Mystery: Satan's Road - Suspense Thriller Mystery (Mystery, Suspense, Thriller, Suspense Crime Thriller) (3 page)

CHAPTER FOUR

Gideon was often reminded of how easy it used to be.

In the days before the media grew so strong, before the prime time TV trials, before there were five hundred channels hungry for a million new eyeballs, it used to be as easy as taking nose candy from a dead crack addict.

The nineties, now that was a time. You could control a politician like bobbing a frog on a string. Just by knowing that he was a closet queer and threatening his exposure, you owned his puny life. Today, they might just as easily out
themselves
before you even had a chance to make a profit from it. He'd seen it. And then gain votes doing it.
What the hell was that all about?
Gideon thought.

Second best was always a woman-abuser. But not the boozy battle hounds who brag about it over a couple of beers. Gideon preferred the slick executive types, or the local preacher with something to protect. They were better. You could cash those guys out faster than a five-dollar bill. And a wife-beater like that, threatened with being thrown out into the streets, his mug in the tabloids, his career blasted off the face of the earth . . . those were the kinds of people you could work with.

Then along came OJ, and now you couldn't deny there was a certain glamorous patina to the whole sordid process of spousal abuse. It was enough to make him sick.

People were sheep. That was clear. A good reason for wanting to control their instincts. But what frightened them had changed; you had to take constant stock, keep polishing the tools, as his father used to say. You had to be constantly on the lookout for their psychological wounds.

Gideon had soldiers everywhere moving his plans forward. Some would call what they did bribery, extortion and murder. But it was all for the cause. Wiping the board clean took sacrifice. Building one church took tens of millions of dollars, and it had to come from somewhere. Politicians had to be bought or controlled. The rich, the people who really controlled the world, had to be frightened and subjugated.

The churches’ enemies were surprisingly few and far between – considering the scale of Gideon’s operation over the past five years. For example, this collection of professors who had seen a glimpse of his plans, were so easy to exterminate. And very little interest so far from the local constabulary. If that became a nuisance, Gideon had hundreds of friends in police forces all across the U.S. eager to lend a hand. And the feds, who always seemed to be lingering about like mindless gnats, had even less power. Their major weapon, the courts, were hopelessly bogged down. And that made them a hollow threat.

Gideon sat in the front room of the building his followers called 'the farmhouse'. It was a sprawling affair, over ten thousand square feet, not counting all the associated buildings; the guest houses, cabins, sheds, machine shop, shooting range, community hall, aircraft hanger and bunkers. The land the farmhouse sat on in Virginia included two thousand acres of grassland, forest and a small man-made lake, an area the locals called
Parkhurst
, after the name given the land by its original owner in the early 1900's.

Parkhurst used to be a cattle ranch, but the cattle were long gone. Gideon's followers were strict vegetarians, by his decree, and he knew some of them didn't like it – knew it didn't really fit in with the rest of his philosophy, but he didn't give a shit. It gave his leadership an edge.

Parents made rules, and you followed them or something nasty happened.

That's how it worked when he was a kid. When he burned down the family garage, his father held his left hand under the flame of an acetylene torch for fifteen seconds. One second for every thousand it cost to rebuild. He never forgot that lesson, which is surprising considering the depth and the volume of the lessons he learned at the hands of his parents until he was eighteen.

Gideon was born in a commune in Ohio. It was the only life he knew – sucking at a dozen tits until he was the age of three, a blur of parental figures from then on; his real father's image as clear as a dark bell. Did he have sisters or brothers? He never knew and hardly cared.

He rocked in the expensive hand-made shaker chair, the wood creaking against the glossy shine of the inlaid flooring. The room looked exactly the way a room should look in the 1850's, only cleaner, and made with far more precision than was possible a hundred years ago. After all, Gideon was a pristine man. He never wore a watch. Never wore a garment with a visible tag. Never let synthetics touch his body. He wore only natural fibers; wool from the sheep they tended. He never spoke to non-whites or Jews or Jew-lovers; never allowed women to look him in the eyes unless he wanted them to.

Gideon only touched modern machines, which were in his opinion, decidedly evil, when the evil was completely necessary. But this was seldom. He had dozens of servants to do the work for him. After all, a computer was nothing more than an axe or a saw built by the hands of Lucifer. And the Internet, the road that Satan traveled on to carry out his mission against God.

Upstairs, sat the technology. Tucked away from the period serenity of the rest of the farmhouse. As American as possible too, although Gideon had to admit there were components inside that may have been touched by Asian hands. He tried not to dwell on that sad reality. It was a sophisticated network of high-speed computers hooked into every conceivable international database. One, to manage the stock portfolios owned by the Parkhurst foundation. Two, to keep a close eye on his partners. Three, for recruitment purposes. Four, to manage the cyber war that was coming.

Gideon, by any definition, was the richest person on planet Earth. To be precise, the Parkhurst Foundation, which he directed, owned companies, which when combined, held assets exceeding the wealth of any other single individual on the planet. But Forbes would never print his name in a feature article or a trendy list, because no one would ever be able to connect the twelve hundred corporations together and live. In  fact they had no link whatsoever except in Gideon's keen mind. He needed the computer to keep track of the hundreds of brokers buying and selling for Parkhurst through foundations and numbered companies and holding corporations all over the globe, not to give him a running total. He knew that himself. Today, ninety-five billion dollars.

How did he become so rich? By paying for information – special information. One leaked tidbit about the roving eye of a member of a congressional committee could be worth millions. And millions paid for more information. Gideon believed in one clear rule to human behavior – if you know something evil about someone, you can make them do anything. And there was no shortage of evil in the world. Pay for it with cash or influence or their life. It didn't matter.

Gideon held the infested remnants of a person's personal degradation in his hands the way a jeweler handles a fine gem.

Now the fruit of his labors (that sounded so quaint and he loved formality) was at hand. All the decades of work were behind him now. There was a special moment for him last week when one of his wives came to him quietly, her head down. "Gideon? The foot soldiers are here." Gideon had made no move to recognize her; he just continued to rock slowly, his eyes on the rough-hewn log walls. He had waited until she left. He had no idea exactly who she was.

Of the five hundred women that lived at Parkhurst, all but a dozen were his wives. He knew the names of only a few, the older ones, the ones he refused to touch anymore. Their work was done anyway. When she left, he got up and put his hands up against the varnished fir. Two hundred years this home had stood here. It would soon serve its purpose. Everything would be made clean then. The country would be white again, and the Zionist hordes of Satan, the real root of America's collapse, driven into the sea or worse. The rightful church would rule the land again the way the original fathers intended. And he would rip the Internet out of the fabric of America for good – the way one pulls a noxious weed out of a bountiful garden.  The thought had made him smile.

When he walked out to the porch, Tommy was waiting. Tommy was his most-trusted soldier; the son he never had. And Tommy reported directly to him, not to any of the dozens of captains Gideon oversaw.

It was early morning; the eastern sky was blood red. Behind him stood a dozen other young men, their heads freshly shaved, wearing camouflage gear. This style wasn't one of Gideon's rules; they just liked it that way.

"Gideon,” called out Tommy, his face set hard.

The rule was everyone called him Gideon. Just Gideon. Nothing else ever.

And you never asked something inane like
how are you today
or
good morning
. Those were time wasters. You could be punished for these improprieties. Serious punishment. It was just Gideon . . . and then you waited. The leader took his time, rubbed the rough wool of his hand-made shirt over his washboard stomach.

Tommy wondered about those abs. He'd never seen Gideon exercising, even working hard. Was it all the sex? He was notorious for his sexual appetite. That was why he needed hundreds of wives.
Did one hundred wives give you a flat stomach and arms like tension posts?
Tommy would be willing to test the theory although he had to admit he was having a hard time just keeping Angela happy? Gideon had given her to him, a concept that even made Tommy wrinkle his brow. He felt raw around her, like a baby kid scrubbed so hard it turned his ears pink. He was as clumsy with a female as he was with an unmade necktie, his fingers vibrating the way a young deer's legs go when the first round of bullet metal tears through their hind quarters. Shaky and losing blood was how he felt around this Angela. She was a just a spy, he was certain. Keeping an eye on him for Gideon. She used to be one of Gideon’s women. This was supposed to be an honor, but he felt like puking every time she got in bed with him. Like he used to feel before a big rumble. Or before taking over an Afghani town infested with fanatical Muslim rebels.

Gideon turned to him in his own sweet time. "Your boots are filthy and I can smell yesterday's beer on your breath. All of you stink. What are you? Soldiers or hackers?" Gideon's questions were traps. Tommy had learned to cut to the chase. It worked most of the time.

"Hackers!" replied Tommy.

Gideon laughed and put one arm around him, making the younger man feel as uncomfortable as if he was taking a leak and someone was standing over his shoulder. "What am I going to do with my poor Cracker? I feel your fear, boy. It sustains me." He laughed again, bending his head back. Gideon was a great laugher. When people were serious and shaking in their sandals, he was chuckling like a clown. If you laughed, he got stern fast. And no one wanted to see stern.

"Well? You need an invitation?"

"Judgment Day has moved to stage three," announced Tommy.

"Ahhhhh, yes. I like the sound of that. Stage Three. That means our little test with the passenger jet was a success? No blowback?”

"The black box was corrupted by the virus we planted in the control system. They have no idea what happened. And never will."

“Good. And the employee who planted the modules? Pinkerton, bless his soul?”

“Died of alcohol poisoning the night before in the penthouse suite at the Aria Hotel. Issued by hypodermic.”

“Poetic justice,” murmured Gideon.

“Yes, sir” answered Tommy, a little puzzled by the term.
When was justice like a poem?

"Damn, Tommy. How many times do I have to tell you?
Gideon
. I'm not a sir. I am only Gideon." He laughed again. "And you say you’re not a soldier. You've been a soldier so long you probably couldn't shit if you weren't in a latrine." Tommy just nodded. He took his arm away and gave the boy a light tap across the top of his head. Then he stopped and rubbed the smooth hard crispy surface of Tommy's skull, watching the boy shrink under his hand.

"Permission to advance to the next level," shouted Tommy, trying to sound brave and confident. Gideon winced. He slapped him once hard on the crown of his head and then stepped back to level his gaze on the rest of this troop of technophiles. Most of them came here to the compound lost and homeless and unloved. He had molded them into single-minded mercenaries and zealots. A small army of hackers with a minimum of fifty hours on the rifle range. Polishing his tools was what he did best.

"Tommy. You have done very well. As a reward, I have another special assignment for you. Your team can continue their programming for our special day coming up, this
J-Day
of yours. Your other skills will come in handy now though. I have another critical trip for you to make for me. As Abaddon. I think it will interest you. Something you would call ‘wet’ work. Something you will enjoy.”

CHAPTER FIVE

The church took Holly’s breath away.

From the outside, the
Soldiers of Patmos Center
in London was a huge nondescript grey box surrounded by acres of pavement. Inside, a vast vaulted ceiling covered in illuminated stars and swirling galaxies greeted her. Pews were replaced by row after row of individual red fabric seating, plush and adjustable, better than the chairs found in most big-screen theatres. The floor slanted down to a gigantic screen fronted by a Plexiglas podium that she heard actually slipped away into the floor when the video began.

A formally dressed usher took Holly’s arm and guided her to her seat. She sat down, surprised by the quality of the seating.
Spared no expense
was the term that came to mind. She noticed that she was breathing in air that she swore was perfumed; pine trees and a field of flowers came to mind. The room was also filled with the sounds of nature, leaves rustling in the wind, water bubbling over a stream bed. And she swore she could hear the voices of children laughing somewhere.
Was it her imagination?
It almost felt subliminal.

Each seat back featured a display panel that currently listed the morning’s agenda. A hymn with a name she had never heard before. A prayer from Psalms. Then an introduction from the local preacher. And finally, Gideon himself on the thirty foot high curved screen, broadcast from his rustic home somewhere in the American mid-west. She was tempted to check under her seat for a pair of 3D glasses.

Her friends had been over-the-top about the new church. And if you knew her friends, you would be surprised too. Not the worshipping type, unless you were talking Lady Gaga. They gushed about the limo service to the church. Free cappuccinos. The movie stars and famous business people they sat next to. But what impressed them most was the mesmerizing and handsome Gideon Lean, who headed the church and spoke every Sunday at every one of the over 150 churches he had built in the past five years. By satellite, of course. In HD and surround sound.

So she stood up and followed the words on the screen when the hymn began, something written recently by a famous pop singer from Ireland. Then she listened to a well know American actor read the chosen scripture. When that was done, a very energetic young man bounced across the huge stage and thanked everyone for taking time out of their day to hear the churches important message. Then he moved down the aisles, like a master of ceremonies, his voice booming into the huge building, shaking hands with people, asked their names and where they came from and generally created a sense of growing excitement.

Then the lights dimmed and music rose and the tanned face of Gideon Lean, founder of the Soldiers of Patmos movement, filled the giant screen.

“Good morning my friends.”

The congregation responded as one, the MC professionally working the crowd.

“This is an important day for all of you, because the end is truly near. No, don’t be sad. This is a time of celebration. For here is what the world looks like today.” What followed was a collage of video images, acts of war, rioting in the streets, police footage of people being savagely beaten, monks setting themselves on fire, dead fish floating in polluted rivers, ancient trees being bulldozed, children starving. Gideon continued to narrate, his deep voice seeming to shake the rafters, even though Holly suspected that might have been an effect created to build the drama.

“None of this was ever God’s plan. Humans have only themselves to blame for what we have done to the earth. This is completely and utterly our fault, but God left a way out, a secret passage if you will. A get out of jail free card. If you believe in what needs to be done, you can be part of the solution. And you can live in a world like this.”

The video then dissolved into images of fields of wheat glowing in the sunshine, a river as clear as glass and full of fish, people working together to build a log cabin, everyone looking healthy and strong. Everyone very white, she noticed.

“God wants us to rebuild the world and wipe the sin clean. And when I say sin I’m not talking about complicated rules. What to eat? When to pray? Who to love? I’m talking about the things everyone in this chamber sees and knows every day. A sin is a starving baby. A sin is a beaten wife. A sin is a lake full of oil and dying birds. Air you choke on. Internet pornography. Uncontrolled greed that turns your stomach. Hate and bigotry and endless pain. Are these sins?”

The roar that came up from the crowd caused goose bumps to march across Holly’s neck.

“YES” reverberated across the hall.

“You’re right. You don’t need a preacher to tell you what you already know. You know what sin is. Right?”

“YES”

You know what a sin against your family is?”

“YES”

“How about a sin against nature. Do you recognize that when you see it?”

“YES”

“A sin against people who just want to live their lives in peace?”

“YES”

“A sin against animals? Our friends and partners?”

“YES”

“So what do you do then? What do you do to make a change? It’s very simple. You listen. Two thousand years ago a prediction was made. Your greatest saint, your greatest ally was John of Patmos. He saw what no one else saw. And he wrote it down for you to read. In
Revelations
.

People in other churches say the words are too hard to understand. That the images are too difficult to decipher. I’m going to show them to you now. And you will see that they are quite plain. When you understand the future, everything comes clear. All the nonsense you have heard before will fall away. Because you knew all along it was nonsense, but you had nothing else to believe in.

Revelations
talks about seven thunders and seven seals. If you were John of Patmos, a man of the first Century, how would you write about a future that no one then understood? How would you describe a cell phone? Or a CT scan. You couldn’t in normal words.

John was shown a vision of a new world, covered in a network of evil ideas and sin. The world was wrapped in this dark, disgusting lacework. A digital nervous system strangling humanity. Growing tighter every day. And at the center of this web of lies were nodes or beginnings. Seven of them. So John described them as thunders. Because they were horrible and powerful and crushing. Seven thunders. Seven servers. The monstrous seven servers that the global Internet is built on. Later you can Google this if you want. It’s common knowledge. You can use the same evil network that is killing our world to find a truth.

The Internet is Satan’s Road. A highway to Hell. It’s all in the writings of John – the most misunderstood genius of all human history.” Then Gideon paused and got up from his rocking chair and strode over to wall covered in period paintings.

“This is the work of Hermonius Bosch. A painter from the 17th Century. Historians thought he was describing Hell. But if you look closely, he was painting the real world. The violence. The ugliness. The pain.

Next Monday at Noon all that will end.” He knocked the painting from the wall and turned back to the camera.

“Now I know you are skeptical. You may have heard this before. And I’m not asking you to give up your homes or your wealth to the church. This church has billions. God has insured our survival, and we are invincible.”

I’m also not asking you to hide in your basement at the appointed hour. I just want you to know that this time the prediction is correct. This is the true church. In a week, the world as we know it, will end.

As predicted, the first thing you will witness, is planes falling from the sky. It’s a frightening image. You have a choice though. Don’t fly. Don’t let your friends or loved ones fly. Do whatever you need to do. Because I guarantee you that planes will plummet to the earth as
Revelations
predicted. And when you finally see that and believe, I ask only one thing. That you gather here. Come home. We will welcome you, we will feed you, and we will console you. And we will plan the next steps for a new world.

You will also see the financial system collapse. Stocks will vanish into thin air. Banks will crumble to dust. You will need gold. Go and buy gold on Monday and put it in a safe place. John is advising that you sell your stocks and your mutual funds. Or don’t. Because money will have no value come next weekend anyway. All we ask is when that happens, don’t despair. Join us here. You will be welcomed.

Power systems will go black. Nuclear plants may go critical. For those of you without guns, it may be time to acquire them. The world will be a troubling place for a while as we go through the change.

People will try to rob you. Or harm your family and your children. You will need guns to protect yourself and your tribe. We will become the true Soldiers of Patmos. We will fight the good fight for a new world.”

The next video presentation Holly watched on the giant screen was quite famous and had been viewed millions of times on YouTube. Gideon was re-visioning the world again. Clean cities. Smiling inhabitants. Forests re-planted. A world without technology. The video ended with a close-up of Gideon’s piercing blue eyes, a tear running down his face.

“I’ll see you all on the other side. God bless all of you.”

When the lights came up, Holly noticed that many of the congregation had smiles on their faces.
What did they hear or see that made them happy, she wondered?
But she could also see a few, standing out from the rest, who looked fearful, even shell-shocked. As they streamed out to the massive lobby, the same uniformed men and women who guided them to their seats, were there with tablets in their hands, stopping people, making conversation. One touched Holly’s arm.

“You’re new to our church, aren’t you?” she smiled.

“Yes. It’s like, very impressive.”

“Would you like to join?” Holly hesitated. She had come out of curiosity only; she wasn’t really in the market for a religious overhaul. The young girl in the dark suit continued. “I ask because there isn’t very much time. When the end comes, shouldn’t you have a place to come to? A sanctuary where people like you, who care about you, can look after you and your friends?”

“You really think the world is going to end next week?”

“The old world will, absolutely.” Her certainty was chilling, even though delivered with the most innocent and comforting smile Holly had seen since attending Kindergarten. “And what have you got to lose? If the world goes on its hurky-jerky way, then we’ll all go shopping for shoes instead of coming here next Monday. But if anything should happen, you have us. But only if you are a member.”

“OK then. What do I need to do?”

“You just need to tell me about yourself.”

“Really.”

“Yes. Let’s start with your friends and family.”

The process took about half an hour, something the Soldiers of Patmos called
merging
. They recorded all of her personal information, friends and close family names and locations, job details, birth date, credit card information, hobbies, allergies, basic medical facts, email addresses and more. Everything went right into the tablet.

When Holly looked around, she saw dozens of other new members going through the same process. She looked over at one young woman and they exchanged a brief glance. The other woman shrugged her shoulders as if to say
what can I do
? That was how Holly felt. Why did the church need all of this information? But what harm could it possibly do?