Chapter 29: Consultancy

I had been asleep for about four hours when my phone buzzed. Very few people had my number, and most of those that did were within arm’s reach, sharing our bed. I considered ignoring it, but it buzzed again; somehow, I heard the reality that it wasn’t going to stop buzzing until I answered it. It wasn’t a new psychic superpower. It was just healthy pessimism.

I couldn’t reach it over Jules and Amanda, who were between me and the side table where it was sitting on the charge pad. My TK took care of that though, and within a second I had it in my hand and was opening the text app to see what the emergency was.

It was Maggie.

I bounced out of bed, waking all the girls.

I told them about the texts as I threw some things into an overnight bag and tried to get dressed all at the same time. Mary, ever the practical one, told me to get myself organized and she would pack my bag.

I was ready to go in less than fifteen minutes. I was concerned that I was leaving the girls. It would be the first time that I would have been separated from them, and I wasn’t keen. I hugged each of them, not wanting to leave. There was a pounding on the front door.

A police officer was standing outside, his car idling on the road, its lights flashing.

“Caleb Stott?” he asked when I answered the door.

I nodded.

“I have been asked to take you to the airstrip,” he said. “Are you ready to go?”

I gave each of my girls another quick hug and kiss, then picked up my bag and followed the officer to his car. I saw curtains twitch on a couple of the houses around as I climbed into the cruiser, and could only imagine what the neighbors thought of me being driven away in a police car at two in the morning.

Once he was out of the neighborhood, the officer activated his siren and put his foot down.

When we got to the airstrip, the jet - another Gulfstream - was just taxiing onto the apron. It pulled to a halt and the door opened. A man in a dark suit came down the steps.

“Caleb Stott?” he asked, and I nodded. “I’m Agent Gregory Jenkins. I don’t normally work with the ESP, but since I had the jet, they tasked me with coming to get you. I’m not sure what they think you can do, but I just do what I’m told. If you are ready, we need to get moving. We have about an hour’s flight and another forty-minute drive to the compound.”

I grabbed my bag from the cruiser and thanked the officer before climbing the stairs onto the jet. Had I not already seen the Steadman’s jet, I would have thought that it was the most luxurious aircraft I had ever seen.

Agent Jenkins took my bag from me and stowed it, and then indicated a seat across a table from where he had been seated. There were some papers on the table. It was obvious that he intended to brief me on the way, and I was interested to find out exactly what I was getting in to.

He waited until we were in the air before he began, dropping an aerial photograph of an area of ground onto the table.

“This is the compound of the neo-Nazi group White Pride. Yes, they’re marketing geniuses; moving on. They’ve been living here for about eight years. It started small; a family of six moved to the ranch: Jerry Prentiss, his wife Amy, and four kids. Two were his sons - Amos and Jeremiah, fifteen and seventeen - and the two girls were hers - Felicity and Veronica, aged four and five. Over the last eight years, more and more people have gravitated to the area, illegally building more houses and enclosing the area in an eight-foot, electrified, barbed wire fence.

“Nobody noticed, since the fence was well within the bounds of the land owned by Prentiss. It was only when child services went to the house to do a welfare check on a child who had not been to school for a few days that anything was found to be wrong.

“Prentiss told CPS that they were home schooling all the children, but refused to allow the social worker to see any of them. We have no real idea how many children there are on the property, but we believe somewhere between thirty and fifty. We believe that there are thirty families living in what has become a commune, with Prentiss as its leader. When the CPS returned with local LEOs, they were told that they were not welcome, and that, as sovereign citizens, Prentiss and his crew would resist any attempts to force entry onto the compound.

“They displayed automatic weapons, although no shots were fired. The local LEOs showed a remarkable amount of sense and withdrew. That’s when we were called. As the lead negotiator, Maggie was called in to see if she could talk Prentiss into allowing CPS in to do welfare checks on the children. He refused to meet with her, only talking to her on the telephone from an undisclosed location within the compound. We think he may have a bunker somewhere in there.

“We don’t want another Waco, although we cannot let things lie. There are too many children to abandon in there, and who knows what these whack jobs will get up to. Obviously, ATF are not very happy that they appear to have fully automatic weapons, and Prentiss, who has been incarcerated in the past on weapons charges, shouldn’t have any weapons in any case; it’s a violation of his parole.

“I don’t know what Maggie thinks that you are going to be able to do, but I have been asked to get you there, and brief you on the way.”

I looked at him. His mind shouted that he had no faith in powers, despite grudgingly accepting that they were real. He’d even worked with Maggie before. He had never met anyone with anything more than Empathy, and didn’t believe that anything less than a full-scale assault on the compound would manage to get any of the children out. I was tempted to play a Telepathy parlor trick on him, but thought better of it. The one thing I could say about the federal government, in my experience to that point, was that they obeyed chain of command. The fact that this particular agent wanted to storm the gates was irrelevant, and I had more important things to do.

I leafed through the rest of the papers in the file. There were pictures of about twenty people - all adults - who apparently lived on the compound. There were also aerial photographs of the compound and a hand-drawn map, with guesses as to what each of the buildings were. It looked to me more like a military base than a collection of homes, but that might have been just the interpretation of the person who had drawn the map.

“How long before we get there?” I asked.

“We have another forty minutes flying time,” he said.

I decided I could best use the time to catch up on my interrupted sleep, and leaned back and closed my eyes.

The bump of the plane landing woke me up, and I looked around a little blearily while I got my bearings. Agent Jenkins looked at me a little disapprovingly, but said nothing as we taxied off the runway and pulled to a stop. When the door opened, the cold air made me shiver and blew away the last vestiges of sleep. There were two black SUVs waiting on the apron, red and blue lights flashing. Maggie was standing by one of them. I climbed down the steps and walked over to her.

“Thanks for coming,” she said. “I wasn’t sure you would.”

“I wouldn’t be much of a consultant if I refused to consult,” I returned with a small smile.

She opened the back door of one of the SUVs and indicated I should get inside, which I did. Agent Jenkins had brought my bag from the jet, and he threw it into the trunk before climbing into the shotgun seat. We took off for the compound.

“Nothing much more has happened since I texted you,” said Maggie. “I have spoken to Prentiss on the telephone. He maintains that they are sovereign citizens, and they just want to be left alone. He says that the children are all fine, but refuses to allow CPS onto the property to check, and says that any attempt by the authorities to force entry will be met in kind. He will not come out of the compound to talk to me, nor allow anyone at all in.

“The two guards at the main entrance are drones. They are both young, somewhere in their early twenties. They’ve been nothing but courteous to me, but their message is clear: they will not allow anyone onto the premises, and anyone that tries will suffer consequences. From what I can see in their auras, they are fanatics willing to die to protect what they believe to be their God-given rights. The entire reason they’re being polite is because Prentiss specifically ordered them to be, and that means he’s not a complete idiot when it comes to optics. That’s bad for us.

“This has all the makings of a Waco-style tragedy, and there are kids in there of all ages. We can’t let any harm come to them. There are electric fences all around the compound, and multiple cameras covering the area. This is not going to be simple. We don’t know where any of the major players are, nor do we know if he is using the kids as hostages, or if he will do so if-and-when we breach the compound. For all we know, the whole place could be wired to blow.”

“You have spoken to Prentiss by phone?” I asked to confirm, and she nodded. “Are you even sure he is in there, and not just jerking your chain from somewhere else?”

“We can’t be certain,” she conceded. “Certainly, the phone line I used was traced to the inside of the compound, but he could have a relay set up. That scenario makes me even more nervous. If he isn’t in there, then he is much more likely to allow the whole place to go up in flames and stand back and make accusations in the aftermath.”

“Is anyone talking to the guards just now?” I asked.

“There are two agents with them,” she replied. “For now, it’s a stalemate. Tensions are low in a superficial sense, but they’re not shy about repeating all that self-defense nonsense. There are also about a half a dozen men in vehicles sitting back from the entrance. One of the pickups there has a fifty cal mounted on the back. ATF are going mental and want to rush the compound.”

“I need an excuse to go and speak to the agents talking to the guards,” I said. “Let me see what I can find out from them.”

We sat in silence for the rest of the journey until we arrived at what appeared to be some kind of command post, out of sight of the compound. I did a scan of the area and found that as well as there being a number of people in the ‘command vehicle’ and milling about around it, there were also four people concealed in the brush.

“There are a number of people observing the command vehicles,” I sent to Maggie. “I presume they are reporting back.”

Maggie nodded. “We are under observation gentlemen,” she told everyone in our cadre, “so stay within the confines of the command vehicles.”

The SUV pulled up alongside a large rig, and someone climbed out of the truck and came to meet us.

“Donald,” said Maggie in a loud voice. “This is Agent Jenkins, and my intern, Caleb Stott. He’s just here to observe. I wouldn’t have brought him, but he was already on the jet with me when I got the call.” She turned to me. “Keep out of the way and keep your eyes open.”

Donald looked at me. I could see a little surprise in his eyes, but he was a professional and didn’t otherwise react.

“Er,” I said a little hesitantly, “is there a bathroom nearby?”

“A what?” asked Maggie incredulously. “For god’s sake – you’re in the middle of buttwipe nowhere. Go use a bush if you must, but don’t go too far.”

Agent Jenkins and Donald looked at each other. Agent Jenkins gave a snort of derision, which I was sure was only half-feigned. I wandered into the bushes, not quite making a beeline for one of the observers. I did very briefly toy with the idea of peeing on one of them ‘accidentally,’ but thought better of it.

I moved to within ten yards of him and relieved myself into a bush. While he watched, I dug into his memory and found out everything I could about him and what he knew.

His name was Andy Dent, and he was seventeen years old. He and three of his friends had been tasked with observing the command center. They did not have radios, but each of them had mobile phones and had been told to report in if it seemed that the FBI or ATF appeared to be making moves to launch an assault on the compound.

As far as he knew, Prentiss wasn’t even in the compound, but was in another location on the land about two miles away. He apparently had a cabin out there where he would sometimes take some of the girls to ‘tutor’ them. Andy didn’t particularly like Prentiss; he found him creepy, but his parents were staunch supporters. He had lived in the compound for the last two years, ever since his father had attended a rally where Prentiss had spoken.

I scanned the surrounding area and found that there were no other observers watching the command post. I didn’t want to assume that there were no other watchers, since my powers couldn’t detect electronic surveillance. I finished up and made my way back into the command post.

Maggie looked at me as I entered.

“There are four people in the bushes watching,” I said as I entered. “They are all youngsters, and they each have a mobile phone for communications. They have been told to report in if it appears we are gearing up for an assault. They are not aware of any electronic surveillance, but I can’t say that there isn’t any. As far as the one I saw knows, Prentiss is not in the compound. There is apparently a cabin about two miles to the northwest where he is currently holed up. That’s all he knew.”

“And you know all this how?” asked Agent Jenkins.

I ignored him. Donald looked at Maggie, and she nodded.

“Do you know a precise location for the cabin?” he asked me, and I examined the memories I had lifted from the boy.

“I could get there from inside the compound,” I said, “but he doesn’t know how to get there from the outside. There is a track inside the compound that leads to a trail in the woods, that then leads to the cabin. There is a track big enough for a car leading away from the cabin, but he didn’t know where it came out.”

“Can you sketch out a map of the compound?” Donald asked, handing me a pad and a pen.

I drew out the compound from the boy’s memory. Donald compared it to the aerial photograph they had and the diagram that I had been already shown by Jenkins on the plane. The buildings were all pretty accurate, but some of the guesses about their functions had been incorrect. Also, there was one building that housed an entrance to an underground bunker that the we hadn’t previously known about. The boy knew of its existence, but had never been down there.

Donald pulled out a forestry commission map of the local area. We located the cabin on it, and where the road came out onto the highway. It was on the exact opposite side of the property. The road was unpaved, and the likelihood was that if you didn’t know it was there, you would drive right by. The cabin was about a mile off the road.

“I would suspect that the road to the cabin is covered by electronic surveillance too,” said Donald. “If we go there all guns blazing then we are likely to set off whatever we are trying to avoid.”

“The cabin seems like the best point of access,” I said. “If we can gain control of Prentiss, then he could order everyone to stand down and let us in.”

“Get control?” asked Agent Jenkins. “How do you propose we do that?”

“Caleb will take care of that,” said Maggie. “Are you up for a walk?” She looked at me, and I nodded.

Agent Jenkins dropped me off at the end of the access road to the cabin. He offered to go with me, but I refused. I was nervous, but decided it would be better if I went alone rather than with someone else. If the access road was covered by electronic surveillance, seeing one young person walking up the road would be less threatening - I hoped.

What I didn’t know until later was that there was an entire SWAT team gathered just out of sight around the curve of the road. I also had my phone, to which I had attached a Bluetooth earbud. I had an open call with Maggie, so she could hear what was going on.

I made no attempt to hide, and walked up the center of the track towards the cabin. I figured if there were booby traps, they would be in the woods rather than on the access road. I saw at least two cameras move to watch me as I approached the cabin. Scanning the area, I found out that there were six people in the cabin, and nobody else near it.

The door to the cabin opened as I approached, and a young man aged about eighteen stepped out onto the porch. He was cradling a shotgun in his hands, but not pointing it at me. That, I thought, was a good sign.

“This is private property!” the boy said. “You’re trespassing. Please leave.”

“I’m here to see Mr. Prentiss,” I said. “I heard he was recruiting.” I extended a tendril into the boy’s mind, imagining him thinking that it was perfectly reasonable for me to be there at that particular time looking to sign up. He relaxed his stance a little. Just to be certain, I imagined that it would be completely impossible for him to pull the trigger on the shotgun. No matter what happened, he just wouldn’t be able to do it.

“We’re kind of busy at the moment,” he replied. “Jerry’s tied up with one of the girls. You can come in and wait.”

He stepped to one side, and I climbed the steps to the porch. When I pushed the door open into the cabin, three pairs of eyes stared at me.

There were two girls around my age, and an older man, perhaps forty. One of the girls was sitting in his lap and didn’t look particularly happy to be there.

Immediately I imagined that all of them decided that I was no threat. As the boy from the porch explained why I was there, they accepted it, and indicated a chair I could sit in while I waited for Jerry to finish with the girl.

I reached out with Telepathy into the bedroom and found two minds: one of a girl who was, again, less than happy to be where she was. She wasn’t being raped per se, but it was definitely not consensual. She had been pressured into sex by her peers, her parents, and Jerry himself. He was rutting away on her while she dreamed of the boy who she had been secretly seeing on the side. She had hoped to persuade her parents to let them marry. Legally, being eighteen, she could make her own choices, but the rules in the compound were different. Parents had far more say in the lives of their offspring until they were much older.

The other mind was Jerry. He was feeling particularly pleased with himself. He was sure that the FBI, ATF and all the other agencies that were surrounding his compound had no idea about his little hideaway. He was also sure that they wouldn’t storm the compound. The Waco incident had left a very bad taste in the public’s mouth. Jerry believed himself to be in a no-lose situation. If the feds gave up and all went away, then he won. His credibility with his followers would climb to almost godlike status. If the compound was stormed, then, very sadly, everyone in it would die. It was wired with several high explosive and incendiary devices. He would disappear in the mayhem. The fake ID he already held, along with the money he had accrued from his followers - and from dealing in weapons and drugs, and participating in yet other illicit activities - would mean he would be free and clear and able to live a life of luxury. The only loose ends would be those in the cabin, but he had a plan for that too. The cabin was also wired. It could be activated from either his mobile phone, or a remote trigger in his car, which was parked outside. All those inside would be killed.

I decided I had seen and ‘heard’ enough. I imagined everyone in the cabin fell asleep. There was a thud from beside me as the boy slumped to the floor. I caught the shotgun with my TK. The last thing I needed was it accidentally discharging and shooting someone - worst of all me. There was another thud from the bedroom; I wasn’t sure what caused that one. When I was sure that everyone was sleeping in the room I was in, I went into the bedroom. A naked Jerry Prentiss was slumped on the floor. The girl he had been with was asleep, still on her knees, ass up, on the side of the bed.

“Cabin secure,” I said into the radio.

Within thirty seconds there were three SUVs out front, and several agents piled in with guns drawn.

They wasted no time in securing everyone, especially Prentiss. I told Maggie what I had learned about the compound and the cabin being wired. I woke everyone up, and they were surprised to find themselves in restraints and in the process of being arrested. Prentiss himself was livid, but refused to talk.

“We need to know more,” said Maggie.

“Am I allowed to dig deeper?” I asked. “Don’t I need a warrant or something?”

“Arguably,” she said bitterly. “Sit in on my questioning and see what you ‘overhear. ‘ If that doesn’t work, then we’ll get the warrant.”

We went to the local sheriff’s office and booked all the prisoners into temporary custody. The girls would likely be released without charge, but the hope was that they’d be happy to cooperate. Prentiss and the older man were going to get the full press. The boy was deemed low-value, so Maggie passed him off to other agents. She told me that there was every chance he’d be released too, but that he didn’t need to know that right away. He was likely an armchair expert on the local gun laws, but beyond that, there was leverage – not just legal, but psychological. He’d been tasked with being a sitting duck inside a giant bomb, after all. I appreciated her walking me through her thought process. It appeared she was in her element playing mentor to a cooperative pupil.

In the interrogation room, Prentiss said one word: “Lawyer!”

“You are being held, incommunicado, on suspicion of domestic terrorism,” said Maggie. “As such, I have informed Homeland Security and they are en route to question you. You will then be transported to a black site facility for further questioning. In the meantime, I need to know about the devices hidden in your compound. There are a lot of innocent people in there that could be hurt or killed. Surely you don’t want that on your conscience?”

Prentiss had no conscience. He was confused as to how he had been caught. He had thought that nobody outside of the compound knew about the cabin, and didn’t think anyone knew about all the explosives. He started wondering very intently about who the mole was – or who they were, plural. That also let slip that he’d already had a man that he’d found suspicious killed.

“Yes, we know about the devices,” said Maggie, and I wasn’t sure she needed her Empathy powers to connect the dots. “Are they automatic, or who has control?”

It was unfair to say that Prentiss was an open book, but his mind was screaming. Separate and apart from the fact that he had no concept of Telepathy being real, and thus no reason to try to guard his thoughts, he simply had a loud mind. He was a grandiose bloviator inside and out, which made my job easy.

It turned out that the devices were all controlled from the underground bunker, which was accessed from within one of the buildings. It was being manned by a guy whose fanaticism scared even Prentiss. Prentiss only kept him around as security. He had been the one to actually kill the suspected traitor. He was a useful tool, but someone who needed to be controlled. Prentiss knew that even if he were to tell him to stand down, he was as likely to detonate the devices as to do as he was told.

I sent all that to Maggie. She kept up the patter while I did, which I considered impressive.

“I need to get inside that compound,” I sent.

“Too dangerous,” she replied.

“Prentiss could get me in,” I said. “If I can get close enough to the control room, I can neutralize the zealot.”

“You really want me to have to do all the best paperwork, huh?” she shot back. Her ‘tone’ was sarcastic, but also pleasant.

“I think it’s the only way,” I sent back. “If that guy in control of all the explosives is as crazy as Prentiss thinks he is...”

Maggie gave a short nod and then we both exited the interrogation room. She picked up her phone and began to dial.

“There are only a few federal judges who are read in regarding our existence.” she said. “It is one of those we need to ask to grant us a warrant. It may take a little time. They are supposed to be on call, but there’s a certain extralegal nuance to waking up a grumpy old man in the middle of the night to ask a favor – not to mention the spot check.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“Powered person monitoring the judge to make sure we’re not using powers to get him to grant the warrant,” she explained with a cold smile. “Leave it alone for now. There’s only so many teaching moments we’re going to be able to cram into the festivities tonight.”

It took nearly an hour for her to get ahold of the judge, and another thirty minutes for her to brief him on the situation. She had to explain the need for me to use Compulsion on Prentiss to get him to help us save all the people in the compound. Ten minutes after that, I was holding a fax copy of a federal warrant. I read it, but didn’t really understand it.

“It is worded that way,” said Maggie, “so as not to give the game away. Where it talks about using all available means, that is giving you carte blanche to use your powers.” She stood up and moved toward the interrogation room. “Shall we?”

I followed her and we re-entered the room. Prentiss glared at us as we went in. I sent a thread into his mind. I imagined that suddenly the most important thing in the world to him was the safety of those in his compound - that he had to help us to stop the psychopath with his finger on the detonators, and make sure that all his people got out alive. I imagined that he would want to help us in any way that he could.

“What can I do to help?” he asked, seemingly unbidden.

“You can start by telling us all about your troops,” Maggie said. “Who has weapons? Who’s likely to use them? Are you really in control? If you give orders to stand down, will they actually listen?”

“Most of them are sheep,” he said. “They will do as they are told. There are probably about six or seven people who I would expect to take independent action - mostly those on the front gate in the trucks with the guns. And Dillon in the bunker. He is the one that will definitely be a problem.”

“I need you to take Caleb into the compound,” said Maggie. “Use the entrance from the cabin. Get him into that bunker without causing a fuss. Can you do that?”

“Easily,” said Prentiss.

“Once we neutralize him, then I’m going to want you to go around and disarm everyone holding weapons. Get them to all to go and assemble in the barn. Everyone. Men, women and children. Make sure, though, that there are no firearms of any kind available to them.”

“The barn wouldn’t be the best place,” he said. “There is a stockpile of weapons stored there. The chapel would be better. It is big enough to house everyone and there are no weapons there.”

Maggie looked at me and I shrugged.

“Okay then,” she said. “The chapel it is.”

Agent Jenkins drove us all back to the cabin. Thanks to the warrant, I was able to grab loads of pertinent details from Prentiss’ mind along the way; it was simply faster than asking him every single question aloud and getting a verbal response. I tried very, very hard not to dig too deeply into what I was sure were his many other crimes and indiscretions, because, as Maggie had warned me, none of it would be admissible in court. Instead, I focused on guns, bombs, troops, and traps. By the time we arrived at the cabin, I was confident that the only variables unaccounted for were which people, specifically, we might encounter once inside the main compound.

Jenkins was astounded when we removed Prentiss’s handcuffs, and again when the two of us set off together.

“Hi Mr. Prentiss, sir,” said the boy on the gate as we approached the compound.

Prentiss just grunted and looked him up and down. “Who on earth gave you a weapon?” he asked scathingly.

The boy wilted.

“Give it to me,” Prentiss demanded, and the boy handed over what looked to be an AR15. Prentiss unclipped the magazine and racked the slide back, ejecting the round there.

“Don’t you know better than to keep a round chambered?” he asked. “You trying to kill somebody?”

The boy shook his head dumbly, looking at the floor.

“Go sit in the chapel,” said Prentiss. “I’ll be sending some other folk along soon. I have an announcement to make. Go straight there, and don’t speak to anyone. I have a surprise for you all.”

The boy nodded and darted off, leaving the gate totally unguarded.

Prentiss and I continued into the compound. He had left the gun at the gate. We didn’t meet anyone on our way to the bunker. Apparently, everyone who could be, was on the perimeter fence, watching for attacks. I saw a woman and a couple of children from a distance, but we never came close enough to speak to them. When the woman saw Prentiss, she actually turned around and ushered her children in the opposite direction. By that point I had a good idea why.