Shadow Caste

By K.G. Lawrence

The world is in danger unless Weinberg can be stopped. With his Proteus Group mobilized no one knows if they can stop his plans of chaos and destruction. Frank Gillette and others will try to do what they can to save the world as we know it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: K.G. Lawrence
• Release date: Feb 11, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463035696

K.G. Lawrence

With degrees in biology and psychology, I have always enjoyed writing both fiction and non-fiction. I spent several years at a research lab at Agriculture and Agri-food Canada, this has provided me with a background on food and strengthened my skills as a researcher. I have put my background in biology and my research experiences to good use in writing the Introduction to Ethnobotany, as well as my novels.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Bwindi Impenetrable National Park Forest, Uganda: November 21st, 4:00 p.m. local time.

Their guide from the Uganda Wildlife Authority, Sidney Onyango, was also a big man. At 6’3", he was four inches taller than Menno Alfieri and one inch shorter than Frank. At 215 pounds, he was the lightest of the three by fifteen and twenty-five pounds respectively. At forty-five, however, he was the oldest of the three by over ten years per man. Onyango had brown skin a shade or two darker than Frank’s skin color. A black goatee speckled with white was the only hair on his head. He carried an Israeli IMI Glalil assault rifle loaded with 5.56 X 45 mm NATO rounds. His holster held a Desert Eagle .44 Magnum.

Frank and Menno also had holstered Desert Eagles.

We have to be particularly quiet here, Onyango whispered before starting them down a barely discernible trail. "These ones are very nervous. They were only discovered seven years ago. They are not accustomed to humans other than them. The leader is particularly aggressive after Musoke’s men killed one of his females and a baby last month."

The first generation brought their daughters here from Kenya about thirty years ago.

I believe the women and the gorillas have had a close relationship for most of that time.

Sydney, Menno said, are you suggesting they taught the gorillas to fight humans?

I am saying both troops have learned a great deal from each other.

The forest was cooling rapidly and the sky was threatening another burst of torrential rain at any moment.

Menno whispered to him from behind, I thought the ones in North Korea would be the hardest to find and get out. We’re getting nothing here.

This is where they were last seen.

That was when they killed two of the three poachers who killed the mother and her baby. They have probably moved on.

Onyango stopped, held his finger to his lips for a moment and then pointed down slope to their left through the dense Afromontane forest.

That’s him?

His two brothers are to our right.

Menno said, He’s the biggest, right?

Over two hundred and fifty kilograms, one of the largest silverbacks anyone has ever seen.

The two sentries were impressive male gorillas themselves, but they were significantly smaller than their older brother.

He’s the one who killed the third poacher.

No, the youngest brother did, but all three will attack. Onyango rested his hand on his Desert Eagle. It is the only time I know of that one has attacked a human. The female and the baby were shot as he was charging, but rather than turning away, he just ran the man over, picked him up and slammed him to the ground. The man was probably dead after that, but he struck him several more times.

And the women, Menno said, took care of the other two?

One was killed with an arrow through his neck. The other was hacked to pieces.

You’re sure they were General Musoke’s men?

Peter Malumba Musoke is no longer a general. He is a warlord who has surrounded himself with deserters from his former unit who are still loyal to him, as well as some from the Lord’s Revolutionary Army. He is nothing more now than a predator of innocents and a poacher of Uganda’s resources.

If he is out for their blood after the killings, why would they stick around here? They know how bad he and his men are.

They have established a village in this forest. And it isn’t just the women you seek living there. They offer refuge for abused and threatened women. They have even rescued some and brought them under their protection. Doing that has only made them other enemies.

Menno reached out to touch the large leaves of some plant, but then had second thoughts. Rubbing his fingers together, he said, Aren’t they considered to be witches, unnatural creatures, forest demons?

Onyango grimaced and shook his head. The mythology surrounding them terrifies most villagers in the forest. Musoke and their other enemies, and they have many perpetuate those tales with false embellishments. Cannibalism and bestiality are the two themes repeated most often. This last attack on Musoke’s men has only made it worse for them. Frank, I am concerned Musoke will rally others to his militia and come after them in force.

Give me the simple, secluded life of the cloister like our Tibetan group. It’s quiet and safe. Menno held out his hand. And you can get in out of the rain.

Who do the locals fear more, Musoke or the women?

Musoke is a known danger. Men like him have been omnipresent in the nations of Africa for as long as anyone can remember. Makela’s women are reclusive, secretive and mysterious. As one village elder told me, they are surrounded by the darkness of ignorance that is only illuminated sporadically with flashes of wild imagination.

Menno brushed some drops of water off his slicker. It’s the twenty-first century. That kind of shit just shouldn’t be happening anymore.

Ask anyone in the nearby villages about Makela and her women and they will deny believing any of the ridiculous tales. In private, however, it is very different.

They need to do some public relations work.

I have tried to get Makela or Diane to come with me into the villages. They need to make friends, forge alliances, dispel the mythology, I tell them. But. . . . He shrugged.

Frank checked his slicker. Water ran off his hat down the back of his neck. But part of the mythology holds that the normal women they rescue are really their prisoners and slaves. They are used for unspeakable acts.

Or just eaten for dinner, Alfieri said. The North Koreans are gentle, contemplative and, contrary to the current wisdom about them, empathic. Everyone who knew them loved them. Hell, all we had to do was get to the rendezvous point, wait for them to be gathered up, snuck across the border and delivered to us. The ones in Tibet were regarded as mystical and almost worshipped. The locals there built a shrine to them when they left.

Then there are the ones here, he said, and their gorilla friends.

They stay as close to this group as they can. They offer protection to each other. They will not be too far away.

He said, Even with Musoke and his men coming after them?

They are fearless, as you will see, if we are lucky enough today.

Like I said, North Korea and Tibet were easier.

The silverback leader looked their way, but he remained where he was and continued eating. His two brothers each took a quick glance uphill at them but also remained at their posts.

This way, Onyango said. There is a clearing and a ledge where we can get a better view of the valley. Musoke and his men will have to come in that way if today is the day.

As they made their way down the trail, pushing aside branches and leaves that flicked water back at them, he said, Makela is their leader. She is the one you talk to.

She is their matriarch, one of three surviving second-generation mothers. She leads for now, but there is tension between her and one of the young ones. Agnes challenges her authority more and more the same way the youngest brother challenges the silverback. One day they may both be banished from their groups.

Menno tapped him on the shoulder. I just saw something. I think I saw something. I think something moved.

Again, Onyango put a finger to his lips. It could be one of his females. We don’t want to scare her.

Following Onyango down the slope as quietly as they could, they reached the ledge without upsetting the gorillas. The valley thirty meters below was little more than a green mass of treetops with a few openings in the canopy that revealed the edges of a creek flowing through it. It began to rain fast, heavy and hard the moment they put down their backpacks.

The leader moved up the slope to take up a covered position under a juniper tree. A female gorilla carrying a baby emerged from the shadows and joined him. He and his two sentries had all focused their attention on the valley.

Torches, Onyango whispered, there. It’s Musoke and his men. They’re moving along the creek.

Menno said, Nothing will burn in this rain, will it?

Lightning flashed, thunder peeled. The rain pelted the sentries, the forest and them. A steady hissing roar drowned out all other sound around them. The temperature dropped another few degrees. Mist was forming in the valley and also sliding down from the peaks above them.

We’re not going to be able to see or hear anything. They wouldn’t set the forest on fire, would they? Even Musoke can’t be that nuts.

The torches are to scare the gorillas.

Not today, I think. Alfieri pointed. I presume that is the matriarch.

A woman wearing camouflage clothes similar to what Musoke and his men wore was bound to a cross. Six men carried her at the back of the line.

Onyango said, They are going to burn her alive. Musoke does that to his worst enemies.

Yeah, I got that. Won’t the gorillas attack?

It isn’t the gorillas they have to worry about.

The smaller brother gorilla continued to watch the torches meandering northwest through the valley. As the mist surrounded him from below and above, he raised his right arm sideways. From the mist and shadow, two large, dark human hands with long fingers took hold of his hand.

He moved to his right but remained focused on the valley. A teenage girl wearing camouflage clothes stepped out of the shadows and knelt beside him. She groomed him for a few seconds before scratching him between his shoulder blades and starting down the slope. She retrieved a loaded crossbow from where she’d emerged as she descended through the downpour.

Menno said, I really do know the answer, but for a moment there, I wondered who we were supposed to be protecting.

There, Onyango said.

Another young woman, also in camouflage gear, passed the group’s leader and the female with him, bowing to them and touching both adults first before the baby as she withdrew her machete from the scabbard strapped to her right leg. She then followed the one with the crossbow.

Menno said, We may not know yet what’s special about those other two Isabella groups, but there’s no doubt about what these ones are capable of.

Onyango lowered his binoculars. I count seventeen men including Musoke. That is his whole unit. One of the men has a flamethrower. The others all have rifles like mine.

The two teenagers descending through the forest vanished into the valley portion of the mist closing in around them.

Menno said, Do we go? Two against seventeen hardly seems fair.

As Frank released the strap on his holster, three more young women stepped out of the forest behind them. He had only enough time to notice they also wore camouflage clothes and each one of them wore a necklace that appeared to be made up of human teeth, as many gold ones as possible, before the tallest and heaviest one, hooted and charged him.

Chapter 2

Riga, Latvia: 4:00 p.m. local time.

Sven Oberg locked the door to his third-floor apartment on Muitas Iela near Citadel Iela. He left behind nothing that could be used against the Creators Almighty. He had brought nothing with him to Riga that any of them would want.

Once outside the apartment, he headed west through the light snowfall along Muitas Iela toward the Daugava River. At the corner of Muitas and Eksporta Iela just past the Citadelle bank, he checked his surroundings. The clouds and snow had not kept people indoors. The citizens of Riga were used to cooler and wetter weather. Properly dressed for the cold and the white frozen droplet falling around them, people were heading for the Old Town south of where he stood in anticipation of the forecasted clear skies for this evening. Despite the text message he’d received ten minutes ago ordering him to go south, he headed north.

*****

Two of the three women he’d brought to his hotel suite had remained naked and entangle on the bed. The third one, the top of her head barely coming up to his chest, wanted to cling to him and join him in the shower. She murmured and cooed and pawed at him the whole time he’d inputted the text. He had to hold her off to send it, but had let her come into the shower with him.

What are those again? She knelt in front of him, lathering his lower legs when she wasn’t taking him into her mouth.

Chevrons.

And you put those on your arms and legs yourself? She again swallowed as much of him as she could and blinked up at him like some pathetically eager puppy.

Yes.

She disgorged him, gagged and stood up. How many do you have? Why do you do it?

He pushed her back down to her knees. He had reached the point of no return. He had to finish. She had to finish him.

There are one hundred and twenty-two, one for each life I have ended.

Those puppy eyes looking up at him had stopped blinking, but she had not stopped servicing him. If anything, his revelation to her only spurred her on to a more vigorous effort. She kept hold of him as he finished, smiling up at him when he was finally spent before swallowing and wiping her mouth.

She caressed the chevrons on his lower legs. Are you going to add any more today?

The day is not over.

Can I watch?

He left her in the shower, dried himself and quickly dressed. She came out of the bathroom naked and rejoined the other two women on the bed as he looked out the window.

So far, Sven Oberg was doing exactly what he was supposed to be doing, what all the others had done.

He turned to the women. The money is on the table.

His shower partner pouted and asked, Are you coming back?

One of the other women yawned and rubbed her eyes. What’s your name again?

Hermes Serafim Ankou. And, no, I won’t be coming back. The room is yours for two more days. Enjoy.

He checked the tracking signal coming to his phone as soon as he left the hotel.

*****

At the corner of Eksporta and Citadelle, the veracity of the text he’d received was easy to see. Riga Police cars and a crowd of onlookers had gathered around the AugustaWestland AW109 helicopter that was supposed to take him back to Malmo. A white and red medical van had its back doors open.

Oberg walked along Citadelle to get closer but stopped when two men from the van and two police men brought two loaded body bags out of the crowd and loaded them into the van.

His phone rang again. The text read: Do not go to the police. More people will only get hurt, including you. You’re only chance is to—

He deleted the text and returned his phone to his pants pocket. It began ringing with another text message: You won’t see me unless I want you to. Do you want out?

At the first break in the stalled traffic, he ran barely ahead of honking cars on Eksporta to a field of snow-covered grass and trees. Ducking from tree to tree, he made his way to the Statoil station at the end to the field. Before entering the miles PLUS convenience store in the middle of the station, he looked back at the helipad beside the river.

The van was leaving the scene. A few of the onlookers were leaving the scene. Others remained to watch the police and the forensic team that had just arrived gather evidence. A number of the people scooted across Eksporta ahead of scolding honks to the same snowy field he’d come to. One of them stood out among the others.

Taller than everyone, he had crossed the road with slow, long, loping strides instead of scampering out of the way of the vehicles bearing down on them. A quick comparative estimate would put him over 6’6" tall, lean but hard and very pale, with long, white hair pulled back along his head and secured into a ponytail.

Once he and the half-dozen others had made it safely across the road, he placed a broad-brimmed black hat back on his head. That action highlighted the anachronistic clothes he wore. His suit was completely black, including a long coat and knee-high boots.

A couple of the others who had crossed Eksporta with the man exhibited some momentary curiosity in and amusement with his appearance before turning back to their own interests and dispersing with the rest of the flock.

The man fixed his hat against a gust of wind and began walking toward him with long, slow strides. He was in no hurry. As he passed into shade under the trees a break in the clouds brightening the last few minutes of the day. He stopped and took out his phone.

Oberg’s phone rang: There is no sanctuary for you in Riga. Do you want out?

The man came out of the shadows and continued toward him, methodically placing his feet in each footstep Oberg had left in the snow.

Sven Oberg registered running through the convenience store past the gasoline pumps to another snowy field through a park and across a slippery road that bisected it. By the time he reached the southern tip of it, however, he was in full flight mode that consisted of sprinting across roads, barely avoiding more honking cars and some grumbling pedestrians, turning left, going under the Vansu (Shroud) bridge, past the statue monument dedicated to the children deported to Siberia during the Second World War and then onto Pils Ieta heading for Dome Square. He needed to get to Amatu Iela, but that was still close to 400 meters away and his lungs and thighs were burning. His feet hurt. He had to slow his pace to a jog.

Dome Square was busy. The crowd was a good size to hide in. But a pause near the middle of the square to look back revealed a head and a broad-brimmed black hat speckled with snowflakes floating above most everyone else’s covered head.

He’d run for almost a kilometer and hadn’t lost him. "Knulla."

His phone rang again. The head and the hat were still coming closer.

The crowd made it impossible to sprint away, but before he started for Skarnu Ieta, he turned off his phone and took it apart. A waste basket by the outdoor section of a pub took one half of the shell. Another can near a market stall took the rest of the phone.

A slipping, sliding run along Skarnu Ieta and a left at Amatu Ieta brought him to the five-storey building he wanted. Rather than take the old and slow elevator, he ran up the stairs to the second floor. The arches of his feet felt like they might collapse at any second. The key was unnecessary. The door to apartment 206 swung open the instant he touched the knob. Davos Kratchner was on the floor in his bedroom. His throat had been cut open from ear to ear. There wasn’t as much blood as he thought there should be.

Kratchner’s laptop was fully operational, and thus, fully exploitable.

"Knulla!"

Kratchner’s phone rested on his night table. The moment Sven Oberg spotted it; it began vibrating across the table. He caught it just before it fell off.

The text read: You have no one left to go to and nowhere to hide. There is only one way out of this. The next time I call, we will have a discussion about your future.

Chapter 3

Los Angeles, California: 6:00 a.m. local time.

Everyone was already in the L.A. FBI Main Office’s Situation Room when Joan McGowan entered. Assistant Director in Charge, Wendy De Jong, forty-five, had been keeping her current with every scrap of new information gleaned from the scene of last night’s explosion in Skid Row.

Good morning, Joan, De Jong said and took hold of her hand. I just got here ahead of you. De Jong kept hold of her hand and pulled her into an office. Before we go see what Regina has, I feel I should say something.

Okay.

De Jong gave her hand a gentle squeeze. I’m sorry.

For what?

You know I’ve been one of the Bureau’s biggest sceptics about the Proteus Group. De Jong still hadn’t let go of her hand.

You haven’t been the only one, Wendy. I’ve frequently had my own doubts even after finding their Operation Gangrene manifesto on Morton Colter’s computer.

I thought this was all a waste of time and resources. Placing agents assigned to the task force in every field office struck me as an internal bureaucratic boondoggle designed to score political points.

Joan patted De Jong’s hand before slipping hers out. It seems far too big, an extensive international syndicate, for the little it has accomplished.

Until the last three weeks, last night and now this morning. We’ve been getting the reports. Are they all true?

They are targeting law enforcement, search and rescue, medical responders and national security personnel.

How many have you heard of?

So far today we’ve had seven attacks. In Chicago and New Orleans there has been a local epidemic of fatal drug overdoses from a new designer version of fentanyl. It is five times more lethal. But the overdose victims this morning were fitted with bomb belts that were set off remotely when the paramedics arrived. An unconscious fifteen-year-old homeless boy was left on the front steps of a Detroit police station. He had been fitted with a vest. The boy and three officers were killed when it was detonated.

I just received the report on Cincinnati’s phoney swatting attack. The whole house blew up.

Four SWAT officers were killed. Three were seriously injured. No one was in the house.

For what it’s worth, Joan, I am fully onboard now. Let’s go.

Special Agent in Charge for the Proteus Group Task Force, L.A. Section, Regina Goodwin, had been on duty since the explosion and had set up the command center. As in the past, she had brought with her Dominic Kessler, twenty-nine, Special Agent from the L.A. Cybercrime and Terrorism unit and Oswald (Ozzie) Pelluer, thirty-five, from the Counterterrorism and Counterintelligence unit.

Wendy said, I asked Regina to wait until you arrived so she wouldn’t have to debrief twice. She nodded to Goodwin.

Five televisions provided various news feeds of the scene. Two video feeds from the FBI and police units at the corner of South San Pedro and East Sixth Street provided on-the-ground perspectives. Three agents sat at three computer stations processing the data as it came in. Four whiteboards were covered in lists, addresses and scribbling. Sheets of paper and printouts covered the table in the center of the room.

Regina ignored pretty well all of it once she started her report. She had that kind of mind. At precisely midnight, an old white Ford Bronco parked in a lot on the corner of South San Pedro and East Sixth Street exploded.

She asked, How many casualties?

Sixteen homeless killed, two volunteers killed, another forty-eight people injured, fourteen are in critical condition, six of them are not expected to make it. The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority was conducting a count last night. There were one hundred and thirty-eight volunteers in the area. It has the highest concentration of homeless in the city.

Frankly, De Jong said, I’m amazed it wasn’t worse. What about property damage?

Three other vehicles in the parking lot were destroyed. There’s damage to L.A. County Health Services, the Central City Community Outreach, the Abbey Apartments on the South San Pedro side of the building. The Midnight Mission was also damaged. There were a lot of windows blown out and three downed power poles.

Wendy told me this is just the beginning.

Kessler addressed that issue. We received a message exactly one hour after the explosion. It warned there would be two more this morning.

But no other details?

Kessler ran his hands through his curly ginger hair before tapping the table. Only that they will also be old white Ford Broncos, if we assume they aren’t setting us up for something else.

Assume nothing about them.

We have every helo we could get in the air checking every parking lot above ground. L.A. Air Force Base, Edwards AFB, El Centro Navy, Vandenberg and Los Alamitos have sent as many as they can. Every police department in L.A. County has every car they’ve got on the street. There are our units, the Army’s and California Highway Patrol, too. We’ve also recruited six television and radio traffic helicopters. They know what’s happening and are up there anyway.

I saw barricades as I came in.

De Jong went over to the window. We’ve cleared and blocked the parking lot across Wilshire at the Minross Recreation Center. The parking lots behind us between Veteran Avenue and South Sepulveda Boulevard have been searched and blocked off as well. We have set up additional CCTV surveillance of our perimeter.

We can’t possibly check every parking lot in L.A. And what about the ones underground?

We may have one, the agent at the central computer station said. As they gathered around the station, he tapped his monitor. A Los Alamitos helo just spotted a white Bronco coming out of a parking lot in East L.A. It’s headed southeast on Whittier Boulevard. There is only a driver inside. A map of Whittier Boulevard came up on the screen. The agent pointed to where the Bronco was first sighted.

What’s its target?

Ozzie Pelluer said, Belvedere Public Social Services is on Whittier. The U.S. Veterans Outreach Center is on East Olympic Boulevard if the driver takes a right at Goodrich.

Dammit. De Jong poked the computer screen. If last night’s bomb was targeting the homeless, then Belvedere could be it.

Unless they want to make a statement about our veterans, she said.

The agent at the computer said, We have a California Highway Patrol car in pursuit.

Can the officer see anything?

He reports cardboard boxes piled in the back up to the roof. The Bronco’s riding low. It’s a heavy load.

What are the other possible targets along Whittier?

Traffic’s pretty heavy this time of morning, Regina said. It isn’t going very fast.

How quickly can we clear the roads?

There’s another one, the agent on the computer to the right said. It’s traveling southwest on Venice Boulevard. It came from somewhere in Culver City. The map of that section of L.A. came up on the screen.

Regina leaned in. There is a sizeable encampment of homeless at Venice Beach. Officials have been working since the explosion to get them into shelters. It could be headed for Marina Del Rey.

The agent said, Then why not come along West Washington Boulevard?

To keep from revealing its target until just before. . . . What else is there?

Regina took hold of her arm. "Christ, Joan, you name it. There’s Colegio de la peticula, the high school that played Rydell High in the movie Grease. The Venice Farmers Market is on the way."

Pelluer said, That is only open Friday mornings. What about the Venice Beach Boardwalk.

Venice High School is also on the way.

Notify all schools to evacuate whoever is there and close down. Get the Boardwalk evacuated.

Pelluer said, There’s the U.S. Post Office at the Grand Boulevard and Main Street roundabout.

This is impossible, De Jong said.

Kessler came to them holding a printout. We just go this. Local television and radio stations got it, too. His hands and voice trembled. If we make any attempt to clear the roads ahead, evacuate any buildings, or if we attempt to stop the vehicles, they will be detonated. The message ends with: Remember the Oklahoma City bombing.

Chapter 4

Dwayne Ingram, the Runt, rubbed his hands together though they were in thick, insulated gloves. Why couldn’t you have given this assignment to me in August? It’s freezing up here and I’m slogging through snow up to my chest.

He was slogging at an altitude of 5639 feet in the mountains northeast of State Highway 308 somewhere between Washoe and Bearcreek, Montana.

Chase said, Can you see anything?

Is that a joke about my height?

Can you see anything?

Yeah, it’s as you described it. There is a big log cabin in the center of the compound. I count four smaller residential buildings scattered about it that would each hold three to four people unless they really packed them in.

There should be only three.

Maybe there were only three in August, but there’s four now. There are also two large tents behind the main cabin, and two fifth-wheel campers. I supposed they could stuff more people into them. One’s hooked up to a Ford F-Three-fifty.

There should be only Christian Steele and his seven elder council members with him. The women and children were sent to their ranch in Utah for reorientation two weeks ago.

You mean their torture and brainwashing facility.

I don’t care what he does with them. That isn’t why you’re there.

I’m here freezing my ass off in snow up to my chest. I could use a little motivation to keep going.

Do you see anything?

Steele is the old guy, right?

He’s forty-nine, if you consider that old.

I do. He just came out of the cabin. He’s using a cane and he’s developed a stoop.

What about the others?

Gimme a second, Jesus. He brought out his binoculars. Yeah, they’re coming out of the cabin behind Steele. I count six of them. He scanned the compound. The seventh one is in the Ford. It looks like they are preparing to leave. Shit, not one of them is wearing a coat. It’s ten below up here.

You have to stop them.

Just keep it in your pants, big guy. I got this.

Christian Steele was the patriarch of this commune and in charge of the website GodNet. He was also a polygamist, with a gazillion nubile teenage wives and the little packages they kept producing for him, thirty-seven at last count, according to Chase. The seven elders, the sons of bitches who didn’t wear coats in this friggin’ cold, had their share of wives and packages. But combined they still didn’t equal Steele’s litter.

No wonder the guy is walking with a cane and stoops. He has to be worn out.

Ingram trudged north through the snow that was up to his chest. He was dressed all in white, including his balaclava. Steele and his degenerate elder council wouldn’t see him unless one of them got lucky. Fifty yards from the plowed main grounds of the compound, he stopped and crouched down so only his head was above the snow.

Steele’s GodNet was his golden goose in ways even the elders and certainly his flock were unaware of. Presented as a multidenominational website for worship, its claim was that it turned no one away. It judged no one. It welcomed everyone because that was God’s way. It was all and only about believing in and worshipping God as whatever God was to the true believer.

"What are they doing? Are they preparing to leave?"

Looks that way, but ain’t gonna happen. A swirl of wind blew snow into his eyes. Fuck this. I need to get somewhere warm. I grew up in Las Vegas, you know. It’s never cold there.

Then get it done. They can’t be allowed to leave.

God, Chase, you are such an A-hole. I heard you the first time, and I know my job. I’m very good at it.

You’re good at bragging, but I’m not seeing any results.

Hey, I once killed a gymnastics coach suspected of being a pedophile using just two toothpicks.

So you’ve told me, many times. Got any with their names on them?

I’ll call you back, motherfucker.

Donations to GodNet had come from far and wide and had, with the right overtures and then connections, become a lucrative money laundering operation for Steele. The stated goal of the GodNet Gospel Church to spread the word of a loving, tolerant, accepting God had morphed into a screening and recruiting center of the disaffected for enlistment into his very own network of terrorist cells. They would be indoctrinated and brainwashed to intensify whatever their specific hate was and then unleashed on an appropriate target when the time was right, according to Chase. Also according to Chase, most of Steele’s recruits required very little in the way of additional conditioning.

Three weeks ago, Chase gets tipped off of Steele’s PG connection by some nut ball in Mesilla, New Mexico named Beltran Nunez Gutierrez. The rest was just watching and waiting for a break in the weather that would allow him to get close enough to launch his attack.

The man in the F-350 got out and started talking to Steele. Like the other elders, he wasn’t elderly at all. They were all in their late twenties or early thirties—close to his age—and were reaping the sweet benefits of being his sycophants. Whatever the driver was saying this time, however, Steele didn’t like it.

GodNet’s head priest at first waved the driver off, but when the man reached out as if to offer support and assistance Steele raised his cane and poked the guy hard in the chest with it.

Two other elders quickly got between Steele and the driver. One checked the driver. The other all but genuflected to appease their cranky leader.

It was the most obvious display of obsequiousness Ingram had ever seen, surpassing even the efforts some of his targets had made to dissuade him from completing his contractual obligations.

Stupid limp-dick fuckers. He withdrew his LWRC REPR MKII with the 12.7 barrel from its case and then scoped each man’s position and range. Dammit." The wind was picking up.

He was close, but with the short barrel there was still a chance the 7.62mm NATO bullets wouldn’t fly straight enough in these swirls and gusts.

What the hell. Let’s do it old school.

He put the MKII back into its case, withdrew his Smith & Wesson M&P Shield, stood straight up and pushed through the chest-high snow to the plowed section of grounds around the main cabin. As he cleared the snow, he jogged for a few strides, watching to see if anyone had noticed him yet, before accelerating