Mystery: Satan's Road - Suspense Thriller Mystery (Mystery, Suspense, Thriller, Suspense Crime Thriller) (13 page)

“Sometimes you're an idiot,” she said. “And a bull-in-a-china-shop.” Then she shook her head, her short black hair falling into her eyes. “And why are you never afraid of anything? That's just not right. It's . . .” Then she looked up and saw the garish neon sign buzzing overhead.
The Cavalier.
 

“That’s what it is. It’s
cavalier
of you. I should take your picture right here, Greg. You and the sign – the perfect portrait of Gregory Hyde.”

I squinted at her. “Isn't cavalier just a poetic way of saying irresponsible?”

Jann laughed then, the first time since we got together. I’d truly consider giving up my police pension if I could hear that every day.

"But you're a good person, Greg,” she said. “They're not making those anymore – as far as I can tell.”

But before I could say anything else, she turned away from me and looked across the highway at the car lot kitty-corner from us. A shiny new truck was just exiting and merging with the traffic. In the front were two men. One was looking at us with more intensity than we deserved. We couldn’t help but notice the blinking sign in the window of the showroom.
Closed,
it said. Then I remembered it was Sunday. Tomorrow was J-Day.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
 

CONFIDENTIAL FBI REPORT ON THE SOLDIERS OF PATMOS
 

Patmos is a small island off the coast of Greece. In the first one hundred years after the Romans conquered the Middle East, about AD 60-90, they used the island as a prison. One of the prisoners was named John, a Christian seditionist. John’s passion was the new church, and his writings had grown the ire of the Romans who banished him to a place where he couldn't enflame the Jews and the other rabble-rousers.

John believed in the Christian teachings but felt that the existing stories about Judgment day were flat and inglorious. He determined to write a text that gave the climax of Armageddon its due. But he had one problem. If his captors sensed anything seditious or revolutionary in his writing, they would destroy it before it could find its way to the mainland. So John chose a style thick with metaphor and imagery, and far too cryptic for the rational Romans to understand. His ruse worked. His book,
Revelations
, became so popular; it was included in the Gnostic texts by the Christian fathers in the early tenth century – a book soon to be called the Bible.

There are dozens if not hundreds of books in libraries all over the world, written with the goal of translating John's mysterious text. Each generation sensed that the fateful day was at hand; that the poetry of
Revelations
spoke directly to them and them alone. That was the magic of Revelations, the written equivalent of an ornate optical illusion.

Dozens of prophets and messiahs had used Revelations to further their cause, but without exception there was always one fatal flaw in their strategy. The world refused to end.
Revelations
is about Armageddon after all, but the final curtain refused to fall.

Enter Gideon Lean and Patmos. Gideon is a very rich man; head of a vast commune, but like many powerful men, thirsting for more. He forms a religious group, the Soldiers of Patmos, in the mid-nineties. It's not a mainstream religion by any means, nothing more than yet another Christian splinter group. The focus is on Revelations. The group targets boomers; North Americans and Europeans born just after World War Two, the flower power generation, as well as millennials, twenty-somethings looking for something new.

Patmos is light on dogma – boomers are busy people, but the attraction is organization, security and wealth. Patmos distributes the finest in glossy magazines, creates entertaining mainstream television series and adopted the Internet before the other sects even heard about the information highway.

But Patmos's biggest promise is their guarantee. They carefully outline the text of
Revelations
, and clearly state in writing the day the old order ends and the new begins. June 21st. This year.

For Gideon, this strategy is not about gaining recruits before the world ends, like the other religions, but
after
. For the first time in human history, the skeptics and the naysayers and the just plain uninterested, will get proof.

On June 21
st,
civilization comes crashing down around everyone's ears, a couple of million humans dying in the process. At the end of the week, Gideon and his chosen are in firm control of just about everything. The new order begins.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

I was half-asleep, my head banging against the vibrating window glass of the Crown Vic we had rented at the Avis counter in the Union train station.
What was it with police officers that we always gravitate towards these heavy high-powered four-door monstrosities?
We could just as easily have rented a sports car or a four by four truck. I had to admit though – the big car made me feel safer. I looked over in the dark at Jann, who was driving. She was ramrod straight and clear-eyed.

We had talked after the meeting with Rupi about next steps. We had gotten over our argument too, which I could hardly remember. Jann wanted this whole thing to stay business only. I agreed with her, but I was lying and only said it to calm down the situation. The whole conversation reminded me of “Hostage Taking 101”. Talk slowly. Listen. Repeat the demands back to the hostage taker. I was surprised she didn’t see through my act. All I needed was a bullhorn, and I would have easily slipped into the role.

I looked over at her again. She wasn’t beautiful in any conventional sense of the word. More like handsome. Tall. Purposeful?
Was that a characteristic you would look for on an Internet dating site? I’m guessing no.
And her alertness appealed to me too for some reason. She was like a wild animal always on the lookout for predators. It was very becoming – that sideways glance of hers. Besides, she was a cop who loved single malt Scotch and knew how to hold her liquor.

I decided to bide my time. I would try to be patient, a new experience for me. But I also wasn’t going to wait for three more years to get her into my life again. Maybe a holiday in Vegas in the fall would be a good idea. Get her away from her damn FBI database and all-consuming smart phone. For the first time in a long time, I realized I had something to look forward to, other than another case that needed attention.

In Cambridge, we had come to an agreement. Jann was told to report back to Quantico
posthaste
. The Soldiers of Patmos didn’t warrant any more person-hours. I wondered out loud how you could use the term
person
in the same sentence as the FBI. She gave me that sideways look again. Luckily, it was the weekend. She didn’t have to report back until Monday.

I called in and booked another few days of vacation. If anything, Ipscott was surprised I even took holidays anymore. We were bearing down I-95 at 120 MPH, headed for Ashland, a town just a few hours south of DC and close to Parkhurst.

The sketchy plan we had was based on the advice of O’Brien – a handful of tactics provided by the dead professors who wrote the white paper on Gideon. I was most interested in an idea suggested by Bugloski – the Engineering prof who died in the radiation chamber. Other than that, we would stake out the cult compound and hopefully get the local police onside. That wasn’t going to be easy. We might as well be telling the local authorities that alien spaceships were landing at noon on Monday.

Jann had revealed more information too. From the on-going recon. She had read the briefing document off her Black phone.

"First, we are talking about an armed fortress, all of it secured by a very advanced array of systems – radar, heat-sensitives, sound-detecting, and we suspect, laser. The second you break their perimeter, you'll have scores of defenses vectored to the break point.”

“Secondly, Parkhurst has at last estimate over 1,000 Militia barracked. These are definitely not amateurs. They have been trained for years on a variety of weapons in simulated battle. Their core consists of about five hundred men and a few women, most ex-military. They are battle-hardened and extremely dedicated to the cause. Most of them have seen more action than the average soldier.”

“And they are highly motivated. They are protecting women and children, their homes, their shared land. These are dangerous enemies to face in a combat situation.”

“Thirdly, they have a well-stocked pantry of goodies. Nothing but the best and lots of it. Our intelligence estimates over 10,000 light rifles mostly AM-15’s and Austrian P50's. A million rounds of ammo. A warehouse full of grenades, even rocket launchers.”

“We would need armored vehicles, probably a squadron of tanks to make a dent in their defenses. This would, of course, lead us to the other problems.” I knew what she meant. Any military or Federal action against these people would create a media circus.

“Parkhurst is the communications center for the Soldiers of Patmos movement. They have a state-of-the-art TV studio with high-speed data links to all the major news services. The second we step or roll on Parkhurst soil, the world is going to know about it. They will control the media spin; their anchors will be covering the evening news. It will be the greatest media disaster the American presidency has ever seen. It will make Waco look like a Sunday picnic.”

“And finally, as if we need to know more, we have a warehouse full of circumstantial evidence linking the Parkhurst Foundation to dozens, if not hundreds, of national companies. Two of America’s key military suppliers are on that list. A telecommunications company. A major world bank. If our intelligence comes even close to the truth on this one, just threatening to attack Parkhurst could cause a whole universe of grief to come down hard on Congress, on our Foreign affairs offices, our multi-nationals. Shit, even the Dow would be affected."

"How did this happen?"

"It’s taken decades. The FBI had an interest in Parkhurst in the nineties when it was linked to international right-wing terrorism. Boot camp for Nazis, they used to call it. We should have acted then, but the power they had over the media in 1995 was a significant setback. They accused the Jews of controlling the press yet that's exactly the power they use to bury commentary on their nutty actions."

I knew we were driving into very hostile territory with very little preparation and next to no backup. If Parkhurst was planning a global assault, our only response had to be tactical. Maybe a small incursion. Maybe we could kill their power and slow them down a little. I was leaving the big strategy stuff to the Fibbies. I was just here to observe and maybe get a chance to confront Gideon. That was all I wanted.

Suddenly our car was filled with light. We had been moving down I-95 with very little company, zipping mostly past transport trucks. It was like another car or truck had appeared out of nowhere behind us, closing in on us at a tremendous rate. I jumped up when I saw the headlights bearing down. I could feel the adrenaline rush.

“Some idiot is passing us,” Jann growled, squinting into the glare. The light from behind filled the darkness of the car and then crawled alongside of us. Then the driver’s window exploded.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Seconds after the side window shattered, I heard three more shots fired in quick succession. I was reaching for my holster when I felt a burning sensation tear along my scalp. I was lucky. A bullet grazed me. Then I was covered in a spray of hot blood. I spit it out and leaned forward to get out of range.

Jann, who was driving, was now leaning forward into the steering wheel, her hands loose at her sides. I grabbed for her, one hand going to the steering wheel where her head was rolling loosely. I could see now that at least one shot had caught her on the back of her head, not enough to throw her sideways, but enough to potentially kill her.

I could feel the car going sideways. I took the wheel as best I could, her dead weight against it and my eyes full of blood. We were going over 120 when fired on. The car was slowing, but it was still going fast enough to finish the job. Jann’s feet were still on the accelerator. I had an image of hitting the guardrail at speed. Would we flip? I tried to hold the wheel steady, but still felt momentum pushing us towards Jann’s body, now slumped against the jagged glass of the driver’s window, her neck at an impossible angle.

Wiping my eyes quickly, I realized the entire windshield was covered in a fine spray of blood and brain matter and I couldn’t see any headlights to guide me.

Then I felt the car grind into the side rail on my right. The car was ricocheting off the steel guardrails, sparks lighting up the darkness off the passenger window. I reasoned that this was the right tactic; let the car grind out its forward velocity on the rails.

Then the car veered away from the right lane suddenly. The road had curved away to the right plowing the heavy Crown Vic into the center of the two-lane highway.

I lost the wheel – felt the momentum of the car change – heard rubber squealing on pavement. Then the big car rolled. I was pinned by the seat belt as I felt the roof impacting the road, glass popping out everywhere, fragments exploding around me. The only light I could make out now was the blue glow from the dash spinning around. Then everything slowed. A buzzing sound filled my ears. Everything faded.

I came to, guessing I had blacked out for only a few seconds. I was hanging upside down in the dark, caught in the webbing of the shoulder restraint, the belt cutting deeply into my right shoulder. I still had Jann’s blood in my eyes, but couldn’t reach up to my face to wipe the congealing liquid away. Above the ticking sound of the cooling engine all I could hear were distant footsteps somewhere behind the car on the asphalt.

Someone was walking slowly towards the upside down Crown Vic.

“Hyde? Are you alive?” I tried to reach for my gun, but my arm was still snagged in the webbing and felt numb and unresponsive. Something had raised my personal alarm bell. I stopped moving then, recognizing the voice. He had a very distinct gravelly drawl. It was Clay Roberts. A retired D.C. vice cop. I’d worked with him on a number of cases.

“You might as well answer me if you’re in there, Hyde. Any second now a semitrailer is going to round that turn back there, and you know how those guys drive this time of the night. Good thing is you won’t know what hit you.”

I was filled with rage, mostly at myself. Was Roberts the one who had come after us while I had been dozing in the front seat? How did he know where I was?
What the hell was going on?
I wanted to strangle the traitor with my bare hands. Then I realized I couldn’t see Jann anymore. She hadn’t been wearing a seat belt and may have been thrown clear. I didn’t think she could have survived the gunshot wound, but I had seen stranger things in my career. I needed to get medical help for her.

“Get me the fuck out of here, Clay. We have a wounded FBI agent. I need to call an ambulance.”

Roberts sounded closer, but I could tell he was moving with caution. “Sorry, Hyde. You should have left well enough alone. You were always poking your nose into other people’s business. Someone wants you gone in a big way, and they have serious coin on the table. I’m surprised there aren’t a dozen hit men here trying to take you out.”

“What’s next after this, Clay? Check out the Casino at Carson on the way home? Have a nightcap? Try to forget that you killed two cops?” I still couldn’t feel my arm. And even if I got my gun out I wasn’t sure what I could do, half blind and a useless arm.

Roberts grunted crudely – a laugh without passion.

“My number came up. There are no options here. If I don’t take you out, I’m next. So I don’t have a choice.” Roberts was closer now, his voice hesitant. I could feel his caution. He couldn’t be totally sure of my condition so he was crabbing his way towards the wrecked vehicle. “You stepped in it, Greg. And now I get the sorry job of cleaning up.”

“Well, good work, man. You killed an FBI agent. And what did she have to do with any of this? You gonna be the one to tell her family, you pathetic sack of shit?” I spit this out; frustrated at the ridiculous position I was in, hogtied and unable to make out anything but shapes – thinking of Jann lying in a heap by the side of the road, waiting for me, wondering why I had deserted her. Again.

Clay had stopped walking. I sensed he was close, leaning down to see better, probably to take better aim. I had worked my gun out of the holster, but the range of movement I had was so narrow. I couldn’t see how I could make any use of the Glock to protect myself.

Robertson yelled, his voice cracking. “Hyde, the plan is to burn your car and I don’t have a lot of time. There’s no way I could live with leaving you to fry in there. So I’m going to put you out of your fucking misery. Speak to me Hyde. I got a deadline. Or do you want to just burn?”

I let out a groan; unable to think of anything to say that would give Roberts pause. I tried to relax my body as much as possible, hoping I could slip through the bindings quicker. I felt no change.

I spat out blood, Jan’s or mine; I couldn’t be sure. I wanted to scream. “I’m hurting, man. I need an ambulance.”

Clay moved up to the passenger side – his gun drawn. I could see his shadow on the road from the moonlight. I thought I heard the distant rumble of a semi from the north, coming fast. I looked over through the narrow gap between the roof and passenger opening and saw Roberts’s arm move away from his body, his gun coming up. I finally had the muzzle of my police Glock 17 pressed against the passenger door. The steel didn’t matter to the Glock. When I was a rookie in training, they had us shoot at an engine block to demonstrate the killing power. The bullets went through the iron like it was balsa wood. I fired once at Roberts, then again, watching the shadow jerk, then fold in on itself and finally collapse to the pavement.