“Here we go again,” he muttered just as a voice bellowed over the loudspeaker.
“Hold your fire. This is Special Agent Richard Delaney with the FBI. I just want to talk to you. See if we can resolve this misunderstanding with words instead of bullets.”
Eric wanted to laugh. More bullshit. But laughter would require movement, and right now his body stayed paralyzed against the wall. The only movement was that of his trembling hands as he gripped the rifle tighter. He would place his bet on bullets. Not words. Not anymore.
David moved away from the radio. He walked toward the front window, his rifle limp at his side. What the hell was he doing? In the floodlight, Eric could see David’s face, and his peaceful expression sent a new wave of fear through Eric’s veins.
“Don’t let them take you alive,” Father’s voice screeched over the static. “You’re all heroes, brave warriors. You know what must be done now.”
David kept walking to the window as though he didn’t hear, couldn’t hear. Hypnotized by the blinding light, he stood there, his tall, lean figure wrapped in a halo, reminding Eric of pictures he had seen of saints in his catechism books.
“Give us a minute,” David yelled out to the agent. “Then we’ll come out, Mr. Delaney, and we’ll talk. But just to you. No one else.”
He saw the lie. Even before David pulled the plastic bag from his jacket pocket, Eric knew there would be no meeting, no words exchanged. The sight of the red-and-white capsules made him light-headed and dizzy. No, this couldn’t be happening. There had to be another way. He didn’t want to die. Not here. Not this way.
“Remember there is honor in death,” Father’s voice came smooth and clear, the static gone now, almost as if he were standing in the room with them. Almost as though he were answering Eric’s thoughts. “You are heroes, each and every one of you. Satan will not destroy you.”
The others lined up like sheep to the slaughter, each taking a death pill, reverently handling it like hosts at communion. No one objected. The looks on their faces were of relief, exhaustion and fear having driven them to this.
But Eric couldn’t move. The convulsions of panic had immobilized him. His knees were too weak to stand. He clutched his rifle, hanging on to it as though it were his final lifeline. David, zeroing in on Eric’s reluctance, brought the last capsule to him and held it out in the palm of his hand.
“It’s okay, Eric. Just swallow it. You won’t feel a thing.” David’s voice was as calm and expressionless as his face. His eyes were blank, the life already gone.
Eric just sat there, staring at the small capsule, unable to move. His clothes stuck to his body, drenched in sweat. Across the room the voice droned on over the two-way radio. “A better place awaits all of you. Don’t be afraid. You are all brave warriors who have made us proud. Your sacrifice will save hundreds.”
Eric took the capsule with shaking fingers and enough hesitation to make David stand over him. David popped his own pill into his mouth and swallowed hard. Then he waited for the others and for Eric to do the same. The calm was unraveling in their leader. Eric could see it in David’s pinched face, or was it the cyanide already eating its way out of his stomach lining?
“Do it!” David said through clenched teeth. Everyone obeyed, including Eric.
Satisfied, David returned to the window and called out, “We’re ready, Mr. Delaney. We’re ready to talk to you.” Then he raised his rifle to his shoulder, taking aim and waiting.
From the position of the rifle, Eric knew without seeing that it would be a perfect head shot, without risk of wasting any ammo on a bullet-proof vest. The agent would be dead before he hit the ground. Just as all of them would be dead before David’s rifle ran out of ammunition and the mass of Satan’s warriors crashed through the cabin’s doors.
Before the first shot, Eric lay down like the others around him, allowing for the cyanide to work its way through their empty stomachs and into their bloodstreams. It would take only a matter of minutes. Hopefully they would pass out before their respiratory systems shut down.
The gunfire started. Eric laid his cheek against the cold wooden floor, feeling the vibrations and shattered glass, listening to the screams of disbelief outside. And as the others closed their eyes and waited for death, Eric Pratt quietly spit out the red-and-white capsule he had carefully concealed inside his mouth. Unlike his little brother, Eric would not become a box of bones. Instead, he would take his chances with Satan.
CHAPTER 2
Washington, D.C.
Maggie O’Dell’s heels clicked on the cheap linoleum, announcing her arrival. But the brightly lit hallway-more a whitewashed, concrete tunnel than a hallway-appeared to be empty. There were no voices, no noises coming from behind the closed doors she passed. The security guard on the main floor had recognized her before she displayed her badge. He had waved her through and smiled when she said “Thanks, Joe,” not noticing that she had to glance at his name tag to do so.
She slowed to check her watch. Still another two hours before sunrise. Her boss, Assistant Director Kyle Cunningham, had gotten her out of bed with his phone call. Nothing unusual about that. As an FBI agent she was used to phones ringing in the middle of the night. And there was nothing unusual about the fact that he hadn’t awakened her with his call. All he had interrupted was her routine tossing and turning. She’d been awakened once again by nightmares. There were enough bloodied images, enough gut-wrenching experiences in her memory bank to haunt her subconscious for years. Just the thought clenched her teeth, and only now did she realize she had developed a walk that included hands fisted at her sides. She shook the fists open, flexing her fingers as if scolding them for betraying her.
What had been unusual about Cunningham’s phone call was his strained and distressed voice. Just one of the reasons for Maggie’s tension. The man defined the term cool and collected. She had worked with him for almost nine years, and couldn’t remember ever hearing his voice being anything other than level, calm, clipped and to the point. Even when he had reprimanded her. However, this morning Maggie could swear she had heard a quiver, a twinge of emotion too close to the surface, obstructing his throat. It was enough to unnerve her. If Cunningham was upset about this case, then it had to be bad. Really bad.
He had filled her in on the few details he knew, still too early for specifics. There had been a standoff between the ATF and FBI and a group of men holed up in a cabin somewhere in Massachusetts on the Neponset River. Three agents had been wounded, one fatally. Five suspects in the cabin were dead. One lone survivor had been taken into federal custody and sent to Boston. Intelligence had not nailed down, yet, who the young men were, what group they belonged to or why they had stockpiled an arsenal of weapons, fired on agents and then taken their own lives.
While dozens of agents and Justice Department officials combed the woods and the cabin for answers to those questions, Cunningham had been asked to start a criminal analysis of the suspects. He had sent Maggie’s partner, Special Agent R.J. Tully, to the scene and Maggie-because of her forensics and premed background-had been sent here into the city morgue where the dead-five young men and one agent-were waiting to tell their tale.
As she came to the open door at the end of the hall, she could see them. The black body bags lined up on steel tables one after another, looking like a macabre art exhibit. It almost looked too strange to be real, but then, wasn’t that the way so many recent events in her life had been? Some days it was difficult to distinguish what was real and what was simply one of those routine nightmares.