Under the Beetle's Cellar (40 page)

Rain said, “The whole idea is for me to get Mordecai in a room alone. Everything I do or say will be aimed at that.”

“The second problem,” Lattimore said, “is if he wants you to come with him and Cynthia, to have you show him the stuff privately. You want to resist that. Let me repeat: The goal here is for Cynthia to get him alone. If it’s necessary, and you have to go along with it, then be sure you stay out of the way. Rain will take him out at the first opportunity. You’ll hit the floor and stay there. We’ll hear the shot for sure because we have our electronic ears on, and the first shot’s our cue to move. If she can, she’ll blow out the window of the room she’s in with a frame charge. You can count on our coming through that blown window within sixty seconds, even if it’s on the second floor. The lights will go off, inside and out, as soon as we hear the shot. They have a generator, but we don’t know if it works and anyway it’ll take a while for it to kick in, so you may be in the dark. And there’s no moon tonight. Cynthia has a tiny laser light.”

Grady uncrossed his arms for the first time. “Tell her what happens if they get made, Lattimore.”

“If thirty minutes pass with no shot and no blast, we’re going to assume you got made and we’ll come in. Molly, if there’s some delay other than that, ask Mordecai if you can call me. Say you don’t want me to worry. All you have to do is pick up the phone and I’ll be on the other end,” Lattimore said. “At worst, this will be a diversion—to mask our assault.”

“Have you ever seen an explosive entry, Molly?” Rain asked.

“No.”

“And she’s not going to,” Lattimore said.

“But if you get unlucky,” Rain said, “and get to see one tonight, you should know what to expect. We go in fast—screaming like Banshees, black hoods, gas masks, Ninja gear, flash-bangs blinding you and deafening you, assault rifles blazing.”

“Sounds like a Rolling Stones concert I saw recently,” Molly said.

No one laughed.

Rain said, “I don’t know what effect Mick Jagger has on people these days, but our entries make most people piss in their pants the first time. I did. You’ve got one thing to remember: Stay down. That’s how you survive.”

“Okay,” Lattimore said, “if no one has anything else to add, let’s give the ladies some time to powder their noses and get their seams straight.” He looked at his watch. “Fifteen minutes, ladies and gentlemen. Then come back here and I’ll make the call to Mordecai. Curtis, get me Blumberg.”

Molly found the bathroom, but her bladder was much too nervous to give anything up.

Walking past the little room off the kitchen, looking for Grady, she saw Rain Conroy sitting alone inside. Her head was lowered, her eyes closed. Her lips moved silently. Her fingers were busy with something in her lap and at first Molly wasn’t sure what she was doing. Molly took a few steps into the room and saw that it was a rosary. Rain was moving her fingers slowly from bead to bead.

Molly stood quietly and watched her pray. She knew she ought to leave, but she couldn’t.

When Rain finally opened her eyes, Molly was still watching her.

“Old habits die hard,” Rain said. “And this business makes you superstitious. You tend to do exactly what you did all the other times you survived.”

“Are you still a Catholic?”

Rain smiled. “Are you still a woman? Are you still a member of your father’s family?”

“But you quit being a nun.”

“And I bet you quit being a virgin.”

Molly smiled back at her.

Rain said, “I don’t mean to be flippant. I don’t go to mass, haven’t for twenty years. I did once commit my life to the Church, but it proved unworthy of me. Sexist. Corrupt. Rigid.” She shrugged. “But so is every other organization I’ve seen since then.”

“Well,” Molly said, “I’m interrupting you. Sorry. But one more question—just now … what do you pray for?”

“For courage. And luck. For my reflexes to keep their edge just a little longer. For the soul of Samuel Mordecai. For the hostages.” She ticked them off on her fingers—“Hector Ramirez, Lucy Quigley, Sue Ellen McGregor, Brandon Betts, Bucky DeCarlo, Heather Yost, Kimberly Bassett, Conrad Pease, Sandra Echols, Philip Trotman, and especially Walter Demming.”

“I’m impressed that you learned their names. I haven’t wanted to get that close.”

Rain nodded. “I usually pick one name to concentrate on. I think it will be Philip Trotman this time. To center myself when things get messy. It calms me.” She studied Molly. “You might need one tonight. Why don’t you take Heather Yost? That sounds like a lucky one to me.” Rain closed her eyes. “But do it in the other room, please. I need a little time alone.”

But Molly hesitated. “Rain,” she asked, “do you have any other advice for me?”

Without opening her eyes, Rain said, “Make sure you pee before we go, and, for God’s sake, stay down.”

Molly found Grady in the kitchen studying the cast of Rain Conroy’s torso. When he saw Molly, he wrapped his arms around her and hugged her close. “Molly, go in and get out quick. No heroics.”

“No danger of that,” Molly said.

He nodded at the statue. “She’s paid to do it. And trained for it—a professional. You’re not.”

“I know.”

“It will all be over tonight.”

“Yes.”

“I was thinking it would be fun to go out tomorrow night—it’s Friday, you know—and drink some beer under the stars. We’ll take our dog along. What do you say?”

“I say it’s a date. After my exercise class.”

“Skip it.”

“No. I’ve vowed to be able to do fifty consecutive push-ups by the end of the year. Did I tell you that?”

“No, but Jo Beth did.” He chuckled. “She said you haven’t got a prayer.”

Molly studied his face. “Did she?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Well, she’s wrong. Grady, do you ever pray?”

“No. Well, maybe. Sometimes lately when I’m suffering over something, worrying about it, I find myself just stopping, and I say, ‘So be it.’
And then I let go of whatever it was that was eating at me, and I feel as light as air. All it seems to take is saying the words: So be it.”

“Thy will be done?” Molly said.

He leaned down and kissed her lightly. “I guess.”

CHAPTER

TWENTY-ONE

“The first angel sounded his trumpet, and there came hail and fire mixed with blood, and it was hurled down upon the earth.”

R
EVELATION
8:7

The night was cool and moonless. Molly had forgotten how dark it got out in the country, and how shrill the cicadas were.

They passed through the roadblock without slowing down. At the checkpoint, Grady flashed his badge and the DPS trooper immediately waved him through.

In front of them, the Hearth Jezreelite compound rose from the flat plain, flooded with white light like a stage set, surreal and dramatic. The first time Molly had seen the compound it had been just a ramshackle bunch of buildings housing an obscure religious group. Now, surrounded by spotlights and media attention, the crenellated stone towers flanking the flat-topped central structure loomed like a sorcerer’s castle in a grade B horror movie. Surrounded by tanks and personnel carriers, satellite trucks and press vans, it compelled attention. The whole world was watching. Molly couldn’t take her eyes off it.

But the most bizarre, nightmarish part of the scene you had to supply yourself—the underground part—ten children and a bus driver buried alive under the barn. She tried to conjure up the picture so she could hold them in mind. Aboveground, the floodlights had banished the darkness. But belowground, it would be eternal night—just dark earth and the creatures that crawled through it. Under the light. Under the grass. Under the dirt. Under the beetle’s cellar. Buried alive. It raised goose bumps on her skin. She wrapped her arms around herself. Dear God, how could they survive it?

Grady pulled up close to the gate. He checked his watch and turned to Molly in the back seat. “Look at your watch. The time is nine minutes past eleven. By the time you get to the front door it will be eleven past. You have until eleven forty-one.”

Molly looked down at her watch. “Okay. Eleven forty-one.”

“Right. I’ll be here waiting, Molly. Get in and out quick.”

“I will.” She slid out of the car and opened the passenger door for Rain, who struggled out, groaning as if she were slightly arthritic.

Rain smoothed her skirt around her hips and looked around at the weedy grounds and the glaring lights. “My goodness gracious but those are bright.”

Molly turned to look at her. The voice was brand-new—a soft, shaky twang with a whiny edge to it that was totally unlike Rain Conroy’s low, clipped Boston voice. Molly was awed. The voice, the dowager’s hump she’d managed to contort her back into, the meek body language—Rain had become Cynthia Jenkins.

They were a troupe of actors arriving on this bizarre set: Rain Conroy with her new voice and her rubber torso, Molly with her folder of lies, federal agents with weapons hidden somewhere. But the agents were not pretending; they were ready to kill in earnest.

“Here we go.” Molly opened the gate and walked through. She held it open for Rain, who said, “Oh, Lordy.” She looked dazed as she passed through. “Lordy mine.”

Molly closed the gate and started up the weedy gravel drive that led to the main building. Rain was having a hard time walking on the gravel. No one watching this middle-aged woman, with her heels sinking into the gravel, her breathing labored after only a few yards, would ever dream she was a professional assassin. The sound of their shoes crunching the gravel seemed very loud in Molly’s ears; it drowned out the cicadas and the steady hum of the generators outside the fence.

Molly wanted to look back at Grady’s car, to touch base, make sure he was waiting. And she longed for some evidence that the entry team was close behind them, ready to storm to their rescue. She wanted to reassure herself that they were backed up by all the firepower the law could muster. She resisted the temptation to look back, but couldn’t stop herself from glancing up at the towers, first the one on the left, then the one on the right. Something was missing. She looked up again. The tattered red banners were gone, the banners that had been flying, one from each tower, throughout the standoff, the banners over which there had been so much speculation. Whatever image they bore had been too faded and indistinct for anyone to make out, even with sophisticated
telephoto lenses or binoculars. She glanced once more. Definitely gone. Was it a sign of some sort?

They passed the derelict green truck sitting up on cinder blocks and the two cars that had been parked in the driveway for forty-nine days. They had become part of the landscape, much debated by the press. The black Corvette was registered to Samuel Mordecai, his personal vehicle. The white Toyota had no license plate, and no one knew who owned it.

Trying to follow orders to look straight ahead, Molly let her eyes flicker over the white barn, the huge double doors, the tin roof.

As they neared the front door of the main building, Rain sucked her breath in.

Up close Molly was surprised at how shoddy the construction was. The siding had separated; gaps showed the insulation in places. The gray paint was peeling. It was a run-down godforsaken place with no plumbing, no privacy, no beauty, and no comforts, and yet more than one hundred and fifty people had chosen to come here. To sit and listen to Samuel Mordecai preach. To follow him, even though he was leading them into the valley of death. It was incomprehensible. Beyond reason. She’d researched it and thought about it, and still it was a total enigma. She had written an article which purported to shed light on the cult phenomenon, which contained observations that appeared perceptive and wise, but it was a bogus wisdom. She wasn’t even close to understanding. What made these people give up everything and come to this godforsaken place?

And here she was, too, in spite of all her vows to keep her distance.

When they were ten yards away from the door, it swung open. Rain grabbed Molly’s arm and held on tight, as though she needed support. Molly patted her hand.

The single cement step was cracked and crumbling. Molly’s heart was thumping so hard she was sure it must be visible under her T-shirt.

She stepped up and Rain followed, still clinging to her arm. They walked through the doorway into the dim interior of the big room. After the bright lights outside, Molly had trouble seeing. When her eyes adjusted, she saw the room was filled with men in tan camouflage fatigues and ballistic vests. All held assault rifles. At every window several leaned against hay bales. They were watching out through holes in the sheets that covered the windows.

The reality of it stopped Molly in her tracks. This was a war zone and they had walked right into it, right into a fortified bunker. She stood still and felt the prickle of sweat under her arms. It would be all right, she told herself, if she just followed the plan.

The three men nearest the door kept their rifles pointed at Rain and
Molly. One pushed the door shut and another stacked some sandbags against it. All escape was cut off now.

Molly looked from face to face, seeking Samuel Mordecai. She didn’t see him.

She needed to do her part and get the hell out. She recited her lines: “I’m Molly Cates and this is Cynthia Jenkins.”

No one responded.

Molly’s eyes darted around the room. The men were lifeless automatons, their faces indistinguishable in the bad light. Only a single bulb hung near the center of the huge room. The corners and edges were in deep shadow, but she could make out dozens of boxes lined up against the walls. Several long wooden boxes looked like boxes in which guns were shipped. If the other boxes were full of weapons and ammunition, the Jezreelites were equipped to hold off an army. She wondered if the entry team knew how much force they were up against.

They stood in silence for what seemed a long time. Molly forced herself not to shift from foot to foot. All she had to do was say her piece and get out. While she waited, she rehearsed her script in her head.