that if the Glories want them, they’ll go get them. They know the places. If it’s worth the time, they’ll find them.”

  “They’ll have to testify. They can’t be hidden forever.”

  “After they come back to reality, they may not want to be involved at all. They may want to forget the whole thing. Keep living, move on with their lives.”

  There was another possibility that had gone unconsidered.

  “The point is that they’ll be free to act on their own conscience. But their freedom will be fragile. They’ll be mad as hell about what happened to them. Some run from the horror. Others try to get even.”

  “Like you?”

  “They pissed away ten years of my life. An entire lost decade deserves retribution.” He laughed, a short, self-mocking, joyless trill. The Sheriff shivered. The idea still spooked him, and he felt ashamed for his willingness to surrender to their power. It was that shame that goaded him now. Their practices needed to be exposed. Maybe then the laws could be revised. Whatever happened inside the human brain, the idea of mind control was wrong, a crime against people. There needed to be a law.

  “I said forty-eight hours,” the Sheriff said. “I’ll keep my word.”

  “I never questioned that.”

  It was empowering to know that his word still counted.

  “And the others? Harrigan and Forman?”

  He heard O’Hara suck in his breath; a hint of doubt passed between them.

  “He’s still madder than hell. And she’s not totally convinced,” O’Hara said, after a pause. The Sheriff did not like the hesitation.

  “She wasn’t before,” the Sheriff said. “I worry about your trusting her.” A cloud floated by the moon. O’Hara’s features vanished.

  “She’s not totally convinced, but I’m not worrying. Once people have reality staring them in the face, they understand.” It was O’Hara who had wanted Forman to accompany them. “The more of her kind—the compassionate liberal-minded do-gooders—we get on our side, the greater chance we have at stopping groups like the Glories. Without converting them, we lose.” The Sheriff had consented, but he was not convinced. Evil had a way of winning against their kind. A chill swept through the Sheriff’s body.

  “What was that?” O’Hara whispered. They were silent for a few moments, listening to the unfamiliar sounds of the forest. He had imagined footsteps, sensed human movement.

  “Hear anything?” the Sheriff asked, calmed by the buzz of a jet in the distance.

  “Just the sound of paranoia,” O’Hara said, deliberately lightening the mood. The Sheriff felt the weight of O’Hara’s hand on his shoulders.

  “You’re jumpy.”

  “I’m on the line, O’Hara.”

  “We all are.” The weight of his hand increased. “It’ll help to believe that you’re on the right side, that you’re making a statement for mankind.”

  “You sound like a preacher.”

  “Maybe I am. I proselytize for a free mind these days.”

  The Sheriff felt the weight of the man’s hand lift. He was jumpy for good reason. He had a great deal to lose. He looked at his watch.

  “Twenty-four hours more. That’s all I can give you.”

  “I’ll have the man by then.”

  “That’s not enough.” The cloud passed and the Sheriff found himself peering into O’Hara’s suddenly revealed agate eyes, reflecting the moon’s light, recalling the old nightmare.

  “If you can’t break her by then, set her and the boy loose, and fade away. Take Harrigan, Forman, and Roy and get the fuck out of my county. I’ll see that Harrigan’s kid gets back safely. Gladys has really bonded with
the boy. She’ll watch over him until Harrigan can take him again.”

  “After you all clear out, I’ll send my men here.” He paused, going over the consequences, knowing it would be better for them to do this now, to release the two Glories and disappear. He buried the thought.

  “You four had better be gone before they get here.”

  “That won’t satisfy them….”

  In that moment the Sheriff realized what Jeremiah and Holmes had been implying. Harrigan’s child! Holmes knew that Harrigan had gone back to get him. An ominous idea lingered briefly. The Glories had limits. Didn’t they?

  Chapter 16

  Naomi heard Roy’s heavy tread creaking on the old floorboards, then the clatter of a pot on the stove. Roy was preparing the captives’ meal, a mound of oatmeal. Barney was in with Amos. They had worked on him all day and he was clearly exhausted.

  In the time she was with Amos, between the deprogrammer’s onslaughts, Amos seemed like a bird with broken wings, disoriented, exhausted, shouting incoherently as if in a hallucination, repeating bits and pieces of biblical phrases. He had banged against the walls, had pissed in his pants and refused to take them off.

  There was no question that Amos was shedding layers of resistance. It was as if they had mounted an invasion on one man and were relentlessly attacking him from all sides. Never once had he looked them in the eye. Perhaps it was his sense of shame or confusion as his mind tried to burrow deeper into a hole, all exits closing around him.

  When she was finally relieved by Roy, she went back into the main room and collapsed on the couch, listening and waiting. Barney was in with Mary, keeping her awake, savoring his role in the mental torture of his former sister-in-law.

  Naomi had tried to talk with him, but the distance between them had widened. Besides, he had his notebook, his confidante. The more he wrote, the more he seemed to slip away, lost in a brooding silence. He frightened her now, and she wondered if he could be trusted when alone with Charlotte’s sister.

  Then it was O’Hara’s turn again. He motioned for Naomi to join him in Mary’s room. She would be a witness again. They seemed determined to make her a believer in their methods. She followed reluctantly. When she observed the process, it made her angry. She was revolted by it.

  Naomi came into the room and sat on the floor, with her back against the wall. O’Hara sat on a stool in front of the mattress. Mary was cross-legged, staring into space. O’Hara’s strategy was, at first, simply to ignore her.

  Then he began, and Naomi was instantly alert. She dared not voice any objections as she watched his relentless verbal onslaught, questioning, probing, arguing a theology that Naomi found absurd. It went on for two hours, but O’Hara could not seem to penetrate Mary’s defenses. Then he stopped abruptly and they left the room. Naomi was appalled but said nothing. In fact, she was proud of Mary for resisting.

  “He’s cooking,” Roy said when he had come out of Amos’ room for the third time that day. “He’ll break soon,” he muttered while holding the steaming oatmeal on a tray. “He’s exhausted and disoriented,” he added, showing no emotion.

  Later, she and O’Hara had gone back into the room where they held Mary. Again, she observed his tactic and was proud of Mary for resisting.

  The procedure seemed to follow a pattern of relentless rebuttal with O’Hara trying to force a response. “Come on! Engage me!” he seemed to be shouting. The woman remained stubbornly uninvolved.

  “I need more time,” O’Hara had cried. “More time.” Watching him at his work was devastating. But she hung in, determined to keep her promise to Mary, to find her a way out.

  The procedure began with a condemnation of Father Glory’s lifestyle, his mansion, his private yachts, his reputed wealth. O’Hara showed pictures, read from books which outlined his worldwide business operations, his interlocking corporations, his newspapers, his political fronts—all outlined in words and documents that seemed authentic. He read passages from the Bible, ridiculed their theology, punched holes in what he said was their misstatements of biblical lore.

  And yet, as shocking as the information was, as damning to the Glory Church, its tenets and practices, its dissimulations and disguises, Naomi still believed that everyone had rights. Didn’t everyone in a free society have the right to believe in any deity, living, dead or imagined? Technically, what they were doing here was as wrong as what the Glories did—or any other cults, for that matter. This was America. Her heart cried out for the two young people undergoing this ordeal. She knew it would only be so long before she would have to take drastic action.

  But she held her silence. Perhaps it was her innate sense of fairness, those instincts that O’Hara had railed against. Again they left Mary’s room and O’Hara went in with Amos.

  When he finally came out of Amos’ room, he looked exhausted. His eyes seemed to have sunk into deep, dark hollows. The events of their earlier discussion lingered bitterly in her memory. This O’Hara, Zachariah, was nothing more than a manipulator.

  Barney had also changed. He was an enigma. His entire persona had done a one-eighty. He was now more than a stranger, if that was possible. Even the most fleeting memory of their good times together left her with wretched disgust. And over this scrim of gloom, the dead face of Charlotte imposed itself, leaving Naomi shattered.

  Yet through the maze of horror and soul-searing revelation, the woman in the other room had been the one who had truly touched her. “Save me.” The words were like a giant bell whose sound continued to reverberate.

  “I must,” she told herself.

  At dusk, she seemed to have found the moment and the courage to act. Barney had collapsed over his notebook, lost in the deep sleep of exhaustion. O’Hara had returned to Mary’s room. She could hear a marathon of pounding words, screams and protests, mostly O’Hara’s. Roy was with Amos.

  In the darkness she crept toward the front door and found the knob. There was no intricate form to her plan. Only escape! She had to warn others about what was happening here. Somehow, she had to get the word out.

  But the Sheriff was in it, she warned herself. She would have to find her own way to the Glory camp. The idea horrified her, but she pressed on. She had to find the right course. Alternatives fumbled in her mind.

  All the cruelties she encountered in her job, all the stories and photos of atrocity and carnage, all the political horrors recounted in their data banks, this deprogramming was just as cruel. Nothing could justify this violation, the things she was witnessing here. She felt the old politics of her life rumble back staunchly in her mind, the values that she had clung to, sacrificed for. Now her confidence was returning. Wrong was wrong. The moral imperative was all.

  She turned the knob of the door to the outside. Turned harder. It was locked. The bastards had locked them in. So much for trust. Naomi slammed her shoulder against the door.

  Barney started at the noise. “What is it?”

  “I just wanted air.”

  She watched him yawn and stretch, wondering if his tired eyes conveyed suspicion.

  “It’s awful, Barney,” she said in a sharp pleading whisper.

  “I know,” he said without conviction.

  “This….” She hesitated. She was certain now that his eyes glistened with suspicion. What if hate was in them as well?

  “Like birth, as O’Hara had put it,” he said softly. “Not pretty. Full of pain and mess.” He turned away and opening the notebook, picked up the nub of his pencil and began again.

  “Did you write that down?”

  “Yes.” He nodded, patting the pages. “Not a detail must go unrecorded. This is my record of their infamy. Somebody has to bear witness.” His eyes filled with tears. “My Bible,” he stammered. “I’m Job writing his story. They crushed my life.”

  “But Job believed in God.”

  “You think so?” he asked. “Then J
ob was a liar.”

  Never had they talked about God. Such concepts were foreign to them, left as the business of others. Yet God had been invoked.

  “Tough nut.” It was O’Hara. He had come out of the girl’s room, slamming the door, sliding the planks angrily. “Your fucking sister-in-law’s a stone wall.”

  “Better get in there,” he said to Naomi. “Don’t let her sleep.”

  She quickly went into the room, not wanting them to lose confidence in her loyalty. Not now.

  The room was stifling, the stink of sweat and exertion pervasive. Mary lay naked on the sweat-stained mattress, breathing hard, her face turned to the wall.

  “How are you doing?” Naomi asked tenderly.

  Her body appeared twisted and stiff. At the sound of Naomi’s voice, Mary turned to her. Through the glaze of her eyes, Naomi could see the stubborn hate.

  “You promised.” Her tone was accusing, acid-edged. She did not wait for a response. “He raped me. See.” She spread her legs and Naomi turned away. “He made me do unspeakable things, sinful acts. I told you he would.”

  “No. He couldn’t.”

  But Mary looked genuinely abused. Was it possible?

  “You’ll rot in hell with them,” Mary said. “Father Glory is watching, testing us.” The woman slid upward on the bed, arching her body against the wall.

  “I’ve resisted. Father Glory will be proud.” She fastened her eyes on Naomi. “You must help me.”

  “I’ll find a way.”

  “No, you won’t. You’re one of them.”

  “I’m not.”

  Mary turned her face to the wall.

  “He tells me these terrible lies about Father Glory. Unspeakable lies. Father Glory is a man of love and peace, the new Christ. He has come down to earth to help mankind. Resist the devil. Resist the devil.” The incantation began again and continued for a long time. The woman’s agony poured out of her, accusing, attacking.

  Finally, she spoke to Naomi again. “You are no different from them.”