The Triangle Conspiracy

Sean kept his eyes fixed on Sanborn. “It’s good to meet you,” he finally said. “What Kat said about your…what do you want to call it-a movement, maybe?-made a lot of sense.” He glanced at Daryn. “Some people are pretty intent on sending some sort of message to Kat, though.”

Sanborn looked questioningly at Daryn.

“Twice now,” Daryn said, “we’ve been attacked.” She described both incidents in detail.

Sanborn frowned. “The ruling classes are nervous. You must be more careful, Katherine. Until the Coalition begins its actual work, you have to be careful what you say, and to whom you say it. If we lost you, I don’t know what we’d do. You are our heart and soul.” He looked at Sean. “Are you all right, Michael? I didn’t notice at first, but you look a bit roughed up.”

“I’m okay,” Sean said. “I’m just glad I could be there for Kat.”

Sanborn nodded. “So am I.”

“So,” Sean said, steering the conversation back around. “Your movement.”

“I suppose you could call us a movement,” Sanborn said. “Not quite what you expected, though, are we? Be honest. When you conjure up an image of a group of people living outside the mainstream, working toward radical change in society, you think of survivalist compounds where everyone carries an AK-47, or some kind of racial superiority complex, or some bunch of nut-cases who babble on and on about black helicopters and computer chips implanted in their bodies by the government.”

Sean smiled.

“You’ll find none of that foolishness here,” Sanborn said. “We’re not conspiracy theorists. We don’t have to be. The reality speaks for itself. Read the Congressional Record. That’s all the evidence we need, right there in the public record. We do have a few weapons scattered around, but more to protect our privacy than anything. No one here carries them on a regular basis, though. We’re not that kind of community.” His brown eyes bore into Sean’s. “May I ask, Michael, if you are carrying a weapon?”

“Yes,” Sean said. “I own a pistol. It’s in my duffel bag right now.”

Sanborn nodded, the look of the genial host never leaving his face. “Of course. You didn’t know what to expect from us. I understand completely. You’re welcome to keep it. I’m certainly not going to ask you to give it up. It’s your own personal property, after all. I’ll just ask you to respect the others here and not show it around a lot. We have a couple of members who actively dislike guns and are quite afraid of them.”

“Sure,” Sean said, confusion evident in his voice.

Sanborn smiled again. “As I said, we’re not what you expected. I take that as a compliment. Come in the house.”

They went in. There was a large, open front room with a few chairs and mismatched tables that looked like yard sale refugees. A man and two women, ranging in age from early twenties to late forties, were scattered around. The two women were reading-one a newspaper, one a battered Edgar Allan Poe anthology. The man had spread out papers on a chipped coffee table and was making notes. There was a chorus of greetings, mostly directed at Daryn, all of them calling her Kat. A couple of nods went in Sean’s direction when he was introduced.

“How many people are here?” Sean asked.

“We’re small but mighty,” Sanborn said. “There are thirteen of us right now. Eight women, five men. We range in age from twenty-one to fifty-eight. We come from all different backgrounds.” He nodded toward Daryn. “Kat brought most of us together.”

Sean waited a moment. “She’s very passionate,” he said slowly.

Sanborn laughed. So did Daryn. “Indeed,” Sanborn said. “So she is. And quite persuasive.”

“Quite,” Sean said.

“We’ve converted all the rooms upstairs into bedrooms,” Sanborn said. “They’re not very big, but they give a small amount of privacy. Unfortunately there’s only one bathroom. We make do, just as any group of people does when they live somewhat communally. There’s a deck out back, and a basement off the kitchen. It has its challenges, but we get by. This place isn’t permanent, but it’s the perfect starting point for us.”

“What about you?” Sean said. “What’s your background?”

“Me?” Sanborn said. “I’m an academic. I was a professor at Indiana University in Bloomington.”

“Professor of what?”

“Interpersonal communication. One of those liberal arts fields where our graduates are expected to ask, ‘Do you want fries with that?’ But, then, someone with a ridiculous number of degrees in communication can actually be useful in setting up a group dynamic like this. I’m an organizer. That’s what I do.”

One of the two big men had come back into the house. He was late twenties, blond, with cold blue eyes and a muscular build. “Let me take your bag,” he said to Sean in a soft Oklahoma drawl. “I’ll put it upstairs.”

“Thank you, Don,” Sanborn said. “Go ahead and show Michael where he’ll be bunking. Then round everyone up, if you would, please. It’s time for the meeting.” He turned to Sean. “You’re just in time for our major planning session.”

“Planning for what?” Sean said.

Sanborn’s expression lost a little of its hostlike veneer and grew deadly serious. He looked in Daryn’s direction before answering Sean. Daryn felt his cool, steady gaze.

“Planning how the Coalition will begin to reshape American society,” Sanborn said.

Sean waited a moment. Sanborn and Daryn both looked at him.

“That’s why we’re here, right?” Sean finally said.

“Yes, that’s why we’re here,” Sanborn said. “There’s only one rule here, Michael. We don’t have a bunch of silly regimens and routines to follow. We’re not a cult, we’re a political organization with political and social goals. But we do require absolute loyalty. Once you’ve joined us, you pledge to follow the goals and objectives laid out by the Coalition for Social Justice. There will be no backing out, and no betrayals, no contacting the ‘authorities’ if you don’t like something. If you do have a problem, we’ll deal with it internally, as a group. You take your problem outside the group, then we have a real problem. Do you accept that, Michael?”

Sean looked at Daryn. Daryn, standing next to Sanborn and still holding hands with the much taller Britt, looked at him, into him, just as she had in the motel room in El Reno.

All eyes in the room focused on Sean. The two women had stopped their reading. The man with the papers stopped making his notes. Don, holding Sean’s duffel bag, paused on the stairs.

“I accept that,” Sean said.

Daryn let out a breath. Anything for The Cause, she thought. She really had a headache now and wanted to lie down, to disentangle herself from Britt and from the rampant, raging emotions of the last few hours, to just be alone in a dark, quiet room for a while. But there was much work to be done. She would rest later.

“Welcome, Michael,” she said.

“Welcome, Michael,” Franklin Sanborn echoed. “Let’s get to work.”

16

DON, WHO TOLD SEAN HIS FULL NAME WAS DONALD Wheaton, showed Sean up the stairs to a small room at the end of a wood-floored hallway.

“Here,” Wheaton said. “Kat asked for the three of you to share a room, and this is the last empty one.”

“Wait a minute,” Sean said. “The three of us?”

“You and her and the other girl. Britt.” Wheaton didn’t smile, but his face lightened somewhat. “Nice arrangement.”

Sean shook his head. “Thanks. So tell me, Don. What’s your story?”

Wheaton shrugged, working his tongue around the inside of his mouth. “No real story,” he drawled. “I’m in heavy construction. I live in Noble. Got tired of scraping and struggling and other people getting rich off my sweat.”

Sean noticed a silver wedding band on the man’s finger. “Is your wife here with you?”

Wheaton looked embarrassed, fiddling with the ring. “No, but she understands. I call her every other day.”

He tossed Sean’s duffel onto the queen-size mattress in the little room, then backed away.

“Where will the women sleep?” Sean asked. “Kat and Britt.”

Wheaton looked amused. “Well, with you, of course. Aren’t you with them?”

“Well, I…” Sean shut up.

“Some guys have all the luck,” Wheaton said, and went off down the hall.

Sean headed downstairs, where the group was assembling. In addition to a diversity of age, there were two black men, one black woman, and a very young, college-age Asian woman. There were two middle-aged men who stayed very close to each other, and by their body language, Sean took them to be a gay couple. He shook his head. The Coalition for Social Justice was unlike any extremist group he’d ever known. But then, with Daryn McDermott as one of the driving forces behind it, that made sense. She was certainly unlike any woman he’d known.

Franklin Sanborn sat in one of the battered armchairs at the periphery of the group. “Let’s get started,” he said. He was still genial, with the easygoing air, but now there was something else underlying it, a let’s-get-down-to-business sort of urgency.

Sean slid onto one of the couches, squeezing between Kat and one of the black men. Britt was on Kat’s other side, pressed close to her. Sean tried several times to catch Britt’s eye, but she never looked at him.

Partners in this deception, Sean thought, and she doesn’t want to acknowledge me, doesn’t want to acknowledge her own part in it.

Sanborn looked directly at Sean. “For the benefit of our newest members, I should explain that we do have one tiny little ritual that we observe at all general meetings.”

Sean stiffened slightly.

“Don’t worry, Michael,” Sanborn said. “No ritual bloodletting. Not even a secret handshake.” There were a few chuckles from around the room. “We simply reaffirm verbally our commitment to the cause.” He cleared his throat. “I’ll begin. I’m Franklin Sanborn, and I accept the Coalition for Social Justice’s mission and objectives.”

He nodded to his left. A heavyset blond woman in her thirties said, “I’m Jeannie Davis, and I accept the Coalition.”

And so it went around the room. Sean was reminded eerily of the AA meeting Faith had dragged him to-I’m Jack and I’m an alcoholic. Hi, Jack!-but when it came to him, he said, “I’m Michael Sullivan, and I accept the Coalition.” His hands were trembling a little, and he had to sit on one of them to keep Daryn from seeing. It was late afternoon, and he hadn’t had a drink since morning. Just a couple of shots to steady myself. That’s all I need.

Daryn beamed at him and said, “I’m Katherine Hall. I accept the Coalition and believe it will change America!”

There was scattered applause. After it died down, Britt said in a small voice, “I’m Brittany Ray. I believe in Kat, so I believe in the Coalition.”

Sanborn nodded approvingly. “Thank you, friends.” He steepled his fingers in front of his face and touched his index fingers to his lips, looking very professorial. “We’ve had many discussions about how to get the attention of the ruling classes in this country. They weary us with moralistic platitudes and blather on about ‘family values,’ as if every family in America shares the same values,