Righteous02 - Mighty and Strong (23 page)

“You want to know, does that make you a bad person?”

“Yes.”

“No, Miriam, it makes you human.”

“Then what do I need to do?”

“You may not consider yourself FBI anymore, but I bet there’s something you can take from who you used to be. Something about seeking justice, right?”

She was quiet for a long time. At last she nodded. “We need a real autopsy, and forensics. They can tell us all sorts of things.” Miriam turned with a glum expression. “This is going to ruin everything.”

It was tough having your illusions destroyed. He shouldn’t have been so hard on her. Whatever she’d been looking for in Zarahemla, Miriam had been willing to junk everything to get it.

“There’s a rotten apple in the bucket,” he said, “but that doesn’t mean they’re all rotten.”

“So?”

“Maybe you’re taking things too far. Remember what you said about Satan? I don’t know if this is Satan, but it might help to think of this as an opportunity to track down someone who doesn’t belong.”

“The FBI is going to come down hard,” she said. “Krantz and Fayer will lean on me, try to divide me from the others, even if it means making me look like a plant.”

“That won’t be hard, since you
were
a plant.”

“But I’m not now, and it won’t even matter. They’ll never trust me again.”

“Why do you think the Lord led you here, Miriam?”

“Because this is His chosen church. The gathering before the Millennium.”

“But He hasn’t even gathered most Mormons yet, so why call a gentile like you?”

“Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman. Why couldn’t he speak to me, too?”

“But Jesus came to the Jews, first. Isn’t the One Mighty and Strong supposed to gather Mormons? Why you, why a gentile?”

“I don’t know, I just know that when I prayed—”

“Yes, of course, you prayed and you knew, but that doesn’t answer why you. There are 300 million gentiles in this country, but he chose FBI Agent Haley Kite. Why?”

“It’s not important.”

“Of course it is,” Jacob said. “The Lord doesn’t randomly choose people. Think about Moses, or Joseph Smith. Or Brigham Young, who came along at just the right time to lead the Saints into the wilderness. Or Brother Timothy, for that matter. There’s always a reason.”

“Well, in that case, I don’t know.”

“I do. Miriam, look at this girl. Her blood is crying up from the grave. Why else would the Lord bring an FBI agent to this spot, right now? To find Emma Green’s killer, bring him to justice, so that he cannot stand in the way of the Lord’s work.”

“Do you really believe that?” she asked.

“I don’t know, but what other explanation is there? Either there’s no point to anything or these things happen for a reason. If you come up with a better reason why you found Emma’s body, let’s hear it.”

She was quiet for a long time. “Okay, Jacob, you might be right. Or almost right, anyway.”

“Almost is closer than I usually get, but what am I missing?”

“You,” Miriam said. “You’re missing you. You’re here too, and that can’t be coincidence either. Only you could have told me Emma was murdered, and only you could convince me I need to take this to the FBI.”

“Who knows?”

“You know. Look in your heart, you’ll see.”

“I’m willing to consider it. In the meanwhile, we need to figure out how to get out of here.”

“Just start walking,” Miriam said. “We’re already outside the compound. We’ll go up that gulch, come around the hill over there. There’s a ranch road over there and we can go down it until we get to the house, use their phone. There is a creek for water about a mile from here. Come on, help me cover the body, protect it from weather and animals. Five minutes and we’re out of here.”

“One problem,” Jacob said. “My wife and children are back there, I can’t leave them.”

“They’ll be safe until you come back.”

“Will they? When the murderer comes back tonight to do a better job hiding the body? Sees someone messed with the grave, and then hears we’re missing? You think Fernie and the kids will be safe?” He shook his head. “Not to mention the possibility of an armed show down with the Feds. No, I’m not leaving my family.”

“Well then, guess I’d better come back with you.” She sighed, but there was an almost eager look on her face.

“No, you go. Get help.”

“But you’re right. We have to get your family out. And I can help you.”

“You don’t want to leave, do you? In spite of everything.”

“Don’t worry, the prophet trusts me,” Miriam said. It wasn’t the answer to his question. “I can come and go without trouble. We’ll get your family out, I promise.”

#

“Storming the compound is the easy part,” Agent Krantz said. “Avoiding deaths, not so easy.”

“We’ll hit ‘em hard and fast,” Dave Marquis said. He sat on the front row of the briefing room. The other dozen members of the FBI tactical team leaned forward on their chairs or thumbed through handouts. “Stun grenades, rubber bullets, tear gas. Come in at night, bag the leaders, find our girls, get them out.”

“First of all, there’s no bagging of anyone,” Krantz said. “We’ve got modest goals.”

Krantz had hung a blown-up aerial photo of the Zarahemla compound on the briefing room wall. He used his laser pointer and touched the southeast corner. “Break in here, fan out here and here, and find Kite and Fayer, then the informant and his family. Then get the hell out. With any luck, the cult will sleep right through it.”

“But no arrests?” Marquis asked.

“No arrests.”

Skeptical looks at that. The briefing packet held photos of the compound, diagrams, sleeping quarters marked, and estimates about weapons, family distribution, plus a list of possible obstacles. He’d given them twenty minutes to perform a cursory study before starting the briefing.

“Once we get Kite and Fayer out, debrief them and the informant,” Krantz continued, “we can make decisions about formal charges. We’ll be in a better position to seal the compound without worrying about hostages.”

“They’re civilians,” Marquis said. He leaned back, put his hands behind his head. “Seems like it would be easy to secure the compound, round everyone into that central courtyard, and arrest the ringleaders. Otherwise, we’ll get our people and the cult leaders will flee the state, like that FLDS guy did. What’s his name?”

“Warren Jeffs, but that was a different group, different mindset.”

Civilians. It was easy to dismiss them. But Krantz was determined not to underestimate
Fear-Not
. He’d already made that mistake.

He’d started with the assumption that Fear-Not and the prophet, Brother Timothy, were one and the same man. The self-styled “One Mighty and Strong,” who would bring about the end of the world and the rule of the Lord and his church. But now he wasn’t so sure.

After talking to Eliza Christianson, Krantz had booted his laptop and dug around online. Didn’t take long to find what he was looking for. Fear-Not was a name from early Mormon history. During the time when the Mormons were persecuted in Missouri and Illinois, before fleeing the United States for Mexican-owned territory in Utah, some members formed a shadowy organization to battle apostates and other persecutors of the church.

They had called themselves Danites, led by a man known as Captain Fear-Not, who had claimed fifty men as his destroying angels. He’d led his Danites into a battle with anti-Mormon forces in Missouri and driven off his enemies. But perhaps most tellingly, he had also taken a mortal gunshot wound in the battle.

Krantz’s opponent had taken his
nom de guerre
from a man who’d died fighting for his faith. Krantz was determined not to let Fear-Not follow his namesake’s path to martyrdom.

“May I ask a question?” came a voice from the back of the room.

It was Agent Gunther Chambers, who had been watching from the rear, rolling a pencil between his thumb and forefinger, but making no comment. Krantz was acting as SWAT Commander for the operation, but Chambers was the team leader. He’d done good work at Temple Square and Krantz was glad to have him.

“Go ahead,” Krantz said with a nod.

“Did I hear you right that you’re coming along for the ride?”

“It’s a tricky situation. Multiple hostages, innocent civilians, armed, hostile elements. I want to be on the ground as the situation develops.”

“And you’re all trained up?”

Krantz nodded. “Absolutely. More than that, I have twenty fast-rope drops in actual combat situations.” He rolled up his left sleeve and showed the white scar across his massive forearm. “Fallujah. The black hawk got hit with two rpgs. Still managed to make the drop. Team suffered one rolled ankle, no other casualties.”

A few appreciative nods, but some cynical looks from the older guys, who were probably veterans of Iraq or Afghanistan themselves. One didn’t usually brag up war-time exploits—and you wouldn’t hear Krantz mention his bronze star except with guys from his actual Ranger platoon—but he needed to establish cred.

“We’re splitting into two teams once we hit the ground. You’ll take one, I’ll lead the other.”

“But normally,” Chambers said, “you’d command from the rear. I’d take one team, Marquis the other.”

Marquis sat on the other side of the room, his eyes half-closed, chewing a big wad of gum. He tapped his pencil eraser on the table.

“And he’d do a damn fine job, I’m sure. But that’s not the plan for tonight.”

Young guy like Marquis, fresh out of school. Supremely confident, like they all were at that age. Until you lost a partner, or killed some kid with a stray bullet. But seriously, didn’t they still teach these guys about Waco? Four BATF agents and six Branch Davidians killed in the initial raid. And then, during the disastrous FBI siege that followed, seventy-six dead Branch Davidians, including many young children.

Endless hearings later and details remained murky. Had the FBI started the fire, or the Branch Davidians? Did overzealous FBI agents shoot survivors trying to flee the fire?

“See that big manila envelope?” he asked. “The one with WACO written on the front in big letters?” They shuffled through their papers, found the envelope one by one. “That’s required reading for this afternoon. I’m going to ask questions about the highlighted text, especially the part about the downed agents and the dead children. Anyone who can’t answer the questions gets to monitor from the perimeter camp.”

The camp would be a set of converted vans driven quietly up the ranch road to the side of the compound. Krantz would have eight more agents, decked out in full gear. If, heaven forbid, things turned ugly, he didn’t want to be lacking firepower.

“The other critical piece is the rules of engagement. See that? Good, now commit it to memory. You have until this afternoon.”

He dismissed them and shut down the laptop and projector. Chambers waited until the others were gone, then came up front as Krantz stripped photos and diagrams from the wall.

“So you’ve lost two agents,” Chambers said. He was a tall guy, close enough to Krantz’s height to look him in the eye.

“Don’t give me that shit,” Krantz said. “I’ve taken too much already and I don’t need it from you.”

“Okay, then, so
we’ve
lost two agents. And an FBI informant, plus his wife and kids, apparently. That’s a lot to deal with.”

“What are you getting at Chambers?”

“Just this. I’m thinking about this file—” and here he held up the manila with the Waco stuff, “—and I’m wondering if we’re looking at the wrong side of the ATF’s monumental screw up.”

“How’s that?”

“Well, it sucks all those people died, and that got a lot of press. Heads rolled, as they should have. Attorney General should have been canned, you want my opinion.” Chambers nodded. “But you’re looking at the siege and the massacre. Don’t forget the whole thing started with a botched raid that led to four dead ATF agents. And that’s my biggest worry. Making sure each and every one of my men come back alive.”

“Absolutely,” Krantz said.

“So why try all these different things at once? Our hostages are spread all over the place. All we need is one thing to go wrong in one of those locations and we’re in trouble. And there’s another thing. We don’t know for sure that either your informant or Agent Kite want out. If they did, couldn’t they just walk away?”

“Not necessarily. Any one of a number of things could have happened.”

“True, but we don’t know that. And let’s say they’re still under cover. We don’t
need
to get them out. Not yet.”

They were all good points, and had been niggling at Krantz all morning. He was operating on little sleep and missed having Fayer to bounce ideas off of. Chambers may be second guessing him, but he’d held off his toughest criticism until after the other men left. It made it easier to accept.

“So what’s your suggestion?” Krantz asked.

“Narrow our focus. We have no idea where they’re holding Fayer. She might not even be in the compound. The longer we spend mucking with this other stuff, the fewer resources we can throw at finding her and the guys who kidnapped her. And what if she’s not there at all? What if they’ve carried her to some spider hole in the hills to rape or torture her or whatever?”

Chambers spoke in the abstract, his voice matter-of-fact, but Krantz found it easy enough to picture Fayer begging her captors not to hurt her, or stuck in some filthy hole somewhere in the vast Utah wilderness. Never find her out there.

“Aerial surveillance spotted the pickup truck inside the compound fence,” he said. “Either they’ve got her inside, or her abductors left her somewhere and came back. Either we get her or we get them, which leads us to her.”

Chambers shrugged. “Could be a trick.”

Could be, but he didn’t think so. He thought about what Eliza said. These men
wanted
to be found. They could have hid the truck easily enough, but hadn’t.

“Okay, so how about this,” Krantz said. “One team to sweep the compound, the other to secure the prophet. This so-called Brother Timothy is either the ringleader or he sanctioned their behavior. We take him for leverage, and any other resistance collapses. Leave him free and he’s likely to pull a David Koresh.”