Covenant (41 page)

            Anthony wondered if the church planned to destroy any of those tall buildings.  When he spotted a MARTA train speeding along tracks, he wondered if the rail system were a target, too.

Think about how people would freak out if that happened.  It would be pandemonium.

            It was almost too frightening to imagine, like a plot twist pulled out of a doomsday novel.  Unfortunately, considering the staggering resources the church commanded, it was entirely plausible. 

            “Tell us about the Armor of God,” Anthony said.  

            “It’s a paramilitary force, approximately seven hundred men strong,” Valdez said.  “They serve as Bishop Prince’s personal bodyguards, provide security on the Kingdom campus, and handle other missions, as ordered by the Director.  Most of them are ex-law enforcement or military.”

            “Is that how that Bob guy got you in, ‘cause you served in the Army?” Mike asked.

            “That helped.  They want experienced people, and they’re smart enough to know that they have to go outside the church to get ‘em.”

            “Do you have to be a believer in the church’s doctrines to work for them?” Lisa asked. 

            “When you’re selected, they put you through a nine-week training program on a wilderness retreat they own in Montana,” Valdez said.  “It was a lot like boot camp, physically demanding, except with an extreme focus on New Kingdom dogma.  You’re memorizing Bible passages, chanting church slogans, and listening to Bishop Prince’s sermons constantly.  Totally brain-numbing, but that’s the point.”

            “Like some radical Islamic terror cell training camp,” Anthony said.     

            “Good analogy.  Super fanatical, group-think environment.  If you don’t believe in New Kingdom’s teachings when you go in, by the time camp’s over, you sure do—or you learn pretty damn well how to fake it, like I did.”     

            “How’d you keep from being brainwashed?” Lisa asked.

            “Soon as I got out of camp, I slipped away and met with a Bureau shrink.  She put me through some deprogramming sessions, cleaned all of that crap out of my head.  But I can fake it when I need to.” 

            “Cutty sure wasn’t faking the funk,” Anthony said.

            “Cutty?”  Disgust curled Valdez’s lips, as if the man’s name tasted foul in her mouth.  “The word on him was that he was always a freakin’ psycho—he set a fire in his house when he was something like sixteen, torched his entire family.”

            Lisa shuddered.  “Are you for real?” 

            “What the hell do you think?” Valdez said, steel in her voice, but her anger seemed directed at Cutty, not Lisa.  “His family was in a survivalist cult, raised him on a commune out in the boondocks.  They’d make him sleep in a closet if he broke some stupid rule, beat him for breathing too hard, that kind of craziness.  After he snapped and burned up the house, he was locked up in a psych ward until someone at New Kingdom doing ministry outreach there discovered him.  Like they say, it was a marriage made in heaven.”

            “Good thing he’s gone, huh, guys?” Mike said.

            “We hope he is,” Anthony said.

            “There are others as dangerous as him,” Valdez said.  “Look, the pay for an agent in the Armor of God isn’t all that great.  People get into it because they believe Bishop Prince is chosen by God.”

            “Anointed,” Anthony said, echoing what he had heard earlier.

            “Even though he’s a pedophile,” Lisa said.  Her voice was thick with scorn.

            Valdez glanced away from the highway, eyebrows arched.  “You know about that?”

            “The bishop raped my sister when she was fourteen,” Anthony said.  “My nephew, Reuben . . . well, do you notice a resemblance?”

            “I knew there was something about that kid!”  Valdez put her hand to her mouth.  “That’s awful.”   

            “My dad found out about it, tried to do the right thing—“

            “You don’t have to finish—I can put the pieces together.”  She touched his arm.  “I’m so sorry.”

            “It’s taken me fifteen years to get to the truth,” Anthony said.  “If Bob hadn’t gotten in touch with me, I’d still be wandering in the dark.”

            “Yeah, good old Bob,” Valdez said.  “Would’ve been nice of him to help me out, too, before he split.  He’s our damn informant.”

            “What did this Bob dude do at the church anyway?” Mike asked.

            “Top administrative brass, and before that, he was the Deputy Director in the Armor of God,” Valdez said.  She turned a probing glare on Anthony.  “He knew everything—which I’m assuming he passed on to you.”

            Anthony shrugged.  “You know what they say about assumptions.”

            “Let’s get back to the bishop,” Lisa said.  “Have you heard about him hurting other girls?”

            “I’ve heard rumors,” Valdez said.  “It’s on the
low-low
down-low—passing that kind of gossip around the Kingdom can get you flat-lined.  But I have it from a good source that Bishop Prince doesn’t even live with his wife and kids in that mansion of his, ‘cause he entertains his angels there.”

            Anthony’s stomach did a sickening flip flop.  “His angels?”

            “That’s what he calls them,” Valdez said.  “The story is that some of the servant families who live on campus supply their daughters to Bishop Prince, to use whenever he wants, in return for some blessing or whatever.”

            Lisa made a sound of revulsion in her throat.  “That’s got to be the most disgusting thing I’ve ever heard in my life.”

            “Before I went undercover, I researched cults,” Valdez said.  “It’s fairly common for the cult leaders—almost always a man, of course—to have total sexual access to everyone in the group, children included.  David Koresh, remember that guy?”

            “Waco, Texas,” Mike said. 

            Valdez said, “Koresh convinced his followers that he was a descendant of King David and his seed was divine, and since it was, he was the only man in the sect allowed to get laid.  And he could get some from anyone, whenever.”

            “Pedophile Prince told my sister something like that, too,” Anthony said.  “He told her she should be honored to accept his ‘divine seed.’ ”

            “He’s unbelievable,” Valdez said.  “But even though he’s the scum of the earth, his ministry, if you want to call it that, has tapped into something that lots of people respond to very passionately.”

            “The prosperity preaching,” Lisa said.

            “That’s part of it, but more than that, it’s his kingdom theology,” Valdez said.  “When he talks about the erosion in morals and values in modern society, how popular culture is so shallow and freakin’ screwed up, and hits you with how if we embrace a kingdom agenda, people will start acting like they’ve got some decency because it’ll be the law of the land . . . listen, when he gets going on that, the servants go nuts, they’re ready to do anything to make it happen..”

            “A lot of people are fed up with the state of the world,” Anthony said.  “He’s a demagogue, using people’s emotions to manipulate them for his own purposes.”

            “But he believes in it,” Valdez said.  “He’s not a cynic feeding the masses whatever
mierda
they want to eat.  He’s convinced God is telling him to do this stuff.”

            “That makes him super dangerous,” Mike said.

            “You said it.”  Valdez glanced at Mike in the rearview mirror.  “Right now, according to the Director of the Bureau—and he’d never say this publicly ‘cause the church’s supporters would have his balls for breakfast—Bishop Prince is the most dangerous man in America.”

76

            As Six Flags Over Georgia floated into view on the left of the highway, roller coasters stretching for the clouds, Valdez exited the interstate and made a right off the ramp, onto a busy strip lined with chain hotels, gas stations, and fast food joints.  She swerved into the parking lot of a Texaco, stopped near an air pump/vacuum machine, let go of the wheel, and whirled in the seat to face Anthony. 

            “Okay, the Kingdom Campus is about a half-mile ahead,” she said.  “But we need to talk strategy before we get there.  Bob told you where you could find the goods, correct?  Did he put the data on a flash drive, a disc, or what?”

            Mike and Lisa looked to Anthony, too.  Anthony shrugged.

            “I don’t know,” he said. 

            Valdez’s eyes dwindled to dark points.  “Don’t screw with me, Thorne.”

            “I’m being straight with you.  The info could be on a disc, or a flash drive, or some other storage device.  Bob didn’t tell me.”

            “What the hell did he tell you then?”

            “I know the info is on the campus.  But I’m not sure where, exactly.” 

            “You’re lying.”  Her gaze skewered him.  “You don’t trust me.”

            “I don’t trust anyone.” 

            He met her hot glare.  She didn’t blink.  She looked ready, in fact, to punch him in the face. 

            “How’s the security on campus, senorita?” Mike asked, breaking the tension.

            Valdez sighed, tucked a lock of hair behind her ear.  “Tighter than a drum.  They’ve got complete surveillance of every area, foot patrols, cruisers, choppers.  Every agent wears Kevlar vests and carries pepper spray, stun batons, and 9mm Glocks.”

            “They sound like cops,” Lisa said.   

            “They’re more dangerous than cops,” Valdez said.  “They don’t bother to read you Miranda rights.”

            “Response time to an incident?” Anthony asked.

            “Depending upon where the threat originates?  Three minutes, max.”

            “Not much time.”  Anthony cracked his knuckles.  “We’ll have to move like lightning, then.”

            “We’ll have the advantage of surprise,” Mike said.  He swatted Anthony’s shoulder.  “We can do this, AT.  Piece of cake.”

            “To hell with that crap, we’re calling back-up.” Valdez flipped out her cell phone.  “I need them to bring me that search warrant, and we can use the extra firepower.”

            “Hold on, I’m not going to storm in there with the feds,” Anthony said.  “You call them, and our partnership ends here.”

            “We can’t do this on our own,” Valdez said.  “We’re way outnumbered.  They’ll shoot to kill.”

            “So will we,” Mike said.

            Valdez gnashed her teeth.  “Freakin’ stubborn jarheads.”

            Anthony only smiled at her.

            “All right,” Valdez said.  “I’ll tell my team to get set, but I’ll hold ‘em off till we get to Bob’s drop.”

            “Fair enough,” Anthony said.

            Phone in hand, she started to get out of the SUV.  Anthony stopped her.

            “Make the call in front of us,” he said.

            “You’re paranoid, you know that?”  But she remained in her seat and punched in a number.  She had a terse conversation with her contact, and put away the phone.

            “They’ve got the warrant.  They’ll stage about a mile from campus.”  She read her watch.  “Should be in place in thirty minutes.”

            “That gives me time to figure out where we need to go,” Anthony said.  “Let’s head on in and cruise around.”

            “Didn’t you hear me?”  Valdez said.  “I told you I can’t take anything out of there without a warrant.  I’m not working for the church any more.  I’ve gotta follow the law now.”

            “You’re not going to take anything.  You’re only going to drive around so I can find Bob’s drop.  Right, guys?”

            “Just a look-see,” Mike said, nodding.

            “Never hurt anything,” Lisa said.  Her gaze connected with Anthony’s, and he thought about married folk telepathy.

            Muttering under her breath in Spanish, Valdez slammed the Explorer into gear.

77

            The front gates of the church campus were so massive and ornate Anthony felt as if they were entering a beachfront luxury resort.  Opened wide enough to permit four lanes of traffic, the gates were at least ten-feet high, painted snow-white, with intricate gold and silver scrollwork of angels and doves.  A gigantic electronic billboard in front flashed the time and the temperature, and featured a digitized image of a smiling Bishop Prince, with a slogan that proclaimed:
Serving God’s Kingdom.

            Serving God’s kingdom?  It made Anthony sick.

            About a hundred yards past the gates, the road diverged into six lanes: three going in, three going out.  Large yellow signs hung above each entryway, bringing to mind a toll-road plaza.  They were marked “Staff,” “Members,” and “Visitors.”  Each entrance included a guard booth manned by broad-shouldered men clad in white tracksuits and aviator sunglasses.

            “No one can simply drive on in, huh?” Anthony said.

            “You got it.”  Valdez nosed the Explorer into the Staff lane and produced a laminated photo ID card from her jacket.        

            “When I came here for my friend’s wedding, they slapped a visitor sticker on my car,” Lisa said.  “They made me give my name and city of residence, too.”

            “All visitors are logged,” Valdez said.

            “What if you object to giving your personal info?” Anthony asked.

            “Then you don’t get in,” Valdez said. 

            “Damn, is it a church, or a base?” Mike asked. 

            Valdez lowered the window and showed her ID to a guard.  He nodded curtly, said, “May God bless you,” in an artificially cheerful voice, and the white gate arm lifted.       

            There was a Welcome Center ahead, an Art Deco style brick building with lots of windows, fronted by a huge water fountain.  A colorful sign at the main intersection bore arrows pointing the way to various destinations such as the Sanctuary, Kingdom Market, Medical Center, and Kingdom Academy.