Slayground

“The Seven Stars. When they align it will be a sign that the time of great change is on us, blah-blah-blah. The usual.” Hal waved dismissively. “There’s a file on them that I can get Bear to download for you. It’s not pretty reading. The usual collection of misfits, criminals and the confused.”

Bolan nodded. “I get your point, but it could be dangerous to think of them that simply. These raids seem to have been pretty well planned and executed. If they can do that...”

“I know,” Brognola agreed, rubbing his forehead.

“Well, what would make her—or them—a target?” Bolan asked.

Brognola smiled wryly. “On the money, Striker. Dale is a very conscientious man. He serves on committees that deal with the procurement and deployment of software and hardware that are vital to homeland security. A lot of very sensitive information passes through his hands.”

“Blackmail, then?”

“It doesn’t have to be that crude. We’re pretty sure that the Seven Stars have put two and two together, and it won’t be long before other enemies of the homeland do so when more information leaks.”

“What kind of information?”

“Elena was a good student before the cult started to get to her. She was like her father—very studious, very conscientious, very hardworking...and very patriotic. College vacations weren’t a holiday for her.”

Bolan assented. “I think I see where you’re going. Not being one for spring break, Elena liked to busy herself helping her father, right?”

Brognola agreed. “She was an additional secretary and researcher, which meant she had access to a lot of sensitive information. Also, her mother died two years ago, so Elena became her father’s confidante when it came to his work.”

“I can see why you wanted to keep a lid on this, and why you’re keen to get her back. But if she had that much access, where the hell was security when they should have been keeping an eye on her?”

“Slipped through the net, Striker. She was never on payroll or official staff. Only Dale really knew how much she was privy to, and that was why he came to me. Make no mistake, this is a sensitive issue.”

Bolan’s tone was grim. “If you have too many agencies involved, crawling over half of Florida, then you alert everyone, from the press to our enemies, that Elena Anders is more than just a runaway daughter. If you leave it to the local boys on the ground, then you’re looking at Waco and a bad result for the senator personally. In between the two, there’s no knowing what these whack-jobs have got out of her and what they’ll do with it.”

“That’s about the size of it. Elena was at Tampa, but since hooking up with the cult she’s moved farther south....”

“I gathered that.” Bolan stood and walked across the room to where a map of the United States covered half of one wall. He reached out and indicated the southern Florida area, around the Keys. “If what just happened here—” he drew a circle with his finger “—and the other two robberies took place within a radius like this, then it figures that the cult is based somewhere within the circle, which would put it right in the swamplands—tough to access without drawing a whole lot of unwanted attention to yourself.”

Brognola nodded. “We know where they are. They make no secret of that. The problem is it’s not exactly easy to get to.” He stepped in front of Bolan and indicated a spot almost in the exact center of the circle the soldier had traced. “There’s an abandoned amusement park that was built in the seventies. Eveland. As in Evel Knieval rather than Adam and Eve. All the rides and attractions were themed around the old rider’s stunts.”

“Should have made a killing back then,” Bolan mused. “And he’s become almost mythical since dying, so why is it a wreck?”

Brognola grinned. “Money. First of all, they neglected to give old Evel any for using his name and image. And even if they’d done that, or won the resulting court case, they were too mean to grease the right palms when it came to getting an interstate re-routed so that it passed nice and close to where they were situated. As a result, it’s been closed for thirty years, a hunk of useless real estate accessible only by one or two small roads that wind through the tropics.”

“Not good for whoever was fool enough to put money in, but more than good enough for this cult’s purposes,” Bolan mused. “So what’s needed is a small force—maybe just one man—who can move quickly and without detection, to extract the Senator’s daughter. Once she’s safe, then that small force can blow them out of the water. That’s if that doesn’t happen during the extraction itself. And that one man would be me, or why else would I be here? Am I right?”

Brognola clapped him on the shoulder. “Striker, you are so on the money today that I’m tempted to send you to the racetracks en route.”

Chapter 2 (#ulink_63acb84e-3fd2-5d80-b524-0a36f85fa1d6)

Elena Anders felt her breath catch as a sob rose in her throat. She tried to choke it back. Her heart was thudding so loudly that she was sure they could hear it as far away as Miami. Her clothes—ripped denim cutoffs and a soiled T-shirt—were clinging to her. She was dripping with sweat, yet her mouth felt as dry as a desert. Her ears were ringing and her head was thumping with the effort she had put in so far, and she could feel the lactic acid burning in her muscles, sapping them of strength as she tried to loosen the paling that was driven deep into the soil, supporting the wire fence. All the while, she was glancing nervously around, the tension and anxiety doing nothing for her aching head. Thoughts that were already a whirl of confusion became even more jumbled, making it an effort to concentrate on the task at hand.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, that part of the distant consciousness that was still able to attain any kind of clarity, she was sure that they were doping her up. She was pretty sure, in fact, that everyone in the compound was getting drugged, in varying degrees. She thought of the area as a compound, like a penitentiary, even though it was supposed to be a commune. Maybe it was someone’s idea of a commune, but it certainly wasn’t hers. Nothing about the Sanctuary of the Seven Stars had been how she had imagined it when they’d ensnared her in Tampa.

Ensnared. Again, that wasn’t what some would call it. Back then, she probably would have agreed with them....

Dammit, Elena, focus, she told herself. It was only by some miracle that she’d been able to slip away from the others. A chance like this wouldn’t come around again in a hurry, so she had to make the most of it.

She braced herself and pushed, so that the paling moved in a circular pattern, carving out a larger hole. Biting through her lip until she could taste the salt of blood, and feel at least a little moisture on her parched tongue, she used the pain to drive her beyond what she thought herself capable of. She gripped the paling, pulled it to her and heaved upward. Despite herself, the effort caused a gasp of pain to escape her bloody lips.

It was done. She staggered under the weight of the picket, letting it fall away from her before it could swing in the other direction and crush her. It dropped with a dull thud, and for a moment she stood panting, listening hard and not quite able to believe that it hadn’t created enough noise to draw anyone to the spot.

Elena forced herself into action. Every second mattered, as her absence could be noticed at any moment. She had to take advantage of this, even though her muscles protested and she felt as if she was moving through the swamp mud that she knew at some point she would have to face.

Where the paling had fallen, it had dragged the wire fencing out of shape, twisting it so that it was raised up from the scrub grass around the perimeter. It gave her a gap just big enough to crawl through. She fell onto her belly and dragged herself forward, ignoring the stones that scraped her stomach and knees, and the sharp ends of wire that snagged her T-shirt and the skin on her back and arms. The extra effort required to pull herself free was almost too much, but fear of what might happen if she was to be found like this, defenseless and with no chance of flight, was enough to spur her on. Finally, she pulled herself through to the other side.

Scrambling to her feet, she half stumbled and half ran into the cover of the thick undergrowth that threatened to encroach on the old theme park, and reclaim it for the Keys.

The main area used by the Seven Stars was on the far side of the park, where the entrance had once stood, the turnstiles now removed to make a large enough path for the cult’s traffic. There were administration buildings and chalets that had been designed for workers, with a cafeteria and shower block that suited the group’s communal lifestyle very well.

Farther into the park, where some of the rides had begun to crumble with age and disuse, the Seven Stars had converted several buildings into garages for the vehicles they had acquired. Farther back still, in the machine housing of some of the rides, was their armory. They used what had once been the operating booth for the park’s central attraction—a series of motorcycles that took riders over and around rows of buses, like a signature Knievel jump—as a safe block for the spoils of their bank raids and other money-gathering activities. This left great swathes of the park unused.

The cult was small—twenty people permanently on site, with a handful of others making forays into the outside world—and they preferred to stay in close proximity to each other. Vast tracts of land lay derelict, the rides slowly being absorbed back into the landscape as the humid climate took its toll on the metal and wood, and tendrils of vegetation crept through the fence and across the cracked concrete. Cult members patrolled these areas, ostensibly to ensure that any outsiders wishing to spy or cause harm were kept at bay. Elena was inclined to think, after a while, that it was more to keep the cult members in.

But what mattered right now was that the patrols were generally conducted at night. Daytime watches were intermittent and mostly assigned when Duane got too much crystal meth in his system and his paranoia got out of control. He wasn’t top banana, but sometimes he acted as if he was. Ricke called him the head of security, and what Ricke said was law in the compound.

It was Ricke who had got her hooked on the Seven Stars. When Elena was at Tampa, she had been determined to devote herself to study. Since her mother died, she had been driven to achieve what both her parents had wanted. The senator was never as demanding a parent as her mother had been, at least not overtly. His attitude was that people had to be motivated by their own inner will and drive, not by coercion. He would have been appalled if he had realized how close to nervous exhaustion she had driven herself, working constantly when she should have been enjoying all aspects of student life, and then returning home to diligently assist her father in his work.

That was where it had all started to go wrong for her. She had no doubt that the senator had the best of motives. But the information that he was privy to, and the kind of actions he would have to sanction should the need arise, made her blood run cold. It seemed so contrary to his nature to be able to sign off on acts of war. Now, removed from the hothouse pressures of her own making, she could see how her father could prioritize and keep a sense of perspective.

She could only wish that had been the case for her. She’d become too wrapped up in her own world, and could not see beyond the realpolitik of the papers she’d read when she was assisting her father. The documents painted a worldview that, for her, was unremittingly bleak, and she despaired of finding a way of life that offered her some hope.

So when a local organization hosted a series of lectures on alternate beliefs and phenomena, she’d grabbed at it eagerly, both as a means of escape and also as a possible pathway to answers.

Looking back, she knew she’d been incredibly vulnerable, and oblivious. Her devotion to her studies and to helping her dad had left her not exactly friendless, but certainly distanced from her peers. Added to this, her absorption into the world of imminent political disaster had left her in a depressed state she only now recognized. The first glimmers of light in the darkness would claim her.

Daniel Ricke had been in the right place at the right time—a tall, graying and soft-spoken man with an insistent tone and a slow-burning, intense charisma. When he spoke, Elena felt that he was talking to her and only her. His voice was melodious, the rhythms of his words drawing her into the meaning. He spoke of how man must make a choice to face the new age with the courage of love alone, leaving behind the material and the venal so he could lose the trappings that kept him in a perpetual state of conflict.

To someone who was trying to come to terms with the kinds of measures that her country would adopt in an emergency, and the kind of actions that would trigger these responses, what Ricke was saying made perfect sense. She’d told him so afterward, and he’d offered to send one of his people to speak with her further.

That was how she met Susan Winkler. She, too, spoke in an insistent manner, though her own voice burned with the fire of the acolyte and was animated in a way that belied her impassive face. Winkler spoke of Ricke’s plans to build a series of communities across the USA, and then across the world—by eschewing the use of internet technology to communicate, and relying instead on the slower, more drawn out process of word of mouth. “The longer the seed takes to flower, the stronger the bloom,” was his creed. Winkler came from a life that had been littered with petty crime and drug abuse; she’d been sent on the wrong path by the influence of the world around her. Now she could see the right way. She had the zealotry of the convert, and the slightly unhinged air of the hard drug abuser. Elena, lost in her own confusion, had not noticed this until it was too late.

With Ricke’s words drummed into her by Winkler, Elena had left Tampa and journeyed to the southeast of the state to join the community. The group was small and hadn’t yet expanded, but they had the power of truth behind them.

“What...a...stupid...moron!” she gasped as she stopped running. Her breath came in rasps that burned at the pit of her stomach, and the humidity was making her sweat. She would have to find some fresh water soon, or dehydration would cripple her. She could already feel her muscles cramping up.

She heard scuttling in the undergrowth, some creature hidden in the lush carpet of green that threatened to trap her. The sun, directly overhead, was shaded by a canopy of trees that left her in shadow. She had no idea where she was headed. If she bore east from the hole in the fence, she should be able to circle around and come out on the rough road that led to the highway. She would have to hope she emerged far enough away from the entrance to the old theme park that she would not be seen.

They must know by now she was gone. Ever since Duane had taken her on an expedition with them, forcing her to hold a gun and play a part in an armed robbery, she had been kept under close observation. She wasn’t sure why. It had taken her long enough to work out any kind of escape, and she was completely unsure of what to do next. She was unlikely to get away and raise an alarm, leading the police to the compound. If she was honest with herself, she was more likely to get lost, have an accident and die alone out here. With a sinking in her gut, she realized that this was the most she could realistically hope for—and what was worse, she would prefer it to being recaptured.

She tried to get her bearings, but all she could see was semitropical swamp that would probably lead her into water and quicksand, with a dense wall of wood and vine before her, in which critters keen to bite her face off certainly lurked. She would just have to guess, hope for the best and press on. There was little else she could do, and standing here waiting to be captured was not on the list. She knew it was illogical, but movement gave her hope.

She began to blunder through the undergrowth once more, now heedless of the sounds she made as she crashed through the vegetation, stumbling over roots and slipping on mud and leaves. Her only goal was to get as far from the compound as possible.

As she ran, her confrontation with Ricke came into her mind. She had replayed it time and again since it had happened. How had she been so stupid as to be taken in by such a charlatan...? Or was he? Maybe he truly believed in what he said, but was so stupid himself that he couldn’t see his own failure to strip himself of the venality for which he castigated the entire human race.