“Soon we will be together. I cannot wait to see each and every one of you. Until then, please stay safe, and stay ready. Remember the protocols. Check your messages twice a day. I may call on you at any moment. Because together, we are one. Together, we are Legion.”
The hairs rose on the back of Peter’s neck.We are Legion. The same phrase from the threat letter. Not a misquote from the Bible. A quote from this recording.
“Thank you, friends. As always, I am your humble messenger, signing off. Until next time, please know in your heart that I love you all.”
The voice ended. The recording hiss went on for another fifteen or twenty seconds, then abruptly cut off.
Ellie bounced from one foot to the other, as if standing shoeless on hot asphalt. “What the heck wasthat?”
Peter bent to peer at the cassette player. The tape was still passing from one spool to the next. He stopped the tape, then pressed rewind. “I think we just found the reason your mom was murdered.”
He pressed play again. The second time, he still had no idea what to make of it. The message or the messenger.The dark time is coming. The time of undoing.
Whatever that meant, it couldn’t be good.
21
Hollis
Hollis Longro sat in the borrowed car, now parked a block from the journalist’s house, rain beating down on the sunroof, furious with himself. His phone was in his lap, the app downloaded and open. He’d just sent an update. Now he was waiting for a response.
The Messenger had come up with the plan, with Hollis’s help. The Messenger had made a recording for Reed. Hollis had delivered the tape and given Reed the gun. He’d thought it might be hard to convince the kid, but it wasn’t. Reed was a true believer. He’d been terrified of the Dark Time for years. He wanted to prove that he could do what was necessary when it arrived. All Hollis had to do was tell him to clean all traces of the Movement from his apartment and quit taking his medication.
Geoff Reed wasn’t a perfect choice, but his medical history would provide a convenient explanation if he was caught. They hadn’t thought it would be so difficult to kill a middle-aged reporter. It wasn’t Hollis’s fault that Reed had failed. It wasn’t even Reed’s fault. It was the fault of the tall man in the green truck.
Hollis had been on the next block when Geoff had made his first try. After watching the young man flee, he’d had to get on the phone and coach him into trying again. Reed had failed again, and Hollis had stood in the crowd watching the police deal with the aftermath. Thankfully, Reed was talented in other areas and had already finished his two essential tasks. The Movement would go on without him.
At least Reed had understood his failure and followed the Messenger’s final instructions. The young man wasn’t strong, especially off his medication. He’d have told the police everything. The Movement couldn’t afford that, not now. Despite everything, the kid had still gone out protecting them all.
Hollis had a backup plan, of course. The Messenger had insisted, and he’d been right, as he was right about so many things. They’d risked too much and come too far to not take this breach seriously. Scott Enderby had gotten himself a fair amount of private tactical training and, like Reed, was looking to prove himself in the real world of bullets and blood.
Enderby had managed to kill the woman, and to damage her electronics as instructed, but he hadn’t gotten her bag or the tape. He hadn’t taken out the tall man, either. Instead, the tall man had killed Enderby and taken the daughter. Which only made things worse.
Hollis had taken the cut-up magazines from Reed’s trash and put them in Enderby’s recycling as an insurance policy. It was the Messenger’s idea. At the time, Hollis thought it was overkill. But now, after watching the press conference that morning, it was clear that the Messenger was right again. The mayor had taken the win. The law had no clue about what had really happened.
But the tape was still out there somewhere.
Hollis had gone to the reporter’s house to find it. He hadn’t time to search properly. All he’d found was the empty case, and he’d suspected that the tall man or the daughter had the tape itself. When the tallman showed up at the house and chased Hollis down the sidewalk, he became certain of it.
The tall man was a serious problem.
The Movement had other people in Seattle. But they were the kind of people who thought they could buy their way through the Dark Time. Too soft to do what was necessary. Definitely too soft to take on somebody like the tall man.
Hollis had reported all this to the Messenger a few minutes ago.
Now, sitting in the borrowed car, with the rain beating down on the glass, the phone chimed with a response.
The Messenger was furious. Failure was unacceptable. The stakes were too high. They couldn’t be exposed now, when they were so close to executing their plan. To making history.
His next instructions were unequivocal.
Capture the tall man. Capture the girl.
Get the tape.
Then kill them.
No loose ends.
