“What mental state are they in when they’ve been rescued?”
“You name it,” Martin said. “Depressed, suicidal, angry, confused. Some spend weeks at a time not knowing what to believe, simply because their concept of right and wrong has been thrown into a tailspin. Think about it. For as long as they’ve been with the cult, the cult has made all their decisions for them - what to eat, what to read, what to say, what to believe. Their ability to think and reason has been carefully manipulated to benefit the cult and its leaders. They’ve basically surrendered their will, so re-establishing their identity as individuals with the right to freedom of expression and self-governance is extremely difficult. They feel tremendously alienated from their families, and they’re scared to death of not living in accordance to the rules and constructs they’ve become accustomed to. It’s a difficult period of adjustment for everyone, especially their families. But once they’ve been through the deprogramming process and their wall of resistance comes down, and you get that person back, whole again, it’s a wonderful feeling.”
“What do you think motivates them to get involved with the cult in the first place?”
“Could be many reasons. Some are street kids desperate to call any place home, and the cult is only too pleased to welcome them. Others come from extremely wealthy families or are college students introduced to recruiters by their friends on campus. But it’s usually the doctrine of the group that is their primary reason for getting involved. After they’re in, it’s pretty much impossible to get them out. Abusive cults immediately set about isolating them from the outside world and insist they find the answers to their questions and problems from within the group itself. They hammer their ideologies and beliefs into their mind. Pretty soon they’ve become brainwashed into believing they can’t say or do anything without the approval of an elder or group leader. To do otherwise would risk disapproval, punishment, ex-communication, or possibly even death.”
“It’s hard to believe that one individual could be so charismatic that they hold such extreme influence over so many,” Claire said.
“Not when you’re desperate for love and attention,” Martin said. “If the people you call family show their affection for you by beating you senseless routinely, it becomes easy to see how a person could eagerly attach themselves to an individual or group willing to show them compassion and respect. When you’re at your weakest and meet people who demonstrate by their words and actions that they care for you, you won’t just walk to them, you’ll run to them. It’s only after you’re in that the pressure to conform and the isolation, interdependence and mind games begin. That’s when they have you. By that time, you’ll do whatever they tell you in exchange for continued acceptance. Just look at what happened to my wife, Anne. She was an intelligent, well-educated woman. But when they got inside her head and began pushing the right buttons, she didn’t have a chance, and she paid for it with her life.” Martin paused. “Believe me, Claire. There’s no way in hell we’re going to let that happen to Amanda.”
23
FORTY-FIVE MINUTES later the city of Sacramento came into view, at once disappearing then re-appearing in rhythmic intervals as the swish-swish of the windshield wipers swept away the last remnants of a brief sun shower.
“We’re here,” Martin said as he brought the SUV to a stop at the gates of a stunning turn-of-the-century Victorian home.
“This is it?” Claire asked.
Martin smiled. “Not exactly what you envisioned, is it?”
“Well, I…”
“You were expecting a little more brass and glass, perhaps?”
“Yes,” Claire replied. “I suppose I was.”
“Well, as they say, looks can be deceiving,” Martin said. “This is not just any house. It’s a safe house. No one gets in here without their identity first being authenticated.”
Martin drew Claire’s attention to one of several tall metal poles atop which sat a rectangular white box positioned at a downward angle. She watched as they turned slowly from left then right, panning the grounds.
“This place is as technologically advanced as it gets, from intruder-sensing perimeter security devices buried beneath the ground throughout the property to those day and night-vision cameras you see scanning us as we speak. As soon as I entered the driveway from the road and approached the gates, that camera zoomed in on my license plate and ran it through the DMV. The staff inside would have identified to whom the vehicle belongs even before I’ve come to a full stop.”
An eight-foot wall of wrought-iron fencing surrounded the property. On Martin’s left a camera whined, then turned in his direction. A speaker mounted in a stone column crackled to life. “Good afternoon, Mr. Belgrade.” The voice was courteous, the tone professional, yet undoubtedly all business. “Please speak into the microphone for voice print verification and identify your passenger.”
“Belgrade, Martin K. Security clearance FBB122903. My passenger is Dr. Claire Prescott. Mark Oyama is expecting us.”
“Thank you. Please wait,” the voice said. Seconds later the wheel-mounted security gates clicked open, rolled aside, and permitted them access to the grounds.
“Please proceed,” the voice said.
Martin drove through the gate and down the winding driveway. The lawns were perfectly manicured, lush and green, as though excruciating attention had been paid to each blade of grass. Tall trees lined the driveway like century-old sentinels. Landscaped flowerbeds adorned the lawn in tiered, scalloped rows. The house reminded Claire of a stately mansion, wedding-white with gingerbread molding and hourglass curtains, the windows flanked by gloss-black hurricane shutters. A large verandah surrounded the main floor of the home. Martin parked in front of the entrance and opened the side door of the Navigator. Maggy bounded out, barked, and charged playfully across the lawn.
The screen door opened. A man greeted them. “Good to see you again, Martin,” he said. “This must be the young lady you spoke about on the phone.”
“Indeed, she is,” Martin replied. “Dr. Claire Prescott, I’d like you to meet Mark Oyama, a good friend of mine and one of the finest special agents the FBI was ever unfortunate enough to lose to early retirement.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Agent Oyama,” Claire said.
“Likewise,” Oyama replied. “But please call me Mark. I left the title behind when I left the Bureau, although it still comes in handy once in a while if I need to throw a little weight around.”
Maggy barked and ran to the porch, her tail wagging madly.
“Hey, Maggs!” Mark said as he kneeled to greet her. “How’s my good girl?”
Maggy pressed her body tightly against him and nudged her head under his hand. Mark smoothed her coat, scratched behind her ears. It was only a matter of seconds before the retriever lay sprawled on her back, having successfully negotiated her way into receiving a first-rate belly rub.
Martin laughed. “Looks like somebody missed you.”
Maggy lifted her head and licked his face. “I think you might be right,” Mark laughed. “Okay, come on, girl. Let’s go inside.” Maggy shuffled to her feet, pranced to the door, and pawed at the screen.
“I bet I know what you want,” Mark said as he opened the door. “Okay. Away you go. Justin’s downstairs. He’ll give you one of your treats.” Maggy barked happily, ran inside, and raced to the downstairs offices.
Mark held the door as Martin and Claire entered the house.
“My goodness,” Claire said, impressed by the period décor of the elaborately appointed home. “This is beautiful.”
“Thank you. Or I suppose I should say, thank you Martin. Without his endowment this place would never have been possible.”
Claire turned to Martin. “Your endowment?”
Martin smiled. “I helped a little.”
“A little?” Mark said. “Let me put this into perspective for you, Dr. Prescott, since Martin is obviously too humble to admit it. This place, our organization it
self, would never have happened without his philanthropy. Everyone who has ever been helped by us owes a direct debt of gratitude to our friend Mr. Belgrade here. The non-profit foundation he established pays the bills and all our expenses. But knowing Martin as I do, he probably forgot to mention that little tidbit of information, didn’t he?”
“Only one-hundred percent of what you just told me.”
“He’s a pretty quiet guy,” Mark joked. “He doesn’t like to call a lot of attention to himself.”
“Author… philanthropist,” Claire teased. “Any other surprises I should know about? You don’t preside over a small country in your spare time, do you?”
“Very funny,” Martin replied. “Thankfully, I’m in a position to help, so I do. It’s really that simple.”
“And we appreciate the help very much,” Mark said. He gestured towards the dining room. They seated themselves around a mahogany table so heavily polished that Claire could see her reflection in its surface as though she were looking into a mirror. “Now that you’re here, what can we do for you?”
From the car, Martin had brought with him a copy of his book, Heaven on Earth. He opened it to a picture taken in a farming field. “I need to know a few things about this picture.”
“Sure,” Mark said. “Like what?”
“Like who took it, and when and where it was taken.”
Mark nodded. “That shouldn’t be difficult to find out. We’ll have the information on file, either in hard copy or in our database. I’ll have Justin look it up for you. But somehow I feel you didn’t drive all the way from Santa Clara just to talk about this picture. I have a copy of this book in my study. You could just as easily have asked me for that information over the phone.”
“You’re right,” Martin replied. “It’s the girl in the picture we’re concerned about. She may be a missing person. Claire believes it could be her sister, Amanda. We need to confirm if that’s true.”
“What do you want us to do?”
“Did you bring along a picture of Amanda with you, Claire?” Martin asked.
“Of course,” Claire replied. She reached into her purse for the picture. In her haste, she hadn’t taken the time to remove it from its frame.
Martin removed the picture and handed it to Mark. “Do we have the technology to compare the picture in my book against Claire’s?”
“You bet,” Mark replied. “Justin can run a probability analysis on both photographs to verify or deny the similarities. We use the same software forensic labs do to perform modeling analysis. By inputting both pictures into the computer, we’ll be able to tell if these individuals are, in fact, one and the same person.”
“Even with the age difference?” Martin asked. “There’s several years between the appearance of the girls in these pictures.” He placed his finger on the image of a second individual in the picture. “There’s also some suspicion that this guy, Joseph Krebeck, may be responsible for Amanda and Claire’s parents’ death.”
Mark leaned forward in his chair. “What makes you suspect that?”
Claire interjected. “One of my patients told me.”
“Then let’s not sit around wasting any more time,” Mark replied. “Let’s head to the lab and check it out.”
24
THE QUAINT CHARM of the heritage home ended abruptly at the bottom of the stairs. The basement was a startling contrast of high technology, outfitted with the latest in computer systems and high-tech gadgetry. On the far wall of the room, headshot photos filled a large display screen.
“Who are all those people?” Claire asked.
“Surveillance subjects,” an unseen voice announced.
Across the room, a young man slid his chair out from behind his workstation, walked over and introduced himself.
“I’m Justin Dale, Mark’s partner in crime. These are pictures of people we’re building intelligence profiles and databases on. Some we know a little about already, but most of these faces are new.”
“How did you get them?” Claire asked.
“By various means,” Justin explained. “Some are taken by our field operatives. Others we download when LEWIS tells us it’s found a match.”
“LEWIS?”
“Law Enforcement Web-based Internet Surveillance,” Justin explained. “It’s a computer program that scans all major media and newswire services around the world for information based on keywords we specify in our search criteria. When we get a hit, our computers transfer that information to a master database, and a message flag comes up on my screen. We compare the new information to what we have on file and update our records accordingly. It helps us keep on top of key people or groups internationally, while assisting with our current investigations.”
Mark interjected. “We can track anyone in our database at any given time. There are over one hundred field operatives in our organization whose job it is to monitor the activities of anti-government and political dissident groups in specific geographic regions all over the world. They feed us reports on a weekly basis.”
“Amazing,” Claire replied. “How do they get their information?”
“Covertly. They operate in deep cover, which means they’ve gained the confidence of key people in the group and infiltrated it. They then report back to us on the group’s activities when it’s safe to do so. We share that information with federal and international authorities in return for their help when we need it.”
“So, you’re sort of a spy agency.”
Justin smiled. “I suppose you could call us that.”
“How much do you know about a group called The Brethren?”
“Not much,” Justin replied. “Most cults maintain a primary base of operations. The Brethren are what we refer to as a gypsy cult because they move around a lot. Truthfully, they’re pretty tough to keep tabs on.”
“But you can find them, can’t you?”
“It won’t be easy, but yes, we can track them down.”
Mark handed Justin the photograph of Amanda, which Claire had given him. “I need you to run a biometric comparison on these two pictures. We need to confirm if they’re the same person.”
“Duck soup,” Justin replied. He explained to Claire how the identification process worked as they walked to a nearby computer station. “The computer will run an analysis on both pictures. It will compare each image for similarities, like the width of the face, distance between the eyes, plus any general anomalies like scarring, birthmarks, and so on. Depending on how good the photographs are that we have to work with, the system will try to find verification matches on seven hundred and fifty random points of reference.”
While the computer scanned both photographs, the word PROCESSING flashed on the bottom of the screen. Within seconds it was replaced with the words ANALYSIS COMPLETE. A laser printer beside the computer terminal whined. A sheet of paper fell from the machine onto the receiving tray.
Justin examined the report. “Based on the photographs provided and factoring in computerized enhancements to compensate for age difference, the probability that the girl in Martin’s photograph and the one in your picture are the same person is 99.9 percent.”
“Then I’m right,” Claire exclaimed. “It is Amanda!”
Justin nodded. “There’s no denying it.” He patted the computer terminal. “The software under the hood of this baby doesn’t lie. The girl in this photograph absolutely is Amanda Prescott.”
25
VIRGIL LUTT WAS a simple man who yearned for a simple life. His aspirations never included gratifying an insatiable need to unravel the mysteries of the human genome or designing supercomputers capable of mapping distant regions of the galaxy. All he and his wife Sky ever wanted was to be left in peace, to live life on their own terms, and to raise their only child, Blessing, in an environment where love, honesty, mutual respect and an unfailing belief in the existence of a higher power was as accepted as the sun’s unfailing promise to rise each day. To Virgil, the outside world was co
rrupt, its inhabitants’ populous lesions occupying a host body which had been permitted to fester and decay despite being tested repeatedly, yet never given to the common sense realization that such repeated acts of collective faithlessness cannot go unpunished forever, that those actions would one day bring about unimaginable consequences, and that time was running out.
With the wick of humanity’s pre-eminent destruction burning steadily to the quick, Virgil and his family had traveled across the country in search of a new Eden. Now, in the waning hours of the afternoon as he attached the stretcher unit to the last of the wooden line posts and slowly tightened and nailed the final yard of barbed wire securely into place, Virgil knew in his heart he was finally home.
Satisfied, he stood back and surveyed the last half-mile of finished barricade.
“Go ahead,” Fallon said. “You do the honors.”
Virgil stepped forward and affixed a painted wooden plank that read POSITIVELY NO TRESPASSING to the top wire. He adjusted the sign until it hung perfectly centered between the posts.
“Hard to believe, isn’t it?” Virgil said, contemplation weighing heavily in his voice. He leaned against the fence and surveyed the rolling hillside, watching as twilight crept up from the foot of the rugged mountain valley. Basking in the dying breath of daylight, Mount Horning stood red-faced in the distance, its quiet majesty guarded by the echoing cries of a lone hawk spiraling above, lifted higher and higher on unseen thermal updrafts.
“How’s that?” Fallon replied. He picked up a rock, lobbed it up and down, tested its heft, aimed for the trunk of a distant tree, threw it. The stone found its mark with a muffled thump.
“Look around you,” Virgil said. “For years I only dreamed about this. I never thought I’d see the day my family and I would live in a place like this with so much land to call our own.”
“I suppose,” Fallon replied matter-of-factly. He ran a hand through his wiry black hair. “Personally, I had no doubt we’d end up here. It was only a matter of time before Prophet found what he was looking for. He’s true to his word. Always has been. And I’ve known him a very long time.”
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