13. Under the Radar

by Fern Michaels

  “It’s not like we have too many choices at the moment. Let’s see what goes down and work from there,” Ted said.

  “We’re going to need pictures,” Espinosa said as he flipped out his digital camera. “I have to upload them to Maggie for tomorrow’s edition. Even though the paper here is on top of things, the Post has to have lead exclusive.”

  Jack looked over at Harry, who just shrugged. Harry was ready. Harry was always ready for whatever happened. Jack envied his friend’s total confidence, his inward serenity, and his belief that he could take on the world and come out on top. Three pedophile polygamists posing as law enforcement officers wouldn’t make him break a sweat.

  “Then let’s do it!” Jack said.

  The inside of the old barn was full of rusty junk, an antique wringer washing machine, and wooden boxes full of more junk stacked up against the walls. Rakes, shovels, axes, and picks, just as rusty, were piled in a corner. Two old iron beds, almost rusted through, leaned drunkenly against the washer. The only light in the barn came through a dirty window and the open barn door. The only sound to be heard was the scratching of the rats as they scurried about trying to find a safe hiding place. Then he heard a sound overhead and rather thought it was bats. Bats and rats. A deadly combination no matter how you looked at it.

  The foursome advanced into the room and walked over to the rusty snowplow.

  To Jack’s experienced eye, the sheriff and the two deputies looked defiant. “Gentlemen, this is going to be quick and dirty because we don’t have much time.”

  “And we don’t like you,” Harry said.

  “Yeah, none of us like you child-abusing cruds,” Ted said.

  Espinosa focused and clicked, again and again. “I don’t like you, either. Not one of you is photogenic,” he grumbled.

  “You have no options,” Jack told them, “so let’s get that out of the way right now. So, the first one who tells me what I want to know gets to walk out of here. The other two, well, I don’t know how to say this, other than to just say it. You’ll never see this fine state of Utah again. All those doormat celestial wives you have will just be assigned to some other schmuck like you. I want a map of where every little thing is on the compound. I want directions from Point A to Point B, and I want to know how to get through those gates. First one up gets a walk.”

  “We aren’t telling you anything,” the sheriff said. “Our people will be out here before you know it, and your ass will rot in jail.”

  “You mean those Stepford women and men who bow to Harold Evanrod, also known as the Prophet? Our people picked him up a few hours ago when he approached the gates, and right now he’s in the same position the three of you are in, at a hidden location,” Jack lied, an evil grin on his face. “Ah, I can see you don’t believe me. Espinosa, show these guys the pictures you took of that momentous event.”

  Espinosa’s eyes popped wide. What the hell…He fiddled with the camera to try to stall for time until Jack could somehow clue him in to what he was supposed to be showing the sheriff.

  “Ah, never mind, who cares if they believe us or not? Never mind. Where they’re going, it won’t matter one bit.” Jack walked over to the corner of the barn at the end of the doorway and grabbed a pitchfork that was so old that flakes of rich brown rust dribbled on the floor. He jabbed it into the rotten flooring right in front of the three men.

  “Don’t think I won’t jab this right through your nuts if one of you doesn’t start talking real fast, and I don’t want to hear one word about my eternal damnation or salvation. I’m going to count to three, and the first one to talk gets a pass. One. Two.”

  “Okay, okay, I’ll tell you what you want to know,” the deputy named Clyde said. “Let me loose, and you can ask me whatever you want. I won’t lie.”

  Jack yanked the pitchfork out of the floor. More rusty particles flew in the still air. “It doesn’t work that way. First you talk, then we let you loose.”

  “Then how in the hell am I supposed to draw you a diagram of the compound?”

  Jack looked at Harry.

  Harry looked at Jack.

  “The man has a point,” Ted said.

  “You right-handed or left-handed?” Jack asked.

  “Right,” the deputy said.

  “Ted, unhook his right hand but hook up his left to the sheriff. Now, draw me a picture,” Jack said as he handed him a small notebook he removed from his pocket. “Explain as you draw, so we understand what it is you’re doing there. You make even one mistake, and your ass is grass, buddy. But before you do that, how do you guys get into that compound?”

  “Remotes on the visors of the cruisers. You just press the red button, and the gates open.”

  Clyde was like a runaway train as he scribbled and talked. When he finally finished, he mumbled something about having forgotten the pumpkin field.

  “What the hell is the pumpkin field?” Jack asked.

  “A field where they grow pumpkins. The HOE is the biggest supplier in the state, and they truck them all over. They’ve been harvesting for the past two days. I was supposed to escort the tractor trailer tomorrow to Provo, and Sam here was scheduled to escort the second load to Salt Lake City. After they unload, they go back for another load. The pumpkins get shipped from Provo and Salt Lake to other parts of the Southwest.” He then followed up with a good ten minutes, giving more information on pumpkins than any of the others wanted to know or cared about.

  “Hmmm,” Jack said. “Who knew the pumpkin business was so lucrative? Who owns the tractor trailers?”

  “Clyde, shut up,” Ron Finn, the sheriff, said.

  “You know what, Ron, I don’t want to disappear, and I don’t want to rot here, either. The minute you told me to watch out for those pregnant girls coming out to the compound my stomach started acting up. I told you it was trouble, but you and Sam here didn’t listen to me. Look at us now.” Clyde turned to Jack, and said, “The HOE owns the trucks. They own a lot of things no one knows about. Where do you think all those welfare checks go? That compound is not self-sustaining. They depend on the outside but put up a good front so that people like you will leave them alone. Now can I go?”

  It was almost dark, the only light coming from Ted’s small Maglite. The barn looked eerie in the limited light. The rats didn’t like it, either, and several of them ventured toward the old snowplow. Sheriff Finn kicked out at one of them. It squealed and skittered away.

  “No, not yet.”

  “Come on, man, you promised to let me go if I told you what you wanted to know. I kept my word, and now you need to keep yours,” Deputy Clyde whined.

  Jack motioned for the others to follow him toward the door so they could talk. “Look, we don’t have all that much time. I don’t like leaving those guys out here in this damn barn with no light. The place is infested with rats and bats. I need some indication of when they’re going to get picked up. Ted, Espinosa, make some calls. Harry, come with me, we need to talk.”

  When they were outside and away from the barn, the wind kicked up and whispered through the straggly trees to the right and left of the path that had led them to the outbuilding just a short while ago.

  Overhead, the stars were brilliant diamond specks in the sky. The moon was a mere half slice in the dark night. Jack wished he was in Rock Creek Park back in Washington, holding Nikki’s hand as they went for an evening stroll. Off in the distance, he heard some kind of animal howl. Then a second animal picked up the cry. A pack of wild animals? His stomach started to churn.

  “What do you think, Harry? I wasn’t prepared for that pumpkin business, I can tell you that. I suppose that just solved one of our problems. I’m thinking we can run with my idea, but I don’t have a clue as to how and where. Kathryn used to drive one of those rigs way back when. Cross-country. I believe she knows every trucker on the highways.”

  “And that means what, kemo sabe?”

  “I don’t know, I’m just tossing stuff out here. We were never in the
planning stages on any of the girls’ missions. All we had to do was show up and follow orders. I’m nonplussed. Are you nonplussed, Harry?”

  “Yeah, Jack, I’m nonplussed,” Harry snarled.

  “Hey, Jack,” Ted said, “I just got the word that there are three guys up at the end of the road. They’re heading down here now to pick up those three cruds. They said Snowden sent them. Annie turned off the grid. Look, I see lights.”

  Jack let out a long, loud sigh as he headed back to the barn to free his three prisoners. He winced when Ted flashed his Maglite and he could see an army of rats skittering off in all directions.

  Deputy Clyde was still whining. The sheriff was still telling him to shut up, that he should have known better than to believe a bunch of sinners who were headed for hell and damnation.

  Harry took affront to that particular declaration. He looked down at the sheriff, who refused to meet his gaze. He bent over, reached for the man’s balls, and squeezed. “The pain will let up in July of 2011 or thereabouts. Your balls will stay black long after that. You have anything else you want to say?”

  The sheriff doubled over in agony, his balls sending spears of pain all the way to his teeth and up into his brain.

  “You guys lied to me, you son of a bitch!” Clyde roared.

  His fellow deputy tried his best to look invisible.

  “Yeah, I lied. I have a problem with the truth sometimes. You want to do something about it?”

  “Goddamn right I do. Unhook me, and we’ll see if that lying mouth of yours still works.”

  Harry looked down at the blustering deputy as though he couldn’t believe what he was seeing and hearing. “Man, you don’t want to go there. Trust me,” he said, his voice taking on a singsong quality to it.

  “Shut the hell up, you slant-eyed piece of dog crap.”

  Harry shook his head from side to side. “Now you’ve gone and hurt my feelings. He snapped his fingers and tweaked Deputy Clyde’s nose.

  The deputy fell back against the snowplow and didn’t make another sound.

  “You’re slipping, Harry. You should have been able to do that in a nanosecond. Took you a full second,” Jack chortled.

  “Eat shit, Jack. I think our guests’ ride is here.”

  Just then, a set of powerful headlights lit up the inside of the old barn like a baseball field hosting a night game. The rats dived for cover as Deputy Sam cowered. Sheriff Finn was still howling in agony as Deputy Clyde slept peacefully.

  With the headlights blinding him, Jack thought from the sound of the engine that the vehicle of choice for his guests was a Humvee. Or another military vehicle. He wasn’t sure if the three hulking men standing in camouflage gear were really Utah’s National Guard or not, and he didn’t care, either. He just wanted to be relieved of his responsibility. “They’re all yours. Where are you taking them?”

  “That’s NTK, buddy.”

  Harry clucked his tongue. “Yeah, Jack, that’s need to know. Even I knew that.”

  Espinosa was so busy clicking his camera that he tripped all over his own feet as he did his best not to get any frontal shots of the three hulking men carrying out the sheriff and his deputies. He managed to get two great shots of the hulks tossing the HOE’s law enforcement into the back of the Humvee. Maggie was absolutely going to love them. He hoped she would add a caption that read something like, “At great peril to himself, Joseph Espinosa managed to get these pictures to the Post for your viewing pleasure.” He looked over at Ted, who was text messaging at the speed of light.

  When the old barn was locked tight, and the rats and bats were left in peace, Jack turned to the others and said, “I don’t think those guys are the type I’d want to belly up to the bar with on a dark and rainy night.”

  “You think those guys were legit? You know, real National Guard?” Ted asked.

  Jack didn’t know if they were or not. “Nah, those outfits came straight out of a costume shop. They’re probably mercenaries on Charles’s payroll. Okay, boys, time to get this show on the road.”

  The foursome walked on the dark path back to the barn, where the women were waiting for them.

  “What took you so long?” Annie grumbled.

  “We needed some extra time to get the skinny on the pumpkin venture. We understand it all now. It’s a very lucrative business. I now know everything there is to know, and then some, about the business side of pumpkins,” Jack said airily.

  “Shut the hell up, Jack.”

  Jack ignored Harry, and said, “Harry only knows the cooking end of pumpkins, whereas I know all about the distribution end. This information is going to prove to be quite valuable. You’ll see,” he said loftily. “Now, I do believe it’s time to head out to the Heaven on Earth compound to see what we can do to…help the world move forward.”

  “Will someone shut him up?” Ted grumbled, his fingers a blur in the dim yellow light spilling out of the Ellis barn as he continued to text Maggie back at the Post.

  Chapter 14

  Sally Duval, Maggie Spritzer’s right hand, looked at her boss and laughed. “We did it again. It’s a dynamite front page, Maggie, and, we beat the Utah edition by three hours. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to find out in the coming months that there are going to be a lot of legislators in Utah wringing their hands and finally doing something about those polygamists. About time, too. Hey, want to go get something to eat?”

  “I’m too tired and wired to eat, Sally, but thanks for the invitation.”

  Sally made a face. It was a well-known fact to everyone at the Post that Maggie Spritzer could eat anything at any time of the day or night. Those close to her often called her “BP,” for Bottomless Pit.

  “I’m going home to take a bubble bath. Then I’m going to sack out for eight full hours. I’ll be in late in the morning, so hold the fort. Don’t call me unless it’s an emergency. And you know what constitutes an emergency—someone bleeding all over my office, the president being abducted by aliens, or the entire food supply in Washington being vaporized by unknown forces.”

  “I got it, Maggie. Enjoy your bubble bath.”

  Forty-five minutes later a cab dropped Maggie off in front of her house in Georgetown. She looked back over her shoulder to see the front light glowing on Jack Emery’s house a few doors away. She shivered under her lightweight suit jacket. She always felt comforted knowing Jack was in residence three doors away. When he and Ted were away, she felt jittery, antsy, knowing she was on her own. That wasn’t to say she couldn’t handle herself; she could. She just felt better with backup close at hand.

  It was a few minutes before nine and she was about to step into the Jacuzzi when the phone she was never without gave off a soft, keening sound. “Why now?” she groaned as she flipped it open. “Myra!” The bubble bath with the tantalizing lavender-cypress bath salts was forgotten as well as her tiredness. Maggie’s reporter instincts kicked in at the sound of Myra’s voice. She could almost hear the trouble and anxiety crackling through cyberspace. “Talk to me, Myra.”

  Three hours after the interview had begun, Lizzie Fox packed up her briefcase, shook hands all around, thanked the Daily Herald reporter and her photographer, and prepared to head to her room, where all she wanted was a steaming-hot shower and at least fifteen minutes to talk to the love of her life, Cosmo Cricket. But she knew the young ladies who were now her clients needed to talk a bit more without the reporter and photographer around.

  There were three things Lizzie Fox dearly loved about her chosen profession. The first was the hand-holding: her personal reassurances to her clients that she would work her tail off on their behalf. For some reason, clients never got tired of being reassured. The second thing she liked was the retainer check, which was always big enough to choke an elephant. The third thing was the winning at the end. It was always a given that she would win because she would accept nothing less from herself. The proof of that was that she had never lost a case. Nor would she.

  When the confere
nce door closed behind the reporter and photographer, Lizzie said, “I have an idea. Let’s all go into that cozy little bar down the hall and have a drink. If you have any questions or are worried about anything, we can talk there. They have a piano bar right alongside so we can all relax. My treat,” she said hastily when she saw the look of worry on the women’s faces.

  She’d learned right off the bat that these women were all working for minimum wage and didn’t have ten extra cents to spend. Suddenly she wanted to scoop them all up and carry them off to some safe place where they would never have to worry again. While they were all happy and relieved to be free of the HOE and all the problems associated with living in that commune from hell, they had at least known that if they stayed within the compound they would always be fed and clothed. Outside, on their own, the rules were different, and they had to fend for themselves. The first free moment Lizzie had she was going to talk to Annie about doing something for them.

  When their drinks—a margarita for Lizzie and iced tea for the others—and snacks arrived, Lizzie kicked back and smiled. “I thought it all went very well. You are all going to be so famous you won’t be able to stand it. Remember now, you don’t say a word to anyone unless I’m present. Always wait a second or so to give me time to object.”

  Lizzie held up her glass, and they all made clinking sounds. “I think we should drink to your freedom to be the persons you all want to be. From here on in, the name of the game is patience. Now, tell me things about yourselves that we didn’t talk about back there in the conference room. Tell me about your hopes and your dreams and what you want for the future.” Annie, you don’t know it yet, but you are going to be the fairy godmother of all time. She wished she could tell these young women about Annie, Myra, the other Sisters, and Charles just to wipe the haunted look from their eyes.