“Why is all this happening?” Vince said, more to himself than to Frank.
“I have my suspicions, trust me.”
“No, I mean…” Vince turned in his seat so he was facing Frank. “Why me? Why is all this shit crumbling down around me? Even considering the possibility my mother might have belonged to such a group and that they exist even now and are involved in everything you claim they are, why would they be after me? Why would they want to kill me? I have a fairly good life, I have a career I love, I have friends that I love and care for and who care for me. I have a good life. I had nothing to do with what my mother did in the sixties. I’m not in the least bit interested in the occult. So why should I care if my mother—our parents—were involved in a satanic cult? Why would a bunch of religious nuts want to kill me?”
Frank was silent for a moment. He regarded Vince sternly, his dark eyes resting heavily on him. “I could just go on and say that I came here to help you. If you remember, I told you that you were in danger. That part is certainly true as evidenced by what happened to you and Tracy.”
“But why am I in danger?” Vince asked. “Why would they want me dead? I’ve never done anything to them! And why did you go through all this trouble to find me? What business is it of yours?”
“It’s my business just as it is yours. You see, Vince, my reasons for tracking you down are not entirely for your concerns. I have my own self-interest at heart as well. I came here today in the hopes of helping both of us out because this is my problem, too.”
“How so?”
Frank reached in the rear of the Saturn and pulled out a black leather satchel of the sort carried by business executives. He rifled through it and pulled out a sheaf of papers. He handed them to Vince, who took them curiously and began to glance through them. “These are transcriptions of Internet communications,” Frank explained. “They were copied and pasted into an e-mail I got two months ago. I’ve been unable to track the sender of the e-mail. See there?” he pointed to a portion of the communication. “Where it refers to ‘plateau’?”
Vince saw it and nodded. “Yeah.”
“Read it.”
Vince read it. It only took a few lines to realize the implications of the communiqué. He looked at Frank, astonished. “There’s a reference here from this one guy about snuffing out ‘plateau’.”
“Exactly.”
“Plateau is you?”
Frank nodded. He looked grim. “That’s my screen name.”
“How did they get your screen name?”
“I don’t know,” Frank answered softly. “I’ve never tapped into any kind of occult bulletin board before in my life. All of my research on this was done at libraries and bookstores. My electronic correspondence is largely confined to people in publishing. I’ve tried to trace who I know in publishing who could know people that belong to The Children of the Night, but I’ve been unable to come up with anything. Everything runs into a dead end. I started thinking maybe none of this was real, that I was chasing something that doesn’t exist.” He held up the sheaf of papers. “But this group exists. They’re real. Whether there really is a literal devil is irrelevant in this case. These people believe there is a devil, much like Pat Robertson and Oral Roberts believe there is a literal God, and they will do anything to advance their agenda.” He paused for a moment, staring down at the floor of the Saturn.
“What’s their agenda?”
Frank appeared to think about this. “All I know is they seem to be working on something really big. They’re devil worshippers all the way; they not only hold allegiance to the Christian devil, they honor his father in even higher regard. The ancient Sumerian god Hanbi.”
“That name was written on the wall in my mother’s bedroom,” Vince said.
Frank looked at him. “You sure?”
Vince nodded. “Yeah.”
Frank turned away. Vince thought he muttered, “They’re moving fast,” but he wasn’t sure. He quickly regained his composure. “Anyway… they know who I am now. To conduct the kind of background check that revealed my e-mail address would require what O.J. Simpson paid for his defense team.”
“But somebody found out anyway?”
“Yes,” Frank answered, looking more grim. “The day I got that transcript I was away from the house. My wife was at work, and the kids were at her mother’s. Somebody broke into our place and ransacked it. Tore it apart. Nothing was taken, but they destroyed my computer and my office. They started a small fire there—that’s how we found out about it. A neighbor saw smoke pouring out of my office window and called the fire department and managed to track my wife down, who called me out of the meeting I was at.” He paused, as if struggling with that tragedy. “My office was a shambles. I lost everything except a backup tape that I keep in a safe deposit box, and my laptop computer, which I had with me. All the information about the cult, with the exception of the stuff I managed to save on tape, was destroyed.”
He regarded Vince with those deep brown eyes again. “And here I am.”
Chapter Ten
VINCE WALTERS DIDN’T get back to the office until 1:30 that afternoon. When he returned he went immediately to his office, shut his computer down, and checked his messages. There was a call from detective Staley. Vince returned the call, on nervous edge as he was put through to the detective.
“So what’s the news?” he asked detective Staley.
“We don’t think he’s the guy,” Detective Staley said, clearly irritated at this turn-of-event. “Insufficient evidence. The guy has a clear alibi, but we’re holding him on weapons charges.”
“What turned you on to him anyway and who is he?”
“He was fingered by a witness at the airport,” Detective Staley said. “I won’t name the witness, but he related that the guy resembled somebody he knew that had been making terrorist threats at his place of employment. We followed up on it and visited the suspect at his home in Huntington Beach. Turns out the guy is a neo-Nazi and had a pretty good arsenal, most of it illegal firearms. We’re holding him on that charge now without bail until we can build a case against him. But I don’t think he’s the guy that shot at you.”
“Why’s that?”
“This guy claims he was attending a White-Power rally in San Diego,” Detective Staley said, his voice tinged with disgust. “We checked that angle out and found video-tape that supports his alibi. He certainly appears to have been elsewhere.”
“So what happens now?”
“That’s up to you. Have you been to your home yet?”
“I’m planning on going now.”
“I’d be careful. I can’t spare any more resources, so I suggest you lay low and alter your driving routes and habits. We’re doing all we can on this end.”
“Thanks.” Vince hung up. He wanted to call Tracy right away and he glanced at the digital clock on his desk. He had to get going if he wanted to meet Frank at the house. He would call Tracy later.
He quickly packed up his briefcase and headed out. He told his secretary he wasn’t feeling well and was going home. Then he left for the day.
Frank met him at his house. He’d given Frank directions before being dropped off at the mall to pick up his car. Frank told him that he still wasn’t sure if the group was on to him; if they’d wanted him dead, they would have made it look like an accident, not a full-blown assassination attempt. He was going to call Mike from his cell phone and give him the latest news, then he would meet him at Vince’s home. Whoever it was that tried to have him and Tracy killed was probably lying low after Sunday’s aborted attempt. While Vince was fairly confident The Children of the Night hadn’t been making inquiries into him, Frank’s story spooked him. Luckily most of the staff was out at late lunches or still in meetings and he was able to escape the office relatively undetected. If anybody inquired as to his whereabouts, Glenda would simply tell them he’d gone home sick. No problem.