75

            For several minutes, the only sounds in the SUV were the purring engine, and the hum of the tires spinning against the highway. 

            Valdez was on I-20 by then, traveling westbound.  Downtown Atlanta passed by on the right, skyscrapers poking at a thickening dome of gray clouds.

            Anthony wondered if the church planned to destroy any of those tall buildings.  When he spotted a MARTA train speeding along tracks, he wondered if the rail system were a target, too.

Think about how people would freak out if that happened.  It would be pandemonium.

            It was almost too frightening to imagine, like a plot twist pulled out of a doomsday novel.  Unfortunately, considering the staggering resources the church commanded, it was entirely plausible. 

            “Tell us about the Armor of God,” Anthony said.  

            “It’s a paramilitary force, approximately seven hundred men strong,” Valdez said.  “They serve as Bishop Prince’s personal bodyguards, provide security on the Kingdom campus, and handle other missions, as ordered by the Director.  Most of them are ex-law enforcement or military.”

            “Is that how that Bob guy got you in, ‘cause you served in the Army?” Mike asked.

            “That helped.  They want experienced people, and they’re smart enough to know that they have to go outside the church to get ‘em.”

            “Do you have to be a believer in the church’s doctrines to work for them?” Lisa asked. 

            “When you’re selected, they put you through a nine-week training program on a wilderness retreat they own in Montana,” Valdez said.  “It was a lot like boot camp, physically demanding, except with an extreme focus on New Kingdom dogma.  You’re memorizing Bible passages, chanting church slogans, and listening to Bishop Prince’s sermons constantly.  Totally brain-numbing, but that’s the point.”

            “Like some radical Islamic terror cell training camp,” Anthony said.     

            “Good analogy.  Super fanatical, group-think environment.  If you don’t believe in New Kingdom’s teachings when you go in, by the time camp’s over, you sure do—or you learn pretty damn well how to fake it, like I did.”     

            “How’d you keep from being brainwashed?” Lisa asked.

            “Soon as I got out of camp, I slipped away and met with a Bureau shrink.  She put me through some deprogramming sessions, cleaned all of that crap out of my head.  But I can fake it when I need to.” 

            “Cutty sure wasn’t faking the funk,” Anthony said.

            “Cutty?”  Disgust curled Valdez’s lips, as if the man’s name tasted foul in her mouth.  “The word on him was that he was always a freakin’ psycho—he set a fire in his house when he was something like sixteen, torched his entire family.”

            Lisa shuddered.  “Are you for real?” 

            “What the hell do you think?” Valdez said, steel in her voice, but her anger seemed directed at Cutty, not Lisa.  “His family was in a survivalist cult, raised him on a commune out in the boondocks.  They’d make him sleep in a closet if he broke some stupid rule, beat him for breathing too hard, that kind of craziness.  After he snapped and burned up the house, he was locked up in a psych ward until someone at New Kingdom doing ministry outreach there discovered him.  Like they say, it was a marriage made in heaven.”

            “Good thing he’s gone, huh, guys?” Mike said.

            “We hope he is,” Anthony said.

            “There are others as dangerous as him,” Valdez said.  “Look, the pay for an agent in the Armor of God isn’t all that great.  People get into it because they believe Bishop Prince is chosen by God.”

            “Anointed,” Anthony said, echoing what he had heard earlier.

            “Even though he’s a pedophile,” Lisa said.  Her voice was thick with scorn.

            Valdez glanced away from the highway, eyebrows arched.  “You know about that?”

            “The bishop raped my sister when she was fourteen,” Anthony said.  “My nephew, Reuben . . . well, do you notice a resemblance?”

            “I knew there was something about that kid!”  Valdez put her hand to her mouth.  “That’s awful.”   

            “My dad found out about it, tried to do the right thing—“

            “You don’t have to finish—I can put the pieces together.”  She touched his arm.  “I’m so sorry.”

            “It’s taken me fifteen years to get to the truth,” Anthony said.  “If Bob hadn’t gotten in touch with me, I’d still be wandering in the dark.”

            “Yeah, good old Bob,” Valdez said.  “Would’ve been nice of him to help me out, too, before he split.  He’s our damn informant.”

            “What did this Bob dude do at the church anyway?” Mike asked.

            “Top administrative brass, and before that, he was the Deputy Director in the Armor of God,” Valdez said.  She turned a probing glare on Anthony.  “He knew everything—which I’m assuming he passed on to you.”

            Anthony shrugged.  “You know what they say about assumptions.”

            “Let’s get back to the bishop,” Lisa said.  “Have you heard about him hurting other girls?”

            “I’ve heard rumors,” Valdez said.  “It’s on the low-low down-low—passing that kind of gossip around the Kingdom can get you flat-lined.  But I have it from a good source that Bishop Prince doesn’t even live with his wife and kids in that mansion of his, ‘cause he entertains his angels there.”

            Anthony’s stomach did a sickening flip flop.  “His angels?”

            “That’s what he calls them,” Valdez said.  “The story is that some of the servant families who live on campus supply their daughters to Bishop Prince, to use whenever he wants, in return for some blessing or whatever.”

            Lisa made a sound of revulsion in her throat.  “That’s got to be the most disgusting thing I’ve ever heard in my life.”

            “Before I went undercover, I researched cults,” Valdez said.  “It’s fairly common for the cult leaders—almost always a man, of course—to have total sexual access to everyone in the group, children included.  David Koresh, remember that guy?”

            “Waco, Texas,” Mike said. 

            Valdez said, “Koresh convinced his followers that he was a descendant of King David and his seed was divine, and since it was, he was the only man in the sect allowed to get laid.  And he could get some from anyone, whenever.”

            “Pedophile Prince told my sister something like that, too,” Anthony said.  “He told her she should be honored to accept his ‘divine seed.’ ”

            “He’s unbelievable,” Valdez said.  “But even though he’s the scum of the earth, his ministry, if you want to call it that, has tapped into something that lots of people respond to very passionately.”

            “The prosperity preaching,” Lisa said.

            “That’s part of it, but more than that, it’s his kingdom theology,” Valdez said.  “When he talks about the erosion in morals and values in modern society, how popular culture is so shallow and freakin’ screwed up, and hits you with how if we embrace a kingdom agenda, people will start acting like they’ve got some decency because it’ll be the law of the land . . . listen, when he gets going on that, the servants go nuts, they’re ready to do anything to make it happen..”

            “A lot of people are fed up with the state of the world,” Anthony said.  “He’s a demagogue, using people’s emotions to manipulate them for his own purposes.”

            “But he believes in it,” Valdez said.  “He’s not a cynic feeding the masses whatever mierda they want to eat.  He’s convinced God is telling him to do this stuff.”

            “That makes him super dangerous,” Mike said.

            “You said it.”  Valdez glanced at Mike in the rearview mirror.  “Right now, according to the Director of the Bureau—and he’d never say this publicly ‘cause the church’s supporters would have his balls for breakfast—Bishop Prince is the most dangerous man in America.”