Authors: Warren Adler
Cult
Praise For
Cult
“I appreciate Mr. Adler's focus on cults as the focus for his psychological thriller,
Cult
, and hope that it raises public awareness. Many in the media and the public in general seem to forget that destructive cults are an ongoing problem. The news only focuses on the subjects of cults when some horrible tragedy takes place. But the fact is abuse by cults is a global phenomenon, which impacts the lives of millions of people every day. Mr. Adler's book illustrates this reality, by telling the story of a local cult, which might exist around the corner or down the street in virtually any town or city in the United States, or for that matter around the world.”
âRick Ross, Executive Director of The Cult Education Institute
“Warren Adler writes with skill and a sense of scene.”
â
The New York Times Book Review
on
The War of the Roses
“Engrossing, gripping, absorbing⦠written by a superb storyteller. Adler's pen uses brisk, descriptive strokes that are enviable and masterful.”
â
West Coast Review of Books
on
Trans-Siberian Express
“A fast-paced suspense story⦠only a seasoned newspaperman could have written with such inside skills.”
â
The Washington Star
on
The Henderson Equation
“High-tension political intrigue with excellent dramatization of the worlds of good and evil.”
â
Calgary Herald
on
The Casanova Embrace
“A man who willingly rips the veil from political intrigue.”
â
Bethesda Tribune
on
Undertow
“Ingenious.”
â
Publishers Weekly
“Diverting, well-written and sexy.”
â
Houston Chronicle
“Exciting.”
â
London Daily Telegraph
“High-class suspense.”
â
The New York Times
on
American Quartet
“Adler's a dandy plot-weaver, a real tale-teller.”
â
Los Angeles Times
on
American Sextet
“Adler's depiction of Washingtonâits geography, social whirl, political intrigueârings true.”
â
Booklist
on
Senator Love
“A wildly kaleidoscopic look at the scandals and political life of Washington D.C.”
â
Los Angeles Times
on
Death of a Washington Madame
“Both the public and the private story in Adler's second book about intrepid sergeant Fitzgerald make good reading, capturing the political scene and the passionate duplicity of those who would wield power.”
â
Publishers Weekly
on
Immaculate Deception
Cult
by Warren Adler
Copyright © 2003 by Warren Adler
ISBN (EPUB edition): 978-0-7953-4567-8
2nd Edition
All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any form without permission. This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination based on historical events or are used fictitiously.
Inquiries: [email protected]
STONEHOUSE PRODUCTIONS
Produced by Stonehouse Productions
Published 2015 by RosettaBooks
www.RosettaBooks.com
For Daphne Greene
There is some flaw in the human psyche, perhaps in the brain itself, which causes ordinary people to ingest and absorb false truths and be controlled by them. And there are ruthless people who have discovered this flaw, and are willing to exploit it to enslave and gain power over others and use them for their own sinister purposes.
It is indisputable that people can be brainwashed. Because the process of brainwashing is such a mystery, it is difficult to comprehend, although the evidence of its power is overwhelming. Destructive ideas can be implanted in people's minds and they can be programmed to carry them out. The horrible events of 9/11 are such an example. Those deluded young suicide bombers had been brainwashed into believing that their action would somehow buy them a ticket to an imagined afterlife where they would spend their days frolicking with seventy-two young virgins provided for their pleasure by some divine entity
. They had been persuaded, beyond reason and logic, that by killing themselves and thousands of others these dubious and utterly ridiculous rewards would be assured. How can any reasonable person subscribe to such an incredibly grotesque idea? Unfortunately, they can, and they do. Cults are the main culprits of brainwashing.
In modern usage, the term “cult” often describes any religious group or sect viewed as strange or dangerous, unorthodox or extremist, with members often living outside of conventional society under the direction of a charismatic leader. These organizations typically employ abusive, manipulative, or illegal means to gain control over their followers' lives.
The fictional cult described in this novel is an example of one of many that are in existence today all over the world. While they are different in focus and objective, they have one thing in common. They brainwash people, program them, and send them out into the world to do the bidding of the so-called Guru or “Messiah,” who runs the cult as absolute ruler.
Hard to believe? Visit Ground Zero in New York City. Or Auschwitz, or Jonestown, or Waco, and on and on.
Warren Adler
New York, 2013
Barney Harrigan!
The name, his voice, the memory stunned her. Her fingers shook and she steadied the phone against her ear.
“Is this Naomi Forman?” the man inquired, still tentative and uncertain.
The red numbers on the digital clock displayed three AM. The hour of desperation. No call could come at that moment without a reason. Would Barney Harrigan announce disaster? She shivered at the ancient memory, the old painful love, her own awful guilt.
Barney Harrigan!
From the beating pulse in her throat and the sudden emptiness in the pit of herself, she knew it still lingered. Hadn't she killed it for good years ago? Five. Nearly six.
“I can't believe it.”
“I'm sorry.” He offered the obligatory apology.
Kicking off her comforter, she sat cross-legged on the bed.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“Fort Lauderdale.”
“I didn't know you moved out of Manhattan.”
Had he moved since she, on a guilty whim, had last looked him up online? She found that the address had changed from the apartment in SoHo they had once shared, where they had once loved. The flame had burned hard and hot, finally ending, the reasons blurred by time.
“I'm at my parents' place in Lauderdale. I had to drop off Kev.”
“Kev?”
“My son.”
“Son?”
“I married a few years ago. He's four.”
A brief pause, a mite too long.
“Congratulations.” Her tone was sarcastic, and she was embarrassed by her reaction. He ignored it.
“I'm callingâ¦.” He hesitated, clearing his throat, “â¦at this ungodly hour⦠you see, I just found out. And you were the only person I could talk to in Washington.”
So it was Washington that he needed. For a fleeting moment, she had allowed a part of herself to yearn for something more. He had her at a distinct disadvantage. He had found someone else to love. She had not.
“It's very complicated,” he said. “But it boils down to thisâ¦.”
So he was boiling down again. He had once called it “the bottom line.” How bitterly she had reacted.
“The bottom line,” he had ranted, “is that I cannot live a life that is totally political. Not everything is politics and causes, there is home and hearth. Family. Sharing.”
That was their old one-note argument. She hadn't been ready for compromises. Not then.
“Charlotte.” He coughed. “My wife.” A bark of hoarseness quickly cleared. “She has been captured by the Glories.” He paused, waiting for a reaction.
In her mind, the Glories formed a vague collection of information: rich, powerful, right wing, espousing a totalitarian view of the world. A dubious religious sect. Some called it a cult with political pretensions. Their leader was Father Glory, an Indian businessman, who believed he was the Messiah. She thought of Jim Jones, the People's Temple Guru who commanded 900 people to kill themselves in Guyana; Waco's David Koresh, who created a standoff with the government, then ordered his band of crazies to head for Armageddon; Marshall Applewhite, who talked his followers into believing that suicide would buy them a UFO trip to a “higher level,” wherever that was. Other images came to mind, shaven-headed Hare Krishnas chanting on street corners; stories of frantic parents chasing lost adult children; and neatly dressed Glories selling candy, knickknacks, flowers. And of course, there was Bin Laden and all the associated fanatics who believed, really believed, that paradise awaited them, an eternity with seventy-two virgins.
An eternity?
But a cult was a cult, and fools who believed such things were just thatâfools, and even worse. Seventy-two, no less. Their
thing
would have to be made of wrought iron.
Naomi remembered her own clumsy and painful deflowering. It was equally horrendous. She had forgotten his name, only recalling that his
thing
stabbed mercilessly, and the whole experience was appalling.
But cults only happened to other people. Unless, of course, you were caught in the crosshairs of their horror, like 9/11. The date stirred her disgust, and she shook it away and thought about what Barney had said about the Glories.
“How awful,” she said. It seemed an appropriate response.
“I just found out.”
“Howâ¦?” she started to ask, but Barney was already off, explaining in a choppy narrative.
“She had gone to Seattle to visit her sister,” he explained. His voice conveyed a touch of hysteria and she forced herself to listen respectfully, patiently, although her interest in the subject of his pain was minor.
“She has this sister, Susan. Both their parents are dead. I said, âFine.' She hadn't seen her in two years. Why not? She worked pretty hard with Kev. What's one lousy week? We both knew Susie was involved with something. But we didn't know it was that. Not the Glories. âSure, go ahead,' I told her. I encouraged her. So she went.”
Out of the cage
, Naomi thought, pulling together a picture of Charlotte and her life, hoping it would recall the old image of her own rebellion. It didn't.
“She called every day from the coast. Spoke to Kevin and me. Told us how much she missed us. Said she had gone with Susie to some kind of farm, had met fabulous, really caring, loving people. âWonderful,' I said. âJust wonderful.' Then she called and said she'd like to spend some more time out there.” He was talking compulsively, not to Naomi, but at her. She let it happen, trapped by their old ties.
“Charlotte is twenty-five. That's their target age. They zeroed in and got her. Just like that. Imagine.” She heard him swallow, picturing his bobbing Adam's apple.
A ten-year difference, Naomi calculated. In comparison to her, he had robbed the cradle. She was his age, thirty-five.
“She seemed happy.” State of mind was another difference between the two. “We have this big apartment, a co-op on seventy-fourth and fifth.” Different financial status, “And she loves the kid. Loves him.” He paused. “We were all very close.” And she had family ties. Naomi winced, resisting the gnawing envy.
“Then she called two days ago.” His voice broke, and the panic slid into her dark bedroom, raising goose bumps on her thighs and arms. She waited until he cleared his throat, her ears clogged with the pounding pulse of her heart. For some reason, she felt his fear now. Was this voice really Barney's? Or some disembodied bleat that had splintered loose from an old fantasy?
Keep your distance
,
she begged.
This mess is on your plate, not mine.
“She saidâ¦.” His voice steadied. “She said she was not coming home. Never. That she loved me and Kevin⦠that she had found something important, a new way of life, something spiritual. That someday we would understand. It wasn't Charlotte talking. Not her at all. Not my Charlotte. She was different, sounded different. I couldn't understand it. At first I thought she was drugged or hypnotized. But then I thought⦠hell, the son of a bitch brainwashed her.” His voice had risen. “Am I making sense?” he said quickly, his tone lowering.
“Easy, Barney,” she whispered.
“I'm really sorry for throwing this shit on your doorstep, Nay. I have no right.”
So now he's bringing up rights
, she thought. Rights, after all, were her business. She was assistant director of the Human Rights Council, a group that monitored rights in countries with repressive governments, a growing menace. Did he know that? Was he trying to subliminally appeal to her sense of compassion? Naomi had just started with the Human Rights Council as she and Barney had approached the exit door of their relationship.
Actually, despite his assertion, he did have the right, she thought. There was the right of past relationships, of old friendships, of shared experiences, of love. They had once touched each other deeply. She had often felt his mark on her, like fingerprints on her body, tangible and telling, and on her heart and soul, intangible and abstract. There was also the bond of the dead fetus. Their baby. She had never told him, never would. Ever. Despite her conviction that she had the right to make this choice, she could not totally shake the guilt of the action. For a long time she had put it in back of her mind. With his call, the discomfort came raging back.
“You have every right,” she told him.
“The thing is,” he said, his courage hardening. “I'm not going to just accept this without a fight. There has got to be some channel of official help. The FBI. Congressmen. They can't just take people, tear them away from their families, from the people who love them. This is America, dammit.”
Torn away?
Suppose it had been Charlotte's conscious decision to leave? Like herself years ago. Perhaps Charlotte also had had enough. But to tear a mother from her living child, that was unnatural, wrong. Nobody had the right to make someone do that.
“I'm going to fight this,” Barney said. “I have no set plan. But I'm going to fight. That's why I called, Nay. I need your help.”
She hesitated.
Help? What could she do?
But at this hour, who could say no�
“But how can I help?” she asked, hoping he would sense the skeptical spin, that she could not help. He indeed had the right to ask her, but not the right to enmesh her. Guilt, the eternal enemy, prodded her.
“I⦠I don't know if I'm the one, Barney. I mean, I know about human rights and I do have some connections in Washington. But this, the Glories. I don't know much about these cults.”
“I need you, Nay.”
“I'll grant you that you need something, Barney.” She paused, hesitated. “I may be the wrong ticket. The rights I monitor deal with another field⦠governments primarily.”
“Rights are rights,” Barney said. This time it was he who paused. “I'm invoking⦠well⦠what we once were to each other. I know. I know. I'm pushing the envelope. Hell, we have history, Nay. History counts. And you have a sense of justice, and compassionâ¦.”
“You're conning me, Barney,” she said.
“I wish.”
“I've toughened up,” she said. “I don't give in so easily,” she lied. Guilt would make her comply and she knew it.
“Yes or no, Nay? I'm begging, and you know from experience that's not my style.”
“Shit, Barney. Why me? Why now?”
“Yes or no, Nay?”
“That's not fair, Barney.”
“Is that a yes?”
“I don't want this.”
Of course I don't
, she cried within herself. But he must have anticipated her tacit consent.
“Please, Nay. Do it.”
“I'll disappoint you. I haven't got the connections you need.”
“We'll see. I'll be in Washington tomorrow. Could you just call around, so you'll be able to point me in the right direction? Maybe that's all I'll get from you. A road map. Who to see. What to do. Where to start. What's your office number?”
She gave it to him.
“I'll get Kevin set with the folks. Poor kid. He's all confused. He keeps asking, âWhere's Mommy?' You tell me how to explain that to a four-year-old.”
“I wouldn't know,” she said, thinking of their own lost baby again, bitterness welling up, her gut cramping.
“God, Nay, I'm grateful,” he said.
She heard the click and the connection went dead.
In the stony silence of her dark bedroom, she was shivering, not just from the cold. His presence had descended like a tornado, leaving a trail of destructionâher tranquility, her courage, her sense of self, her carefully erected barriers. It had taken her years to construct the protective walls. The tornado had shaken loose her foundations.
She could clearly remember the beginning and the end. Between was not exactly a middle. There was no continuity, more like revved-up images on a projector gone awry, leaving impressions. He had never lived with her in her current place, but it did not stop the memories from coming. She smelled his presence in the room, an amalgam of his aftershave and musk.
***
They had been sitting at a window table in the Oak Room of the Plaza Hotel on 59th Street, drinking white wine and looking into each other's eyes. Hers were hazel, flecked with yellow, and it seemed as if he had been counting the yellow specks. His were blue-gray, heightened by the brightness of the late afternoon and the green from Central Park across the way.
They had only known each other nearly three hours when he had said, “I loved you instantly.”
“Pshaw,” she responded, mimicking the way cartoon characters said it.
“Not pshaw,” he said. “Egad.” He looked at his watch. “A hundred and seventy minutes, actually.” They both knew that something momentous had happened.
Of course, she didn't trust it. Nothing happens that fast. “It's the wine,” she said.
“It's the heart.”
At the time, she had been working for an organization involved with women's rights in Africa. He was selling smartphones and her office was in the market to buy a few.
“I'm not the person to see,” she had told him.
“You're the person I see,” he had said, brash, flirtatious, self-confident, and true.
“How do you feel about our cause?” she had asked, full of the idea and emboldened with the outrage.
“I'm all for it. How can anyone be against it? Besides, I'll be for anything you're for. That's why I'm doing this meeting. Smartphones will enhance your cause, speed the victory.”
“Really?”
“Sure, I'm all for the cause. Mostly I like the messenger,” he said, watching her sipping the wine. She felt the intensity of his focus. She wondered exactly how casual an encounter this was.
“You don't sound sincere,” she had countered, while noting his good looks.
“I can prove my sincerity,” he said.
“How?”
“Over drinks. It might take time. You look like a hard case to crack.”