82
Gun drawn, Anthony moved across the long, wide, marble-tiled corridor. From outside, he heard commotion, someone barking into a megaphone.
A window was ahead, dark silky curtains admitting only a thin slice of grayish daylight. He peeled back the curtains and peered through the glass.
The FBI had arrived at the estate gates, two black Bureau utility vans and four unmarked sedans blocking the driveway. About a dozen agents were busy rounding up several Armor of God soldiers. Valdez, wearing a vest that read FBI across the back in yellow letters, was shouting orders into the megaphone.
In a few short minutes, the feds would trample inside to demand the evidence they believed he was going to find for them. He dropped the curtain, kept moving.
Past the window, a door ajar on the left claimed his attention. He nudged it open with the toe of his boot. Swept the gun from left to right. All clear.
It looked to be a girl’s bedroom. Everything was white—walls, carpeting, furniture. The effect was almost blinding.
He moved inside. Across the room, the door to a walk-in closet door hung open. He went toward it.
Inside, he found schoolgirl uniforms, leotards, spandex, string bikinis. All the pieces of clothing were in sizes fit for a teenage girl.
On a shelf atop the hangers, there were jars of lubricant and bottles of scented oils.
His stomach lurched. This must have been a room in which Bishop Prince lodged his so-called angels.
Never in his life had Anthony wanted to get his hands on someone so badly. To think of what the bishop had done to his sister, to so many other young girls . . . Anthony was intoxicated with rage, could feel it blowing through him like a hot summer wind.
He backed out of the room. Around a bend in the corridor, he found a set of ornate double doors with glimmering gold hardware. The lever gave at his touch.
If Bishop Prince had been hiding in his bedroom, he would have locked the doors. He must have gone to ground in another area of the house. Such a luxuriously appointed home probably included a panic room.
Anthony pushed open the doors and scanned left to right. Clear.
The master suite was enormous, and as opulently decorated as the rest of the house. The vaulted ceiling was at least twelve feet high, and there were lots of windows, yet all of them were darkened with blinds and heavy curtains. Another set of doors led to a covered balcony.
The massive bed, a four-poster model carved from mahogany, panels inlaid with gold and diamonds, sat on a raised platform. It was larger than the ordinary king-size, to accommodate the bishop’s great height, and so wide it could have comfortably slept three average-size adults. It was draped in a silk, burgundy-and-gold duvet.
As he regarded the bed, the two Bible scriptures that had led him to this room reverberated through his mind. He had mulled over them so often that he had memorized them both.
The first was from 2 Samuel, 4:7: For when they came into the house, he lay on his bed in his bedchamber, and they smote him, and slew him, and beheaded him, and took his head, and gat them away through the plain all night.
The second was Micah 2:1: Woe to them that devise iniquity, and work evil upon their beds! When the morning is light, they practice it, because it is in the power of their hand.
It was the reference to a “bed” in each respective passage that hatched the idea that had brought him there. Bishop Prince’s bed. Where he devised evil works.
Where one could behead him.
Bob had selected perhaps the only location on the campus where no one would ever think to look for the evidence that could destroy the church: the place where the great man slept.
It was such an audacious plan that it had to be true.
Anthony approached the bed. His knees trembled so badly that he tripped on the platform steps, just managed to keep from falling. He caught a glimpse of himself in a full-length mirror across the room, and almost laughed at his clumsiness.
Sweat drenching his brow, he deliberated for a moment. Where to begin? Where could you conceal something on a bed so that even the man who slept on it every night would be unaware of its existence?
Under the mattress seemed too obvious. But how about under the bed frame . . .
He holstered his gun, and got to his knees. Starting at the footboard, he began to trace his fingers underneath the frame. The wood was smooth and cool. He moved from the footboard and over to the left side, sliding his hands all the way up to the headboard.
Come on. Please. I know you’re under here.
At the headboard, he lay flat on his stomach, so he could run his fingers underneath the complete length of it. Near the center of the headboard, his right arm extended so far that his entire shoulder was wedged between the bottom panel of the frame and the marble tile, his fingertips brushed across a slight ridge.
Heart knocking, he tried to pull it away. It didn’t come, so he scraped along the edges of the object. Felt like plastic. Or maybe tape.
He found the end of the strip, and carefully, peeled it off.
A small, lightweight object dropped into the palm of his hand. It felt like a flash drive.
He clenched his fingers around the item and extracted his arm from underneath the bed.
The room was full of murky shadows, but his tactile impression proved correct: it was a USB flash drive, swaddled in masking tape.
“Thank you, God,” Anthony whispered.
He placed the device in his waist pouch with his extra ammo, and zipped it closed.
“So that’s where the Judas concealed his betrayal,” a stentorian voice boomed behind him.
Anthony spun, reaching for the gun on his hip.
Bishop Prince shot him.