State Of Evil

But now she needed him again.

And Bolan wondered why.

“HOW’S JACK?” he asked as lunch arrived.

“Retired,” Val said. “I guess you knew that, though. He’s doing corporate security and helping me with some of my projects.”

“Which are?”

“I teach a class at community college now and then. Do some counseling on the side. I’ve also established a mentoring program off campus.”

“That must keep you busy,” Bolan said.

“I’m thinking of letting it go.”

He began to ask if that was part of the reason she’d summoned him here, but it didn’t make sense and he kept to his agreement to eat first and ask questions later. The food was a cut above average but nothing to write home about. Bolan ate his meal, drank some coffee and went through the motions when the waitress brought their fortune cookies.

His read, “You will take a journey soon.”

There’s a surprise.

Bolan picked up the check, dismissing Val’s objections, then accepting her reluctant thanks. Reluctance seemed to be the order of the day, in fact. Val had a vaguely worried look about her as they left the Chinese restaurant.

“Are we still driving?” Bolan asked. “My rental’s parked around the corner.”

“Mine’s right here,” Val answered, moving toward a year-old minivan. “I’ll drive.”

Johnny kept pace on crutches, telling Bolan, “I can drive, but Val says no. She’s such a mom sometimes.”

“I heard that,” Val informed him. “If it was supposed to be an insult, you need new material.”

“No insult. I’m just saying—”

“That you’re handi-capable. No argument. Just humor me, all right?”

“Okay.”

Johnny maneuvered into the backseat, while Bolan sat up front with Val. He didn’t mind the shotgun seat. It let him watch one of the minivan’s three mirrors as Val pulled out from the curb. They had no tail, as far as he could see, but he kept watching as she drove.

Habits died hard.

Soldiers who let them slip died harder.

“Do we need to sweep the van for bugs, or can we talk now?” Bolan asked.

Val cut him with a sidelong glance. “I didn’t want to get the restaurant mixed up in this,” she said.

“Mixed up in what?”

“I told you that I do some mentoring, aside from classes.”

“Right.”

“I doubt that you’ve had time to keep up with the trend,” she said. “It sounds like simple tutoring, but there’s a lot more to it. Counseling, sometimes. Guidance toward long-term life decisions if appropriate.”

“Is there some course you take for that, like special training?” Bolan asked.

“I have my counseling credential, plus the teacher’s certificate,” she answered, “but it’s mostly personal experience and observation. Listening as much as talking, maybe more. I don’t come out and tell students they should be lawyers or mechanics. If they have an interest, we address it and discuss the options. If they have problems, we talk about those, too.”

“So, how’s it going?” Bolan asked, sincerely interested.

“I’ve lost one,” Val replied.

“Say what?”

“One of my students.”

“Val—”

“I don’t mean that he’s disappeared,” she hastened to explain. “For that, I would’ve gone to the police.”

“Okay.”

“I know exactly where he is. Well, not exactly, but within a few square miles. And what he’s doing. That’s the problem.”

“Maybe you should start from the beginning.”

“Right. Okay. But promise you won’t think I’m crazy.”

“That’s a safe bet going in,” said Bolan.

“All right, then. His name’s Patrick Quinn. He turned twenty-one last weekend, but I haven’t seen him for three months. It’s thirteen weeks on Friday, if you need to pin it down exactly.”

“Close enough,” he said, and waited for the rest of it.

“He comes from money. Anyway, a lot by how they measure it in Sheridan. His parents raise cattle. They have a few million.”

“Cattle?”

“Dollars,” Johnny answered from the backseat. “Four point five and change.”

“You hacked their bank account?” Bolan asked.

Johnny shook his head. “Bear did it for me.”

Meaning, Aaron Kurtzman, boss of the computer crew at Stony Man Farm, in Virginia.

“So, the Farm’s involved in this?”

“I asked a favor,” Johnny told him. “Strictly unofficial.”

Ah. A backdoor job. But why?

“Still listening,” he told them both.

“Pat’s father wanted him in law school, but he didn’t like the paper chase. Premed was too much science. What he really wanted was a job that let him work for the environment. Something like forestry, the conservation side. It made for stormy holidays at home, to say the least.”

“And he wound up with you,” Bolan said.

“Right. First in a class I taught last year, then counseling after he set his mind on dropping out completely.”

“I guess it didn’t take?”

“We made some headway, working on a new curriculum, before the Process came to town,” Val said.

“You don’t mean that satanic outfit from the sixties, tied in with the Manson family?”

“Wrong Process,” Val corrected him. “At least, I’m pretty sure. This one’s a sect run by an African—Nigerian, I think he is—named Ahmadou Gaborone.”

“Never heard of him,” Bolan admitted.

“He’s spent a lot of time flying below the radar,” Johnny said. “No flamboyant outbursts like Moon or Jim Jones, no public investigations. He’s been sued twice on fraud charges and won both cases.”

“Fraud?”

“The usual,” Val said. “Some youngster donates all of his or her worldly goods to the Process and the parents go ballistic, claiming undue influence, coercion, brainwashing, you name it. Gaborone’s been smart enough, so far, to only bilk legal adults, and they’ve appeared for his side when the cases went to court. All smiles and sunshine, couldn’t be more happy, the usual.”

Bolan shrugged. “Maybe they are,” he said, catching the look Val gave him. “Some folks don’t function well alone. They need a preacher or some other figure of authority directing them, telling them what to think. You see it in the major churches all the time. It’s what your basic televangelists rely on, when they beg for cash.”

“This one is different,” Val informed him. “Gaborone’s not just collecting money, cars, whatever. He’s collecting souls for Judgment Day.”

“You lost me,” Bolan said.

“Recruits—converts, whatever—don’t just pony up whatever’s in their bank accounts. They also leave ‘the world,’ as Gaborone describes it, and move on to follow him. He used to have three communes in the States, in Oregon, Wyoming and upstate New York, but all his people have been called to Africa. The Congo. He’s established a community they call Obike, also known as New Jerusalem.”

“You said the Process had a compound in Wyoming,” Bolan interrupted. “Am I right in guessing that your protégé was part of it?”

“You are,” Val granted. “Now he’s gone. I’m hoping you can bring him back while there’s still time.”

VAL HAD PREPARED for meeting Bolan, talked herself through the emotions that were bound to surface at first sight, considering their history. She’d braced herself, thought she was ready, but the storm of feelings loosed inside her when she saw him in the flesh still took her by surprise. She’d managed eating, barely, and was glad when they were in the minivan, moving, her story starting to unfold. But now, she had begun to wonder if her master plan was such a great idea.

“When you say, ‘bring him back,’” Bolan replied, “you mean…?”

“To us,” she said, too quickly. “Well, of course, I mean his family.”

“Suppose he doesn’t want to come?”

“It’s likely that he won’t, at first,” she said.

“So, it’s a kidnapping you have in mind?”

“If that’s what it takes.”

“I’m not a deprogrammer, Val. I don’t save people from themselves.”

“But Patrick—”

“By your own admission, he’s an adult. Twenty-one, in fact. I don’t know what kind of donation he’s given the Process, but—”

“A few thousand,” she said. Her turn to interrupt. “His parents froze Pat’s trust fund when they found out what was happening with Gaborone.”

“So, has he been declared incompetent to run his own affairs?” Bolan asked.

“Not specifically. His parents have a pending case, but Patrick’s unavailable to testify or be deposed. It’s all in limbo now, with a judicial freeze on his accounts until the court is satisfied he’s not acting under duress.”

“A standoff, basically.”

“So far,” Val said, keeping an eye on traffic as she spoke. “But money’s not my primary concern.”

“I gathered that,” Bolan replied. “So, what’s the problem, really? Do you think he’s been abused? Mistreated? Starved?”

“There’s been no evidence of anything like that,” Johnny remarked. “All members of the Process who’ve been interviewed so far seem happy where they are.”

“In that case,” Bolan said, “I don’t see—”

“Happy messages came out of Jonestown,” Val reminded him, “until the night they drank the poisoned fruit punch. Who knows what people are really thinking, what they’re really feeling in a cult?”

“Not me,” Bolan admitted. “Which explains why I don’t normally go in for kidnapping. Unless you’ve got some evidence—”

“You haven’t heard about the Rathbun party, then?”

Bolan considered it, then shook his head. “It doesn’t ring a bell.”

“Lee Rathbun is—or was—a congressman from Southern California. Orange County, if it matters. Some of his constituents had relatives who’d joined the Process and gone off to live in Africa with Gaborone. Last week, Rathbun and five others flew to Brazzaville and on to Obike. They should’ve been back on Monday, but word is that they’ve disappeared.”

“That’s it? Just gone?”

“It smells,” Johnny said from the backseat. “First, Gaborone and his people swear up and down Rathbun’s party made their charter flight on schedule. When the cops in Brazzaville start checking, they discover that the charter pilot’s killed himself under suspicious circumstances. Killed his sister, too—who, by coincidence, was also in the Process.”

“Why the sister?” Bolan asked.

“Police report they found a note and ‘other evidence’ suggesting incest,” Val said. “They think the sister tried to end it, or the brother couldn’t bear his shame. Theories are flexible, but none of them lead back to Gaborone.”

“Too much coincidence,” Johnny declared.

“It’s odd,” Bolan agreed. “I’ll give you that.”

“Just odd?” Val didn’t try to hide the irritation in her tone.

“How were the killings done?” Bolan asked.

“With a panga,” Val replied. “That’s a big—”

“Knife, I know. The pilot stabbed himself?”

“Not quite,” Johnny said. “Seems he put his panga on the kitchen counter, then bent down and ran his throat along the cutting edge until he got the job done. Back and forth. Nearly decapitated.”

“That’s what I call focus and determination.”

“That’s what I call murder,” Val corrected him.

“Assume you’re right, which I agree is probable. Who killed the pilot? Someone from the Process? Why?”

“To silence him,” Val said. “Because he knew that Rathbun’s people didn’t make their flight to Brazzaville on time.”

“How long between their scheduled liftoff and the murder?” Bolan asked.

“Twelve hours, give or take.”

“And how long is the flight from Brazzaville to Gaborone’s community?”

“About two hours,” Johnny said.

“Leaving ten hours for the pilot to contact police and spill the beans about his missing passengers. Why no contact with 911 or the equivalent?”

“We’re guessing the pilot was bribed, threatened, or both,” Val said. “Then Gaborone or someone close to him decided it was still too risky, so they silenced him and staged it in a way that would discredit anything the pilot might’ve said before he died.”

“Okay, it plays,” Bolan agreed. “But it’s a matter for police. There’s nothing to suggest your friend’s involvement with the murders, or that he’s in any kind of danger from—”

“That’s just the point,” Val said. “He is in danger.”

“Oh?”

“The Process is an apocalyptic sect. Gaborone is one of your basic hellfire, end-time preachers, with a twist.”

“Specifically?”

“Lately, he’s started saying that it may not be enough to wait for God to schedule Armageddon. When it’s time, he says, the Lord may need a helping hand to light the fuse.”

“From Africa?”

“It’s what he heard in ‘words of wisdom’ from on high,” Johnny explained.

“I never thought the Congo had much Armageddon potential,” Bolan said.

“Depends on how you mix up the ingredients, I guess,” said Johnny. “In the time since he’s been settled at Obike, Gaborone’s had several unlikely visitors. One party from the Russian mafiya included an ex-colonel with the KGB. Two others were Islamic militants, and there’s a warlord from Sudan whose dropped in twice.”

“You don’t think they were praying for redemption,” Bolan said.

“Not even close.”

“But if we rescue Patrick Quinn, and he agrees to talk, it may all be explained.”

“Maybe,” Johnny agreed.

“Or maybe not,” Bolan counseled. “Even if he turns and gives you everything he knows, the rank and file in cults don’t often know what’s going on behind the scenes with their gurus.”

“It’s still a chance,” Val said. “And Pat deserves his chance to live a normal life.”

“Can you define that for me?” Bolan asked her, smiling.

“You know what I mean.”

“I guess.”

She saw concession in his eyes, knew he was leaning toward agreement, but she couldn’t take a chance on losing him. No matter how it hurt them both, she gave a quick tug on the line, to set the hook.

“So, will you help us, Mack?”

CHAPTER THREE

Five days after he looked into those eyes and said he would help, Bolan was marching through the Congo jungle, guided toward his target by the handheld GPS device. He found it relatively easygoing but still had to watch his step, as much for normal dangers of the rain forest as for a human threat.

Contrary to the view held by most people who have never seen a jungle, great rain forests generally weren’t choked with thick, impenetrable undergrowth. Where giant trees existed, their canopy blotted out the sky and starved most smaller plants of the sunshine they needed to thrive. Ground level, although amply watered by incessant rain, was mostly colonized by ferns and fungus growths that thrived in shade, dwelling in permanent twilight beneath their looming neighbors.

Walking through the jungle, then, was no great challenge except for mud that clung to boots or made the hiker’s feet slide out from under him. Gnarled roots sometimes conspired to trip a passerby, and ancient trees sometimes collapsed when rot and insects undercut their bases, but the jungle’s greatest danger was from predators.

They came in every size and shape, as Bolan realized, from lethal insects and arachnids to leopards and huge crocodiles. He had the bugs covered, at least in theory, with his fatigues. An odorless insect repellent was bonded to the garment fabrics, guaranteed on paper to protect against flies, mosquitoes, ticks and other pests through twenty-five machine washings. As for reptiles and mammals, Bolan simply had to watch his step, check logs and stones before he sat, beware of dangling “vines” that might have fangs and keep his distance from the murky flow of any rivers where he could.

Simple.

Camping wasn’t a problem, since his drop zone was a mere three miles from Bolan’s target. The extraction point was farther west, about five miles, but he could make it well before sundown, if all went according to plan.

And that, as always, was the rub.

Plans had a way of turning fluid once they left the drawing board and found their way into the field. Experience had taught Bolan that almost anything could happen when time came to translate strategy to action. He’d never been struck by lighting, had never watched a meteorite hurtle into the midst of a firefight, but barring divine intervention Bolan thought he’d seen it all.

People were unpredictable in most cases, no matter how you analyzed and scoped them out before an operation started. Fear, anger, excitement—those and any other feeling he could name might motivate a human being to perform some feat of cowardice or daring that was wholly unpredictable. Vehicles failed and weapons jammed. A sudden wind caused smoke to drift and fires to rage out of control. Rain turned a battleground into a swamp and rivers overflowed their banks.

One thing Bolan had learned to count on was the unexpected, in whatever form it might assume.

The jungle climate that surrounded him decreed a range of possibilities. It wouldn’t snow, he realized, unless the planet shifted on its axis—in which case it likely wouldn’t matter what a Congo cult leader was planning, one way or another. He had no reason to suspect that a volcano would erupt and drown the cult compound in molten lava. Sandstorms were unlikely in the middle of a jungle.

He started to watch for traps and sentries when he was a mile east of Obike. Bolan wasn’t sure if Gaborone’s people foraged in the jungle, but he took no chances. If the guru truly thought the Last Days were upon him—or if that was just a scam, and he was double-dealing with some kind of slick black-market action on the side—it was a fair bet that he posted guards. More likely now, if Val and Johnny were correct in their suspicion that the cult had killed a U.S. congressman and members of his entourage.

If Rathbun and his crew weren’t dead, it posed another kind of problem for the Executioner. He’d come prepared to lift one person from the compound, not to rescue seven. Even if he managed to extract that many souls, the chopper rented by Grimaldi wouldn’t seat eight passengers. He couldn’t strap them to the landing struts, and who would Bolan ask to stay behind?

Forget it, Bolan thought. They’re dead by now.

If not…

Then he’d jump off that bridge when he got to it, hoping there was time to scan the water below for hungry crocodiles.

Meanwhile, he had a job to do and it was almost time.

The GPS system led Bolan to Obike with no problem. He could smell the compound’s cooking fires and its latrines before he saw the barracks and guard towers ranged in front of him. And there were sentries, yes indeed, well armed against potential enemies.

Bolan stood watching from the forest shadows, working out a plan to infiltrate the camp to find one man among seven hundred people known to occupy this drab, unlikely New Jerusalem.

After an hour, give or take, the Executioner knew what he had to do.

“GIVE ME THE PEOPLE’S mood, Nico. I need to know what they are thinking, what they’re feeling now.”

Mbarga had expected it. The master often hatched a plan, then put it into motion, only later thinking of the consequences to himself and those around him. That was genius, in a sense—fixation on a goal, a means of solving problems, without letting daily life intrude.

But that could also be a self-destructive kind of genius, doomed to early death.

“I move among them, Master,” he replied. “And as you know, my presence urges them to silence. They work harder and talk less when I am near. We have no listening devices in the camp, so I—”

“Give me your sense of how they’re feeling, Nico. I don’t ask you for confessions of betrayal.”

Nico swallowed hard. Telling the truth was dangerous with Gaborone, but if the master later caught him in a lie that had already blown up in their faces, it could be worse yet.

“Master,” he said at last, “some of the folk are worried. Naturally, they trust your judgment in all things, but still some fear there may be repercussions over the Americans. In these days, when the White House orders bombing raids, invades whole nations without evidence, they fear our actions may yet bring about the Final Days.”

“And they fear that?” Gaborone asked. He seemed confused.

“Some do. Yes, sir.”

“After I’ve told them time and time again they must fear nothing? That the Final Days will simply be our passport into Paradise? Why would they fear a moment’s suffering, compared to that eternal bliss?”

“They’re only human, Master,” Mbarga said. “They know pain and loss from personal experience, but none have shared your glimpse of Paradise.”

“They share through me!” Gaborone said, now seeming on the verge of anger. Mbarga knew he had to calm the guru swiftly or his own well-being might be jeopardized.

“They share in words, Master, but it is not the same. You’ve seen the wonders of the other side. Despite your eloquence, unrivaled in the world today, word pictures still fall short of all that you’ve experienced in Heaven.”

“Paradise,” Gaborone said, correcting him.

“Of course, sir. I apologize.”

“How can we calm the people, Nico?”

“They need time, Master. And I will watch them closely.”

“In the matter of our visitors,” Gaborone said, “are they content?”

The delegation had arrived that morning, ferried from the jungle landing strip by Mbarga and his men. No more Americans this time, but men with money in their pockets, anxious to impress the master and do business with him. It was Mbarga’s job to keep them happy in between negotiations, and he took the job seriously.

“Both are resting now, after their midday meal,” Mbarga said. “The South American requested a companion for his bed.”

“He is a pig,” Gaborone said, “but very wealthy.”

“I sent him one of the neophytes. The Irish girl. She’ll see you later, Master, to receive her penance.”

“Ah. A wise choice, Nico. And the other?”

“He asked nothing, Master. I believe he favors young men over girls. The way he looked at some of your parishioners…”

“Enough! There is a limit to my patience.” Gaborone frowned mightily, then added, “If he should insist, choose wisely. Use your own best judgment, Nico.”

“Always, Master.”

“When I speak to them again, tonight, we may—”

The shout came from outside, somewhere across the compound. Nico heard the single word, repeated loudly.

“Fire!”

“What’s that?” asked Gaborone, distractedly.

“A cry of ‘fire,’ Master. I’ll see what—”

“Go! Hurry!” As Nico left the master’s quarters, Gaborone called after him, “And don’t disturb our guests!”

Outside, Mbarga smelled the smoke before he saw it, dark plumes rising from one of the storage sheds. What did they keep in that one? Food. Mbarga wondered if the grain in burlap sacks had grown too hot somehow, inside the shed, or if there’d been some kind of accident to start the fire.

Jaw clenched, Mbarga planned what he would do if it turned out that someone had been smoking, in defiance of the master’s edict.

He joined the flow of people rushing toward the fire, anxious to smother it or just to be a part of the excitement. He was halfway there and shoving rudely past the others when another cry went up, this one arising from the far side of the camp.

“Fire!” someone shouted over there. “Another fire!”

IT WASN’T ANYTHING high tech, but Bolan often put his trust in fire. It ranked among humanity’s best friends and oldest enemies, holding the power to inspire or panic, after all those centuries. A warm fire on the hearth might lead to passion or a good night’s sleep. Flames racing through a household or a village uncontrolled were guaranteed to set off a stampede.

He’d taken time to choose his targets, noting structures here and there around the huddled village that would burn without immediately posing any threat to human life. Storehouses, toolsheds and the like were best. And he was lucky, in that Gaborone’s community hadn’t invested in aluminum or any kind of prefab structures that were fire resistant. They used simple wood, often unpainted, and there seemed to be no fire-retardant chemicals or insulation anywhere.