Apocalypse Cult (Gray Spear Society) (4 page)

"But you did marry once," the boss said.

"I was a clean-cut, decorated police officer then." Aaron sighed. "When that part of my life ended, so did my marriage."

"Tragic." She closed her manila folder.

"Are you done prying into my personal life? Is the interview over?"

"For now."

She stared at him even more intently than before. She seemed fascinated by him.

"What are you looking at?" he said.

"I have a very powerful intuition. Actually, it's more than just intuition. Call it spiritual guidance. Right now that guidance is being very chatty."

"You hear voices? What are they telling you?"

"Just one voice," the boss said. "It's telling me you're an extraordinary man. You'll accomplish incredible things and rise to great prominence in my organization. The eyes of the world will look to you for guidance. You'll become more powerful and dangerous than you can possibly imagine. Most interesting of all, you and I will become the closest friends and the strongest allies."

Galina and Joseph gave Aaron incredulous looks.

Aaron smiled a little. "Do you get this kind of guidance often?"

"I've never received guidance quite like this," the boss said. "It's... highly noteworthy. My name is Ethel. That's my real name, and it's one that very few people know. This woman is Marina, and the large man beside me is Victor. Those are also their real names and closely guarded secrets. Never use those names in public."

Aaron looked at Marina's beautiful face.
Now I know something about you.

"Do you have a picture of Brittany?" Ethel said. "May I see it?"

He took his photo of Brittany from his pocket and handed it over.

Ethel stared at it for a moment, then tucked it into her own pocket. "I'll have my team monitor the surveillance video. If the girl is living in the compound, they'll find her. I'll notify you immediately. You can count on my help, and you won't be betrayed next time."

"OK." Aaron sipped from a glass of ice water. He still didn't trust her.

"Which brings us to the larger problem. We have to go in there again tomorrow night to gather the evidence that we were
supposed
to gather tonight. We still have a job to do, even if we botched it on the first try." She stared at Victor. "Any ideas?"

He drank his water.

"What kind of evidence?" Aaron said.

Ethel gave him a long look. "I can't tell you. You've been a very good sport so far, and I see your frustration. However, there are lines that cannot be crossed at this point. There is a process we must go through. After we overcome the immediate challenges, we'll have a more informative conversation under better circumstances. I promise."

He grunted.

"I have an idea," Victor said, "but it's radical. If we could somehow smoke the cult out of the compound, then Marina and I could just walk in and do our job. Meanwhile, Aaron could watch the crowd until he spots the girl."

She nodded. "Interesting, but not smoke. Tear gas." She smiled. "Lots of tear gas. We'll drive them out and scatter them like a flock of frightened geese."

Aaron understood the plan, and he didn't like it much. Tear gas wasn't a toy. "I may need some help with rescuing the girl," he said. "She probably won't be alone."

"I'll stay with you," Ethel said. "I have to supervise the operation in person this time, anyway."

"You?" He raised his eyebrows. "What if we get into a fight?"

Everybody at the table grinned as if he had told a joke.

"Don't worry about me," she said. "I'm very capable of defending myself. If anybody gets into trouble, it will probably be you."

Marina and Victor nodded in agreement.

Chapter Three

Aaron crouched behind a bush and watched the heavy front gate of the cult encampment. It was made of welded steel girders and probably weighed a ton. Four guards stood at attention in front of the gate, all facing the same direction. They hadn't moved since Aaron had arrived.
These freaks run a tight ship
, he thought.

"Sixty seconds," Ethel whispered, her voice muffled by a gas mask.

He also wore a gas mask, and he detested it. It felt like a heavy rubber bag wrapped tightly around his head. The late afternoon sun was beating down on him. Sweat stung his eyes, but he couldn't wipe his face without breaking the air-tight seal, so he just had to suffer instead.

Ethel had decided on a daytime attack because of the need to rescue Brittany Waters. Locating her at night would be nearly impossible. The sunlight also reduced the chance that an innocent person would get trampled when the tear gas hit. Even so, Aaron was certain somebody would get hurt during the chaos.

Both he and Ethel wore black and gray camouflage tights. She had given him the tights and had insisted he put them on. For some reason she had felt it was very important for him to wear "the right colors."

The tights showed off her body, which was shockingly athletic for a middle-aged woman. She wasn't bulky, but her muscles were exceptionally lean and toned. She was in fabulous condition for a woman of any age. She wore a gun belt with a single light pistol. A pair of machetes was strapped across her back in leather sheaths. It was a strange choice in weapons.

"Are you good with those machetes?" Aaron asked.

She turned to him. "Very." Even with the gas mask, her eyes were disturbing to look at.

He believed her.

She had returned the photo of Brittany to Aaron. He glanced at the picture for the hundredth time to fix the image in his mind, and he paid extra attention to the bone structure of the girl's face. Two months of living in a cult had probably altered her in a lot of ways, but her bones would always stay the same shape.

"Thirty seconds," Ethel said.

"I can't believe we're actually doing this," Aaron said. "It's crazy."

"It will work."

"Where do you get the authorization for an operation like this?"

"From the highest authority. Now hush."

He still had his doubts about her ability to protect herself in a fight. A woman of her maturity and light build just didn't have enough raw strength to deliver a knock-out blow. All the skill in the world couldn't overcome the natural limitations of her ageing body. She had ordered him not to worry, but it was hard to follow those orders.

"Zero," she said.

Aaron heard distant screaming. Victor and Marina were lobbing tear gas canisters over the fence at the south end of the compound. If the breeze held, it would sweep a cloud of gas north, towards the front gate. The plan was to drive the entire cult past Aaron's position into the forest so he could get a good look at everybody.

Soon hundreds of people in green robes were stampeding towards the gate, coughing and gagging as they ran. Tendrils of smoke gave chase like a giant monster with a thousand wispy arms. Children struggled to keep up with their mothers, and the old were pushed aside. This was the chaos that Aaron had feared.

He focused his attention on the many faces. He would get only one chance to locate Brittany before she disappeared into the forest. There were a lot of young women in the crowd.

"There!" He pointed at a short girl. "That's her!"

She had lost a lot of weight, and her hair was cut so short that he could barely tell it was blonde. Complicated green tattoos surrounded her eyes, which made her look like a mutant raccoon. Aaron hated the effect.

"Great!" Ethel said. "Don't lose sight of her."

The mob streamed through the front gate and into the forest. Closely spaced trees forced the crowd to split into small, ragged groups, fleeing in different directions. Aaron could smell the tear gas now, even with his mask, and the pungent odor made his nose itch.

When the moment seemed right, he followed Brittany, and Ethel stayed close behind him. Brittany was with a group of men and women who seemed intent on staying together. Separating her from the others was going to be a challenge.

"Do you have a plan?" Ethel said.

"Hang back and be patient," Aaron said.

As the group penetrated deep into the forest, the air cleared, and they slowed down. A man with blue stripes on his robes led the way, and when he stopped, so did everybody else. The cult members huddled together under the dense canopy of green leaves, their voices timid and quiet. Brittany stood in the center of the group, and her eyes were wide with fear.

Aaron and Ethel took cover behind some trees and removed their gas masks.

"I count six men, eight women, and two children," she whispered. "I don't see any weapons."

"If we could just scatter them, I could get to Brittany."

He studied the group, which was surprisingly subdued. Most of them seemed content just to stand in place and wait for orders, even the young ones. Their long green robes and green tattoos acted like camouflage against the forest background. Aaron was glad to see that nobody appeared injured.

"I'll draw some of them off," Ethel said.

"What if you get caught?"

"Ha! Not a chance."

"You have a lot of spunk for a woman as old as my mother," Aaron said.

"Ouch. Watch this."

She sprinted towards the group, and he couldn't believe his eyes. She was impossibly fast! She leapt at one of the men, landed both feet squarely on his chest, kicked off, and continued in a different direction like a rubber ball bouncing off a wall. The man fell backwards with an expression of pain and astonishment.

"Holy shit!" Aaron muttered.

All the other men chased Ethel, while the women and children remained behind, as docile as sheep.

As soon as Ethel and her pursuers were out of sight, Aaron stepped out and bellowed like an enraged bear. He charged the women with his arms outstretched, trying to be as big and scary as possible. The group scattered in all directions, just as he had hoped. When the man on the ground tried to stand up, Aaron put him back down with a punch to the face.

Brittany ran off alone, and Aaron went after her, determined that she wouldn't get away. They went deeper into the forest and quickly left everybody else behind. The chase became a simple contest between pursuer and pursued. The only sounds were their feet pounding on dirt and crashing through leaves.

He imagined what an outsider might think of this scene. He was running down a young woman who was alone in the woods and desperate to escape. Attempted rape or murder would be the obvious conclusion. No jury would ever believe he was actually doing his best to rescue her from a life of virtual slavery.

The chase ended suddenly when Brittany tripped over a root, and he was on her at once. He grabbed both her wrists roughly.

"Who are you?" she cried.

"Your parents sent me," he said. "You're going home."

"No!"

He ignored her loud complaints and insults as he pulled her through the woods. Then she babbled for a while about Simon and his teachings, perhaps hoping to convert him, but her breath was wasted. Finally, she just sobbed pitifully.

Aaron had brought a portable GPS system, and it guided him to a pre-determined rendezvous point. He entered a small clearing that had a blue van with heavily tinted windows parked in the middle. Ethel stood beside it, calm and rested.

"You got her," she said. "Nice work."

"And they didn't get you," he said.

"Of course not."

"You moved so fast. Was it some kind of trick? Stimulants?"

She winked. "Trade secret. Put the girl in the van."

Aaron opened the door and pushed Brittany into one of the middle seats. Using coils of rope that he found in the van, he tied her arms and legs to the chair and pulled her seatbelt tight. Satisfied she was secure, he closed the door. Perhaps the precautions were excessive, but he had to make sure she couldn't escape or injure herself.

"The poor kid is brainwashed," he said.

Ethel nodded. "She'll need lots of counseling. It will be a long road to recovery."

"Any word from Marina or Victor?"

"They'll be here shortly."

Aaron was still amazed at her performance earlier, and curiosity consumed him. Could she actually move that fast? He decided to perform a little experiment. Without warning, he tried to slap her face. She dodged aside easily, and his hand passed through empty air.

"You like to play games?" she asked.

"Well, I was just..."

"Testing me? Of course. Let's make it fun! I'll stand here and let you punch me in the face."

"I don't know." He furrowed his brow.

"Go on. I want you to." She clenched her hands into fists and waved them around in an annoying manner. "Let's see those black-belt skills. Hit me now, wimp! Come on!"

He had a rule against striking women, but she was literally begging for it. He used about a quarter of his strength to throw an uppercut at her jaw. She grabbed his arm in mid-flight, twisted it around, and shoved him hard into the side of the van. The move was so quick and efficient he never had a chance to protect himself.

"By the way," she said, "I don't like games."

He rubbed a sore spot on his forehead. "That was a slick move. What martial arts style is your specialty? Kung fu? Aikido?"

"The Ethel-style."

Marina and Victor arrived at the clearing. Both carried large, clear plastic bags containing many smaller plastic bags. The little bags held a variety of odd items including small rocks, metal screws, jewelry, a light bulb, a candelabrum, broken glass, a kitchen knife, sand, a book, and many other things. Aaron couldn't make any sense of the collection. It seemed as if Marina and Victor had taken anything and everything that would fit into a bag, like a couple of pack rats, but both were smiling with their heads held high as if they had discovered a chest full of gold.

"What is that stuff?" Aaron said.

"Evidence," Marina said.

"Of a crime?"

She didn't answer. She and Victor just put the bags into the back of the van.

"Let's go," Ethel said. "Victor, would you drive?"

Everybody climbed into the van. Aaron sat in the middle beside Brittany. Marina and Victor were in front, and Ethel sat in the far back.