William Tyree - The Fellowship

“I didn’t expect you to jump out that window,” Ellis said.

“What was I supposed to do, die there?”

He winced as he stepped on the brake. His ankle was badly twisted, if not broken.

“You need a doctor.”

He nodded. “Later. First we need to get you somewhere safe.”

Ellis tensed at the thought of being cooped up. At least she had Drucker’s manuscript and notes to keep her busy. She couldn’t remember the last time she had read a book, but this was different. They’d have to kill her to keep her from reading this one. Lord knew they were trying.

Mayflower Hotel

Washington D.C.

Ellis had often fantasized about staying in the historic Mayflower Hotel, but her fantasies had not been anything like this. Blackout shades had been applied to all the windows, and a security detail outside the 9th-floor room kept them confined. Overnight, Speers had grown increasingly concerned about the possibility that it had been Ellis, not Drucker, who had been the target of the attacks at the hotel bar and the condo. Ellis thought that theory was nonsense. Trouble just had a way of finding her.

At least the four-star accommodations were spacious, and the room came at no extra cost. The vacant suite was booked year-round for visiting dignitaries, and it was equipped with an exceptional workspace. Speers had felt it was best to keep Ellis’ work away from the prying eyes at McLean.

Ellis’ sister, Jenna, was curled up in an armchair, wearing a hotel robe and audio headphones that were as large as tennis balls. For Jenna, Speers’ decision to move the Ellis sisters to a secured location was a bona fide staycation. If she had been spooked by the security in the hallway, or by the fact that her sister wasn’t allowed to disclose the security threat that had forced them to come to the hotel, she wasn’t letting on. After a grueling shift taking complex coffee orders at Starbucks, Jenna had already ordered room service twice and used the suite’s Jacuzzi tub. This was as good as it got.

Ellis was significantly less content. Although she had hours of work ahead of her thanks to their raid on Drucker’s apartment, and her body was sore from their near-death escape, she was no less antsy for freedom. Understanding that Speers had placed her here for her own protection didn’t help. Every part of her body was screaming to get back on the trail.

Unable to relax long enough to concentrate, she surrendered to the hotel mini-bar. She found tiny containers of Jack Daniels and two brands of rum that she had never heard of.

“Whoa,” Jenna said as she watched her sister doing shots with the tiny bottles. She popped the enormous headphones away from her skull just enough to hear the sound of her own voice. “Can we order some room service?”

“Sure, Sis.”

Jenna wasted no time in popping open the menu. “Can we order prime rib?”

The government per diem for employee meals while traveling was $71 per day in D.C. The prime rib was going to take half their food budget in one fell swoop.

“Please?” Jenna pressed.

She was too tired to negotiate. And besides, it wasn’t every day she escaped death twice. “What the hell.”

As Jenna dialed room service, Haley sat cross-legged on one of the beds. She emptied the contents of the backpack they had removed from Drucker’s apartment and spread the manuscript, photographs and handwritten notes out before her.

Now she saw something that she hadn’t seen in Drucker’s condo: the infamous issue of Inside Washington magazine. The page was turned down to the article. A bold headline, ‘The Country Club Cult That Runs Washington,’ appeared across the top. Someone had drawn a red circle around the title and written SENSATIONALIST CRAP!!! The handwriting matched Drucker’s scarcely legible scrawl.

She really hadn’t bought Drucker’s claim that it had been published without his consent, but now she saw he was probably telling the truth. Why else would he have been so critical of his own writing?

She flipped through the handwritten legal pads. Some were filled with quotes supposedly attributed to Sebastian Wolf. She was surprised to see pages and pages of scripture. What was it Drucker had said? Wolf believes that religion gets in the way of following Jesus. For a guy who disapproved of religion, Wolf sure liked to quote the Bible.

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit — Matthew 28:19

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” — Acts 1:8 ESV

And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. — Ezekiel 36:26, LS XXIV

And in turn, you will return my heart from stone to flesh, so that all men may share in the wisdom of the LORD. And the whole world shall rejoice. — LS XXXI

Ellis recognized some of the scriptures from her studies at Our Lady of Lourdes, the Catholic school she had attended during junior high and high school, as well as her adult Bible study classes. Others weren’t familiar. The capitalized abbreviations at the ends of each passage typically referred to Bible versions. KJV stood for King James Version, ESV was English Standard Version, and so forth. She had never heard of LS. She could only guess that it referred to the Living Scriptures that Drucker had spoken of.

There were pages and pages of such odd scripture, many of which appeared to have been altered significantly from the versions she was familiar with. There was a strong emphasis on resurrection throughout all the passages, as well as many that seemed to validate the pursuit of science as a God-given directive.

Soon she came upon what looked like a series of hand-drawn org charts. Most were half-completed, a mixture of names and question marks. There were dozens of names, representing every ethnicity imaginable.

Written at the top of the chart on the first page was, S WOLF (SHEPHERD). Sebastian Wolf, she assumed, although the term “Shepherd” meant nothing to her. The level immediately below it had two spaces, both filled with question marks. The third and fourth tiers contained some names she recognized, among them N. GISH, and on the same level, R. PRESTON, among others.

She felt a rush of excitement. This was what she was looking for. A membership list. The fact that there were so many question marks, and no full names or titles, was unfortunate. But she had a written document that appeared to validate the victims’ induction into a secret society. Now maybe she could connect the dots.

A knock at the door broke Ellis’ focus. She paused a moment, orienting herself. There were supposed to be two guards outside. The knock came again, more insistent this time.

“Ms. Ellis?”

She got up from the bed and tightened the white robe around her waist.

“What is it?” Jenna said, pulling her headphones off. Her eyes got big as she watched her sister retrieve the handgun from the nightstand next to the bed.

Ellis shushed her sibling, then went to the door and looked through the peephole. It was Jack McClellan, a longtime secret service agent who had been assigned to lead the security team guarding the suite. Ellis figured Speers had put McClellan on the job because he was a familiar face, having worked with her to defend the capitol during the Ulysses Coup.

The rumor was that he had taken a bullet meant for George W. Bush that he would never get public credit for. Why didn’t he just retire? He had served five administrations. Surely he’d maxed out his pension by now.