Faith Defiled (Gray Spear Society Book 14) (11 page)

Hanley turned to Kelly. "Let's get down to business. We looked at your book."

"Really?" Kelly said eagerly. "I thought it was out of print."

"We got our hands on a used copy."

"Did you like it?"

"That's not really the point," Hanley said. "Do you know what's been going on in San Francisco?"

"No."

"It's a big story."

"I sleep in a cardboard box," Kelly said. "I eat breakfast out of dumpsters. I'm not really up on current events."

"Then let's save that topic until later. What inspired you to write the book? Do you remember a specific event?"

"I've always been fascinated by angels and mathematics. I knew there had to be a link. The breakthrough came when I came across a presentation by Jenkins. He showed how the letters of the first chapter of Genesis can be arranged in a pyramid. I'm talking about the original Hebrew version, of course. The outline forms a triangle of 18 letters, a number often associated with good fortune. If you turn all the letters into numbers and sum them according to the 'Gematria' process, you get 2701. What's particularly interesting is the frequency of 37 as a factor..."

Hanley held up his hands. "Stop. I don't need a lecture. Tell me about something that actually happened in your life. Where did it all start?"

Kelly squirmed in his chair and had a guilty expression.

"Was there a bright light?" Hanley said. "Did you see a glowing ball or hear a voice? Did the ideas just appear in your mind?"

"Well, I..." Kelly cleared his throat. "I don't want to talk about that. Did you know if you perform a quantitative analysis of the scriptural texts, you find a sevenfold structure? The symmetry is in the sense that there are sections which have identical lengths if counted in verses..."

"That's very interesting but not important right now. Tell me about the beginning. What happened to you?"

Kelly frowned and looked down. "After I eat."

Hanley decided not to press the issue in a public place.

The food eventually arrived. He bit into his sandwich expecting the worst, but it actually wasn't bad. The "bacon" didn't taste anything like real bacon, but the lettuce and tomatoes were exceptionally fresh.

Kelly received a plate with an impressive heap of enchiladas on it. They were stuffed with sunflower seed pate, but he gobbled them down just the same. He was certainly hungry. He drank two glasses of wine and two glasses of water.

Finally, the meal was done and paid for. The group left the restaurant. Kelly dragged his suitcase as they walked down the sidewalk in a random direction.

"Are you ready to talk now?" Hanley said.

Kelly had the same guilty, uncomfortable expression as before. "Did you know the number of books in the
Bible
with anonymous authors is 22 or 2 times 11? The number of books with specified authors is 44 or 4 times 11. Interesting coincidence, isn't it?"

Hanley sighed. "You're evading the question."

Katie took him aside and whispered, "Something is wrong with his mind. I don't think he's capable of answering honestly."

"You may be right. Hold on." He took out his phone, stepped away, and called Marina.

"Yes?" the commander said.

"I found Brian Kelly, ma'am, but he's not being helpful. He seems mentally ill. I could interrogate him, but using Olivia might be quicker and more effective."

She hesitated. "OK, but we have to be smart. Involving Olivia is risky. Make damn sure nobody follows you or is tracking Kelly. Meet us at the farm in Pescadero."

"Yes, ma'am. Bye." Hanley put away his phone and returned to Kelly. "Come with us. You're going for a ride."

"I am?" Kelly raised his eyebrows.

"Yeah. Somebody wants to buy all your little angels for five thousand bucks."

His eyes widened.

They quickly walked to the car. Hanley and Katie had come in a blue sedan with a few artfully placed dings and scratches. It looked cheap, but there was a big engine under the hood and Kevlar inserts in the doors.

Hanley opened the hood and searched through the gray duffle bags full of supplies. He eventually found a scanner designed to detect radio transmitters.

"Hold still," he said to Kelly.

Hanley waved a wand up and down Kelly's body.

"What are you doing?"

"Checking your aura for defects," Hanley said. "This thing fixes them."

"Oh. Thanks."

"No problem."

The scanner found nothing, so Hanley put it away. He gave Kelly a pat down for good measure even though touching his filthy clothes was revolting. Hanley only found a knife in Kelly's pocket.

"What's this for?"

"Carving," Kelly said. "You're acting very paranoid."

"The buyer is a wealthy man. He's careful about who he meets."

Everybody got in the car. Katie sat in back with Kelly and kept a close eye on him.

Hanley drove around in circles several times until he was sure nobody was tailing him. He used tricks such as making unexpected turns and reversing direction in blind locations. Finally, he headed towards Pescadero.

* * *

Marina drove up Pescadero Creek Road and turned left at an intersection that didn't have a stop sign in either direction. She continued along a side road barely wide enough for two cars to pass. Pescadero was a village on the west side of the Santa Cruz Mountains. It was close enough to the Pacific Ocean that salt spray made the ground highly saline. Nonetheless, a few small farms managed to survive, but she didn't envy the life of those farmers.

Marina drove towards one farm in particular. She had purchased it a couple of months ago, and it was isolated even by the standards of Pescadero. It only had rolling hills and fields of grass for neighbors. The Santa Cruz Mountains were dark masses in the distance. Clumps of stunted trees broke up the otherwise open landscape.

She turned into a private driveway, and her car thudded over bumps in the dirt. The weeds were getting out of control. She really needed to pay somebody to spruce up the farm a little. She wanted the place to look decrepit but not completely abandoned.

Marina parked in front of a small farmhouse made of hand-cut wooden planks. Real cedar shingles covered the roof. It looked nice even if it was a fire hazard. She got out of the car and took a deep breath of fresh air scented with pine.

Olivia climbed out of the back with a cute smile on her face. The girl was wearing a fuzzy pink outfit and plastic sandals with butterflies on her toes. A straw hat protected her pale skin from the sun. Colorful rubber bands held back her blonde hair.

"What is this place?"

"
El Toro
and his gang used to own this farm," Marina said. "It was where they kept traitors and enemies. I'll show you."

She led Olivia into the farmhouse. There was a little furniture inside, but it was old and in poor condition, not even worth stealing.

Olivia tried a light switch, but it didn't work. "Is there electricity?"

"Yes," Marina said, "but the cables are buried, and only certain rooms have power. It's supposed to look like nobody lives here."

They went into an empty bedroom. Her footsteps kicked up dust which made her nose itch. She felt around until she found the handle of a concealed trap door, and she pulled it up. She and Olivia climbed down a ladder to reach the room below.

It was a surveillance control room. Gleaming, modern equipment surrounded Marina, and she turned it on. Monitors lit up, showing her views from hidden cameras all over the farm. Some of the cameras operated in the thermal band, and the ghostly images looked surreal.

"Cool," Olivia said.

"
El Toro's
gang had to look out for cops and enemy gangs." Marina pointed to one monitor. "That's where they kept prisoners."

The view showed four cells with steel doors. She knew they were buried underneath the barn and were as secure as any real prison. The surrounding foundation had concrete walls two feet thick.

Marina made sure Olivia didn't see the interrogation room. She was too young to witness such horrors. The equipment was medieval, and many men had come to horrible ends in that place.

"What happened to the prisoners?" Olivia said. "Were they killed?"

"Eventually," Marina said.

"Where are the bodies?"

Marina grinned. "That's a very smart question. One of the nice things about a farm is there is plenty of room for unmarked graves. Some are in the woods and some are in the fields. The gang kept a backhoe in the barn to make the digging easier."

"Oh."

Marina checked all the cameras to make sure there were no intruders on the property. One couldn't be too cautious where Olivia's safety was concerned. God's enemies were still trying to kill her.

Eventually, a blue sedan drove into the farm and parked next to Marina's car. She saw Hanley and Katie's faces through the front windshield.

Marina's phone rang.

She put it to her ear. "Yes?"

"We're here, ma'am," Hanley said.

"I see that. Just stay in the car for ten minutes while I make sure nobody followed you."

Marina continued to cycle through cameras. She checked the perimeter of the farm and all the surrounding roads.
El Toro's
gang had invested in top-grade surveillance equipment. She could see every inch of the property.

When she was satisfied, she turned everything off and climbed out of the hole. Olivia followed Marina back through the empty house. Some of the floorboards creaked despite Marina's efforts to tread lightly.

She opened the front door and beckoned her
legionnaires
to come inside. While they did so, she looked around to reconfirm nobody else was in the area.

Hanley, Katie, and Brian Kelly entered the house. Kelly was in even rougher shape than Marina had expected. Holes in his clothes revealed soiled skin. His beard and mustache looked like they had been last trimmed with hedge clippers. He shuffled his feet like an old, crippled man.

Olivia held her nose. "Eww! He stinks!"

Marina agreed but was trying to be nice about it.

"You want to buy my figurines?" Kelly said.

"What?" Marina looked at Hanley.

He nodded. "Five thousand dollars."

She turned back to Kelly. "Sure. I'd love to buy them, but first, I have a few questions. And before that, this girl wants to touch your head."

"Why?" he said.

"Because you're a holy man, and she wants your blessing."

Kelly smiled. "OK. No problem."

He knelt down. Olivia had an expression of disgust and obviously didn't want to touch his filthy forehead, so Marina gave her a nudge. Finally, Olivia went forward.

As soon as she touched Kelly, he became visibly relaxed. Marina knew the girl was putting him into an extremely cooperative mood. He would answer any question truthfully and do anything she asked. Olivia was more effective than any torture device or truth serum. Marina knew only one person who was even better at making people tell the truth. That was Wesley, the Voice of Truth, the Beacon of Light, the Child of Destiny, and Olivia's future husband.

"Do you feel good?" Marina said.

"I feel wonderful," Kelly replied in a sleepy voice. He sat down abruptly on the dusty floor.

"Great. Let's start at the very beginning. Where did you get your inspiration for your book? Can you remember the exact moment? Describe what happened."

He furrowed his brow and kept quiet. With a frown, Olivia touched his forehead again. His head rolled on his neck, and he almost fell over.

"It was at night. August, 1998. I was driving a pickup truck. My wife was with me." His expression became sad.

"You were married?" Marina said.

"Just two months, but we were already talking about having kids. I was working as a county surveyor. She was a grade school teacher. So beautiful..."

She watched powerful emotions play across his face. She already knew this story would end in tragedy.

"Something bad was happening in the county those days," Kelly said. "People were going blind unexpectedly."

Marina cocked her head. "What do you mean?"

"The scientists and doctors couldn't explain it. People would suddenly lose their sight for no good reason. There were dozens of victims, and I don't think they ever healed."

This story was going in an unexpected direction, and her interest was piqued.

"I was driving," Kelly said, "and a truck coming the other way veered into my lane. I found out later the driver had lost his sight. I never had a chance. We crashed head-on at sixty miles an hour. I should've died."

"What happened?" Marina said.

"A white energy surrounded me. My pickup truck was smashed, but the energy shielded me. The metal actually deformed around my body. When it was over, I looked out the window. A beautiful woman was standing there. She had brown hair and blue eyes. She was dressed like a soldier, but her clothing was gray. I asked who she was, and I'll never forget what she told me."

"What was that?"

Kelly spoke in a somber tone. "'I am a warrior of God. I could only save one of you. Sorry.' I knew she had to be an angel with miraculous powers. I looked at my wife, and she had been crushed. She had died instantly, but I didn't have a scratch. When I looked back at the woman, she was already gone."

Marina didn't doubt he was telling the truth as he knew it, but she had a different interpretation of the events of that night.

"Why didn't you tell this story before?"

"I felt guilty. My wife..." He lowered his head.

She understood. Survivor guilt could drive a person crazy, and in this case, it had. He felt like he should've died with his wife.

"Where did this happen exactly?" Marina said.

"Fairfield."

She took out her phone and stepped into another room. She needed confirmation of her suspicions, and there was only one person to call, but Marina hesitated. Was this question important enough to bother the
legatus legionis
of North America? Marina judged it was and made the call.

"Marina?" Ethel said. "What's wrong? I hope this isn't more bad news. We've had too much already."