Authors: Jon Land

Kingdom of the Seven (25 page)

BOOK: Kingdom of the Seven

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She flung her door open and lunged out of the car before it had come to a complete halt, scurrying across the dark pavement for the grim-faced biker in the center. Blaine followed patiently, making sure that the three bikers who were part of the gang protecting Karen Raymond’s sons could see his hands.

“What is it?” Karen asked T.J. Fields, dreading the answer. “What happened?”

“They got Papa Jack,” came his reply. A scowl formed of both sorrow and rage stretched across his face.

“Oh God …”

“Six others, too. Six!”

“What about my kids?” Karen demanded, feeling like a hand of cold steel had closed over her heart. “
What about my kids?”

T.J.’s eyes were watery. “Papa Jack got them out. Said he had a feeling early in the night. Had a few of the others split with your boys in tow, just in case. Lucky thing. Otherwise, he’d have gotten ’em.”

“He?” Karen repeated, shocked.

“Was one man that did it,” T.J. told her, not seeming to believe it himself.

“He wasn’t fucking human,” a Skull with a long red beard on T.J.’s right said. “Shaves is still alive, not by much, but he’s holding on. Said it was some kind of fucking monster that did it, a giant.”

“But old Papa Jack, he left a surprise for the fucking bastard,” T.J. picked up, his face trapped between a fond smile and a frown. “Giant opens the door to the trailer he thinks the kids are in, out come the dogs … .”

“Others followed the biood far as they could,” started Red Beard. “All the way to the road. Looked like somebody picked the giant up there.”

T.J. Fields seemed to regard McCracken standing ten feet from them for the first time, sneering. “Where’d you find him?”

“He found me. Saved my life, actually.”

T.J. looked Blaine over, sizing him up. The sneer didn’t go away.

“Yeah, well, let’s get you back to your kids.”

“No.”

“Huh?”

“I said no,” Karen told him, forcing the words up through the heaviness in her throat. “It’s better for them if I stay away. It’s better if you don’t even tell me where they are.” She tried to compose herself, failed, and continued through trembling lips. “I’ve got to stop Van Dyne, T.J. It’s the only way to save my kids.”

“Van Dyne what got Papa Jack killed?”

“What they’re involved in, yes, but there’s—”

“Then you’re forgettin’ something, ain’t you? I’m in for a big piece of this now.” The look in his eyes was death. “They shouldn’t’ve killed Papa Jack, babe. Bad idea on their part. Was Papa Jack who brought me into the Skulls, looked after me since I was still havin’ wet dreams. That gives me a score to settle.”

“You can’t help me, T.J., not against Van Dyne.”

T.J. cast a cold glance McCracken’s way. “And he can?”

She nodded slowly. “Yes, I think so.”

“What if I go over there and kick his ass?”

“I saw him work tonight, T.J.”

“Yeah, so?”

“Two of you are a lot alike.”

T.J. seemed to like that.

“And you got one thing in common, anyway: You both saved my life.”

He pointed toward himself. “Twice, by my count, you go back a few years.”

“And now my kid’s lives are in your hands. That says it all, T.J. That’s everything.”

“Not quite.” T.J. glanced at McCracken briefly and then fixed his stare back on Karen. “Got myself a debt to Papa Jack, babe, me and all the others who wear the colors. When the time comes, I just want my shot to pay it off.”

Two highway patrol squad cars were already outside Tucson General Hospital with their dome lights slicing through the last of the night when Captain Ted Wilkerson screeched to a halt. He charged right through the entrance past a patrolman on watch who stiffened as Wilkerson approached.

“Premises been searched yet, son?”

“Sergeant Harkness is supervising a second sweep now, sir.”

“Second?”

“The first sweep turned up, er …”

“Shit,” the captain said under his breath, and brushed past him.

Bart Harkness was standing in the middle of the hospital lobby near the reception desk, listening to the report of two hospital security guards who had just come up from the basement. He stopped nodding when he saw Wilkerson approaching.

“You better have an explanation for this, Bart, and it better be good.”

“I’m taking responsibility, Captain,” Harkness said staunchly, leading the way toward the elevator. “The fault’s all mine.”

“What the fuck good’s that do us now? I don’t give a shit who’s responsible. I don’t give a shit how it happened. I just want him found. Christ, in his condition …”

They stepped into the elevator and headed toward the third floor.

“Doctors figure now he may have been duping us. Knew everything that was going on around him and just pretended not to.”

“What the fuck for?”

“They … don’t know.”

“What about you?”

“I think Wayne had his reasons. That’s all.”

The doors slid open and the men started down the corridor together.

“How’d it happen, Bart?”

“I went to get some coffee. I was out of the room six, maybe seven minutes. When I got back …”

They reached the room and Harkness stopped talking. Captain Wilkerson could read the sights better than he could explain them. The rumpled bed was empty, the covers thrown back almost reaching the floor. The door to the small closet was open and the patrolman’s uniform that had been hanging there was missing. A hospital gown lay in a shapeless pile on the floor.

“Well, fuck me,” muttered the captain.

Wayne Denbo was gone again.

PART FOUR

RETURN TO BEAVER FALLS

THE KINGDOM:
THURSDAY; 11:00 A.M.

CHAPTER 26

Harlan Frye held the test tube in both hands, barely able to restrain his smile. Tears of joy filled his eyes.

“This is
it,
Doctor? You’re telling me you’ve
done it
?”

The frail-looking, bespectacled man standing before him in the front of the kingdom’s sprawling main laboratory nodded. “Once we had the subjects here, it was a relatively simple process. Merely a matter of isolating the proper cells in their blood chemistry and then extracting those cells for harvesting.” He paused. “Of course, the manner of delivery you specified required a rather powerful concentration that could be diluted beneath the ability to achieve expected parameters.”

“A problem?” Frye anticipated.

“Just a complication. We needed to find a catalyst the concentrated formula could bond to and thus spread in the geometric pattern needed to achieve your desired results. The logistics involved made the choice of one quite easy.”

Frye held the test tube almost tenderly. “You’re telling me you’re finished? That this is all you need?”

“No, sir. We still need ten times that amount to achieve the concentration required. Another forty-eight hours should be sufficient to produce it. And beyond that, well …”

“Go on, Doctor.”

“It’s rather complicated, sir. Your mandated timetable required us to take certain liberties with the formula that render it too easily susceptible to neutralization by a number of natural elements, light and heat for example.”

“Surmountable?”

“Simply a matter of delaying release until they are no longer a factor. I think we have everything worked out.”

Frye could have cried with joy. This news was almost enough to make him forget the disaster that had occurred at Van Dyne the night before. His enemies, joined up now, were drawing closer in their search for the specifics of his master plan. He wondered what would have happened if not for the turn of events in Beaver Falls. First thought to be a disaster, he now realized it was a godsend—literally—because had it not occurred, McCracken would have been able to stop him. Now, thanks to the contingency developed in this very lab, no one could stop him.

“Excellent!” The Reverend beamed. “Truly excellent. God has let us perform His work for Him, and we have proven ourselves worthy at every turn. Our task is so great, so humbling. And here, nearing the finish, our challenges have multiplied to the point they’ve become nearly overwhelming. But we have not failed or lost ourselves in the scope of those challenges. We have met them, turned them aside.”

The Lord’s final stamp of approval, that’s what this represented, he thought. God helping him the last bit of the way. Judgment Day would have its own spot on the calendar now, just seventy-two hours from now.

On Sunday. The Lord’s day,
his
day. Only one problem remained, one spoiler to his reverie.

“What of your progress with Lot 35, Doctor?” he raised.

The man in the white coat before him shrugged. “Collating
the material has proven as difficult as I had feared. Without a firm formula from Dr. Raymond—”

“Assume that will be the case.”

“Six months.”

Harlan Frye nodded resignedly, aware of the ramifications. “So much has gone our way, more than we could reasonably hope. We cannot expect everything, and perhaps less will actually become more. We must accept His will in this matter, His guidance. Major Vandal,” he said, turning slightly, “you will summon the others to me. Tomorrow, at the latest.”

“Of course, sir,” Osborne Vandal replied, feeling the taint of his Vietnam experience at last begin to wash off in the face of this certain victory. Osborne Vandal was one of only thirteen survivors, and the sole officer, from the prison camp in which he was interned. There were originally perhaps seven times that many prisoners. In accordance with procedure, and totally without merit, the major was investigated for possible collaboration with the enemy. No charges were ever leveled, but the damage had been done. Vandal was guilty because the antiwar furor said he was. Advancement beyond his present rank became impossible. Any decent command or post was out of the question. Osborne Vandal was disgraced for no reason whatsoever.

For ten years he shuttled from job to job and base to base; never wanted, barely bothering to unpack sometimes. But then one day the Reverend Harlan Frye heard his sad tale and sought him out, stared at Vandal’s ruined right arm when the major reached his left out to shake. Looking back at that moment, Vandal would remember that stare more than anything, the stare and the strange smile that crossed Harlan Frye’s face as he grasped the limp arm gently.

The next morning Osborne Vandal awoke to find that he could use the hand again; not totally, but at least squeeze his fingers enough to perform everyday tasks. Even the wrongly healed bones looked straighter to him. His hand
seemed to have re-formed itself overnight. Osborne Vandal dropped to his knees and prayed.

Then he went looking for the Reverend Harlan Frye.

Frye was waiting for him, expecting him. He said nothing about the arm and refused the credit Vandal was convinced was due him, but asked the major if he wanted a commission in the most wondrous army of all.

God’s army.

The Reverend started moving for the spiral staircase that led to the level above. “And now you must accompany me in a needed task. I wish to thank those truly responsible for what has been achieved here this morning.”

Major Vandal turned his gaze fearfully up the staircase.
“There,
sir?”

“A great debt is owed them, more than we could ever repay even if time and opportunity availed itself. I must do this much, Major.”

“Sir—”

“Join me, Major,” Frye said, waving him forward. “It shouldn’t take long.”

The man holding the cane looked at Sister Barbara as if she were crazy.

“Are you sure, Sister?” he asked again. “Are you quite sure?”

“Was there something vague about my instructions, Roland?”

“No, Sister, not at all,” he said apologetically. “It’s just that, that …”

“Go on.”

“Canceling a group on such short notice will cause disappointment to so many people.” Roland Bagnell, manager of the sprawling Oasis grounds that held her famed amusement park, shifted the cane from his right hand to his left. The cane had been a gift from Sister Barbara herself on the day he finally abandoned the crutches that had been necessary since a factory accident had almost taken his
life. He had come to the Oasis broken and beaten. He was less broken now and not at all beaten.

Thanks to Sister Barbara.

He stood with her in the midst of the park he had been managing for the past three years, in the center of what was aptly named Hope Avenue. “Children, Sister, we are talking about
children.”

“Don’t you think I know that?”

“Well, of course …”

“Then you know I must have my reasons.”

“Forgive me, Sister, but—”

“It is for their own good. Let’s leave it there.”

Bagnell wasn’t ready to do that. “Sister, is there something you’re not telling me, something I can help you with?”

“You are helping, Roland: with this. And there’s something else. I want all residents cleared from the Oasis by eight o’clock tonight.”

The manager’s mouth dropped in shock. “But maintenance,
security
…”

“We can do without them.”

“A skeleton staff at least,
please
.”

“There is no need. And, Roland?”

“Yes, Sister.”

“That includes you.”

Sister Barbara turned and walked away before Bagnell could protest further. It took all the will she could muster not to look back at him, to meet his bufuddled gaze with the fearful one she had managed to hide until now. She so loved this place, loved strolling amidst its playing fields and courts, amusement rides, sidewalk concession stands, and water park. The favorable climate of North Carolina had allowed her to make that water park the Oasis’s most dominant attraction. Six swirling slides wound down steep, slithering courses toward a lagoon-shaped pool below. The water was crystal blue, refreshing just to look at. Behind the expanse of slides was a second, much larger pool capable of generating its own pounding waves to mimic the
actions of the ocean. Beyond that was a man-made pond holding the bumper boats on one side and the pedal boats on the other.

Sister Barbara walked along the waist-high chain-link fence that enclosed the water park, smelling the chlorine and imagining the happy screams and shouts of children. The last group had left only yesterday just before her return, and another had been scheduled to arrive tomorrow. Roland Bagnell was right about the tremendous disappointment the last-minute cancellation would cause. But there was no choice.

The wind shifted and ruffled the streamers lining the sidewalk concession stands that never charged Oasis patrons a single penny for their wares. The Ferris wheel shifted slightly. She passed the merry-go-round, and the animal-shaped seating seemed to smile her way. She imagined them bobbing up and down to the rhythm of the music, while happy children laughed and grinned their way through a wonderful day. Children who were sick, abused, or poor. Children who might never have known a place like the Oasis or, if they did, could never have sampled all of its wares. For a day, or two or three, Sister Barbara lifted them out of their pain and heartache and gave them paradise. Footing the bill for the operation and upkeep of the Oasis was made possible by the millions of dollars she still had put away from the days when fund-raising was a key element of her ministry. It warmed her spirit to see so many made happy by that money, so many benefit.

She would miss them so much. This was her Oasis, too, and that made it the fitting place to plot her strategy for bringing down Harlan Frye. But if his soldiers arrived before she could be successful, she could accept no loss of innocent life. There was enough blood already threatening her hands; she had, after all, been party to the Seven’s formation, having succumbed, however briefly, to the same lust for power and self-importance the Reverend had.

Sister Barbara headed back to the stately mansion situated
on the eastern rim of the property, built up slightly on a hill just beyond a huge flower garden. On the way she passed the three-story complex of hotel-like buildings that had been home to both her visiting children and, on a more permament basis, her most avid devotees. A hundred or so of the latter were here now, earning their keep by performing odd jobs around the park and recharging their spirits in the process. Roland Bagnell would see to their safe departure. Sister Barbara took great solace in the fact that they would leave here much better people than they had come in, content and at peace, which at the moment was far more than she could say for herself.

The drive southeast from Tucson International Airport was approaching ninety minutes when a sign indicated the proper access road for the town of Beaver Falls. Blaine was driving, Johnny Wareagle taking in everything from the passenger seat while Karen Raymond fought against sleep in the back.

“Slow down, Blainey,” Wareagle said all of a sudden.

McCracken worked the brakes. “What is it, Indian?”

“Something on the side of the road, over there on the right.”

“Christ,” Blaine followed, seeing the dust-shrouded shape on the shoulder, lying halfway on the embankment.

He pulled the car over and climbed out an instant after Johnny. The big Indian knelt down next to what Blaine now recognized as a man, at least what was left of him. Beneath the blanket of dust, he made out a wrinkled, sweat-soaked highway patrol uniform.

“Seems like he’s a little off his beat. Hit by a car, you figure?” McCracken raised. “Maybe dumped here by somebody?”

Wareagle enveloped the man’s wrist in his hand to check for a pulse. “He’s still alive, Blainey. And look.”

Blaine followed Johnny’s eyes to the man’s feet: He
was wearing socks, but no shoes, and the socks had worn through, leaving his flesh blistered and raw.

“He walked a long way.”

“Many hours,” Johnny acknowledged. “Many miles.”

“I’ll get the canteen.”

Karen Raymond stepped forward and handed it to Blaine when he was halfway back to the car. She accompanied him in silence over to the thin strip of shade cast by their car into which Johnny had dragged the highway patrolman. McCracken crouched down on the other side of the man and touched the canteen’s spout to his lips. After balking initially, those lips parted and accepted some of the water. Then the patrolman’s eyes fluttered open and he seized the canteen from Blaine’s grasp, gulping its contents.

“Easy,” McCracken cautioned, holding the canteen back by the strap.

The patrolman’s mouth opened. His lips quivered, gaped, and then closed again.

“He’s trying to say something, Blainey,” said Wareagle, and he lowered his ear to the patrolman’s mouth.

BOOK: Kingdom of the Seven

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