Holy Rollers (41 page)

Enright finally spoke. “You wanna tell me what this is about? Even though you’re the FBI, there are rules. You can’t bust in here and hold me hostage.”

Not taking his eyes off the monitor as he cut to different cameras, Tolan said, “You are being temporarily detained, Enright.”

“
Captain
Enright.”

“Whatever. This way, when we arrest Hurley and Merribaugh—”

“What?!” Enright’s face was purple. “I’ve never heard’a such a—”

Waverly talked over him. “This way, you can’t warn them that we’re here.”

Enright’s face turned from purple to plum. “This is an outrage! This is an attack on the church by the federal government!”

Waverly sized him up. “You see, Enright, these rage issues are why we had to handcuff you.”

He might have said more if Tolan hadn’t announced, “Found Hurley.”

And Hurley was indeed on the screen, looking completely befuddled and more than a little bit angry.

“Captain Enright, where is this camera?”

Enright wouldn’t answer.

But Leonard did. “That’s Hurley’s office. On the second floor.”

“Of
this
building?”

“Yes.”

Special Agent Patrick Waverly smiled. This was going to be too easy. Hurley would be detained within minutes. After just a few weeks. He and Tolan would have wrapped up a huge case…and made a lot of people on Capitol Hill very relieved and very happy.

So relieved and happy the Bureau wouldn’t have to worry about full congressional funding for decades. Nothing would please the Director more than not having to testify before Congress.

Or that was his plan, until a disheveled man in a guard uniform, bits of brown packing tape stuck to his clothes and lips, burst through the door, screaming something about atheist homosexual terrorist criminals.

Waverly and Tolan exchanged glances. Nailing Hurley was important, but stopping a terrorist attack trumped it.

They knew what had to be done.

$ $ $

Gone!

How could it be…? But it was. It was
gone!

Dr. Oscar Hurley had excused himself from
The Sound of Music
—a performance he was deeply, truly hating—and walked back to his office for no reason other than to get away from the show and his congregation for an hour or so. Maybe he’d shower…maybe take a nap…maybe even call his Francine. If she hadn’t fallen into another sugar coma, she might want to chat for a while.

Whatever he’d do, it would be von Trapp-free, and that could be only a good thing.

But then he walked up the sweeping staircase to his office—the two black SUVs parked out front barely registering in his brain—and immediately noticed the void in the center of the room.

The Desk of Christ was gone.

First, he was confused. Had he walked into the wrong…?

No, of course not!

Then he was enraged, and became even angrier when he saw that the elegant wood railing enclosing his terrace had been destroyed.

Only then did he remember those black SUVs, and wondered what they had to do with this outrage.

He stepped out of his office and onto the landing, on his way downstairs to confront Enright, when a door burst open in the foyer below him. Hurley stepped back into the shadows and watched from above as two men—undoubtedly FBI, he thought, sizing up their clothes and shoes—filed out, followed by that Cason fellow they’d hired as a security guard and…

Is that Leonard Platt?

They didn’t look in his direction, and he took advantage of that lapse to step closer to the polished oak railing and get a better look.

And, yes, that was indeed Leonard Platt.

What the hell was
he
doing there?

Hurley watched the quartet leave the building, and even with a largely obstructed view could tell that they’d walked past the black SUVs and out onto the campus. When they were gone, he scrambled down the stairs until he reached the elderly security guard, who was now so confused he was considering which no-good relative should get power of attorney, because all this craziness could
only
be taking place in his head.

“Is Enright down there?”

The guard judged his immediate mental condition to be passable. “Yessir.”

Hurley stormed down the stairs without a thank-you and entered the Security Office without a hello.

“Enright, what the hell is—?” He stopped when he saw two unfamiliar faces, both also obviously FBI and both also obviously armed.

“Who’s this?” one of the agents asked Enright.

“Mr. Smith,” said Enright. “The choir director.”

Hurley started to object, but noticed the strange way Enright was sitting in the chair, with his hands clasped behind his back. Whatever was going on, Hurley knew it wasn’t a good thing. And he knew he had to play along.

“Yes, I’m the choir director. Mr.…uh…
Smith
. May I have a moment to speak to Captain Enright in private?”

“I’m afraid not,” said the second agent. “Captain Enright stays here, and we stay with Captain Enright.”

“Well…can we speak?”

The agents looked at each other and shrugged.

Hurley tried to pretend they weren’t there. He wanted to ask about the Desk of Christ, but knew he couldn’t. For some reason, Enright was trying to protect him by hiding his identity; it would do neither of them any good—and it especially wouldn’t do
him
any good—if he acknowledged he was Hurley. If the FBI had confiscated his desk, it would be back soon enough.

But he had other questions.

“Did I just see Leonard Platt leave the building?”

Enright nodded. “He wouldn’t say what he was doing here.”

“Where did he and, uh, those
other
gentlemen go?”

“The Great Cross.”

“The Great Cross?”

Another nod. “Officer Cason was abducted tonight. He thinks by militant atheist homosexual terrorists. When they had him taped up…”

“Taped up?”

“They bound him with packing tape. He had to chew his way out. Anyway, Cason overheard his captors talking about the cross.”

Color drained from Hurley’s face. “For…uh…what reason?”

“Cason got the impression they were gonna use it to commit a terroristic act.” He shook his head slightly. “I wouldn’t worry too much about it, Dr.—
Mr.
Smith. He’s excitable.”

Hurley looked heavenward, but knew his prayer wouldn’t be answered. This was one of those times he hoped God was going to help someone who helped himself.

It took a while to find it in the dark, mostly using the sense of touch, but—when Chase finally felt that familiar crinkly combination of cotton and linen—he let out a loud shout. Grant stumbled through the blackness and soon they were both running their hands over the cash.

It was one thing—and a very nice thing, indeed—to finally touch it, but their eyes deserved to see it. Grant aimed the flashlight and then they were staring at pile upon pile of stacked bills. Singles, fives, tens, twenties…no doubt there were more than a few fifties and hundreds there, too.

“That look like seven million to you?” asked Chase, running the light over pile after pile.

Grant kissed Chase’s cheek. “We can count it later.
After
we get it out of here.” He paused. “But, yeah, that’s gotta be the haul we’ve been looking for.”

Chase returned Grant’s kiss. “I found it! I mean,
we
found it!”

Grant pretended not to hear the dig, and taking the light from Chase, ran it over the cash one more time. “That’s a lot of money. We’ll have to make a lot of trips up and down those stairs.”

“You up to it?”

“Not really. But I guess…” He rubbed his sore thigh, then shined the flashlight down the horizontal section of the cross. Besides the cash, which was in a box set on a pallet inches above the hard concrete, it looked mostly empty.

But then the light glimmered off something almost hidden by the darkness at the far end, and soon they were brushing off two large footlockers, lined side by side against the wall and rendered almost invisible by years of dust.

“What the hell are
these
doing up here?” asked Grant.

Chase shrugged. “Probably got left behind by whoever built the cross. And probably for the same reason we don’t want to keep going up and down those damn stairs.” He gently touched Grant’s shoulder. “C’mon, I think I saw some plastic bags in the other section we can use.”

To which Grant said, “I have a better idea.”

$ $ $

Hurley stood in his dark office, pacing the empty space once occupied by the Desk of Christ and waiting for Merribaugh to answer his phone. It only took four rings, which felt like twenty, before the call was picked up.

“We’ve got problems,” Hurley said before Merribaugh had a chance to say hello. In the background he heard nuns-who-were-no-longer-nuns singing, which made his body involuntarily shudder. “So many problems I don’t even know where to begin. The FBI is here…and Leonard Platt…and some other characters. I don’t know who they are, except they’re going to the Great Cross.”

Merribaugh gasped. “The cross? But no one knows…”

“
Someone
knows. Somehow, these
clowns
seem to know they can get inside the Great Cross.”

“But I don’t know how…”

“Dennis, I am not calling to have a conversation with you. I am calling to tell you that we need to act quickly. So get your ass to the damn cross and make sure no one gets inside!”

“What if someone’s already inside?”

“Then make sure they don’t get out.” Hurley cut off the call.

Merribaugh looked at the silenced phone in his hand. He’d spent a lifetime lying, stealing, and—above all—improvising on the spur of the moment, but he had no idea how he was going to resolve this crisis.

But he was ready to rise to the challenge. Because he had seven million dollars on the line.

$ $ $

Flashlights blazing, Special Agents Waverly and Tolan made their third rotation around the base of the Great Cross and still saw nothing.

“Are you
sure
your abductors said they were going into the cross?” Tolan asked Chris Cason for the fourth time.

“They did, sir. Indeed they did. Absolutely. As God is my witness…”

“Okay, okay, okay.”

Tolan kicked the dirt at the base. “I just don’t see how…”

“The thing is solid,” Leonard said, also for the fourth time. He’d been nervous when the FBI had arrived, but now he was starting to get bored. He wondered if this was how Cousin Paul and his confederates had grown so blasé. “Solid concrete. The only way someone’s getting inside it is with a tunnel borer. I should know. I mean, I worked here for seven years.”

“Maybe they’ve got one,” said Cason. “You can’t put anything past those terrorists. It’d be just like them to use a tunnel borer to get inside, and then blow us all to Kingdom Come!” He leaned into Waverly. “Like in my screenplay.”

Waverly gently pushed him away.

“You wrote a screenplay?”

Chris Cason didn’t pick up the skepticism. “A secret agent builds a tunnel borer and uses it to drill up from under the Earth’s surface…”

Waverly shook his head. “You’ve been watching too many James Bond movies, kid.”

“…and then he attacks the Ant-Women…”

Waverly looked back at the cross, then at his partner. “We’re wasting our time, Ollie. Let’s pick up Hurley and Merribaugh and get the hell out of here.”

Chris Cason stopped babbling. “You’re looking for the Rev. Mr. Merribaugh?” Waverly nodded and the man pointed to the back door of the auditorium. “There he is. Right over there!”

Waverly and Tolan followed his finger to where Merribaugh stood, staring back at them with a deer-in-the-headlights look in his eyes as he stood on the loading dock.

Like Hurley, he knew FBI when he saw it.

“Mr. Merribaugh?” Waverly took his leather shield holder out of his breast pocket and held it in the air. “Waverly, FBI. I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

Merribaugh didn’t wait for those questions. Instead, he broke into a wobbly run toward the windowless basement door.

$ $ $

“Hey, Farraday! Can you hear me?”

“Yeah.” The faint answer from 160 feet below echoed off the cement walls and metal railings until it sounded like a small chorus of Farradays. “You find it?”

“Yup,” Grant confirmed. “It’s coming down now, and I need you to look out down there.”

There was a long pause as Grant’s voice echoed down through the center of the Great Cross.

Finally Farraday called back. “What?”

Grant turned to Chase. “Screw him. He either gets out of the way or he doesn’t.” The footlockers—heavy, rusty, but very useful now that they’d been cleared of discarded tools, rags, empty soda cans, a few old extension cords, a battered power drill, six losing lottery tickets, and a dozen plastic bottles of past-the-expiration-date motor oil—were now full of cash, and Chase pushed the closest one to the edge of the stairway.