The Cult (17 page)

He had been released from the police station, then made a call to Alexa’s number as a brown stationwagon rolled to a stop in front of him. Someone had grabbed him from behind and stuffed a rag drenched with some vile smelling liquid over his nose and mouth. He recalled with some satisfaction that he had managed to bite the guy’s finger and smash the back of his head into another man’s face.
 

The last thought he had before blacking out was that he was being kidnapped in the middle of the day in front of thousands of eye witnesses.

He shook his head groggily and winced again as the pain stitched through his back. Shit, Alexa? He said a silent prayer for her safety, hoping that she would be okay.

He sat up on the bed and looked around. He was in what looked like a rundown hotel room. An old CRT television set stood on a dressing table. To the side of the room was a small cubicle, a bathroom containing a shower and toilet and basin to the side. He stood up and sauntered to the door of the small apartment. It was made from steel, set in a heavy frame. It had a small hatch at the bottom, the ones people used to allow small dogs in and out of their homes.

He stood up and massaged the back of his neck, used the toilet.

He hurriedly rinsed his hands as he heard a noise at the door, strode towards it. A box had been slid through the hatch at the bottom of the door; a box with fresh pizza inside. The hatch opened again, a hand appeared and rolled in a bottle of soda. Neil pushed his head through, trying to wriggle his shoulders through as well, but it was much too narrow. He turned his head and strained to look up at his jailer. “Why are you doing this?”

A mustachioed man with a frog-like face looked down at him. “Get back in or I stomp you, asshole,” the guy shouted, pointing a thick finger at Neil.

He pushed a boot against Neil’s head, forcing Neil back in his shabby apartment.

Neil sat down with his back against the solid door, grabbed a slice of pizza from the box and sniffed it. He shrugged and took a big bite, swallowed it down with some soda. It was good.

He gobbled up three slices and emptied the soda bottle. He was ravenous, it felt like he hadn’t eaten in days.

His body stiffened as he heard an alarm sound somewhere. He cocked his head, chewing. And then the familiar announcement sounded over an intercom system. “All tenants to battle stations, intruder alert.”
 

He grinned, stood up.
 

Alexa had come to fetch him.

PART SIX

Alexa jogged towards Bruce who was standing beside one of the doors, his weapon holstered. “Anything?” she asked, out of breath.

He shook his head, his face drawn into a perplexed scowl. “It’s the strangest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“What?”

He pulled open a door to reveal a brick wall. “They’re all like this.”

Alexa took a step back, hands on her hips. “Bricked in?”

Bruce nodded slowly, slapped the bricks with his palm.
 

Alexa turned around to the lifts, then spun around and surveyed the passageway, weighing her options. “Okay, let’s skip the rest of the doors, go for the last one in the passageway.”

“Why?”
 

She shrugged. “A hunch.”

“Where’s Beal?”

“Who?”

“Agent Ray Beal, the short guy.”

Alexa had forgotten. Her entire being was focused on finding Neil. She turned to Bruce, pursed her lips. “Sorry, Dad.”

Bruce looked up at the ceiling, sucked in a breath.
 

Alexa marched down the passageway and stopped in front of the barred window which afforded her a view onto the side of another apartment building. She turned to face the last door in the passage, slowly turned the knob. The door swung open, and Alexa cautiously peered inside the room.

A desk stood in front of a metal door. The desk was piled high with what looked like empty pizza boxes. She strode to the door, the keys had been left in the lock, probably by someone trying to get out in a hurry. She turned the key and it clicked, swung open smoothly.
 

The door led to another darker passage, slithers of thin light visible from beneath more rows and rows of doors.
 

She fumbled for a switch, flicked it on. The passage was now sparsely lit by a dozen or so bare light bulbs dangling from the ceiling.
 

Alexa jogged down the passageway; doorways lined the entire corridor and she noticed a hatch of some kind at the bottom of every door. “Neil, you in here?” she shouted, banging the doors.

She stopped and heard a muffled reply. “In here.”

“Bang on your door or something, Neil,” Alexa shouted.

She heard a banging two doors down, kneeled down and pulled open the hatch. “Neil, you in there?”

Neil’s face appeared through the hatch, a sheepish grin on his face. “You’re probably wondering what a handsome guy like me is doing in a place like this?”

Alexa sobbed, then laughed as she rained kisses down on his chin and cheeks and forehead. “Oh, God, thank you, thank you.”

He smiled. “Get me out of here, okay?”

She nodded as she stood up and looked around. The door was solid metal. She glanced over her shoulder as Bruce said, “try this.”

Bruce sauntered up and handed her a key.

“What this?”

“A key, I found it on the table next to the pizza boxes.”

She slipped it in the lock and turned, holding her breath. It unlocked and she swung the door all the way open. Neil bustled outside and lifted her up, hugging her tightly.

“Ow, ow,” she said, pushing him away.

He gently placed her down, his eye wide. “What’s wrong?”

Alexa grimaced, rubbing her shoulder. “The kind people up at the temple decided to rough me up a bit. I got shot.”

Neil’s lips tightened in a thin line. “Shit, Alex. I’m sorry.”

She threw her arms around his neck and then kissed him on his lips. “Don’t worry. All that matters is that we’re both okay.”

His features relaxed a bit. “You can say that again.”

Bruce touched Alexa’s shoulder. “There’s more on the way, my men have headed them off at the stairwell, but we won’t be able to keep them back for much longer,” he said, his eyes turned to the doorway.

Alexa glanced around, alarmed. “Shit, how do we get out?”

Neil chuckled. “Use the lift.”

“It works?”
 

He lifted his shoulders. “Did last time.”

They bolted to the lift and Neil punched the button with his thumb. “Okay, everyone in,” Alexa shouted as the lift shuddered to a noisy halt before them. They piled inside. Neil pressed the button to the ground floor and the lift jerked and started its descent. It lurched and jerked its way down, and Alexa cast Neil a worried glance. “I think it’s overloaded.”

A second later, the
OVERLOAD
button lit and the lift ground to a jolting halt, halfway between floors. A bell boinged.

“Shit,” Neil said, peering out of the opening. The escalator was jammed high, stuck between the second and first floors. “Okay, let’s get out of here.” He crawled out of the lift and lowered himself down to the floor, then spun around as he heard a noise behind him. “Give me a gun, quick” he shouted and Alexa tossed him her Glock. He ducked as a shot slammed into the wall somewhere beside him, then returned fire. “Okay, get out, now,” he ordered and helped Alexa down.

The other men followed and Neil scanned the area. “There’s at least half-a-dozen of them, armed to the teeth,” he said, pointing at the doorway that led to the stairwell.

“What the hell is this place?” a man standing behind Alexa asked, looking around nervously.

Alexa grinned. “An abandoned apartment block.” She chopped her hand down. “Follow me.”

They shimmied to one of the doors at the far end of the building as the door to the stairwell opened and men surged towards them, carrying an assortment of weapons.

“This way,” Neil shouted.

They ran towards the end of the passageway and Neil flung open a door and they all ran inside.

Alexa looked around, trying to find an escape route. This room was different, it had no windows and it felt like someone had set the air conditioner to low. There was no furniture, and the bare walls and floor were painted a matte grey. Alexa jogged into what was supposedly the dining area and was confronted with a solid-looking metal door. Not again. She twisted the handle but it didn’t open.

“Try this,” Bruce said and handed her a key.

“Where did you get it?”

“You left it in the door to Neil’s cell.”

“You think it’s a master?”

Bruce shrugged. “Won’t find out if we don’t try.”

She slipped the key into the lock and it turned. She looked over her shoulder towards Bruce. “You’re right.”

She pushed it all the way open, then scanned the room. It was filled with six long tables with low-hanging lights, like the ones above snooker tables. On either side of the tables sat men and woman wearing what looked like gas masks.
 

Alexa pointed her gun.

They slowly lifted their hands, Alexa waving them into a corner.

Bruce frowned. “What the hell…?”

“I guess we found their drug lab,” Alexa said. She walked up to one of the men, a young guy in his late teens with dark black hair. “How do we get out of here?”

The man pointed at another door at the far end of the room. Alexa marched over and put in the key and it unlocked. “Neil, get everyone to follow us. Dad, I guess we’ll need some more transport. A bus would probably do, there’s at least thirty of them.”

Bruce nodded and started dialing a number.

Alexa opened the door and rushed down the stairwell. Three flights down, she unlocked another door and came out in what looked like a laundry room. Another stairway led up and outside into the foyer of the apartment block, the same place where they had entered the building.
 

She jogged back upstairs. “Okay, get everyone outside.”

She led them to the exit, the young men and woman following her dutifully, like they didn’t have much of a choice.

The prisoners removed their gas masks, managed to smile at each other, whispering. Alexa recognized the redhead that they had talked to at the gateway Commune, Jenna Sands.
 

She sauntered over to the girl as she holstered her gun. “Why were you in there?”

The girl bit her lip, scrunched up a freckled nose. “I didn’t pay my rent for a couple of months, so I had to work it back.”

“Making drugs?”

Jenna Sands wrapped a lock of curly hair around her finger. “I didn’t know it was drugs, they said we were preparing the unleavened bread, but I kinda figured out they were lying when they gave us the gas masks.”

Alexa looked back as a yellow school bus approached, gears grinding and belching black smoke. “I guess your lift has arrived.”

Jenna chewed her lip. “Are we going to be arrested?”

“No, of course not.”

“So where will you be taking us?”

Alexa glanced around, tapping her lip with a finger. “That I still have to figure out.”

Jenna turned around slowly, her eyes looking up at the apartment block. “And what about those gangsters in there?”

Alexa smiled. “Now that’s one thing I know for certain. These bastards are going down.”

Jenna looked back at Alexa. “But how, there’s so many of them?”

Alexa winked. “Ever heard of Mossad?”

Jenna shook her head. “Sounds like some Greek dessert.”

Alexa chuckled as she punched a number into her phone. “Apt metaphor, if you like your desserts laced with cyanide.”

The call was answered after a couple of rings. “Sal Frydman.”

“Good day, Major, this is Alexa.”

“Captain, you sound better.”

“Much. Look, Major, I’m going to need your help.”

“Go ahead.”

Alexa looked up at the apartment block. “I need an extraction team. We have an apartment block filled with lowlifes that I need taken out.”

“You want us to blow it up?”

Alexa shook her head. “No, we have some friendlies inside. Woman, children.”

“How many targets?”

Alexa cocked her head from side to side. “A hundred, maybe less.”

“Armed?”

“Most of them.”

“All right, then. Send me the coordinates. I’ll take care of it.”

“How long?”

The man hesitated for a second. “Two hours, three, tops.”

“Thank you, Major.” Alexa disconnected the call and fired a shot at a guy who poked his head out of the door to the apartment’s entrance.

She turned to face her men. “We need to keep them at bay for three hours, think you can do that?”

The men glanced at each other, nodded their agreement.