Cult Following: No Faith To Lose (The Capgras Conspiracy Book 0)

by Simon J. Townley

  “Later will be too late.”

  “Why? Are you hoping to talk me out of it?”

  “There’s lots of people who care about you Gina, who love you and will miss you badly when you’re gone. You’ll be inflicting a lifetime of grief onto them, of sorrow and regret.”

  “You mean my family I assume. I knew my father was behind all this.”

  “Come home to them, talk to them. They’re not so bad.”

  “Forget it, Tom. Decision’s made.”

  “I can get you out of this. They’ve forced you into it, or tricked you. Or hypnotised you, or something.”

  “I volunteered. It was my idea.”

  “And what did Charlie say?”

  “He supported me. He says it’s the best way.”

  “Best way to what?”

  She glared at him. “Fishing for information. You never stop being a reporter do you?” She took hold of a hard-backed chair and sat it down facing him. She leaned forward, peering at his face as if examining it for the first and last time. “I’m dying anyway. I have weeks to live. Weeks of pain and suffering and rapid decay. Weeks of being a burden to all around me, when I lose my strength and will and my true self, as I slide into terminal illness.”

  Tom stared back into her eyes. Did she tell the truth? Was this an elaborate lie, another trick? “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “The doctors are sure?”

  “Hernando is certain, that’s what matters.”

  “But you’ve seen doctors, been to hospital, had checks? Tell me you’re trusting the medical science, not this damned guru. Please tell me you’ve had a proper diagnosis, and a second opinion.”

  “I don’t need those things. He is never wrong.”

  “You can’t throw your life away like that. What if he’s lying? What if he made it up so you would sacrifice yourself?”

  “You don’t know him, you wouldn’t understand. I believe what he tells me.”

  “Then you’re a fool. A tragic one, but a fool all the same. Turn away from this. We’ll go to your family, get you to the doctors, see if there’s a treatment. They can cure most things these days. You should never give up hope.”

  Her eyes quivered as though thinking it through. She was wavering. Push her over the edge. But how? “Grasp the days you have left, the love of your friends and family. Come on, right now. Let’s get out of here.”

  She pushed the chair back, put a hand to her gun. “He told me there would be temptations, those who would try to lead me away from the true work. You’re one of the snakes. That’s why you have to die with me.”

  “Gina, listen. You might be perfectly healthy.”

  “Do I look it? Or sound it? You’ve heard that cough.”

  “Hardly a fatal illness.”

  “He says it is, that’s good enough. Because I have faith, and that’s what you don’t understand: what’s it’s like to know when someone speaks the truth and is always right.”

  “That’s insane.”

  “I’m sorry you feel that way, because you take that bleak unbelief with you to the grave. And it will bring no consolation.” She turned and crossed the room.

  “I don’t want consolation,” he yelled. “I’d rather stay alive.”

  She slammed the door, leaving him tied to the chair, his shirt on the floor beside him, and enough explosives to wipe out a tank regiment strapped to his half-naked body.

  Chapter 29

  Running Out

  “This is another hoax, isn’t it?” Capgras heard the desperation in his own voice. He wanted it to be true, but this time, he sensed, the explosives, the sarin gas and the intention to inflict mayhem and death were all too real.

  Gina glanced at him and raised an eyebrow, then returned to studying the map spread out on the floor of the van. They were on their way to London, he’d worked out that much. But the details of Gina’s insane plan to blow them both up and take out dozens of innocent lives into the bargain remained vague. “Just why did you do you send those people to Westminster station? They talked about explosives and poison gas, but they had none. What was that about? That was a risk, letting them get arrested.”

  “A dummy run,” Gina said. “Test the reaction of the emergency services, assess their response. We monitored the whole thing and adapted this plan accordingly.”

  “But it wouldn’t have worked,” Tom said. “They would never have known unless…”

  “If you hadn’t called them.” Gina gave him her sweetest, yet most triumphant grin. “That’s why we allowed you to escape, let you overhear them in the van. You were integral to the plan all along. And you performed your part perfectly. You couldn’t have done it better if you were trying to help us. And the bonus was that if you do get a message out, now no one will believe you, until it’s too late.”

  She checked his belt of explosives, making sure they were secure.

  “Aren’t you wearing one?”

  “I have this.” She held up the canister of sarin gas.

  “That’s a nasty way to die.”

  “How thoughtful of you. But don’t worry, I’ll be standing next to you. We’ll go together and it won’t hurt. One moment, we’ll be walking along enjoying the afternoon sunshine, then ‘boom’ it will all be over, your pain and suffering and doubt.” She took out her phone, pointed it as his chest. “Need to calibrate. Electronic detonation. Very reliable. I can blow you up with a tap on the screen.”

  “You think of everything,” Tom said, “except the consequences of what you’re doing.”

  “We have faith in the guidance of our leader. That is enough.”

  Tom watched her working on the phone. Was it true? Could they detonate it from a distance? Or could he overpower her when the time came. It would be worth trying. Better to go down fighting. “You do know I’ll shout a warning to everyone around me.”

  “It will be too late by then, believe me.”

  The van slowed as it pulled off the motorway, lurching from side to side at the roundabout. Tom swayed and brushed shoulders with Gina. She moved away instinctively. He wriggled to get comfortable, his wrists chaffing against the metal handcuffs.

  “Not long now,” Gina said.

  “You’re looking forward to it?”

  “I’ll be glad to get it over with.” She banged on the front wall. A few minutes later the van pulled over and the back door opened. Two men with handguns helped Gina out. They let Tom struggle down on his own. Once he was on his feet, she removed his handcuffs, zipped up his Belstaff jacket, patted him along the sides and assessed her handiwork. “No one will be any the wiser. Good choice of coat.”

  “Thank you,” he said, adjusting his collar. “I wore it specially.”

  “I like a human sacrifice that co-operates fully.”

  “I’m sure you do.” He elbowed away the two goons and fiddled again with his collar. Where was the button? Would it still have power? Had it been turned on accidentally, and the battery drained? He found it, pressed it and spoke a silent prayer, hoping Ruby was out there somewhere, his Guardian Angel looking out for him in his time of deepest, darkest need.

  Chapter 30

  Time

  Time. Time passing. Time ticking and tocking and seeping away. Time past and time present leaking irretrievably into time future. Time running out, each second a grain of sand slipping through his fingers.

  Tom Capgras cursed the gods of time and space, gods he didn’t believe in, but whom he blamed nonetheless for all of his misfortune.

  He needed more time. Time to think, to call for help, to concoct a plan. Time to change Gina’s mind. Time to live, to run wild and free, to have adventures and affairs, to meet women and make love to them, to read books and walk in the woods, time to reflect, to grow old and get accustomed to life, so it might finally feel like a comfortable cardigan knitted by your mother.

  Time he didn’t have. It was time to die.

  They had been walking for twent
y minutes through crowded London streets. Tom winced whenever a shoulder barged him or a passer-by brushed against his jacket. The belt of explosives weighed him down, physically and mentally. He trudged as slowly as he dared. They threatened him repeatedly, ordered him to hurry but out here, in public there was little they could do. He was about to be blown into a million pieces. What threat could possibly be worse?

  Killing innocent people - that was worse. If he was die, at least he could thwart their plan, and avoid unnecessary deaths. These goons were expendable. Gina too. But not shoppers, office workers on a break, tourists out to see the sights, teenagers on language courses, moving in flocks around the strange city.

  He’d have to make a run for it, once he was out of these crowds. But this was central London. It was midday. There were people everywhere. And the longer he waited, the worse it became.

  At the end of Birdcage Walk, with St. James’s Park on their left, they continued along Great George Street.

  What was the target? HM Treasury? The Revenue and Customs building?

  “You’ll never get into Parliament,” he said. “Their searches are encouragingly thorough.”

  Gina performed her best I-know-something-you-don’t smile.

  Not politics, then. Religion? “Westminster Abbey? Would you really waste all this effort on a church full of sightseers?”

  She said nothing, but led the group across the road heading straight for the Abbey following a phalanx of Chinese tourists. Don’t go inside. The death toll would rise rapidly in an enclosed space. But if he ran, and they blew him up out here, there would be no one to stop Gina from releasing the sarin. He had to get that off her, somehow.

  He wondered, idly, if the true story would ever come out. Would people realise he had been coerced into this atrocity? Or would he be condemned as a mass murderer, a terrorist who struck at innocent lives for no reason. It would go hard on his friends, his parents and his newspaper. Hard on them. Easy for him. He would be long gone.

  They paused outside the entrance to the Abbey. Tourists hustled past. A woman bumped into him and mumbled an apology. She put a hand on his arm. “Sorry love,” Ruby said in an exaggerated cockney accent.

  A rush of adrenalin surged through his body. She was here. The tracker worked. He had help.

  She stood a few feet off, examining a large, unfolded paper map, clearly trying to eavesdrop. Gina hadn’t noticed. She was busy keeping one eye on him while consulting with her goons. The two men moved away. Was this it? He had to warn Ruby. He had lured her into danger. Get out of here. But what about all these people?

  “Gina, don’t do this,” he said.

  She held her mobile phone in one hand, finger poised over the screen. The other was thrust into her coat pocket where she kept the gun. Where was the sarin? In the rucksack on her back. She couldn’t explode the bomb yet, not until she had released the gas. That would be his only chance. What was Ruby doing? Had she called the police? He daren’t speak to her: Gina wouldn’t hesitate to shoot her down.

  “These people mean nothing,” Tom said, as loud as dared. “This is pointless. At least do it somewhere with some kind of meaning. Not innocent lives.”

  “Shut up,” Gina said.

  “Or what? You’ll hurt me?”

  She held up her phone. “Or this. Come on, you’ll like this target.”

  “I doubt that.”

  She gestured for him to follow the two goons along Dean’s Yard. Capgras led the way, with Gina inches from his back. He sensed the gun pointed at his spine.

  What were they planning? It made no sense, but he was happy to go along with her orders: the crowd would thin out once they moved away from the Abbey. He glanced over his shoulder. Ruby was following. Where were the police? Why hadn’t she run off to find them? Had she heard nothing of what he said to Gina?

  “I’m still here, don’t worry about me,” Gina said. “Keep looking forward. Can’ t have you tripping up, now can we?”

  He coughed, hoping it might get Ruby’s attention. “You said the explosives couldn’t go off without the electronic detonation.”

  Gina moved alongside him and slipped her arm through his, as though they were two lovers, out for a stroll in the spring sunshine. “It’s nice to have this time together, don’t you agree?”

  “Wouldn’t miss it for the world. But tell me our target, and why we’re doing this. Call it a condemned man’s last wish. It would be good to be remembered for an attack on something significant, not just a random suicide mission.”

  “Keep going,” she said. “We’re nearly there.”

  Ahead of them a group of thirty priests and clerics, wise men and holy men of every faith and denomination on God’s good Earth were spilling out of the Church House conference centre.

  “An interfaith congress,” Gina whispered.

  “You’re insane. Why?”

  Gina shrugged. “They didn’t invite us, don’t recognise us. And it’s their lies and power that keeps people from the truth.”

  “Gina, don’t. You’re life is valuable, we can get you the best medical care…”

  “Walk over there,” she said. “Into the middle of that group”

  “No.” He turned to face her, to stare her down. “I won’t do it.” Ruby was closing in. He couldn’t help himself. “Ruby, run. A bomb.”

  She didn’t run. Instead she flung herself at him, barging past Gina as she did so. A flash of light half-blinded him for an instant, and for a fraction of a second a burst of static pulsated across his skin.

  “Shit,” Gina yelled. “What happened?”

  Ruby held up a hand to show Tom the handheld electro-magnetic pulse device she had been building. She’d finished it. It worked.

  Gina tossed her useless iphone and hauled the gun out of her pocket. That would still work, no doubt about it. Tom’s peripheral vision picked up the heavies, about fifty yards off, running to help her. He threw himself at her.

  She got off a single shot straight to his heart.

  The bullet hit the explosives belt and ricocheted with a satisfying metallic twang. And then he was upon her. He smashed her once on the chin with an uppercut and she toppled like a Douglas Fir, felled in its prime. He turned, knelt, pointed Gina’s gun at the advancing goons and fired twice over their heads. The screaming, which had erupted the moment Gina produced her firearm, intensified tenfold. The attendees at the interfaith conference huddled together instinctively, seeking protection as part of a congregation, united at last in their belief that life was worth living. They all agreed on that. No one wanted to be shot, Tom Capgras among them.

  From the direction of the Abbey, police ran towards his position. The goons had stopped their advance. They had seen the armed response teams. Tom rolled Gina over, opened her rucksack and plucked out the sarin canister. Then he took off his Belstaff, exposing the explosives. He raised his arms in the traditional signal of surrender, gun in one hand, poison gas canister in the other.

  “Get away from me,” he told Ruby. “Just in case. And ditch that EMP thingy, before the rozzers take us in.”

  Ruby didn’t budge. She stood by him, waving the coppers forward. “Should I speak to them?” she asked. “Explain what’s going on?”

  “Try it,” he said. Armed police, with sub-machine guns and body armour, headed their way from both ends of Dean’s Yard.

  “It’s all right,” Tom called to the assembled clergymen. “Go back inside. It’s all over. I’m a journalist.”

  Strangely, that didn’t seem to inspire them with any confidence.

  Ruby walked slowly towards the first rank of police who were advancing, guns at the ready. They ordered her to lie on the ground, but they clearly didn’t relish approaching Tom. “The explosives are safe,” he shouted. “The detonator has been fried. I’m not a terrorist. I was forced to be here.”

  At his feet, Gina moaned. She was coming round.

  He’d not hit a woman before, and he felt a pang of guilt over the effectivenes
s of that punch. She would never forgive him that was for sure. All her plans lay in ruins, and she was looking at a long, dry spell in prison. He didn’t envy her that. But she would be alive, and so would he.

  Provided these twitchy police didn’t shoot him, of course.

  One of them advanced past Ruby, heading for him. “This woman is the culprit,” Tom said. “Very dangerous. Member of a cult. On a suicide mission. Might try to kill herself. Or me. Suggest you handcuff her at the earliest opportunity.”

  “Move away from her and drop the gun on the floor.”

  “No,” he said. “Not dropping the gun, not with her around. She’ll shoot herself, if nothing else, believes she’s dying, probably wrong, been lied to. Kinda mixed up.”

  “You all look a little mixed up to me, sir.”

  Capgras looked down at the suicide belt packed with explosives strapped to his stomach and across his chest. What was it with coppers, he wondered, not a trace, not a flicker of humour from one year to the next; then, from nowhere, at a moment like this, with guns drawn, and toxic gas, and enough explosives to demolish half of Dean’s Yard, the comedian in blue arrived in the nick of time? “How about I throw the gun towards your men over there, then move somewhere safe, away from innocent bystanders? Does that sound reasonable?”

  “Under the circumstances,” the copper said, adjusting his semi-automatic weapon, “that will have to do.”

  “Keep your eye on that one. She had two accomplices. They’ve run off. I can give you a description.”

  “Best we focus on the bomb for now, sir. What’s in the container?”

  “Sarin gas. Very deadly.”

  The copper grimaced so deeply it was visible, even under the protective clothing. “You’re not having a good day, are you?”

  “To be honest, officer, the way my luck’s been going this past year, this is par for the course.”

  “All right, you move over here away from the woman. And put the gun and the sarin down, where no one will trip over it.”

  Sirens wailed from every direction. The copper spoke into his hand, relaying information to his command centre. Capgras shuffled from Gina as instructed, crouched slowly, placed the weaponry on the ground and lay on his front, with his hands on the back of his head. It would be a long wait, he figured. They’d want bomb disposal teams, ambulance, fire brigade, clear the area first, evacuate these buildings. It might take hours before they bothered to check the belt and remove the explosives. And then there would be countless days and weeks of interviews and explanations.