The Folcroft system had picked up something relevant to the events unfolding in Thermopolis. It was just a stroke of luck that half an hour before, upon learning of the abduction of Jackson Cole's daughter, Smith had included the disappearances of the other young girls within the search parameters of the CURE computers.
As he read the information on his buried computer screen, Smith's leaden pallor grew darker with something almost bordering on excitement.
One of the kidnapping victims had been recovered one hundred miles away from Thermopolis in the dense woods of Hot Springs State Park.
And she was alive....
Chapter Seventeen
The chatter of human voices pushed slowly into his consciousness.
Remo opened his eyes. The room was small and sparsely furnished. He was lying on a single bed beneath a set of long, tightly closed Venetian blinds.
There was another bed, still made, next to his own. Beyond that was a simple dresser, a chair and a console television. The set was on and was the source of the muted conversation that had awakened him.
The morris chair before the television was occupied.
Remo sat up, swinging his legs around to the floor. Despite a slight feeling of dizziness, the strange sensation he had experienced at Ranch Ragnarok seemed to have passed.
The person in the chair sensed Remo's movement and quietly shut the television set off.
"Welcome back to the land of the living."
Remo ignored the speaker, noticing for the first time the items atop the bureau. A bottle of hydrogen peroxide, a torn-open package of gauze and two spools of white adhesive tape. A small tin trash barrel beside the bureau overflowed with bloodstained rags.
He looked down. He wore only his shorts. His bare thighs were bound with tape and gauze. In the center
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of each bandage, halfway up his thigh, was a half-dollar-size spot of brown dried blood. Other bandages covered the minor wounds on his back.
"You're a medic now?" Remo asked the room's other occupant.
"I wear a lot of hats," Buffy Brand admitted.
"This was a nice thought, but unnecessary," Remo said, indicating the bandages. He jammed his index finger in under the tops of each bandage and slit down toward his knees. The gauze section underneath the adhesive popped free. Remo peeled off the rest of the tape, exposing the wounds beneath.
The blood flow had abated, and the bullet holes had collapsed into angry patches of congealed plasma. A pinkish pucker of skin burned around both entry and exit wounds.
Buffy tried to conceal her surprise at the rapidity with which the wounds were healing. When she had brought Remo to this motel only hours before, it looked as if the blood loss he had sustained could prove fatal.
Remo stood. His legs felt good and solid, though he still sensed something malevolent hovering at the murky fringes of his mind. He took a step toward Buffy.
"Hold it," she commanded. She lifted her hand from beside the chair, revealing a nickled revolver that she trained carefully at the center of Remo's chest.
"You brought me here and bandaged me up just to kill me?" Remo's voice was flat, but there was a spark of humor in his deep-set eyes.
"Maybe," Buffy Brand said, her voice unwavering. "If you don't do exactly as I say."
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"Sorry," Remo said with an apologetic shrug. "No can do." In a flash he was across the room and at Buffy's side. Before her eyes could register the blur Remo had become, he plucked the gun from her hand.
"I've had enough of these things lately," he growled. And with that he wrapped his fingers around barrel and butt and twisted. With a creak of protesting metal, Remo wrenched the revolver into two large halves. He then tossed the useless sections onto the unused motel bed.
"Who are you?" Buffy asked, her seemingly unflappable exterior giving way to a moment of amazement as she goggled at the remnants of her weapon.
"Ace cub reporter Remo Olsen," Remo announced. "Here to uncover the truth behind the Truth Church. And you are?"
"Special Agent Buffetta Brand, Federal Bureau of Investigation," Buffy said. "And you are full of crap."
"Aren't most reporters?" Remo asked. "Besides, I don't see you waving around any ID."
Buffy allowed him a tight-lipped smile. "It's buried in the woods a mile outside Truth Church property. Yogi Mom likes to conduct spontaneous searches, and I don't think she'd appreciate it if she found out one of her disciples was government-issue."
"Probably not," Remo agreed.
"So, what agency are you with?" Buffy asked.
"I told you before. I'm not with any agency."
"No way," Buffy said firmly. "Not the way they were preparing for you last night. They've got you pegged as someone dangerous. And from what I saw
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on the surveillance cameras, they're right on the money there."
"I don't know how dangerous I am like this," Remo said, indicating his bare legs. ' 'Is there any rule against interrogating prisoners in their pants?''
"They're drying on the shower curtain," Buffy said, indicating the half-closed bathroom door behind her. She slumped back down in the worn morris chair as he went to retrieve his chinos. "I washed the blood out as best I could, but I draw the line at sewing up bullet holes," she called after him. "I assume you don't want me to know what agency you're with. I'd prefer not to be in the dark, but I've been alone on this Truth Church thing for so long, I'll take all the help I can get."
"I don't know if I can be much help right now," Remo admitted as he came back into the bedroom. He had pulled his wrinkled chinos back on and he zipped up his fly as he sat carefully on the tacky motel bedspread. Buffy had washed the pants in the bathroom sink, and they were still a little damp.
"Suit yourself," Buffy said. "I infiltrated their organization nine months ago and I've been left in there ever since. I'm working on the warm-body principle right about now."
Remo took a deep, cleansing breath. He was beginning to feel dizzy again. His throat suddenly felt tight and scratchy. "I heard the FBI lost somebody at the Truth Church."
"My partner," Buffy said. "He disappeared last September. I think they shot him one night. But I haven't been able to locate the body. I'll have them dead-bang on murder when I do."
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"What's stopping you from escaping?"
"Until now, it's been impossible to sneak out of the place. Has been ever since Kaspar showed up. They won't let anyone go into town by themselves. I haven't even been able to report in."
"The FBI's written you off, too."
"That might make my job easier," Buffy said, and there was a cool professionalism in her voice Remo appreciated.
Remo felt a wave of nausea, and he leaned his knuckles on the edge of the bed for support. A sensation like a thousand flea bites attacked his lungs. He began coughing violently.
"You want a glass of water?" Buffy asked, rising.
Remo raised a hand. "I'm okay," he said. But his heart was pounding. He hadn't coughed like that in twenty years. He tried to ignore the dizziness and nausea. "Any idea how they knew I was coming?"
Buffy shrugged. "These people are wacko, but they've made some uncanny guesses lately. I don't buy into any of this tarot card or tea-leaf nonsense, but there's something weird going on there. About ten o'clock last night, the place went absolutely crazy. I didn't know why. I just knew something big was up. At first I thought Justice was starting a Waco rerun and the tanks were about to roll. But it was just you."
Remo nodded. "What do you know about the building at the back of the complex? The one with all the yellow smoke?"
"It's Kaspar's domain," Buffy said. "Remember my telling you when you first showed up with the old man about a split between Kaspar and Esther? Since he arrived, Kaspar's been bringing the Truth