Stealing Flowers (26 page)

“They discipline children with sticks,” Mary
said, “then they lock them in dark closets until they stop crying.
After the children turn two years old, they’re forced to sit
cross-legged for hours meditating on bible stories. If these people
are not worth fighting against, then who are?”

“I’m so sorry that I’ve been distracted with
mother, but I’m here now and ready to cook and clean, and to even
scuffle with Moses himself. Mr. Stan, read us your letter to our
Sally.”

“Dear Patience Hosanna,” he began,
“September 12, 1979. Your mother and I rejoiced in the news that
you found a way to serve the Lord. We realize you are of legal age
and are an adult whose views must be respected. However, we beg of
you to let us see you. You profess in your letter that you are very
happy. We just want to be assured. Please let us visit. Your mother
and I would also like to contribute to help you financially in your
new life. We would like to bring you your things and meet your new
family as well, Love, Stan.”

We all decided that it was good and Stan
mailed it that night and it was two weeks before we got an official
reply from the family, and they gave us permission to visit the
Denver compound on Sunday afternoon October 13.

Stan contacted Rick Edwards and he agree to
meet with us in Denver on the Saturday before. We were to meet in a
motel diner, The Trip Stop, a place near Watkins, off Highway 70.
We flew Tappets’ Lear jet to the Denver International Airport with
Stan and I at the helm, and by noon, we’d gathered quite a group, a
total of ten, to this small quiet clean restaurant. Una went and
saw the owner, and in her incredible friendly and bold manner,
offered to help serve our group, which he accepted.

With Andy’s help, Una served us cold drinks
and fresh fruit.

Rick, with my parents’ permission, had
brought a reporter, Mulligan Shirer, a short petite white
journalist with rich wavy black hair, weighing no more than
ninety-five pounds and working for a religious magazine doing a
story on deprogramming.

Peter Burgess had brought his
twenty-year-old daughter, Ashe, and his long time partner, Ray
Veld. His daughter, Ashe was tall like her father, a little shorter
and obviously resembled him in other ways. Her black hair curled in
elaborate folds to the back of her head and her defined face had
Peter’s intensity. She was slap-down to bed beautiful and I
couldn’t keep my eyes off her until I noticed that she was
armed.

Ray, was shorter than both of them, had a
light complexion and graying hair. At thirty or so, he’d kept an
excellent shape, stood solidly at five feet eight inches or so, and
weighed, maybe one hundred and eighty pounds. Both he and Peter had
served in the army in Vietnam together and I saw that they were
both wearing a side holster as well.

I whispered it to Una, but when she settled
in, it was to Mulligan she turned, exaggerating her accent and
almost singing.

“A word to the wiser,

My dear Miss Shirer,

The Tappets are obliging folks,

And you be keeping their names away from the
press blokes,

Or you be tramming back to New England awful
sorry,

without your camera or your story!”

Everyone laughed and Mulligan turned red.
“I’ve agreed to cover the story while keeping the Tappet’s name out
of the paper,” she promised again.

“The place where Sally is being kept,” Rick
said, “is one of the most secure of any of the cults. It’s some
twenty miles back on a dirt road off the highway. The colony itself
is fenced in and consists of four buildings: The Elder’s house,
which according to my spies, is currently in some state of
reconstruction; this will be occupying the Elder’s attention, which
is good. There are the recruitment barn, a large farm house and a
long log cabin for bunk-sleeping for the recruits. The grounds are
patrolled by armed guards with German Shepherds. One of the
buildings has a watchtower so that no one can drive up the road to
the house undetected.”

“My goodness,” said Una, “it’s a
concentration camp.”

“In the beginning,” Rick said, “I could pop
into one of these communes with a parent and easily scoop their
kids out, no trouble, now, much because of my success, and
notoriety, my work has become harder.”

Una furrowed her eyebrows and I couldn’t
help but admiring her more and more. “Do you mean that these
protections have been made because of you? I’m starting to believe
what they say about you.”

He laughed. “Well, I don’t work alone
anymore. Many kids whom I’ve deprogrammed are now deprogramming
others. Some outside of my organization I understand, are even
making a good living at it, but all we charge are expenses. To this
point in my life, I have personally deprogrammed over two thousand
kids, but with my network, the numbers are reaching twenty
thousand. It’s a war you see, one which we are unfortunately
losing.”

Una nodded. “It’s bad magic, and
unthinkable!”

“We have three cars,” Rick said, “and a
quiet place to stay. I’ll tell you what I need done tomorrow. Stan
and Mary are going to go into the commune in one; Peter will be
hidden in the back seat under Sally’s things. Una will drive the
lead car in with Christian, carrying most of the suitcases and more
of Sally’s clothes. I’ll be hidden under the clothes in the back
seat of this car. Andy will be in the third car with two of Mr.
Burgess’ crew, however, they’ll pull up, out of sight and wait just
in case events go awry.”

“Awry?” I said.

“Some of the most darned things can happen
in these situations. Let me tell you, this is a one shot deal.
Tomorrow is our only chance. If you have made up your mind not to
leave without Sally, then we have the manpower to do it. If we
fail, you will never see Sally again. So we can’t fail!”

Flabbergasted, Una pointed her large index
finger at Rick. “You are making me wonder if we will succeed.”

He looked at her and then to Mary and Stan.
I understood his fascination with the fact that a plump black
housekeeper spoke as an equal to two wealthy industrialists. This
always amused me and I knew it remained one of her favorite
undercover parts of being involved with the Tappets.

“We’ll succeed,” he said softly and turned
his attention to Stan. “Now, you’ll get Sally over to me by asking
her to help with the suitcases. When Christian opens the door to
help, Una will push her into my arms and close the door. The tricky
part, of course, is timing in our execution of the abduction.” He
reached for his bottle of juice and took a drink. “We want to get
in there and get out in under three minutes, but if anything
happens, Peter will use force. Stan and Una have to get into the
driver’s seat as quick as possible after we have Sally.” He paused.
“Sally won’t be left alone for a second either. There’ll be at
least five or six other members hovering around. Stan, Mary, and
Una will be armed with mace. We must be forceful and quick, and
like all of life, we’ll need some luck.”

“How much luck?” Stan asked.

Rick chuckled softly. “Well, God is on our
side–”

“That’s what the German’s said in the Second
World War,” I interjected to a few frowns.

“I guess they were wrong,” Rick said
matter-of-factly. “We’ll have three or four minutes. After the
shock value is gone, the cult-members will swarm. They can get
violent when they think they’re dealing with Satan. I’m their
number one candidate for that position.”

I saw that Una caught his eyes. “We will go
get them, we have just to. We’ll play some of it on the wing?”

“You’ll have to act natural. I’m leery of
arousing suspicion before the final push. All those kids are spaced
out and act without any original thinking, but they have also been
repeatedly programmed to suspect parents.

“If we brought Andy with us inside the
compound or the third car, they might not allow Sally out to even
see you. Hell, I’m worried about even two cars.”

“This keeps sounding more and more
difficult,” Mary said.

“As I’ve said, Sally will not be alone.
You’ll have mace and you may have to fend the other members off.
There’ll be three of you and we need only two drivers. Don’t get
caught up on each other.” He laughed. “Sometimes in life, despite
planning, we just have to take what comes. The cult members scare
easily, but you never know who’ll be there. The other thing which I
should brace you for is Sally’s appearance. She’ll have lost weight
and will be suffering from exhaustion, so you may barely recognize
her.”

“Dear me, it sounds pretty gruesome,” Una
said, “look at me, I’m as excited as young Andy, here.” She reached
over and gave Andy a little hug and there followed soft
laughter.

“It’s no science,” Rick said. “There’s a
home in Denver which we have for the next four days. It’s east of
City Park in a nice part of town. Friends and supporters of mine
are out of town. I deprogrammed their son sometime back. He’ll be
joining us to help, as well as one other associate of mine from the
Denver area. She is also an ex-cult member.”

So slowly we went over Rick’s instructions
again, until I began to feel like a member of a military team.
Mulligan Shirer excused herself and headed for her room for the
night. I would have love to spend the night with her or Ashe.

“Peter Ray and Ashe are packing,” Una said
to Rick Edwards, “Did you know?”

“I’ve never allowed the use of guns in
abduction, but to fail here would set my work back years. Tappets
is an important name and people might think that if we botched this
attempt, then what normally happens with less-powerful folks. Do
you see what I mean? No offense, and remember, we don’t want
Mulligan to know about the guns.”

“Mary’s the powerful one,” Una said, looking
as though sadly at Stan and affecting pity for him, “you know,
Stan’s just a nice guy who invents things, underneath she’s an iron
lady, but they’re both quite mad.”

We all laughed. “I represent many people who
rely on me to lead them in this issue,” Rick said intensely. “Fear
of cults in America has subsided lately, but the cults’ recruiting
practices have not. Many people in America view the problem the
same way as Senator Al Stevens does. He’s pretty famous. You may
not know that this same cult swallowed up his son and the Senator’s
response to this turned out to be sadly predictable. He said that
his son being an adult, had made a lawful choice. Stevens gives
legitimacy to the cults, and his son has seen a rapid promotion
inside the family and is now the head elder at Ashbury Farms, New
Jersey.”

“When we were trying to get Sally off the
bus, the bus people mentioned about the Senator’s son,” I said.

“I’ve never met the man,” Una said. “But I
heard about him. Stan has met him.”

“One other thing is bothering me,” Rick
said. “I’ve seen three pictures of Sally, now, and unless those
photos lied, she’s young and beautiful, I mean uncommonly so. I’m
sorry to say that by now she may be in the Elder’s hands.”

“What does that mean?” I said and looked at
him in alarm, and then to Mary and Stan, who exchanged dismayed
glances.

Una trembled and caught her breath. “If they
touch our Sally, those boys will regret it.”

“The Elders of the family are sometimes
possessive of women who are so attractive,” Rick said, “and we may
have to arrange another way of getting her out; they may not let us
see her.”

“Isn’t Rick Edwards the plainest black man
you’ve ever laid your eyes on?” Una said when he left for the
night. We laughed, especially Andy. “Then there’s Peter, my
goodness, he’s some island dish.” Stan gave her one of his classic,
‘You’re just plain crazy’ looks. “Of course,” she said, immediately
taking the bait, “Stan would be striding and paying everywhere, and
who’d ever be guessing they let him run things?”

“Who’d ever imagine we’d have a half-mad
Jamaican front for us,” he retorted with a smile.

The next morning, we met at the restaurant
to have breakfast, and later, Stan phoned the Woodlands Farm from
the restaurant asking for Patience Hosanna. At first, they denied
she was there, a standard practice we’d been told by Rick, so Stan
persisted, acting friendly, telling about the money he had for her
and about her belongings. At length, she came to the phone and Una
and Mary leaned into the phone.

“Sally, is that you?” I heard him asking as
my heart went out to her. “Someone’s listening on the line now,”
Stan whispered to us, covering the receiver. “But she’s there!”

Rick Edwards looked visibly relieved. Una
nodded over and over. “Go ahead,” she whispered softly, “do it just
as you practiced.”

“How are you, Sally?” He paused. “We’re here
in Denver and we wonder if we could come over to see you? We’ve
brought some of your clothes and things. As well, I’ll make out a
check for you, you know, to help you with things in your new life.”
A longer pause followed. “No, we know the way, bye.”

I could tell Una was as excited as she ever
got. Rick gathered us up outside the diner. “Okay, let’s go get
Sally.”

“With about a half mile to go, the third car
signaled and pulled over, then Rick and Peter were completely
hidden underneath Sally’s clothes in the back seats of the first
and second cars.

When we drove off, Andy stepped out of the
third car and waved at us with his thumb up in the air for
encouragement. Una smiled and waved back from the driver’s seat of
the lead car. We arrived at the gates of the Woodland’s Compound
fifteen minutes later and were met by a pair of young boys with
good-natured smiles. “God bless you,” they said. “Welcome to The
Family of Truth.”

Una drove ahead of us and I heard the
guard-dogs long before we reached the main house. She brought the
car up to the house with a full-turn around, positioning it just
right; ready to speed off after the abduction.