英文有声《第43条疤痕》三部曲

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Chapter 27
Munroe’s heart pounded. 
Her mind reeled, working at double speed not only to maintain control but also to process what she’d just heard. 
She only half-listened as Morningstar’s explanation continued,and then, in the resultant silence, without truly thinking of the potential repercussions, Munroe said, “It’s possible for things to have happened to your sisters, even if they never happened to you.”
Morningstar, caught up in the moment, and oblivious of both Munroe’s reaction and her undercurrent of challenge, plunged on. 
“I have hundreds of friends,” she said, looking like a younger, harsher version of Heidi. 
“And these things never happened to any of them. I can guarantee you that none of us are abused. 
“It’s impossible to live this close to each other and not know what’s going on— surely out of all those hundreds, someone would have said something to me.” 
She paused, deliberated. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I just can’t accept those stories as true.”
Munroe nodded. She knew the drill, had read it all before. 
This response was standard Chosen mind-set— one person’s reality used to reject anything other than the official truth,and the term “abuse” so easily denied because it held a different meaning for the children than it did for those out in the Void. 
Same word, different language. Munroe grew dizzy. Yes, it was possible for this to happen in such close quarters and to never know. 
The proof was there, right in front of them all, young and blond and innocent, with eyes on the zucchini, chopping away with not a word spoken to correct her elder in the Lord. 
Hannah’s truth was so obvious to anyone who truly cared to look— who truly cared at all.
The pounding in Munroe’s head was extreme; the knife in front of her a rapturous way to salvation. 
Munroe fought back the urges. Fought back the rage. Fought to maintain focus. “I have to use the restroom,” she said.
“It’s the first left down the hall,” Morningstar replied, and Munroe was already on her way to the door before the sentence was finished.
In the bathroom, Munroe pounded the back of her head against the wall. Eyes to the ceiling, she took in air but could not calm the burning. 
The lust for blood was there, pure and unadulterated; the desire for revenge; to bring redemption and right wrongs that should have never been committed. 
She’d planned to avoid violence, to wait for the night and take Hannah away quietly, but she could not. 
Her head beat against the wall, a quiet thud, thud. Could not. Could not.
And then the fire, raging out of control, collapsed in on itself into a heat of pure focus. 
Munroe moved from the bathroom toward the kitchen and the hall that would lead to the foyer. 
She would grab a weapon, pull Hannah out, and be done with it all. Five minutes. 
The rest of them could pick up the pieces, and to Heidi, Gideon, and Logan— well, screw it all, she’d tried— they had her condolences for the fallout to come.
She strode past the kitchen and around toward the main hallway, moved steadily toward the foyer, and as she came to the stairwell, stopped short.
At the foot of the stairs and still descending was a group of five men and three Chosen women. 
It wasn’t the numbers or the odds that gave Munroe pause. She could get out, could get Hannah out no matter what the numbers, provided fatalities were an acceptable by-product. 
She slowed because of the men. These were the visitors, the owners of the black cars outside.
They wore tailored suits and expensive shoes, and three of the jackets bulged inconspicuously where there should have been no bulge. 
The three women, better dressed and groomed than any of the other Chosen Munroe had yet encountered, doted on the center two, who were at most early forties and easily brothers. 
The smiles were flirtatious, the conversation light, the entire crowd oblivious to Munroe’s presence until they’d all reached the lower stairs.
In slow-motion clarity the picture snapped into place. Posture. Positioning. Mannerisms. Airs.
These were businessmen, yes, but more than that. 
Munroe had spent enough time greasing the palms of society’s underbelly to know corruption when she saw it,and this was it— two of them with their bodyguards, with courtesans provided courtesy of The Chosen— and the explanation for the Ranch’s better furniture and newer vans.
The group was on the ground floor now, between Munroe and the door, in no hurry and perhaps not even going anywhere in particular. 
They remained in the hallway, and when there was a pause in their conversation, Munroe continued forward, pushing toward the right wall as a way to get past.
Her slow progress came to a complete stop when one of the two bosses reached for her. 
He moved in a playful yet proprietary way, as if somehow he had a right to touch her. 
“Hello, beautiful thing,” he said, and Munroe smacked his hand away in a move so sudden that none but he and a bodyguard were aware of it.
She had acted without thinking, rationale and logic clouded by emotion, and the shock of it pulled her back. 
As the others turned to see whom he addressed, she softened into the meekness of damage control and instantly shifted roles. 
She stared at him now, under lowered eyelids, her body speaking submission to everyone else, but her eyes glaring at him, daring him to try it again.
Munroe waited a beat and, receiving no reaction from the others, attempted to move forward. The bodyguard who’d seen her act blocked the way.
Under other circumstances this scenario would have propelled her to a different sort of action, but today she wanted none of it. 
Her focus was on getting Hannah out, and getting her out now; but her immediate plan to carry it through was rapidly deteriorating,not because of the manpower that stood in her way, but because as long as these armed men were near, there was no longer a quick and clean way out. 
Someone would be shooting back, and Hannah could get killed in the process.
The boss man whispered to one of his men, who in turn whispered to one of The Chosen women. 
Munroe remained where she was, her way still blocked, the boss man eyeing her like party food.
The woman’s face clouded when she realized what the men wanted, and once the response filtered down the line, the bodyguard stepped back and allowed Munroe to pass.
At the car, she walked to the trunk and stood there, motionless, staring at everything and nothing for a long while. 
The pause in the hallway had forced her back to reason, and with that reason returned the chessboard, the strategy, the plan that had already been laid out if she could maintain composure and hold it together long enough for the night to come.
She left the trunk and opened the driver’s door, slipped inside, and shut herself in. 
She took from her pocket the emergency cell phone and dialed. Bradford picked up on the first ring.
“I’ve only a minute,” she said. “Did you get the information; did you run it?”
“Yeah, I just got my query back,” he said. “The vehicles belong to the Cárcan family, they’re business owners in Buenos Aires, highly connected, powerful, their names linked to organized crime. 
“Most of it is high-level money laundering, although they’re suspected of far more. They work below the radar, definitely not friendly, definitely not to be trifled with.”
In Bradford’s subtle pause were many questions— like where she’d gotten the plate numbers and what the hell was going on, but he didn’t ask. 
“You’ve run into a vipers’ nest,” he said. “Please be careful.”
Munroe paused, thanked him, and shut the phone.
Beautiful.
She stared toward the front door.
The scions of the Cárcan family had not yet exited the Ranch, and Munroe had no desire to still be sitting here when they did. 
Until they were off the property, extracting Hannah was out of the question, and if she wanted to keep the option of a late-night job on the table, Munroe had no choice but to return to the kitchen.
The hallway was empty when she walked back through it, and with each determined step to the kitchen, she worked herself backward, reverting to the same frame of mind she’d had before Hannah’s private revelation had set her off.
The kitchen was as she’d left it, busy and warm, and now down to the final fifteen minutes before the food was expected in the serving area. 
When Munroe entered, there were no questions other than to assure that she was okay,and on her affirmative response, all was as it had been when she’d first walked out the door.
Munroe moved on autopilot, her face a placid veneer to the simmering inner turmoil, grateful for the quickening pace in the kitchen, which left little time for any nonwork-related talk. 
And then, the pots and trays were out the door, servers from the dining room came to collect them,and the kitchen, which just a moment before had been nearly frenetic with activity, went suddenly silent.
With a theatrical sigh, Morningstar turned to Munroe. “My dad said you’re staying the night,” she said.
Munroe nodded, ersatz smile still painted on her face.
“We’ve got ten minutes till dinner,” Morningstar said, stepping toward the door. 
“Let’s get your things, I can show you around, show you where you’ll stay.” She opened the door for Munroe to follow. 
This should have been a moment of exultation, the perfect opportunity to plot the house, the whole of it presented without ever having asked and without the need for subterfuge. 
But Munroe was emotionally tethered to Hannah, and to leave the room, even for much needed recon, put her further on edge. 
With tense reluctance, Munroe picked up her purse from the floor and left the three teenagers to their cleanup.
Munroe and Morningstar walked to the car, and there, outside, under the dimming sky, and next to the ever present sedans, Munroe pulled her overnight bag from the backseat. 
Morningstar watched with veiled curiosity, and her look gave Munroe pause. 
Morningstar’s glance at the car and then at the bag wasn’t the observation of a Keeper but that of a questioner, 
as if she were truly seeing the car for the first time, connecting its ownership to Munroe, and from there to the previous conversation about sacrifice.
Munroe set the small suitcase on the ground, expanded the telescope handle. 
Morningstar eyed the luggage— a little piece that probably cost more than Morningstar brought into the Haven through begging in an entire month.
“Do you like it?” Munroe asked.
Morningstar’s face darkened with the embarrassment of one caught peeping. “It’s very nice,” she said.
“You can have it.”
Morningstar paused and said, “Really?”
Munroe held the handle outward. “You can have it now, if you like,” she said. “I’ll get my stuff out of it later.”
Morningstar hesitated, and then with a beaming smile that screamed of Heidi, she reached for it.
Offering the suitcase was the easiest bribe Munroe had yet made.
The upstairs portion of the main house was divided into quadrants, one for rooming the teenage boys and younger single men, a second for the teenage girls and single women. 
The third housed a younger group, which was not segregated by gender, and the fourth, according to Morningstar, was divided into smaller rooms for several couples.
The entire upstairs had only two bathrooms, and much like the toilets that Munroe had seen in the annex, these also had been modified to accommodate an extra number of people.
The girls’ room, as it was called, was similar to the bedrooms in the annex and was lined and filled with homemade narrow bunk beds, three high, forming tight corridors for passage. 
Suitcases were stored underneath the bottom beds, and a row of built-in cupboards along one wall functioned as additional storage. 
All of the beds were tightly made with no personal items strewn about, the top covers home-sewn and matching. 
The only additional piece of furniture in the room was a tall, lean shelving unit covered with a curtain that fit between two of the bunk beds.
Here in this place, where space was at a premium, Munroe grasped the value held in the small suitcase she’d given to Morningstar. 
All told, if the number of beds were any indication, this unheated room of twenty by twenty feet housed fifteen girls.
Morningstar pointed up to the top of one of the bunks. “That’s the only one we have empty right now,” she said. “Because Crystal is on a trip. 
“If you think you’ll have trouble getting up and down, I can trade with you for the night.”
Munroe glanced at the bed and shook it some. Considering the center of gravity on this monstrosity, the bed was sturdy enough. 
“I’ll give it a try,” she said. Not because she wanted to sleep there, or even would be, but because next to the bunk was the shelf unit, which was prime real estate for mounting a hidden camera.
Munroe utilized the bunk’s end boards as a ladder, and with far less agility than she was capable of, made her way slowly upward. 
She sat, her head slightly bent to the ceiling, grinning, and said, “Where do you sleep?”
Morningstar pointed to a middle bed against the far wall. “And Sarai?”
The bottom beneath Munroe.
“Faith?”
Morningstar nodded to a middle bunk, one over.
All of this for that little piece of knowledge— to know where to find Hannah at night. 
And this was good. In one turn she had received confirmation of her target’s location, a layout of the upper floor, and full access to it all. 
For the price of a carry-on suitcase. 
The most difficult event of the evening would be getting out of this bed without waking the ones below. 
Munroe wiggled to shake the bed and in turn elicited a smile from Morningstar. “I might get used to this,” she said.
Morningstar’s smile lingered. “I’ve got to take care of something real quick,” she said. She pointed to the curtained shelves. 
“You can use Crystal’s shelf for anything personal you need to set out. Why don’t you get situated? I’ll be back in five minutes and then we can head to the dining room.”
Munroe nodded, baffled at how The Chosen so easily incorporated her, a criminal for all they knew, into their personal spaces; 
they trusted her to stay with their children, but not to read their disciples’ Instructives. 
Their twisted priorities made sense in a Chosen kind of way, if you understood The Chosen.
Morningstar left, and with the room empty, Munroe mounted a camera atop the shelving unit, finishing as the teenager returned.
The dinner scene was as it had been the night before. The noise of a hundred fifty voices in multiple conversations. Singing. Prayer. Then cacophony again. 
And again, Munroe sat with Elijah’s family, only tonight Hannah was there too,even though across the room her adopted mother, Magdalene, was sitting at a table with the three younger children.
Hannah’s presence gave Munroe pause, a mental double take, a rerun through scenarios and precautions, private assurances this wasn’t some form of setup,that they truly had no idea why she was here, that their act wasn’t better than hers; that it could only be coincidence.
Elijah was late in joining the table, and as he slid onto the bench opposite, he squeezed next to Hannah and put his arm around her and to Munroe said, “I see you’ve met my adopted daughter.”
“I’m still trying to understand all the family connections,” Munroe said.
“Her father is serving the Lord in another Haven,” he said, “and so Faith is with our family a few nights a week.”
His arm stayed around Hannah’s shoulder far longer than what seemed normal,and Munroe would have written it off as simply part of The Chosen were it not for the pained discomfort on Hannah’s face.
It was the second time Munroe had seen that look today. 
This was a child who had grown up among such close contact, who had shown no aversion to the physical touch of any other person, yet she was clearly distressed and wanted nothing to do with him. 
Munroe glanced from Elijah, to Hannah, to Morningstar, who sat opposite Hannah. 
This girl so proudly proclaiming that none of her friends were abused was oblivious to the dynamics in her own family and the deeds of her own father.
The embers of today’s earlier fire rekindled into a full flame. 
Nausea swept in, Munroe’s eyes smarted with the sting of anger, and her mind worked overtime, analyzing, rationalizing. 
That Hannah was being molested in this Haven, Munroe had no doubt. But that it was Elijah?
Munroe wasn’t infallible. She read the body language, but there was room for error. It wasn’t safe to assume. Not with something like this.
She sat. Breathing. Calm. Controlled breathing. Whatever was said around the table was lost to the filters of internal dialogue. 
Time slowed. She watched the interaction. Studied. Observed. 
And again the evidence was there, so obvious in the way he touched and interacted with her, so obvious in Hannah’s distaste and the fear in her eyes.
This man, this leader of the commune, was Hannah’s surrogate father, authority figure, teacher, leader in the Lord, and her abuser. 
And Hannah, stolen from her parents, abandoned by her kidnapper, and passed from hand to hand like a pet from owner to owner, had no safe place to turn,if she even understood these things to be the crimes against her person that they were.
Munroe’s inner guidance screamed, her violated childhood rose like a primal creature from the magma of the earth.
Even when Hannah was gone from here, it wouldn’t end. There would be another innocent to fill her place. 
But Munroe could put an end to it all. Kill this man tonight before leaving the Haven and break the cycle for good. 
In the scorch of each passing second came the personal conflict of vigilante justice. Break one cycle only to start a new one.
These were not strangers in a darkened alley. Elijah was a husband, parent, and granddad. 
This was Morningstar’s father, Heidi’s father, the only person these children who sat around the table had to protect them from becoming more Hannahs,and their innocent eyes, staring curiously at her from across the table, made very vivid and personal the effects of whatever she chose to do.
Control. Munroe fought for control. Breathe. Listen. Talk. They were talking to her. Answer the questions being asked.
“I’m fine,” she said. “Maybe a little dizzy from the heat of the kitchen.”

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Chapter 26
Working with Gideon had set Munroe back two hours, making it midafternoon before she finally rolled the Peugeot to a stop outside the Ranch gate. 
The routine for getting inside was the same as it had been since the beginning: a wait at the gate, a slow drive to the house, and another wait for Elijah.
But three days in, and her arrival had become routine enough that Dust, the teenage boy, accepted her offer of a ride to the door and was not nearly so reticent as he’d been at the beginning. 
Having the boy in the car was the first time that Munroe had been entirely alone with one of the younger set, and although a dozen questions ran through her head, the ride was too short for any of them, even if it was long enough for her to try to ingratiate herself.
Eyes fixed ahead on the gravel road, the better to avoid intimidation and to pass off the illusion of innocence, Munroe said, “You must be special; not just anyone gets to manage the gate, do they?”
In her peripheral vision, Dust grinned. “I’m a Greeter,” he said. “Not really anything special.” 
But his voice betrayed the pride he held in the position— even if he was but a helper— trusted only enough to open the gate for people known to the Haven, not enough to take on strangers the way Esteban was trusted.
Munroe stopped next to parking spaces that should have been empty but weren’t. 
The vans were gone, and in their place stood two late-model Mercedes sedans, black and imposing with windows tinted nearly as dark as the paint. 
These weren’t the kind of vehicles that could inconspicuously transport fifteen people around town, nor the types of cars bought on the Haven’s very limited budget.
Munroe exited the car, walked to the rear of the sedans, stood still and stared, a deliberate gesture meant to provoke an explanation from Dust without having to ask for it.
The boy turned back, said “Visitors,” and waited for her to follow.
The likeliest explanation was Sponsors, those the Haven courted for money and protection, and this was a twist. 
Depending on who the Sponsors were and what connections they carried, any number of complications could be brought into the equation.
The one-word response was the best she would get from Dust without prying, and as with any grab for information, holding back for a score was better than ruining an opportunity over a tidbit. 
The boy could have his silence; she’d get a trace on the visitors as soon as she could get the license-plate information to Bradford.
Munroe left her overnight bag on the backseat of the car and followed Dust inside. 
Instead of leading her to the alcove as she expected, he took her up the stairs to a small plywood room that walled off part of the landing near the stairwell. 
Dust knocked to announce his presence, Elijah’s voice called them inside, and the boy poked his head beyond the door. 
Dust motioned Munroe onward, then turned and left, returning to whatever kept him occupied all day— certainly not waiting for the gate bell to ring.
The little room, crowded with shelves and all the paraphernalia of a home office, was clearly shared space. 
Elijah sat at a makeshift desk on a metal folding chair, laptop in front of him, and a stack of papers on the side. 
When Munroe entered, he stood to give her a hug, blocking the way before she got far into the claustrophobic space.
She bristled at the uninvited physical contact, and once again, against visions of inflicting bodily harm, forced a casual reciprocation. 
Directly behind Elijah were three rows of shelves only partially veiled by a curtain, and books of Instructives visible beyond it. This was why he’d blocked her way.
Elijah still bore the distracted, frazzled look of yesterday and motioned toward the door, so that they both returned the way she’d come.
“I had another dream last night,” Munroe said, and before he could reply, handed him an envelope. “God told me to give this to you.”
Elijah took the envelope with an appropriate pause, a glance long enough to ensure gratitude and appreciation, quick enough to avoid appearing money hungry. 
Without opening the envelope, he said, “Thank you,” and then, guiding her back toward the stairs, said, “The Lord could use you in his service today. If you are willing, there’s a need in the kitchen.”
“I’d love that,” she said, and notwithstanding that within The Chosen willingness was never a choice, there was more truth in her simple statement than in anything she’d said to him thus far.
The kitchen was on the ground floor, far back along a hallway that ran behind the stairs, cordoned off from the rest of the house by a solid door that remained closed.
Elijah opened the door, and Munroe entered a room much warmer than the barely heated house. 
Whatever had been going on came to a near stop, and in the quasi-silence the hiss of large pots simmering on an industrial-size gas stove was louder than it should have been.
In the center of the kitchen, allowing minimal walking space around it, was a makeshift wooden island with enough counter space to accommodate the three teenage girls who stood chopping vegetables. 
On the far wall were large stainless-steel sinks, in front of them a teenage boy, and beside him a guy in his early thirties whom Munroe assumed was responsible for orchestrating whatever went on inside these walls.
Elijah introduced Munroe, spoke in English, and said little. 
The thirty-something introduced himself as Hez, to which Munroe guessed Hezekiah. 
The boy, Jotham, faced the door only long enough for an introduction, then turned his back to the room and his hands to their labor. 
The girls smiled, if somewhat shyly, and moved closer together to make space.
On the other side of the island, between Morningstar— Elijah’s daughter of the night prior— and a new face called Sarai, stood Hannah, who introduced herself as Faith.
In Munroe’s mind, this should have been the moment of the great escape. 
This was where the good guys finally got close to the target, whipped out the guns, and dragged the kid safely out of the compound.
And technically, Munroe could do it. All it would take was a quick stroll to the car, a click of the trunk, and a return with a weapon. 
The gate out front wasn’t much of an obstacle, considering that her car’s air bags had already been removed for such an eventuality. 
If the little band in the kitchen chose to fight instead of cower, it might be a struggle to hold on to Hannah and fend off the other four, but it was possible.
Not possible without firing a round or two, which given the potential presence of Sponsors on the property would be an unwise course of action. But this wasn’t the movies. 
These were real people, with real lives, real teenagers who, among all else, didn’t need the traumatic emotional damage of witnessing that type of violence. 
Especially not on top of what they already experienced in daily life. 
These were the brothers and sisters that Heidi and Logan and Gideon cared so intensely about, and to harm any of them as a way to rescue another was to inflict pain in the course of healing.
If violence was the only way to get Hannah out, Munroe would act. But there were other, cleaner ways. 
Tonight, while the Haven slept, she would plot the house and call Bradford in. Together they would extract the girl and be done with this place for good.
In the meantime, the kitchen provided the perfect opportunity to develop familiarity, confidence, and camaraderie, not only with Hannah but also with Morningstar, Heidi’s sister. 
Through Morningstar, Munroe could delve further, and better understand what tack to take with Hannah once she was successfully pulled.
Hez, in Spanish that was poor at best, gave Munroe a brief run-down of what the kitchen needed to accomplish in the next two hours. 
She nodded meekly, and when he was finished, she shrugged out of her coat, glancing around for a place to set it.
As she’d hoped, he recommended that she keep it in the living room, and so Munroe left the kitchen, moving slowly only as long as they watched. 
When the door shut, she headed to the big room at a near run. 
She dropped the coat on one chair, placed a bug underneath another, and then mounted a microcamera close enough to the floorboards so that it was almost unnoticeable.
The camera was small, with limited battery life and limited range, but provided she didn’t go far, the receiver in her purse would pick up the signal, boost, and transmit. 
She aimed the lens toward the front door but had no time to check for accuracy. She’d try to fix it later.
Munroe knelt by the chair, said, “Take note. I need you to run these license plates,” and to the quiet living room recited from memory the numbers she’d taken from the black sedans.
Even if Bradford wasn’t at his desk when the bug had gone live, he’d be eager for any data coming from the Ranch and would find it soon enough. 
Munroe left it at that. Bradford had what he needed to get to work, and if he turned up anything urgent, he’d call the cell phone set up for that purpose, although, for the sake of appearances, outside of an emergency, it was best that she avoid calling him.
Munroe returned to the kitchen and stood at the island with the girls. 
Morningstar pushed a bowl of potatoes in her direction and handed her a cutting board and knife.
With a silent sigh, Munroe turned to the knife, bulky and dull. 
Had those in this room any inkling of what the predator inside her could do with this clunky kitchen blade, they would never so blithely carry on.
Her fingers closed around the handle and the knife became one with her body, an extension of her arm. 
On instinct she measured the weight and balance, pulled a potato from the bowl, and, as she was shown, cubed it.
English was the lingua franca, the conversation casual and at times even irreverent. 
From the sporadic banter, Munroe learned more about The Chosen and their ways than she had in all of her conversations with Elijah. 
Occasionally Morningstar would pause and, in turn, interpret selected phrases into Spanish, 
unaware, because of Munroe’s pretended ignorance, that everything said was not only understood but also recorded.
It also quickly became clear that when Spanish was spoken, Hez and Jotham understood little of what was said and cared even less.
The dynamic of the kitchen was a lesson in the division of power. 
This was Hez’s domain; he was responsible for making miracles with the food supplied to him, and each person yielded to him in matters of the work being done. 
But in all else, Morningstar, Heidi’s sister, held sway. 
Morningstar was the one trusted with guiding Munroe, the one from whom the others guarded thoughts and conversation, and to whom they deferred when talking with this stranger.
Time progressed, and the little group grew more comfortable with Munroe’s presence. 
She was integrated into the conversation, cracking quips that made the girls laugh, and asking the occasional question. 
Not the uncomfortable topics that were standard fare out in the Void; 
nothing about what they did for fun or their favorite subjects in school, and definitely no discussion about college or their career choices— as if such decisions were theirs to make. 
She stayed within familiar territory where there were no traps or pitfalls, or topics tiptoed around in order to make their way of life more palatable to an outsider, and thus they felt less reason to guard their conversation.
These three teenagers were no different from even the hardest of marks with secrets to keep and the moral upper hand in keeping them. 
Flip a mark from offensive to defensive, poke at his softest spots and put him under attack, whether real or imagined, and barriers are lowered and information becomes available.
Munroe bent the conversation offhandedly, focusing on their church, as they called it, 
on the joys of serving the Lord and the blessing of sacrifice, reflected on the sacrifices made by those who’d given up everything to serve God, 
and then she pushed on, asking the young ones to explain how, having been blessed to be born into the movement, they could possibly match or appreciate what the first generation had given up.
The segue came so subtly that the girls never saw the angle. 
Morningstar and Sarai spoke freely of their own lives, their own sacrifices, and Munroe waited patiently, absorbing, while oddly, Hannah remained silent.
Munroe said finally, pointedly, “What about you, Faith?”
Hannah gave a furtive glance in Morningstar’s direction, 
and then, after what seemed like but the slightest nod of assent, Hannah said, “I sacrificed my dad for the Lord’s work. 
“He serves in a special way, which means I don’t see him anymore— haven’t for a few years, 
“so just like the first generation that joined and gave up family, I’ve done it too. I know what it’s like. It’s hard. But the Lord will bless me for it.”
Hannah’s words were confirmation of what Munroe suspected regarding David Law, but the blatant truth brought with it a pang of agony. 
Munroe’s face mirrored the placid reaction of those around the table while her own inner cauldron began to bubble once more. 
Hannah was a child that mattered enough to steal, enough to kidnap and remove from parents who loved her and who would have given her the world, but she didn’t matter as much as service to The Prophet.
Morningstar shot Hannah a withering look, and Hannah paused in her explanation. 
Munroe moved to salvage the moment. “At least you have your mom,” she said.
Hannah nodded. “She’s my mother in the Lord— kind of like an adoptive parent.”
“Is your real mom together with your dad?”
Hannah shook her head. “She’s in the Void, she’s an Enemy of God. We’re not yoked with unbelievers.”
Munroe knew the scripture and what that meant, and this was an opening to run in a million directions. 
She chose the path least natural and most sympathetic to The Chosen. “So it’s for the best,” she said. 
And then, after a pregnant pause, “Do all of you have unbelieving family outside The Chosen?”
“Not all of us,” Hannah said, “but Morningstar does.”
Munroe expected another look of reproach from the nineteen-year-old, but instead the girl sighed and set to work mincing onions. 
The sting was powerful enough to set eyes watering around the table. “I have a couple of sisters in the Void,” she said.
“Older sisters?”
Morningstar nodded. “But I don’t talk to them, not just because they’re unbelievers but because they’re liars.”
“What do they lie about?”
“Things that didn’t happen in our church that they say did happen,” she said, “things that we believe and things that we don’t believe— stuff like that.”
“Like what, for example?”
Direct probing was a tactic Munroe generally tried to avoid, but here, Hez and the boy paid no attention, and it passed unnoticed by the girls.
“They say that children in The Chosen are abused and that we have no education and that adults have sex with kids,” she said. 
“Obviously, looking at me, you can see I’m not abused. Personally, this life is the best education any teenager could hope for, and no adult has ever had sex with me.”
Across the island, Hannah shifted her eyes. Her glance was barely noticeable, the type of look a guilty man gets when his subconscious overrides a lie and awareness quickly overcomes it. 
It was a split second of recognition, but it was all that Munroe needed to draw the connection. 
Her stomach dropped and her pulse rate rose. Instant. Calm to rage in a split second.
She put the knife down and slid it point first under the cutting board. 
Not because it was what she’d been instructed to do when it wasn’t in use, but because getting the knife out of her hands was the fastest way to keep from shedding blood.

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Chapter 25
The big room emptied, and the hallway and stairwell filled with the footsteps and commotion that always came when everyone filtered out from morning Instructives to their different ministries.
Hannah kept her eyes low and followed the footsteps to the schedule board. 
She wanted to be small, invisible, didn’t want anyone to talk to her because, being on silent punishment as she was, she wasn’t allowed to return the conversation, and that was embarrassing.
The assignment board said she was in the kitchen again, and for this, Hannah almost smiled. 
Normally, when you were in trouble, except for the days of raising money, you were put to cleaning toilets, scrubbing floors, or any other of the yuck jobs around, usually for weeks at a time. 
But since Morningstar was her full-time Keeper, and maybe because Morningstar didn’t deserve to do the low jobs, they’d let Hannah stay on normal assignments instead, which was a relief.
Hannah pushed open the kitchen door expecting to find Morningstar waiting, but so far, only Uncle Hez was there.
Hannah nodded. Hez already knew she was on silence, so he sent her to sort vegetables in the lean-to pantry. 
That was the yuck job of the kitchen, sorting vegetables. 
It meant digging through what was rotten, sometimes even with maggots or other bugs, to find what was still worth eating. 
It was a little tricky to find the balance, because lots of things Hannah didn’t want to eat were still considered edible, and if you threw away too much, Hez got mad.
She was sorting through a box of tomatoes, fingers covered in mush, when the screen door banged open and Morningstar stepped into the lean-to.
“Elijah wants to see you,” she said. “He’s in his room.”
Since Hannah was allowed to talk to Morningstar, she said, “Should I finish this first?”
“No,” Morningstar said, so Hannah put down the bucket, turned on the tap of the outside sink, and washed her hands.
She didn’t look up when she walked back through the kitchen. The rest of the crew was there. 
They knew she was in trouble, and Hannah was pretty sure they also knew she’d been summoned for another talk, and she didn’t want to see them stare after her as she went.
Hannah walked slowly to the back door, her stomach turning cartwheels, the sick feeling coming all the way up to her throat. 
Her heart was pounding very hard, as if it were beating against a wall and trying to escape through it. 
In her mind a thousand thoughts flew by, every possible thing she could have done wrong in the last few days. 
She’d not talked to anyone. She’d not disobeyed. She’d shown a meek and humble spirit. 
She’d written good and honest reactions to every Instructive in order to show that she’d truly taken in the words of The Prophet. And she had been very, very yielded.
But, even still, it could be anything, and there was nothing good that ever came out of a talk.
Elijah’s room was in the annex, around the corner from the ten-to-twelves, and when Hannah reached it, she knocked quietly on the door.
He said, “Open,” and she stepped inside. The room had a double bed, and very close, with almost no walking space, a small desk. 
Elijah was sitting on the chair beside the desk, and Auntie Sunshine was sitting on the bed. Seeing Sunshine here was a surprise.
Sunshine patted the bed and said, “Sit down, sweetie.”
Hannah’s stomach jumped again. Nice words or even nice gestures were often the thing that came before trouble. 
She sat slowly, folded her hands in her lap, and waited for someone to talk.
“I have a letter from your dad,” Elijah said.
Hannah nodded, and reached for the paper that he held out to her, which was really a printed-out e-mail that Elijah and Sunshine had obviously already read. 
There was no way they would have called her in here just to give her a letter, but still, it felt good that her dad had written, 
and since Elijah and Sunshine still didn’t say anything, she knew they were waiting for her to read what it said before they started talking.
There wasn’t much to the e-mail, just a couple of paragraphs about how busy he was and how much he missed her, how proud of her he was for letting him go do the Lord’s work, 
and that he had put her in the Lord’s hands and trusted those who made decisions for her, that they were doing what was best.
That’s how all her dad’s letters were, they never really said anything, and even if she really, really tried to read between the lines, she might only find a possibility of some extra meaning. 
But it was nice to hear from him, nice to be remembered, and it made her throat hurt and feel all tight.
She put the page down on the bed so that Elijah and Sunshine would know that she had finished, 
and then, right on time, Elijah said, “Honey, we’re going to be sending you away from the Haven for a little while.”
A million questions danced around in Hannah’s head, but there were very few she would be allowed to ask, 
so she paused, and with what she was sure would be seen as a humble spirit, said, “Because of my sins?”
Elijah smiled, and it was a funny smile, almost like he was laughing at her, but it was better than if he was angry.
“No, sweetie, not because of that,” he said. “Our vicious enemies, the ones who have spent so much time trying to get you, are on the attack again, and there might be raids. 
“We want to keep you safe and away from it all, so that’s why.”
Hannah felt sad, repentant, and it was such a heavy weight.
The Havens and The Prophet suffered so much because of her, and because of her evil mother from the Void who used the police and Antichrist governments to persecute The Chosen. 
She and her dad had to move often, and the Havens went to great lengths to keep her safe from the Void. 
Even The Prophet knew about her situation, and that made her current sins so much worse, because it showed she didn’t appreciate the sacrifices made for her.
“Is it my Void mother again?” Hannah asked.
“We’re not really sure who it is this time,” Elijah said, 
“but the Lord and The Prophet showed us to expect it, so we are making preparations.”
“Where will I go?” Hannah said. “Will I travel without my dad?”
“Your dad’s given his blessing,” Elijah said. “But since he can’t travel with you, you’ll stay in the city— just not in a Haven, and Sunshine will go with you instead.”
That explained why Sunshine was here.
“Right now?” Hannah asked.
“We have Sponsors stopping by sometime today or tomorrow, and they’ll take you to a safe place.”
The experience of what had happened the last time Hannah had visited Sponsors with Sunshine was still fresh and raw, 
and the memories wrapped around her neck like two large hands that cut off her air, and made her feel as if she would suffocate.
She wasn’t supposed to ask questions, but the fear of one overpowered the fear of the other, and without thinking she blurted, “Will I have to share the Lord’s Love again?”
The response to her question was silence.
Sunshine’s face clouded, and Hannah recognized the look— it was what adults did when they were thinking about how to get out of a sticky situation. 
But Elijah’s expression really scared her, because he looked absolutely puzzled, like he had no idea what Hannah was talking about.
This meant two things. The first was that maybe Rachel hadn’t reported on her. Maybe it was some other disobedience she was in trouble for. 
But worse, it meant that Sunshine, even though she lived in this Haven, was higher than Elijah, and the only way that could happen was that she reported directly to The Prophet. 
That meant that if Hannah were to leave the Haven with Sunshine, Sunshine basically owned her,
because nobody would cross someone who reported directly to The Prophet.
The fear was overwhelming and Hannah fought back the tears. She was more helpless than helpless. 
She didn’t want to leave the Haven. Didn’t want to go anywhere alone with Sunshine, and Hannah wanted to believe that if her dad were here, this would never happen. 
At least with her dad, she could beg him to intercede, beg that he be the one to go with her instead of Sunshine, which was something she couldn’t do with her mom, because her mom would just tell her to be yielded and to obey.
These insights came in a flash, and Hannah, frantic to find a way to appease Sunshine, to get on the good side of this woman, who, after today or tomorrow would have full and single control of her life, began to try to back out of her question, but Sunshine spoke first.
“Oh, sweetie,” Sunshine said, “it’s nothing like that. We’re going to go to a hotel for a few weeks, 
“just to keep out of sight and keep you protected because the Lord and The Prophet told us to prepare for raids, that’s all.”
Hannah nodded. She wanted to believe. Sunshine wouldn’t lie, would she? 
They could lie to outsiders in the Void, but Chosen didn’t lie to Chosen. 
If the adults didn’t want you to know something, they just rebuked you for asking. But maybe this was different. 
Maybe Sunshine would lie because Elijah was here, and it was so obvious that Elijah wasn’t supposed to know anything. Did adults lie to adults?
Elijah cleared his throat, like apparently he was done with the topic and ready to move on to something else. Hannah tensed.
He said, “You understand, sweetie, that moving outside the Haven doesn’t change the lessons that you need to learn, right? 
“We’re still very concerned about your spiritual health, and from some of the reports that I’ve received over the last few days, it seems you’re still letting the Devil into your life.”
Hannah didn’t say anything. Whatever it was she’d done this time, she was completely unaware of it. 
Maybe the confusion showed on her face, or maybe a look of pure innocence, because Elijah continued.
“Many people have noticed a gloom on your countenance,” he said. “When you are full of the Lord’s spirit, it shows, and you’ve not been letting Jesus shine through you. 
“You need to smile more, Hannah, and let others see Jesus in you.”
Hannah nodded. 
There hadn’t been a whole lot to smile about lately, but that was never a basis or justification for letting her countenance darken. 
No matter how sad, you couldn’t show it, it was very important that you smile and let Jesus shine through you always, 
and with so much going on inside her heart these past few days, she had been careless about what showed on the outside.
“You can pack after lunch,” Elijah said. And when she’d nodded again, he said, “Now come give me a hug and show me that you’re right with the Lord.”
Hannah stood, leaned toward him, gave him a hug. 
Elijah reached around, squeezed and patted her bottom, more of that uncomfortable kind of touch.
“The Bible says, ‘Whom the Lord loves, He chastens,’ ” Elijah said, “and we only punish you because we love you and want you to be the best that you can be for Jesus.”
Hannah returned to the kitchen as slowly as possible. The only thing waiting for her was rotten vegetables, so there was no reason to hurry, 
and Hez couldn’t be mad if it was Elijah who’d called her away. Maybe, if she was lucky, Hez needed them right away and so had already sent someone else to do the sorting.
Hannah thought about all the things that Elijah had said, and as she always did whenever she was taken for a talk, or when any other piece of news came her way, she searched out whatever good she could find, 
so that she could hold on to it and convince herself that everything was okay. 
As long as she could make herself believe, then the sick feeling was controllable.
Hannah reached the kitchen, but before opening the door, she paused to make sure her countenance was right. 
A half-smile would be enough. Too much would look fake and make it seem that she’d gotten into more trouble, and that would cause just as much of a problem.
Hand to the door, Hannah pushed it open, and every part of her body and every secret prayer reached toward Heaven in the hope that Sunshine had told the truth.

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Chapter 21
Elijah didn’t come, and in the protracted silence, Munroe waited with the deliberate patience of a predator on the hunt. 
The world of information, of infiltration and surveillance, of buying and selling secrets, was a world of endless waiting, idle stress, and measured self-control, 
a learned and practiced skill of knowing when to move, when to stop, and how to maintain a holding pattern for indefinite periods of time.
This was a holding pattern.
Like the four hours that had been spent in this room yesterday in order to allow Bradford his ten minutes of reconnaissance and placement, the waiting would buy her what she wanted. 
If she hadn’t already been handed a book and asked to stay, she would have requested something, anything, to prolong the visit until the missing vans returned and the house began to fill again. 
Elijah, with his desire to bring her into the fold, had solved that problem.
As if on cue, from beyond the front door came a mounting wave of sound, of footsteps and voices, all drawing closer to the house.
Munroe switched off the light in the alcove and moved through the darkened living room toward the front door. 
She chose the chair closest to the entrance, positioned so that its back was to the front of the building, and its direct view to the foyer blocked by a small wall segment. 
Here in the darkened corner she could see the side and back of each person who passed, and the disadvantage of not being able to clearly scan faces was compensated by placement. 
Unless someone specifically turned around and peered into the room, she would never be noticed.
Through the front door they came, mostly teenagers, tromping in from the cold with the weariness of a hard day’s work. 
Based on the size of the vehicles and the size of the crowd, if this was the return of only one van, it had headed out with more people than seat belts.
There was conversation and a form of lighthearted jostling among the youngsters as they passed, 
and with no consciousness of noise level, the building took on a tone closer to what Munroe expected to be its natural state.
They passed in groups of two or three, loaded with coats and heavy bags, and were it not for the information she already had, 
by looks alone it would have been easy to assume that they were students returning from school rather than from begging in the street, which made up much of their daily routines.
From beyond the open front door and still out of sight, the voice of a woman called to several in the group. 
Three of the teenagers, having just passed through the foyer, paused and then turned. 
They stood but several feet from where Munroe sat, each face clearly illuminated by the hallway lighting.
And in that moment, time stopped. Munroe measured out the heartbeat trying to escape her chest. Feet away was the mirror image of a younger, female Logan.
Munroe fought the urge to stand, to snatch, to run, and made the split-second decision to hold back, based on the factors hammering their way into mental position: 
location to the door, number of people nearby, time needed to get to the vehicle, and, provided she could neutralize Hannah, the process of fighting her way out with a hundred pounds of dead weight.
And so Munroe stared, action held in check by the lasting shock of seeing the miniature copy, blond-haired and green-eyed, before her. 
Slowly, the pure focus of impartial, unemotional assignment returned.
Through the freeze-frame moment, she had nearly failed to register the weight of the words that the girl had spoken to that detached and invisible voice beyond the door. Mom.
The child, whose true mother and father had spent the last eight years fighting to find her, had addressed another as her mother.
Munroe waited, tense, eager for the woman to pass, hoping for a sign of recognition, to know who this person was, 
and as the last of those who’d filled the van trailed inside, she found nothing but a female indistinguishable from any other stranger.
The foyer emptied, and Munroe remained motionless in the dark corner, pushing down the slow, smoldering burn that she’d been sitting on all day, processing the moment, running scenarios.
To strike too quickly with a lack of valid information would invite mistakes; to wait too long was to expose herself to unwanted scrutiny and suspicion. 
The mental chessboard set itself out; move against move, strategy to probability, chance against the known, 
while she counted off time in her head and waited for the next group to enter the foyer.
Another ten minutes and the procedure repeated with a second group, this time the youngsters closer to preteens and nearly as many adults as children. 
On the heels of this came another, and as the first two groups had done, they filtered down the hall, some heading up the wide staircase, others passing on through the back door toward the annex.
With each return, the volume in the house grew. 
The stairwell became a beehive of activity, the back door a constant open-and-close as the main house filled and emptied again.
If Munroe had calculated correctly, there were still two more vans to return, but there was no point in sitting here waiting for them. 
She’d seen what she wanted, knew what she required, and the spectrum of objectives had narrowed down to two: 
she needed to gain familiarity with the layout of the building and to know where Hannah slept.
The back door opened again, and instead of the steady flow heading out, a solitary set of footsteps slapped a rapid pace toward the foyer. 
Munroe stood, moved back across the room to the alcove, and flipped the light on. She was nose to the book when Elijah entered.
His mouth was smiling, but his eyes were worried, and his previous harried look had grown to frazzled. 
Something was keeping him occupied, had him stressing badly, and he perfectly portrayed the stereotype of an executive just out of a bad news conference.
“Hey,” he said. “How’s the reading going?”
In a contrasting calmness, Munroe looked up, her face full of peace. 
“It’s wonderful,” she said. And then, as if in a bewildered afterthought, added, “What time is it?”
Elijah glanced at his watch, a nervous movement that had to be more habit than necessity because she knew that he knew exactly what time it was. 
He uttered the hour, and Munroe feigned innocent surprise. “It passes quickly,” she said.
He paused and then relaxed, the tension he carried fading, as if he’d shifted from work to pleasure. 
He sat next to her, so close that they almost touched, and he appeared oblivious to any discomfort the invasion of her personal space might cause— 
even less aware that his proximity might be unwanted or of the effort with which she pushed back the returning rage.
Elijah asked about the material she’d read. He fished for depth, for emotional connection, and Munroe’s words flowed in response. 
Her answers were a cautious hot-and-cold, a drawing close, then a pulling away that toyed with him in the same way a player might keep a love interest on the line.
Elijah put a hand on her knee and said, “Why don’t you join us for dinner?”
At his touch, Munroe’s vision shifted to gray, and in microsecond gaps she fought back the desire to break his fingers. 
With a smile plastered on her face and a long pause that could only be interpreted as thoughtful consideration, she said, “I think I would enjoy that.”
His hand remained on her thigh, burning a hole of violence through her core, and then, in a sudden movement, he stood.
“Wonderful,” he said, and her body reacted to the removal of his hand as if she’d received an oxygen mask in a room full of noxious gases. 
She handed him the book, but he shook his head. “Keep it,” he said. “There’s more to read and we can discuss it as soon as you’ve had the chance.”
“Thank you,” she said, and then, with another vanload of footsteps playing background music, she clutched the words of The Prophet to her chest and followed Elijah out the back door to the annex.
If the main house had been quiet, the dining room was the perfect counterpart. 
The room of tables that had been so empty earlier in the day now birthed life and volume, and was still in the process of filling. 
From the sliding door on the far right wall, a girl of thirteen or fourteen led a group of six toddlers into the room, 
and then, having delivered each child to groups at separate tables, joined a table near the center of the room.
Although the varied looks and racial features of each group would have implied otherwise, the scene was set as if dinner was being served in family groups, 
and so Munroe scanned the room, searching out Hannah. She found her several tables down with the woman she called Mother and three younger children. 
The woman shared none of Hannah’s physical characteristics, instead sporting a contrasting mixture of nearly pale green eyes, thick lashes, and jet-black hair against skin the color of a perfect tan. 
There was no sign of David Law, although he was perhaps in one of the vans that had not yet returned.
Elijah led Munroe to the same corner table that they’d sat at earlier in the day; this time it was filled with the wife and children she’d met before. 
Three teenagers and a young couple with a baby were there as well, 
and as Elijah explained her presence to the others in English, he introduced the couple to her as his son and daughter-in-law, and grandbaby.
These were Heidi’s people, the son and two of the girls clearly her biological brother and sisters, and the others, 
although half siblings and sharing the Filipina features of their mother, still showed familial similarities. 
Of those at the table, the teenagers spoke Spanish with perfect fluency, but the mother and younger children spoke only English.
Munroe was offered a seat that allowed her a vantage point of the room, and she took it all in, detail by detail, under the guise of conversation. 
Industrial-size pots again filled the serving counter, and three teenagers stood over them, scooping food onto plates as the line progressed, cafeteria style. 
One of Elijah’s daughters brought Munroe a plate, and Munroe nodded in thanks over the indiscernible soupy contents.
The influx began to ebb, and Munroe estimated there were a hundred and fifty in the room, the majority of them children and teenagers. 
Her eyes scanned, running over the faces of the children, all of them young, innocent, and perfect, some fighting in their own way for a slice of limited attention spread so thin among so many, 
others, as with Elijah’s children, appearing indifferent to their parents completely, all of it so painful to watch, but Munroe couldn’t look away.
Thankfully, The Chosen didn’t carry weapons. Had that been the case, should anything go wrong with extracting Hannah, the potential for collateral damage would be tremendous to the terms of unacceptable. 
Munroe’s eyes rested at last on a young man, mid-twenties, with a guitar hung around his neck. 
With a perfect lack of self-consciousness he stood, strummed, and began to sing.
The eating stopped, the discussions stopped, and a hundred voices filled the room in unison. 
One song segued into another, and into another still, until the medley relating to food and the gratitude of belonging to this large family of believers had lasted nearly ten minutes.
When the music ended, the young man said a few words of thanks to the Lord requesting cleansing of the food from any germs, then he joined his family and sat. 
The volume in the room went back to its original cacophony. 
He had spoken in English, a clear articulation that reminded Munroe of Logan, 
his accent distinctly American but with twinges of Western Europe and hints of Latin America, and it seemed that most of those here shared that same accent.
Munroe rejoined the conversation and continued to surreptitiously watch the room. 
The influx was over and so was the singing, and the table at which Hannah sat still held no David Law.
For being the man who had kidnapped a child to bring her back into a movement, the man who was the closest thing Hannah would have known to a father and the only thing she had resembling real family, David Law was strangely absent. 
Munroe didn’t need to know where he was in order to pull off this job, but like a wasp in the room, it was helpful to know his location.
The meal wound down, families filtered out of the room, but Elijah’s remained and Munroe stayed with them, internal tension mounting while she applied focus to the moment. 
She wanted Hannah. Wanted to wander. Reconnoiter.
Instead she sat, plying the made-up desire to belong and feigning interest in their beliefs, sweetly conversing and answering questions, until eventually the group of teenagers who had stayed behind to clean up completed their chores, and Elijah and his family invited Munroe to join them in the living room.
There, crowded into every seat and the floor space between, were the same one hundred and fifty from the dining area. 
Together they spent an hour of dedication to The Prophet, songs and selected readings, and as Munroe assumed was the same for many in this room, she countered the boredom of it all by allowing her mind to wander free, wondering if they were so na?ve as to fail to recognize the obvious— that even the most unsuspecting visitor would realize that this evening’s show had been put on especially for her.

Chapter 4 Buenos Aires, Argentina
The trees and buildings and parked cars rolled by, and Hannah stared out the passenger van window not really seeing, but definitely listening.
She was badly curious about why she was here, but knew not to ask, and so sat silent in the farthest back row, trying to catch clues in the discussion between the two adults in the front seat.
Not knowing made her stomach queasy. At least when you knew a thing, even if it was bad, you could prepare for it. 
It was better to know something bad than nothing at all, and right now she knew nothing at all.
It was very odd that they’d brought only her and none of the other kids, 
and although it didn’t seem like she was in trouble, sometimes it was hard to tell, 
because like a slap upside the head, trouble had a way of coming out of nowhere.
Until Hannah knew one way or the other, there wasn’t really any way to get rid of the sick feeling, 
but right now the best way to stay out of trouble was to keep quiet. 
If she was quiet, they would forget about her, which meant that at least for a while they would leave her alone and she could listen.
They were very serious in the front seats, Uncle Zadok and Auntie Sunshine, calling on the Golden Verse for protection and wisdom, and for guidance, 
and the matter must have been Secret, too, because they didn’t make Hannah come to the first row and join them in prayer.
Zadok’s eyes were open, they had to be so he could drive, 
but Sunshine’s were closed and her mouth was moving, and Hannah could tell that she was Spirit Talking, which was boring, so she only half-listened.
Having the whole back of the van to herself, with no one to mind her, felt amazing— almost as good as it did that time when she got a real present on her birthday. 
And since Zadok and Sunshine were too occupied to rebuke her for idleness, Hannah spent the stolen moments staring out the window 
while her thoughts went far, far away into the forbidden and hidden daydreams that helped time fly and made everything else better. 
And then the van swung wide and the pull of the turn brought her back.
She’d no idea how much time had passed or how long she’d been in fantasy, and because of this her stomach flipped in a pulse of fear. 
For such disobedience, there was certainly trouble waiting.
But Zadok and Sunshine hadn’t noticed that she’d been daydreaming, and so she calmed. 
Hannah recognized a building and knew that they were now somewhere in the business district, not too far from the ports. They came here sometimes to raise money in the offices. 
Sunshine’s eyes were open again, and she seemed a bit more relaxed. 
That was good, because relaxed adults meant better moods and less chance of getting in trouble. 
Maybe the Spirits had said nice things would happen, although to Hannah it seemed the Spirit Words were forever vague and the adults always ready to believe the excuses for why predictions didn’t come true. 
What was the use, really, of dead people talking if you could never count on what they said?
Sunshine was speaking to Zadok again, real words, not Spirit Words, so Hannah turned her eyes toward the book of Instructives in her lap, and her ears to the front. 
The sounds came in pieces. The Lord’s will. Small packet. United States. Prophet will be pleased. Only a few times a year.
None of it really meant anything for certain, but Hannah could guess; that was the good thing about being quiet and listening when they forgot about you— you could learn things.
This same kind of special outing had happened before, in late summer, right before Auntie Sunshine went on a two-week visit to another place. 
That last time, Sunshine had taken Teen Rachel on the trip into town, and Hannah had to fill in on Rachel’s work duty so that she could go. 
It had seemed that Rachel was special for being chosen, and even though it was wrong, Hannah had been a little jealous. 
On that day, just like today, everything had been Secret and hush-hush— more than the usual— 
so maybe today was the same kind of thing, whatever that thing was, and this made Hannah feel good, because maybe it meant she was special too.
Zadok parked the van, but he didn’t get out when Sunshine did, which probably meant that he was staying behind, which was kind of unusual.
Sunshine motioned for Hannah, so she slid out of the far back and made her way to the door and then the sidewalk.
They were in front of a five-story building, old and very expensive it seemed, and that made Hannah’s clothes feel all the more awkward and embarrassing. 
The dress was borrowed, a bit too small and pretty in a girly way that was uncomfortable. 
But Sunshine had told her to wear it, and there wasn’t room for possible discussion, so that was that. 
At least it was new-looking and not as worn out as Hannah’s own hand-me-downs.
Sunshine took hold of Hannah’s hand and led her forward, and this made her feel even more uncomfortable than the clothes, 
but she knew better than to squirm, so she endured the bad feelings, shoving them away.
Sunshine said, “Sweetie, you want to serve the Lord and be a good little soldier for Jesus, right?”
Hannah hated that word little and everything that it implied, hated the way Sunshine talked down to her as if she were a two-year-old, but she nodded.
“That’s good. It means God can bless you. He can only bless us when we’re obedient to Him and to The Prophet, yes?”
The uncomfortable feeling was growing and made it hard to talk, so Hannah just nodded again.
“Being here is a very special privilege and The Prophet wants your dedication and your obedience,” Sunshine said. 
“He needs you to be completely yielded, and to be Secret— talking about today is disobedience, you understand?”
Another nod, this time solemnly.
Sunshine’s voice grew sterner, if that were possible. “What happens when we’re disobedient to the Lord and The Prophet?”
“God can’t bless or protect us,” Hannah said, and her words came out in a hoarse whisper.
Sunshine nodded as if she was satisfied, and although Hannah should have felt relieved that Sunshine was pleased, she didn’t. 
Instead she felt worse, though she didn’t understand why, 
because Sunshine wasn’t behaving as if Hannah had done something wrong or as if there was trouble coming.
It’s just, things didn’t feel right, which meant the uncomfortable was very strong and growing worse— 
that sick feeling that started in the pit of her stomach and worked its way outward until everything was irritating and it was difficult to think or breathe. 
The only thing she knew to do when this happened was to obey and then get through whatever it was, one moment at a time, until it was over and the uncomfortable went away.
They’d reached the building, Sunshine had pushed the front door open,
and as they stepped inside she looked down at Hannah, a stern and unforgiving look that Hannah didn’t have to think about to understand. 
Be very obedient, because Sunshine could make a whole lot of trouble happen.
On the second floor, a hallway spanned in both directions off the stairwell, 
and along the hallway were solid doors, each with a brass plate and the name of a business.
Sunshine still gripped Hannah’s hand, and the heat and sweat of the close contact made Hannah want to scream or tug away, but she held quiet.
Sunshine went to the farthest door, which had a plaque with no name and opened onto a room with a desk backed close to the shaded windows, 
like it was supposed to be an office reception, but there wasn’t anybody at the desk.
To Hannah the furniture, lamps, and wall coverings were more like a rich person’s house than any office she had seen, 
and on each side of the room was another door, but those were closed, and the whole place was very quiet.
Sunshine pointed at a divan. “Sit there and don’t touch anything,” she said, and then she walked to the door on the right and knocked. 
A voice called out, then Sunshine opened the door, stepped inside, and returned a few moments later with two men following. 
One man was older, like Sunshine, the other was like the young adults at the Haven.
While Sunshine stood aside with the younger, the older man came to Hannah and knelt so that he was at eye level. 
Not unkindly, he asked her name, and after she answered, he took her hand and lifted it gently. 
Hannah looked to Sunshine for assurance, and Sunshine nodded. Understanding the man’s intention, Hannah stood.
His eyes went from her head down, down to her feet and then back up again. 
He touched Hannah’s hair, just a little flick against the strands by her ear, and then turned to Sunshine. “Much better,” he said.
Sunshine said, “Hannah, I need to run some errands; you stay here with Mr. Cárcan, and I’ll be back in a bit.”
Hannah felt a spike of panic, not because she was afraid of this man or that she minded being away from Sunshine— definitely not that— 
but because she was being left alone with an outsider from the Void, and that was very much against the rules. 
Everyone kept a buddy in the Void, everywhere and always. 
It was one of The Prophet’s principles of obedience, and to break this meant God couldn’t protect you.
But Sunshine said to do it, and Hannah could only do as instructed.
When Sunshine had gone, the man said, “Do you like ice cream?”
Hannah nodded, and his eyes moved kind of funny. “Come,” he said. “I have a freezer in my office.”
She followed him into a room that could only be called an office because of the big desk, but everything else about it made it look like a living room. 
The man’s phone rang and he took the call while opening the little freezer.
He pulled a frozen bar from inside, handed it to Hannah, and motioned her to sit while he nodded to the voice on the other end, and then he laughed.
“Yes, of course,” he said, “they’re too simple and na【马赛克1】ve to know better, but they are very close to God and I like to have God on my side.” 
He’d switched to Spanish without appearing to care if Hannah understood; he probably assumed that she didn’t, because he didn’t bother whispering or stepping outside the room.
Still on the phone, the man laughed again and said, “Yes, but in any case it’s like having your own personal priest, and I can’t help that I like them. 
“Religion, sex, and a simple mule, it doesn’t get any better than that.”
Hannah didn’t understand the meaning of the words, but just as when listening to Zadok or Sunshine, it was always best to look dumb and pretend to not care.
She was on the couch, face toward the wall, fully focused on the ice cream bar, tasting it slowly to make the rare treat last as long as possible,
when she realized that the room was silent and she couldn’t remember for how long. She turned to look around.
The man was off the phone, sitting on the edge of his desk, studying her, rubbing his thumb slowly up, slowly down, between his legs. 
All the feelings of discomfort and trouble, and the uneasiness that she couldn’t pinpoint, which had gone away a little with the ice cream, came back even more,
and the knot in her stomach made it impossible to take another taste.
Hannah felt like she might throw up, so she just held the bar, unsure of what to do with it.
The man continued to stare, continued to do what he was doing, 
and finally, when slow drips began to trickle down her hand, he stood, took the mess from her, and said, “Take off your dress.”
The words were like a smack across the face. Like trouble. Bad trouble. 
And the uncomfortable feelings were so bad now that Hannah couldn’t move.
“You love your Prophet?” the man said.
Hannah nodded.
“And your auntie, she told you to obey, yes?”
She nodded again.
“Then do the will of The Prophet, and obey,” the man said. 
The words were right, but they were confusing coming from this outsider in the Void, 
and the uncomfortable feelings were now both inside and outside. It wasn’t fear, but yes, it was fear. 
She should do what he said, she needed to obey, he might hit her, or worse he might tell Sunshine, but Hannah still couldn’t move.
The man tossed the ice cream into a trash can and wiped his fingers on his pant leg. 
He reached for her hand and, more roughly than he’d done in the reception room, pulled her to her feet. “Come,” he said. “I will help you.”
His hands were impatient as he turned her around so that her back faced him. 
It was not new, what he was doing, even if this experience outside the Haven and with this man were new. 
He tugged the dress zipper and Hannah closed her eyes. 
Behind her lids the tears burned hot, but she would never let them surface. 
She breathed long and slow, and let her mind run away, far away, 
to the hidden and forbidden daydreams where nothing bad happened, where there was no trouble, where she was special and wanted, and always, always safe.

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Chapter 24
With Bradford’s guidance, it took less than a half hour to track Gideon down. 
Munroe trailed him until he stopped for lunch at a park-side café. 
He took an outside table in the sun, in the warmest weather they’d had since their arrival. 
She waited only until he was seated and then approached from behind, tapped him on the opposite shoulder, 
and as his head turned away from her, slid into the chair next to him. “Hey,” she said.
Gideon flinched, reacting to her presence like a finger to a bee sting.
Prepared for this, she spoke quickly. “I have a story to tell you,” she said. “All I ask is that you sit and listen, “and after you’ve heard it, then you decide if I’m the bad guy here, or if maybe, just maybe, I can help you get what you want.”
“You have no idea what I want,” he said. His tone was spiteful, but his shoulders relaxed and his hands lost some of their tension.
“Let me talk, and then you be the judge.”
Gideon made no reply. He would listen, couldn’t help but listen, because even if he’d never admit it, he wanted to know what she knew.
Munroe shifted forward, and with her eyes searching and her face not far from his, said, 
“Once upon a time there was a little girl whose mother and father were so intent on serving the Lord, they forgot to be parents to their unexpected daughter.”
Munroe paused a beat. “For the sake of simplicity, let’s say that the girl was me, “and that since my parents were so busy doing whatever they did, they sent me away, putting me on my own at the age of thirteen.
“They thought I was going to school and living with close friends in a nearby big city,” she said, “and I did for a while, but they didn’t check, and what did they care? 
“I was fourteen when I walked away. I found full-time work as an interpreter for the friendly local gunrunner, and he moved me to his house. 
“Those were good times, running the bush in Central Africa. Backward as it sounds, I was happy. 
“There was challenge, and focus, and a lot of laughter when the jobs were done.
“He was my friend,” she said. “He was eleven years older than I was, and yet somehow we got each other. 
“It was a symbiotic relationship— he needed me, I needed him, and I thought I’d found a home. 
“That is, until a year and a half later, when a pair of mercs joined our team, and life became a garish nightmare.”
Munroe waited for Gideon’s reaction. Subconsciously mirroring, he leaned in to listen, and with this confirmation from his body language, she continued.
“One of the mercs was a little wiry guy from South Africa,” she said. “Charming. Smooth. Personable. Smart, but evil. 
“On the sly he was abhorrently ruthless, the kind of guy who secretly tortured puppies as a child.
“He singled me out for his sadism, and every day, no matter what else happened, there was one thing I could be guaranteed to experience— me, flat on my back with his knife to my throat while he raped me. 
“He taught me to fight,” she said. “It was more of a challenge for him that way, you see? 
“First it was weaponless, and then as I got faster, smarter, dirtier, he brought in the knives. 
“It was always hand to hand. Up close. Personal. He fought for the thrill, I fought to kill him. 
“And the better I got, the harder he came at me. The sex was the icing on the cake for him, what got him off was making me bleed.
“He threatened to kill my family if I tried to get away,” she said, “and although I wasn’t close to them, they didn’t deserve what he would do— not for something that had nothing to do with them— “so I was trapped in his presence with no one to protect me, and the only thing I could do was learn fast, learn well, and fight back. 
“I want to show you something.” Munroe stood, and fully aware of those around, lifted her shirt high enough for her torso to show, high enough for Gideon to catch a glimpse of the slivers that crossed her body.
His eyes betrayed the shock.
“His mementos,” she said, and then slyly, “there are more, but there’s no point in stripping down here and showing them off.”
Having made her point, she returned to her seat. “For two years, there was no safe place,” she said. 
“When we were camped or back at base, and I kept to the jungle, he would track me. I would stay around others, he would wait. 
“He almost killed me on a few occasions, but in my mind, I died five hundred nights.”
“How did it end?” Gideon asked.
“I killed him,” she said. “In his moment of weakness I followed him into the jungle. 
“I took him down with a tranquilizer gun, and when his eyes lulled in their sockets, I stood over him and slit his throat. I was seventeen.”
Munroe’s speech had trailed into monotone, and she waited for the words to sink in.
Gideon stretched back and let out a low whistle. “Wow,” he said.
He was silent for a long while, and although Munroe could only guess at what was going on inside his head, it would have been clear to anyone who looked at him that Gideon was struggling with something.
Finally, his eyes cut back to hers. “That’s completely ed up,” he said. 
She ignored his words for the tone, which carried in it the seeds of change that she’d been working toward. 
The door had been opened, she’d proven that she was capable of giving him what he wanted, and this was the groundwork for getting what she wanted in turn.
“Is that what got you into this line of work?” he asked.
“Partly,” she replied. “I came to the States after that. 
“Put myself through school, got a degree, tried the corporate route and failed miserably at it. 
“Lots of people wish their bosses dead, but do you have any idea how difficult it is to stay on a normal job when you’ve got the skills and mind-set to kill your evil supervisor and get away with it?” 
She paused and, with a smirk and an exaggerated roll of her eyes, said, “I don’t do normal very well.”
Gideon let out an involuntary laugh and then, in seriousness, said, “Logan says you’re getting close. He seems pretty hopeful.”
“Yeah, I am,” she said.
“Are you going inside?”
“That’s the plan.”
“I wonder if much has changed,” he said. “They say it has, and that’s great for the younger ones if it’s true, but that doesn’t do much for me, does it?”
“No,” she said. “I imagine it doesn’t do much for you at all,” and between them, there was a moment of understanding.
Munroe shifted toward him, hands folded, elbows on the table. 
Gideon’s size and short fuse made it easy to dismiss him as a hulking brute, 
but bully strength wasn’t what got a guy from where Gideon had started to where he was now, heading up a large IT department. 
His well ran deep, and Munroe needed him to talk himself completely empty, because until he’d thoroughly vented, not one word she’d said would make a damn bit of difference. So she sat, quiet and waiting.
Gideon stretched out, legs forward, one arm looped over the back of the chair, and he looked toward her in a long and drawn-out silence.
“All most people know is what they see on TV,” he said finally. 
“And for the most part, TV news stories are nothing other than sensationalism and pandering. 
“Have you ever seen a segment done on The Chosen?”
Munroe shook her head. 
“Probably better that way,” he said. 
“Every last one of them takes our pain and makes a mockery of it for the sake of ratings. 
“You’d think after getting burned once or twice, me and my friends would figure out that nobody really gives a damn, huh? 
“Every time we think we find a reporter who might actually care, who is willing to tell our story as it truly is, they stab us in the back and turn it into more of the same lurid entertainment. 
“That’s all we are to them, you know? A juicy paycheck. They get paid and we get screwed. Again.
“Don’t get me wrong,” he said. “There was sexual abuse. Lots of it. 
“But that was just one of so many dishes served on the smorgasbord of my childhood. Just one. 
“Nobody reports about the extreme discipline, or being separated from our families, or education deprivation, or the lack of medical care, 
or the unquestioning obedience, or that we’re thrust out into the world to fend for ourselves after being kept from the world our entire lives. 
“That’s not entertaining enough, so it’s just, ‘Sex, blah, blah, blah. Blah, blah, blah, sex,’ “and in the end, we just look like freaks— damaged goods that people can tsk-tsk over before they move on to the rest of the evening’s titillation. 
“Do you have any idea how that translates for me into everyday life?” He leaned forward and pointed a finger in her direction. 
“Not only am I forced to pay for the mistakes of my parents,” he said, “not only do I struggle to recapture and put to use the human potential stolen from me, 
“but I have to carry through it in secrecy, as if there was some shame in my past, as if somehow I’m responsible for what was done to me, 
“because nobody, not law enforcement, not academia, and certainly not your all-American Joe, can wrap their heads around what actually happened. 
“Do you have any idea what the typical response is whenever I do give someone a glimpse of my life?” Gideon paused, as if he waited for her to answer, 
and Munroe hesitated. Yes, she did know. She knew, because it was the same response she would get if she chose to let down her own guard— 
hell, it was practically the same response Miles had given the night she had told him the unadulterated truth of her past.
She shook her head again.
“Standard response,” he said. “I swear to God. First thing out of their mouths, is, ‘Wow, it’s shocking you’re so normal.’ 
“What the fuck? Do I have to be damaged for my past to make sense? And what the hell is ‘normal’ anyway, and does white-bread America have dibs on it?” 
Gideon stopped talking, crossed his arms, and the look on his face said that he regretted saying as much as he had.
Munroe mirrored his silence, hoping that he would continue without the need for her to poke and prod, 
but when he leaned back with an air of finality and she knew he would go no further without provocation, she said, “Can’t you just let it go? Move on?”
His face darkened, his eyes glared in response, and he was silent a long time while his jaw worked over a toothpick.
She’d used the same line that The Prophet and his Representatives had been using for years. 
Even if these things did happen, there’s no point in being bitter. You should forgive and forget and let bygones be bygones. 
Kind of galling, considering the insistence upon forgiveness was being made by the people who’d done the hurting and done nothing to make up for it, but then, that was the standard, blame-the-victim, abuser mentality, and to be expected.
Gideon seemed to work through the slap in the face and let it slide. 
He said, “For a while I thought maybe, you know, if I could talk to the people responsible, 
“if I could show them how difficult life has been because of them, that maybe they would care. 
“I don’t know, I thought maybe if they apologized it would be so much easier to forget this shit, you know? To do what they say and let it go?
“But nobody will take any personal responsibility. My own parents have nothing to offer but a bunch of whiny excuses. 
“They try to convince me that my life wasn’t as bad as I remember it. Fuck that,” he said. “They weren’t even there. They don’t even know what went on with me. 
“I just—” He paused and pulled his fingers through his hair. “Christ,” he said. 
He paused again, eyes to the sky, and then back to her. “Even the people who never personally raised a hand against me still propped up the regime that made it happen. 
They stood by and allowed it, played a part, all of them. Every single one was a participant, either directly or by looking away. 
“Institutionally, doctrinally, they abused us, sent us into the streets to beg, denied us an education, had us beaten, starved, exorcised, and separated from our parents; 
“they broke up our families, gave our bodies to perverts, and stole our future, 
“and then they turn around and say we’re supposed to just forget it happened and move on from it.
“If instead we bring up the past, then they’ll call us liars, say we’re exaggerating or making it up completely. 
“Why the hell would we make any of this shit up? What’s the point in that? To make our lives seem worse than they were? 
“Not that I would, but do you have any idea how much exaggeration it would take for the average person to even begin to grasp how fucking miserable it was? 
“And then, if they ever do admit to any of it, they say that mistakes were made. Mistakes!” he said.
He was leaning forward again, punctuating the air with his finger. “Michael, they commit crimes against children! 
“You know, those things people in society go to jail for when they’re caught? And then to the public they do what they always do, ‘deny, deny, deny,’ “and we’re left more raped than ever, victimized first by what they did and again by their refusal to admit that it happened. 
“They paint us as bitter apostates and liars to a world that not only doesn’t give a shit but also couldn’t possibly understand even if it did.”
“I do,” Munroe said, and Gideon stopped. In his eyes were tears. He shook his head and took a cleansing breath. 
“I don’t understand why you are doing this,” he said. His words were sarcastic and threatening, but his tone was sincere. 
“Why do you even care? At first I thought you were here for money and I really didn’t get Logan’s attachment to you, but obviously it’s not about that.”
Munroe reached her hand across the table, placed it on top of Gideon’s. 
“Because of the bond you share with those raised like you, I think you can grasp this in a way most people can’t,” she said. 
“For years, Logan has been the only one who has really understood me and accepted me for who I am, 
“and for that acceptance, Logan will always have a piece of my heart, my life, and I will always have his back.”
“So you’re doing this for him, for friendship?”
“Initially,” she said. “I started on this assignment for him, for Hannah, and because I needed to work.” 
She paused. “You see, Gideon, like you, I have my own rage issues, my own rapid pace toward self-destruction, and if I’m still for too long, I become very dangerous. 
“So I started out doing this for Logan, and for myself, and for a little girl that reminded me of me.”
Gideon watched her, eyes narrow, jaw thrust forward. “That’s how it began, how does it end?”
Munroe sat back and held steady eye contact. “I don’t know how it ends,” she said. “The story is still being written, and I’m inviting you to write it with me. 
“I need time,” she said, “just a little bit of time. I know you’re here for more than just Hannah, I know you’re looking for something— someone— and in your own search, you have the power to disrupt everything. 
“If you back off and give me time, when my part of this story is finished, I’ll give you everything I have on the Havens, everything I know, so that you can find your own path to justice.”
“How long will it take?” Gideon said.
She shrugged. “A few days, maybe. If we’re lucky.”
Gideon looked off into the distance, and Munroe shifted forward again, elbows and forearms to the table, as they had been previously, hands folded in front. She waited.
“You’ve killed people,” he said finally. Not a question but rather a realization that surfaced slowly and audibly.
“Is it so difficult to believe?” she asked.
Gideon turned toward her, and while Munroe remained quiet, he studied her face for a long while. 
“I think I understand why Logan trusts you so much,” he said.
“Because I’ve killed people?”
“Because you’re like us,” he said. “You’re different. You understand our pain.”
“And you understand mine.”
“I think I do,” he said, and then after a long pause nodded in acquiescence. 
“I’ll give you the time you need,” he said. “I won’t interfere, won’t do anything to hinder getting Hannah out, even if it means I came down here for nothing.”
“Who do you want to find?” she asked.
He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Fair enough,” she said. “What’s forcing you back? Is it work? Money?”
“A little of both,” he said. “I have limited paid vacation time, and tickets to Argentina aren’t cheap.”
Munroe nodded. “Let’s see how things play out here, and when it’s over, find me, okay? I’ll see how I can help you.”
“I don’t want a handout,” he said.
“If we get to that point, just consider it a reimbursement for your wasted time and your travel expenses.”
The corners of Gideon’s mouth turned upward, almost shyly, and for the first time since Munroe had known him, there was a genuine smile in his eyes.

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Chapter 23
Munroe sat on the floor, back to the wall, a blade in each hand. 
The only light was that which slivered in from under the door, and for the third time in the past few minutes the light had flickered with the shadows of footsteps on the other side.
They would come for her eventually, and when they did, she would be ready. 
There was nothing they could do to her that had not already been done, and whatever they wanted they were welcome to try to take.
She was in no hurry; time was all she had.
The ship rose and fell with the steady rhythm of the water. Reverberations from the diesel engines shuddered through the hull and into the base of her skull.
There was another flicker under the door and then the hush of whispered voices. 
She estimated four or five on the other side and willed them in. Expectation of the fight made her hands tingle. 
The adrenaline built a slow pressure that would culminate in a savage ecstasy when blood was spilled.
She flipped the knives and played them along her fingers in a pattern; the blades were her friends, they brought reassurance and continuity to a world that had otherwise been shredded.
The sliver of light went out. In a fluid movement, Munroe shifted upright, coiled and tense beside the door. 
The handle clicked and the door inched open. She sensed a presence before she saw the penlight searching the mattress. 
The body was fully in the room now. She heaved her weight against the door, slamming it shut, throwing the bolt. The room went from dark to black.
The body was big and burly and stank of sweat and alcohol. 
Working off instinct, she lunged forward, plowing into his stomach. The speed and direction of attack knocked him off his feet. 
His head slammed into the wall. He fell. She plunged her right knee into his midsection; heard the expulsion of breath. 
He began to pull up. She leaned hard against his chest, one knife at his throat and the other to his groin.
And then she heard the pounding, to which, until now, she’d been oblivious. 
The door smashed inward, and with the light came a piercing blindness. Disoriented, she braced for what was to come.
Munroe gasped, her back arched, and she drew in air, as if coming up from a water trap. 
She opened her eyes and, seeing the hotel ceiling, almost laughed in relief.
The replay had ended short; without the guilt and pain, without Logan dead in her arms again; without the horror. Bradford was staring at her. 
There was concern in his eyes, though none of the panic that had been there the last two times.
“Did I try to kill you?” she said. Her voice was raspy, and she winced at the forced whisper.
“No,” he said. “Not this time.”
“You didn’t wake me.”
“I didn’t want to make it worse,” he said, “and you weren’t hurting anything or anyone.”
She nodded and closed her eyes. Her heart was still working double time, and it would take awhile for the adrenaline to run its course.
“Who are they?” Bradford said. “The ones you see when you dream.”
“My kills,” she said.
“You relive them?”
“Over and over. But in the end, it’s always someone I love who’s dead.”
“How long has this been going on?”
She allowed a moment to pass before she answered. “It started a couple of months ago,” she said.
“Why now, after all these years?”
She shrugged.
“Africa?”
“I really don’t know,” she said.
“They haunt you?”
“Every single day.” She paused, turned her head toward his; studied his face. “What does it feel like when you kill?” she said.
He was quiet for a moment, staring down at her, as if trying to decipher a true meaning or draw the hidden message from her words. 
He said, “I’m a soldier, Michael. Killing is part of war.”
“Do they ever haunt you? The ones you’ve killed?”
“There’s a lot that haunts me,” he said, “the brutality, the children, the women, the innocent casualties— unspeakable things— “holding my friends bleeding and dying in my arms, feeling them take that last breath, wondering why them and not me. 
“I still hear the grinding of machinery, I smell the fireworks and blood and the stench of fear.”
“But not your kills?”
His eyes wandered to the far wall. 
“I remember every face. Call me calloused, but I’ve no pity for them— they weren’t very good people to begin with. It’s the ones I couldn’t protect, they’re the ones who haunt me.” 
His eyes cut back to hers. “A mechanic fixes cars, a soldier kills people, it’s not pretty, but that’s what we’re trained for— it doesn’t make me any less human.”
She sighed and turned her gaze back to the ceiling. “If only it were that easy to stay human. My kills consume me,” she said. 
“I stare into their eyes, lust for blood, take life, and bask in the rush of triumph.”
She turned from the ceiling to his eyes, which watched her, absorbing, nonaccusatory, accepting. 
“And then it’s over and reality creeps in like a rising dawn: I’ve done it again. It feels unfair, unjust. 
“I can take so easily, so fast, and they are so weak— fragile playthings that fall and bleed and die. 
“How is it,” she said, “that I can hate killing so much, and yet at the same time desire it, and it comes to me so naturally?”
“In honesty,” he said, “have you ever killed an innocent?”
“It’s always been in defense of myself or someone else,” she said, “except for the first, but that one was a long time coming, and the only one toward whom I feel nothing.”
“Maybe that’s your problem,” he said, “the guilt.”
She chuckled humorlessly. “It works well in the comics and graphic novels, doesn’t it?” 
She paused, shifted so that she sat cross-legged on the bed and faced him directly.
“Superheroes defend what’s good and destroy evil,” she said. “They mete out justice, and everybody cheers. Nobody ever talks about what it feels like to kill.” 
She turned her palms upward and stared at them. “They don’t discuss the rush, the savage ecstasy of bloodlust, the sense of satisfaction when it’s finished.” 
Her eyes cut to his. “Superheroes are glorified serial killers, Miles. Sure, they only kill bad guys, but aside from the moral labels, what makes them any different from the madmen?”
“Have you ever considered that it’s not always wrong to kill?” he said. “Maybe some people need to be killed, maybe by taking them out you break the cycle of pain and suffering.”
She looked toward him and said, “I get a ing euphoric rush when I kill, Miles! 
“What makes me any different from Bundy and Gacy and Dahmer or, for that matter, Pieter Willem?”
Bradford was silent for a moment, as if he found it necessary to choose his words carefully, 
and Munroe knew that he was tiptoeing around the issue of Pieter Willem, her first kill, 
the mercenary psychopath who had made her what she was and whom she’d murdered in a mixture of terror and cold-blooded calculation.
“That you care,” he said. “That’s what makes you different. You’re not Willem, you’ll never be Willem, no matter how hard he worked to form you after himself. 
“You can spend the rest of your life running from his ghost, afraid of becoming what you hated most in him, tormented by what you’re capable of, 
“or you can see your skills for what they are and use them without destroying yourself from the inside out.”
“You’re advocating vigilante justice,” she said. Not a question or an accusation, merely a statement.
“Maybe I am,” he said. “I’ve seen enough evil in this world to know that sometimes taking justice into your own hands is the only way. 
“Just because killing comes easily to you doesn’t make you evil, just because instinct kicks in doesn’t mean you are a serial killer. 
“You are a soldier at war. And in war, you do what you’ve got to do.” 
He paused, and then softly, he said, “You have a gift, Michael, and you have a heart, let them serve you.”
Silence filled the room, and after a trice, she met his eyes. In them was a well of understanding and acceptance so deep it felt as if she could fall into it and drown happy. 
Leaned in, breath to breath and eye to eye, they remained frozen in the moment until the trance was broken by a bleep on the desk.
Without moving, Bradford said, “It’s probably Logan.”
“Were you waiting on something?” she asked.
“After last night, he’s checking in with me twice a day,” he said.
From the bed, Munroe reached to the floor and picked up the clothes she’d shed before climbing in. 
“I need to find Gideon and get him sorted out before he wrecks everything,” she said, “and the timing absolutely sucks. I’ve got to get back to the Ranch— losing a day is going to cost.”
“Maybe not by much,” Bradford said. He stood and leaned over the computer, keyed in several commands, and then as the screen changed, he turned the map in her direction. 
“In answer to her puzzled expression he grinned. “Courtesy of Logan,” he said. “It’s in the sole of Gideon’s shoe.”
“Sneaky, sneaky,” she said, and he shrugged in innocence. “That will indeed shave a considerable bite off the time cost.”
“I’ve still got stuff coming in from the Havens as well,” he said. “Now that we know where Hannah is, do you want to kill the cameras?”
“Are you still going through the footage?” she said.
“Yeah, it’s all routine stuff. But then, I’m not really sure what I’m looking for. And I don’t understand much of the audio.”
“Has David Law shown up anywhere?”
“Not that I can tell.”
“Let it pool,” she said. “We may not need it, but until we’ve got Hannah out of there, I want as much data coming in as possible. 
“I expect to get another three cameras live tonight, maybe more. Do we have the storage space for it all?”
“Yeah, we’re good,” he said.
She stood and headed toward the bathroom, turned on the hot water, and then returned to the bedroom and checked the clock. Time was moving fast.
“I can handle Gideon if you want,” Bradford said.
“I’ve no doubt that you could,” she said. “I wish I could take you up on it, but this one I have to handle myself.”

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Chapter 22
By night-owl standards, it was still early when Munroe left the Haven, 
although the Haven itself, in shutting down for the evening, had already grown dark and quiet. 
Unlike the rest of the city, The Chosen were early to bed and early to rise.
Elijah and Esteban walked her to the car, and then with feet shuffling 
and this time not-so-subtle suggestions about giving to God, they prolonged the good-bye to the point of awkwardness. 
Munroe refused to offer, they didn’t directly ask, and she toyed the issue along, string to the cat, courting an invitation, 
and it came right on schedule, Elijah offering to spare her the trip home if she’d like to stay the night.
Munroe appeared to weigh her options. She would stay the night, yes. But not tonight. 
She had prior plans with her family that she couldn’t break, but tomorrow she would be free and tomorrow she would return.
Tomorrow she would steal Hannah from this place.
Munroe drove to the hotel by rote, traffic signs, lane markers, and suicidal merging processed automatically by years of Third World experience. 
Her mind worked overtime to deconstruct the violent mix of emotion that she’d held in check throughout the evening, piecing together the steps that must follow to bring Hannah safely out.
Bradford was at the desk when she opened the hotel room door. He stood, his face expressing genuine happiness at her return. 
The welcome warmed her only until she opened the closet and sensed the subtle perfume of Heidi coming off his coat.
Munroe froze in a flash of knowledge and paused for the brief moment that it took to push back the hiss of anger that followed in its wake. 
She returned Bradford’s nod, his smile, and in a mixture of exhaustion and nervous tension, stepped to the bed and lay down, fully dressed.
“Can I join you?” Bradford said, and Munroe, hands behind her head and staring at the ceiling, shifted slightly to allow him space to sit. 
Legs over the side, leaning toward her in quiet company, he asked, “Have you eaten?”
“If you could call it food,” she said, and then, after the slightest pause, sat upright. “Come on, let’s get out of here. 
“You’ve been cooped up all day and I need to crawl outside my own head and process a shit-load of information— 
“I want to talk it out with you,” she said, “and I’m sure you’re waiting to hear it.”
“Indeed I am,” he said.
Munroe shed her clothes, changed into evening wear, and then from the hotel they found a milonga, one of the city’s many dance halls devoted to tango. 
Nearing midnight, and still early by city standards, the place was only partially filled, and they easily found a spot on the outer edge of the tables, among others who had arrived as couples. 
Here in the thick, smoky, dark, music-filled room, they could talk, undisturbed, while watching dance partners ply their skill on the wide center floor.
Over drinks and light food, Munroe told Bradford about the day’s events, taking him through the routines and what she knew of the building layouts thus far. 
They discussed strategy, options, and the pros and cons of a late-night extraction versus tagging a van and pulling Hannah off the street once The Chosen deployed their members for begging. 
Each option held its own series of unknowns and set of complications. They made preparations for both eventualities.
As was his reason for being here, Bradford would run matériel and specs as backup to Munroe’s intel, 
and he outlined the protocols necessary to get Hannah securely over the border once they had possession.
“I’m considering letting Logan know,” Munroe said. “If nothing else, that we’ve pinpointed the location.”
“Another person in the loop brings another potential round of trouble.”
She nodded, acknowledgment of his concern if not concession to his point.
Bradford continued. “Regarding Logan, I spoke with him just a bit before you got back today. He needs to talk to you about Gideon.”
Gideon’s name brought with it a different set of issues. 
Being this close to Hannah, the job really didn’t need a loose cannon getting into the mix, and any information Logan had to offer was crucial.
Munroe checked her watch. “What’s Logan’s schedule these days? You think he’s still up?”
“Even if he’s not, I can call him,” Bradford said. “I got him set up with a cell phone.”
She ran a finger around the rim of her water glass. “Invite him to join us, will you?”
He nodded and stood. “Let me find some quiet,” he said. “I’ll be back in a bit.”
When he returned, he said, “He’s on his way. Half an hour, maybe,” and Munroe let loose the grin she’d been holding back for the last half hour.
“There are women making eyes at you,” she said. And teasing, “Why don’t you dance?”
Bradford paused a moment, and he followed her line of sight down the room to a table of three single women. 
His expression morphed into a slow smirk, and with a sly glance back toward Munroe, said, “Maybe I will.”
She hadn’t expected that he would take her up on the dare, but without a hint of hesitation, he locked eyes with a long-haired brunette, and ticked his head upward in cabezazo, the way locals did. 
The woman smiled, nodded in return, and Bradford stood and made his way to her.
Munroe had observed the woman over the course of the evening, had seen her level of skill, and was certain that Bradford had as well. 
She wondered how the mixture would blend, how much embarrassment would ensue— but only as long as it took for Bradford to reach the center floor.
And then her jaw dropped, if only slightly, at the unexpected poetry in motion. 
The man could dance and displayed dramatic flair that she’d never before seen in this soldier of casual confidence.
The set ended, Bradford conversed with his lady friend long enough to be polite, 
the pain of broken English and broken Spanish etched on both their faces, and finally, catching Munroe’s eye, returned to the table, grinning.
“Ah,” he said, arms stretching, knuckles cracking, “that was good.”
“What I don’t understand,” she said, “is why I’m even surprised.”
“I don’t know why either,” he said. He held his hand out to her. “Dance with me?”
She raised an eyebrow, and he continued holding his hand in her direction. “After that performance?” she said.
“I’ll make you look good,” he said, “I promise.” And he motioned his fingers toward himself, as if to say “come here.”
She was still smiling but shook her head.
“Oh, come on,” he said, his tone wheedling and cajoling. “You, the woman who’s not afraid of anything, hesitate to dance with me?”
“I’m not afraid,” she said.
“Then let’s have at it.” The playfulness had gone out of his voice, his eyes were locked onto her, and he stood, undeterred, waiting.
She reached out her hand, and when their fingers connected, the warmth and the electricity of the moment transferred skin to skin.
In the center of the room, Bradford first led slowly, the motions of teacher to student, until realizing she was less a stranger to tango than he; he pushed livelier, harder, as the dance became magic, beat to angry beat, upper bodies taut, hips fluid and sensual, 
each touch alive and expressing far more than words ever could, coupled, heated and sweaty, 
until Munroe caught sight of Logan in the back of the room, and the spell was broken.
She nodded in his direction, and Bradford, following her line of sight, waited until the music paused and then led the return to the table.
Logan joined them a moment later. He’d been watching for a while, which was written on the cloud across his face, 
as if tonight’s snapshot of play was somehow indicative of how Munroe had thus far spent her time in Buenos Aires.
She reached over the table and pinched his cheek, the way she would a little boy. 
Her gesture was an instant icebreaker, and Logan batted her away. 
She laughed, ignored his silent accusations, offered him a drink and antipasti, and then went straight to business.
“I got the information you wanted about Gideon,” Logan said. “It might help to clarify his motives here.”
Munroe nodded, motioned for him to continue.
“So, apparently, he lived in Argentina when he was fourteen and fifteen. 
“Seems like when he first got here— right after he turned fourteen— there was a guy living in the Haven— single guy, American— don’t know his name.” 
Logan took a breath, paused long, and then continued. “He sodomized Gideon,” he said. “It was a pretty frequent thing.”
With Logan’s words, the air split, and Munroe, drawn away from the evening, from the distraction of Bradford and the music, stood on the edge of a precipice, staring down at molten depths. 
Her pulse quickened. She pulled her hands from the table and placed them on her lap, where no one would see the destructive anger that worked itself out in her knuckled grasp. 
Logan spoke, and with the description came the flood of fire from the depths. 
Images. Helplessness. Hatred. Violence. Not the events of today, but from long before.
“It went on for about a year,” Logan said, “and then Gideon was moved to a different Haven, and it was shortly after that when they kicked him out.”
“Why’d they kick him out?” she asked. Her words were calm. Hollow. Echoes in her ears.
“He started having emotional problems, behavioral issues; they said he was demon-possessed.”
Munroe was silent for a moment, working past the rage, through to calm. 
She understood Gideon’s anger, the passion that drove him, and the hostility with which he faced her and faced the world. 
She knew it. Felt it. Lived it. He and she were more alike than either would want to admit. 
To Logan she said, “I thought homosexuality was forbidden in The Chosen— excommunicable, you said.”
“Well, sure,” Logan replied, “but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. It just wasn’t out in the open like all the other abuse was.”
“And nobody ever stopped to think that some of these behavior issues might be trauma-related?”
“That’s not the way they think, Michael. The problem is never the doctrine, never the leader, never The Chosen. 
“The problem never has an external source. The problem, no matter what it is, is you. So they get rid of the problem.”
Munroe nodded. She was running scenarios. Damage control. 
Not only on the project but also on her own emotions, which were charging blind like a team of bolting horses. 
“Why Argentina?” she said. “It’s been what? Seventeen years? Nineteen? 
“People in The Chosen move around so often, if the guy is even still part of them, there’s no way that he’s stayed here all these years— Gideon’s got to know that.”
Logan shrugged. “Maybe he has to start somewhere. Or maybe things have come full circle. 
“Seems like he got wind of something, some piece of news worth moving on, like maybe the guy had come back here or something like that.”
“Who’s your source,” Munroe said.
“Charity.”
“She knew all of this and didn’t tell you?”
“Yeah. It’s personal stuff, Michael, not exactly something a guy like Gideon goes around confiding in everyone. 
“I only dragged it out of her because I told her that if she didn’t let me know, she’d quite possibly never see her daughter again.”
Munroe said nothing.
“I also told her that you were getting really close and that if Gideon found out that you were looking into his past, you’d walk off the project.”
Munroe gave Logan an appreciative nod. He knew the look. It wasn’t gratitude, it was admiration. 
“You did good, Logan,” she said. More than good, because she now had what she needed to neutralize any threat from Gideon.
“So here’s the thing,” she said. “We’ve located Hannah.”
Logan blinked, inexpressive, as if he wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly. 
The music set ended, and in the volume drop the table was ensconced in a bubble of impenetrable silence. 
Logan’s mouth opened, as if his mind couldn’t process the words from head to vocal cords. 
He paused another moment and then said, “What happens next?”
“That’s what we were discussing tonight,” Munroe said. “I’m torn, really torn about letting you in on this. 
“I can’t work with you stressing around me, and the last thing I need is to be worried about you getting hurt, but I feel you have a right to know. So you are to stay away, far away, you got it?”
Logan nodded.
“And whatever you hear tonight stays with the three of us, okay? If I want Gideon and Heidi to know, I’ll tell them myself.”

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Chapter 20
Outside the cemetery, across the lawn and on the other side of the fronting street, Logan stood tucked into a doorway and out of sight. 
For forty minutes he’d been waiting and watching, and now patience had been rewarded. 
There, blending with the crowd, a furtive glance right and left as he left the graveyard, was Bradford. 
The movement was quick enough, natural enough, to go unnoticed by most, but Logan understood. Bradford was wary of being seen, of being followed.
And it was tempting too, the idea of tracking him back to wherever he’d come from and figuring out where Munroe was holed up.
But there wasn’t any point to it. Logan hadn’t followed Heidi here as a way to get to Munroe.
Bradford’s showing up was an unexpected twist that explained, possibly, Heidi’s erratic behavior today. 
For once, she was cautious of being followed— although her attempt to lose an invisible tail had been clumsy and awkward at best.
Bradford, though, was a twist that Logan didn’t understand. Especially that he, either alone or at Munroe’s bidding, had so furtively sought out Heidi. 
Answers would have to wait. Trying to track Bradford, like attempting to figure it out, would be a waste of energy and distract him from more important issues, such as keeping Heidi under control.
Bradford headed right, down the winter-brown lawn and toward a parking area that would have been heavily shaded in summer, nearly disappearing among pedestrians, and after a short while, reemerging to hail a cab. 
A moment later the vehicle swerved into the stream of traffic. Bradford was gone.
Logan shifted to twist out the kinks of the last half hour and, supposing that Heidi would arrive shortly, continued to watch the exit. 
He counted down the minutes, and as if on cue, there she was.
For four days he’d been following as she went about town visiting one random spot after the next. He followed because he didn’t trust her. 
By outward appearances Heidi was all-innocent and angel smiles, but behind everyone’s backs she was sneaking around. 
Unlike Gideon, with his in-your-face attitude, Heidi was subtle enough that it had taken Logan a couple of days to pick up on her patterns: 
a shopping trip here, an eatery there, her absences easily explained and hardly noticeable, 
especially since she’d turned into an early riser, and he and Gideon tended to be out late and wake up late.
In his gut, Logan knew what Heidi was up to, though he had only suspicions to go on. 
They were damn good suspicions— good enough to keep him following— just not quite good enough to bring Munroe into the equation, to get her involved the way he had with Gideon. 
Besides, he didn’t need Munroe for Heidi. He could handle Heidi on his own.
His biggest issue right now was exhaustion. Trying to juggle Gideon and Heidi, to keep an equal eye on both of them with their opposite schedules, was creating burnout, and fast.
He’d thought that Munroe’s intervention, her update on the project and warning to stay the hell away from it, would have affected Heidi— put some sort of pause on whatever it was she was doing, the way it had with Gideon. 
But so far, nada. It was up to him to put a stop to things before the situation got out of hand, before it came back to haunt him. 
But for that he needed some kind of proof, and that’s where the fine line between hope and disaster was drawn.
Logan stepped from his spot to the sidewalk and, without ever truly taking his eyes off Heidi, followed parallel to the end of the street, to the waiting cab, reaching it right about the time that Heidi found one of her own. 
She climbed in, and the hunt was on again.
Keeping up with her day after day seemed so melodramatic, like a movie chase scene— “Follow that car!”— but that was as light as it got. 
Heidi, with all of her warmth and delicate ways, had just as much potential as Gideon to blow this project, 
and this close to finding Hannah, there was no way in hell Logan was going to let it happen.
Heidi’s vehicle led through Recoleta back toward downtown, and Logan knew now where they were headed. 
Not through any clairvoyance on his part, but rather because this would be the third time in four days that she’d made the trip to Calle Florida.
The shopping street was a consumer’s paradise and a surveillant’s nightmare: 
blocks and blocks of stores, cafés and restaurants, street performers, hawkers, and jostling throngs, which made it easy to lose track of a person. 
He knew instinctively why Heidi kept going back. 
If there was ever a place The Chosen would target in order to hand out pamphlets during their begging, Calle Florida, with its abundant tourists and dense crowds, was it.
The taxi dropped Heidi off near Plaza San Martín, and from there she walked the remaining distance. 
Logan kept behind her, just far enough back that in her casual stop-starts and occasional window browsing he remained out of her line of sight. 
Like on the days before, it was easy enough keeping track of her while on the nearby streets, which by comparison were relatively empty. 
But once she turned down Florida proper, where the crowds unpredictably ebbed and rapidly thickened, all bets were off.
Logan moved in closer, grateful for the teal in Heidi’s coat, which made it possible to pick her up again after he’d lost sight for longer than was prudent. 
The first time Heidi had come here, she’d walked the entire length of the strip, then caught a cab and returned to the hostel. 
But the second and third times, she’d moved on to other locations, and he suspected today would be more of the same. 
For that reason he needed to stay close. And then Heidi was gone. Just like that. 
The crowd had parted, then surged, an undulating wave of people that had blocked his sight for but a moment, and then… nothing.
Logan picked up the pace, moving past a tight pack, switching right, then left, and no Heidi. 
He turned a slow circle, feeling a twitch of panic, trying to figure out where she’d gone, wondering if all this time she’d known he was here and only now had decided to make a run for it. 
He wondered if she’d led him to this street deliberately to lose him. 
The crowd parted. It was for a second, but he saw her, ten feet away, stock-still, solid in place, hands clenched, staring.
Logan followed her line of sight, and in that moment he froze. A block of concrete hit him midchest and his legs locked up. 
Every muscle, every nerve ending called out to do what Heidi was doing right now, 
to stand and stare at the small group of girls up ahead, with their bags and their papers, to search out faces, 
and from there to move quickly in a search for Hannah, because he knew instinctively that if they were here, then she might be close.
But even if he found her, then what? Grab her and run? To where?
Michael was in the city, near the Havens, on her way inside, and Michael could do what he or any of them could not: get Hannah safely out of the country.
Against everything he wanted to do, every instinct, every desperate longing, on trust alone, Logan turned to face Heidi. 
On her he focused his frustration, and with the emotional fog lifting, anger filled the gaps. Right here, right now, Heidi could ruin everything.
Reason kicked in. He moved toward her, a rapid pace that brought him to her side within seconds, and next to her ear he hissed, “What the hell are you doing?”
Heidi jerked, spun, her face blank. This was surely a double shock. 
First the girls just down the street, now him, here, right beside her, while she was caught red-handed. 
Heidi’s mouth was moving, but no words came out, and she looked ridiculously fishlike.
She turned her head back toward The Chosen. Logan grabbed her biceps, locked an arm around her waist to avoid attracting attention, and spun her around so that her back was to them.
He was eye to eye with her, and every bit of anger he felt must have been reflected on his face, because Heidi went slack.
He walked her forward, away from the girls with their pamphlets and sob stories, through the crowd, those many empty faces, one foot in front of the other while his own mind reeled out of control. 
He hailed a cab and rode with her back to the hostel. She said nothing for the duration, and Logan also kept silent. 
He was working through the script, the things he would say once they were settled, the words that would guarantee she put off her headstrong notion for good.
There was no doubt in his mind who Heidi had spotted— the features were there clearly for anyone with half a brain to see. 
And he had even less doubt of the shock Heidi would experience on so suddenly coming upon her sister. 
Had Logan somehow spotted Hannah on these streets, there’s no telling what he’d have done, and it burned, knowing that Hannah could have been there. 
Continued to burn knowing that if Hannah had been there, and had any one of those Chosen spotted and recognized Heidi, Hannah would be lost again, forever. Burned.
He kept it to himself during the drive and allowed Heidi to remain lost in her thoughts, whatever they might be.
The taxi stopped outside the hostel, and Logan paid the fare. 
He escorted Heidi to her room but braced the door open with his foot when she attempted to shut him out. 
With a sigh, apparently realizing it wouldn’t be over quite this easily, she let him follow.
In spite of his burning anger, the ride had given Logan time to settle, so that by the time he spoke, his voice was calm and even. 
“That was a nasty thing you did,” he said. “Do you have any idea what would have happened if they saw you?”
Her mouth said, “They didn’t.” But her eyes said, How the hell did you find me?
“The problem with being as smart as you are,” Logan said, jabbing an index finger in her direction, “is that you start to think everyone around you isn’t quite up to your speed, 
“but you know what? You’re dealing with some pretty fucking intelligent people here, Heidi.”
She nodded. Face grim. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“Oh, really? Is that what you would have told Charity, told me, told Michael, when The Chosen packed up and shipped Hannah off again? I’m sorry. That’s real grand of you.”
“They didn’t see me,” Heidi said.
“What the hell were you thinking?”
“I didn’t really think I would find them,” she said. “I was killing time, keeping busy.”
“Not anymore,” Logan said. “No more traipsing around town looking for begging spots or trying to find their secret mailboxes or any of that shit. 
“You stay put. Out of the way. That’s what we’ve been asked to do.”
Heidi sat on the bed, arms crossed, quiet, and Logan knew exactly why. 
From her look, her expression, maybe he was wrong to assume that he could handle her. 
It was touchy ground, him asserting authority over her, telling her what she could or could not do. 
She might take it from a boss or a boyfriend. Might take it from a stranger. 
But with the familiarity of their background, the terms with which they were raised, there was no way she’d take it from him or any person once part of The Chosen. 
And he didn’t blame her. It would have been no different were their roles reversed.
Truth was, the only thing stopping her from doing anything rash at the moment was her devotion to the greater good— 
of finding a way to prove to the world, or anyone who would listen, that The Chosen leadership and The Prophet were scum. Getting Hannah out was a huge part of that.
After a long stalemate, Logan broke the silence. “Okay,” he said. “I apologize. I have no right to tell you what to do, and can’t make you do anything.”
Heidi nodded. Uncrossed her arms.
“That said,” he continued, “I can predict Michael pretty well, and I promise you that after everything she’s invested in this, and after all the warnings she’s given you, 
“if you do anything that interferes with her getting to Hannah, she’s going to take it personally, and she will exact a price.”
“What kind of price?” Heidi said.
Logan shrugged. “Honestly, in your case, I have no idea. 
“Something she deems a fair exchange,” he said. Set you up for a crime and watch you squirm your way through the Argentine legal process and possibly into prison, maybe. 
“Whatever it is, I would never want to be the person to cross Michael,” and then he stopped, 
because he could see from the shadow that passed over Heidi’s face that he’d driven the point home.

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Chapter 19

Miles Bradford slipped on his coat.
And then, with a hesitant backward glance toward the desk and the tenuous connection to Munroe that the array of equipment and wires represented, stole out the door.
He’d no idea when he’d hear from her or when she’d return— if she’d return— and he’d waited as long as he could for any form of communication beyond what he’d picked up from the stairwell bug when she entered the Haven Ranch.
In the unknown, it was a risk to head out.
Away from the desk, he’d be unable to monitor, wouldn’t know until far too late if anything eventful happened, but he wanted to see Heidi, needed to see Heidi, and the opportunity was fast slipping away.
They’d arranged to rendezvous on the sly, away from the others, had set a time and place,
but in his reluctance to leave the desk he had waited too long and was now beyond fashionably late.
He could only hope she’d wait, because he needed to meet now. Today. Not another day. And he had no way to contact her to let her know he was still on his way.
Outside the hotel, Bradford hailed a cab, and when he arrived at Cementerio de la Recoleta and spotted Heidi just outside the gated entrance, leaning against the wall, face in a book and the sun’s sparse rays shining down on her, relief welled through him.
When she saw him, her face lit into a chill-dissolving smile.
In spite of his hurry and the uneasiness that had brought him here, Bradford couldn’t help but return the smile in kind.
Heidi greeted him with a hug and stepping back said, “So, tell me, Mr. Secret Guy, what it is that you need so badly that it comes to this.”
Bradford smiled again, his mouth in upward movement while his eyes diverted down the lanes, searching out anything familiar, chasing body shapes and wary steps.
He’d asked her to be careful, to come alone, but both Logan and Gideon had the skill to follow undetected if they wished, and to ask her now if she was certain they hadn’t would only insult her.
“Thank you for meeting me,” he said.【】Heidi nodded, and he looped his arm in hers, diverting her down a branching mausoleum-lined lane.
Here they would blend in, just one more couple among so many others taking in the dead on a pleasant afternoon stroll.
He’d chosen this place because it wasn’t far from his hotel, and as an attraction to both tourists and locals alike, it would be impossible not to find, thus lessening the chances of either one of them getting lost.
Bradford stopped several times, ostensibly to admire the architecture, the marble and stonework, while his eyes passed beyond the lifeless monuments to the living who came and went.
He saw no sign of Gideon and, better still, no sign of Logan, although it was impossible to know for certain.
Each time Bradford stopped, the puzzlement on Heidi’s face increased, but she said nothing until at last they came to a secluded alcove and Bradford headed toward it.
The nook, with only one way in and out, was a field operative’s suicide, but under the circumstances, perfect.
One final glance back the way they’d come and Bradford said, “Look, I need your help.”【】“I figured as much,” Heidi said.
“Off the record, okay? Logan can’t know, Gideon can’t know, and most of all Michael can’t know.”【】Heidi nodded, and Bradford hesitated.
“Michael speaks very highly of you,” he said finally. “She says you’ve been brilliant in explaining the mind-set of The Chosen, and I’m hoping you can help me.”
He hesitated again, and Heidi’s smile radiated, as if she had all the time in the world, as if they stood waiting under spring blossoms instead of the warming winter sky.
“I haven’t done the research Michael has,” he said. “And I haven’t had a friend to drop snippets of information over the years.
“My experience with groups like The Chosen is limited entirely to what I’ve heard through the media and in dealing with extremist factions in the Middle East.
“I’ve got images in my head of Jonestown, Koresh, Heaven’s Gate, Aum Shinrikyo, and terrorists— mass suicide and murder— so forgive me any misperceptions, okay?”
Heidi nodded again, as if to say “go on,” and in response Bradford again paused.
He burned precious time, needed to get back to the hotel, but the thoughts that had made so much sense when faced with Munroe’s solo entry into the Haven Ranch were quickly dissolving into the abstract.
He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair, fought back the urge to pace.
“Hypothetically,” he said, “unless we can do a snatch-and-grab, to get Hannah will mean Michael goes inside the Havens.
“That was the whole point in bringing her into this, right? And the way I see it, it’s eventually going to come to that.
“But what about brainwashing? If Michael goes in, what are the chances she’ll be coming out the same person who went in— if she comes out at all?”
Heidi’s shoulders relaxed and, with a grin that bordered on smirking, leaned against the cold stone of the wall.
“Yeah,” she said. “That’s kind of a misperception.” There was a long silence as she gazed first at the ground and then off into some invisible distance.
Bradford knew the look, the struggle for words, and so he let her be, although as the moments ticked away it was more difficult to fight the urge to hurry her.
“What’s your idea of brainwashing?” she said finally.【】Bradford shrugged. “Mindlessness, I guess, from constant and repeated mental abuse.
“When a rational person starts doing irrational things that someone else has told them to do— things they never would have done before.”
“So, going against free will and changing them into something else, right?”【】Bradford nodded.
Heidi said, “It would mean that a brainwashed person would lose the capacity to reason or to make personal decisions that fell out of line with what the brainwasher wanted or programmed,
“that they’d kill or commit suicide if told to, even if they didn’t want to do it. Mindless obedience, right?”【】“I suppose,” he said.
Heidi’s eyes took on a note of sadness as they wandered again toward that invisible distance. “Isn’t that just another way of saying ‘the Devil made me do it’?”
Bradford pondered her words. “You’re saying there’s no such thing?” he asked.
Heidi turned toward him. “I’m not saying that brainwashing doesn’t exist,” she said. “I may personally doubt it, but I’m no expert.
“I wasn’t raised in any of the groups that you mentioned. I can only speak of The Chosen, of my own childhood and that of my friends.”
“There’s no brainwashing in The Chosen? People actually do those things because they want to— of their own free will?”
She shrugged. “Yes and no. It really depends on how you define brainwashing.
“There’s a lot of indoctrination, a tremendous amount of control, and so much pressure to conform to ‘the new’ and heed the word of The Prophet.
“I think a lot of people would consider that brainwashing— but that’s not the same as having no mind of your own.
“Everyone still has free will. Any one of the adults could say no.”
“But how?” he said. “And if that’s the case, why on earth do people do it, why do they stay?”
Heidi shrugged again. “Sometimes they go along with things out of fear of God’s judgment if they don’t, or because they feel it’s what God wants of them.
“Nobody’s a zombie or an automaton.” She hesitated, as if she found tedious Bradford’s inability to accept what to her was so obvious.
“Look at it this way, Miles,” she said. “There are two types of people in The Chosen.
“There are the ones who had adult or nearly adult lives before choosing to join,
and there are people like me and Logan and Gideon, the children, who never had another beginning, never had a choice,
“who had no education, no access to television or books, little to no connection to family outside the movement, and who were terrified of what would happen to us if we were to leave.
“If anyone was brainwashed, it was us, the second generation.
“So then, completely cut off and indoctrinated as we were, if we are brainwashed, how can so many of us turn our backs on everything and walk away, sometimes even in the middle of the night with only the clothes on our back?
“And if we, the ones who never knew anything other than their world, can turn our backs on it, how can anyone who was supposed to know better claim brainwashing as an excuse for what they did?”
Bradford said, “So, these people on TV who say they were brainwashed into joining a cult, or that they did awful things, criminal things, against their will, that the leaders made them do it, they’re lying?”
“We’re all susceptible to influence to one degree or other,” Heidi said. “Apparently some more than others, but that isn’t the same thing as having no mind of your own.
“People who have sex with children, that’s not brainwashing. That’s not even coercion. Nobody took a bat to their kneecaps and said have sex with kids or we’ll hurt you.
“People who beat children, starved them, locked them in closets, called them demon-possessed, that’s not brainwashing, nobody made them do that.
“Do you know what the big punishment in The Chosen is?” Heidi asked.【】“I don’t think so,” he said.【】“Excommunication.”
“Meaning?”【】“Let’s say a man in The Chosen is caught molesting little boys, which is against The Chosen’s rules because it’s homosexuality.
“Even though it’s also a crime, members of The Chosen, even the parents of the child, are forbidden to go to the police about it.
“Excommunication, which is sometimes only for a few months, is such a big deal, they consider it to be punishment enough.
“By their reasoning, sending the criminal out into the Void is the worst possible thing they could do.
“Excommunication is the heavy stick that they carry to keep people in line, and members will do just about anything to avoid it.
“But if brainwashing was all that it is cracked up to be, why the need for the big stick? Shouldn’t everyone automatically obey and keep all the rules?
“To say that the things done to us were done because of brainwashing is a slap in the face to those of us who were tortured.
“They did what they did because The Prophet said it was right in the eyes of God,
“because they placed a greater value on some screwed-up ideology than they did on protecting the rights of children. But they were not mindless when they did it.”
“So what you’re saying,” Bradford said, “is that the only way a person like Michael would end up changed or stuck inside was if what they said and how they lived appealed to her?”
“Pretty much,” Heidi said.【】“Does that also apply to someone who might be—” Bradford paused. “Well, someone who might be going through an emotional upheaval— would it be different for that type of person?”
“Is she?”【】Bradford shrugged. “We all have our history, our scars, sometimes literally,” he said.
“What Michael does is highly specialized. It’s not something you go to school for.
“The things that made her what she is left their mark, just like with you, just like with Gideon and Logan.”
Heidi nodded. “If she falls for any of it,” she said, “then she’s not half the woman I think she is, and I suspect that in reality, she’s much more than I’ve even glimpsed.”
Bradford nodded in appreciation of Heidi’s perception.
He straightened and took his hands from his jacket pockets. “Thank you,” he said.【】“Better now?” she asked.【】“Yeah,” he said, “much better.”
Bradford paused, the running clock counting down time in his head, the pressure to get back to the hotel becoming stronger,
but seeing Heidi there tipped back against the wall while her words tumbled around in his mind caused him to stop. He shoved the need to hurry aside.
“When you did finally get out, how did you manage?” he said. “Without any education or any connections, how did you start?”
“It’s like being an immigrant stepping off the boat, heading into the big city with nothing but the clothes on his back,” she said.
“Where do you start? I was lucky. My younger sister had already left, so I had a roof over my head.
“But we were both na【马赛克1】ve. Our behavior was weird to people, we were taken advantage of until we figured out how things work here.
“But at least we had each other. Some of my friends were luckier— they had grandparents or uncles or aunts who had never given up hope of bringing them home and were able to help them get on their feet.
“The worst are cases like Logan and Gideon who were basically dumped on the doorsteps of unwilling relatives and ended up on the streets until they were old enough to sort things out.”
“Isn’t there some remedy?” Bradford said. “Have you ever thought about trying to get some closure, some form of justice through the court system?”
“Sure,” she said. “Lots of us have.”【】“And?”【】“Statute of limitations. Jurisdiction. Lack of evidence. It gets pretty complex.”
She shook her head. “There’s no legal recourse for us,” she said. “The criminals polished their image, and we, the ones who tell what happened, are the bad guys.”
She sighed. “But you know? You do the best with what you’ve got.
“You try not to lose any more time on the ones who hurt you, try to make something good out of it— they don’t deserve my future the way they took my past.”
“There’s so much I want to understand,” Bradford said. “But I’m already running late. I have to get going.”
“Anytime,” Heidi said, and she reached out to give him a parting hug.
Bradford walked to the lane and, after checking for signs of either Gideon or Logan and finding the way clear, blended into the crowd.
As he moved away, he glanced over his shoulder. Heidi remained with her back to the wall, staring after him, and in that look he felt the touch of her agony.