Cult Following

by Donn Cortez

  “You don’t want them to talk to me. I understand that. But that’s not what I’m asking. What I’m asking for…is a second chance. A second chance for them.”

  “What?”

  “If any of your followers have doubts—maybe doubts that they’ve been afraid to express to you—then they will be dying for nothing. And I know that’s not what you want.” He paused, hoping he was right.

  “Go on,” Sinhurma said neutrally.

  “Any doubts your followers have are your fault. You lead them; you taught them. You can’t condemn them to a meaningless death for your failings, can you?”

  “What are you proposing?”

  “Let them decide. Let the ones who have doubts leave.”

  “I will not abandon my flock—”

  “You’re not abandoning them, Doctor,” Horatio said. “You’re giving them an opportunity for redemption. Because they can always come back, can’t they? The Everglades—the Garden—will still be here. It’s eternal, remember?”

  “Yes. Yes, the Garden is forever—”

  “Maybe some of them aren’t ready yet. Maybe they need more time to think, to contemplate what you’ve taught them—”

  “Oh? More time to debate my ‘New Age, fortune-cookie credo?’ ” Sinhurma’s voice was cold.

  “Don’t make this about you and me, Doctor—”

  “But it is about you and I, Horatio. I knew that from the very first time I talked to you. Did you think I would not recognize you? Not know you? Or perhaps the dance of karma is such that you have no more choice than I….”

  “Doctor, listen to me. I’m not the snake in this morality play you’ve constructed—”

  The burst of laughter in his ear sounded very close to hysterics. “Snake? Don’t attempt to distract me with irrelevancies, Horatio. I know exactly who you are…Mister Caine.”

  The line went dead.

  “Well,” Horatio said ruefully, “I guess I should have seen that one coming….”

  “So he’s even crazier than we thought,” Wolfe said.

  “If what Calleigh told Horatio is accurate, yeah,” Delko said. “A friend of mine had to take antimalarials when he went to Africa—he told me they gave him nightmares every night for months afterward.”

  “Big difference between nightmares and religious mania,” Wolfe said. “And if Horatio’s Cain, then who’s Abel?”

  Delko sighed. “Don’t ask me. Sinhurma’s got his own version playing in his head; for all I know, Adam and Eve are porn stars and the apple is a—I don’t know, a banana.”

  Wolfe and Delko were sitting on folding chairs in a corner of the tent, drinking coffee from a thermos while Coast Guard reservists set up equipment. Horatio was a few feet away, on the phone.

  “But no matter how warped his logic is, there’s still a pattern,” Wolfe said. “Hostage negotiation is all about getting inside the hostage-taker’s head. If we can figure out what he’s thinking, maybe we can find a way to give him what he wants without anybody else dying.”

  Delko blew on his coffee. “Yeah, well, that only works when the person in charge wants something that you can actually give him—or you can convince that person that it’s within your power. With a head-case like Sinhurma, it’s not so easy. So far, the only thing he’s asked for is Horatio.”

  “You think he’ll go for it?”

  “He’ll draw it out as long as he can, buying us time. But if we’re out of options…yeah. Yeah, I know he will.”

  “But that’s crazy. The minute Horatio steps inside that trailer Sinhurma will blow it to Kingdom Come.”

  Delko shook his head. “Horatio knows that too. And if he thinks it’ll buy the hostages even a minute more time…he’ll do it.”

  Horatio, still talking on the phone, walked over to them.

  “—all right, Doctor. Yes, I understand. I’ll live up to my end of the bargain if you live up to yours.” He closed the phone with a snap. “All right, gentlemen,” Horatio said, “time to go to work.”

  “What do you want us to do, H?” Delko asked.

  “We have a crime scene to process, Eric. Just over that dune.”

  “You mean the trailer that just blew up?” Wolfe asked. “How do we know he won’t set off another blast while we’re out there?”

  “We don’t,” Horatio said coolly. “But he’s agreed to let us do our jobs, as long as we don’t approach the other two trailers. That means we can get the bodies under cover, and examine the site itself. Hopefully, we’ll learn something useful in the process.”

  “Why would he do that?” Wolfe asked. “I mean, I don’t see the logic behind it.”

  “Logic and the doctor are not really on speaking terms at the moment,” Horatio said. “But he seems to feel that he and I have some sort of link, and I was able to appeal to that.”

  “All right,” Delko said, getting to his feet. “I’ll get my kit.”

  “Uh, H?” Wolfe said, looking uncomfortable.

  “Yes, Mister Wolfe?”

  “It’s not my place to say, but—I really don’t think you should go out there with us.”

  Horatio smiled humorlessly. “And why would that be?”

  “Well, if Sinhurma thinks he can take you with him, he might set off the explosives anyway.”

  “Thank you for your concern, Mister Wolfe. I had come to much the same conclusion myself…so I’ll watch this one from the sidelines.”

  “Oh. Okay, then.”

  What Horatio didn’t mention was that he’d be holding his breath every second they were out there….

  14

  HORATIO HAD SEVERAL PROBLEMS.

  First, he needed to know who was alive, and who was dead. More importantly, he needed to know who was in which trailer.

  Kim was in trailer one—that much he knew. That, and the fact that Sinhurma’s second-in-command didn’t seem happy with the direction things were going. Sinhurma was probably in the trailer with him, but that wasn’t a certainty; Kim could be restrained in some way, preventing him from leaving, and the doctor could be in the other trailer with a detonator in his hand.

  That was his second problem: the explosives. The distinctive smell in the air—somewhere between shoe polish and almonds—told him the blast had probably been TNT…. But how much was left? Exactly where was it, and how would it be set off?

  His best hope was that the entire group wasn’t in one trailer. If they’d followed Sinhurma this far, they’d probably be willing to follow him all the way—but Sinhurma’s actual presence would make all the difference. If one of the groups were separated from their leader, he might be able to work on them, get them to see reason. The longer the process took, the more chance for the drugs in their systems to wear off.

  And was Jason McKinley still alive?

  He hadn’t been on the beach or the pier, that Horatio was sure of. But he might have been in trailer three…might even have been the one who blew it up. Horatio wouldn’t know until Delko and Wolfe had IDed all the bodies, and at a bombing site that could take a while.

  He just didn’t have enough information…and he was running out of time. Sinhurma wouldn’t wait forever.

  The question was, what exactly was he waiting for?

  Delko and Wolfe walked to the top of the ridge, where a SWAT sniper lay prone, and peered over. A few flames still guttered in the wreckage, but that and the waves were the only sign of movement. Even the lightning seemed to have stopped for a moment.

  Processing a blast site was never easy. It was messy, of course. Debris was scattered everywhere, including body parts. The odor of charred flesh mixed with the smell of burning wood and hot metal. In this instance, the rich miasma of the Everglades itself added to the mix, with the humid air coming off the Atlantic giving it the salty tang of blood.

  They started by estimating the radius of the blast, looking for the farthest piece of debris then adding another 50 percent to be safe. They planted numbered flags, marking off a numbered grid for the entire area.
Wolfe snapped pictures while Delko did a preliminary examination of the scene.

  “Okay,” Delko said. He was hunkered down in the midst of the wreckage, studying the ground. “We know the seat of the explosion was somewhere in the trailer. We figure out exactly where, it might tell us how the other two are wired.”

  Wolfe glanced over at the other trailers; the center one was no more than thirty feet away. The outside of it was charred on the side facing the explosion and the windows were all broken, but someone had used blankets and towels to block any view inside.

  “Take a look at this,” Delko said. He pointed to a blackened piece of wood jutting up from the foundation. “See the way the nails are all bent facing the same way?”

  “Uh, yeah. Same thing over here, but facing the other way.” Wolfe took a photo, then glanced back at the other trailers.

  “So the bomb must have been planted somewhere between the two. Floor’s pretty much gone, but see here?” Delko motioned toward a pipe that was sticking up at an odd angle. “Pipe would have been below the floorboards. If the bomb was in the trailer itself, it would have been blown down and into the ground. This one’s bent backward and up, meaning the blast came from beneath it.”

  Wolfe was still staring at the center trailer. “Right. Bomb was under the trailer.”

  Delko smiled and shook his head. “Staring at it won’t help, Wolfe. It’s going to blow up or it isn’t—either way, obsessing about it won’t change anything. Focus on the job at hand.”

  “Yeah, okay. Sorry.”

  Normally, the scene would have been checked thoroughly for further explosives before the CSI team went in, but that wasn’t possible here. Even as they examined the site carefully, using tweezers and magnifiers to sort through the debris and documenting everything with photos, both Wolfe and Delko couldn’t help but wonder how long Sinhurma would let them work.

  And what he’d do to stop them.

  By the time Wolfe and Delko got to the bodies, Horatio already knew a lot.

  He knew how many people had been in the trailer: thirteen. He knew because some of the bodies—or parts of them—had made it over the crest of the dune. Others had been counted by scanning the area from the top of the ridge with binoculars. Between torsos, heads and various limbs, he’d worked out a total that meant one person had already been in the trailer in addition to the twelve who had bolted for it.

  So. Two shot, four in custody, a baker’s dozen blown to hell. That leaves six: Sinhurma, Kim, and four unknowns.

  Who are they?

  Try to think like Sinhurma. You’re the star of the show, the main attraction—which trailer do you pick?

  The center one. Of course.

  Mister Kim, your faithful right-hand man, is not beside you at your hour of greatest need. Why?

  Because his faith, it turns out, is not as strong as you had thought. He’s been exiled, isolated, banished. Your love is being withheld to punish him.

  So who do you keep close? Those you trust?

  No. Those you need.

  “Jason’s still alive,” Horatio murmured.

  Still alive, because he’s Sinhurma’s go-to guy for blowing things up. And he’s got to be in the center trailer, along with Sinhurma himself. The other building either holds a trussed-up Kim and a guard—or maybe just Kim himself. After all, you don’t want his doubts spreading to anyone else….

  Kim’s alone. If there was a guard, Kim would have been gagged.

  And that gave Horatio an idea.

  The SWAT officer approached the end trailer from the far side, out of view of the other building. He carried a TacView 1400, a high-tech periscope that let him look in windows and around corners without exposing himself to enemy fire. It had a tiny infrared/color camera mounted on a telescoping aluminum pole, linked to a five-inch TFT screen at the base. He was in contact with Horatio via his headset.

  “I’m beside the building,” the officer, Eskandani, said softly. “No sign of booby-traps. There’s a broken window on this wall—I’m going to take a look inside.”

  “Take it slow,” Horatio told him.

  Eskandani raised the pole carefully. What the camera showed him was a long room with bunk beds down either side—a barracks. The room was empty, but there was a door ajar at the far end. Through it, Eskandani could make out what looked like a figure tied to a chair; he described what he saw to Horatio.

  “Okay,” Horatio said. “Is there any sort of device or wire attached to him?”

  “Hard to say—I don’t have a full visual.”

  “What about the barracks? Does it look like it’s rigged in any way?”

  “Checking…”

  Seconds ticked by.

  “No,” Eskandani said. “No trip wires or anything obvious, anyway. Could be pressure switches in the floor, though.”

  “My guys tell me the first bomb was probably placed underneath the trailer. Try to get a look under the platform with the camera, but do not enter the space.”

  A latticework of wooden slats in a crisscrossing pattern ran from the edge of the raised platform to the ground. Eskandani poked the camera between two of the slats.

  “All right, I’m looking around…got it. There’s some kind of plastic tub attached to the bottom of the platform. No wires I can see…uh-oh.”

  “What?”

  “I have a camera in one corner. We’re being watched—”

  Horatio’s cell phone rang.

  “Get out of there, now!”

  Horatio flipped open his phone. “Doctor, don’t do anything rash—”

  “I’m disappointed in you, Horatio. I thought we had an agreement. But I suppose it’s simply your nature to be untrustworthy.”

  “Don’t do this, Doctor. If you kill Kim, you’ll be making a huge mistake.”

  “Mister Kim is no longer one of our brethren. His fate is of no concern to me.”

  “It would if you knew what I know.”

  Horatio held his breath. He prayed that Eskandani was clear.

  “What could you possibly know about Mister Kim that would interest me?”

  “He’s your business partner, Doctor. His heirs will have a say in the disposition of your assets once you’re gone. Have you given any thought to that? I understand his brother owns a chain of fast-food restaurants—six months from now, The Earthly Garden will be selling cheeseburgers and milk shakes. That the legacy you want to leave?”

  Horatio had no idea if Kim even had a brother—it was a flat-out gamble, a desperation move to give him some breathing room. If Sinhurma sensed he was being played, though, it could backfire in a moment.

  “That is regrettable,” Sinhurma said, “but I see no solution to the problem.”

  “It’s not that difficult to solve, Doctor. Simply have Kim sign his portion of the business over to you, right now. I promise you, we’ll get the documentation to the proper place.”

  “And I’m supposed to trust you? After you broke your word?”

  “I haven’t interfered with your plans, Doctor. You can’t blame me for wanting verification, can you? Better if I know you can do what you claim—that way, there’s no chance of a misunderstanding.”

  “I see. You were only seeking the truth.”

  “That’s what I do, Doctor. Believe it or not.”

  “And why would you care about my legacy?”

  Horatio thought carefully before he replied. “Maybe I’m just hedging my bets, Doctor. You’ve already proved to be a quite a handful in this life—I really don’t want to make an enemy of you in the next as well.”

  Sinhurma laughed sharply. “Ah! Lieutenant Caine, you are a formidable opponent yourself. I regret that you and I will never have the chance to play chess together—but then, I suppose that is exactly what we are doing. Very well. I will allow you to withdraw your knight…and I will consider the business arrangement you suggested. But I would hurry if I were you, Horatio; my time here is almost up.”

  The phone went dead.

 
Horatio took a deep, deep breath, and let it out slowly.

  Delko and Wolfe stood on either side of a table set up in the tent. Along its length lay a grisly display of body parts: arms, hands, and fingers. There were more, in plastic bags underneath the table, but for now they were concentrating on the items that could give them a positive ID.

  Both of them had handheld wireless IBIS units, which resembled oversized cell phones with a short handle jutting from the bottom. They used these to scan fingerprints into a laptop, which would then connect to the central AFIS system and look for a match. They also kept track of hands that were identifiably male or female, and made note of skin color and any tattoos or distinctive scars.

  Horatio walked up to them just as they were finishing. “All right—what can you tell me?”

  “We’ve found parts of all thirteen bodies—just a finger in one case,” Delko said. “Must have been right at the seat of the blast. We’ve IDed six as female, four as male, three unknown. We’ve got positive IDs on eight of the bodies through AFIS.” He handed Horatio a printout.

  Horatio scanned it, nodded. “Leaving five corpses and four cult members inside whom we can’t identify.”

  “We can narrow it down a bit further,” Wolfe said. “According to the photo we found at Sinhurma’s, three cult members were African-American, two were Asian. Cross-reference that with what he have and we know that one of the deceased unknowns was an Asian woman and one was a black man.”

  “Leaving seven unknowns,” Horatio said. “Four inside, three outside. And you know what? I think I know who the ones on the inside are….”

  He handed the list back to Delko. “Tell me who you don’t see on that list.”

  Delko studied it. “Any of our initial suspects,” he said. “Shanique Cooperville, Darcy Cheveau, Albert Humboldt, or Julio Ferra.”

  “Looks like they’re back in the doctor’s good graces,” Horatio said. “Or maybe he just doesn’t want them telling stories after he’s gone.”

  The next table held various pieces of debris, arranged carefully on top of a white sheet. A silver and black device around the size of a boom box stood to one side, a small folding screen set into the top showing a graph in red and a table of numbers.