Authors: Chris Jordan
Bevins was a rookie Special Agent when the Branch Davidian thing went down, and she watched it unfold on TV like everyone else. The disaster at Waco, in which many innocent children died, haunts the FBI to this day, and agents working a cult situation have it in mind as an example of what can go badly, horribly wrong. But the cult headquarters in that case had been a collection of ramshackle farmhouses. This is way different. The Ruler campus looks positively bucolic, the residential area could be an exclusive, gated community in Aspen. This ain’t the Bible-thumpin’ badlands of Texas, and Arthur Conklin is no David Koresh, preaching apocalypse. So maybe wiser minds will prevail. Bevins certainly hopes so.
Her own history with Shane complicates the situation. Because she is tall, over six feet, and because she and Shane have long been close, her colleagues assume they have a sexual history. To Bevins’s mild regret, that is not the case. Shane was married and faithful for most of the years when they worked together, and their friendship remains platonic, even as they quietly acknowledge a mutual attraction. Their bond transcends rank and status, and to Bevins it doesn’t matter that Shane is technically retired. So when the call came in from Maggie Drew, she had to act, had to make it happen. Normally the A.D. of
Counterterrorism would not be at the scene supervising a kidnap recovery situation, but if Bevins hadn’t swung weight, given the green light, they’d still be arguing about jurisdiction.
She’s out on a limb with Shane, a civilian, relying on his word that the missing mother and child are being held against their will. Of the top ten priorities of the FBI, as approved by the Director, supporting missions like this one comes in at number nine. Just one level above “upgrading technology to successfully perform the FBI’s mission.” At some point she’s going to have to justify the operation, but right now she’s more concerned about having it conclude successfully, without loss of life.
“Team Leader? Where are we?”
“Chopper on the roof. They’ll be attempting to breach the blast shutters with a torch. A dozen agents on the ground, searching for the tunnel entrance. Sonar detectors have been deployed—if there’s a tunnel, we should be able to detect it up to a depth of fifty feet or so, depending on the density.”
“Good,” she says. Keeping in mind that an Assistant Director or ‘A-Dick’ can’t be seen to be chewing her fingernails, however much she might be tempted as a stress-reliever.
“The thing about
The Guns of Navarone?
” he says. “It was an impossible task but they got it done.”
“Forget the movies, Team Leader. No Hollywood heroics, please. Go by the book. Nobody dies. You are to take no unnecessary risks.”
He grins. “We’re the HRT. We eat risk for breakfast.”
“Speaking of breakfast, is there any coffee available?”
The Team Leader hands her a Thermos flask. “High-test,” he promises.
Inside the Pinnacle, in the perpetual twilight of the closed blast shutters, word spreads from Ruler to Ruler, many of whom weep inconsolably.
Their great leader, the One True Voice, is gone.
No one seems to be quite sure what will happen next. With Arthur Conklin dead, who will speak for them? Many favor the homely familiarity of Wendall Weems, the founder’s closest friend. Others prefer the fiery approach of the founder’s wife—his widow now—Evangeline Dowdy Conklin.
Eva the Diva makes the first move, speaking from her late husband’s studio. Throughout both the Pinnacle and the Bunker, flat-screens come to life, and Eva appears, dabbing at her eyes, her voice thick with sorrow.
“Arthur has taken flight,” she announces. “Early this morning his body ceased to function and he removed himself to the next level. Before he went, Arthur spoke to me at length. I am still processing his many revelations, and will share them with you in the months and years to come. But for now, hear this. Arthur’s last wish is that his transition be an occasion of reconciliation between the factions. Therefore we will gather in our respective areas to mourn his passing, and to prepare ourselves for the future. Only then will we open our doors to the outsiders who have come here in their ignorance.
“A few moments ago I spoke with Ruler Weems. Our conversation was cordial. He will be convening a special
meeting with his people, and I with mine. There is no profit in fighting amongst ourselves. Between us, we will come to an equitable solution. Rest assured that we will find a way to face the new day with a new mind.”
Evangeline shuts off the camera and exits the studio, heading for her war room. Her plan is falling neatly into place. Within the hour she will have solidified her grip on the organization. Wendy and his people will follow Arthur into the next world, wherever that might be, and trouble her no more.
“Vash!” she calls out. “Is everything ready?”
He’s been busy in the war room, calmly programming a complex portion of the system’s software. He looks up, his expression betraying no emotion.
“Is good,” he says. Then he smiles, his cool eyes warming up, drinking her in. “Bad for them. Good for us.”
9. Good Night, Irene
When the flat-screen TV came to life in Irene Delancey’s empty bedroom, announcing the death of Arthur Conklin, I nearly jumped out of my skin. Not just because it startled me, but because of what the announcement might mean. When a cult leader dies—excuse me, is “removed to the next level”—“outsiders gather”—that must be Shane’s FBI friends—it can’t be good. An organization in crisis, factions fighting for control, the whole place in lockdown, it all sounds as if it’s spiraling out of control. That can’t be good for us.
The woman making the announcement had seemed serene in tone, but I don’t believe her for a second. Some
thing about her is off, way off. She has the look of madness; confident, chilling madness.
As soon as the screen goes dark again, Shane tries to make a call, but with no view of the sky, not to mention all the concrete and steel between us, the fancy satellite phone can’t get a signal. No phone, and therefore no way to know how long it will take the FBI to find a way inside. And in my mind at least, if we don’t locate Noah in the next few minutes, something terrible is going to happen. Call it mother’s instinct, or plain anxiety, but there it is, the absolute need to find my son now rather than later.
“Two possibilities,” Shane says, surveying the empty bedroom. “Either she heard us coming, or something else frightened her. Same result, whatever the cause. She’s hiding and she took your son with her.”
“How do you know that?”
He holds up the book left on Mrs. Delancey’s bedside table. “Noah told me,” he says with a gleam in his eye. “He left a message.”
“Oh my god! Let me see!”
The book is, no surprise, Arthur Conklin’s
The Rule of One.
Apparently the true believers keep it close at hand, like the Bible. The surprise is the scrap of paper tucked into the book, hastily scrawled in pencil:
WE ARE HIDING.
NOAH CORBIN, AGE 10
P.S. TELL MY MOM
I know that handwriting! No question, it’s Noah, and aside from the brief glimpse of video provided by Ruler
Weems, the first real tangible proof that he’s not only alive, but well. Despite whatever poison they’ve been feeding him, he knows his name is Corbin, not Conklin. Plus he wants his mother to know where he is. That’s a good sign, right? Right?
“S-sorry,” I blubber, totally losing it, clutching the little note to my heart.
Doubtful a big strong shoulder would help, but there’s no way of knowing, because Shane isn’t offering. He’s not being unkind or uncaring, but neither is he offering to comfort me. It’s clear that he shares my concern about finding Noah right away, and that must take precedence. No time for emotional meltdowns, save the tears for later.
“I suspect she hasn’t gone far,” he says, waiting for me to get it together. “If she wanted to hide, her options would have been limited.”
“But we checked all the rooms on this floor,” I say, frantic.
“No,” he says firmly. “We didn’t. You looked in the doors, saw the dustcovers, and backed out. Very quietly, too, I might add.”
He’s right, of course. We’d been searching for rooms that were lived in, not places to hide. Stupid! In an instant I’m back in the hall, racing for the next suite, housekeeper disguise forgotten. Bursting through the door, I run to the adjoining room—all the layouts are the same—and find it just as empty. Dustcovers, stillness. My instincts telling me the air in here has not been disturbed recently, that the mustiness has been honestly come by.
Check everything. Look everywhere. Bathrooms, closets, under the bed.
Whipping back a shower curtain, I come face-to-face with a madwoman. Her hair is a mess, her eyes are red, she looks as frantic as me. She
is
me.
What kind of place is this, putting mirrors behind the claw-foot tubs?
By the time I get to the last of the guest suites, every door has been opened, every closet looked into, every shower curtain whipped back, and still there’s no sign of Noah, no clue as to where he’s been taken.
My head is light with the pounding of my heart. In despair I fall to my knees and cover my face as it all comes crashing together. The conflicting tides of fear and frustration and just plain old need, the need to have my child in my arms at last. I’ve come this far, the madwoman of Humble, the crazy mom who won’t give up, because somehow I can feel that my child is alive, and where he might be, but whenever I almost get there somebody moves him farther away.
I can’t take it anymore. This ends now, or I really will go stark raving mad.
“Noah!” I scream. “Where are you!”
Shane, startled, reaches out to caution me, but I duck under his hand and fling myself out into the hallway, bellowing at the top of my lungs, “NOAH! NO-AHHH! IT’S MOMMY! NOAH! NOAH! NOAH!” chanting and screaming with all my strength, with everything I’ve got, and to give him credit, Shane doesn’t really try to stop me.
“NO-AHH!” I cry, running back and forth, doing my best to shout the walls down with the sound of my voice. “NO-
AHHH! NO-AHHH! NO-AHHH! I WANT MY SON! GIVE ME BACK MY SON! NO-AHHH! NO-AHHH!”
I scream his name until my throat is so raw I can’t get out a sound, until the air is out of my lungs, until the strength is fading from my body, and hope from my heart.
And then I hear it. Very faint. Not Noah, not his voice, but something. A tiny thump no louder than the thudding of a single sparrow wing. But it’s enough to get me flying down the hallway, through the open door, and into one of the empty guest suites that we’ve already checked twice. And exactly as I enter the room, there’s the faintest flutter of movement under one of the dust sheets, a simple white cotton sheet covering an unused desk.
Hands extended like eager talons, mama bird zeroing in, I rip away the dust sheet and there under the desk is Irene Delancey, who looks almost as terrified as I do. Struggling in her arms is a desperate little boy. She has her hand clamped over the boy’s mouth, and her face is bleeding from where’s he’s scratched her, and his feet are kicking.
That’s the thump I heard, that’s what made the dust sheet flutter. Noah, my son, my beautiful true-blue boy, responding to his mother’s cry.
“Let him go,” I tell her, my voice hoarse and croaking.
“I saved him,” she whimpers, pleading for forgiveness. “They want to kill him and I saved him. You’ve got to believe me.”
“Let him go.”
She does, she lets him go, and then he’s in my arms, hugging me as if his life depends on it, crying
Mommy, Mommy, Mommy,
clinging with all his might, and every
thing is good. I am made whole again and everything is right in the world.
Except for one thing. Cradling Noah with my left arm, I lift my foot and stomp Mrs. Delancey right in the nose.
10. Run For Your Life
For weeks I’ve dreamed of this moment. Dreams so palpable, so real that I awoke convinced my son was back home, and I’d find myself staggering into his empty bedroom and realize that the real nightmare was in being awake.
Now that it has finally happened, now that I can feel Noah’s heart pounding against my own, all the pain and grief starts to melt away, and it is as if I’m finally, truly, wide-awake to the world. Strangely, my rage at those who stole him melts away, too. It’s as if there’s only room enough in me for love. Maybe that will change over time, but right at this moment, this wonderful, wonderful moment, all I feel for Irene Delancey and her Ruler friends is pity.
They are so utterly pathetic. Worshipping a mean old man who encouraged them to be selfish, is there anything more sad?
Cupping her hands to her bleeding nose, Irene looks at me imploringly. “We have to get out of here,” she whimpers. “She’ll find us.”
“Evangeline?” asks Shane. “Is she the one?”
I hadn’t even noticed that he’d come into the room. He’s been standing apart, letting me hug Noah, who is clinging to me as if he never intends to let go, his wet face buried against
my neck, his legs locked around my hips just as he used to do when he was three or four and still wanted to be carried.