Soon (5 page)

4

MIDMORNING MONDAY,
Paul dropped by to see his boss, Robert Koontz, the National Peace Organization’s Chicago bureau chief. Standing in the doorway, Paul recognized that, frankly, it was Koontz’s office he aspired to more than his job. Large and handsomely appointed with a nautical theme, the office had banks of windows on two walls, offering sweeping views of both the Chicago River and Lake Michigan.

Koontz at sixty was a big man with a shiny pate and a rim of salt-and-pepper hair. He was fiddling with his computer but gestured for Paul to take a seat. “So how were the holidays?” he asked, eyes still on the screen.

“The usual. Except for Andrew Pass.”

Koontz stiffened but didn’t turn. “You knew him?”

“Bob, you know I did. I saw the NPO guys at his funeral. They had to tell you I was there.”

Koontz spun in his chair and held up both hands. “You’re right, Paul. Yeah, I know. You spoke. You served under him. I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Thanks. But why the agency presence?”

Koontz sighed. “Pass was a Christian fanatic.”

So the word is out.

“That’s incredible. What about his family?”

“We think his brother, John—goes by Jack—is in deep too, but he’s not shown himself enough to be vulnerable.”

“Anyone else? Wife, kids?”

“Apparently his wife divorced him over it. So we don’t think so, but we don’t know.”

“Bob, did we take him out?”

“What did your father-in-law tell you?”

“Nobody stonewalls like an old spymaster. So that’s a yes?”

“Well—”

“Why—he resisted?”

“You bet he did. I hear we confiscated an arsenal out of his car, and he tried to take a few of our guys down with him. One tough hombre—but you knew that.”

“So the story about the warehouse fire—?”

“Strictly press fodder. His confederates got the message loud and clear, but we kept the public’s nose out of our business. It starts getting out that this cult exists, it will only grow. And with martyrs? Don’t get me started. Listen to this.” He turned back to his computer and scrolled. “Over a hundred years ago Russia closed almost all its churches and disposed of more than forty thousand clergy. They turned city churches into museums and country churches into barns or apartments.”

“Like we did.”

“But get this. By the turn of the century—of course this is after the fall of communism—two-thirds of all Russians identified themselves as Christians.”

“So insurrection was brewing underground.”

“Bingo. Can’t let that happen here. What happened in Russia and China and Romania decades ago could reemerge here, right under our noses. We haven’t really eradicated religion unless we can contain the fanatics. If we let them get a foothold, we could see a full-blown religious uprising.”

“Is there really an armed Christian cult?”

“There’s a lot we’re just learning now, Paul. We’re putting together a task force to determine the extent of the problem—whether we have just a few isolated cells, or worse.”

“It’s a disease,” Paul said. “An addiction. Religion gets hold of people, and they can’t seem to keep it to themselves—they spread it and get other people hooked. Makes me sick—the waste of a guy like Andy Pass.”

“Exactly,” Koontz said. “And that’s why we have to treat this like the war on drugs—expose the threat, flush it out, eliminate it.” He shook his head. “This has the potential to destroy everything this country has worked for since the war. I’m old enough to remember how things were. It was religious extremists who persecuted homosexuals, assassinated abortion doctors—before we had childbirth grants to promote repopulation—and bombed stem-cell research labs that yielded most of our cures for disease. And after the terrorist attacks of ’05, it was the extremists who defied the tolerance laws and rioted, killing Muslims.”

Paul nodded. He’d studied all this in grad school. Naturally, people wanted revenge for the Super Bowl and Disneyland bombings and the gas attacks on the underground trains in Washington, Boston, and New York. The same thing had happened in Europe, when the Eiffel Tower, the London Bridge, and the Vatican were destroyed. And then the war came—life on earth nearly snuffed out because of religious fanaticism.

“We’re lucky the war ended the way it did and woke us up,” Paul said. “The abolition of religion has proved the best outcome of tragedy ever.”

“Tell me about it,” Koontz said. “Peace for more than a generation. Not a single nation at war for the first time in history. But we can’t take it for granted. Not now—and not ever again.”

“What’s this new task force?”

“We’re calling it Zealot Underground.”

“Bob, get me on that. You know I’ve got the background. The corruption of Andy Pass—and so many others—demands vengeance.”

The following week, Paul was dispatched to Mexico on a consulting job, returning the Tuesday following the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend. The big news in Chicago was that a speaker at a King celebration had twice used the archaic and outlawed term
Reverend
in connection with the martyr’s name. One TV pundit suggested the city declare a moratorium on King Day observances “until organizers learn to control themselves.”

Paul’s secretary, Felicia, a tall black woman in her late forties, couldn’t hide her emotion. “Dr. King died long before I was born, but no matter what you say, the man was a reverend. They go stopping King Day for something minor as that, they’re going to have trouble. Tell me the truth, Dr. Stepola. You see any harm in using a man’s title, one he earned and used himself?”

“Yes, I do, Felicia. And the organizers know better too. It’s playing with fire to link religion with a hero like Dr. King.”

“Link?
Isn’t that where Dr. King got his nonviolence philosophy?”

“If you’re talking about his tactics, I believe he got them from Mohandas Gandhi. Think about it—what that title
links
him to is occultism and ignorance.”

“I just meant—”

“Dr. King was a product of his time. Do you think highlighting that era’s blindness serves his memory? When we want to honor Thomas Jefferson, do we focus on his slaveholding?”

Felicia looked stricken. Paul smiled. “Am I going to have to arrest you for practicing religion, Felicia?”

“Cuff me. You’ll need backup.”

“Oh yeah?” he said, chuckling. “We’ll see about that. But seriously, I spent four years studying the major religions. And ‘I ain’t gonna study war no more.’ That’s what the history is like. Believe me, religion is the opposite of nonviolence.”

Though he let it go, Paul was amazed that an NPO secretary would defend religion in front of her boss. But before Wintermas, he himself had given little thought to the likelihood of a Christian threat right here in the USSA.
We’ve forgotten that
the price of freedom is constant vigilance. We take peace for granted.
But not anymore.

The river appeared in danger of icing over, a rarity. He stared at it past the picture of Jae on his desk and acknowledged that he had thought more about Angela Pass than his wife while he was away. He’d felt so relieved when Koontz said she wasn’t a suspect. Angela had said she’d always wanted to meet him and that she’d love to get together to talk about her father.

Felicia buzzed. “Koontz wants to see you.”

Paul pulled on his suit coat, tightened his tie, and grabbed a notepad. He paused for iris scans at two checkpoints, then was waved in by Koontz’s secretary. “He’s on the videophone, but he wants you to come in anyway.”

Paul entered and shut the door, just as Koontz was saying, “He’s here now. I’ll call you back.”

He clicked off but didn’t offer Paul a chair. “That was the brass. Talking about you, Step.”

Paul nodded, unsure what to say.

Koontz rose. “Let’s go.” He pointed down with his thumb.

The secure room?

Koontz smiled. “I have news.”

“Okay,” Paul said, more as a question.

Koontz opened his credenza and the DNA-coded lock on his safe, pulling from it a sealed document box.

Paul followed him to the elevator, and they rode sixteen floors to the basement. At every checkpoint Koontz’s ID was enough for both of them. In the wing that led to the secure room, however, Koontz and Paul were treated like anyone else. Though they had known the uniformed guards by name for years, there was no small talk and no shortcuts. Their holographic-image IDs were scanned by computer and compared to their faces. Besides the iris scans, both put their palms against a screen for fingerprint and DNA checks.

They passed through a metal detector and were finally given two metal keys for the secure room, a touch that always struck Paul as quaint. The keys were supposedly a precaution against bugs that might be somehow encoded in the modern electronic locking devices. Koontz unlocked a three-inch-thick steel door that revealed, six inches away, a three-inch-thick wood door, also locked. Once they were inside and Koontz had secured both doors, a guard outside ran a final scan on the room. The results appeared on a small monitor on the wall. No evidence of bugs or microwaves or any other invasive device. Koontz hit a button next to the monitor, which triggered white noise, a barely audible hum that would interfere with any recording equipment and make their conversation unintelligible.

Six luxurious, deep burgundy leather chairs surrounded a round mahogany table. Otherwise the room was bare, save for a pewter ice-water pitcher and several glasses. Koontz tossed the document box on the table and poured two glasses of water, mostly ice. He set a tiny napkin beneath each glass. “Missed my calling,” he said as he sat and pointed to a chair for Paul. “I’d have been a dynamite waiter.”

Paul smiled and tried to act calm. Koontz, usually all business, seemed to be stalling. Paul wondered if his father-in-law had been right. Had he aroused suspicion by going to Pass’s funeral? His plan was to claim he had no knowledge of Pass’s activities since he’d known him in Delta Force—which was true. Or was this somehow connected to his father’s letter?
Alleged letter
. He still had the scrap he’d torn from the envelope tucked in his wallet. What if he was searched?
Whether or not the letter is a plant,
wondering about it is no crime. It would be weird if I didn’t wonder.

Koontz stood and removed his jacket, draping it over the back of his chair. He loosened his tie. “Get comfortable,” he said. “We got us some work to do.”

“I’m comfortable for now,” Paul said. He had been in the secure room twice before and knew it was kept at a constant temperature.

“You kept up on your firearms, Paul?”

Paul nodded. “I can handle anything from a derringer to a howitzer. I’m at the range every two weeks, minimum.”

“You own a double-action semiautomatic?”

“I’ve got an eleven-point-five-millimeter Beretta and a Walther Stealth.”

“Got a preference?”

“Depends. What am I going to do with it?”

“Kill someone from close range.”

Paul hesitated. “Beretta’s hard to beat, Bob. Who am I going to kill?”

“Hopefully no one. But this job requires a side arm.”

“This job?”

“The new task force. You asked for it, and you got it.”

“That’s great. But tell me—is Ranold involved?”

“The Special Projects Unit in D.C. is developing some kind of operation. It’s classified—need-to-know only—and down the road we’ll probably intersect. Here, at this point, we’ll be more of an intelligence clearinghouse.”

“What will my role be?”

“Actually twofold. I want you to be a wild card. Officially, you go along on strategic raids. You’ll counsel us on what these Christians believe, and you’ll help interpret what they’re really saying when interrogated. You’ll do some of the questioning yourself. Unofficially, you’ll keep me personally informed as to the size and strength of the cult. We don’t know yet whether these various factions are connected. How sophisticated are they? Is this thing nationwide, or are these independent groups that just look and act alike?”

“I’ll need to brush up on their theology and beliefs and practices.”

“We think some of them are into sabotage. Remember that incident with the Reflecting Pool in Washington?”

“It turned red, right? Wasn’t that some kind of prank?”

“Not exactly. In front of a hundred tourists, the water turned to blood. Real human blood—we tested it. All it takes is one person in a crowd like that to claim it’s a miracle—which is what happened, though we kept it out of the press—and you have a religious crisis in the making. Christians are staging these supposed miracles and using them to win converts, claiming they are signs the world is coming to an end.”

Koontz leaned forward. “I hate to tell you this, but we think Pass was behind the Reflecting Pool thing. When we tried to interrogate him—well, the way he fought, it turned into ‘suicide by cop.’”

Paul nodded. “Extremists will die for their causes.”

“I have to be honest with you, Paul. It’s going to be tough. More people are going to die. It can’t be avoided.”

“Whatever it takes,” Paul said.

Koontz unsealed the document box and spent two hours showing Paul what they believed was evidence of some kind of Christian presence in all seven states.

“See what we’re up against?”

“Shocking how fast this thing has snowballed,” Paul said.

“I’m glad you’re on board. In case you’re wondering, it’s a significant jump in level and pay.” Koontz stood and began gathering his materials. “You’ll stay in the same office, and you can inform Felicia, but first we’ll have to upgrade her security clearance. That should be done by the time you get back.”

“From?”

Koontz reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a thin folder. “Plane tickets, hotel reservation, and contact information,” he said, sliding it across the table. “Your first assignment: San Francisco. Our people have uncovered a Christian cell led by an elderly, wealthy widow we have code-named Polly Carr.”

Paul smiled. “So you do know a bit of church history.”

“Well, I’ve heard of Polycarp, but that’s the extent of it.”

“So what’s the assignment?”

“Apparently this woman lives in a ramshackle Victorian mansion in a formerly ritzy, now blighted, area called Sea Cliff. Half the places are abandoned, and she lives alone. We got a tip that every Sunday morning before daylight, a couple dozen people show up and slip into her place. They leave separately, and we’re convinced it’s some sort of religious gathering. I want you to go with the task force and monitor what’s going on in there. If it’s what we think it is, we’ll rush them. You’ll supervise the interrogations out of our San Francisco office.”

“Doesn’t sound like I’ll need a weapon for that one.”

Koontz shrugged. “Can’t be too careful.”

“When’s this set for?”

“This Sunday, the twenty-fifth.”

“I’m assuming I can tell my wife.”

“Your new role, sure. Details of the missions, of course not.”