been stained. All of us must die, but our memories need not be trampled. My family, my friends, were called crazy cultists by the world, left for days to rot in the sun while the U.S. government positioned itself to cover up its role in their destruction.”
His voice thickened. His face flushed with anger. “The tragedy that cost them their lives was the fault of the government that hunted them. The culture that lines its pockets with the dreams of the poor.”
His followers, his family, voiced their agreement.
Aaron Jeffrey Kincaid stopped walking and stood like a statue, like a god, among his followers, among the true believers. A tremor of pure rage caught hold of him, but he embraced the anger, held it close, let it inform him, become his guide.
He took Marcie’s chin in his hand and gently tilted her head up to meet his gaze. She blushed to be singled out in this way by the Master. Some of the women had started to weep softly while the men steeled their eyes and nodded iron jaws. Marcie had borne him a daughter. He knew she would understand about the children. She’d been with him since the beginning. Even worked in PTPharmaceuticals’s research and development department before joining the family. The delicate tears in her eyes told him that he was right. She did understand. She stared past him to the door of the library.
“And so, to protect our children from the hands of those who would take them from us, from those who would teach them only deceit and evil and hatred, we have done what we must, out of love. Out of hope for the future. We have sent them to the other side ahead of us to protect them from the pain that I have carried all these years”-he looked down into Marcie’s eyes-“the pain of knowing that the memory of those you love has been spat upon by the world.”
He watched her face.
“Mercy and love require protecting children from a life filled with such torment.”
Marcie began to cry soft, constant tears. Still he didn’t let her look away.
“Do we want our children to suffer? To grow up to hear their parents scorned and ridiculed for their beliefs? No. We do not. We will not let it happen, because we love our children too much.”
More tears came. A few of the people ventured glances toward the door to the library.
“We have done to our children as our predecessors did to theirs. But only because we love them as they loved theirs, to protect our children as they protected theirs.”
“Yes,” shouted one of the men. “Yes, Father!”
And then Aaron Jeffrey Kincaid let go of Marcie’s jaw and walked to the library door. He grabbed the handle and opened the door so that he could see the bodies of the children for himself.
59
They were lying in rows. Peaceful and still at last, free from the trials and treacheries of life. Very orderly. Lined up by age, with the youngest first, the babies leading the others.
David had been gentle with them. He could have snapped them in half, but he chose to let them drink the medication instead. His was a pure love full of mercy and compassion. Yes, Kincaid told himself, he had chosen wisely when he’d appointed David to be his aide. He had chosen well.
Kincaid turned to face the group. “They have crossed over before us. They will meet us on the other side. We use the term ‘death’ to make the transition sound final, but really it is an awakening. And their awakening marks the beginning of a greater awakening throughout the world.”
His family shouted their agreement. All of them did, except for Marcie, who stared past Kincaid toward the library with vacant, cloudy eyes.
“The people of Jonestown died because they would rather choose their own destiny than have their destiny ripped from them by the very government that hunted them like animals, that planned to destroy them like dogs!”
The murmur of agreement rippling through the room grew louder, awakening at last into frenzied cheers. Aaron Jeffrey Kincaid, the focused and passionate man, the loving man, the beneficent man, let himself form a fist with his hand. Some acts were so terrible that it was a greater crime to hold back emotion from having its rightful place. “Birth is the death of the old. Death is the birth of the new. We have planned for this. We have prepared for this journey. The time has come to set destiny right at last!”
Kincaid lifted his hands to the sky. The people stood as one. The anticipation in the room rose to a fever pitch.
“He is our Father!” shouted Aaron Jeffrey Kincaid.
“He is our Father!” the men and women repeated in unison.
“His vision, our vision! His future, our future!”
“His vision, our vision!” they chanted. “His future, our future!”
“It’s a cruel world!” In his mind, Kincaid was no longer at the ranch with his family, he was beside the whirlpool with Jessica.
“It’s a cruel world!” he heard his family say, and he remembered the jungle and the men with the guns and Jessica’s trembling hands and the shore of a hungry river. His first family. The pavilion. Those who laid down and never rose again.
“But our love will unite us forever!” he cried.
“Our love will unite us forever!” Blood curling through the water. Swirling toward the future. Love that cannot die. Distant dreams and dying babies. A journey through the fabric of the night.
Aaron Jeffrey Kincaid handed the needles containing the CCHF-spliced Francisella tularensis to his family. This time the world would pay. This time the revolution would find its inevitable completion. And this time so many more would be part of the revolution.
60
I arrived at Vanessa’s room at Mission Memorial Hospital a few minutes before 8:00 a.m. to check on her condition. I asked the doctor who was leaving the room when I stepped inside if he thought she was going to be all right.
“Too early to tell.” He didn’t even look up from his clipboard to see who I was. And then he was gone, and I was alone with her.
I positioned myself in one of the chairs beside a countertop covered with pills and bottles and a Gideon Bible.
I’d called Margaret on my way to the hospital, and the conversation had gone better than I expected. She only swore at me twice. “I’m holding you personally responsible for this debacle last night.” Her voice was as taut as a cable.
“I figured you would.”
“You were the senior agent on-site.”
“Yes, I was.”
“Full report. Do you understand? Then we’ll see what happens from there.”
“Fine.”
Click.
As far as I could tell, the killer had called Vanessa and convinced her to go to the golf course. Maybe he threatened to kill her boyfriend if she didn’t, who knows.
The preliminary blood tests on Grolin’s body indicated that he’d been heavily sedated and then drugged. It looked like the killer had abducted him and then released him at the pro shop in a drug-induced delirium, with his hands taped to those toy weapons.
It seemed like I was chasing a phantom.
I hoped Vanessa might know his name.
