13. Under the Radar

by Fern Michaels

  “Tell me something, how did you find us and who are you?” Pearl asked as the girls lumbered off the bus.

  “My angels travel with GPS tracking devices. They’re pinned to their collars. Or, I should say, there’s one under the collar of my bride. As to who I am, I am the Prophet.”

  This last was said with such pride, Pearl felt sick to her stomach.

  Pearl played dumb. She hoped she looked as poleaxed as she felt. “Of what?”

  The big man drew himself up to his full six-foot height, fixed his calculating gaze on her, and said, “Of Heaven and Earth. Thank you for taking care of my wife and her sisters. Drive safely, now. There isn’t much traffic around here, and if you break down, there won’t be anyone to help you.”

  Pearl bit down on her tongue as she slammed the door to the bus. “Did you hear that son of a bitch?” she snarled, the moment she was sure her voice wouldn’t carry.

  “Loud and clear. Be glad it worked out this way, Pearl. I’d hate to see your name plastered all over the morning papers. Not to worry, we’ll get him and all the other ones out there. We have a plan. Well, we almost have a plan. Now that your immediate crisis is on hold, we have some breathing room. What are you going to do now?”

  “I can’t go back to George and Irma’s. I’ll double back and make my way to the next relay station. Listen, Annie, there’s something you need to know. I don’t think I’m wrong about this, either. The girl, the one named Emily, the talkative one in the bunch, she said she lost her baby. She referred to it as her ‘bump.’ She was going around patting the other girls’ stomachs and saying she couldn’t wait to get another bump. She’s retarded, Annie. Not severely but she is definitely mentally challenged. She said she went to sleep and when she woke up her bump was gone. Now she wants another one. Actually, she’s the only one who really talked. None of them would tell me where their mothers were, they wouldn’t tell me their names or where they were coming from. But, by God, at least one of them had a GPS tracking device pinned to her collar. The Prophet’s bride,” she snorted.

  “Retarded?” Annie bellowed in shock. “And she had a baby?”

  “A bump. She never mentioned a baby. Okay, I’m back on the road. Tell me I don’t have to worry about George and Irma.”

  “You don’t have to worry about George and Irma, Pearl. We’ll take care of things on that end. Drive carefully and check in every few hours until you get to your next relay point.”

  “Will do,” Pearl said as she broke the connection. She adjusted her wraparound sunglasses and marveled that she’d gotten out of that little mess intact. She couldn’t help but wonder when her luck was going to run out.

  Back on Big Pine Mountain, the encrypted cell phones and the three huge television monitors were working overtime.

  Annie pressed a button, and a picture of what looked like a gigantic farm appeared on the screen. “Behold, ladies, you are now viewing the Heaven on Earth compound! Compliments of Google,” she said dramatically. “According to the tax maps, this particular piece of property was purchased by some shell company out of Singapore. Not that we care. There are 120 acres. As you can see, there is a milk barn, another barn that, if you believe this, is used for winter food storage. They sell the milk in town. They have chickens for eggs. They sell those also. In the summer they sell their produce to local markets. They’re the local pumpkin distributor, if that means anything.”

  Annie pressed another button. The scene was enlarged, and different buildings could be seen. “This is an aerial photo of the main house, where the Supreme Prophet lives. It’s a five-thousand-square-foot house with front and back porches. These buildings,” she said, using Charles’s pointer, “are where the people, I guess you would call them ‘disciples,’ live. It’s communal, dormitory style. No women actually live in the main house, according to one of the women who got away and gave all this information to the authorities. It was immediately posted on the Net.” Annie moved the pointer. “This is the school. Rudimentary education at best. Eighth grade is as far as it goes. Most of the teaching, aside from math and English, is religion.

  “No one in the compound owns anything. Only the Prophet can own things, and he owns a lot. He owns a penthouse apartment in Park City. He’s into fashion, drives a Bentley. And according to what he told Pearl, he owns all the people who live at HOE. The word ‘dictator’ comes to mind.”

  “Okay, okay, now that we know all that, why are we going to get involved?” Isabelle asked. “Pearl is okay, she’s back in business, and no one was hurt but the driver of the bus, who died. The girls are back where they’re supposed to be. Or at least where they were headed. We all heard them, they sounded happy when they were ‘rescued.’ So, tell me, why are we putting our necks on the line for something we aren’t involved in?”

  In a shaky voice, Yoko spoke up. “Those men are pedophiles. Those young girls are nothing but baby-making machines. Some of them are only thirteen. That is not right. I really want to rescue them and show them a normal life. I was rescued and given a better life. I want to do the same for them.”

  “It’s their religion,” Isabelle said. “What right do we have to tamper with someone’s religion? They didn’t ask for our help. Pearl is safe and out of the mess. We could be going into a firestorm not of our making. I think we need to fall back and regroup.”

  “I want to know where the mothers are,” Alexis said. “Do they just willy-nilly hand over their daughters when they turn thirteen? What kind of mother does that?”

  “The kind of woman who has been brainwashed. That life is all they know,” Nikki said. “Yes, Pearl is safe for the moment, and the young girls are safe, at least in a way. We have to decide if we want to get involved and show the world what those men are all about. The women, too. I think that business in Texas is a start, but I believe the authorities didn’t think it through when they took those four-hundred-plus children. They were overwhelmed. That won’t happen to us. We can go in there, take out the women and children who want to go, deal with those skanky men, and any uncooperative women, too. If we can wipe out just one of those places, maybe our notoriety will spur the authorities to close in and really do something about all those others and at the same time make those pedophiles run for cover.”

  “It’s their religion,” Isabelle protested.

  “It’s polygamy, and they live in a country where that’s illegal,” Annie snorted. “They’re stealing taxpayer dollars. They’re using children to give birth to children. The women have no options other than what that slimy so-called Prophet gives them. Do I need to remind you that the other prophet, Jeffs, is serving ten years in prison and probably looking at life in prison for the same thing this other Prophet is doing? What kind of religion is that? I’ll tell you what kind it is,” she said, answering her own question. “It’s the kind where they use the word ‘religion’ to get them out of the messes they’re in. They’re pedophiles, they’re tax cheats, they lie, and they brainwash their people. I say we swoop in there and take them all out. Let’s vote. Right now.”

  Everyone but Isabelle raised her hand. She flinched when the other Sisters faced her down.

  Only Annie spoke. “Okay, Isabelle, you stay behind on the mountain,” she said in a voice that was colder than ice.

  “By myself?” Isabelle shrilled.

  “Damn straight by yourself, Isabelle,” Kathryn said. “I don’t want you covering my ass if your heart isn’t in this.” She looked around at the others, who were nodding that they sided with her.

  “But…”

  “There are no buts, Isabelle. If we can’t depend on you, you’re no good to us. You stay behind,” Nikki agreed.

  Isabelle fled the room in tears.

  Her fellow Sisters looked at one another.

  “Were we too hard on her?” Alexis asked.

  Kathryn snapped to attention. Always the most verbal of the group, she pierced Alexis with her gaze. “You want to partner up with her, she’s all yours. I hate to re
mind you of this, Alexis, but you were in prison once. Do you want to go back because Isabelle does something stupid because she’s not watching and doing what she’s supposed to be doing?”

  “Good God, no. It’s just that this is the first time one of us isn’t 100 percent for the mission. I’m okay with it. Isabelle is entitled to her opinion and that’s her right and she has to live with it,” Alexis said.

  Nikki turned thoughtful. “We did cut off our earlier discussion on how those people work. Let’s download some of the videos on the Net showing how these folks brainwash their ‘disciples’ and keep their womenfolk in line. Hearing us talking about the evils of the HOE isn’t the same as watching them practice what they preach. After Isabelle sees it, she might change her mind. Trust me, we’ll know if she’s 100 percent or she’s faking it. Let’s vote on it.”

  Five hands shot in the air.

  “All right, Kathryn, the job is yours. I have to go back online now and contact Avery. Someone call Pearl to make sure she’s okay.” Nikki looked around. “I guess no one got a call from Myra or Charles, huh?”

  They all shook their heads from side to side.

  Nikki shrugged and climbed the three steps to the platform where the bank of computers waited for her.

  Sometimes life was a bitch!

  Chapter 6

  Kathryn started to pace, a sure sign of her agitation. It was clear that the issue with Isabelle was bothering her, perhaps more so than it did the others. While Kathryn wasn’t exactly a hothead, she was clearly outspoken, sometimes to the point where the others cringed.

  But, as Yoko said, coming to Kathryn’s defense, Kathryn only said aloud what the others were thinking. Then Yoko reminded them all of the first days of forming the Sisterhood and how Kathryn was on her case twenty-four/seven, and how it all worked out in the end.

  The others watched out of the corners of their eyes as Kathryn got more and more agitated by the moment. Finally, she whirled around, and shouted, “Annie, call Pearl and tell her to ditch the bus! Tell her to get off the road. They’re going to come back for her. They can’t let her get away. One of those girls had a GPS under her collar. I’ll bet you my sunflower bikini that that GPS is now on her bus. Now, Annie, God dammit! Put her on speakerphone.”

  Nikki stopped what she was doing. The other Sisters heard her say, “Avery, I have to put you on hold for a moment.” She looked at Kathryn and mouthed, “What?” Kathryn just shrugged.

  Annie was already pressing the number that would connect her with Pearl. She didn’t bother with a greeting but simply said, “Pearl, ditch the bus, take your gear, and get out of there. Stay off the main road if you can. Kathryn thinks those people planted a GPS tracker on the bus. Don’t leave anything incriminating behind. Help is on the way. I can’t give you a specific time frame, but they’ll find you as long as you have your handheld GPS. Move, Pearl!”

  The Sisters leaned forward, the better to hear the voice on the other end of the satellite phone. “I’m one step ahead of you. I had a bad feeling, so I ditched the bus thirty minutes ago, Annie. I tossed the distributor cap and I have everything I need. I’m moving. There isn’t much traffic on this back road. My story will be, I’m hiking and had a falling-out with my friend, and I’m off on my own. What do you think is going to go down?”

  Annie looked directly at Kathryn, then at the others. She nodded at Kathryn to indicate she should talk.

  “This is Kathryn, Pearl. Just a gut feeling, but over the years I have learned to pay attention to gut feelings. You need to stay out of sight if possible until we can get help to you. Worst-case scenario is those people file a complaint with the cops, who go looking for you. From what I read, there are a lot of polygamists in law enforcement, even a judge or two. The children on the bus and the men who showed up to take them would have given an accurate description of you by now. And remember who you really are.” Kathryn looked over at Nikki, who was talking a mile a minute to Charles’s second-in-command. She kept nodding as she spoke.

  Pearl’s voice came through loud and clear, almost as if she were in the next room. “I don’t exactly look like the person who was driving the bus. My new name is Rosa Sanchez, and I look like a Rosa Sanchez. How will I know it will be your people if someone should accost me?” Kathryn looked over at Nikki, who whispered, “By her new name.”

  “They’ll call you Rosa or Miz Sanchez. It’s high noon, your time. Can you take the heat?”

  “Not really. I can’t be sure, but the temperature seems to be around a hundred. If not, it certainly feels like it. I have water. I’m going to look for some cover. I’ll stay as close to the road as I feel comfortable with. Any suggestions?”

  Yoko flapped her arms up and down. She shrugged her tiny shoulders. “She’s between a rock and a hard place right now. Just tell her to stay alert and to drink plenty of water.” She looked over at Nikki, her gaze quizzical.

  It was Nikki’s turn to speak on Annie’s phone. “It’s Nikki, Pearl. Ninety minutes, and that’s being optimistic. Can you handle it?”

  “I can. I will. If I’m caught, I’ll leave the tracker so your people will find it. From there you’ll have to find the nearest police or sheriff’s department. If, and I say if, that’s where they take me.”

  Annie reared up. “They won’t be taking you anywhere near either place. They’re going to take you back to that Heaven on Earth place and make you one of their slaves.”

  The Sisters as one gasped aloud. They all started talking on top of one another. “Yes, it could happen.”

  “No, it couldn’t happen.”

  “Well, maybe it could happen.”

  Then, “Cross your fingers and hope for the best.”

  The connection broken, they turned once more to Nikki for their latest update.

  Annie’s cell phone rang. “Change of plans, Nellie. We’re leaving the mountain. These are now your new orders, so listen up…”

  Nikki handed Alexis a sheet of paper. Alexis scanned the sheet, and ran to fetch her Red Bag.

  Kathryn picked up the sheet and read it aloud. “We’re leaving here, one by one in crop dusters! That’s how we’re going to get to Utah? It’ll take us a week to get there. We’ll be so windblown we won’t know what our names are when we finally land!”

  Annie blanched. “Those little paper planes that look so…so rickety?”

  Nikki nodded. “If you can come up with a better plan, let’s hear it. Avery said it’s the best he can do on such short notice.”

  Annie snorted. “I suppose if one is looking for adventure, one might surmise that flying in a crop duster is it.” Ever the fashion guru, her next question came as no surprise to any of the Sisters. “What’s the attire?”

  “Camo, goggles, and one of those leather helmets the flyers used to wear,” Yoko giggled.

  Kathryn tried not to laugh. “I hesitate to bring this up, but does anyone besides me think we’re a bit scattered at the moment? Usually things run a little more smoothly. Charles always had it laid out, and we just fell in line.”

  Nikki picked up a folder and threw it at her. Murphy barked, uncertain if this was a new game or something else entirely. When he heard his mistress burst out laughing, he lay down, his huge head between his paws.

  “For the moment, everyone in…our little…uh…group is going to Utah. Then we’ll kick everything up a few notches and go on from there, but first we have to get there undetected and safe and sound. Charles has forty years’ experience under his belt whereas I’ve had”—Nikki looked at her watch—“fifteen minutes. I rest my case.”

  “You’re doing just fine, dear,” Annie said. “I just wish I wasn’t so worried about Pearl.”

  Three thousand miles away Pearl Barnes, aka Harriet Woonsocket, aka Rosa Sanchez found herself being eaten alive by sand fleas as she huddled in the scrub brush along the side of the road. Overhead, the sun blazed as it baked her surroundings. She was down to her last two bottles of water and had to pee.

  The
only vehicles she’d seen in the last hour were two farm tractors moseying down the road at ten miles an hour, one kid on a motorized scooter followed by a mean-looking dog, and a farm truck full of hay. She wondered if traffic would pick up once the heat of the day passed. What bothered her more than anything was that she was drenched in her own sweat and was sure she smelled to high heaven. God, if the other justices could only see her now they’d die laughing. Well, let them. That was her other life, and this was now. So what if she was soaking wet and smelled. She was alive and still had her reputation intact.

  More minutes passed. More sand fleas. Pearl continued to sweat. She looked at her watch. Ninety minutes were almost up. Where was her help? She fished out her cell and was getting ready to punch in Annie’s number when she heard it, the sound of a car. Not a pickup, not a tractor, not a kid on a motor scooter but the purr of a car’s engine.

  Pearl sucked in her breath as she scrunched down in the spiky, dry, crackly undergrowth. Her salty sweat dripped into her eyes, burning them unbearably. She swiped at her eyes as she tried to blink to clear her vision. She saw the flashing blue light but there was no siren. An unmarked police car. From the little she knew about police cars she rather thought they used Crown Victorias. The car was still too far down the road to make out what it was. It was moving slowly, as though the driver were eyeballing both sides of the road, looking for someone.

  Pearl tried digging herself deeper into the ground, but the sand was too hot, dry, and packed solid to allow for any indentation. She prayed the driver of the approaching car had less than twenty-twenty vision.

  Overhead, the sun continued to blaze. What looked like two buzzards flew overhead. “Just what I need, buzzards to pick my bones clean,” she muttered.

  She was so low to the ground that her ears picked up another sound. She flattened her head against the ground and listened. Two wheels. Maybe it was her help. Maybe it was the cop’s reinforcements. Pearl’s heart kicked up an extra beat. Her death grip on the handheld GPS tracker didn’t slacken one iota.