“Phoenix said it’s best if you don’t know the details right now. Father Barnabas is coming in from Italy. To talk to you.”
That was bad. That was about as bad as bad could get. To most people on The Ranch, Father Barnabas was a figurehead. He was a statue to be kissed, a name to be uttered with reverence during the daylight hours but never to be mentioned in the dark.
Whoever had carved the statue had portrayed the High Priest in a beatific light, as more saint than demon. But Ora had quickly realized the real man was quite the opposite. The first time she met him, when she was five, she had peed her pants when those pale eyes met hers. She suspected she would soon do it again.
“Oh man, that’s so bad,” she whispered.
“That’s not all.” Ashlyn’s usually pale cheeks were flushed. “They’re really mad about your . . . relationship. Father Palidor wanted to terminate Lexy. A few of the other Priests agreed.”
“Her? Why not me?”
“Because you’re Father Narda’s daughter,” she said simply, as if that explained everything. And perhaps it did. After all, Father Narda was the Ranch’s High Priest. Father Thanos was much lower on the food chain. Which led to the obvious question, the one she had been avoiding. Was she being detained on her dad’s orders?
But that was something to worry over later. “Are they going to kill her?”
Ashlyn shook her head. “Father Thanos pleaded with Father Narda. Begged him to spare her life, and Father Narda agreed.”
“Oh, that’s good.” But her relief was short-lived.
“They made . . . an agreement.” Ashlyn’s entire face was aflame.
“What kind of agreement?”
“Do you remember Angeni?”
“The Native American girl? The one who can spirit-travel?”
“Right. Well, she became Father Narda’s Amante a few months ago.”
Nausea crept up Ora’s throat. “She’s younger than me!”
“Seventeen,” Ashlyn agreed matter-of-factly. It was nothing new, of course. Especially not when it came to Father Narda, whose appetite for young female flesh was legendary. Ora should have been used to it by now.
“Horny bastard,” she spat.
“Yeah. Anyway, he’s given her up. He’s taking Lexy as his Amante.”
“What?” Ora sputtered. “He can’t do that! She’s one of the Chosen!”
“Father Thanos gave his permission. Fathers Palidor and Zaniel are furious. So is my dad. They say it sets a bad precedent. I guess they don’t want their daughters, you know, with one of the other Priests.” Ashlyn shuddered.
Ora’s head was spinning. “He can’t do that to her!” And she would probably rather die.
“He already has,” Ashlyn said. “I saw her wearing a red robe at breakfast this morning. She looked like it was . . . rough.”
“Oh, Lexy.” Ora was weeping, and Ashlyn looked like she wanted to disappear through the floorboards out of mortification.
“Ashlyn, you need to get me out of here!” Ora reached for the girl. “Please?”
“I can’t. I . . .” Ashlyn’s eyes widened in horror, and for the first time Ora noticed how green they were.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
“I think . . . he’s here.”
“Who?” Ora asked, although she was very afraid she knew the answer to that question.
“He’s just arrived. Can’t you feel it?”
Ora could. It felt like the color black.
“I’ve got to go!” Ashlyn hissed, and bent over the bed to give Ora a hasty kiss on the cheek. “Stay strong, Ora!”
And with that, she was gone, leaving Ora alone. To wait.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
The drive from Elkhorn to Washington, DC, was surprisingly uneventful. Josh kept up his vigilant countersurveillance throughout the drive, and finally admitted he kept expecting to see someone on our tail. He couldn’t believe we had slipped through the net as easily as we had.
No matter how bleary-eyed he became, he flat-out refused to let me take a turn at the wheel. I had to nudge him awake several times, but he still wouldn’t budge from the driver’s seat. Even after I lost my cool and accused him of being a macho control freak.
So I chose the path of maturity, doing what I could to get under his skin in return. I gorged on every junky food item I could find, and when I wasn’t eating, I either napped or pretended to.
The irritation was coming off him in waves as he crunched his trail mix and guzzled his coffee, but at least it was keeping him awake.
By the time we reached the outskirts of Chicago, he was weaving and misjudging distances. It was midmorning and a light drizzle was falling, making the world around us hazy and gray.
“Josh,” I said gently, my earlier frustration easing into pity. He looked like a boxer who knows he’s been beat, but keeps getting up to face another pummeling anyway. “You need to rest.”
I expected more of his macho BS, but instead he nodded, rubbing his face. “I know. I don’t think I can manage the Chicago traffic without getting us killed.”
“I’m okay to drive,” I suggested, as though it was the first time I had offered. As expected, he shook his head.
“I won’t be able to rest if you’re driving.”
“I’m not a bad driver, I’ll have you know.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “I didn’t say you were. But you’re not used to countersurveillance.”
“Keep looking behind you. I think I can manage that.”
“It’s not just about watching. It’s about doing the right things if you spot someone following you, or if you’re under attack. It’s taken years of training for me to become proficient. And no, it’s not something I can direct you on from the passenger seat, before you ask.”
I shut my mouth.
“A lot of countersurveillance is counterintuitive. It takes time and practice to be able to go against your instincts.”
“All right.” I gave in. “So what do you want to do? Find a motel?”
He shook his head, studying the GPS map on the dashboard. “I’d like to stay invisible.”
We exited the freeway onto First Avenue in Maywood. I thought for a moment he planned to pull into the Cook County Sheriff’s Department, but we passed that by and continued north. Several miles later, he turned right onto Chicago Avenue and we were suddenly in the woods.
The traffic eased and he slowed, scanning the forest on either side. Josh nudged the Suburban through a break in the trees and into the woods beyond, easing over tree roots and small bushes until we were out of sight. He made a big, slow circle until we were facing back toward the road, and killed the engine. He depressed the button to roll down the windows an inch, and the smell of damp greenery trickled in on the cool fall air.
“You’ll be able to hear anything coming.”
He was right. The occasional passing vehicle some fifty feet away broke the silence of the forest. I would have plenty of warning if another car approached our position. “Can you stay awake?” he asked.
“No problem.”
“Wake me up if you get drowsy.” And with that, he reclined his seat, closed his eyes, and was gone.
I wrapped my jacket around me as a blanket and put my feet up on the dashboard. For a while I watched him sleep, studying his features. There was no doubt he was a handsome man. Although he’d been a mess when I first met him, by the next day he’d gone back to being the perfect picture of an FBI agent: clean-shaven, hair neatly styled, and dressed in a crisp suit. He had looked young and fresh, perhaps a bit too perfect and baby-faced with his bright-blue eyes and disarming smile.
He looked older now, more haggard. His beard was scruffy and had almost as much silver in it as it did black, his skin was pale, and there were dark-purple smudges under his eyes. His hair was a mussed-up mop of black
and silver, and he had a coffee stain running down the front of his shirt and trail-mix crumbs in the folds of his jeans. I somehow liked this version of him better.
He stirred and cracked open his eyes. They were more red than blue and puffy with exhaustion.
“It’s hard to sleep when someone’s staring at you.”
I blinked and turned away from him, heat inching its way up my neck. “Sorry,” I mumbled.
“Creeper,” he accused, grinning at me, and then turned onto his side and closed his eyes, his back to me.
I managed to let him sleep for almost four hours before my bladder couldn’t take it anymore. It was the first chance I’d had to sit quietly and think, and I spent most of the time replaying the last few days and weeping quietly over poor Kahina.
The guilt I felt over her death was overwhelming, and I munched my way through the rest of the snacks in the car in an attempt to soothe myself. As a result, I was feeling uncomfortably full and cross-eyed from carb overload.
“Josh,” I whispered, gently nudging him in the back.
He was immediately awake. He pulled himself up and blinked at me owlishly, as though trying to place me.
“Is everything okay?” He looked around, surveying our surroundings.
“Fine. It’s just . . . I have to pee!”
He helped me out of the Suburban and insisted on coming with me as I made my way through the trees.
“That’s as far as you’re going, mister.” I raised a hand to stop him when he seemed inclined to check out the bushes I had chosen for my toilet. “Do you seriously think there’s somebody in there waiting to murder me? Now turn that way and don’t look. Or listen,” I said gravely, and he grinned and deliberately turned his back on me and plugged his ears.
Even with my left arm in a sling, I managed to relieve myself without getting pee on my shoes. It was a feat I was quite proud of, and I returned to him in a slightly better mood.
“Now plug your ears,” he teased, before disappearing behind a tree. He emerged to find me dutifully waiting with my right hand cupped over my right ear, and my left ear awkwardly pressed against my left shoulder.
He had a nice laugh. It eased the heaviness around my heart.
Twelve hours later, we were approaching Washington, DC. The first stop he wanted to make was his own home.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” I asked.
“I’ll check it out before we go in, but who would think I’d be stupid enough to go home?”
“Um, yeah.”
It was a little after four in the morning when we approached his townhouse, which was in a neighborhood called Falls Church, on the Virginia side of the capital. After circling the area without seeing anything unusual, Josh parked the Suburban against the back fence and slid in between the seats to the back.
He dug through the equipment in the cargo area and pulled out something that looked like a pen attached to earbuds. The buds fit snugly into his ears, and he pointed the other end toward the townhouse, moving the wand in slow circles. “I can’t hear anything unusual.”
He strapped a second gun against his side and slid a knife into his sock. He tightened his Kevlar vest, and then rummaged in a duffel bag until he came out with a couple of black caps. One went on his head, and then he turned to me.
He tightened the straps on my vest and pulled my hair up into the cap, tugging it down and tucking any loose strands up inside it.
“How do you feel about taking your sling off?” he asked.
“Are you kidding? It’s driving me crazy; take it off!”
He did. “How does your shoulder feel? How much can you move it?”
I shifted my arm up and down, and then rotated my shoulder in its socket. It was tender, but not as bad as I had expected. “It’s okay.”
“Good. Your balance will be better without that arm tied down. How’s your leg? Can you warm it up a bit? Get the blood flowing? I need you to be as limber as possible before we go out there.”
I followed him through a series of calisthenics and stretching exercises, feeling slightly ridiculous in the cramped confines of the Suburban. But as my muscles warmed up, the pain in my leg and shoulder eased, and my headache became nothing more than a dull throb.
Finally, he deemed it good and wrapped a utility belt around my waist. It held a nasty-looking blade, and I practiced pulling it out until he was satisfied I’d be able to do it with speed and without slicing my hand.
“What about my gun?” I asked, feeling a strange sense of possessiveness over it.
“Not until I’ve had the chance to teach you how to use it. But here, stick this in your pocket.” He handed me a small spray can. “It’s pepper spray. Try to aim it the right way, okay? And don’t spray me.”
I tucked it into the pocket of my jeans.
He pulled some weird-looking goggles over his eyes and then looked at me. “Ready?”
“What are those?”
“Thermal-vision goggles. We’re going to climb up onto the roof of the Suburban. I’m going to have a peek into the yard, and if all is clear I’ll jump over the fence. Count to five and lean over. I’ll help you down.”
“Seriously?”
“Hold on to the back of my vest as we cross the yard. When we go through the back door, I want you to stay low. If there’s any trouble, run. If there’s gunfire, get down, or get behind something. Okay?”
My mouth had gone dry. “Okay.”
He smiled at me. “Don’t look so worried.”
Josh opened the back gate of the Suburban, looked around, and hopped out. I followed behind him with less enthusiasm. He monkeyed up onto the roof, then grabbed my hands and pulled me up beside him. My left shoulder started throbbing, but I did my best to ignore it.
I tucked myself up against him as he scanned the yard, trying to keep my breathing slow and regular. And then he was gone. There was a soft thump as he landed, and I began my count.
On five I closed my eyes and leaned over. His hands wrapped around my waist and eased me down. When he let go, my leg buckled. I landed hard on my butt, biting my tongue in the process. He wrapped an arm around my waist and hauled me upright. My mouth was filling with blood.
“Graceful.” He tucked my fingers around the strap of his vest. I skulked behind him across the yard, stumbling a couple of times on the uneven paving stones. We made it to the back door without incident, and I hunched down while he unlocked the door and opened it.
We weren’t greeted by wild gunfire, as I’d half expected, and I waited while he punched in the code to disarm the security system.
“We’re going to take this one room at a time. Stay with me.” I followed behind him as he cleared the kitchen, dining room, and living room, as well as the downstairs bathroom. He checked the front door, which was locked tight, and then we climbed the stairs.
The master bedroom looked untouched, save for the rumpled blankets on the king-size bed.
“Don’t you make your bed?” I whispered.
He ignored me and moved on to the master bathroom. There were no boogeymen hiding behind the shower curtain. The last room was a spare bedroom he’d turned into his office. It had either been ransacked or he had a very strange filing system.
“Shit. They’ve got my files. I kept a spare set on the kidnappings at home.” He didn’t sound as upset as I would have expected.
“Is that all we came here for?”
“No. But it would have been nice to grab them.”
“What else are we here for? And just so you know, if you came here for your baseball cards, I’m pulling out the pepper spray.”
He shoved the desk up against the far wall and rolled up the area rug underneath. Using a screwdriver, he pried up one of the floorboards and pulled out a fat leather envelope.
“Here.” He handed it over to me. “Tuck that
inside your shirt.”
“What’s in it?”
“Ten grand. Might come in handy, no?”
I was following him back down the stairs when it hit me. “Josh!” I whispered, pulling at the back of his Kevlar vest. He stopped abruptly, frozen halfway down the stairs, hand on the butt of his revolver.
“There are two armed men at the front of the house, and a third in the backyard.”
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
“Get back up the stairs!” Josh hissed at her, and by some miracle she turned and did exactly that. “Get in the master closet, and stay down!”
He eased down the stairs. Two in the front, one in the back. There was no reason to doubt her. They must have been alerted when he disarmed the security system.
The front door was locked and dead-bolted. It would take them some time to get in. The back door was unlocked, left slightly ajar for ease of escape. He made his way toward the back, unholstering the FN Five-SeveN.
It was a risky choice, given that he had yet to fire the gun. But it had a sound suppressor, which his Glock 22 didn’t have, and it would give him twenty rounds instead of the Glock’s fifteen. Worst-case scenario, he could have his trusty Glock unholstered and ready in less than a second. It was worth the risk to keep the element of surprise. The FN felt at home in his hand.
Josh was waiting behind the door when it eased open. The guy wasn’t a complete moron; he came in low, gun up. That was just what Josh was hoping for.
The intruder never saw the blow coming. Josh swung sideways, hitting the guy’s temple with the butt of the gun. It had the desired effect, dropping him to the floor like a sack of grapefruit.
It took less than a minute to disarm and truss him, and Josh left him propped against the fridge. He could hear the other two working the locks on the front door.
“Congratulations,” he whispered. “You’re the one who gets to live. At least for a little while.”
He exited through the back door, adjusting the thermal-vision goggles over his eyes. In his opinion, they were far superior to night-vision goggles, which produced an eerie green glow and required ambient light to display the area properly. But too much ambient light, or some other barrier like smoke or fog, and it was almost impossible to see properly. A person could easily hide in plain sight. Thermal goggles lit up anything that produced heat. A human turned into a light bulb, perfectly visible against the surrounding darkness.
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