Oh, hell. I’m good with that. Yeah. I’m so good with that. Carry me away.
She gave in to the passion of his touch. For a moment she lost track of the sights and sounds of the very serious FBI agents bustling around her.
Jude eased away from her for a fraction, nipping her lower lip as he caught her eye. “I think maybe we ought to remember where we left off,” he murmured hoarsely.
She nodded, totally content to go with the flow. It was kind of nice letting someone else be in charge for a change, especially this particular someone else. He eased her feet back to earth, his arms still around her ribs. “Let’s go find your boss.”
“Uh-huh,” she acquiesced quickly, glancing shyly through the crowd to see if her boss had seen her latest indiscretion. Oh well, if he had.
Before they made it to Alex though, several FBI agents intercepted them. “Are you Cassidy Dancer?” the first body-armor-clad agent asked, his hand already wrapped around Jude’s wrist.
“Yes, and this is Jude Cannon. He’s—”
The agent grabbed both of Jude’s hands behind his back, and proceeded to cuff him while the other launched into the Miranda rights. “Mr. Cannon, you have the right to remain silent and refuse to answer questions. Do you understand? Anything you do or say may be used against you in a court of law. Do you understand? You—”
“Wait a minute!” Cassidy interrupted. “Why are you doing this? He hasn’t done anything wrong.”
The agent ignored her. “You have the right to consult an attorney before speaking to the FBI and to have an attorney present during questioning now or in the future. Do you understand?”
“You guys can’t do this,” Cassidy argued. “You can’t arrest a man simply for searching for his underage daughter.”
“If you can’t afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you before any questioning, if you wish. Do you understand?”
“We understand already! God, will you guys listen to me?” Cassidy yelled.
Jude shrugged. “It’s okay. It looks like they’re arresting everyone. Not just me. Don’t worry. I’ll be okay.”
“No,” she growled, clinging to his elbow. “It’s not right.”
One of the agents glowered at her. “You need to step back and let us do our job.”
She ignored him, her eyes only for Jude. “You wait here. I’ll get Alex.” Brushing past the FBI agent, she planted a quick kiss on Jude’s lips. “I’ll be right back.”
He beamed. “I know.”
By the time she located Alex, the agents had hustled Jude off and half the congregation with him. She couldn’t see him anywhere in the clearing.
“Where is he?” Cassidy confronted Agent Fitzgerald, the guy in charge. “Where are you taking everyone?”
“Local jails for tonight,” he replied.
“Why?” Alex asked curtly. “Jude Cannon proved instrumental in taking down Cain. Without him—”
“Without him, we might have apprehended Lucien Cain alive. We might have been able to hold him accountable for his crimes,” Agent Fitzgerald cut Alex off. “If I understand correctly, your legal obligation to Mr. McCormack was only to retrieve his daughter-in-law from this cult. Is that right?”
“Which Jude Cannon assisted with,” Alex retorted. “Check the trap door in the silo. You’ll find two of Cain’s hit men tied up and waiting for you, courtesy of Mr. Cannon. You wouldn’t know about any of the murders Cain committed either, if my agent and Mr. Cannon hadn’t located Cain’s crypt full of corpses. He provided nothing but engaged and helpful assistance during this entire operation.”
“Listen. Unlike you, the FBI follows strict protocol,” Agent Fitzgerald countered icily. “Take it up with Director Stone if you’re not happy.”
Alex flipped his cell phone open, his chin jutted forward. She waited anxiously while he placed a direct call to the national FBI Director in Washington D.C.
“Zach.” Alex launched into the problem of the hour without any introduction. “Need your intercession with your Agent Fitzgerald out of the San Francisco field office, currently on site of the Church of the Palma Christi Cult near Boggs Mountain, California.”
Cassidy watched her boss chat with one of the most powerful men in the country as if they were good friends. When he stowed his cell after a brief conversation, her heart sank.
“Sorry. They need to debrief everyone. Jude won’t be allowed to speak with his daughter until they’re through with him.”
Cassidy glanced over her shoulder at Agent Fitzgerald. This operation was nothing but a boatload of admin work for him now, processing each member of the cult thoroughly and accurately. She and Jude had done the dangerous work, not the Bureau. Not fair!
“Let’s head back to camp,” Alex said. “At least you can tell Judith we found her dad and he’s safe.”
Cassidy didn’t answer. She’d held Jude for such a short time, and now he was gone. Her eyes caught sight of three FBI buses parked down the hill at the compound, again with an accompanying orchestra of spotlights, agents, and police tape. Another bus had just pulled in. There was nothing to say. She wanted to punch something. Fitzgerald with his smirky, smart-ass attitude would do.
“Come on, Cassidy,” Alex said gently. “Let’s go home.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Jude watched Cassidy walk away, her eyes searching the compound for him as she left with her boss. Apparently she and Alex had an agreement with the FBI. After a very brief interrogation, both were released without having to go through what cult members, even phony ones like him, had to endure.
He’d been marched back to the compound once he’d been cuffed, and except for the fact he had to let Cassidy go and couldn’t yet visit with his daughter, he was okay with it. He understood. Really, he did.
The FBI needed to know what had transpired within the Palma Christi Cult since Lucien Cain had established it nearly five years before. Jude just wished he could’ve seen Judith first, and hugged Cassidy one last time, maybe kissed her lips and breathed in the fragrance in her hair. She had beautiful hair. Heck. She had beautiful everything.
The FBI had a fairly smooth process for handling a large group of people, though. It was clear they’d done this before. Jude stood in one line for pictures, another for fingerprinting, and yet another to receive a clean set of gray coveralls. By the time he was done being processed, he’d had a hot shower and his first decent meal in weeks.
He’d also met Agent Floyd Stuckey. The taciturn guy ushered Jude into one of closet-sized interview rooms inside a long RV. An old-fashioned cassette-style tape recorder lay in the middle of the table and metal rings stuck up from the carpet. Probably for chains. Maybe shackles. Oh, well. This is their show. I might as well go along with it.
“Please state your name, address and phone number,” Agent Stuckey requested in a monotone voice.
“Again?”
Stuckey nodded, so Jude answered all the questions, respectfully providing every last detail he could think of while the agent listened, questioned, and scribbled on his paper tablet. When he started asking the same questions over again, Jude knew he had a problem.
“I already told you what I know about Hank and Greg. I’ve told you everything. Twice. What’s up?”
“Just answer the question.”
Jude took a deep breath and played ball. It was very possible he’d missed something, so he gathered his patience, and once again went over the reason he’d joined the cult, why he’d been branded, and how he’d rescued Cassidy. As before, Stuckey seemed to be listening.
Finally, Jude stopped with a question of his own. “What’s going to happen to me now?”
“You are a professed member of an illegal organization, Mr. Cannon. You established a viable alias, and you attempted to hide your fiscal assets. What do you think should happen?”
“But I only joined to save my daughter, and I had to hide my financial history or risk losing it to Cain.” Jude studied this man’s facial expression. Even
without glasses, it was easy to see the indifference plastered on Stuckey’s face. He was just a civil servant doing a distasteful job. There had to be some way to establish a rapport with this guy. “What would you have done if your daughter had been taken away like mine was? What would you have done if your ex-wife was murdered and your only child left alone in this insane cult?”
Stuckey finally looked at Jude instead of through him. He pushed back in his chair with a big sigh. “I guess I’d have done exactly what you did, Mr. Cannon.”
Jude breathed a sigh of relief. At last. This guy appreciated his predicament.
“Listen.” Agent Stuckey sighed. “Personally, I don’t doubt you’re telling the truth. We did locate Greg Gleason and Hank Crews precisely where you said they’d be, and we’ve corroborated your version of what happened in the silo. The evidence fits. We found the body of Victor Gonzales in the silo where you’d said you’d left him. Right now, an FBI forensic team is in the crypt. I’ve personally spoken with Agent Chase. Tucker’s a good man. He’s confirmed everything you’ve told us so far.”
Floyd seemed intelligent. They were around the same age, and judging by the wrinkles on his brow and at the corners of his eyes, he’d seen the hard side of life, probably more than Jude had. Still, he seemed to be holding back.
“The thing is...” he scrubbed a hand over his face, “we’ve also discovered Cain’s plan to sabotage the metro systems in five of the largest cities.”
“He what?” That was news to Jude. “How?”
“You tell me.” Once again, Agent Stuckey’s eyes turned emotionless and distant. The indifferent G-man had returned.
“How would I know?” Jude shrugged. “What’s Tucker think?”
“I’m not asking Agent Chase. I’m asking you. How did Lucien Cain plan to begin his second coming?”
Baffled, Jude could only shake his head. “But I thought the second coming was about poisoning everyone at the blessing tonight. That’s what Tucker said.”
“No. That wasn’t the exact plan. Cain only intended to poison specific people who stood in his way. He concocted a dose of cyanide that would’ve taken hours to work, but he never intended it for everyone.”
“Then what was he doing? I thought he wanted another Jonestown.” Jude re-thought everything Tucker had told him. “Didn’t he?”
“He was culling his flock,” Agent Stuckey answered. “Only the most faithful could continue with him. He needed absolute allegiance. Did you realize that most of his acreage was devoted to the harvest of castor beans?”
Jude analyzed what he thought he knew. “Come to think of it, Cain did say something about a ritual of purification and a rebirth of loyalty. He wanted people who would never question him, didn’t he?”
“Exactly.”
Jude studied Agent Stuckey with renewed interest. Something was still unsaid. “Hey, umm, do you mind if I call you Floyd?” Jude reached his hand in friendship across the table. Under arrest or not, he was still damn glad to be safely in the FBI’s possession instead of Cain’s.
Floyd responded in kind. He gripped Jude in a solid hold. “Nice to meet you, Jude. You seem like a decent guy. I’m sorry you’re caught up in this mess.”
Jude relaxed. This guy he could work with. “I don’t suppose you guys have any extra reading glasses around here? I kinda broke mine.”
“You can’t see?” Floyd leaned forward, his brows pinched to peer at Jude, as if that answered one of his questions.
“Not too well,” Jude admitted with a small chuckle. “I had a pair, but they were cracked, and anyway, I lost them.”
Floyd pushed away from the table and left the room. Within seconds, he was back with a couple of pairs of glasses. Jude was never so glad to be able to see. He took better stock of the room and his new friend. The carpet was a soft rose tone, not beige. A framed picture of the American flag was nailed to the wall behind him, and Floyd’s eyes were hazel with flecks of black and gold radiating out from the pupils like bicycle spokes.
Jude extended his hand again. “Now I can honestly say I’m glad to see you.”
A smile flashed over Floyd’s face as he joined hands again. “That explains a lot.”
“Like what?”
“Like why you’ve been acting suspicious since we cuffed you. You’ve been gawking around like you were looking for someone or something. We had you tagged as one of Cain’s guys.”
“Me?” Jude couldn’t suppress his surprise. He borrowed one of Tucker’s euphemisms. “Hell no. I just couldn’t see shit.”
Floyd chuckled, and Jude chuckled with him. The simple camaraderie in the tiny room flooded him with a sense of wellbeing. He leaned back in his chair, comfortable for the first time in months. “So what now? Can I leave?”
“Not yet.” Floyd shook his head. “We still need to know more about Cain’s second coming.”
“But I already told you—”
“I know. I know.” Floyd stopped further rebuttal with a palm to Jude’s face. “It’s just that you’re the only man we’ve got who’s been on the inside of this cult. You’re the only one we can trust.”
Oh, oh. A creepy awareness shivered up Jude’s neck. He didn’t like the direction this conversation had turned. “What about Tucker? Can’t he tell you what you need to know?”
“Sure,” Floyd agreed, “and he’s told us plenty, but the problem is...” He paused, his eyes suddenly turned into lasers that seemed to penetrate all the way into Jude’s overly rationale brain.
The light came on. Jude knew exactly what Floyd was going to ask next. “It’s because Tucker’s injured, isn’t it? He can’t go undercover anymore, can he?”
Jude wanted to bite his tongue as the truth spilled over it. If what he suspected was right, Floyd needed someone else entirely. He needed the GI Joes or Superman. Ironman. Anyone else—just not a mild-mannered accountant who wanted to go home and live happily ever after with his daughter and Miss Fluffy and maybe, a blonde warrior goddess.
“I’m an accountant.” Jude offered the first dumb excuse his brain could come up with. It was a damned good one.
Floyd smiled. “You’ll be wired, and FBI back-up will be close enough to pull you out at the first hint of trouble.”
Reason number two showed up just in the nick of time. “But I’m a father,” he whispered. “I have a daughter, and I haven’t even had a chance to see her yet. She needs me. I’m all she’s got.”
“I’m a father, too. Five kids.” Floyd nodded as he clinched the deal with his next words. “Our children are the reason your country needs your help, Jude. You know these people. You know how they think.”
Jude searched his brain for reason number three, but Floyd seemed to be winning the debate.
“Do you know why Cain called his cult the Church of the Palma Christi?” Floyd changed the subject. He should’ve been a used car salesman, trying different tactics like he was.
“I don’t know. I guess because Cain thought he was the hand of God?”
“No.” Floyd’s laser eyes somehow made Jude’s mouth go dry. “It’s named after a plant that’s been used for medicinal purposes for centuries. The ancient Romans called it Palma Christi, the palm of Christ, because of its reputed healing power.”
Jude waited. Floyd had gotten way too serious.
“It’s what Cain’s been growing inside this compound the last five years. They weren’t just beans, they were castor beans. You know what that means?”
Floyd said that like Jude knew, but honest to God, he didn’t. This whole conversation had taken a weird turn, and he wasn’t a farmer or a gardener. “Just spit it out, Floyd. What are you trying to tell me?”
“Ricin is made from castor oil beans.”
“Ricin? The deadly poison?” Now Jude was listening.
“Yes. Ricin. Cain sent three men to begin the next step in his plan for a second coming. He planned to use aerosolized ricin at five major US mass-transit systems.”
Jude gulped as
the new information filtered into his brain. Ricin. Holy cow.
“We just don’t have anyone else who can get close enough to these guys.” Floyd cinched the deal with his next words. “We know everything except where the aerosolized ricin canisters are being stored. We need you.”
Jude coughed. The FBI wanted him to go undercover, like he was in any way trained, capable, or brave enough? Oh, hell no. The glasses he’d just been thankful for betrayed him now. If he hadn’t asked for them, he’d still be under suspicion and not a candidate for a very risky operation. But still...
Cassidy’s beautiful brown eyes sparkled up at him as if he still held her in his arms. She’d believed in him. The vision of her lovely nakedness teased him into thinking he could do it, that he could possibly be a James Bond kind of guy. For her.
Screech! No. Back that notion up. He jolted his dumb accountant’s ass back to the real world. James Bond? Never. He was Jude Cannon and only Jude Cannon, a nerdy guy who’d tackled enormous obstacles only because he had to save his daughter.
Floyd sat waiting.
“I’m just an accountant,” Jude offered one last time.
“That’s not what Agent Chase said,” Floyd answered with a glimmer of encouragement in his eyes. “He said he’d be proud to work beside you any day of the week. He said you were one of the best he’s ever seen. Tucker believes in you, Mr. Cannon. So do I.”
Jude didn’t really care what Tucker or Floyd thought. He took a deep breath. He was tired and he wanted to go home, but Floyd’s words had reached all the way into his father’s heart.
Floyd hadn’t said another word, which only made Jude more certain. In a false display of bravado, he used Tucker’s words one last time.
“Shit. Why not?”
Chapter Twenty-Three
“What the hell?”
Cassidy ran the distance to their camp where a black FBI helicopter sat, its rotor spinning. With Alex on a dead run beside her, she couldn’t process the scene fast enough. Melissa knelt on the ground performing chest compressions furiously on Tucker while a uniformed medic held an IV line in his bloodied hands.
Cassidy Page 20
