Dark Channel

by Ray Garton

  “I went through the whole program,” Joan said, “which I now realize is nothing more than a sort of brainwashing process. I wasn’t allowed to see Lisa. I didn’t know where she was or how she was, but they kept promising me I’d see her as soon as her training was finished. That time never came, though, and it bothered me. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve never handled authority well, especially when it tells me to do something I don’t want to do. So, in little ways at first, I began to rebel. I didn’t follow the program exactly. I slept more than I was supposed to. And I did the one thing I was specifically told not to do: I sneaked around places when I wasn’t supposed to be there. I eaves-dropped on conversations. I finally met a woman, by accident, who was sort of doing the same thing I was, and for the same reason. Her name was Betty Kravitz. She had a little girl there, too. Between the two of us, we learned of something called the Inner Circle. They met frequently, but never regularly. There was no pattern to the meetings. A group of adults and a group of children would go to a cave deep in the woods. I never found out what they did in there.”

  “I did,” Jordan said.

  “Betty disappeared shortly after that. I never saw her again. I’m sure she’s dead, maybe at the bottom of a lake somewhere. I went to the people in charge, told them I’d decided to leave and I wanted my daughter. They took me to her.” Joan’s face had been without expression up to now; it began to twitch, to wilt. “She said she didn’t want to go. Said she’d … never leave. Said she was … was waiting to be … the Chosen One … that she wanted to fight falsehoods like a good soldier of truth. I didn’t know what the Chosen One was then, but … I guess I do n-now. Anyway, I left and went to the police and they talked to Hester Thorne, who said that Lisa had left with me. It was in their records. She said no one, especially a child, would ever be held by the Alliance. She told them to search the place, and they did. They didn’t find her.

  “Of course, I realized later that the police in Grover are taken care of very well by Hester and her people. I suspect a lot of money changes hands. That’s why they didn’t find Lisa, and that’s why they never contradicted my story about her dying of cancer, because they knew that I knew that they knew that I… well, you know what I mean.

  “Anyway, I was sure she was hidden, so I talked to private detectives, all of whom told me to hire someone who specialized in removing cult members. But they were way too … ex-pensive,” she hissed through clenched teeth. She finally lost her hold and seemed to collapse upon herself; her shoulders sagged forward, she dropped her cigarette into the ashtray and her hands fell limply between her knees as she bowed her head and sobbed. “Cuh-can you im-imagine that? They were too ex-pen-sive? That sounds so horrible now, that I couldn’t pay somebody to find my baby, that I couldn’t find the money, I, I … I should’ve stolen it, I should have!”

  Lauren went to her side and put an arm around her. Coogan lowered himself on one knee before her and held her hand tightly.

  Joan pressed a fist to her face and sobbed silently for a moment, then released a low, quavering wail. The others waited silently until she had calmed and was able to continue. “I tried to kill myself,” she said, her voice thick and hoarse, “but … I wasn’t able to do that right, either. So I stayed in Grover, just to be close to where she is … or, um, I mean, was. The Alliance people tried to scare me away, but it didn’t work. I wouldn’t let it work. Whenever someone asked me about my background, I told them the truth … except I told them my daughter died of cancer. And … here I am.”

  Coogan sat down beside her and put his arm around her shoulders as she’d done to him earlier. “I guess we’re all learning a little more about each other tonight, huh?” he asked soberly as he squeezed her to him.

  After a moment, Jordan said, “Okay, now we’re kind of short on time tonight, so—” He stopped when he saw the cold stares he was getting from the others; then they all turned back to Joan, who was pressing her face to Coogan’s shoulder, crying softly.

  Jordan pulled the footstool away from Lizzie’s chair and sat on it with a sigh. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t mean to be insensitive. Really. I’m very sorry about what happened to your daughter, Joan. After what I saw tonight, I’m sorry for anyone who gets involved with those people. But what I’m concerned with right now is the fact that there’s something really horrible going on here, and maybe we can do something about it. I came here to do a specific job, but now … well, I mean, after what I saw … now I’m thinking, um … Well, see, I came here a confirmed agnostic, I didn’t believe in anything supernatural, but I … Well, now I’m thinking that …” He leaned forward, sighed, and put his head in his hands.

  “‘By beholding, you become changed,’” Lizzie said pleasantly.

  “Hey, don’t start with the bible verses, okay? That doesn’t work with me.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you were saying your beliefs had changed.”

  “Well, yeah, maybe, but that doesn’t mean I believe in that.”

  “Why not? You can’t very well have forces of evil without forces of goodness, can you? The way you were taught to believe is not necessarily the only way, remember that.”

  Jordan turned to Marvin. “What’ve you been telling her?”

  “We discussed your background on the way here. Briefly.”

  Jordan stood up angrily and paced, trying to hold back his anger.

  “I think it would be a good idea,” Marvin said, “if Lizzie told us what she knows.”

  “Fine,” Jordan said curtly, still pacing.

  Lizzie told them everything she’d told Marvin as well as what they’d learned from Hester’s mother and they listened closely. Coogan seemed to be affected most; he stared at her with an expression of fear, nodding as she solidified a nebulous belief he’d always held but had never been able to articulate. Lauren was interested, but looked cautious. Joan listened closely as she continued to cry silently; her puffy eyes were intense and rejected nothing. Jordan continued to pace.

  Coogan said, “So, you’re saying Hester Thorne is … possessed?”

  “I’m not saying anything, really,” Lizzie replied. “Just telling you what I know. But if you want my opinion … I certainly wouldn’t rule out that possibility. In fact, it might even top my list of priorities.”

  “Well, we’re not going by your list,” Jordan snapped quietly.

  Marvin said, “C’mon, Jordy. Ease up on her, okay. She wants to help and I think she can. You agree that we’ve got something really weird on our hands here, right?”

  Jordan stopped pacing, leaned against the wall and folded his arms across his chest. After a long moment, he nodded.

  “Okay, then. I think we ought to start from there. How are we going to handle it?”

  “Wait a second,” Joan said, holding up a hand. “I just wanna get this straight. We’re going on the assumption that Hester Thorne is possessed by the devil? Because if we are, I think I’ll just back out of—”

  “No,” Jordan said, “we’re not assuming that. That is just Mrs. Murphy’s belief. But those things I saw flying around in that cave … the light that was coming from that crevice … Those things are not natural. So the only alternative is that they’re supernatural. You know from experience how those Alliance people are. A normal religious organization wouldn’t behave that way. They’re hiding something. And part of what they’re hiding is what’s in that cave and what they do to the children they take there. We might need your help with this and I hope you’ll give it to us.”

  She nodded after a while, then said, “Yeah, okay. If I can help …”

  Marvin stood and went to the table for a refill of coffee. In a low voice, he said, “I think we ought to start by getting some phones tapped. Right away. Tonight.” He turned, his eyes locked with Jordan and they stared at one another for a moment, looking very serious, very tense.

  They had come, of c
ourse, with the knowledge that they would more than likely be tapping telephones, but with the hope that they would not have to. Marvin was good at it, but no one was flawless. There was always the chance they would get caught. If that happened, they had no defense. It was a felony. No matter what their reasons for tapping the lines, they would be the criminals if they were caught. They had done it before, and if they got away with it this time, they would probably do it again. But they hated it every time.

  “Sounds good,” Jordan said, trying unsuccessfully to sound casual about it. “You’ve got everything?”

  “Everything.”

  “We’ve also got a stack of material here that I think you should all look at.” Marvin left his coffee on the table and went to the closet to remove a brown leather satchel. He put it on the bed, opened it and removed a stack of papers, news clippings, folders and notebooks. “This is information that’s been collected about Hester Thorne and the Alliance. We’d appreciate it if each of you could look it over for anything that’s significant to you, anything that you might be able to explain and anything … at all, I guess.”

  The others gathered around the stack and began going through it as Jordan and Marvin sat at the table to talk. They leaned toward one another and spoke in low voices.

  “You look pretty shaken,” Marvin said.

  “I am. I’m telling you, Marvin, that was the most terrifying experience of my life. Made me want to get the hell away from this town and tell Fiske to hire somebody else.”

  “But …”

  “Well, if we did that, the Alliance would just keep growing, maybe even get involved in politics and start having meetings with the president like the late great Reverend Hallway, how’s that for a nightmare. Oh, and speaking of Reverend Hallway, Hester gave a similar warning yesterday about Edmond Fiske.”

  “Have you talked to him about it yet?”

  “Not yet. I’m gonna call him in the morning.”

  “Okay. So. What do we do first?”

  “I think we ought to get taps on the phones right away. Tonight. I know where the Alliance headquarters building is.”

  “Is there a basement?”

  “I have no idea, that’s the problem. Joan might be able to help us with that. She’s probably been in there.”

  “When do you want to do it?”

  “Right after—”

  “I know this name,” Lauren said.

  “What name?” Marvin asked.

  “This one. On this computer printout. Simon Better.”

  Jordan and Marvin joined the others around the bed. Lauren pointed to the circled name on the sheet.

  “I heard this name on the news tonight, not very long ago.”

  “What was he doing on the news?” Jordan asked.

  “He was the pilot of Reverend Hallway’s plane. He died in the crash.”

  “Holy shit,” Jordan said.

  “Son of a bitch,” Marvin said. Then, as an afterthought, he turned to Lizzie and said, “Excuse us.”

  A single bark of laughter escaped her and she shook her head, murmuring, “What do you think, I’m made of porcelain?”

  “Maybe it’s a different Simon Better,” Marvin said.

  “Maybe not,” Jordan said. “It might explain the differences we noticed in this entry compared to all the others. No background, no financial history. Everyone else was covered that way, even the other withdrawals.”

  “That’s another thing. He was a withdrawal. He left the organization.”

  “According to the records,” Marvin said. “Maybe he left the organization by request … but remained faithful to it.”

  “And got a job with Reverend Hallway, maybe?” Coogan asked.

  Marvin nodded.

  “So you guys think Hester Thorne had Hallway killed to make her own prediction come true?” Coogan asked.

  Jordan said, “It’s beginning to look that way.”

  “Uh-uh,” Joan said, shaking her head. “That’s ridiculous. He was Hallway’s pilot. You think he’d intentionally crash a plane that he was in? Just for Hester Thorne? Who in their right mind would do that?”

  “Who said we were talking about someone in his right mind?” Jordan asked. “You’re the one who used the word brainwashing. If this is really what happened, then he died for his beliefs. He was a martyr. That’s not uncommon. Terrorists do it all the time. Earlier this year one in Washington and one in New York jumped from buildings into the street and exploded when they hit the ground. Human bombs. All for the cause. Why wouldn’t one of these people do it?”

  She frowned, but she couldn’t argue; he was right.

  Jordan led Marvin over to the bathroom doorway, out of earshot, and said quietly, “I’d better call Fiske right now, no matter how late it is. You talk to Joan, see what you can find out about the headquarters building.” And to the others: “The rest of you just go on looking through that stack.”

  He went to the telephone, sat on the bed and dialed the number Fiske had given him. He reached an answering service. “Hello, I need to speak to Mr. Fiske immediately. My name is Sam Spade.” He felt silly using the pseudonym, but Fiske didn’t want him to use his real name and had told him to use the fictional detective’s name on the telephone.

  “I’m sorry,” the woman said, “but Mr. Fiske is taking no calls until tomorrow. If you’ll leave a message, I can have him get back to you.”

  “No, no, you see, he told me I could always reach him at this number.”

  “That’s true. All messages are promptly forward to Mr. Fiske.”

  “So you could have him call me back tonight. Right away.”

  “I’m sorry, but that would be impossible. Mr. Fiske is unavailable. As I said, he’s taking no calls until tomorrow.”

  “So that means he’ll be taking no messages, either.”

  “Mr. Spade, when Mr. Fiske is unavailable, that means we can’t even reach him. You will have to wait until tomorrow. Do you have a message for Mr. Fiske?”

  “Uhh, well…” He searched for something to say that would convey a sense of urgency to Fiske without telling the operator too much. “Yes, uh, tell Mr. Fiske that new developments have arisen that directly involve him and it’s very important we talk as soon as possible. I’ll call him first thing tomorrow morning.” He was frustrated and slammed the receiver into its cradle.

  Marvin sat down beside him and said, “No luck?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  “Well, Joan gave me a pretty good run-down of that building. What do you say we go over there and bug some phones?”

  “Sounds good. Get your stuff.” Jordan stood and turned to the others, who were still looking through the stack of material collected by Harvey Bolton. “Marvin and I are going to have to go. With any luck, we won’t be long. I hope you’ll keep looking through that stack and I hope you’ll all be here when we get back. Of course, it’s up to you, but … well. It’s up to you.”

  Coogan glanced at the others around him, then gave Jordan the best smile he could muster under the circumstances. “I think we’re all gonna be here, Mr. Cross. You be careful.”

  That made Jordan feel a little better as he left.

  7.

  The others waited in the motel room while Jordan and Marvin went to Grover, parked a short distance from the hotel and walked the rest of the way.

  Marvin had a leather satchel hanging by his shoulder from a strap and hooked to his belt was a small leather pouch that held a number of picks. Once they’d crept around the hotel and made sure no one was watching, he used two of the picks to open a side door.

  They followed Joan’s directions to an unmarked door at the end of the corridor; it led to the basement staircase and was kept locked. Marvin fished a couple more picks from his leather pouch as Jordan held his small flashlight on the doorknob. They were through in less t
han a minute, but Marvin had to use his picks again because the door to the basement was locked, too.

  It was cool in the basement and even darker than the rest of the building with no windows to let in even a sliver of moonlight. HVAC ducts ran along the low ceiling surrounded by webs of pipes. The furnace took up a corner and fat, black sewer pipes snaked upward into the ceiling. Power meters hummed and clicked diligently and one wall was covered with shelves of banker’s boxes, most likely filled with bookkeeping records. And on the far wall they found the telephone junction box.

  “Doesn’t look easy,” Jordan whispered, eyeing the countless wires connected to the box, which was spotted with grime and corrosion.

  “It’s not. But it’s not hard, either. Just give me a few minutes and I’ll see if I can” Something beside the box caught Marvin’s eye. “What the hell is this?” he asked, nodding to a smaller, cleaner box. “They’ve got a separate line. Completely separate from the others. And it hasn’t been here long. Looks kinda sophisticated, too.”

  “What do you think?”

  “No idea,” he said, shaking his head. “We’ll just have to wait and see what we pick up on it. I’m gonna have to cut into each of these lines, so it’s gonna take a little while. And I can’t guarantee how long they’ll last. These guys might do a sweep every so often … maybe more often than that.”

  “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Do your stuff.”

  While Jordan and Marvin whispered in the darkness of the basement, other voices whispered to Hester Thorne in dreams of vast flat and barren landscapes that she would only vaguely remember in the morning …

  … Mark Schroeder sat in a small room with eleven other people and, in the flickering glow of candles, chanted softly and meditated on the coming New Age of Enlightenment. Somewhere in the complex, another group was doing the exact same thing. The groups changed every hour, but the chanting and meditating never stopped for more than a minute. Hester said that the energy it generated would help to speed the coming of the New Age and would help to “center” the participants in their purpose. It worked for Mark because, as he chanted, focusing completely on the New Age, he thought of nothing else …