Chapter 96
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Jack listened as the story unfolded like garbage unwrapped under a hot sun. The Church’s plan started with a chance encounter aligned with a willingness to break rules. The woman’s warped brain told her that the rule of law applied to others and the Church’s needs were so great they were above all rules but their God’s. They interpreted those rules to fit their mood. She cultivated the spiritual health of many scientists. She and her kind used the emotional emptiness of the religious in the genetic engineering industry. She preyed on their inability to reconcile the reality of their jobs with their faith. Within five years she had a network of spies throughout the industry. The money flowed in.
One of the reasons it had been nearly impossible for his team to spot the insider trading was that the Church had individual investors tithe from individual brokerage accounts the Church set up for them. The Church’s brokers had discretion over their investment decisions. His group had been looking for a few players benefiting from insider information. The Feds had the same problem with the added complication of being told to look the other way. His team would never have spotted the ruse without the brilliant minds of Alice and Lee working together.
Money was the key, that and the backlash of lunatic fringe, born-again Christians, mostly in the States. Their unforgiving attitude and hatred toward gays, drug users, and ‘fornicators’ mirrored the Church of the Seven Sisters. An alliance was born. At first it was simply insider trading, using knowledge illegally obtained to supply money to the Church’s coffers. Soon the Church was using its power and money to influence policy. The turning point from influence peddlers to killers came with the car wreck that should have killed the witch.
Her Grace recovered enough to speak. “I am paralyzed from the neck down. There were numerous operations. One of the pints of blood I needed had not been properly screened. I was infected with two viruses. This was a clear sign for us to be more aggressive. Misguided governments spent huge amounts of money on programs to protect sinners from judgment. Private industry performed even more fearful experiments, some of them showing promise of what you call a cure. How dare they try to cure God’s will?”
Her Grace’s voice dropped to a whisper. The doctor hovered and tried to get her to rest. Her Grace refused and continued. “We put a plan in place to stop this pernicious research. The government programs were inefficient at best. Worthwhile research was misdirected away from useful areas by simple hints from the politicians controlling funding. Corporations, in their fierce competition to bring profits to their owners, public and private: These were the real threats. This was what we targeted with the most direct intervention. Equally good, the intervention gave us enough lead time so real money could be made in the stock markets.”
Here she had to rest. Jack tested his prison again and gave Lee the sign to be ready.
“Things were coming along nicely before you started to meddle. Even your interference has been only a temporary hindrance, an annoyance at most.”
It had been bad enough when he suspected a conspiracy existed. He was sickened when he knew enough to feel certain. Hearing the woman talk about direct intervention, knowing it meant trying to kill his sister and killing others was too much. He was on his feet wondering if he could make it across the fifty feet that separated him from the woman, before he could stop himself.
He looked over at the bank of clocks on the rough-hewn wall near the ornate weather station. The simple elegance of the hard woods and brass of the thermometer and barometer made them look quaint next to the mass of electronic equipment. Two forty-seven, still too early. He looked back to the spider in the center of her web, needing to kill a little more time.
“If you are done with your sick fantasy, can we get on with the transactions?”
Her Grace’s need to pat herself on the back was outweighed by her avarice. “Very well, do we use the same instructions?”
He explained that each account, at each bank, required a different sequence of instructions. This one required an electronic verification of the voice instructions. Her geek set up the connection through her computer. Then, using voice commands, she entered the electronic instructions as Jack gave them to her. The clocks on the walls were brown, nearly the same shade as the log walls. The second hands slightly off, only enough to make time on the west coast a few seconds fast.
BRENDA JOHNSON entered numbers and letters into her computer. The code they had written was brilliant. If her new boss — she had already decided to leave the FBI and come to work for him — really wanted to, he could hack half the banks in the world with this stuff. She and Alice, and damn would she love to meet that woman face-to-face, had been in constant contact. Today they talked by radio with the sounds of the helicopter in the background. She knew what she was doing was illegal in about a hundred ways, but it was justice in the best sense of the word. She knew all their programmers could do what they had asked her to do, and more. She knew she was being watched and they were testing her loyalty and once she did this there was no way that she could ever give testimony against them. Not that she would want to. This was the most fun she had had in years.
“Yes!” she yelled and called Alice.
“I’m in and you are brilliant.”
Alice was breathing very heavily. “Great. Follow the instructions and stay calm. You guys are on your own. We are going to be very busy for an hour or so.”
THE CLOCKS ON THE WALL REACHED three fifty-nine and ten seconds when an alarm sounded on Her Grace’s computer. The witch squealed and screamed at her voice recognition software. She ordered the tech over.
Then the bell in the tower rang, followed by the deadly crack of the Barrett sniper rifle. The bell rang three times, each ring followed by a shot. There were two more shots but no ringing bell. Kurt sprinted to guard his evil priestess.
He pulled a Motorola radio out of the right front cargo pocket of his camouflage pants. “Orange this is White, report on gunshots. Orange this is White, report on gunshots, over.”
The very calm sounds of Bob White’s amplified voice cut through the air. “Release Jack McDonald and Hong Lee and walk out of the building with your hands in the air now!”
“White this is Red. I can see Orange. He is down and not moving,” came clearly over the radio.
Kurt reached into the other outside pocket of his camouflage pants and removed a knife in a sheath, clipping the radio to his belt. Kurt pulled the knife from the utilitarian black nylon scabbard. His Gerber Mark 1 Commando was identical to the one Jack had left behind in camp. With a grim smile, Kurt walked toward Jack.
Then the Barrett spoke again, followed by return fire from rifles close by and then quick retribution from the Barrett. The unmistakable sound of a man screaming in mortal agony sliced the air. The sound stopped too quickly. Just then Her Grace screamed again.
HER GRACE WATCHED her world fall apart in front of her nearly blind eyes. The alarm messages from their accounts streamed in. Her acolyte grabbed the keyboard. His hands flew across the keyboard-too late. The message crawled across the screen. YOU…HAVE…FAILED…WE…HAVE…ALL… YOUR…MONEY repeated over and over.
Her Grace said the command that would overwrite all the hard drives on all their computers on all their networks with ones and zeros. And then she said the other command. The one that would send a signal to the sub-basement below the lodge house where all of their records were backed up onto digital storage.
THE THUMP OF the explosion in the basement was strong enough to rattle soot down the chimney onto the fire, nearly extinguishing it. Kurt hesitated as the dust floated into the room, creating a low-hanging cloud like a mist, torn between the decision to kill Jack and the need to stay close to Her Grace.
Jack watched Lee close her eyes and breathe deeply in and out and his handcuffs clicked open. She breathed in and out again and there was another click and he was free of his leg irons. Jack grabbed the leg irons and used them to take out the two guards nearest him and ran toward Kurt. Kurt looked like he had truly seen Jesus right before the scything chain of the shackles took his legs out. Her Grace screamed, her power forgotten.
Kurt rolled, popped up and sprinted toward Her Grace. Lee stood on the witch’s shoulders, leaning back, pulling the computer power cable even tighter around the witch’s neck. Kurt sighted, using his left arm as a pointer, drew the Gerber back, and let fly just before Jack crushed his skull with the leg irons. The force slammed Kurt face down into the floor. He was dead before he hit the ground, but he’d already thrown the knife.
The adrenaline rush slowed the world. Jack watched the knife leave Kurt’s hand, deadly on its way to kill his beloved. Something strange and wonderful happened. The knife’s flight seemed to curve and move to the left. As Lee pulled Her Grace around as a shield, the path of the knife curved even more and flew straight into Her Grace’s beautiful blue left eye. He saw his wonderful woman jump to parry a kick from a guard.
He turned toward the door, hearing the crack of Bob’s sniper rifle a second after one of the guards who had the courage to try and make it through fell dead at his feet.
They never did figure out exactly what caused the big explosion. They knew it was propane gas, but couldn’t figure out how the propane got where it got. Her Grace had said the fail-safe words that started the fire and explosion in their data vault. Why and how the gas leaked into the rest of the underground structure was anyone’s guess. Was it a fault in one of the pipes? Was it sabotage by one of the acolytes, finally pushed to their limits by the horrors the Church planned? Was it Lee’s nimble mind in the long four days and nights they thought they held her captive? Whatever it was, the propane reached the fire in the data vault and the world shook and the building came down on Jack’s head.