Mighty and Strong (The Righteous) Read online

  The culture war crap he could do without, but he'd bring it up just enough to convince the party faithful that he cared. But if he left it alone, he could get some independents and moderate Dems on board as well.

  He was so caught up in his thoughts he barely noticed the woman leaving the room.

  “I'm going to set the tape recorder on the desk, if that's okay,” Brenslow said.

  Jim waved his hand. “Sure, whatever.”

  Brenslow stepped toward the desk with the recorder held tight in front of him. As he approached, his hand shot out and Jim saw too late that it held a gun. The man shoved the barrel against his forehead.

  “One noise, cry, or scream and your brains end up on the back wall.”

  Jim's self-confidence, his arrogance dissolved in an instant. His surety of his position in life disappeared, the safety that wealth and power gave him. Terror took its place.

  “Who are you?” he whispered. The barrel of the gun felt warm. How much warmer would it be after it fired?

  “You have wronged me and mine. And that makes you my enemy. I destroy my enemies.”

  “Are you going to kill me?” Jim asked.

  The man just smiled. “I haven't decided yet.”

  Jim swallowed, felt a sudden, desperate urge to please this man, to make him see he could be reasonable. Whatever he'd done to this man, he could set it right.

  “But I don't have to kill you, not physically. There are things I could do that would make you suffer just as much. What do you think about that, Senator?”

  Was that it? This jerk showed up just to threaten him? Anger replaced his terror. “Do you have any idea what kind of prison sentence you'll get for pulling a gun on a presidential contender? Not months or years. Decades. And when the press, the real press, hears the story, it will only help me. You know that, don't you?”

  “Prison sentence?” the man laughed. “Nobody is going to give me a prison sentence. I've outsmarted better men than you, Jim McKay. You, you're the weak side of the family. The dog with good breeding who can't hunt. The fat cow that doesn't give milk.”

  “You're some kind of fundy, aren't you? Polygamist nut job. What is it, FLDS? That crazy little cult in Manti?”

  “How about the father of the man whose family you threw into the street?”

  So that was it. He'd wronged Jacob Christianson, and the man's father—wasn't he the leader of those Blister Creek polygs? What was his name? He'd forgotten to ask his brother.

  “You know who else I'm related to?” the man asked.

  “Santa Claus?”

  “You're a funny man. No, I'm related to you.”

  “What?”

  “My name is Abraham Christianson. I'm not just the leader of the Church of the Anointing, and Jacob's father, I'm your first cousin.”

  Could it be? All he'd known was that his father had left one of these cults as a young man. Father hadn't discussed it with his sons, except once, when a scruffy, unwashed man had shown up at the house, asking for money. Jim and Parley were old enough to notice at the time—fourteen and twelve years old—but not old enough to piece everything together. To his surprise, Dad had given the man a warm bed, use of the shower, a hot meal, and a wad of bills when he left the next day. His mother, from a good Salt Lake family, had watched with clear disapproval, but said nothing.

  Jim and Parley had found their father working in the yard after the man left. Who was that man, and how did he know Father?

  Father leaned against his hoe. “There are those who wander in darkness, boys. They can't understand why the church left them behind, when the truth is, they left the church. When the prophet commanded them to give up the Principle for a season, they found it too hard to obey.”

  “You're talking about the polygamists,” Jim said. He'd overheard a few conversations between his parents over the years.

  “I help when I can because I know that could have been me. Should have been me. Only the Lord's mercy kept me from following that path.”

  It was a strangely formal speech from a man who didn't take to testimony bearing or care much for formalized religion. He attended church dutifully with Mom whenever he was home from the work site, did what the bishop asked, but no more. Sometimes, he would disappear on some construction project in rural Utah for a few weeks, where he drove a scraper. From Mom's snide comments, it was clear Dad didn't go to church when he was out of town.

  But now the polygamist past had intruded in Jim's life in the form of this man, purporting to be his cousin. And a gun pressed against Jim's forehead. And he wondered how much more there was to the story, how much he didn't know, details that could be uncovered by the press or an enemy candidate.

  “Yes, cousins,” Abraham Christianson said. “You know what that means, right?”

  “It doesn't mean anything. Lot of guys come from polygamist backgrounds. So what? My dad was a true, believing Latter-day Saint.”

  “Hah, that's what you think, is it?” Christianson had a book held in his left hand, which he now slid across the table. “Ever seen this?”

  Jim took the opportunity to pull back from the barrel to look at the book. To his relief, the man lowered the gun slightly. He thought briefly about screaming for help, or charging the man. But the grim set to Christianson's eyes dissuaded him.

  “A journal?”

  “Your father's journal, Senator. A man formerly known as David Christianson before he took the name McKay, which was his mother's maiden name.”

  Jim didn't know anything about a name change. “My father? How did you get this?”

  “He was a Lost Boy, didn't he tell you that?” Abraham Christianson asked. “My father's rebellious younger brother. When my grandfather selected my father as the future leader over your father, your father refused to accept the verdict. He tried to take wives and privileges that didn't belong to him and suffered excommunication as a result.”

  “What a load of bullshit. My dad helped people get out of the cult. He gave them money and pointed them in the right direction.”

  “He bribed apostates and dissidents,” Christianson countered. “He spent thirty years trying to bully enough people to help him stage a coup within the Church of the Anointing. It's all in his journal.”

  “Sure, and you just happened to find this thing. . .where, exactly?”

  “We stole it, of course. You don't think your father was the only one maneuvering for control, do you? Your father was wicked enough to try anything—as the journal makes clear—and we had to move against him.”

  “No, I don't believe you. Even if it is his journal, it doesn't say what you think it says.”

  “Read it, if you wish, you'll see soon enough. He even mentioned you by name. He meant for you to have the church some day. It's all there in his own handwriting.”

  Looking down at the journal, he knew it was true. It tied everything together, from his father's cryptic remarks over the years, to his disinterest in the mainstream church, to the man who'd taken the large wad of bills that day.

  And what would his enemies say when they saw Jim McKay's name mentioned as the future leader of a polygamist cult? Never mind it was fantasy, that Jim had never suspected such a thing. He'd gone on a mission, he'd taken a beating by street thugs, and all for his church. And yet one old man's fantasies would ruin everything if this got out.

  It occurred to him that he could take the journal to read and then destroy it. But his cousin wouldn't be so stupid. There would be microfilm or some other evidence. The man might be taping the whole conversation, or have his room bugged. Jim could destroy the journal or not, but there would be more than enough to tie him to this mess, if it were true.

  “What then? What do you want?”

  “Call off the dogs, Brother McKay.”

  “The dogs? Oh, you mean your son? I don't have control over the FBI.”

  “The Attorney General, Brother McKay. Your brother. He's persecuting my son and it will stop now, or the world will know what's in
this book. You'll be ruined. Your brother will be ruined. It is that simple.”

  “This isn't fair, I don't have anything to do with this.”

  “Surely you don't believe that. As a man sows, so shall he reap. Or has the Salt Lake church stopped teaching that parable? You sowed your crop when you decided to persecute my son for his beliefs. This is what you reap.”

  The office door opened and the young woman entered. Jim saw her now for what she was: one of Abraham Christianson's plural wives.

  “Someone is coming,” she said.

  “Good, we were just finishing our interview.” Christianson scooped up the journal and tucked journal and gun alike into his laptop case. “Think about it, Brother McKay. You got a new lease on life. I suggest you use it wisely.”

  And then the intruders were gone. For a long minute he could do nothing but stare at the door. He felt lightheaded. He could still feel the spot on his forehead where the gun had pressed into his skull. A shiver of spent adrenaline trembled through his hands.

  Jim reached for the phone. Time to call Parley. He didn't know yet if he'd tell his brother about Dad's nasty little secret. It was too much to digest at once and there was a chance he could still maneuver out of this and continue his candidacy. At the very least, he had to go forward with the Pioneer Day events, for appearances, if nothing else.

  But distressingly, moment by moment, he began to suspect that his entire candidacy had been reduced to appearances.

  #

  Krantz had his perimeter by dusk. Using a BLM map, he'd discovered an abandoned ranch road that swung behind a promontory marked Barton Hill.

  Two men dressed as utility workers had spent half the day clearing brush from the road to allow his black surveillance van to crunch slowly up the hill. He waited until dark before he pulled it around the corner, the last two hundred yards, until it was in view of the compound. Didn't want to risk someone looking up the hill with a pair of binoculars. Gutierez and Kelty threw camouflaged netting over the van.

  The workers shed their utility company disguises and traded them for camo and sniper rifles. They set up positions on the hill. Two more snipers would watch the road that led away from the compound, and a fifth would infiltrate the gardens after it was fully dark.

  All were armed with FN Special Police Rifles, which fired 7.62X51 mm cartridges, the same round fired by US Military M40s. At positions from 200-800 meters from the compound, the sharpshooters would bring serious backup to the SWAT team.

  That is, if the action moved outside the compound or to the roof, otherwise, they were useless. But the bigger problem was that the two teams would be relying on incomplete information.

  The compound was a black box. Krantz had few tools to penetrate that box. There were no phone lines to tap, they had no bugs on the inside.

  Visually, his luck wasn't much better. At this angle, they couldn't see over the walls and into the courtyards. He had a helicopter on standby with infrared detection, but he didn't dare bring it over until the operation was underway, for fear of tipping off the cult leaders with the sound. Krantz sat in the van, looking at monitors. Some were still on visual, others had flipped to infrared. A tech un-crated a pair of parabolic microphones. They were good to about two hundred meters, but only useful if they could get them inside the buildings or to the roof. Otherwise, the thick adobe walls would block their functionality.

  Agent Chambers opened the door, stepped inside. He squinted against the light inside. “You sure they don't need you in Salt Lake?”

  “No way I'm leaving until we pull this off.”

  “And things are cool up there?” he asked.

  “No worries, the Senator is in Provo tonight, speaking to a gathering of sheriffs from across the state. A room of armed law enforcement isn't the best time to try anything, know what I mean? That goes until eleven. He's then returning to his hotel and our guys will be with him. By the time McKay leaves for Salt Lake tomorrow morning, we should be wrapped up here.”

  “Bad timing,” Chambers said. “Sure we shouldn't wait until we've got this business at Temple Square behind us?”

  “Look at it this way,” Krantz said. “Either the cult is planning something for tomorrow, or not. If they're not, they're not as dangerous as we're guessing. We'll get into the compound, get our girl, the informant and his family, get out.”

  “And if they are planning something against Senator McKay?”

  “Then no better time to run our operation. We'll knock them off their game plan.” He tried to sound more confident than he felt. “We've got a full SWAT in Salt Lake with sniper and assault contingents. This compound team is an HRT. It can do the job.”

  “Sevare vitas,” Chambers said in an ironic tone.

  It was Latin for “to save lives,” the motto of the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team. HRT was more advanced than a typical SWAT team, with the ability to fast-rope from helicopters into the center of a hostile environment. Perfect for Zarahemla.

  Chambers had trained with HRT, had performed two missions, although he hadn't talked much about either one. Reading between the lines, following press and Google, Krantz thought one had been a joint Delta Force operation in Afghanistan, and the second might have been a botched attack in Colombia that left one agent dead and killed two of the three American businessmen being held. Drug-related raids, in both cases.

  Either way, the experience made Chambers the best man to run the second team in Krantz's two-pronged attack.

  “Be careful,” Krantz said. “Don't let personal feelings screw with your judgment.”

  “Like how? Like I'm going in there with guns blazing, because these guys are assholes who deserve to get theirs for what they did to Fayer?”

  “Frankly, yeah. Something exactly like that.”

  “I'm a professional. There isn't going to be another Waco.”

  “Good. Look, my goal isn't to micromanage. I'll be too busy keeping my own guys alive to give you two seconds thought. But I need you to keep those HRT guys in check.”

  “They're professionals, too. Nobody wants to put a bullet in some kid's head because he pops out of a closet at the wrong time.”

  “No, of course not.” He chewed on his lip, tried to pinpoint exactly what it was that was giving him second thoughts.

  Chambers cocked his head, put his hand to the piece at his ear. “Good. . .No, that's enough. . .Okay, then. . .Oh-one hundred hours, plus what?” He looked at his watch. “Twelve minutes? That gives us three hours to set up the arrays, get the ground team ready. Perfect.”

  He turned back to Krantz. “The helicopters depart at 1:12 AM. They fast-drop us in, it'll be over in ten minutes.”

  God, if only it could be that easy.

  Chapter Twenty-five:

  Fernie didn't look happy when she came from the bathrooms before bed. She looked at Jacob and shook her head.

  He sat in the corner with the children, who he'd tucked among blankets and pillows on the floor. He'd sang songs until Nephi fell asleep, then told stories to the older two. Inside, he was a bundle of knots.

  Jacob was sure he could escape from Zarahemla alone. With Fernie and Miriam, almost as sure. But what about the children? Nephi might cry out, and even Daniel and Leah would be scared and might make noise. He'd toyed with the idea of giving them a narcotic in their milk at bedtime. But they might have to walk a long distance. He needed them mobile and not dead weight.

  Leah didn't make it through the story of David and Goliath, but Daniel stayed awake while Jacob continued with Jesus healing the lepers, and then Helaman and the stripling warriors from the Book of Mormon. Daniel started blinking and yawning.

  Jacob broke from the story when Fernie entered. “Everything okay?”

  “Sister Miriam gave me a message to pass you.”

  “Yes?”

  “I'm your wife, why would you keep this from me?”

  “Is that jealousy I hear?” He tried to keep his voice light. “I didn't think you had it in you.”
>
  Her tone hardened. “Seriously, did you think I wouldn't be upset?”

  “I didn't want to upset you. We had to meet with Brother Timothy, and if you were scared and nervous, I didn't think we could pull it off.”

  “Pull what off? You think Timothy is behind this?”

  “How much do you know?”

  “Enough. Miriam told me about the body, that it was the same girl Brother Timothy mentioned at dinner. But I can't imagine he'd do that. Or authorize it. Or even know about it.”

  Jacob joined her on the bed. He dimmed the light. “Because he seems nice?”

  “He's sincere. Earnest. You can see it, can't you? I haven't decided yet if he's a prophet, but if he's a fraud, I don't know anything about anything.”

  “Maybe he believes what he's saying,” Jacob said, “or maybe he is somebody, just not the somebody, the One Mighty and Strong. You remember all that about Devorah's purity? I can't help wonder if he wasn't comparing her with Emma Green. Maybe Emma said or did something that wasn't pure, and it got her in trouble.”

  “Lots of people worry about keeping girls pure for marriage. It doesn't make them murderers.”

  “So he's not a murderer. Someone is. It's a small community. Maybe forty, fifty men in total and it's got to be one of them. Do you want your children staying here while we find out who?”

  “No, I don't.”

  “What was Miriam's message?”

  “She's coming around one o'clock, says that will give enough moonlight and time to reach the highway before dawn.”

  “Good.” He glanced into the corner. “We'll let the children sleep until she gets here, see if we can carry them without waking them until we leave the compound. Then the older kids can walk the rest of the way.”

  Fernie let out a long sigh. “I guess there's no other choice.”

  “Not that I can see.”

  “And Miriam is coming all the way?” she asked. “She's planning to tell the FBI what she knows?”

  “She was reluctant, but yeah, I think I talked her into it. Either way, it won't be our responsibility.”