Читать книгу Under the Radar - Fern Michaels - Страница 11

Nikki licked at her dry lips and worried her bottom lip with her teeth as she contemplated the stack of papers in front of her. She flexed her fingers before she started to sift and collate the inch-thick pile of printouts she’d just run off. How did Charles do this and not make mistakes? She’d lucked out, though, with Avery Snowden, a pal of Charles’s from the old days. Like Charles he was a former British intelligence agent and only too happy to get back into the game. She had to admit that she was surprised at how much the man actually knew about the Sisterhood’s activities, which meant Charles trusted him implicitly.

Nikki perused the papers in front of her one more time before she stepped away from the computers and marched down the steps and over to the round table, where the other Sisters were waiting for her.

“I think we’re in business. Mr. Avery Snowden, Charles’s go-to guy and the one who heads up the behind-the-scenes network Charles uses, is on board and will get back to me within the hour. In other words, we’re going to see Annie’s and Myra’s money working for us. I will say this, Avery was a tad upset that we were not going to be compensated for taking on such a large-scale mission. He said money talks and bullshit walks, but whatever he could do, he would do.

“He explained it this way. It takes thousands of people to make the network function to our advantage, and if one of them just makes phone calls or lends a car or buys materials, they all have to be paid, and it adds up at the end of the month. He said this particular network has people waiting in line to help because our reputation is so sterling. We can always help ourselves to some of the HOE’s funds when we’re finished. Just enough to pay all those people for helping us. They’re stealing it to begin with, so we’ll just steal it back. Works for me,” Nikki said loftily, as the others nodded to indicate their agreement.

“Our biggest hurdle right now is getting off this mountain and to Utah. When I told Avery this mission involved the polygamy sect, I heard him suck in his breath. The authorities, as we all know, are all over those people, especially in Texas and Arizona. He admitted he didn’t know anything about the HOE group in Utah but said he would know everything there is to know by the time he calls me back.”

Nikki turned to Alexis. “Is your Red Bag filled? Do you need anything? If so, make me a list, and I’ll pass it on to Avery.”

“I don’t need anything, Nikki. I replenished what I’d used when we got back from Vegas. Everything’s good to go.”

“Did any phone calls come in while I was working on the computer? Yoko, any word from Harry?”

Yoko shook her head.

Annie’s phone rang. The room turned silent as they tried to make sense of Annie’s end of the conversation. Kathryn scribbled the word “speakerphone,” and Annie pressed the button. Pearl’s panic-stricken voice invaded the room.

“It’s a huge white bus, no lettering on it that I can see. The girls are getting excited like they know who it is.”

“Why are you traveling by day, Pearl? I thought yours was a nighttime operation,” Annie said, her voice rising with anxiety.

“Things changed rapidly. There was a deputy who was a little too curious. I’m sure the Highway Patrol is monitoring my last stop or will be soon. You need to call and put my people on alert. By now I have to assume those polygamy people are looking for the girls. I just crossed the border into Idaho. You know what that means. They are gaining on me, and the girls are getting really excited. They keep saying the Prophet is coming to take them home. Don’t even think of telling me to try and outrun them.”

“Stay calm, Pearl, and leave your cell phone on for as long as you can so we know what’s going on. Just put that ear bud in your ear and none of them will be the wiser. Help is on the way, but unfortunately you’re all the way across the country, and it’s going to take a while. If they just want the girls, give them up. You have no other choice. Do you have your gun?”

“Yes, in the you know what, under the you know what,” Pearl responded. “Do you want me to…to use it?”

“God, no. Well, not unless you have to. My best advice is to play along, you’re taking the girls to safety because they wouldn’t tell you anything, and when you mentioned the police, they panicked. You’re being a Good Samaritan, that’s all. Make up some fictitious clinic that takes in unwed mothers in Idaho, and that’s where you’re headed. Remember, Pearl, they can identify you, the barn, and George and Irma.”

“I know, I know. The people I just left have a plan in case something like this ever went down. Have someone call them right now to put that plan into effect. Oh, oh, the van is trying to cut me off. I have to pull over. I can’t risk an accident with the girls on board.”

“Okay, I’ll stay quiet, but leave the phone open on the seat,” Annie said.

The Sisters crowded closer to make sure they could hear everything that was going on. They heard Pearl downshift, heard the brakes on the bus start to catch. They could hear the excitement of the young girls as they whooped and hollered. Then they heard Pearl release the catch that would open the bus’s doors.

“Who are you? What do you want? I’m going to call the police if you don’t get away from this bus right now!”

A big man in his midfifties stepped up into the bus. His hair was gray as was his moustache. He was dressed—Pearl sought for the proper word and finally came up with it—nattily. She wondered if young people these days even knew what that meant.

“There’s no need for hostility, ma’am. We just came here to pick up our property. We’ll be on our way unless you give us a problem. We mean you no harm, and we are not carrying weapons.”

“What property?” Pearl blustered. “I don’t have anything that belongs to you. You can’t just come aboard here and tell me what to do. These young girls need medical assistance. I’m taking them to…”

“No, you see, ma’am, that’s where you’re wrong, you are not taking these young ladies anywhere. These young ladies belong to me and these gentlemen behind me. They belong to us because they are our wives.”

Pearl could feel her blood start to boil. “Stop with the nonsense, these are just young unwed pregnant women. They’re not old enough to be married. If you take them, you are kidnapping them. I’ll have to alert the authorities.”

“No, you won’t do that because you just crossed the state line from Utah into Idaho and our wives live in Utah. I’ll be the one doing the calling, and I will press charges if you don’t release these women to me right now.”

“Let them go, let them go,” the Sisters hissed. “Let them go and get out of there, Pearl, before those stupid goons make good on their threat.”

Pearl knew when she was beaten. She nodded. “At least tell me where you’re taking them. I want to know they’ll be safe.”

The big man, the spokesman of the four-man group, smiled. “Why, ma’am, I’m taking them to Heaven on Earth, where we all live a satisfying, righteous, happy life.”

The big man turned to the girls and shouted loud enough to be heard into the next county, “Come along, darlings, Daddy is taking you home. Say good-bye to the nice lady, and let’s be on our way.”

“Tell me something, how did you find us and who are you?” Pearl asked as the girls lumbered off the bus.

“My angels travel with GPS tracking devices. They’re pinned to their collars. Or, I should say, there’s one under the collar of my bride. As to who I am, I am the Prophet.”

This last was said with such pride, Pearl felt sick to her stomach.

Pearl played dumb. She hoped she looked as poleaxed as she felt. “Of what?”

The big man drew himself up to his full six-foot height, fixed his calculating gaze on her, and said, “Of Heaven and Earth. Thank you for taking care of my wife and her sisters. Drive safely, now. There isn’t much traffic around here, and if you break down, there won’t be anyone to help you.”

Pearl bit down on her tongue as she slammed the door to the bus. “Did you hear that son of a bitch?” she snarled, the moment she was sure her voice wouldn’t carry.

“Loud and clear. Be glad it worked out this way, Pearl. I’d hate to see your name plastered all over the morning papers. Not to worry, we’ll get him and all the other ones out there. We have a plan. Well, we almost have a plan. Now that your immediate crisis is on hold, we have some breathing room. What are you going to do now?”

“I can’t go back to George and Irma’s. I’ll double back and make my way to the next relay station. Listen, Annie, there’s something you need to know. I don’t think I’m wrong about this, either. The girl, the one named Emily, the talkative one in the bunch, she said she lost her baby. She referred to it as her ‘bump.’ She was going around patting the other girls’ stomachs and saying she couldn’t wait to get another bump. She’s retarded, Annie. Not severely but she is definitely mentally challenged. She said she went to sleep and when she woke up her bump was gone. Now she wants another one. Actually, she’s the only one who really talked. None of them would tell me where their mothers were, they wouldn’t tell me their names or where they were coming from. But, by God, at least one of them had a GPS tracking device pinned to her collar. The Prophet’s bride,” she snorted.

“Retarded?” Annie bellowed in shock. “And she had a baby?”

“A bump. She never mentioned a baby. Okay, I’m back on the road. Tell me I don’t have to worry about George and Irma.”

“You don’t have to worry about George and Irma, Pearl. We’ll take care of things on that end. Drive carefully and check in every few hours until you get to your next relay point.”

“Will do,” Pearl said as she broke the connection. She adjusted her wraparound sunglasses and marveled that she’d gotten out of that little mess intact. She couldn’t help but wonder when her luck was going to run out.

Back on Big Pine Mountain, the encrypted cell phones and the three huge television monitors were working overtime.

Annie pressed a button, and a picture of what looked like a gigantic farm appeared on the screen. “Behold, ladies, you are now viewing the Heaven on Earth compound! Compliments of Google,” she said dramatically. “According to the tax maps, this particular piece of property was purchased by some shell company out of Singapore. Not that we care. There are 120 acres. As you can see, there is a milk barn, another barn that, if you believe this, is used for winter food storage. They sell the milk in town. They have chickens for eggs. They sell those also. In the summer they sell their produce to local markets. They’re the local pumpkin distributor, if that means anything.”

Annie pressed another button. The scene was enlarged, and different buildings could be seen. “This is an aerial photo of the main house, where the Supreme Prophet lives. It’s a five-thousand-square-foot house with front and back porches. These buildings,” she said, using Charles’s pointer, “are where the people, I guess you would call them ‘disciples,’ live. It’s communal, dormitory style. No women actually live in the main house, according to one of the women who got away and gave all this information to the authorities. It was immediately posted on the Net.” Annie moved the pointer. “This is the school. Rudimentary education at best. Eighth grade is as far as it goes. Most of the teaching, aside from math and English, is religion.

“No one in the compound owns anything. Only the Prophet can own things, and he owns a lot. He owns a penthouse apartment in Park City. He’s into fashion, drives a Bentley. And according to what he told Pearl, he owns all the people who live at HOE. The word ‘dictator’ comes to mind.”

“Okay, okay, now that we know all that, why are we going to get involved?” Isabelle asked. “Pearl is okay, she’s back in business, and no one was hurt but the driver of the bus, who died. The girls are back where they’re supposed to be. Or at least where they were headed. We all heard them, they sounded happy when they were ‘rescued.’ So, tell me, why are we putting our necks on the line for something we aren’t involved in?”

In a shaky voice, Yoko spoke up. “Those men are pedophiles. Those young girls are nothing but baby-making machines. Some of them are only thirteen. That is not right. I really want to rescue them and show them a normal life. I was rescued and given a better life. I want to do the same for them.”

“It’s their religion,” Isabelle said. “What right do we have to tamper with someone’s religion? They didn’t ask for our help. Pearl is safe and out of the mess. We could be going into a firestorm not of our making. I think we need to fall back and regroup.”

“I want to know where the mothers are,” Alexis said. “Do they just willy-nilly hand over their daughters when they turn thirteen? What kind of mother does that?”

“The kind of woman who has been brainwashed. That life is all they know,” Nikki said. “Yes, Pearl is safe for the moment, and the young girls are safe, at least in a way. We have to decide if we want to get involved and show the world what those men are all about. The women, too. I think that business in Texas is a start, but I believe the authorities didn’t think it through when they took those four-hundred-plus children. They were overwhelmed. That won’t happen to us. We can go in there, take out the women and children who want to go, deal with those skanky men, and any uncooperative women, too. If we can wipe out just one of those places, maybe our notoriety will spur the authorities to close in and really do something about all those others and at the same time make those pedophiles run for cover.”

“It’s their religion,” Isabelle protested.

“It’s polygamy, and they live in a country where that’s illegal,” Annie snorted. “They’re stealing taxpayer dollars. They’re using children to give birth to children. The women have no options other than what that slimy so-called Prophet gives them. Do I need to remind you that the other prophet, Jeffs, is serving ten years in prison and probably looking at life in prison for the same thing this other Prophet is doing? What kind of religion is that? I’ll tell you what kind it is,” she said, answering her own question. “It’s the kind where they use the word ‘religion’ to get them out of the messes they’re in. They’re pedophiles, they’re tax cheats, they lie, and they brainwash their people. I say we swoop in there and take them all out. Let’s vote. Right now.”

Everyone but Isabelle raised her hand. She flinched when the other Sisters faced her down.

Only Annie spoke. “Okay, Isabelle, you stay behind on the mountain,” she said in a voice that was colder than ice.

“By myself?” Isabelle shrilled.

“Damn straight by yourself, Isabelle,” Kathryn said. “I don’t want you covering my ass if your heart isn’t in this.” She looked around at the others, who were nodding that they sided with her.

“But…”

“There are no buts, Isabelle. If we can’t depend on you, you’re no good to us. You stay behind,” Nikki agreed.

Isabelle fled the room in tears.

Her fellow Sisters looked at one another.

“Were we too hard on her?” Alexis asked.

Kathryn snapped to attention. Always the most verbal of the group, she pierced Alexis with her gaze. “You want to partner up with her, she’s all yours. I hate to remind you of this, Alexis, but you were in prison once. Do you want to go back because Isabelle does something stupid because she’s not watching and doing what she’s supposed to be doing?”

“Good God, no. It’s just that this is the first time one of us isn’t 100 percent for the mission. I’m okay with it. Isabelle is entitled to her opinion and that’s her right and she has to live with it,” Alexis said.

Nikki turned thoughtful. “We did cut off our earlier discussion on how those people work. Let’s download some of the videos on the Net showing how these folks brainwash their ‘disciples’ and keep their womenfolk in line. Hearing us talking about the evils of the HOE isn’t the same as watching them practice what they preach. After Isabelle sees it, she might change her mind. Trust me, we’ll know if she’s 100 percent or she’s faking it. Let’s vote on it.”

Five hands shot in the air.

“All right, Kathryn, the job is yours. I have to go back online now and contact Avery. Someone call Pearl to make sure she’s okay.” Nikki looked around. “I guess no one got a call from Myra or Charles, huh?”

They all shook their heads from side to side.

Nikki shrugged and climbed the three steps to the platform where the bank of computers waited for her.

Sometimes life was a bitch!