The Girl in the Moon

by Terry Goodkind

  “Our strike, carried about by those of us in this room, will be a turning point for the Islamic world. We now know how to get nuclear material into America. Others will follow the path we have laid out.

  “Israel will be next.

  “With what we do, the final destruction of the Great Satan will be under way, and then Israel will at long last be wiped from existence. They cannot destroy the entire Islamic world. We are used to surviving in darkness. They are not.

  “Once this new nuclear phase of our war against the West is under way, nothing will stop it. We will change the balance of power. Islam will become the new ruling superpower.”

  The men all around listening to his speech thrust a fist into the air as they let out cheers. These men had devoted their entire lives to this mission and this cause. They had trained in every field necessary to make plutonium bombs, both in Iran and Pakistan, and a few of them in North Korea.

  They had worked their whole lives at being able to pass as Mexican immigrants who so easily moved into and throughout American society. No one would suspect the darkness they were about to bring to America.

  “Now, put on your protective clothing.” He gestured to his second-in-command. “Alejandro, see to the material that is to go into the cargo van. You will oversee this crew, here. I will take the van to the second location.”

  Splitting up the material increased the chances they would remain undiscovered until it was too late.

  He looked to his second-in-command. “You have the entire place wired with explosives, just in case?”

  Alejandro bowed his head. “Yes, Commander.”

  “Cassiel, you will come with me and my half of the team. The rest of you know what to do. If we work hard we should be able to complete the assembly and be ready in a few days. The countdown can then begin. When that hour is upon us, we will bring the Great Satan to its knees.”

  FORTY-ONE

  As Angela dropped the cable in front of her driveway, a car pulled off the road and across the drive at an angle. Gravel crunched under the tires as it rolled to a slow stop. It was hard to see in the dark with the headlights blinding her, but she thought it looked like a government-issue sedan.

  She was reluctant to draw the gun she had in its holster at the small of her back, because it might only be someone who was lost. More than that, though, it would be a big mistake to draw a weapon if it turned out to be an unmarked police car. But out here on this lonely stretch of road, it could easily be trouble of one kind or another, so as she walked around to the driver’s door when she heard the window rolling down, she was ready to draw the weapon at the first sign of trouble.

  Angela leaned down a little but stood back to give herself room to draw her weapon if she needed to, and enough room that the person in the car couldn’t grab it. The door popped open just enough for the interior light to come on and show John Babington grinning up at her. His suit jacket and tie were lying over the passenger seat. His shirt collar was unbuttoned.

  “I need to have a talk with you,” he said.

  Angela was sick about what had happened to Barry. If Babington had prosecuted the men who had tried to kill her, they would have been in jail and Barry would be fine. It was this man’s fault that Barry was in the hospital near death.

  “About what?”

  “About the serious charges against you.”

  This was new. “What charges?”

  “Well,” he drawled, “that’s what I’m here to talk to you about. Took me some digging to find out where you live. Why don’t I follow you up to your house and we can talk about it?” He winked at her. “I’m sure we can work it out.”

  This was not the way legitimate prosecutors conducted business, but Angela knew better than to flat-out tell him to fuck off, even though that was what she really wanted to do. John Babington was about the last thing in the world she wanted to deal with at the moment.

  She knew, though, that sometimes you just had to take opportunities when they presented themselves.

  She smiled down at him. “Sure, okay.”

  Angela got back in her truck and drove up the road to her house. Babington followed and pulled around to park next to her. As she unlocked the front door, he stood uncomfortably close behind her. She turned on the living room light as she walked into the house.

  She was still wearing the low-rise cutoff shorts for her job tending bar. She knew he was watching her ass. There was little doubt about what he had on his mind. She expected that he wanted to make her a similar offer to the one he’d made Tiffany.

  Angela turned around and tried to sound apprehensive. This time, she was not in his office in a building full of police and security. This time, he was on her ground, and he had no idea who he was dealing with.

  “So … what did you want to talk to me about?”

  “You don’t want go to jail, do you.”

  “No, of course not,” she said, deliberately elevating the concern in her voice. “Can you keep that from happening?”

  He made a face to indicate “Maybe.”

  He ran a finger up and down the side of her arm. “You rub my back, I rub yours, so to speak. Know what I mean?”

  “No,” she said, playing dumb so that he would spell it out.

  He finally dropped the pretense and reached down to put his hand on her crotch. He felt confident because there was no one to see him doing it. Angela didn’t move. He reached around with his other hand and grabbed her ass so that she was sandwiched between his fat mitts.

  “Does this help you get the picture?” he asked.

  “Are you making me the same kind of offer you made to Tiffany?”

  He grunted his displeasure. “I’m going to have to teach that little cocksucker to keep her mouth shut—at least when she’s not with me.”

  “You know,” Angela said as he fondled her ass, “your cell phone can be tracked. Not saying that I would, but if I were to report that you came here to proposition me under threat the state police could trace your phone’s locations and see that you were here tonight.”

  “That’s why I left my cell phone at work,” he said with a smirk. He tilted his head as if to say he was one step ahead of her and she was outsmarted.

  She gave him a coy look from under her brow. “I guess, then, that I’m kind of in a spot.”

  Babington arched an eyebrow as he wormed two fingers under the crotch of her shorts. “Yes, you are, little lady. Now, I’d hate to have to see you sent to jail, so maybe we can work something out to clear up these pending drug and weapons charges?”

  Angela pushed his hand away from her crotch. “I can’t think with you doing that.”

  “What’s to think about?” he asked. “A little trailer park whore like you screws different guys all the time. None of them can keep you out of jail, but I can.”

  “You swear that if I agree you would make sure there are no charges? You swear that will be the end of it?”

  He shrugged. “I come over for a visit from time to time, you take care of me, and I will keep charges from popping up.”

  “You mean this is something ongoing? I’m always going to be under threat of going to jail?”

  He rolled his eyes back as he smelled the fingers he’d had inside her shorts. “I don’t think you have anything to worry about.”

  “You’re saying I have to give you sex or you will bring me up on false charges?”

  His look darkened. “Look, I’m not playing games, here. I could easily put you in a great deal of legal jeopardy. It will cost you everything you have and then some to fight it. You will still end up in jail in the end and have a mountain of debt as well. I can keep that from happening. I’m getting tired of the questions. I suggest you agree before I change my mind.”

  Angela reached down and grabbed his erection through his dress pants. She pressed herself up against him.

  “If you would handle my legal problem, then I think I could handle your problem.”

  His grin widened. �
��Now you’re talking. We start tonight. Right now.”

  “All right.” Angela tilted her head. “I like to get all crazy with guys down in the basement. I have a special room set up.” She squeezed his erection as she smiled up at him. “Know what I mean?”

  The thought clearly excited him. “Lead the way.”

  Angela looked back over her shoulder and smiled as she unlocked the basement door while he felt her up from behind. She flicked on the light and skipped down the stairs to get away from his hand. He wasted no time in following her.

  At the bottom he looked around, trying to figure out what kind of sex room she had set up.

  Angela flashed him a flirtatious smile. “Why don’t you have a seat, Mr. Babington, and I’ll handle everything.”

  He flopped down onto the metal chair, his head still swiveling around. Angela swung a leg over him to straddle him as she sat on his lap facing him.

  Without saying anything, she unbuckled his belt and unzipped his pants. That seemed to reassure him and get his mind back on track.

  She rested her arms on his shoulders, locking her fingers behind his head so that her face was mere inches from his. “This kind of what you had in mind?”

  He was sinking into a trance of desire. “Uh-huh.”

  “You know,” she said in an intimate whisper, “I’ve found that justice is often an illusion.”

  He grunted. “Indeed it is.”

  “In fact, I’ve found that the law has little to do with justice, that laws are merely a way for some people to have power over others and that if you want justice sometimes you have to make it happen yourself. Know what I mean?”

  He frowned, trying to figure out where she was going with this. “I’m an officer of the court. I represent the law.”

  “Uh-huh,” she said. “That’s what I’m talking about.”

  “Get on with it,” he said, his impatience showing.

  “Oh, don’t worry, you’re going to get fucked real good.”

  “Hurry up and get on with it, then.”

  Angela kissed his cheek. “As you wish,” she whispered in his ear. His erection throbbed against her.

  Angela got up off his lap and drew her gun from her grandfather’s holster at the small of her back and pointed it right between his eyes.

  She stepped back far enough so that he couldn’t reach up and try to grab it. “You’re right about one thing. You are an officer of the court. You are supposed to represent the law, but you instead represent what most people in authority have—power for themselves.”

  “What is your problem, woman?”

  “My problem? Well let’s see, I was beaten, raped, hung by a rope around my neck and left to choke to death. You let the men who did that go free for your own personal political gain, and the gain of the system and politicians you represent. Those criminals went on to beat my friend and boss nearly to death. He may not live the night. You, Mr. Babington, made all that possible. You were an accessory to both crimes.”

  Clearly not intimidated by her gun, he zipped up his pants. “Put that gun down or I’ll see to it you go to jail for the rest of your life for pointing a firearm at an officer of the court!”

  “Then I guess, if I’m going to serve the time, I might as well do the crime.”

  “I followed the law with those undocumented aliens. The people of this state want them protected. That’s what I did—the people’s bidding.”

  “What you did, Mr. Babington, was side with killers rather than their victims.”

  He stood in a huff. “I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing, young lady, but I’m leaving. You’re a fool to think you could get away with this. People would miss me and come looking. You harm me and you will go to jail for attempted murder.”

  She tilted her head. “How do you suppose anyone is going to know where to find you? You left your phone in your office so that no one would know you were going off to blackmail yet another innocent woman. How many times have you done this? How many women, Mr. Babington?”

  He scowled defiantly as he gestured dismissively. “You’re only the second. You and Tiffany—that’s all.”

  “Why is it I don’t believe you? Hmm?”

  “I don’t care if you believe me or not. I’m leaving. Expect the police to be here within the hour.”

  “Move either foot and I’ll pull the trigger.”

  She could see in his eyes that he was trying to decide if he believed her and if he dared to try to leave.

  His gaze went from the gun to the tattoo across her throat. When he saw the words “DARK ANGEL,” his confidence faltered.

  “You let those four men go,” she told him. “Those men are killers. This isn’t only about me. It’s about all the other victims you condemn to suffer, like Barry tonight. How many people have been brutalized or even murdered because you let killers go, or you let them plea-bargain, or you lowered the charges as a favor to their attorney? How many monsters have you let go back on the street to kill again?”

  “I only follow the law.”

  “The laws you represent are as corrupt as you are.”

  “All right, you win,” he said as he held up his hands as if to ward her off. “I’ll file charges of attempted murder against those four men. I’ll have them prosecuted. I’ll see to it that they go to jail for a good long time. How about that? Do we have a deal?”

  “Is that how the law works, Mr. Babington? That the way it’s done? You only enforce it when you’re afraid for your life? Not when the victims of violence are afraid for theirs?”

  Angela had gone to sleep many a night having fantasies about torturing this man to death. It would be easy enough, and he would certainly deserve what she could do to him.

  But she was worried for Barry and she just wasn’t in the mood. This man sickened her. The system he represented sickened her. She was sick of looking at him, sick of listening to him.

  While keeping the gun on him, she lifted open the hatch.

  Angela gestured with her gun. “Kneel over here.”

  He frowned. “Why?”

  “Because I said so, that’s why.”

  He reluctantly knelt, thinking it might somehow get him out of this. He peered down into the darkness below.

  “Take everything out of your pockets and toss it to the side.”

  “Please,” he said as he followed her instructions with trembling hands. There was no longer any trace of arrogance in his voice. “I’ve learned my lesson—I swear. Let me go and I will just forget this whole ugly incident. I’ll have those four men arrested and I will charge them with attempted murder, like you want. Just let me go.”

  Angela didn’t answer. She walked around behind him and without further ceremony fired a bullet into the back of his skull. A .22 could easily penetrate the thick bone of the skull if fired at a direct angle. Angela’s fired at a direct angle. The sound of the shot echoed around the small basement, making her ears ring.

  John Babington tumbled forward into the hell hole.

  Angela leaned over, watching his lifeless body descend into the darkness.

  “Karma is a bitch.”

  FORTY-TWO

  After John Babington had vanished into the darkness of the hell hole, Angela tossed the gun down after him. She watched it fall, glance twice off the granite walls on the way down, and finally fade away into the darkness until she could no longer see it. She had learned long ago not to bother waiting to hear things hit bottom.

  Once she had used a gun to kill someone, that gun became forever tainted with the potential for all kinds of trouble. There was forensic evidence she could only begin to imagine—blood spatter, serial numbers, as well as distinctive marks left by the magazine, the firing pin, and gun barrel rifling.

  Once she had used a gun on someone, that gun would never be used again. It always went down the abyss along with the killer. Owen was the only man so far that had not ended up in the hell hole. Of course, the knife she had used to kill him had, along with
everything she’d been wearing that could have had any blood evidence on it.

  Angela could easily have enticed Owen to her house and spent several days initiating him into hell. But it had been more important to her that Carrie’s remains be found so that her family would have closure than it was for Owen to be sent down the hell hole. She hoped that he was in hell, the real one, for the rest of eternity.

  Angela removed her boots, with her knife and sheath inside the lining, and tossed them down into the hell hole. Like the gun, they could potentially have a wealth of forensic evidence on them. After her boots, she removed her shorts, underwear, and her top and threw them in as well.

  Even if they never found John Babington’s body, a bullet penetrating the skull created internal pressure that often blew blood droplets, as well as tiny specks of brain matter and hair, back away from the hole. It was inevitable that some of that, even minuscule amounts, would end up on her clothes. He’d had his hand in her pants; they could probably find skin cells from his fingers on her thong.

  If any tiny speck were to be found on her clothes, the police forensic department could test DNA from his relatives and tie it to Babington. Even without a body, they could probably still convict her of killing him on circumstantial evidence alone.

  Truly evil men often got away with their crimes because of legal technicalities, or things like Babington dropping the charges for political reasons. Even when politics weren’t involved, the victims were routinely ignored as unimportant while thugs like Boska were granted favors and leniency. Time after time they were let go for any reason someone could come up with. Rap sheets of violent crimes grew to multiple pages with nothing done to stop, much less punish, the violent criminal. Babington was part of that whole corrupt system. It took something like a minivan to finally end the injustice.

  But Angela knew that if it was her they would go to the ends of the earth to make sure she spent the rest of her life in prison. They couldn’t have people killing prosecutors, no matter how much they might deserve it. That’s the way government officials were. Protect their own at all costs.