13. Under the Radar

by Fern Michaels

  “Okay, I’m done here,” Nikki said as she started to unplug the computers lining the room. She shouted for Jack again and pointed at the computers. “We’re going over to the women’s building now. Meet us there.” Her arms full of printouts, she waited for Yoko to gather up the last batch before they ran out of the building toward the cruisers, whose trunks were already open.

  Five minutes later, both women rushed through the door of the women’s dormitory.

  Nikki looked from Annie to Isabelle, who just rolled their eyes and directed their gaze to the women seated in neat rows, their hands folded primly in their laps.

  A wicked glint in her eye, Annie said, “They don’t want to converse with us even though the Prophet told them to cooperate. They say they’re worried about the children. They pretend to cry, but there are no tears.”

  “That’s because they’re not allowed to cry or show emotion,” Yoko said. “They are not permitted to raise their voices, and they speak in almost a singsong tone. Their sole purpose in life is to service the men here sexually and procreate. In between doing that, they cook, clean, do the laundry, and work in the fields. That’s it!”

  Nikki looked to the left, to where the young pregnant girls were sitting. They all wore serious expressions as they tried to understand that their new home was under siege and what it might mean to them. She pulled the photo of Marion Jennings out of her pocket and looked at it. Then she looked at the girls as she tried to figure out which one was Sara, Marion’s sister. “Which one of you is Sara? No, no, don’t look at those women. You only look at me. You talk only to me. The Prophet said you are to do exactly what I say.” Four girls raised their hands. Nikki blinked. So much for the name Sara. “Okay, girls, who is this?” she asked, holding up the picture of Marion Jennings. Only one girl looked fearful and turned her eyes from the picture.

  Yoko took the girl’s arm and led her across the room, where she sat her down. “Where are Marion’s children? Do you know?”

  One of the women got up from her chair, a furious expression on her face. “Sara, do not speak with these people. They are from the outside. You know what the Prophet teaches us about outsiders.”

  Quicker than lightning, Annie had the woman by the hair and shoved her back in the chair. “You speak only when I tell you to speak and not one second before.”

  “Take me to the children, Sara. Marion wants to see her daughters, and you can make that happen. Come along,” Yoko said.

  “Is Marion outside?” the young girl asked as she got up to follow Yoko. “She promised to come back for me, but she didn’t. I miss her.”

  “We’re going to take you to where Marion is. Where’s your mother?”

  “I have a lot of mothers. Which one do you mean? A man in a truck was supposed to bring us here, but something happened to him, and some lady took us somewhere, then some other men brought us here.”

  “Where’s your…Where’s your…your…husband?” Yoko could barely get the hateful words out of her mouth. This whole scene was too reminiscent of her own past.

  “Back at that other place. I’m going to get a new husband after I have my baby.”

  “Like hell you are,” Yoko sputtered. She’d heard enough. Right then, that very second, she wanted to kill someone. With her bare hands.

  Back in the women’s dormitory, Annie was moving up and down the aisles where the women were seated. “We’re going to ask you some questions, and you would all be wise to answer them. Then we’re going to tell you what’s going to happen. After that, we’re going to take you over to the worship center, where your men are, those devils who say you all belong to them.

  “Nikki, call over to the worship center and tell the girls we can use their help for a little while. Who’s watching the clock?”

  “I am,” Nikki said.

  Jack’s phone vibrated in his pocket. He flipped it open and waited.

  “Snowden here!”

  Jack couldn’t resist as he again fought the urge to salute. “Emery here.”

  “Plane is forty-five minutes out. You have just enough time to get those kids into those ambulances. Don’t worry if they’re a little cramped. Once on the plane, they’ll all be fine. My people are standing by the ambulances. Over and out.”

  Once again Jack couldn’t resist. “My people will be ready for your people, Snowden.”

  Jack blinked and blinked again. “Well, shit!” he muttered as he drew Annie and Nikki aside and repeated Snowden’s message. “I think this is part three of that plan we don’t have.”

  Annie whistled sharply to get everyone’s attention.

  “Are there any mothers here who want to accompany their children? They’ll be leaving in roughly thirty minutes. We’ll require some proof of parenthood; otherwise, our people will fill in. I should tell you now, and please pay attention, in roughly two and a half hours this entire compound will be leveled to the ground. There will be no place for you to stay or live, and there will be no food. Well, there might be some pumpkins, but I can’t be totally sure of that. One other thing, all those welfare checks you ladies have been getting…they’re gone. No money will be coming in to support your Prophet’s lifestyle or your own meager existence.”

  Annie walked over to the row of pregnant girls and looked at each and every one until she got to the end of the row. “According to the law, you are all underage. So, since those women over there,” she said, pointing to the women who were seated in front of them, “seem to have a terminal case of the stupids, I want you all to get up now and go out to the flagpole. Do exactly what the people out there tell you to do, and you’ll be fine.”

  “Do not move,” one of the women, decked out in what looked like yards of forest-green sailcloth, said.

  Nikki cuffed her upside the head, then ripped off a strip of duct tape from the roll and plastered it across her mouth. “Make one move to take it off, and I’ll break your arm.”

  Alexis and Kathryn blew into the room, Alexis dragging her Red Bag. “We’re all yours,” she said breathlessly.

  “You know what to do,” Nikki said.

  “I want to know something,” Kathryn said, addressing the women. “Is it true that you don’t own those ugly-ass dresses you’re all wearing? Is it true you have one for the week and one for Sunday, and they belong to that jerk you all call the Prophet? You let that crackpot own your clothes! I guess so, since he owns you all body and soul. What damn fools you are.

  “You ready, Alexis? Let’s start with that one with the tape on her mouth. Wait! Where are Ted and Espinosa? Espinosa has to take this picture. Maggie is going to need before-and-after pictures.”

  The words were no sooner out of Kathryn’s mouth when both men walked into the room. Espinosa started to click, knowing exactly what the caption would read when Maggie uploaded the pictures: PROFESSIONAL BABY MAKERS. Or, he grinned to himself, BALD PROFESSIONAL BABY MAKERS!

  Nikki and Annie walked among the women taking the pins out of their hair. Annie stuck the pins in her pocket, knowing they would come in handy later on, and tied their hair into ponytails—some so long they reached down to the women’s knees. Their hair was thick and luxurious, with no sign of chemicals having ever been used. “We’ll save all this and donate it to the organization that makes wigs for cancer patients,” Annie said. “I know, I know, with the exception of what we’re going to need for ourselves.”

  The women were squirming and clutching at each other as Alexis first cut the hair just above the knot for the ponytails, then buzzed their heads. Annie wasn’t sure if it was the loss of their hair or the fact that a black woman was in their midst doing the dirty deed. What she really couldn’t understand was why none of them were crying or fighting back. What kind of people were these? Then she remembered seeing the interview Marion Jennings and the other girls had given. The answer was, they simply were not allowed to cry. Crying meant punishment, from the age of one year on. Brutal punishments.

  The last woman waiting to be shorn thr
ew her arms up and around her head as Alexis approached. “Remove yourself from my presence. You do not belong here. Do not touch me. You will be damned to hell for what you’re doing. You will never see salvation!” she said dramatically.

  “If you had put a little gusto in that declaration, I might have paid attention,” Alexis said.

  “Let me help,” Nikki said, as she ripped off a second piece of duct tape from the roll. She slapped it across the woman’s mouth and gave her a swat on the side of her head. The woman continued to struggle until Isabelle pressed down on one shoulder while Nikki took the other. The woman went limp as Alexis cut off the ponytail, then buzzed her hair.

  “Just to show what an evil person I really am, I’m going to shave your eyebrows.” And Alexis did so with a flourish.

  “They’re all yours, Joseph,” Alexis said as she packed up her scissors and shaver and tossed them into her Red Bag.

  Isabelle and Nikki started to fill pillowcases with all the shorn hair. When they were done, they had five pillowcases jammed full of hair. Jack picked them up and took them out to the cruiser, where he plopped them down on top of the computers. He slammed the trunk, then dusted his hands. He raced back inside to see what else was going down.

  Espinosa was busy sending off his photos to Maggie while Annie and Nikki were herding the women toward the door.

  “Be sure to march them past the flagpole,” Jack told the girls, “and I want to see them salute their Prophet. Espinosa, make sure you get a good shot. You should have enough light out there to set this place on fire. Is Maggie drooling yet?”

  “Oh, yeah! She said she’s going to put a tiny red star over that guy’s privates. It is a family paper, after all.”

  Jack guffawed as his phone vibrated again. “Emery,” he said smartly.

  “Snowden here, Emery. You didn’t tell me those eighteen-wheelers were full of pumpkins. We need to unload them. My people are busy right now. What are your people doing? More to the point, what are you doing?”

  Jack wanted to tell Snowden he was getting ready to go over to wherever he was to jam his foot up his ass, but he just said, “I’m busy. And your point about the pumpkins is…?” Jack looked across the compound to where he saw Ted yanking a guy out of a Mercedes-Benz. It had to be the doctor.

  “My point is, the pumpkins have to be unloaded. How else are you going to transport all those young men you have in there? You need to help me out here, Emery. I can’t do it all.”

  “Well, those pumpkins are part of the plan. Why can’t those guys sit on top of them or something?”

  “Far be it from me to upset your cockamamie plan, but if that’s what you want, then herd those guys over here and tell them to saddle up. I want the trucks out of here before the implosion. Someday, Emery, I want you to tell me what part those pumpkins are playing in this little caper of yours. I’ve never seen such a wacko organization. Over and out!”

  “Yeah, over and out, you rascal, you,” Jack mumbled as he made his way over to Ted and the doctor.

  “This guy’s a bastard, Jack. He threatened to call in the National Guard, the governor, and the Prophet to make me sorry for my ways. That’s the bad news. The good news is this little vehicle here is a Maybach 62. Sells for around $486,000. That’s almost half a million bucks for this yokel. Business here in the HOE must be good. The other good news is, the title is in the glove compartment. We can have him sign it over to us right now. Along with what I bet is a very healthy bank account. He’s got a laptop in the backseat. Want me to take it?”

  “Oh, yeah, he won’t be needing anything where he’s going. March him past the flagpole, then take care of business. I have to take the young guys down to the pumpkin patch.”

  “Damn, did you finally figure out what to do with them?”

  “Nah. I think they’re just pumpkins. What’s Maggie saying?”

  Ted laughed. “Do you believe she’s speechless?”

  “Right now, right this minute, I believe anything anyone tells me. How old is this guy?”

  “According to his driver’s license he’s sixty-four. Back there at the gate, after I beat the shit out of him, he said he had six celestial wives and one for real. And a few hotties here on the compound. You know, just to round out things.”

  “Son of a bitch!” Jack pulled back his arm and let it fly. The doctor/dentist/pervert crumpled to the ground. “I’d like to send this sorry sack of shit into orbit, but right now I don’t have the time.”

  “Do you see what you just did, Jack? Now I have to drag his fat ass all the way to the worship center.”

  “Be sure you wake him up when you get to the flagpole.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah!”

  Chapter 20

  The vigilantes huddled at the far end of the room, their gaze never wavering from the bald-headed women.

  “Now what?” Kathryn asked Nikki.

  “Now we take their DNA. Alexis has the swabs. I just don’t know what good it’s going to do. If they won’t tell us their names, and if we can’t match it up to the kids, where will that leave us?” Nikki asked.

  “Look, let’s just do it and let the authorities figure it out,” Annie said “We don’t have the time to work them over. This place is going to be leveled shortly. The women won’t go with us, and I don’t see how we can force them to leave,” she added fretfully. “They appear to listen to us, but either they aren’t comprehending us, or they are the stubbornest women I’ve ever come across.”

  “We have their DNA from their hair,” Isabelle said.

  “Not really. We just tossed the hair into the pillowcases. We didn’t label it, and, like Nikki said, we can’t match it up to a name,” Alexis pointed out.

  “I’ve never seen such misplaced loyalty,” Annie said.

  Kathryn snorted. “It’s not loyalty you’re seeing, it’s fear.”

  “And they believe someone will come for them from one of the other compounds, and we can’t shake that belief,” Yoko said. “I don’t think we should concern ourselves with that aspect since there’s nothing we can do about it. The Feds will scoop them up until they can figure out what to do with them.”

  “Then let’s do the swabs and get over to the worship center,” Kathryn said.

  Nikki dragged a carton over to the rows of metal chairs. She looked at the women, who seemed resigned to whatever was coming next.

  It was an assembly line as Nikki swabbed, Kathryn bagged the swab, and Isabelle labeled it with whatever each woman revealed about her own identity. When they were finished, Yoko ran the box out to the police cruiser and dumped it into the trunk. Seconds later she was back with the other Sisters.

  “Chop, chop,” Annie said as she herded the women toward the door. She turned around and called out to Alexis, “You know what to do.”

  Alexis nodded as she headed down a long hall toward the sleeping quarters. The women stopped on a dime, bumping into one another as they tried to figure out why Alexis was going where she was going and what she would do when she got there.

  Isabelle gave one of the women a hard shove forward. “Move! The Prophet is waiting for you.”

  It was all the women needed to hear. As one, they picked up their feet and almost ran to the door and outside. They looked like a gaggle of geese as they muttered among themselves.

  The women blinked at the blinding light coming from all the vehicle headlights. Annie led the parade to the flagpole.

  “Look alive here, ladies! Behold your glorious leader!” she said, pointing to the canvas flag. “Everyone salute!” she said, snapping off a crisp salute.

  The other Sisters followed suit.

  The Stepford women, their bald heads gleaming in the bright light, tried to huddle against each other, their eyes glued to the canvas snapping in the light breeze. They did their best to look away, but Nikki cracked her invisible whip.

  “No! No! Don’t look away! This is the man you worship, the man you honor and obey! Take a damn good look because you will ne
ver see him again. By the way, just in case you don’t know, that picture was hanging over his bed. I bet none of you ever thought you would see it outside that den of iniquity where he hangs his…hat. Well, guess what! That picture is going to be on the front page of every newspaper in the country tomorrow morning. By evening it will be global. And so will your pictures,” Nikki said, anger ringing in her voice.

  “Hey, Espinosa, get over here. We need a picture of these fine ladies paying homage to this guy’s dick,” Kathryn said.

  Espinosa clicked away with gay abandon. The women tried to hide their faces, but the Sisters jerked them around to face the camera. Five seconds later the pictures were on their way to Maggie.

  “You know what, ladies? When those pictures flash across the world, none of your people will want you. They’ll be afraid to come here for you because they won’t want what’s happening here to happen to them. You getting it yet, you dumb clucks?” Kathryn bellowed.

  Annie wasn’t sure, but she thought she saw fear in several of the younger women’s faces. It was a start, but she wasn’t hopeful. Her gut told her that when it was time to leave, the women would elect to stay behind.

  “Time to see your fearless leader!” Nikki said as she motioned the women to head into the worship center.

  It took a few minutes to seat the women and for Jack and Harry to organize the men. The Prophet stared at the bald-headed women with revulsion.

  “Behold, your congregants!” Jack shouted gleefully.

  The women stared at the Prophet, their hands going to their heads as they tried to cover their baldness. As one they saw the revulsion in their leader’s face. Then they turned and presented their backs to him so he wouldn’t have to look at their faces.

  “This is a come-to-Jesus meeting, ladies and gentlemen,” Annie said, stomping her way around the room. “You!” she said, jabbing the Prophet in the arm. “Tell these pitiful women to do what we say. Surely somewhere in that perverted body of yours, there is some small seed of goodness. They’ll be left here to starve, and the weather will turn cold in a few weeks. Oh, wait a minute. You don’t know what’s out there by the flagpole, do you?