by Jon Land
“Frye?” Johnny questioned.
Hodge’s eye swam about the others in the circle before responding. “You never heard of him?”
“No.”
“The Reverend Harlan Frye?”
Wareagle shook his head.
“Television preacher, rich as sin now. Founded the Church of the Redeemer. Worth maybe a billion dollars.”
“I don’t see any television antennas in the area.”
“We got our sources. Got to keep abreast of the son of a bitch. Anyway, these woods was where he got his start. You’re looking at some of the original disciples he was determined to save by opening the door to a better life—his jargon.”
“I understand.”
“Well, what else you got to understand is, those of us came here did so with the law sniffing at our tails. Had nowhere else but the road and where it led. Word was out about this place, a refuge for those down on their luck who’d tried to change it the wrong way. Musta been fifteen or so here when I pulled in. Came with three others I met up with ’long the road. All dead now, all killed that night.”
“The fire?”
Hodge didn’t respond. “Frye welcomed us all with open arms. Said we were welcome to stay ’long as we wanted, so long as we were willing to leave the men we were at the start of the woods. Oh, he wasn’t talking about rehabilitating us. He was talking about making us realize we were worth something, that he had the key to open up a better world for us, and all we had to do was listen for him to use it. Son of a bitch honestly believed he could save the world one person at a time, starting here.”
“How did you find out about … this place?” Johnny wondered.
“Word gets passed along the road, rumors and stories. At first you don’t believe ‘em. Then you figure, what the hell you got to lose, and you come out this way. New men—and some women—started arriving not long after we did, pretty regular flow. The work of building that settlement back there in the woods kept us busy. Frye kept us in line. Don’t ask me how neither. I mean some of these boys were ornery sorts who’d slit your throat as easy as shake your hand. But they never moved on the Reverend. Like he held some kind of power over ’em.”
“What about you?”
“Me, too, I guess. I was just a house burglar who got clumsy with a club when the owner came home early. Plenty of the others was different.”
“Like Earvin Early.”
Hodge’s one eye widened briefly at that. “What’d he do, anyway? All these years, I never knew that.”
“Murdered two families,” Johnny replied, figuring that was enough.
The one eye closed briefly, then looked back up. “I remember the night some of the others found him dragging himself out of the river. Big mess of a man, scary to look at it.” The eye sought out Johnny’s. “Still?”
“Worse.”
“Things had already started going sour here by then. Frye had gone loony. We had maybe two hundred in our number, more than we could handle as it was, and the flow had started slowing down. But that wasn’t enough for the Reverend. He didn’t figure it was enough anymore to save only those who showed up here. He wanted to go out and find them that were in need. Thing was, he wanted us to go with him as his messengers, spread the word of his key to a better world. That was fine for the men who didn’t give a shit about showing their faces where they plainly didn’t belong. But those of us that still had our marbles knew better than to be seen again. We liked what we built here, wanted to stay. Frye was disappointed, but he agreed to let us.”
The wind whipped up, rattling the trees above them. It was a warm wind that nonetheless drew a shiver from Hodge as he grabbed a stick and began poking it into the dirt. The moonlight continued to light the clearing.
“Then one night, not long afterwards,” he continued, “Frye had your friend Early cut the throats of some of those that had spoken out against leaving and elected to stay. One of them managed to get away and run back to warn the rest of us.”
Hodge’s words were slower and more deliberate now. He poked the ground even harder, bending the stick, threatening to break it. Johnny looked into his one eye and knew for him it was that night again. Hodge turned his face away and concentrated on the ground between his feet.
“We fought back, then tried to run. They caught most of us and tied us inside the buildings before lighting them on fire. I was in the last house they set. Could hear the screams of the dying, smell the stink, ‘fore they even got to me. The rest of Frye’s people were hootin’ and hollerin’ up a storm. They ran off, left me for dead. But the ones of us they didn’t catch came back. Managed to get me and maybe five others freed.” Hodge touched the mangled side of his face with his free hand. “Little late in my account, but least I was alive. Plenty of men died in that burned-out settlement we found you in tonight. I won’t tell you they were good men, just better than those that killed ’em.” Hodge’s one-eyed gaze came back up, reflective. “Eighteen years ago that be now. We ain’t seen sign of Frye or the others since.”
“But still you take precautions. The men who spotted me enter the woods must have been on a regular shift.”
“Thing is, if you’d known we were here and came after us, would they have seen you?”
“No,” Johnny said.
“That’s what keeps us fearing the nights. We figure sooner or later Frye’s gonna come back to finish the job he started. He ain’t the sort to leave things uncompleted, no matter how long it takes.” Hodge took a long, deep breath. “As for us,” he resumed, taking in the whole of his domain with a quick sweep of his one eye, “what you see is what you get. Word about this being a haven for those on the lam don’t get spread no more, and that suits us just fine. There are children here now, families. We ain’t got much, but we get by.” Hodge gave Johnny a long look. “Man like you could spoil it.”
“Could, but won’t.”
The look became knowing. “You come here after Earvin Early, maybe you’re after Harlan Frye too. Early worshiped him, that much I remember. He done something that set you on his trail, you can bet the preacher wasn’t far behind him. That being the case, I’d watch myself, I was you. Frye don’t take kindly to people disagreeing with him.” Hodge touched the ruined side of his face. “And he’s got a fondness for fire to go with it. Burn the world if that’s what it took to do in those against him.”
“Judgment Day,” Johnny muttered, just loud enough for Hodge to hear.
“Every time the sun comes up, if you’re Harlan Frye.”
It was well after midnight before Blaine McCracken was permitted to leave the Sheridan Correctional Center in Illinois. Shortly after exiting the shower room, his nearly naked figure had been illuminated by the flashlights of guards responding to the power failure in the cellblock. The shocking sight of his handiwork in the shower room led to his detainment, the guards not caring to accept his explanation. The warden was summoned to the scene, and even with help from the proper contacts in Washington, McCracken had a tough go at gaining his release after being responsible for the deaths of over a dozen prisoners. A thorough search of the premises had turned up his clothing, piled into a corner of a storage closet adjacent to the shower room.
This time he waited until he had checked into a roadside motel fifteen miles away before calling Sal Belamo.
“Been a good day, boss.”
“Ratansky’s list of names?” Blaine questioned, expectations rising.
“Crazy nuts. I ran these names for hours, looking for something that links them together. Came up with diddly-squat till I logged into a data bank even I never dare fuck with: the IRS.”
“Keep talking.”
“Turns out almost seventy percent of the names on the pages you salvaged have something in common in a big way: major donors, boss, and I do mean major. To the tune of over a billion dollars total.”
“And just who’s the lucky recipient?”
Belamo sounded like he was enjoying himself. “This is where things st
art getting interesting. That billion all went to something called the First Church of the Redeemer. But don’t look for the typical steeple and stained-glass windows. The First Church of the Redeemer is strictly a television ministry, and the names in question are its primary benefactors. Charter members of something called the Key Society.”
“Never heard of it.”
“You wouldn’t have, ’less you got nothing else to watch on Sundays, boss, or any other day of the week, for that matter. These boys don’t just sponsor their own TV ministry; they got their own TV network called the Future Faith channel. Ain’t theirs really, though. Belongs to a dude comes into fifty million homes with a touch of the channel changer.
“Dude by the name of Harlan Frye.”
CHAPTER 16
The limousine’s engine was still purring when Karen Raymond stepped into the clearing that leveled off before one of the many sharp drops in Torrey Pines State Park. She had huddled amidst the trees that had given the park its name while awaiting MacFarlane’s arrival. Part of her breathed easier that Alex had at least lived up to this part of the arrangement, while another part remained wary of the man who was somehow part of a plot that had nearly killed her.
Trust no one.
That was easy: She had no one left to trust, except T.J. Fields and the Skulls, of course. A number were here with her now, all personally selected by T.J. He had wanted to come himself, but Karen reminded him of a greater responsibility she had entrusted to his care: her sons. The team he had selected had arrived hours ahead of her. They would be in position now, although Karen could see none of them through the thick tree cover rimming the area.
Karen stopped fifteen yards into the coarse expanse and waited. As instructed, the limousine flashed its high beams twice. She watched its rear passenger door open and the shape of Alexander MacFarlane emerge. The night wind blew his shock of white hair this way and that, disarranging his careful coiffure. He approached her with hands stuffed in his overcoat pockets. Karen waited until he was twenty yards from the limousine and then started forward. They met in the open center of the grove encompassing the Overlook, alone in the dark with only the limo’s high beams and some stray light from the ranger station for illumination.
“Take your hands out of your pockets, Alex.”
“What?”
“You heard me. Your hands, let me see them.”
MacFarlane removed them from his overcoat, shaking his head. “This has to stop, Karen.”
“I’ll say.”
“You’re in danger.”
“That’s why we’re meeting here.”
MacFarlane took one step closer. “What you did last night was foolish.”
“Prove it, Alex. Tell me what’s going on. Tell me why my lab team had to die. Tell me why my kids almost joined them. My kids!”
His mouth dropped. “You don’t think I could have had anything to do with—”
“I know you did.” Karen hadn’t been sure until that very moment. Something about MacFarlane’s tone convinced her, something about the way he held his eyes. “Don’t bother denying it. If you do, there’s no reason for this discussion to go any further.”
MacFarlane frowned. “I never would have hurt your kids. I never would have hurt you. That much is true.”
“What about the rest?”
MacFarlane’s eyes had grown sad, conceding. “I told them to let me handle it. They agreed, Karen. Do you hear me? They agreed.”
Karen could feel her heart thudding against her rib cage. “Who, Alex? Tell me who.”
“The who doesn’t matter. It’s the what.” MacFarlane paused. “Your discovery.”
“Lot 35. The AIDS vaccine. Keep going, Alex.”
“This is so damn hard … .”
“I can wait.”
“It’s about power, Karen, it’s all about power. I’m talking about Lot 35.”
She glared at him. “Who wanted it buried? Who killed eight people and nearly three others to keep it from reaching the market?”
MacFarlane let out a long sigh. “Van Dyne.”
Karen heard the words again, a heartbeat after MacFarlane spoke them.
Van Dyne … One of the largest, most powerful pharmaceutical companies in the world.
“I work for them,” MacFarlane continued without any prodding. “So do you. They own Jardine-Marra.”
The revelation hit Karen like a hammerblow. Disgusted, she looked away from MacFarlane briefly to disguise her emotion before her gaze was drawn back to him as he continued.
“Van Dyne’s the biggest in the world now, Karen. Their biggest concern isn’t their competition, but the government itself. Managed health care, price fixing, regulation—they knew their profit margin was headed for the shredder. They needed to expand quietly, buy out companies who weren’t in direct competition with them.”
“Like Jardine-Marra …”
“Because of our mail-order business primarily. Their buy-in was all done quietly, stealthily. Everything was perfect.”
“Perfect? Listen to what you’re saying!”
MacFarlane’s voice took on an edge. “You listen, Karen. Where do you think the money came from to finish your project? That’s right, without the cash acquired through Van Dyne’s buy-in, Lot 35 never would have happened.”
Karen stumbled over her thoughts briefly, then righted herself. “But they knew about it, didn’t they?”
“They knew it was a long shot. Knew the government had already rejected your request for further funding.”
“You told them,” she said flatly.
“I had … no choice.”
“When? When did you tell them?”
“At the beginning of our conversations. Well over a year ago.”
“Then they’ve known about my work that long and yet they waited until yesterday to strike?”
“We—I—had no idea Lot 35 worked until yesterday. You did a superb job of keeping your progress secret, even from me.”
“Makes us even, since you never told me I was working for Van Dyne.”
“And if I had?”
“I would have taken my work somewhere el—” Karen stopped herself, having made MacFarlane’s point for him.
“Exactly.” He nodded. “They couldn’t afford that.”
“Why?”
“Because they’ve got their own vaccine, Karen. Hundreds of millions of dollars already invested, final testing toward gaining approval well under way. Lot 35 would have offered them competition they couldn’t afford.”
“Then so long as it didn’t work, they had nothing to worry about. But once I revealed our success with the project at the board meeting, you informed your friends at Van Dyne, and they responded just like you knew they would.”
“No! No! I told them I could handle it. I told them it was under control. They agreed.”
“They lied.”
“But there’s a way out of this. I can save you. I can save your kids.” MacFarlane took a step toward Karen. “Lot 35. They want it. Give it to them and—”
“What do you mean they want it? After they destroyed everything last night …”
MacFarlane seemed about to speak, but didn’t.
“Wait a minute,” Karen said, realizing, “not destroy—steal. That’s what last night was about. They destroyed evidence of my research only after they thought they had stolen it.”
“The computers,” MacFarlane started.
“No single disk contains more than fragments that are virtually impossible to make sense of independent of each other. It would take even the most advanced technicians months. I alone possess the ones that contain everything. Only they didn’t know that. They couldn’t have known that.” Her expression tightened, confusion twisting it taut. “But according to you, they’ve got their own vaccine. What could they possibly need Lot 35 for, Alex?”
“It doesn’t matter. All that does is that it gives us a bargaining chip. If you agree, I can get them to guarantee your safety in return
.”
“Like they did last night.”
MacFarlane’s face was expressionless. “This is the only choice we’ve got, Karen.”
“And accepting it means the killers of my team, my friends, go free.”
“If it means you and your kids stay safe, yes, absolutely.” MacFarlane swallowed hard. “You’ve got to trust someone, Karen, and I’m your best bet.” He extended a hand toward her. “Come with me to the car, Karen. Let’s walk out of this together. Now.”
“To the police, Alex? Will we walk out of this and go to the police with what you’ve told me?”
Frustration squeezed MacFarlane’s features taut. Anger reddened them. “Haven’t you heard what I’ve been saying? We can’t fight them, Karen. But if you walk out of this with me now and give them what they want, we can save ourselves.”
She stiffened. “I don’t think I can do that, Alex.”
The hand stayed out there. “You must. Please.”
“They may own you. They don’t own me.”
MacFarlane tilted his gaze briefly into the spill of the high beams. “You’ve got to come back to the car with me, Karen. There’s no other choice.”
She felt her hands clench involuntarily into fists. “They’re watching. You brought them here.”
“P1—”
“They shoot me if I don’t accompany you, is that it?”
MacFarlane just looked at her.
“You know what, Alex? I don’t think they will. If they want Lot 35 so badly, I don’t think they’ll kill me. I think I can walk right out of this park and they won’t fire a single bullet.”
“You don’t know them. Listen to me.”
“I’m learning fast.”
“They’ll find you, Karen. They’ll find your kids.”
Her expression hardened. “I’m going to destroy them, Alex. I’m going to expose them and destroy them.”
“You can’t. Nobody can.”
“We could—together. It’s you who should come with me.”