Torn

by Chris Jordan

  “Wendall Weems versus Conklin’s wife.”

  “So the rumor goes.”

  Shane finishes his coffee. At this point in his cycle of insomnia, the caffeine barely blips. “I’m going in. It’s the only way.”

  Maggie shakes her head disapprovingly. “And I flew fourteen hundred miles to persuade you otherwise.”

  “You can try,” Shane says.

  Maggie opens her briefcase, slips out her laptop, taps it to life. “I’ve done a little more in-depth research on Kavashi, the security chief. Turns out that ten years ago he was on the short list of suspects in a couple of murders.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Remember the deal new members make? By joining they agree to ‘share-in’ twenty-five percent of any increase in their net worth? Well, every now and then somebody gets rich and decides it was all their own doing and they refuse to pay the percentage. The contract they sign with the Rulers isn’t enforceable, why give up such a big chunk of their newfound wealth? Blah, blah, blah. So they walk away. Or attempt to.”

  “This Kavashi guy is the collector, is that it?”

  “More like the enforcer. The Conklin Institute has a forensic accounting division that enforces collections from the members. They know where every penny goes, and who earned what, and therefore what they owe. But human nature being what it is, deadbeats were always a problem, right from the beginning. Refuse to pay and you were banned, shunned, thrown out. All personal and business connections were severed, loans were called in, and a full-court effort was made to ruin you by financial means. Lawsuits, mostly. Fail to pay and you get buried in shysters. Still, some of the deadbeats prevailed, got to keep all the loot. Until Kavashi came into the picture. Then things got untidy for a while.”

  “Let me guess. He didn’t take ‘no’ for an answer.”

  Maggie nods. “In both cases we know about, explosives were used. First victim was a car salesman from Montclair, New Jersey, who joined the Rulers and within a few years owned a chain of luxury dealerships. In his TV ads he was ‘Mister Mercedes.’ Until one fine day he went to start up his S600 and got blown to smithereens. That was bad. The second victim was way worse. Started up a wholesale jewelry business in Arizona, took it online, eventually sold it to Amazon or eBay, I can’t remember which. Anyhow, he walked away with something like fifty million dollars for his final payday, and decided the Rulers didn’t deserve their cut on this one. So he got necklaced. Cute, huh, a jewelry guy gets necklaced? Maybe you recall the one where the victim walks into a Sedona police station with a note begging the police to shoot him because he’s got this ring of plastic explosive molded around his neck, with a ticking detonator attached, and he hates the idea of his head getting blown off? Parts of the video were all over cable news for a few days.”

  “Rings a bell,” Shane says. “The cops put him in a vacant lot, evacuated the area, and sent in a robot. But the bomb detonated anyway, right?”

  “It did. And somebody tapped into the video feed from the robot, put it all over the net. The uncensored, not-for-cable-TV-version. My guess is, nowadays when any Ruler decides not to pay, they suggest he or she check out the necklace video. It’s very, very gruesome, in a head-goes-into-orbit kind of way.”

  “And these crimes were tied to Kavashi?”

  “Tied is too strong a word. He was a person of interest in the investigations. Frankly the investigators knew he did it, or arranged to have it done, but there was no physical evidence linking him to the bombs, and nobody was willing to testify. Therefore no case. Word at the time was that Arthur Conklin wanted Kavashi thrown out of the organization, but that Evangeline backed her buddy Vash and prevailed. In any case, he handles Ruler security and remains as dangerous as ever.”

  Shane smiles. “You’re worried he’ll blow me up.”

  “I am, yes. Or just have you shot. So you should be worried.”

  “I hate getting blown up. Therefore I’ll be very careful.”

  “Don’t be flippant, Randall!” she says, fiercely. “I don’t worry easy and you know it.”

  He grimaces. “Sorry, Mags. But I’m worried, too, and I don’t see any alternative. The FBI won’t send in the HRT based on my hunch about what might have happened to Haley Corbin.”

  “The Hostage Rescue Team? That’s pretty elite. What’s wrong with a field-office SWAT team?”

  “Nothing. They’re good, but the HRT is better, and something tells me taking on this bunch of nut bars requires the very best. But even the field-office SWAT needs some sort of verifiable evidence before they can obtain a warrant. Therefore someone has to go in there and find evidence, help make a case. In this case a civilian. Me.”

  “What about Colorado Social Services?” Maggie suggests eagerly. “Concern for an endangered child usually rings the right bells.”

  “In Texas, maybe, when the suspected abusers are a known polygamist sect. I spoke to the DSS supervisor in one of the adjoining counties, just to see what it would take to initiate an investigation, and she said there has never been a child-endangered complaint filed against the Rulers, not as an organization, anyhow, and not in Conklin County. They’re simply not on the radar. And the DSS is very, very leery of taking on the Rulers without evidence that will stand up in court. They want something solid, something actionable. At the very least I need a credible witness from inside the compound. Which is what I intend to find, once you get me inside.”

  “There has to be a better way.”

  Shane leans back in his chair, making the legs creak ominously. “I’m open to suggestions.”

  “Come back with me to D.C. We’ll work it from there. We’ll make a case. We’ll get you the HRT.”

  Shane smiles wearily. “I’ll bet you could. But how long would it take to work through channels, convince the ’crats that my hunch is good, that their butts won’t be on the line, careers ruined? You’re good, Maggie, the best. But even for you, it would take weeks. Weeks that Haley and Noah might not have.”

  “You’ve made up your mind.”

  Shane nods.

  Maggie sighs. “There might be a way to get you inside.”

  “I’m all ears,” he says, wide-awake.

  4. The Futility Of Crying

  Snow is falling. I know that snow is falling because there’s a skylight in one of the many bathrooms, and the fat white flakes are starting to accumulate, blocking out the slate-gray sky. The skylight is the only window not obstructed by storm shutters. My only view of the world outside, and soon it will be covered.

  For all I can see, I might as well be confined in a million-dollar igloo. Although, come to think of it, a home of this size and quality-the kitchen alone has more square feet than my entire farmhouse-probably goes for a lot more than a million.

  Missy says that it snows frequently, because of the elevation, and that’s one of the many things they love about Conklin, the perfect snow. She says the village is like a ski resort without the lifts or the lines, and she should know because she and her husband own homes in Vail and Park City, for when they want to actually ski. They also own homes in Silicon Valley, Manhattan, Nantucket, and Key West, and, oh yeah, she almost forgot, this adorable little mews in London.

  The Barlows are filthy rich and, from what I can tell, about as shallow as the manufactured celebrities they seek to emulate. Missy tells me that Eldon is brilliant-and I suppose he must be, on some level-but I haven’t seen it. In my presence he seems more keenly nervous than intelligent. Frightened, actually. As if terrified that complicity in my abduction will come back to haunt him.

  Which it will, if I have anything to say about it.

  For now I’m biding my time, holding my tongue. The strange, ugly little man with the beautiful eyes convinced me, for the moment, that calling in the authorities would put Noah’s life at risk. But watching that DVD of my little boy being tutored by that snake-in-the-grass Irene Delancey very nearly drove me over the edge. On one level I was intensely relieved to see him looking healt
hy, if not happy. On another level I’m outraged that they’ve stolen nearly two months of his childhood, two months that I didn’t get to share, two months I’ll never get back. How dare she! How dare they! To make it worse, there’s no sound on the DVD, so I’ve no idea what poison Delancey is spewing, or how much my little boy knows about what’s really going on.

  Does he know I’m searching for him, that I won’t give up until he’s back in his mother’s arms? He must know. He’s his father’s son, and he knows the most amazing things.

  Wendall Weems, my real captor-abducting me was his idea, obviously-claims he knew Jedediah as a child. “He was still in diapers when Arthur bought back and republished his book,” he says. “Quite a handsome baby, as I recall, but given to crying when he wasn’t being held. Colicky, I think they call it.”

  Weems is musing, trying to be friendly, and I can only stare at him in disbelief.

  “Colicky? I haven’t read that horrible book, but Jed did show me the chapter on child rearing. Unbelievable! His father thought it a worthy experiment to leave a three-month-old baby unattended in a dark room for twelve hours. He calculated an infant would not actually die of neglect in that time period, and that it might, quote ‘learn the futility of crying.’”

  Weems nods solemnly. “Barbara-she was Jedediah’s birth mother-as I recall she was perfectly frantic at the time. Arthur insisted on the full twelve hours. The exercise was really as much about Barbara as it was the baby, of course. Arthur firmly believed that the mother-child bond often does more harm than good, in terms of self-actualization. He’s a man of immense, unshakable willpower. Or he was until recently.”

  The strange little man’s indifference to the notion of tormenting a child to prove a point drives me wild. Especially because that tormented baby was my own husband. It’s all I can do not to leap out of my chair and slap the complacent expression off his homely face. “I was wrong about you people,” I say, practically spitting out the words. “You’re not just greedy and selfish, you’re unspeakably cruel! This great man you so admire. You know what he did? When a homesick boy wrote home from boarding school, saying that he loved and missed his parents, his father cut him off. Told him love was weakness, and that he was not to contact his mother again until he’d grown up.”

  “Granted, that may have seemed cruel at the time. But in the long run-”

  “In the long run, what?” I interrupt, almost shouting. “In the long run Jed’s mother died! He never saw her again. And his father never even bothered to let him know she was dying. That’s the man you admire. That’s the man you revere. A monster!”

  Weems studies me, as if aware that he’s miscalculated. “You’re angry,” he observes. “It’s a natural enough reaction.”

  “You think? Your people blow up a school, steal my son, kidnap me, all because years ago some cranky professor wrote a book on the importance of being selfish? And I dare to be angry?”

  The little man regards me with great solemnity, exuding infinite patience. “No one dares to be angry, my dear,” he points out. “Anger originates in the atavistic part of the brain, not the cognitive. You can dare to risk everything, you can dare to be great, but you can’t dare to be angry or afraid. Anger and fear being linked, of course. Manifestations of the same instinct.”

  I can’t stand it anymore. Leaping up, I grab the front of his shirt, yank him close, and scream into his startled face, “Give me back my baby! Give him back or I swear I’ll kill all of you!”

  Then I’m flat on my back, the wind knocked out of me, held down by the Barlows, both of whom look sick with fear but nevertheless determined to protect their precious leader.

  “Ruler Weems,” gasps Eldon as I squirm and struggle to get free. “Are you okay? What do we do? Tell us what to do.”

  His voice is utterly calm. “Let her go.”

  Instant obedience. My arms are released.

  “If Mrs. Corbin wants to attack me, she is free to do so. I will not defend myself, and you will not interfere.”

  Hands relaxed upon the arms of his chair, Weems awaits my reaction. I crawl to my feet, shooting venomous looks at my so-called hosts.

  I’m shaking with adrenaline, so wobbly I can barely stand. “Do not speak to me of Jedediah,” I say, boring in on the strange little man. “My Jed was worth a thousand Arthur Conklins. He was good and true and loving. He was smart and funny and kind. His father tried to wreck him, but Jed couldn’t be wrecked. He had a heart of gold, and if his stupid plane hadn’t fallen out of the sky none of this would be happening. Jed would have known what to do. He always knew what to do.”

  Then I’m sitting on my butt-how did that happen?-and bawling into my hands, crying for my dead husband, crying for my little boy, crying for me.

  “Your husband’s plane didn’t fall out of the sky,” Weems says gently. “Not by accident. He was murdered.”

  5. Gouda Like The Cheese

  Shane considers himself lucky there were no Lincoln Town Cars available for rental at Denver International Airport. Indeed, his request for such a vehicle had prompted much rolling of eyes. “You’ll need the four-wheel drive,” they kept saying, and they were right; he does need the four-wheel drive. And if the Jeep Grand Cherokee feels bumpy and windblown compared to his precious Townie, it proves to be surefooted on the snow-slicked highway out of Denver.

  Two hours later, on sharp curves straddling the Rocky Mountains, it’s all that keeps him from sliding off the road into a steep ditch or worse.

  Having gone to college in upstate New York, Shane thought he knew about snow, but this is another world entirely. The scale here is much, much bigger. The sheer mass of the mountains makes him feel insignificant, a bug clinging desperately to his little path in the wilderness. Plus it seems to have messed up his orientation. In the flatlands, near large bodies of water-areas like, say, the East or West Coast-he always has a pretty good sense of direction. In the midst of high mountains, with hard-blown granular snow diffusing the waning sunlight, he has to rely on the in-dash GPS unit. Couldn’t on his own have pointed north if his life depended on it.

  According to the GPS, Conklin is a mere seventy miles from Denver as the crow flies. But crows don’t fly at this altitude, certainly not in this weather, and by geographical necessity the actual road distance between the two points is about double that. Snow and caution, and the desire not to plummet uselessly to his death, means that by the time Shane finally arrives at the Conklin security checkpoint, night has fallen and he’s creeping along like some old geezer in the go-around-me lane.

  He powers down the window of the Grand Cherokee, grins into the chilly darkness.

  “Good evening, sir. Welcome to your prosperity,” the guard recites without a trace of irony. “Please state your name and your business.”

  “Ronnie Gouda, like the cheese,” Shane says. “RG Paving, out of Dayton, Ohio. Here for the seminar.”

  He hands over his ID and charge card-fully functional duplicates kindly supplied by Maggie Drew-and waits as the guard returns to the checkpoint, a structure that resembles one of those titanium wave-front museums by Frank Gehry. Fully illuminated, fully staffed, fully armed, the BKS logo prominent on all uniforms. Shane has seen international border crossings that look less imposing. The security officers are cool and cordial, bearing no resemblance to the usual bloated rent-a-cops employed at most gated communities.

  There are two lanes on either side of the checkpoint, one for civilian vehicles, the other for tractor trailers, and as Shane waits, peering through the windshield wipers, guards actually open up a trailer and inspect the cargo, carefully matching it against a manifest.

  Disturbingly thorough.

  A few minutes later Shane is asked to step out of his vehicle.

  “Is something wrong?” he asks. “I already paid for the seminar. Thought it was all set.”

  The guard, a broad-shouldered young female of about thirty, gives him a thin smile. “Nothing wrong, sir. Just procedure. We need
to scan your picture, issue a visitor badge, and so on. Please step out of your vehicle.”

  Shane steps out of his vehicle. Shivers as a blast of wind rattles his brand-new parka. Like icy hands finding his warmer spots, making him flinch.

  Inside the brightly lit checkpoint, all is well. Computer data indicates that Ron L. Gouda, having attended an introductory “What the Rule of One Can Do for You” seminar in Dayton, Ohio, and having paid in full the five-thousand-dollar nonreturnable initiation fee, has qualified for a three-day, all-inclusive Level One seminar at the Conklin Institute.

  Obviously they’re not yet aware that the real Ronnie Gouda has just been secretly indicted for rigging state highway contracts, and is playing nice with his new friends in the Justice Department.

  Which is a good thing. A very good thing.

  Shane gets his picture snapped, is issued a clip-on face badge, plus an electronically coded card that will key open the door to something called a domicile unit.

  “Domicile unit?” he asks, genuinely befuddled.

  “Bed, bath, study area. You’ll find the D.U. cozy and comfortable. The code card also allows access to the Hive. That’s the cafeteria for the Level One seminars. The Hive has a four-star chef. You’re in for a treat, sir.”

  “For five grand I hope so,” Shane says, playing the part of a successful, self-made contractor, figuring the guy would be just a little mouthy, a big dude used to running his own show.

  The security guards don’t react to the comment, or to his attitude. No doubt they’ve heard it all before. Their vibe is professional, by the book, and Shane is thinking that if this is how they run the show in the village, breaking through security is going to be a real challenge.