CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Tammy hadn’t been exaggerating about the damn birds. They woke me up at five in the morning while it was still dark outside, but it meant I’d slept for over eight hours—a downright miracle. I stretched my stiff muscles, noticing the sound of movement from outside the room. I pushed myself out of bed and walked into the kitchen, rubbing my eyes.
“Morning,” Tammy said, already dressed for the day and sitting at the table. By the smell in the kitchen, she had been awake long enough to have at least one cigarette. “There’s coffee.”
“Thanks.” I poured myself a cup and went to sit at the table.
“You slept okay?”
I nodded and took a sip. “It might have been a coma. You?”
“I don’t need much sleep. Do you have a gun?”
That woke me up faster than the caffeine. “Yes, it’s in my bag.”
She nodded, pulling her gray hair into a tight ponytail. “We won’t have much chance in case of a firefight, but we should still be armed.”
I sipped my bitter coffee. “I’d rather avoid a firefight. Did you tell your friend that we were coming?”
“Yes. Ben’s expecting us soon. Take a shower and make yourself a sandwich for the road. We’ll take my car.”
I didn’t like leaving my car behind. It wasn’t much to look at—or to drive—but I drew comfort from having it with me. “I prefer to drive in my car.”
“I don’t do well with other people behind the wheel. If we’re taking yours, I’ll be driving.”
I nodded. “Fair enough.”
“I did a search on Delight’s Hot Springs Resort. It will be a four-hour drive from Ben to there. They don’t have many reviews online.”
“If The Society is paying them, they might require them to keep a low profile.”
“Could be. Seems that the motel is divided into small cabins, spreading over a large area. I’m not sure if it’s good or bad.”
“I’d say it’s good.”
“Why’s that?”
I shrugged. “Because I can’t do anything about it.”
That almost earned me a smile. “Finish your coffee and go get ready. It’s going to be a long day.”
*
I’d never seen anyone follow the speed limit so religiously as Tammy. Even when the early-morning roads were wide open for her to accelerate, she stuck to the traffic signs as if God had placed them there.
“Ben lives close to Bakersfield,” Tammy said as we drove north through the vast expanse of the San Fernando Valley. The hills surrounding us seemed dry yet striking against the deep blue sky. “He has a small farm for raising horses. Always felt to me like he preferred them over people.”
I noticed fondness in her voice and stopped myself from asking if there had ever been something between them.
“Why do you think he could help?” I asked, still getting used to someone else driving my car. It felt as though my body had been misplaced.
“Besides horses, Ben’s into electronics.” She glanced at me through her large sunglasses. “I want him to take a look at your leg.”
I tried to keep my annoyance at bay. “Why? I told you that Hayden already had someone examine it.”
“I don’t know that person, but I know he ain’t Ben.”
I let it go, knowing it was bound to be a waste of time. As long as we reached the motel today, I was willing to humor Tammy and her horse-loving friend.
When we passed a sign indicating Bakersfield was a few miles ahead, Tammy turned right. We drove on a dirt road I wasn’t sure was meant for cars, but Tammy drove with confidence. A few minutes later, I spotted a ranch house ahead. It looked like a painting—a hidden gem in the open plains. The closer we drove, the more horses I noticed roaming freely.
“Should they be walking around like that?” I asked.
“Ben thinks a horse dumb enough to leave should do so.”
We parked in front of the two-story ranch house, where an older man was sitting on the porch in a rocking chair. He stood up, wearing a red flannel shirt, faded jeans, and a cowboy hat.
“Anything that I should know before talking to him?” I asked, unbuckling my seatbelt. “Something I shouldn’t say?”
“Don’t comment on his tail.”
“His what?”
She shook her head. “A joke.”
We climbed out into the smell of fresh hay and earthy manure. Two nearby horses turned their heads to watch us.
“How long has it been, you old bat?” Ben walked down the stairs.
“It’s been a minute, you hillbilly fart.”
They hugged warmly, then Ben sized me up. “And this handsome young man must be Jonah.”
I stepped forward and offered my hand. “Nice to meet you, sir.”
“Ben will do just fine.” He shook my hand, his palm as rugged as I expected. His bright, green eyes appeared younger than the rest of his face.
“Come inside. I made iced tea.”
Despite the warm morning, the house felt cool. It was hard to miss the rich collection of firearms decorating one of the walls.
“Just for show,” Ben said in response to my stare.
We sat in the wide living room—Tammy and I on a crimson leather couch, and Ben in an old armchair in front of us. I held my iced tea, expecting Tammy and Ben to dive into reminiscing, but Tammy wasted no time. “I’ve told you the gist of what we’re facing. Do you have any more questions?”
Ben held my gaze. “I met Hayden once. He seemed like a fine man. Once we find him, you two are welcome here to ride the horses.”
Once we find him. He couldn’t have known how much I appreciated hearing that. “Thank you. Will you be coming with us to the motel?”
“No,” Tammy said firmly, as if they had already argued over that. “We can’t draw more attention to ourselves. Ben will be our backup if we need him to be.” She glanced at me. “We’ll focus on gathering intel for the time being, not on engaging with The Society.”
I waited for her words to sink in. “Not engage? How are we supposed to free Hayden, then?”
“Once we find out more about their location, we’ll rendezvous here and decide on our next steps. I may have lost my contact with the FBI, but Ben hasn’t.”
Ben winked. “The curse of being so damn likable.” He saw my somber expression and cleared his throat. “I know the clock is ticking, but I think we can all agree that Hayden is either dead or still has some time. We need to do this right.”
“Fine, but I don’t understand why you need to look at my tracker.”
“Maybe I don’t, but that’s not the real reason why Tammy brought you here.”
My muscles tensed. I turned to Tammy. “You lied to me?”
“Relax, Jonah. Listen to the man.”
But the man didn’t say a thing, just picked up a thick folder from the floor and handed it to me.
“What is it?”
“Have a look. It will speak for itself.”
I hesitantly opened the folder. The first photo made it clear what I was looking at. “That’s Theodore. He used to be The Director. He adopted Eliot and Thomas.”
“Who?”
“Eliot was the one who set me up. He betrayed me. Thomas was The Director while I was there.”
“I didn't know they passed the role from father to son.”
I stopped myself from saying that Thomas had never wanted that role. I had a flashback of pressing down the pillow until his feeble body stopped twitching, but I pushed the memory aside.
“There was at least one more Director before Theodore, going back to the early 1900s,” Ben said.
“Were they kidnapping people even back then?” Tammy asked.
“Based on what we learned, yes. Their agenda is the rule of the elite over the common man, giving them the right to take and abuse whoever they deem beneath them.”
I couldn’t bring myself to look further into the folder, knowing it would consume me. “Was the FBI investigating them?”
Ben gave a stiff nod. “We investigated them for over a decade. The deeper we dug, the more names kept piling up—people you’d never imagine getting involved with something like that.”
He’d be surprised by what I could imagine. “Did you arrest anyone?”
Ben shook his head. “The bigger it got, the more pushback my team received. By the time I realized the higher-ups were trying to bury the investigation, I’d lost the momentum to fight back.” He took a breath. “I probably could’ve tried to rattle the nest, but that was around the time Tammy was trying to take down her crooked boss, and I saw firsthand what fighting against the system could do to one’s career.” He gave Tammy an apologetic look, which she returned with a grim smile.
“They ended up offering me a different department to lead, claiming it was a budget thing. I swallowed their bullshit until I retired the first chance I got. Horses can sometimes smell, but at least they’re trustworthy.”
I rubbed my face, resenting everything Ben had said. If those who were supposed to stop The Society had done their fucking job, I and others would not have wound up in hell.
“You’re the first person I’ve heard who got away from them,” Ben said, a trace of suspicion in his voice. “I’m sure there’s an interesting story behind that.”
“It doesn’t matter. Do you know of Mr. White?”
“Never heard of him.”
“He was a member of the High Council.”
Ben leaned forward. “You were in contact with the High Council?”
“Just with him. He came to the estate from time to time.” I couldn’t help but feel a tingle of needle-hunger whenever I thought of him, even after all these years. I asked Tammy, “So you knew who I was talking about this whole time?”
“Not at first, but the more you spoke, the more it sounded familiar. I was never involved in Ben’s investigation.”
I ran my fingers over the thick folder. “Can I look at it later?”
“You can take it with you to the motel, but it hasn't been updated in years. No one knew I took it, which goes to show how much they didn’t give a damn.”
“Okay. Thank you.”
“I’d still like to have a look at your leg before you hit the road.”
I followed him into a room with a lot of computers. He gestured for me to sit on a chair in the middle of the room. Tammy stood close by as he pressed on my calf, then scanned it with a similar device to the one Samuel had used in the last yearly visit. A monitor showed my bones and the small tracker that seemed out of place. Ben told me to hold the scanner to my calf while he worked on his computer, switching between screens with numbers and graphs. He turned to me after a few minutes. “Like you said, it’s pretty much dormant. It does seem very advanced, but it still has some limitations.” Ben took the scanner from me and put it on his desk. “Mind giving me and Tammy a few moments to talk? You can wait out back. The view is something.”
I stood up and crossed my arms. “I’d rather stay and listen while I’m the topic of conversation.”
Tammy cleared her throat. “Jonah, it’s best to hold back information in case one of us is captured and is made to talk.”
By “someone,” she meant me. Still irritated, I left the room and walked out back. Ben had been right about the view: vast fields stretched all around me, with distant ranch houses dotting the landscape. I frowned at the old, dusty helicopter Ben had parked like an old car. I walked around it, wondering if it could still fly.
Tammy and Ben joined me a few minutes later.
“She’s a beauty, isn’t she?” Ben smiled broadly at the helicopter, which was once red before turning dusty brown.
“Can it still fly?” I asked.
Ben pursed his lips. “On paper, yes. Mary Sue loves the open sky, but I haven’t dared try her out for a while.”
Tammy shook her head. “Did you really call that rusty old thing Mary Sue?”
“I sure did, woman, and you should show some respect.”
“Don’t hold your breath. Jonah, we better get going.”
“Hold on now,” Ben said, “it’s still early. Have you ever ridden a horse, Jonah?”
“Once, when I was six.”
“It’s like riding a bike.”
“I fell from the horse.”
Ben twisted his lips. “We’ll take it slow, then.”
“Is this really the time?” Tammy asked him.
“It’s always the time for horseback riding. Jonah, come on.”
I knew it wasn’t about riding but about him wanting to talk to me. I followed him to the front of the house, where he showed me how to saddle one of the horses—an impressive brown beast he promised was as calm as a kitten, despite being named Storm. We slowly rode through fields that had been recently plowed. Once we reached an old wooden fence, we slowed to a halt. Ben climbed down and helped me as well. We went to lean on the fence, watching the faraway mountains.
“Those are the Sierra Nevada,” Ben said. “They get snowy in wintertime.”
“You wanted to show me the mountains?”
“Hardly.” He glanced at me, his face somber. “I wanted you to know that I’ve been in your shoes before.”
“Meaning?”
He slid his hand into his pocket, pulling out an old photo and handing it to me. A young, handsome man with a lot of freckles smiled at the camera, his arm around a much younger Ben. “That’s Elijah. We served at the Bureau together as field agents. I was good, but Elijah was phenomenal.”
Suspecting this story didn’t have a happy ending, I asked, “What happened to him?”
“An arrest gone wrong. Our intel claimed there were six gang members at the scene, but there were close to twenty. Elijah and three other agents were shot. He lay in a coma for a few weeks, and I had to pretend to be a colleague every time I visited him rather than what I truly was.”
“His lover?”
Ben nodded. “Three years and four months. Best years of my life. We thought that he would wake up and get better, but his system began to crash, and after one hellish day, it was over.”
I couldn’t look away from the sorrow and loss in Ben’s eyes. “How many knew you were together?”
“A few, but remember we’re talking about 1974. The few who knew had no idea what to say to me, and it wouldn’t have mattered either way.” He took the photo from my hand and smiled at it before sliding it into his pocket. “Now I’m an old man, and Elijah is forever young and full of freckles.” He cleared his throat and held my gaze. “You go after your man, and you bring him back safely. But don’t dare let anger guide your actions. Think . Every single step, you stop and you think . You understand me, Junior?”
I nodded, eyes itching. “I’ll act smart.”
He stroked my cheek, his rugged skin comforting. “Good boy. Ready to ride back a bit faster?”
“I won’t be able to help Hayden with a broken neck.”
But we did end up riding faster, fast enough for me to fear I would fall, yet I stayed steady on Storm, hanging onto the pommel and smiling broadly despite how bleak my world was.
When we returned to the house, I dismounted on my own and stroked Storm’s neck in gratitude. Tammy walked out, shaking her head at me. “You’re going to smell like a horse.”
“I’ve smelled worse.”
“Are you still driving like a snail?” Ben asked her.
“Yes,” I answered instead, which granted me a glare from Tammy.
“Let me fix you some food for the road.”
Twenty minutes later, we were back in my car, leaving the dirt road behind in favor of the smooth highway. I tried asking Tammy about her private conversation with Ben, but she just turned up the radio.
I sighed and leaned my head against the window, watching the world pass by while thinking of a young man named Elijah.