Rebecca panned along the driveway. As it approached the farmhouse, the lines of trees left the road to encircle a large yard with the farmhouse at the center. The drive continued to the right of the house, leading to several small structures and three, larger outbuildings. Left of the house was green space, which gave way to a fenced pool.
“These small, fuzzy areas around the pool and the outbuildings—is that camouflage netting?” asked Rebecca.
“Camouflage, if you’re suspicious. A patio shade screen, if not. But either way, along with the mature trees, I can’t make much sense of the grounds. Is that a swing or part of an obstacle course?” He asked, pointing at the map. He released a long breath. “OK, how about you go into the field on the left side of her farm. I’ll walk past her gate and enter on the right. I have a better chance of staying out of any camera shot if I go on foot. We’ll check out the house from each side of her property, then meet up in back.”
“Sounds like a plan,” said Rebecca, as they exited the car.
The land on the left of Greenwood’s farm was surrounded by a fence typical of the area—four strands of barbed wire nailed to posts spaced about 15 feet apart. Rebecca had negotiated plenty of these in her misbegotten youth and was soon inside, walking along the edge of a recently planted field.
It was only a matter of minutes before she reached the point where the evergreens came out to the edge of the property. Just beyond them would be the yard. She climbed the barbed-wire fence, then pushed through a row of evergreens—a fragrant but sticky task. There, as they had guessed, stood a ten-foot-tall, chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. Rebecca was glad that scaling it wasn’t part of the plan. The foliage on the second row of trees was thick, but it only took her moments to find a natural break in it. And when she did, the aerial shot hadn’t done justice to what she found.
The lawn was dark green and neatly mowed. Flowers sprung from beds carefully weeded and mulched. Each garden was lined with bricks set into the ground at an angle, like a row of dominos that had been tipped halfway over. A wrought iron bench circled a tree, and through her narrow window between branches, it looked freshly painted. A brass sundial on a short, limestone column appeared to wink at her as it caught light one moment and then blinked out as a wispy cloud passed in front of the sun.
She could also see the front of the farmhouse—a large, white, two-story building. Steps led up to a porch that stretched its full length. A door painted dark green sat in the middle with two sets of curtained windows on each side. One end of the porch boasted a wooden swing; the other held two rocking chairs with a small table between them. It was the quintessential setting for sipping lemonade on a hot, summer afternoon.
She looked toward the back of the property, trying to see the pool area, but the gaps between the branches were too small, the viewing angles too sharp. So, she retraced her steps through the outer row of evergreens, walked along the fence toward the back of the property, and then pushed back through the growth to find a viewpoint. If her surveil of the front part of the yard was surprising, this perspective was little short of breathtaking.
The designers of the pool had eschewed straight lines and sharp angles in favor of gentle bends and sweeping curves. On the far end, a wooden deck glistened in the sun. Its mellow warmth gave way to a brick patio that ran to the back of the house. But it was the closer end of the pool that left Rebecca speechless. It looked exactly like a beach. Wooden, reclining chairs with seats and backs of colorful material were scattered over a surface of white sand. A volleyball net was strung along a side. Umbrellas protruded from the ground, shading small, wooden tables. Beach balls in bright, primary colors stood out against their white background.
A 12- to 15-foot-tall, brick wall rose behind the pool area. Rebecca suspected this was the back edge of Greenwood’s property. The wall turned at the far end of the pool area and ran up to the house to enclose the patio. There was a single, arched door painted black on that end; otherwise, there were no breaks in the wall.
Rebecca scanned the area one more time, committing the details to memory before leaving to meet with Clements. She made her way through the evergreens and was about to climb the barbed-wire fence when she heard a thump—just one and then, silence. She turned back toward the trees, controlling her breathing, asking her heart to be still in her ears. She reached down and felt the familiar bulk of her revolver. For a moment, she felt a bit self-conscious about the action, knowing that so far, she had risked nothing more severe than sticky, pine residue on her hands, maybe a tick bite. But surrounded by the unknown, its heft was reassuring. And then, the sound came again. She would have thought something was blowing against the house, like a door that had been left unlatched. It seemed about that far away, but there was no wind. She waited.
She didn’t register a sound behind her but sensed a presence. The hair on the back of her neck stood up. She spun around, her hand dropping instinctively to her revolver. There stood Clements on the other side of the barbed-wire fence.
“Did I take too long?” she whispered.
“No,” he replied, also keeping his voice low. “I saw all I needed in about 30 seconds. People. They’re getting washed up and going inside, maybe for lunch.”
“Crusaders?”
“Seems likely,” he replied. “I didn’t hear any talking, but they were doing some heavy-duty, physical training. I called in backup, and the field office is scrambling some locals. They’ll set up a line of containment outside the boundaries of the farm. Our guys should be here in a little over an hour. In the meantime, we’re going in for a closer look at the house. Should be a good time, if everyone’s eating. We go in here?”
“No,” replied Rebecca, softly. “You’d end up in the pool area with no cover. Follow me.” She started back to the spot she had entered previously.
When they reached it, she said, “If we go in here, we’ll be in the middle of the side yard.” She paused a beat. “So, what are we up against?”
Clements started climbing the barbed-wire fence. “I counted six—four males and two females—but there could be more. Their ages ran from about six or seven to maybe the mid-twenties.”
“Six years old? You gotta be kidding.”
“Wish I was,” Clements said as they pushed through the outer row of trees. “Hopefully, they won’t spot us. But if they do, we have to be ready for anything. Who knows what they’ve been trained to do to protect their home?” Reaching the chain-link fence, Clements pulled the wire cutters from a pocket and started to work.
Rebecca knew the truth of her partner’s statement but didn’t feel it. “It’s just that a six-year-old boy would have no idea what he’s doing, if Doc’s right,” she whispered to Clements’s back.
Clements glanced up, giving her a strange look, but returned to his task without a word. Rebecca could see him doubting the specifics of Greenwood’s methods; she had trouble believing all of it herself. But that the biologist had done something to these people seemed undeniable. And then, she understood Clements’s look. “The six-year-old is a girl, isn’t she?”
Clements looked up at his partner again and nodded. “Yeah, sorry. But no one needs to get hurt. We just need to get eyes on that house, figure out how to put a net around it before they get suspicious. If they do, the ring of local law enforcement around the outside of the farm should slow them down, but it won’t stop them.”
“OK, then, let’s get it done.”
Clements nodded and pulled back a section of the fence big enough for them to squeeze through. They crawled through the inner row of trees, pausing on the edge. Clements scanned the area. “Yeah, we should be able to position some men here. We’ll need to ….”
He stopped mid-sentence, both agents freezing at the sound of a large vehicle in the distance. The engine roared, the noise coming from the direction of the gate. It was followed closely by a crash and the screeching of metal on metal.
“What the hell,” growled Clements.
&n
bsp; But his words were nearly lost in the wail of sirens, as police cars came barreling around the bend in the drive. Clements and Rebecca ran to the front of the yard and began waving their arms in the air. But rather than stopping, the drivers interpreted the gesture to mean spread out. The cars began peeling off to the right and left until six vehicles were fanned out across the front lawn. Doors flew open. Each vehicle held two or three officers, and they all took positions behind their cars, guns drawn.
“Hold your fire.” Clements bellowed the command over and over. But everywhere Rebecca looked, officers were chambering rounds in their shotguns or training their revolvers on the house, fingers on the trigger.
She glanced back. Several individuals, all dressed identically in white T-shirts and gray shorts, walked around the corner of the building. The two in the lead were both male, tall and well-toned. One held a pole in his hand, a hook on one end. But the most relevant factor in Rebecca’s mind was that it wasn’t a weapon.
“FBI,” she and Clements both yelled across the lawn. “Get down on the ground, hands behind your head.”
The group exchanged puzzled looks, a few more coming forward from behind. Among them was a small girl, presumably, the six-year-old Clements had mentioned. Even from the distance, Rebecca thought she could read confusion in the child’s large, blinking eyes. “Who are you?” Rebecca shouted as Clements again yelled, “FBI. Get down.” Other than a few additional grunts and murmurs, their response was the same. As mind-boggling as Doc’s guess had been, Rebecca now had no doubt it was true. These people were Crusaders, all grown in body and completely stunted in mind.
The group’s unintelligible responses and its ever-growing size were apparently too much for someone behind her. Rebecca heard the sound of a round being chambered in a shotgun. She turned back to the line of police cars, holstered her firearm, and raised her empty hands to her sides. She started walking backward toward the house shouting, “Lower your weapons.”
“Marte,” Clements yelled, staring at her.
Rebecca glanced at him but never slowed her backward march or her commands to the officers. Clements squeezed his eyes closed, then turned and ran to the nearest man. “What the hell’s wrong with you,” he yelled just inches from the man’s face. “That’s my partner out there. Lower your weapon immediately.” Slowly, the deputy complied.
When the last dark, open end of a barrel disappeared from her view, Rebecca turned to the Crusaders, not sure what to do now. The group was slowly drifting toward her, the murmurs growing. Rebecca couldn’t pick out a single word, but she heard confusion and curiosity in the noise. She needed to get them out of the potential field of fire, but their forward progress as they milled about was measured in inches, not yards.
“Follow,” she yelled, hoping it was a word they knew. Apparently, it was, as they all broke into a slow jog in near perfect unison, the group forming a single-file line. When they reached her, they jogged in place. She turned and started at a trot toward a large tree on the edge of the lawn. From the sound of their footfalls, she knew they were following without looking. She stopped on the far side of the tree. The massive trunk would provide some protection if the scene turned violent. “Sit,” Rebecca shouted, guessing at a second command they would know. They did so, almost robotically.
Clements ran up beside her, followed by several of the local sheriffs and deputies. Four of them surrounded the Crusaders, their sidearms trained on the sitting group.
“They’re unarmed,” said Rebecca, concerned that this situation could still get out of hand. “They’re probably well trained in hand-to-hand, so keep them on the ground.”
Clements leaned close to Rebecca, whispering to keep his words private. “Damn it, Marte, what the hell were you thinking?”
“I was thinking that I don’t want these innocent children, regardless of how mature they may seem, slaughtered in front of me,” she said, returning the hard stare she found on Clements’s face.
Clements stared a moment more, then released a long breath. “Me either, but this conversation is not over. Not by a long shot. We’ll talk later.”
Rebecca didn’t answer, but knew if she did, she would have said, “I’m not sure there’ll be a next time.” She thought she’d prepared herself for the possible violence of the job—the serial killers, the pedophiles, the serial rapists. But this? She didn’t even know what to call it. Serial mental murder? A fanatic had stolen these people’s lives, disposing of them when they were no longer useful. Maybe she would get over it, but right now, she was reeling from Greenwood’s cold-heartedness.
Clements stood back from Rebecca and waved the local officers closer. “OK, we’re going to set up a secure perimeter and wait them out.”
“These people,” said one of the deputies, nodding at the seated group. “They’re Crusaders?” His tone was tinged with disbelief, his eyes narrowed.
“Almost undoubtedly,” replied Clements. “And they’re probably not what you expected.”
“Yeah, they’re a bunch of retards,” said another of the locals.
Rebecca could feel her anger grow, her pulse climbing. But the man’s words had the same effect on Clements, and he was quicker to words. “They’ve been drugged their entire lives,” he snapped, glaring at the man. “And because of that, they don’t know how to talk, don’t know what’s right or wrong. They’re basically innocents, deserving of our protection. You raise a hand to them other than in self-defense, and you’ll answer to me. Do I make myself clear?”
The man looked down. “Yeah. I didn’t mean I’d hurt them.”
Clements glare hadn’t left the face of the deputy before another spoke. “Aren’t we going to rush the house, while we have the element of surprise?”
Clements took a breath, Rebecca guessing he was concerned about correcting two of his volunteers even before he knew their names. But if so, he was spared by another officer. “Jenkins, I think the agent feels like we lost the element of surprise a while ago. And barging into a building with who knows how many armed men inside could be suicide.”
Clements nodded at the man. “That’s right. No one’s life is in danger, so time is on our side. In a few hours, we can get a SWAT team here, start negotiations, maybe get plans to the house. But we do need to get a perimeter set up five minutes ago.”
This time, all he received in reply were nods and murmurs of affirmation. “Agent Marte, you’ve had more time to study the left side of the house.”
Rebecca quickly ran down the situation—a yard with some cover, a pool area with virtually none, and a side of the house that was all windows, no doors. Clements added the information he had on the right side and back of the property, then allocated his assets—two officers to the left and right sides of the home, four to the rear. The back, he knew from his brief reconnoiter, was a large space with an elaborate obstacle course and an area for calisthenics. While it provided a lot of cover for his men, it also left dozens of blind spots and places a Crusader could hide. Three officers would stay with the group that was being detained, while the last three took up positions behind their cars on the front lawn.
The local officers had just left for their assigned positions when Rebecca’s phone buzzed. She almost pressed Ignore when she saw the name on the display. “Doc, you’ve got to make this quick,” she said when she accepted the call.
“Sister Prudence is at the Biomedical Engineering Associates building, gun in one hand, a button connected to a small roller bag in the other. A dozen or so of us are trapped inside.”
“Aw, shit.”
11:55 AM – The Crusaders’ Compound
“Hold a second.” She pulled the phone from her ear. “Gus, it’s Doc. Prudence has shown up at Veles’s place of work, apparently armed with a bomb. Several people are trapped inside.”
Clements’s head dropped then shook slowly. When he looked up, he said, “Find out as much as you can about his situation and what he’s done so far. But make it fast.”
&n
bsp; Rebecca started to raise the phone to her ear but stopped. “We’re going in?”
“With lives in danger, yeah, that’s my call. Hopefully, no one’s inside, and we can find something that tips the scales back in our favor. I’m going to see if anyone here has been trained on clearing a building. Otherwise, it’s you and me, partner.”
Rebecca nodded and raised the phone. “Doc?”
“Still here,” he replied. “Are you at Greenwood’s farm? I could hear some of the conversation. Have you found any Crusaders?”
“We are, and yes, we’ve run into some. This appears to be their home and training ground. And before you ask, I’d say you’re right about Greenwood keeping their brains undeveloped. None of them seem to know more than a few words.”
There was a pause before Doc spoke again, and when the response came, it was tinged with the sound of determination. “Understood. Anyway, I’m wondering if the police showing up is the signal Prudence is waiting for, the signal for the next action. Any chance you or Agent Clements could ask them to set up a perimeter out of sight? They aren’t listening to me.” A pause. “Wait. Hold on.”
“What’s going on?” Rebecca asked into the phone, but all she heard was background noise. The sound of car engines on the street. Someone was yelling, but the sound was too distant for her to understand. A door slammed. There was more talk, shouting, and then the crack of gunfire came through the earpiece impossibly loud. “Doc?” Rebecca yelled. A pause. “Doc?”
It felt like a lifetime until he came back on the phone. “Everyone’s OK. That was a warning shot into the ceiling when someone got too close to the front door. We’re all around the corner now.”
“Good. Stay out of sight. You still want me to call the police?”
“Not necessary,” replied Doc. “They already showed up in force. I guess I should be thankful that wasn’t the cue to blow the building. Anyway, we checked the backdoor. It’s locked with a chain and some sort of device with a blinking light. It might be a fake, but that’s something for the bomb squad.”
Mind in Chains Page 23