The Runaway Prophet

by Michele Chynoweth

  Ned looked up from the letter at Rory, who avoided eye contact. If it was possible, Rory felt his own face grow redder and hotter. He felt desire throb through every fiber of his being to run like a rat out of the room and fly to a remote island, never to be seen again. But he sat frozen, staring at his hands clenched together in his lap for fear the officers might see him trembling with embarrassment.

  Mercifully, Sheriff Thomas was almost to the end.

  “I believe in both of you. Thank you and Godspeed in your efforts.

  Your friend,

  Howard Justice.”

  After an hour break for lunch, which consisted of cold cut sandwiches and chips called in from a local deli, the group reconvened in the conference room.

  Rory and John Dade ate together in a small empty deputy’s office down the hall. Ned Thomas had offered it to them, excusing himself, saying he had a few work matters to handle.

  Meanwhile, the Sheriff, Agent Glover and Chief Steele skipped lunch and convened separately behind closed doors. Together they discussed Rory’s and Dade’s reactions to the reading of the letter and determined there was no way they were part of any covert terrorist plan.

  Fortunately, the deputy’s office also had a door, which Rory had surreptitiously closed once Sheriff Thomas walked away.

  While John hungrily chomped on his second sandwich, having wolfed down the first, Rory ate a few bites slowly, too nervous to eat much of anything.

  They sat next to each other in front of the missing deputy’s desk, which they cleared and used as a lunch table.

  Rory broke the silence, pushing the uneaten portion of his sandwich away.

  “John, I just want to say again that I’m sorry.”

  “‘Shokay.” John cut him off between a mouthful of food, which he subsequently finished chewing and swallowing. “Rory, please don’t apologize anymore. It won’t change anything. Besides, I think you’ve already been through enough punishment.”

  “Thanks.” Rory took a swig of his soda, washing down his food along with the remnants of his lingering remorse. He liked John and felt an immediate kinship to his father’s longtime compatriot and friend. “So are you going to help the FBI investigate this? I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t. It sounds like someone gave you the shaft anyway. I just don’t trust that Ned Thomas. I think they should look into his background a little further.”

  “Ned’s okay.” John polished off his last bite and chugged some soda. “He may be a little full of himself and not the sharpest tool in the shed. And it was slightly annoying that he was a little too eager to replace me after all I did for him. He’s probably too arrogant to realize that I helped him get where he is today. But I don’t believe he’s a part of this Mafia gang. He was just a convenient replacement to push me out of the way—a guy who was itching to climb to the top, but too dumb and egotistical to look beyond his nose into what they’re doing.”

  “Wow, you’re pretty forgiving.”

  “I was ready to call it quits soon anyway. But now this ….” John shook his head.

  “So you’re going to stay involved?”

  “If they’ll have me. How ’bout you? Your father has a lot of faith in you. Frankly, even though I just met you, and even though you skipped out of bringing me the letter, so do I.” John smacked Rory on the back good-naturedly.

  “Well, you have more faith in me than I do in myself. So did my dad. Neither of you realize how much I hate this place.”

  “Las Vegas? Why?”

  “Why not? It’s full of sleaze. Why should I care what happens to Vegas?”

  “Well, then, why are you still sitting here with me?” John leaned back in his chair and crossed one leg over the other. Rory noticed for the first time he was wearing faded leather cowboy boots under his jeans. It figures, he thought.

  “I honestly don’t know.”

  “Yes, I think you do. You’re here because you do care somewhere deep down about what your father thinks … and maybe even what God thinks.”

  Rory tried not to roll his eyes at the mention of God, but he did recall, albeit unwillingly, the promise he had made to his dad in his poem on the submarine.

  “I’d like to work with you if I stay,” he said. Already Rory had developed a sense of confidence in this old-fashioned cowboy sheriff, surprising himself, since he rarely trusted anyone.

  “That’s a deal,” John said with a grin, standing and offering his beefy hand. The two men shook on it just as they heard a knock on the door, summoning them.

  The five men met back in the conference room at one o’clock.

  Chief Steele led the discussion, outlining his plan to find the ISM and rid the city of them. He went around the room and asked each man, one by one, if he wanted to be part of this new project, and if so, why.

  “It’s my job,” Agent Glover said.

  John Dade piped in next. “Sounds like I’m already committed in the letter.” He chuckled. “Matter of fact, this project has my name all over it.”

  Ned Thomas sat up straighter and cleared his throat. “No offense, but I believe my department and I will obviously be needed on this mission,” he said, and Rory had to fight not to laugh out loud.

  Finally, everyone turned expectantly to Rory, who hesitated for a moment then spoke. “I guess I owe it to my dad.” He noticed John unsuccessfully try to suppress a smile.

  “This, of course, will be highly confidential, and only a select handful of the most trusted officers, both in the FBI and the Las Vegas Sheriff’s Department, will be recruited,” Chief Steele admonished the group. “Let me thank you gentlemen ahead of time. This won’t be easy, and it may very well be dangerous. But it sounds like you’re all committed. So let’s get started.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Rory had to call AdExecs immediately to resign from his job. Unable to tell them the real reason since the Vegas project was top secret, he simply told Mr. Majors he had found other employment and apologized for not being able to give two weeks’ notice, adding grudgingly that he appreciated all that the company had done for him over the years.

  Although he wouldn’t miss any of his co-workers, Rory still had mixed feelings about quitting. He knew he was now in uncharted seas and wondered if he had made a mistake in not going back to the comfort of his familiar pond. Too late, he told himself. You’ve already cut the line and raised the anchor.

  Fortunately, he didn’t have too much time to mull it over. They were told the team would start work immediately.

  Chief Steele told Rory he would receive a salary for his work as well as a small stipend to rent an apartment nearby. He would also be given a company car during his stay. “Nothing glamorous,” Steele emphasized. “Just enough to get you around town.”

  The new FBI/police team quickly set up its new headquarters in a vacant, stand-alone warehouse building off of Schuster Street just blocks from the Strip. It would be dedicated solely for use by Operation No Dice, the name Agent Glover had given the special task force whose mission was two-fold: to rid the city of the ISM terrorists and to find and deactivate the nuclear bomb that was lying somewhere under one of the casino resorts.

  Glover named the new headquarters building the Condo, an acronym for Covert Operation No Dice Offices. From the outside, the building looked like nothing more than an obscure, box-like structure with a few small windows.

  Within a matter of days, the inside of the Condo was transformed from an abandoned warehouse into office cubicles. The team consisted of Rory and twelve others: Chief Steele and five of his people, Sheriff Thomas and his posse of four, and John Dade.

  Technology experts had helped turn half of the large Condo interior into a state-of-the-art satellite station set up with the latest surveillance technology, an entire wall filled with large digital screens, smart boards, and electronic maps.

  Chief Steele and Sheriff Thomas were the only men allotted separate office rooms with doors that were bulletproof and soundproof.

  Rory was as
signed to a cubicle with John, their desks pushed together so they faced each other.

  The chief ordered Rory to undergo firearms and tactical training. He endured two weeks of grueling combat training at the dusty, sprawling Spring Valley training complex outside the city with a grizzly weather-beaten ex-Marine as his chief instructor.

  He learned combative handgun skills, low-light shooting and fighting at night, tactical trauma care, vehicular assault and counter ambush tactics, close quarter battle, tactical rescues, reconnaissance and mission planning and more maneuvers than he figured he would probably ever remember, much less need.

  At the end of his training, Rory was physically and mentally exhausted but felt at least he could handle a gun, and that he was ready to be part of the team.

  Unfortunately, he heard rumblings that some team members didn’t feel the same way about him.

  Rory had stayed home the day after training to rest since he was sick with a stomach virus. The rest of the team members gathered in the Condo for their morning briefing.

  Ned Thomas spoke up immediately. “Before we get started, I’d like to say something,” he said, drawing a vexed glare from Chief Steele. “I just don’t think Rory Justice has what it takes to be part of this team. He can’t even handle the training, he doesn’t have our level of experience, and frankly, I’m still not sure he can be trusted.”

  Chief Steele stood up at the end of the long conference table. “Sheriff Thomas, I appreciate your concerns, but might I remind you that if it weren’t for Rory and his father, none of us would be on this project. Furthermore, I trust Mr. Justice, and since I’m the head of the team, I need you all to trust me on this. If you don’t want to be part of it, now’s your chance to speak up.”

  “Of course I do,” Ned Thomas interjected. “I just thought I should be honest about my doubts.”

  “Noted.”

  “And I don’t think I am the only one with concerns.” The sheriff looked around the table, and two of his men nodded, glancing at the chief but remaining silent.

  Chief Steele rubbed his chin, choosing his words. “Since we gave Rory Justice the choice to join the team, and he has followed through on all of his training, I think it would be unfair to take this opportunity from him. But feelings aside, I believe we need him. Most of us have some level of notoriety or recognition here in Vegas, whereas Mr. Justice is anonymous. That’s why I’m putting him on the streets.”

  Ned Thomas drew in a sharp breath of surprise.

  Rory, to his chagrin, was assigned to a team they were calling the “front line.” They would be working the streets to find out whatever they could about the Mafia within the circles in which it operated. In other words, I’m to mingle with the hookers, pimps, thugs, and drug addicts, Rory realized. The very people I despise the most.

  His team members were two undercover police officers: Susan McAfree, a forty-something, wiry, pretty but tough and feisty redhead from the Las Vegas Special Victims Unit, and Sergeant Carlos Fuentes, a short, stocky Latino in his thirties from the NARC Unit.

  They would be one of several teams assigned to investigate certain crime pockets in the city. Their mission was to try to expose Mafia members in an effort to arrest them and bring them in for interrogation in hopes of putting them behind bars and ultimately finding out if there actually was a nuclear weapon as Howard Justice had predicted.

  Rory puffed on a cigar outside the glitzy strip joint. He had never liked smoking cigarettes and couldn’t muster enough willpower to even fake it, but he did tolerate smoking cigars, and once in a while, he even enjoyed it. Steele said he had to smoke something if he wanted to fit in.

  He and his new partners had been assigned to hang out at a strip club named Wildcats just off the north end of the Strip on Highland Drive where many of the topless bars and clubs were located. The name flashed in large neon pink letters next to the lit sign of three women scantily clad in various cat outfits—a leopard, tiger, and lion—each wearing cat ears, a tail and little else.

  Rory, who gave himself the alias of Ronny, and Carlos, who changed his name to Luis, entered the two-story whitewashed building after standing in a short line of men for about twenty minutes. Rory wore a lightweight black leather jacket, a black T-shirt, and jeans, and Carlos sported army fatigue pants and an olive green T-shirt.

  Once inside, they each handed the doorman a fifty-dollar bill for the cover charge. They had been told ahead of time by someone who tipped off their team that Wildcats was one of the more expensive strip clubs, one of the raciest, and if a guy brought enough cash, it would be “worth his while,” all of which indicated the ISM was probably running it.

  Rory had no basis of comparison as he had never been to such a club in his life and didn’t know quite what to expect.

  But he was soon to find out.

  Hip-hop music blared loudly as they made their way into a crowded strobe-lit room where women in lingerie circulated among the customers and two topless women pole-danced on a stage.

  Carlos had also informed Rory that in order for them to discover anything about who was running the place and what was actually going on behind the scenes, they would have to fit in, which meant paying for the services of the women and prying the information out of them or eavesdropping in the back rooms.

  Cell phones were strictly prohibited and were confiscated by a bouncer at the front door, to be given back to the customers when they left. Knowing this ahead of time, Rory and Carlos hadn’t bothered to even bring them, which would make communication difficult. They knew they would probably have to split up, so they agreed to meet again at the front entrance in exactly one hour.

  Rory had no idea what he would possibly do for all that time, but he followed Carlos’s lead when a pair of young women, who looked to be in their early twenties, sidled up to them and started making small talk.

  “How you doing, sugar?” The light-skinned black girl spoke in a husky voice to “Luis,” introducing herself as Candy.

  Carlos smiled, leaning in close to her. “I’m doing better now, Candy.”

  He knows how to play the part, Rory thought nervously. Or maybe he’s not playing. I am so far out of my league.

  “This is Tiffany,” Candy said, introducing her friend to Rory. The blonde girl smiled, almost shyly. This doesn’t come naturally for her either, he guessed.

  She had long, straight, honey blonde hair with bangs and was petite and pretty with pale skin, heavily made-up blue-green eyes, and bright red lips that parted to reveal a nice smile.

  Rory kept his eyes on her face, not wanting to look down, although he couldn’t help but notice she wore only a leopard print teddy with stockings, high heels, and the trademark cat ears and tail. Candy was dressed in similar attire.

  “Hi,” Rory said, drawing a glare from Carlos. Ok, that was lame. C’mon, think of something more. “I’m Ron from the Midwest.”

  “Hmmm, probably one of those urban cowboys,” Candy said, nudging Tiffany.

  “You ready for a wild ride, Ron?” Tiffany picked up her cue, opening the door to … who knows what, Rory thought, trying not to panic.

  “I sure am,” he answered in a fake Midwestern drawl.

  He watched Carlos roll his eyes in his peripheral vision.

  “C’mon, you two, we’ll take you where the action really is.” Candy took Carlos by the hand, and Tiffany followed suit with Rory.

  Soon they were stepping out of the warehouse-sized dance hall with its overwhelming light and sound into a more dimly lit hallway.

  On either side of the hallway were private rooms with doors. They walked its length and turned down another hallway with more doors on each side.

  A few guttural sounds emitted from behind the closed doors—an occasional moan, grunt, slap or scream—but they were muffled by the music, its base thumping beats still playing loud enough to disguise voices.

  They stopped in front of the last two doors at the end of the second hallway, which veered into yet another dar
k hallway to the left.

  Candy opened the door to the first room and led Carlos inside. Before he disappeared from view, he looked back at Rory and winked with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes, which were serious and seemed to say, be careful. Tiffany led Rory to the next room, the last one in the corridor.

  The room was sparsely furnished, painted entirely in red. There was a queen-sized bed with a red spread and pillows, a partition in the corner for undressing or changing costume, a floor lamp in the other corner, and a flat-screened television on the wall showing an adult video. There was also a floor-to-ceiling pole in another corner, and hanging on the wall was a variety of whips and other paraphernalia that Rory wasn’t even sure how to identify.

  Suddenly he felt sick to his stomach, and thought that he might pass out, so he sat on the edge of the bed. The air was warm and thick, and he started to perspire.

  “Why don’t you take off your jacket?” Tiffany approached him, and he let her remove it since he felt too sweaty and weak to do it himself.

  When she went to remove his shirt, he stopped her, taking both her hands in his and looking her in the eyes.

  “Tiffany, I—”

  “Oh I get it. You’re gay, right?”

  Rory almost laughed out loud at the ludicrousness of her statement, but figured a small fib wouldn’t hurt at this point. “Right. But my friend doesn’t know. So can we just talk?” He watched a look of relief visibly cross her features, and she smiled.

  “Sure, but you don’t get your money back.” They had quickly agreed on one hundred and fifty dollars before entering the room, which Rory had handed her in cash.

  “I know, that’s okay. But can we turn that television off?” The sounds emitting from the screen were adding to Rory’s nausea.

  Tiffany crossed the room, picked up a remote control, and turned off the TV. She went behind the partition then reappeared with a cheap black satin robe wrapped around her, and sat on the bed a few feet away.