CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

 

 

MARY JO LAY perfectly still as a drone moved over her head and past her position. She lay covered in brush, facing the church compound below her. She was on the left of the compound main gate, Jean was on the right.

Susan had taken a spot higher on the hill toward the back of the compound.

Mary Jo had on a black suit, a black face mask with only her eyes exposed, black thin gloves and her rifle was pure black.

She felt calm and almost relaxed.

She was ready.

From down the valley she could see the actor’s car approaching the compound.

Dozens of the faithful, all in bright exercise clothes, were stretching and chatting on the large lawn area to the right of the main gate, waiting for their leader. Mary Jo wondered how many of them had seen the morning news so far.

The church they believed in, the man they believed in, was getting torn apart in the press. Mary Jo had no doubt the police wouldn’t be far behind. They police didn’t dare wait too long since they had clear evidence that the fake Carson was really Jack Kelsall who had killed the real Carson White and actually filmed his body going off the bridge.

Mary Jo hoped that the real Jack Kelsall would actually be dead by the time the police arrived.

The sun was just about to hit the tops of the Sierras behind the compound when the front door to the mansion opened and the fake Carson White stepped out.

Mary Jo sighted in on him. She could see him look around and smile as if nothing at all was wrong in the world. Then he started down his front walk toward the sidewalk that would take him down the hill to the park and his followers.

He seemed totally unconcerned that his entire world had exploded in the press and all his money had vanished into his pretend accounts and then vanished from there.

Could the guy not even listen to the news? Was it possible he kept himself and his followers that shut off from the world inside these walls?

And was it possible none of his followers checked the bank accounts every morning?

From the smile on the guy’s face, it sure seemed that way.

Mary Jo was stunned that someone this complacent had gotten away with so much for so long.

The fake Carson was about halfway down the hill to the park, strolling along easily when the fake Jack Kelsall stopped his car just down from the gate and got out and walked toward the gate.

The timing was perfect. Just perfect.

The gate was two huge iron gates with a stone guardhouse built into one of the walls to the right.

Mary Jo kept her gun trained on their target, but watched the event at the gate play out.

In ten seconds after the actor reached the gate, one of the guards came out of the gatehouse building and ran at a sprint up the hill toward the fake Carson.

The fake Carson had been about to turn to join his followers in the park when the guard reached him and indicated he come to the guardhouse.

The remaining three guards at the front gate had let the fake Kelsall stand just inside the gate and closed it again behind him.

So now, as they had planned, the fake Kelsall was facing the fake Carson as he came down the hill.

Mary Jo was thrilled that this was working exactly as planned. It was playing out as they imagined it would.

As the fake Carson got within ten steps of the fake Jack Kelsall, Jack raised his hand and Carson stopped.

Perfect.

The young actor was playing his lines perfectly.

Mary Jo, Susan, and Jean all now had clean shots of everyone participating.

About ten of the followers and the four armed-guards all stood staring at what was happening in front of them, but all kept their distance.

Mary Jo and Jean and Susan knew the exact words the young actor was speaking. Exactly.

Mary Jo watched carefully, the rifle centered on the chest of the fake Carson.

The actor was asking Carson why he had duped so many people, why he had pretended to be someone he wasn’t.

Carson shook his head.

At that moment, the actor pounded his chest as he was supposed to do in this part of his speech.

Mary Jo fired.

She was just a fraction of a second behind either Susan or Jean.

Carson’s chest had exploded when Mary Jo’s shot got there and blew it apart even more. A high-velocity rifle shot using hollow-point ammunition could do that to a body. Small entrance wound, huge exit hole.

And from the looks of it, another bullet tore into the fake Carson at the same moment Mary Jo’s shot had hit him.

It was lucky the three shots hadn’t cut the guy in half. But there was no doubt he was dead.

Mary Jo turned her rifle on the startled actor and shot him before the fake Carson’s body hit the ground.

“Sorry kid,” Mary Jo said. “But your last part was played to award-winning levels.”

Jean and Susan picked off two of the guards at the same time.

Mary Jo went to the guard near one wall and dropped him as Jean and Susan dropped the other two guards at the front gate.

Then a massive explosion echoed over the valley as Jean blew up the three bombs in the escape tunnels.

At that moment Susan shut down all the drones and one fell in the brush close to where Mary Jo was. And Mary Jo knew that Susan also sent a signal back to the computers controlling the drones that she hoped would destroy the computers, but it actually didn’t matter if that worked or not.

A moment later Mary Jo took out another guard coming out of one building and Jean and Susan dropped two other guards who had appeared near the parking area.

Mary Jo let herself take a moment to study the scene below. The real Jack Kelsall, who had been hiding as Carson White, lay dead in a pool of his own blood on the driveway leading into his fake-church compound.

The actor playing Jack Kelsall sprawled near him.

All the people who had been waiting to exercise with their church leader were now getting their exercise running at full speed for cover.

Susan had set up automatic calls to the local police and they would be coming up the road shortly.

The job was done.

The target was eliminated.

It was time to go.

Mary Jo eased back away from the ridge, made sure she had left nothing where she had been. Not only did she have on the black suit, but she also wore man’s boots too large for her feet.

Jean and Susan had done the same, so it would be assumed that three men of medium height and size had done this, not three small, cute women.

Mary Jo picked her way down the ridgeline, moving quickly, but not recklessly.

Twenty minutes later she dug out a small blue backpack from a pile of brush. The pack had a change of clothes in it.

Standing under a grove of dry trees, she changed out of the boots and into tennis shoes, out of the black suit and into white shorts and a low-cut blouse. She took off the black gloves, but left on thin gloves with fake fingerprints.

She pulled off the black stocking cap that had covered her hair and put on a blonde wig.

She used a wipe to take off the black from her face that the mask didn’t cover and put everything in the backpack.

She took out a bottle of water, took a drink and put the bottle back. That one simple drink of water tasted wonderful.

Then she quickly took the rifle apart and put it in the backpack as well.

Within two minutes she was walking down the trail like a college girl out for a morning hike.

In the next valley over she could hear police sirens echoing through the morning air.

She had a pretty good hike over another ridgeline away from the compound to a small rental car she had parked there at a trailhead.

But by nine in the morning she would be in Nevada and headed south toward Las Vegas.

She liked Las Vegas. She might spend time there before heading for New York.

But she had a hunch it wouldn’t be long. She was already missing Jean.

And their hot tub.