The Cult

by Arno Joubert

  The lift vibrated to a grinding halt and Neil dragged the guy out by the elbow, bouncing him along.

  “Who are they?” Neil asked Gonzales as he shoved him out of the glass doors.

  Three men carrying baseball bats were leaning against Neil’s car. They wore bandanas on their heads, and had leather jackets, the sleeves cut off at the shoulders.

  The guy on the right pushed himself away from the car and sauntered forward, tapping the bat in his hand. He was taller than the other men and walked with a confident swagger in his step, chewing gum with an open mouth. Probably the ring leader.

  “Come on guys, those outfits are so nineties,” Neil said.

  “Let go of Danny and we might kill you quickly,” the guy said with a smirk.

  Neil had had enough of this. He pointed his Glock at the man’s head and blew his brains out.

  The other two guys looked at each other sheepishly before turning around and scampering away, running in a zig-zag pattern along the blacktop, probably thinking that was going to make them more difficult to hit.

  “Next time remember to bring appropriate weapons,” Neil shouted as they scampered away.

  Gonzales stared at the man on the ground, his mouth agape. “What the hell—“

  Neil opened the back door and shoved the man inside. “Shut up.”

  He turned around and scanned the road. “Now, where the hell are you, Miss Guerra?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Alexa charged down the stairs, preparing to sidestep the stoned guy on the third floor when his arm shot out and he grabbed her leg with a gnarled hand. “Hey, man, what’re you doin’ here?”

  Large pupils in heavily-lidded eye sockets darted to and fro, like someone waking from a perplexing dream. Alexa yanked herself free and strode past the man, not bothering with an answer. He pushed himself up, holding onto the railing for support before bellowing at the top of his lungs. “Intruder alert, intruder alert, third floor.” He stumbled up the stairs and crashed through the doors to the fourth floor.

  Alexa slowed down, glancing over her shoulder. She shook her head. “Strange.”

  She stopped dead in her tracks when she heard the announcement. “We have an intruder on the third level stairwell. All tenants to battle stations,” the man’s voice crackled loudly over a PA system. “One month’s free rent to the killer.”

  Alexa placed her hands on her hips. “What the hell?”

  She shook her head again and continued skipping down the stairwell when the door to the second floor burst open. A motley crew of men bearing an assortment of weapons started piling into the flight of stairs, forcing Alexa to turn around and make her way up again. They whooped and cheered behind her as she made it past the third floor and halfway to the fourth when the door above her burst open as well and another dozen lowlifes piled into the stairwell above her. What the hell? She needed to get into open space, there was no way she was going to fight her way through this ragtag bunch.

  She yanked open the door of the third floor. The tramp was still standing beside the entrance, holding the PA system’s phone to his mouth. “Thanks, pal,” Alexa shouted as she bolted down the passageway.

  He shrugged.

  She turned left, heading towards a window to the back of the building, hoping to make her escape that way.

  She passed a dozen doors to her left and right, finally skidding to a halt in front of a window at the end of the passage. A window that led to the exit and to her freedom. A window that had been welded shut with metal bars.

  Shit.

  She glanced back as the men poured out of the stairwell and approached her slowly. The first guy charged and she finished him off with a bullet to the head. One.

  She looked around again, weighing her options. Three men stormed her way, and her gun barked as she fired a quick volley of shots. Two went down and the third stumbled as the bullet grazed his shoulder. He glanced at his wound and charged again, his machete raised above his head and a blood-curdling scream erupting from his throat. It faded into a burbly rasp as Alexa shot him in the neck.

  Five.

  More men charged. Rent must have been a bitch if they were all willing to die for a free month.

  She fired five more shots, killing three men and wounding a fourth. She shoulder-charged a guy that got through and rammed the butt of the Glock up, catching him flush on the chin. She finished the wounded guy up by crunching a boot into his head. The passageway was piling up with bodies, and Alexa stood, panting, trying to catch her breath.

  Ten.

  Her phone rang and she slipped it from her pocket, trying to catch her breath. She checked the number, it was Neil. “Hello?”

  “Alexa, what’s keeping you?”

  “I’m kind of busy right now.”

  “Why? What’s wrong?”

  She cursed. “Look, I’ll phone you back,” she said and disconnected the call.

  She had six more bullets left. The gangsters stood back, taking cover behind corners, peering around, being more careful now. Alexa ducked as a hand holding a pistol appeared around the corner and a salvo of bullets exploded into the window above her.

  She glanced around again, assessing her options and made up her mind. She stood back and kicked the door closest to her, the impact jarring through her leg. It was never as damned easy as Neil made it look. She fired four shots at the door lock and kicked again. It swung open easily and banged against the inside wall.

  She cautiously entered the room, scanning it, her weapon held ready. A young woman stood in the living area, her lips trembling with fear. A boy stood in front of her, the woman’s hands on his shoulders, his eyes squeezed shut and his hands over his ears.

  Alexa grabbed a plastic chair from the dining room table, a rickety looking thing, slammed the door shut and wedged the chair below the door handle. That would give her two seconds, max.

  She noticed an open window behind the woman and bolted to it, peered outside. It led to a fire escape and she climbed out. She looked back over her shoulder as the door burst open and a gangster bustled into the room, glancing around and noticing her. Alexa dispatched him with a single shot to the forehead. “Sorry about this,” she mumbled to the terrified woman.

  She started clanging down the stairs, made it to the second floor when a wild-eyed guy popped his head out of a window below her and smiled a toothless grin up at her. “Where do you think you’re going, chica?”

  Alexa used her last bullet and the guy slumped onto the windowsill.

  She glanced up. Men were pushing and shoving to get ahead of each other, stumbling and falling their way down the metal stairs. They must have really liked the place to feel so protective over it.

  She skipped to the landing of the last floor and slid down the ladder to the ground, landing on her feet. She looked around again, trying to find her bearings as the men hurled obscenities at her from above, pointing excitedly.

  She scrambled around a corner and into an alleyway to the side of the building. Two guys with bandanas on their heads stood in the alleyway, peering around the corner. They ripped their heads back when they saw her. Shit, she didn’t have time for this. She stood ready, assessing her opponents. They looked scared.

  “You looking for the big guy in the Impala?” one of the men asked.

  She nodded.

  They pointed over their shoulders. “He’s that way,” the one guy said, his hands in front of his chest, palms out.

  She skipped down the alley, ignoring them, and made a right towards the main drag and spotted Neil, looking up at the windows, hands on his hips.

  “Neil,” she shouted, out of breath.

  He turned to face her. “Where were you?” he asked, glancing at his watch. “I’ve been waiting for ages.”

  She jogged past and headed toward the car. “Sorry, I got held up by some angry tenants.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Hurry.”

  Neil looked at her and then back at the gangsters bolting toward them, turned on h
is heel and sprinted to catch up with her. “I see you made some new friends.”

  They jumped into the car and Neil accelerated away, tires squealing. “What happened back there?”

  Alexa took a deep breath and combed her hair back with her fingers. “Someone offered those idiots a free month’s rent if they caught me.” She glanced at the rearview before adjusting it to take a good look at the dark-headed man. “Who’s he?”

  Neil pulled on his seat belt. “The landlord, I guess.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Timothy Casanellas grunted as he strained with effort. His muscled body trembled as he heaved himself up on the pull-up bars hooked to the doorframe. He touched the bar with his chin. “Two-hundred,” he grunted and dropped to the floor. He stood, leaning over, arms hanging down as he rolled his shoulders, shaking with the effort.

  He grabbed a towel from the sofa and tossed it over his shoulder, ambled to the kitchen and removed a carton of milk and two eggs from the fridge. He broke the eggs into a glass and topped it up with the milk before swallowing the concoction in three large gulps.

  The doorbell rang and he strode to the door, opened it, rubbing his neck with the towel. “Ah, Deacon Muscelli, how are you?” He stood back, holding the door open. “Please, do come in.”

  The man entered Casanellas apartment with a nod. “Thank you, Father. Training again?”

  Casanellas chuckled. “Oh, you know what they say about our bodies being a temple, Deacon.”

  The man nodded but didn’t answer, seemingly preoccupied.

  “Still deciding on whether or not to take the sacred vow?” Casanellas asked with a grin. “How is the girl, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  Muscelli shook his head. “It’s over.” He waved a hand. “I’ve decided to commit my life to God.”

  “You sure? A life of celibacy is a difficult endeavor.”

  The man nodded, lips pursed, seemingly deep in thought. He frowned as he looked up at Father Casanellas. “Alas, that is not why I am here.”

  “What is wrong, young man?”

  The deacon pursed his lips, hesitated. “Father Edward Watson was found dead earlier this evening in his hotel room.”

  Casanellas put his hand on his mouth, lifted his eyebrows. “That cannot be. I saw him but a couple of hours ago.”

  The deacon put a sympathetic hand on Casanellas’ shoulder. “I’m sorry, Father. The Pope has requested that you assist the police with the investigation as you have done in the past with similar cases.”

  Casanellas nodded grimly.

  “You sure you are up to this? I know you had close contact with the man.”

  Casanellas took a deep breath. “I…I just need some time to process the information, I think.”

  Muscelli nodded compassionately, squeezed his shoulder. “I understand, Father. The Pope said that you should take as much time as you need.”

  Casanellas flopped down in his sofa and waited for the man to close the door behind him as he left. He picked up the phone and dialed a three-code number. “Hello, Brother John. Please ask the kitchen to have my meal sent to my room. I would prefer to eat alone this evening.”

  He placed the phone back on the cradle, walked to the bathroom and ran himself a bath. “Disgusting bastard.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Joe Di Mardi pushed the disconnect button on the phone and threw it with all his might against the statue of Isis. The girls ducked as it shattered into hundreds of pieces against the sculpture. “Damn imbecile,” he shouted, trying to reel in his anger.

  “Girls, out,” Benjamin Lamont ordered.

  Four girls wearing bikini’s clambered out of the heated tub and picked up their glasses of champagne, hurrying towards the cloak rooms.

  Lamont raised an eyebrow. “What’s wrong, Joe?”

  Di Mardi bit his lip, his hands tucked into his armpits. “That idiot Olsen put out a hit on two agents who were sniffing around at the Gateway Commune.”

  Lamont shrugged. “So what? We do it all the time.”

  Di Mardi turned to Lamont, fine beads of sweat on his upper lip, his nostrils flaring. “He used Jack.”

  Lamont frowned. “Okay?”

  “The agents managed to take him into custody and they somehow found out the address to the Facility.”

  Lamont sat up. “Did they find anything?”

  “No, the tenants managed to chase them away.”

  Lamont closed his eyes, blew out a breath. “Thanks be to Isis.”

  “But they got Gonzales.”

  Lamont stood up, sloshing water over the edge of the pool. “How the hell did they manage that? How many cops went with them?”

  Di Mardi chewed his lip, frowning. “Only the two of them. They simply marched upstairs and grabbed him.”

  “Impossible.”

  Joe Di Mardi rubbed the back of his neck. “Ten men dead, three injured.”

  “Shit.”

  Di Mardi glanced up at Lamont. “Think Gonzales is going to let them in on our little secret?”

  Lamont’s eyes narrowed. He shook his head slowly, formulating his answer. “Not on his life. He knows what’s good for him.”

  “Think we should take that chance?”

  Benjamin Lamont splashed his shoulders with the warm water then wiped his face with both hands. “I’ll take care of it.”

  Di Mardi sighed, leaned back in the tub and closed his eyes. “Gonzales was one of the best we’ve had, I’m going to miss him.” He glanced up at Lamont and smiled. “Thanks, Benjamin.”

  Lamont nodded and climbed out of the tub. “That’s what I’m here for, Joe.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Neil glanced at Alexa as they strode toward the interview room. “Want to be the good cop?”

  “I better.”

  Neil smirked. “Why, you afraid you going to do something you’ll regret?”

  “You never know.” She nudged his shoulder. “I’m over that, I’ll be a good girl from now on.”

  Neil cast her an amused glance. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

  The previous time she had questioned a man, she had almost strangled the suspect to death, had broken the lead investigator’s nose and Neil had managed to narrowly escape being beaten up when he had tried to intervene.

  She glanced at him, tucking her fringe behind an ear. “The guy wasn’t talking, what did you expect me to do?”

  “Take some notes, Captain. This is how the pros do it.” Neil opened the door and held it for Alexa. He strode over to where Gonzales was seated and promptly flipped the table over, the man’s cup of coffee spilling onto the ground and splashing over his shoes. Neil slipped his gun from his holster and pushed it against the man’s temple. “Now you better bloody-well tell me what I want to hear, or I’ll blow your goddamn head off, pal!”

  Alexa put her hands on her cheeks as she shrieked. “Superintendent, don’t hurt him.”

  He cast Alexa a sidelong glance. “I don’t intend to hurt him, Captain. I’m going to kill the bastard.”

  She grabbed his arm. “Please don’t tell me you forgot to take your meds this morning.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Screw my meds,” he hissed.

  She tried to yank his arm from the man’s shoulder. “Please don’t, Superintendent. Interpol won’t be able to cover up another interrogation gone wrong.”

  Gonzales’ face contorted in fear, his lower lip trembling. “Please, please don’t hurt me.”

  “Why did you put a hit on me, asshole?” Neil growled and jammed the gun into the guy’s temple.

  Gonzales scrunched his eyes closed. “I didn’t, I swear. I was the middle-man,” he said, close to tears.

  “Gimme a name, punk.”

  The man lips trembled as he shook his head. “I’ll be a dead man.”

  Neil cocked the gun. “You’re already a dead man, punk.”

  “Okay, okay. His name was Olsen. Ted Olsen.”

  “Who does he work for?” Alexa asked. />
  Neil looked at her irritably and she mouthed a silent apology.

  “Who does he work for?” Neil asked, jamming the gun into the petrified man’s cheek.

  Neil stood back with a frown when Gonzales started gagging, grabbing his neck. A thick golden chain which he wore around his neck started smoking and then fizzed into an eye-blindingly white ball of flames.

  Neil held his hands up defensively. “It wasn’t me, I swear.”

  “Get the chain off him,” Alexa shouted, slipping out of her leather jacket and wrapping it around her hand, trying to rip the chain off.

  Neil inserted the barrel of his gun between the chain and them man’s neck, then yanked it off. A piece of smoldering ash landed on his hand and he shook it off. “Ow, shit,” Neil shouted, sucking the wound.

  “You okay?” Alexa asked, examining the burnt ashes on the linoleum tiles.

  Neil nodded. “Yeah, I’ll make it. I can’t say the same for Mister Gonzales over there, though.”

  What remained of Gonzales’ face was contorted into a pained grimace, charred black, patches of smoking hair still sticking to the bubbling skin.

  Alexa kneeled beside the dead man and examined what had remained of the chain. “Thermite,” she said, pushing away the smoldering ashes with a ballpoint pen. She scratched a small clip out of the ashes. “Remotely detonated, I guess.”

  Neil shook his head. “Shit, what an awful way to die,” he muttered.

  Alexa nodded, slowly, chewing her lip. “Imagine the sick, demented psychopath who made this,” Alexa said, scrunching up her face.

  Neil pressed a fist against his mouth and puffed out his cheeks, but said nothing.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Bishop McGill held his hands in the air, arms outstretched, palms open, reciting the Lord’s blessing to his parishioners.

  And the blessing of God almighty,

  the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,

  be among you and remain with you always.

  The gathering didn’t have a chance to say Amen as the church doors swung open and Jeremy Calloway bounded down the aisle.