Hell's Fortress (19 page)

Ludlow looked nervous. “I have orders from General Minsk. We’re to return to base ASAP.”

“You’re not going anywhere, you lazy slobs,” another man said. They didn’t appear to have a leader, or at least no one was taking charge. “Not until dark.”

“I’m not leaving my vehicles.”

“Suit yourself. Sleep on the concrete for all I care.”

“Fine,” Ludlow said. “All I care about is getting rid of the prisoners. Are the others still here?”

“Yeah, they’re in the conference room.” A man stepped forward and looked over the three companions. Was this their leader? “Who the hell are they?”

“FBI, I think.” Ludlow produced Miriam’s FBI badge, which he’d confiscated earlier. The man took it. The sergeant stepped back with a look of undisguised relief.

And then soldiers from the parking garage led Eliza, Miriam, and Grover away at gunpoint. Eliza turned to look at Ludlow, who watched them with a scowl. The look earned her a rifle barrel jab to the kidney. She’d never guessed that she’d be reluctant to leave Ludlow, but she was suddenly terrified to be under control of these filthy, starving men.

Miriam stared straight ahead with her face a rigid mask. Grover’s eyes darted from side to side, looking as frantic as a rabbit caught in a snare. A soldier met the boy’s gaze with a hard look and he flinched.

Sergeant Ludlow, Eliza realized, had done them a favor. He hadn’t said a word about their connection to the dead body. And he hadn’t said anything about Grover. If these vermin had been angry with Ludlow’s men for having food, water, and security, while they crouched starving and thirsty under artillery bombardment, what would they do to a so-called draft dodger? It wouldn’t be pretty.

Ludlow might very well have saved their lives.

The filthy soldiers led Eliza, Miriam, and Grover deeper into what turned out to be an enormous hotel and casino. Wires ran up and down the hallways, but there was only enough electricity for the occasional LED light taped to the wall, which cast the hallways in a bluish glow. The elevators were out, and they made their way up three stories via a stairwell of concrete steps. They emerged into a vast room leading past abandoned reception areas and banks of dead video slot machines.

Light streamed in through blown-out windows. Outside were dry fountains and plaster statues of Greek gods pockmarked with bullets or missing heads and limbs. A row of palm trees ran parallel to the street, their fronds shredded and several of them snapped in two. Inside the room, glass shards and metal game tokens sparkled across a burgundy carpet.

The building shuddered with a new explosion and the companions threw themselves to the floor along with the soldiers. Moments later the soldiers were up, ordering the prisoners to keep going. They entered a long, windowless hallway. The LED lights were gone and it was too dark to see, but the soldiers seemed to know their way by feel. A door swung open. It revealed another stairwell and more lights.

They went up four more stories and into another hallway lit with LEDs. Conference rooms lined either side. Two soldiers guarded a pair of padlocked doors at the far end of the hall. One man had a cigarette at his lips and he fumbled with a key to get the lock open. When it opened, the four men who had led the prisoners into the casino pushed into the room, snarling at people on the other side to get out of the way.

It was a conference room about fifty feet long and twenty wide. Blown-out windows on one side overlooked the street several stories down, but a warm breeze failed to cut the stench of human waste and death. Several dozen chairs lay stacked along one side of the room, which was otherwise bare of furniture. Thin figures lay on blankets and sleeping bags, sweating in the heat. A woman in shorts and a tank top, her collarbone jutting out like a brittle stick, slumped against one wall. She let out a dry, barking cough that shook her thin body. There were maybe thirty people in all.

The soldiers shoved Eliza, Miriam, and Grover into the room. The doors closed behind them, followed by the sound of clinking chains and the padlock snicking into place.

“Stick together,” Eliza said. “Be careful until we know what’s what.”

One of the prisoners staggered toward them. He was a tall, frightening scarecrow of a man with hollow eyes and a scraggly beard. His eyes blazed with such intensity that Eliza flinched and closed in with Miriam and Grover, who tensed by her side.

The man drew short. “Eliza?”

“What? Who—?”

“It’s you. I can’t believe it. Don’t you recognize me?”

It was a stranger’s face that looked back at her, but the low, gravelly voice was unmistakable and unforgettable.

Eliza stared, trying to wrap her mind around what she’d heard. Trying to convince herself that it was real, that this half-dead man was who she thought he was.

“Is that—” she began, then stopped to catch her breath, which was suddenly short. Her heart pounded. “Is that you?”

A bone-weary smile broke across the man’s face and then she was sure. It was Steve. She had found him. They fell into each other’s arms.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Elder Smoot came striding up the sidewalk to the Christianson house, tall and strong, his eyes blazing above his massive beard. No pretense of needing a cane. Not today. Today he was a patriarch in all his righteous anger. Jacob waited on the porch, bracing himself for the coming storm.

Jacob had sent his oldest son to call Smoot to the meeting with the Women’s Council. Upon his return, Daniel had described Smoot’s thundering reaction with open-eyed awe. Two hours later, Smoot carried that same anger to the porch.

“Where are they?” he demanded.

“In the parlor. But before we go in—”

“Then let’s get this blasted farce over with.”

“Before we go in,” Jacob repeated calmly, “I want all four of us here. I expect David and Stephen Paul any minute.”

“Well, where are they?”

“They’re coming. They’re not late—you and I are early. Even if they were here, we’d wait another few minutes.”

“Damn it, Christianson. Let’s get on with this. The others can join us when they come.”

“I told my wife four thirty. That’s when they expect us. Ten minutes.”

“Your wife. Your
wife.
Do you hear how preposterous that sounds?”

Jacob refused to let Smoot bait him. “Sit down, Elder. Be patient. We won’t get anywhere in this meeting by shouting and carrying on.”

Smoot yanked over one of the rocking chairs, sat down, and rocked furiously. “This is what comes of giving women their own council. You see now.”

Jacob thought about waiting inside, but Smoot might very well barge in after him. So he took his own chair and sat down. Smoot rocked like he wanted to launch his chair from the porch.

Thankfully, the other two men arrived shortly thereafter. It was still a few minutes short of four thirty. The four of them stood in front of the door.

Jacob put his hand on the knob. “This is not a fight. For heaven’s sake, don’t try to make it one.”

“Get it over with,” Smoot said.

Jacob expected to find the women in the parlor. Instead, they were in the kitchen and dining room. Not sitting around pontificating, like the Quorum of the Twelve would have done had they been waiting for a meeting, but working. Charity and Ruthie Kimball made bread. Sister Rebecca and Stephen Paul’s wife Carol sat at the long table teaching two young girls how to disassemble and clean an AR-15 assault rifle. Lillian sat with David and Miriam’s baby, feeding her a bottle. Other women knitted or read old agricultural journals dug out of someone’s attic. Jacob’s wife, Fernie, sat in her wheelchair, cranking the handle on a wooden ice cream maker. The entire Women’s Council was present, minus Eliza and Miriam.

The men entered and took four empty seats at the far end of the table. None of them spoke. Gradually, the women stopped what they were doing. Carol sent the girls from the room while Rebecca finished reassembling the rifle. One of the girls took David’s baby with her. Only Fernie kept working, her arms straining to turn the handle.

“Excuse me,” she said. “It’s getting stiff—I’m almost done.”

Smoot snorted.

Fifteen, twenty more cranks, and then Fernie stopped. “There. Peach ice cream. Is anyone hungry?”

“There you go,” Smoot said, not to Fernie, but to the other men. “It’s a blasted ice cream social.”

Fernie fixed him with a look not unlike the one she gave to mouthy children. “There’s no need to be rude, Elder Smoot. If you don’t want any ice cream, you could simply say ‘No thank you.
’
 ”

Smoot didn’t respond. Lillian took the ice cream maker to the kitchen, where she emptied out the ice and removed the canister. Another woman set out bowls, while someone else found a scoop. When the ice cream was dished up, Lillian passed around the bowls. As she passed David, her hand rested on his. He smiled. She returned a shy smile.

Lillian was an attractive young woman, strongly built, but with a feminine face. Her only flaw was ears that stuck out a little. The ears made her cute, rather than beautiful, but somehow also made her look approachable and friendly. David seemed to legitimately care for her, but there was no disguising that his heart truly belonged to Miriam.

Lillian approached her father and her smile turned wary as she gave him a bowl of peach ice cream.

“Thank you,” Smoot grunted. He cleared his throat, then tentatively picked up the spoon.

Jacob took his own bowl. The ice cream was sweet and rich. The peaches gave it tang. It carried him to his childhood, pouring in ice and salt and cranking the handle until it stiffened and his arm trembled with exhaustion. The reward was a heaping bowl of ice cream devoured on the porch at dusk, when the cool air blew in off the desert. Simpler times.

If Fernie had hoped to cut the tension by serving ice cream, she had underestimated Smoot’s anger. The church elder ate his in silence, then dropped his spoon with a clank and gave Jacob a hard look.

“So.”

Jacob sighed. He looked at Fernie. “You don’t like the plan?”

“No.”

“I don’t either. None of us do. We searched for an alternative and couldn’t find one.”

“It’s an awful situation that defies an easy answer,” his wife agreed. “But killing is not the solution.”

“Do you have a suggestion?”

“Pray,” Fernie said. “Wait for the Lord to send us an answer.”

“What if the answer is to kill the squatters and drive them away?”

“It won’t be. Anyway, I know you haven’t prayed. Not really.”

Smoot started. “He’s a prophet. Of course he prayed.”

“My husband is a prophet when he acts like a prophet. Right now, he’s acting like a man. A frightened, panicky man. And that’s dangerous.” She didn’t say this to Smoot, but to Jacob, meeting and holding his gaze.

“Christianson, do you let your wife talk to you like that?”

“Yes,” Jacob said.

The elder blinked. “That was meant to be a blasted rhetorical question. Of course you don’t let her. Because
you
preside over your family. And that means you are the king and lord of your own house.”

“As a general rule, I try not to think of myself as a king. Because my family are not my subjects.”

“This is the reason,” Smoot said. “This is why a man should never have just one wife. You get a few of them together and they have an outlet for gossip and scheming. Figuring out who has authority, who rules the others. When you’ve only got one wife, her only outlet is her husband. She tries to rule him instead. You see the problem.”

“Do we have to sit and listen to this patriarchal nonsense?” Rebecca asked from the other end of the table.

“Elder Smoot is an elder in Israel,” Charity said. “The Lord’s anointed.”

“The Lord’s self-appointed, you mean,” Rebecca said.

Charity looked taken aback. “Show respect.”

“He’s a man with a little authority who thinks the priesthood gives him the right to strut in here crowing like a rooster,” Rebecca continued. “We don’t have to listen to it.”

The women, Jacob realized, had their own internal struggles. Arguments and personality conflicts ready to play out. What had their meeting looked like? How many women agreed with Fernie, and how many agreed with the men?

“Excuse me,” he said. “There are fourteen of us in this room. If we all have a turn, we’ll never get anywhere.”

“Jacob is right,” Fernie said. “The women came to a consensus. It took us hours of arguing. We’re not going to hash it out again. What we’re here for is to come to an agreement between the men and the women.”

“Eliza is gone,” Jacob said. “And Fernie is her first counselor. She can speak on behalf of the women, and I’ll represent the men.”

“I will note for the record that she is also your wife,” Rebecca said.

“Is that a serious objection?” When Rebecca didn’t respond, Jacob looked around the table. “Anyone else? Okay, then. Fernie?”

“Bottom line is, the women don’t want war,” Fernie said.

“Neither do we,” Jacob said. “We don’t have a choice.”

“We do have a choice. They haven’t attacked us, which means your war is preemptive. It’s voluntary. So long as they stay in the cliffs, we’re going to leave them alone.”

“They’re poisoning the reservoir. That’s a form of attack.”

“To catch fish, not to kill us. So no, it’s not.”

“Same result, in the end.”

“Did you ask them to stop?”

“We had a battle, remember?”

“Don’t use that tone, please. I know what happened.”

“I’m sorry.” He took a deep breath. “I don’t know who fired first, or how it started, but people died. I warned them, threatened them. They still haven’t left.”

“Casualties were one-sided, as I recall. I’m sure they feel they’re in the right.”

“Fernie, what are we supposed to do? They’re cutting our timber, their latrines are overflowing into our water supply. They’ll eat anything that moves. And they admitted that they’re waiting until their numbers grow large enough and then they’ll overrun the valley and take what they want. If we let them, we’ll all die.”

“I say that’s a bluff.”

“You haven’t seen the camp. You don’t know what we’re facing.”

“I haven’t, but other women have. Lillian was with David, remember? She gave her report. We’re all aware of the grave and growing danger.”

“And you’re still willing to take that chance? If you’re wrong, all of our homes, our land, our town that we built, will be destroyed. People are dying out there. Towns, cities. Entire countries. Starving to death while armies tear each other apart. Our only hope is to preserve our sanctuary and wait for it to end. Surely you agree with that. I know you believe the Lord has prepared Blister Creek as our refuge. So why can’t we defend it?”

“I absolutely will defend it. Give me a gun and I will sit out on the porch in my wheelchair and shoot any man who threatens my family. But you’re talking about something else. You’re talking about killing people because of something that
might
happen. How can that possibly be right?”

“It’s necessary. I’d never order an attack if I didn’t think so.”

“Maybe it’s a test,” Fernie said. “Have you considered that?”

“How do you mean?” Jacob asked, cautious.

“The Lord has presented you two possibilities. First is violence, bloodshed. Second is peace. Faith that He will guard this sanctuary. That He will soften the hearts of our enemies.”

“I don’t believe that. If that was the plan, why didn’t God turn away the Kimballs when they repeatedly tried to murder their way to power?”

“Different time, different challenge. Those men were working for Satan. These people are hungry, innocent refugees.”

“What do you want?” Jacob asked. “Spell it out. What should I do?”

“Refortify the entrances to the valley. If they try to force their way in, drive them off. Until they do, leave them alone. That’s my advice.”

“While they continue to foul our water supply.” Jacob shook his head. “What if I don’t do that? What if I order the Blister Creek Legion to attack the squatter camp anyway?”

“Then the men will fight alone.”

Stephen Paul cleared his throat. “May I ask a question?”

His tone was reasonable. Jacob nodded.

“Sister Fernie, what would you do if Jacob ordered you to fight, not in his name, but in the name of the Lord?”

She looked Stephen Paul in the eye. “If my husband stood and said that he had prayed to the Lord, and the Lord told him to go to battle, then of course I would sustain him as prophet, seer, and revelator. I would order the women to march forth and utterly annihilate our enemies.”

“Do it,” Elder Smoot told Jacob. “Raise your arm to the square and order these women to fight. Do it in the name of the Lord of Hosts, the King of Kings.”

If Jacob did that, Fernie would know he was lying. He might force her compliance in this one case, but he would damage, perhaps destroy his marriage.

And so Jacob ignored the suggestion. “Fernie, is this truly the consensus of the council, or your own decision?”

“We voted,” she said. “Five votes for peace. Four for war. One woman abstained.”

“So there wasn’t a consensus.”

“The consensus was that we would go with the vote.”

“But it was close,” he pressed. “And if Miriam were here, she’d vote to attack.”

“I know.”

“Eliza would too. That would make it six to five with one abstention. The motion would carry.”

“But they’re not here. Anyway, I’m not so sure about Eliza. Probably, yes. She trusts you.”

“But you don’t.”

“Jacob, please. I love you, I support you. I would follow you to the gates of hell. I just . . . my conscience objects. I can’t do it.”

“A woman,” Elder Smoot said in a disgusted tone, “will always vote for short-term safety over long-term security. That’s why a woman was never meant to exercise dominion over a man.”

Jacob didn’t answer. He had no way to counter any of this. And part of him—yes, most of him—wanted to agree with the women. How could he order the deaths of starving refugees? What choice did he have? The squatters were growing in strength, growing bold even as their hunger and desperation spread. Increased numbers meant more fouling of the reservoir too. All too soon he’d be forced into action anyway. Inaction now would mean more killing in the end.

“Thank you for your time, sisters.”

“That’s it?” David asked. He had remained quiet through all of this, his brow furrowed. “But we haven’t agreed on anything.”

“Oh, I think we all understand,” Smoot said bitterly. “Brother Jacob is going to call another meeting of the quorum. Then he’s going to tell the priesthood body, the men chosen by the Lord, that he is bowing to the will of a gaggle of frightened wives and mothers.”

“You’re wrong,” Jacob said. He looked not at Smoot as he said this, but at his wife. “Unfortunately, the reality is unchanged. While we’ve sat here arguing, more refugees have been streaming south from Green River to join the squatters. They grow more dangerous day by day. We’ve already wasted valuable time waiting for the Women’s Council to render its verdict. Now that we have it, we can’t wait any longer.”

Fernie looked horrified. “Don’t do this, Jacob.”