John Gilstrap - Threat warning

Brother Michael seemed to swell for a moment. Clearly, Ryan had said the wrong thing, but for the life of him, he didn’t know what it could have been.

“Where’s my mother?” Ryan asked.

“You will pay,” Brother Michael said in a tone so soft that Ryan could barely hear him. He leaned close, so that only inches separated their noses.

Ryan broke first, shifting his eyes to stare at a point on the floor.

“Look at me,” Brother Michael said. He placed his hand on the boy’s bad arm, right on the break, and he squeezed.

Ryan howled as a spike of pain rocketed not just through his arm, but somehow through his whole body.

“Brother Michael!” Sheriff Neen boomed.

He squeezed tighter. “With God as my witness, you will pay dearly.”

The sheriff stepped in front of Brother Michael, breaking his grip on Ryan’s arm, but not before the bones moved and the agony topped a new height.

“Stop this!” Neen boomed.

But Brother Michael’s eyes never left Ryan. It was as if he’d gone to a crazy place in his mind. He lunged for the boy again, but Neen restrained him.

“Get him out of here,” the sheriff commanded to the room.

“Where do we take him?”

“Somewhere other than here,” Neen barked. “This is out of control. Take him to the basement. No windows this time, and I want guards posted at the doors around the clock.”

A crowd moved closer.

“Don’t touch me,” Ryan said. “Please, God, don’t touch me. I’ll come along.” Oh so gently, he slipped his left forearm under his right to splint the break, and then he stood. Movement was excruciating, and he thought he might pass out. His legs got wobbly, and some of the color drained from his vision.

When a hand grabbed him under his good arm, the touch was surprisingly gentle. It was K-girl again. “We’ll just take it slow,” she said.

They left Stacy Phelps quivering in her slippers over a threat to throw her in jail for obstruction of justice if she breathed a word of what they’d discussed. They also dropped a hint that they were actively listening and watching everything she did. Given their inside knowledge of Ryan Nasbe’s phone call, she was primed to believe every word.

Back at the command post, Boxers fired up the audio-video satellite link and brought Venice into the loop on what they had learned. She, then, started tickling electrons in cyberspace to get them something to go on.

“No Army of God has any charity status within the IRS,” she reported. “But they do have status as a private school.”

“What does that mean?” Jonathan asked.

“Which of those words didn’t make sense to you?”

“No one likes a smart-ass, Ms. Alexander.”

“Says the pot to the kettle,” Venice teased. “Among other things, it means that there are children there. But when I dig a little deeper, I can’t find anyone ever graduating from it. And before you ask, that means that it’s an odd kind of school. Who’d want to enroll their kids in a school that has no record of advancement? And I mean no record. We don’t even know who the attendees are. Of course, we don’t know who the parents are, either.”

Gail raised her hand, as if this were a classroom. “Not necessarily as unusual as you might think,” she said. Until that moment, Jonathan had forgotten that Gail was involved with the Branch Davidian raid in Waco back in the day. She had street cred when it came to cults and nut-job militias. “They establish a school so that the government can’t use truancy as an excuse to shut them down. They don’t register their children for the record because they don’t have to. For a lot of these groups, the driving goal is to remain invisible all the time.”

“So why no graduation?” Boxers prompted.

Gail offered a one-shoulder shrug. “I can’t say for sure, but we investigated a Utah group that made it a point of faith never to leave the compound where they lived and bred. We’re talking two or three generations here that had never been beyond the fence.”

Boxers gaped. “You’re shitting me. Who would agree to that?”

Venice wondered, “Is it that much different from any exclusive and devout religious sect? If it’s not physically isolating, it can certainly be intellectually isolating.”

“This is irrelevant,” Jonathan said. “I doubt that they’ve got the Nasbes in the school with everyone else. What we need is to find out where they do have them, and then get them out.”

Venice said, “I took the liberty of asking Lee Burns to re-task SkysEye to give us a picture, but he warns that it’s going to take longer than normal. He happens to be swamped, but he’ll get us a link as soon as he can.”

Jonathan said, “Did you emphasize-”

“-that a life is in the balance, yes. I didn’t, however, mention the link to your friend Boomer. You didn’t give me permission, and I know that it’s sensitive.”

“Maybe you should,” Boxers said.

Jonathan shook his head. “No, if Lee could do it, he would. Add Boomer to the mix, and it just adds guilt.”

“So, what are our options?” Boxers asked, clearly disagreeing. “Slinging a little guilt seems like a way better option than knocking on doors. ‘Excuse me,’ ” he mocked, “ ‘but are you harboring any kidnapped families? We’d like ever so much to have them back.’ ”

“There’s always another way,” Jonathan said.

“What about Rollins?” Gail asked.

“Absolutely not,” Boxers said. “I’m not gonna be beholding to him for nothin’.”

“Seems like a way better option than knocking on doors,” she countered with a smirk. “What is the big problem between you all anyway?”

“No,” Jonathan said, effectively shutting down the issue. “We’re not discussing that. Not here. Not now.” He steadied himself with a big breath. “Ven, you’ve got Rollins’s card. Get him on the horn.”

Venice didn’t hesitate as she disappeared off screen to work a different phone.

Boxers seemed to expand with anger.

“Dig-”

“Mission first, Box,” he said. “Everything is second to the mission. The Nasbes need every resource we can muster. Period. Ven?”

“I’m patching him through now,” she said. Then, almost at a whisper: “It’s like he was waiting for us.” There was a click, then: “You’re on with Digger and the team, Colonel.”

“Is the line secure?” Rollins asked.

“Encrypted,” Venice said. “That’s why I placed the call. We’re scrambling it.”

Which meant, Jonathan knew, that anyone who had access to the right technology, and wanted the information badly enough would be able to listen to and understand anything they wanted to.

“This is your op, Grave,” the colonel said. “Tell me what you need.”

It took Jonathan all often minutes to do just that.

Christyne was in a place beyond fear, beyond terror or despair. She was terrified for herself, and she was terrified for Ryan. Clearly, he had been caught, and no one would tell her what had been done with him. No one would tell her anything about anything, in fact. After the smash and grab in her little cell of a room in the basement, she’d lost consciousness.

When she awoke, she was blind, although she was fairly certain it was from something wrapped around her eyes, rather than the actual loss of her sight. Her eyes felt glued down, and when she squinted, she could feel the stickiness on her cheeks, too. In her mind, she’d been bound with duct tape, but how could she know for sure?

Her arms had been bound, as well-behind her, and so tightly that her hands were numb. Her feet were likewise tied together, as were her knees. The net effect was a near-total paralysis that had quickly morphed into an ache and then a screaming pain in her shoulders, hips, neck, and knees. She believed that she was lying on her left side, but even that was not a certainty. Such was the disorientation that comes from having no visual reference to key off of.