The Frank Peretti Collection

by Frank E. Peretti

  Henchle followed the paved, circular driveway to the front of the house, and Parker followed Henchle. Some curtains moved, shadows hurrying behind them, and Parker quit smiling. With a glance, he checked the shotgun mounted against the dash. This wasn’t a high crime district. They weren’t busting this guy for weapons violations, crack cocaine, or bank robbery. Even so, Nichols had plenty of friends up here, it was dark, and as yet Parker hadn’t seen a face, friendly or otherwise. If these people were armed— Without warning, the rear window of his car shattered. He saw the flash of a muzzle from a living room window. He flopped down for cover, his hand wrapping around the shotgun.

  Another shot. Breaking glass. That had to have been Henchle’s car.

  Parker stole a look. There was a shadow in the window, the outline of someone’s head.

  He saw a flash, and heard three shots. The right side of Parker’s windshield shattered. Another shot pinged off his fender.

  The situation: an armed assailant in the house in front, a whole community of hostile campers behind. Not workable. “Henchle, let’s get out of here!”

  Henchle’s engine roared and his tires squealed. Parker jammed his own car into gear, his head just high enough to follow Henchle in a tight one-eighty away from the house and down the driveway.

  Two more shots just missed as he went over the rise.

  His radio squawked, and the dispatcher came on. Something about a body being found on the Macon ranch . . .

  I WAS BACK ON THE HIGHWAY, racing toward town and just coming by the main entrance to the ranch when I saw the lights of two vehicles speeding down the driveway. When they reached the highway they spun around, halted, and lit up all the lights they had. I slowed. Cops. Just what we needed.

  Kyle got reception. He was talking to the 911 operator. “Yeah, Macon ranch. He has followers up there and—”

  “Looks like Henchle,” I said. “And the sheriff.”

  I pulled up and stopped. Sheriff Parker ran up to my window.

  “Get outta here! You’re in a crime scene!”

  “We’re at the entrance now,” Kyle said into the phone.

  “The caller is at the entrance now,” said Parker’s radio.

  “We’re the ones who called in!” I said.

  “My wife is up there!” Jim yelled.

  Parker turned from us and replied to his shoulder mike, “Say again.”

  “I think we’re talking to the sheriff now,” said Kyle.

  “The caller says he’s talking to a sheriff right now,” said Parker’s radio.

  Parker’s smirk showed the extent of his amusement. “Okay, I got ’em. They’re right here in front of me. How’s that backup?”

  “En route.”

  He turned to us. “All right, what’ve you got?”

  Both Parker and Henchle were ready to listen. We tumbled out of the Trooper and then stumbled over each other’s sentences trying to tell our story: Morgan/Dee/hostages/buried car/dead Brandon/cult situation/dangerous.

  Henchle sniffed a bitter chuckle. “We came up here to arrest him for assault. The Sally Fordyce thing.”

  “He’s got Morgan,” I repeated.

  “And he’s got Dee,” Jim hollered.

  “So we’ve got problems,” said Parker. “We need to contain the area. Where’s that other road onto the ranch?”

  Kyle pulled out Michael’s map of the ranch and Parker studied it with his flashlight, speaking into his shoulder mike. “North 102, mile marker 20. Look for a gate.” He asked us, “How far does this road penetrate before it splits?”

  “About three miles,” I replied.

  “How far to the ranch house from there?”

  I had to admit I didn’t know. Michael didn’t tell us.

  Brett Henchle had a cell phone of his own. He was flipping through his notepad. “I’ve got the ranch’s number here somewhere . . .”

  I saw flashing lights come around the distant corner to the south and more coming over the horizon to the north. Parker was getting his backup.

  “Kyle.” I reached for my phone, still in Kyle’s hand. I punched in my home number. “I’ll get Michael on the phone. Maybe he can tell us some of the distances on that map.”

  Brett Henchle got through. “Hello? This is Henchle, Antioch police. Who am I speaking to? Matt?”

  We looked at each other. Matt Kiley!

  “Matt, this Brett Henchle. Somebody just shot at us.” Brett crinkled his forehead. He was hearing a bad response. “Now just calm down. You don’t have to shoot anybody, nobody’s going to do anything that stupid. We’re going to talk about it, that’s all.”

  I wasn’t getting an answer at home. I ended the call. “Is Morgan up there?”

  “What about Dee?” asked Jim.

  “Put your sidearm in your vehicle and leave it there,” Parker warned.

  “Is Morgan Elliott up there with you?” Brett asked. “Travis Jordan wants to know.” He heard an answer, then handed me the phone. “He wants to talk to you.”

  “Hello, Matt?”

  Matt’s voice was agitated, his words rapid, as if he were back in the foxholes of Vietnam. “They aren’t coming anywhere near Brandon, Travis! If they come up here I’ll shoot ’em!”

  “Okay, okay. Listen, nobody’s moving right now, we’re just sitting down here trying to figure out what to do. . . .”

  “They’re not going to arrest him! That man gave me my legs!”

  “Okay. Message received. Matt, can I, can I talk to, uh, Brandon? Can you get him for me?”

  “He’s here. He’s here in the house.”

  “Well can I talk to him?”

  “He’s on the other line.”

  “What other line?”

  “You know, the other line, line two. We’ve got two lines up here.”

  Who in the world could he be talking to?

  “What’s he saying?” Brett Henchle wanted to know.

  I waved to Brett and the others to stand by. “Uh, Matt, have you seen Morgan? Is she all right?”

  “Dee!” Jim whispered at me.

  “How should I know?” Matt came back.

  “Well is she there?”

  “DEE!” Jim hissed.

  “No. She’s not here. Dee’s here.”

  “She’s there,” I told Jim.

  Jim tried to grab the phone, yelling at it, “She’d better be all right, you hear me? You touch her and I’ll kill you, so help me God!”

  With Kyle’s gentle help I got the phone back. “Sorry, Matt.

  You’ve got some folks really upset down here.”

  “Dee’s okay,” said Matt. “Tell Jim she’s okay.”

  “She’s okay,” I told him.

  “But I’m gonna do what I gotta do, Trav. I mean, I lost my legs once trying to fix the world, and I can do it again.”

  “I understand.”

  Brett took the phone back. “Yeah, Matt? This is Henchle. Listen, we’ve got no gripe with you. But Nichols has some really terrible things to answer for, some things you don’t know about.

  No, I’m not lying. Matt, come on, you don’t want to be an accessory. All you have to do is put your gun down and walk out of there. . . .”

  “Why aren’t we talking to Nichols?” Parker asked.

  “He’s on another line,” I said. “The ranch has two lines.”

  “Well let’s get the number!” He started signaling Brett.

  Other cars were arriving, lining the highway shoulder with lights flashing. State police and sheriff’s deputies were blocking off the highway, working the airwaves, scrambling for containment.

  I got my own phone out, praying that Morgan would be at home.

  “How many hostages are up there?” a patrolman asked me.

  “Well . . .” I had to turn my phone off in the middle of Morgan’s number. “It’s a religious group. There are hostages and there are followers. I don’t know how many of each, how many are being held there and how many want to be there.”

 
“Oh great.”

  “There could be as many as a hundred followers. There’s a whole RV park up there.”

  “Jonestown all over again.”

  “Maybe.”

  The patrolman moved on, barking orders to subordinates. I’d never seen so many cops appear so suddenly in the middle of the prairie. I punched in Morgan’s number again.

  “TRAVIS?”

  I almost collapsed from relief. “Morgan! Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. I just came in the door.”

  “How are you? Where are you?” That conniving liar, I thought.

  Sheriff Parker butted in. “Where’s the guy who drew the map?”

  “Hang on, Morgan.” To Parker, “Uh, I’ve got his mother on the phone right now.”

  “Does he know the layout of the house and grounds? If he does, we need to get him up here. We’ll send a squad car if he needs a ride.”

  “All right. Morgan?”

  “Yes, Travis.” She sounded impatient.

  “I’m at the ranch—well, down on the highway in front of it.”

  More sheriff’s deputies arrived, then some formidable police vans.

  I could see police officers in flak vests and helmets hustling up the hill in the dark, fanning out to contain the house and the RV village. “The place is swarming with cops.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’m okay. I’m shaking a bit, but I’m okay.”

  MORGAN DROPPED INTO THE CHAIR nearest the door, not bothering to take off her coat, a flurry of dark possibilities at the threshold of her imagination. “Tell me what happened.”

  She heard a quick recap of our excavation, what we found, and how all hell was breaking loose at the ranch even as we spoke. She didn’t hear about Cantwell’s boast regarding her.

  “Travis, can you leave? I want you to come home—I mean, go home—I just want you out of there and safe.”

  “I’m safe, Morgan.”

  “I want to see you safe.”

  “We need Michael.”

  “Travis, we are not talking about Michael, we are talking about you and where you are and how I feel about where you are!”

  “The police need to know the layout of the house—you know, rooms, hallways, how to get in and out. Michael would know that, and he’s good at drawing maps.”

  Take a breath, Morgan, take a breath. “I’m not sure where he is.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I called your house but he didn’t answer.”

  “Oh brother. I tried calling him too. No answer.”

  She was trying not to worry. She was failing. “I’m going over there. He might be asleep. He’s a sound sleeper.”

  “Hey, that’s what we can do: Swing by there and get him and then both of you come up here.”

  “You can’t be serious!”

  PARKER WAS STANDING right by me, waiting.

  “Morgan . . .” I still had Cantwell’s vicious boast in my mind.

  “I’d feel better if you were here. I mean, I’m surrounded by police, and right now I’d rather you and Michael were too.”

  “You got him?” Parker wanted to know.

  “Morgan?”

  She gave in reluctantly. “The Macon ranch?”

  “Just head out the highway. You’ll see the cop cars, believe me. And listen—” I told Parker, “Uh, Sheriff, I’d count it a great favor if you could send somebody down to my place to make sure everybody’s okay, that they get here all right.”

  “Where do you live?” Parker didn’t wait for an answer but hollered around, “Anybody know where this man lives?”

  “Hello, Morgan?”

  “I’m listening, Travis. I’m still listening.”

  “Uh, hold on . . .”

  Brett Henchle hurried forward, got a quick briefing, and volunteered.

  “Uh, it’ll be Morgan Elliott—you know, the minister lady—and her son—he used to be that radical prophet.”

  “Don’t worry.” Then he touched my shoulder. “By the way:

  You were right.” He ran to his car.

  “Morgan, Brett Henchle’s going to meet you at my place to make sure you get up here okay, so just wait for him, all right?”

  “BRETT HENCHLE? Travis, were you present when we discussed him?”

  “He’s snapped out of it. He’s talked to Sally Fordyce, he’s had to quell a riot, he’s had to clean up wormy loaves of bread—and now he has a homicide on his hands. He’s with us now, really.”

  Everything was happening very fast and not at all sensibly. She put on the brakes, took a deep breath, and regrouped. Like it or not, it was time to rise to the occasion and take charge of her part in it. “All right, Travis. I’ll get Michael and wait for Brett Henchle, and we will meet you up at the Macon ranch.”

  “Love ya.”

  “Good-bye.”

  She ended the call—then replayed the last few lines in her mind. “Ohh!” Now she wanted to kick herself. Love ya! Love ya, and all she said was good-bye?

  Travis, how could you do this to me!?

  She turned on her heel and went out the door. She didn’t mean to slam it—at least, that’s what she told herself.

  “WHAT DO YOU KNOW about this Matt character?” Parker asked me.

  “He’s a decorated Vietnam vet. He’s intensely loyal. He held off the Vietcong by himself so his buddies could make it out in a chopper.”

  Parker looked toward the ranch with regret in his eyes.

  “Don’t . . . don’t hurt him. Please.”

  Parker didn’t get a chance to reply. Another deputy was handing him a cell phone. “Sheriff, we got him on the line.”

  “Nichols?”

  “It’s him.”

  Parker pushed the phone at me. “I understand you know him better than anyone. Talk to him. Calm him down.” I hesitated.

  “Just get him talking, get things on an even keel.”

  I took the phone and gingerly held it to my ear. “Hello. This is Travis.”

  “My, my, my, what a gathering!”

  “Yeah, they’re throwing quite a party down here.”

  “Parker isn’t smiling.”

  I glanced at Parker. “No, he sure isn’t. Not too many of them are. So how are you doing?”

  “Oh, well enough. I have my own little family up here, ready to stand with me and go out in a flame of glory. This is the New Jerusalem. We can’t let it fall to the infidels.”

  “Do they all feel that way?”

  “Well, just the ones that matter: Matt, Mary, Melody—”

  “What about Morgan?”

  He laughed. “Rest easy, my friend. She’s not here.”

  “Who else, Justin? Who’s in there with you?”

  He only sighed. “Why don’t you go home, Travis? You can’t do any good up here.”

  “I’m supposed to be the negotiator. You and I are supposed to talk things out.”

  “Oh, right. I give you a list of my demands, they say they’ll think about it, they cut off our water and power and blast us with loud music for a few days, and then they storm in and shoot all of us. That is what we’re talking about, isn’t it?”

  “Hey, it’s your call, right? I told you not to make things worse for yourself.”

  “Go home, Travis.”

  “What about our discussion?”

  “It’s hard to speak freely and openly when there are a million cops around.”

  “We may not get another chance.”

  “Oh, we will, you can count on that. Hey, gotta go.”

  “I met your father, Justin. Boy, now there’s something we can talk about.”

  “TRAVIS! Go. Home.”

  He hung up. I let Parker know. Parker signaled the men standing by him. “Okay, let’s cut the power and water. Have those floodlights arrived?”

  “On their way,” said a cop with “POLICE” emblazoned on the back of his jacket.

  “Let’s get a better phone system going here, something we can m
onitor.” He addressed me. “Can you get him on the line again?”

  I shrugged. “I can always ring the number. I don’t know if he’ll answer.”

  A deputy with a handheld radio had gotten the word. “The RV village is secure.” He listened further. “There’s no resistance and a lot of them want to leave.”

  Parker sniffed a sneering chuckle. “Loyal followers!” He ordered, “Okay, search and screen each vehicle and roll it out of there, the whole village, one by one. We’ll eliminate the hiding places and tighten the perimeter.”

  MORGAN HAD NEVER BEEN INSIDE THE HOUSE but she knew where it was, and thankfully, she didn’t have to navigate the main street through town to get there. The local fire department was out, lights flashing. The ambulance was deployed, lights flashing. Antioch’s second squad car was blocking access to the damage zone, lights flashing, and some county sheriff’s vehicles were on the scene as well, lights flashing. The center of town had become a major wreck on the highway.

  Myrtle Street, on the other hand, had quieted down. The porch lights were on up and down the block, and an occasional TV screen glowed blue through a front window. She drove as far as the highway barrier at the west border of the town, and there, on the right, was my little bungalow. The porch light was on there too, and lights were on inside. The shades were drawn She went through the front gate, up the short walk, and onto the porch. The front door was unlocked. She knocked, cracked it open, and called, “Michael? Michael, it’s Mom.”

  No answer. She looked over her shoulder for the approach of Brett Henchle, but realized she had to be well ahead of him. The ranch was several miles out of town, and he’d have to drive through some of that chaos on the main street before he could turn off to get here.

  She went inside to wait, and immediately, unintentionally be gan to acquaint herself with how Travis Jordan lived and kept house. The living room wasn’t too bad. A model airplane, still in progress, lay on a table on the back porch. The kitchen was a mess with empty root beer bottles on the table, and two pieces of cold Canadian bacon pizza on a plate.