Mystery: Satan's Road - Suspense Thriller Mystery (Mystery, Suspense, Thriller, Suspense Crime Thriller) (15 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

The bread van rolled down the gravel road for about a quarter mile – then the entry road opened into a town centre, surrounded by freshly painted shops. Groceries. Clothing. Shoes. They stopped at the front of the bread store and started to unload.

The bread guy looked at Kam as if to say
honor the deal
. They hauled bread for about 45 minutes.

“There are washrooms in the main dining room you can use. Behind are the kitchens. They’re big. You’ll see about a hundred women working in there, plus a few men hauling potatoes and veggies. People have to work here so she’ll be either in the kitchen or out in the fields.

If you ask for her, your daughter, you might cause trouble right away. I can’t help you from here on in. You are on your own. I’ll give you about 20 minutes. Then I’ll load my racks back in. Then I report you AWOL.”

Kam walked across the street of packed dirt and headed towards the dining areas. The buildings reminded him of Main Street at Disney World, although not as pristine and detailed – like he imagined a town in the 1920’s might look – only not ringed by a high concrete barricade.

The women wore long print dresses with their hair tied up. The men wore mostly camo, some with baseball caps. A few were carrying rifles casually. He stood out right away in his dark blue slacks and white captain’s shirt.

He asked one young woman where the washrooms were and she pointed into the double doors off the wide porch of the community building. She backed away from him slightly when he asked. All strangers were potentially demons, realized Kam. It’s part of the cult culture. The guest washroom was on the right. Guest washrooms? Could he hide in there? And for how long?

Before he entered the dining area, he looked back across the fields and saw for the first time what the bread guy must have been referring to – a tall log building, about three stories high with various additions spreading out from the center, all constructed of the same solid varnished spruce logs. Beautiful in a way, but also imposing. The windows were darkened with tinting which gave the building a slightly menacing tone.

Is that where they would keep a hostage?
he thought. As he turned around, he walked straight into a tall militiaman, who let out a breath of air and glared at him.

“You know where you’re going?” he asked.

“Just using the guest washroom. I’m with Virginia Bread.” Kam pointed at the bread truck parked in front of the bakery.

“You hurry up now. You don’t want to be around here long. We’re going to be doin’ some shootin’ practice later and might need us a target.”

Kam used the guest washroom, not sure if he would have a chance again over the next few hours. The most frustrating part about not having a cell or a watch was not knowing the time. On a day when every minute might count.

Back in the hall, Kam stopped a young woman carrying a large steel salad bowl and asked for the exact time. She just looked away and hurried on, saying nothing. He had to remember – he was the image of the evil outsider. He couldn’t expect co-operation from anyone.

His job now was simple – get into the main farmhouse – which appeared to be heavily guarded. There were two militia types on the front porch carrying semi-automatic weapons and at least two more on what he could see of the back deck. The farmhouse sat in the middle of a vast clearing, long site lines available to the guards in every direction – except one. There was a thick line of trees running up to the house along the east side – a wind break planted decades ago by a previous owner. Kam thanked him under his breath and headed east.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Annika brought in green tea to the small guest bedroom and opened the small shuttered window. Under a down filled coverlet, laid a tiny woman, her hands bound. She looked up at Annika and smiled.  

“What day is it,” asked Tamara, feeling distant. She knew they were giving her something that made her endlessly sleepy and sluggish so she had tried to resist all food and drink. That only made her weaker, so she was limiting herself to the smallest amounts that would still give her minimum nutrition. She was treated well by the women from the compound, who were obviously following strict orders, but were still kind at heart. Most of them had a harried and frightened look, which made her sympathetic to them. She never saw men around or even heard their voices.

Everyone, though no one mentioned it, were aware of an approaching deadline, and it showed in their speech and their body language.

“It is Sunday,” said Annika carefully. She inspected Tamara’s wrists to make sure the binding was not too tight. Then she lifted a small cup to her mouth to drink.

“You don’t suppose I could get
just
tea next time, do you?” Annika stiffened slightly. “It is good, though. You can thank your friends for me. And if you had some soup, that might make me feel stronger too.”

“We may have some broth for lunch. I will see what I can do, but we are very busy,” she answered carefully.

“Are you worried about your sons?” asked Tamara, taking another mouthful. Annika looked away, which was her way of avoiding difficult subjects.

“Gideon says there will be no need to fight.” She seemed to pause, to remember the exact words she had memorized. “The government will fall under its own weight in a matter of days.”

“That’s a lot of training for people who never intend to fight.” Tamara had heard about the years of constant militia exercises at Parkhurst from the women talking in the background. She guessed disaffected ex-military types did most of the training; people with a grudge on for the establishment.

“The army will be too busy with its missiles misfiring to worry about our little group.”

“Annika, I know you. You worry about your sons.”

“There is nothing I can do. I watched Waco on TV. I saw what Bush did to his enemies in Afghanistan. But it is written and has been written for thousands of years, that the end will come on Monday. It is out of my hands.”

“Annika, there is something you can do.”

“Yes. We can feed the chickens. Make meals for our sons. Wash clothes.”

“And bury the dead. I’ve seen this many times before Annika. And I have seen the prophecy. Not just the parts they have shown you. That’s why I am here.”

“How did you see this?”

“A very brave man died bringing it to me. He translated the prophecy. I have seen it all. Yes,
Revelations
talks about what will happen, but the document I read, also talks about how to stop it. The men don’t want you to see that. They want to fight; they want to raze the land so they can have it for themselves. At what cost? Your children?”

Annika hesitated and then began to weep, spilling the rest of the tea on the bed covers. She stood awkwardly at the foot of the bed, uncertain, and then ran from the room. Tamara lay there, trying to focus on something, anything. There was an antique lamp beside her, but she couldn’t make out any details. Everything was surrounded in a soft glow. That was how her head felt too. She knew she needed help just to stumble to the washroom. Saving herself was not going to be easy and would depend on her using her intelligence. Chasing Annika from the room was not a step in the right direction.

For the past several days, she had worked to build a bond with as many of the women as possible. On Wednesday, when the Soldiers of Patmos had come to her home, they were all young men. They had come to kill her. They had looked very determined, but for some reason seemed to lose their nerve when they realized they were ganging up on a woman who looked like their grandmother. Thank God Kam wasn’t there when they arrived.

Once the terrorists had the inane
Revelations
document, they used her phone, and someone had given them orders to take her back with them. Was it Gideon? She was covered with one of her blankets for most of the trip; a portion of that voyage aboard what sounded like a small private jet. She was allowed to come out from hiding once they reached Parkhurst.

Tamara had no idea what they intended to do with her. She hoped they saw her only as a nuisance, at least until noon on Monday.

Over the few fuzzy days she had been locked in her bedroom, she was able to piece together quite a bit. It helped, of course, that she had carefully read the Chapertah document, which referred to the Soldiers of Patmos and their plans.

These poor people. How deluded they were by this one arrogant male? Every time she thought about Gideon, she wanted to scream. They all kowtowed to him like he was Jesus reborn. He had created his own bizarre little society here, which included sexual rights to every woman at Parkhurst. Well, wasn’t that his right as the alpha male? As a result, the women were in constant fear of him. Tamara was hoping to use that fear against him.

Suddenly the door opened. Tamara could hear the sounds of several pairs of slippered feet on the pine floor. Several women came in and closed the heavy door. Tamara waited. She couldn’t make out faces. She needed to hear their voices.

“I told the others about the book you read – the one they took from you. What did it say?” It was Annika, sounding breathless.

Tamara calmed herself. Now was not the time to rush. “Annika, the translation was very precise. It says you have a choice. You always have a choice.” Annika shook her head.

“You don’t understand,” said a voice that Tamara recognized as a younger mother, Elizabeth. “Do the writings talk about the caves?”

“The caves?”

“About what is in the caves.” She sat down on the bed. Tamara could almost make out her worried expression. There was desperation in her voice. Something about these caves had them frightened for their lives.

Annika spoke next. She was the eldest. “We hoped you would know about the caves. Then we could be sure that you really understand.” Tamara sensed disappointment in her voice.

“Annika. You have read
Revelations
. It is full of symbolism. And so is Chapertah’s translation. We have talked about some of it. I may know the answers, but the language is difficult. Help me to understand the caves.”

Another voice. “Why are they filled with fertilizer?”
Why, indeed,
thought Tamara? She couldn’t bluff her way through this much longer. She was losing them. She took a risk.

“The caves are underneath us, aren’t they? They serve a purpose. It is not a good one.” There was a sudden babble of hushed voices. Several more women moved in closer. Tamara could feel them crowd the bed.

“What do we do?” asked another, her voice almost breaking.

“Tell me about the fertilizer. What kind is it? How is it stored?” Gideon had countless buildings at Parkhurst. Why would he store heavy fertilizer underground?

“There are rows and rows of tanks. Thousands of bags of fertilizer. And there is the stink of diesel in the air in the tunnels. Someone said it’s a bomb. Like the one in Oklahoma City. Only bigger.” She started to whimper softly. “Why would there be a bomb under the family living quarters?”

Why indeed
, though Tamara, a chill of fear working through her frail bones. “How far away are the men?” Tamara was no longer able to control her emotions. She was sure they would release her once noon had passed and all of Gideon's silly predictions failed to materialize. Now she saw another side to his plans.

“Our sons and husbands are across the field. In the barracks half a mile away. They sleep and train there. They only come here for two meals a day.”

Tamara swallowed hard. She wanted to make sure she understood. She didn’t know how much the drugs they were using could affect her judgment, the same way it affected her motor skills.

A diesel and fertilizer mix was the explosive combination that blew up the Court House in Oklahoma City. A truck full destroyed an entire federal building. What could a warehouse full of that kind of explosive do to Parkhurst? And what did Gideon have in mind? A final plan B? A mass suicide? But this wasn’t just suicide, it was mass murder.

“You have a choice. That’s what the translation says. The world doesn’t have to end if you don’t want it to.” There was a long silence. There were three possibilities now that Tamara could see. One was the mass suicide of the entire compound – a drastic last-ditch strategy that only a fanatic like Gideon would follow-up on. Two, was to use the women and children of Parkhurst as hostages, should the army break through. That made some kind of twisted sense as well. Tamara had given a lot of thought to Gideon over the last few days and she didn’t think that was his style, though. He was too arrogant to even bargain with the enemy.

Tamara spoke as slowly and as calmly as she could. “You are all living on a bomb. Parkhurst is a giant weapon that Gideon will use when he sees fit.” Then like a lightning flash, it hit her.

“Annika, if you wanted to make your boys fight to the death, what would you do?” It was a terrible question, but it had to be asked. Annika was lost for words. “I’ll tell you what you do if you are a determined and hard man like Gideon. You kill the mothers. And then you tell the sons and husbands that the government was responsible. You tell them that they dropped a bomb on Parkhurst and killed hundreds of innocent people. Nothing would stop them then. That is why the men sleep half a mile away. So they will survive the explosion.”

There wasn’t a woman in the room now that didn’t believe her. She had to give them credit. They were standing up to the truth better than she would have under similar circumstances. It made her think of Kam. Sweet loving Kam. Where was he now? How was he taking her disappearance? She wanted desperately to get through to him and let him know she was alive and well.

Tamara continued. “You need to disarm the bomb they have built in the caves. And you need to do it before Noon tomorrow. Or everyone will die.”