Armageddon Crazy

"I'm executing a lawful S of T warrant."

"Are you out of your minds? You know what this place is."

Booth had obviously only just crawled out of bed. Carlisle realized that the deacon had not yet heard the news.

"Three of your men have just been murdered by the Lefthand Path as they left this building."

Booth looked sharply at the younger deacons. "Is this true?"

They nodded. Carlisle pressed on.

"It is possible that they may have been fingered by someone in here. Accordingly, the place is now sealed and everyone here will be questioned."

"What were the names of the victims?"

"Bickerton, Baum, and Ki

"My God."

Booth quickly recovered. He rounded on the nearest women.

"You're right, Lieutenant, and we'll start with the whores. I don't think we need to be too gentle."

Carlisle's reply was soft and cold. Early in his career he had learned the trick of talking quietly and forcing people to listen. "You won't start with anything, Deacon Booth. You're a suspect yourself for the time being. If one of the girls hasn't been passing information to the terrorists, the possibility has to be considered that the deacons have been infiltrated. As of now, this is a T7 case."

"I have to call someone about this."

Carlisle shook his head. Someone in the phone company who owed him a favor had ensured that all communications were cut off to and from the house. "This place is sealed."

Booth looked as if he were going to burst a blood vessel. Carlisle savored the moment. The raid had been his own brainwave. The plan had come to him fully formed immediately after he had heard about the killings, and it had taken him only a matter of minutes to sell the idea to a devilishly gleeful Captain Parnell. Of course, Parnell had protected himself. When the shit finally came down, it would fail directly on Carlisle, but right at that moment, Harry Carlisle was not thinking too much about long-term consequences. He was taking too much delight in sticking it to the deacons. Besides, what could they really do to him? The entire episode was too high profile for them simply to disappear him. The cloud that already hung over him would darken, but that hardly worried him. He was marked already.

Carlisle's team went to work like a well-oiled machine. The deacons' protests were ignored as their IDs, along with those of the women, were verified and individuals were taken into separate rooms for questioning. In fact, it all was ru

Reeves leaned over the ba

Reeves was not exaggerating. Before the Fundamentalists had taken over, Carlisle had taken Gail to a couple of love motels in New Jersey, but those had not been anywhere near as elaborate as the upper floors of the deacons' private fantasyland. He followed Reeves through the series of sexual playrooms. He saw silk sheets, circular beds, and fur rugs. He looked up at himself in mirrored ceilings and peered through one-way mirrors at hastily vacated love nests. There were no less than three fully equipped dungeons, each with its complement of chrome chains, leather restraints, slings, and pulleys, and its racks of whips, masks, canes, and paddles – and a few devices that Harry did not recognize. Even in their leisure time, the deacons seemed obsessed by the idea of pain and punishment.

"No expense spared."

"You're not kidding."

There was a certain twisted logic to the deacons maintaining their own closed whorehouse. Indeed, it was the same logic of applied hypocrisy that operated on every level of the Faithful regime. They used their thought police to enforce public morality, but at the same time they had to recognize that, among their gestapo, some of the boys would definitely be boys. This recreation facility and, Carlisle assumed, many others across the country, had been provided so that God's strong right arms could sexually unwind with only a minimal risk of scandal. Carlisle was quite proud that he, with a single stroke, had considerably upped the ante on that risk.

"The place is lousy with cameras. They must record everyone's every stroke," Reeves said.

Carlisle sniffed. "It's a system of interlocking blackmail. I know your sins, but you know mine."

"God can never have enough data."

Loud voices floated up from the parlor. The tour was cut short as Carlisle and Reeves hurried to the head of the stairs.

"What's going on down there?"

A new squad of deacons had arrived. They were being held at gunpoint in the parlor by the boys from the riot squad. Their leader was a tall man with a black leather coat draped over his shoulders. His hair was close to white blond and very long for a deacon. His eyes were hidden behind black Raybans.

Reeves whistled under his breath. "Christ, now you're in for it."

Carlisle nodded. "Dreisler. I didn't expect him so soon."

Matthew Dreisler was the head of Deacon Internal Affairs and, as the deacons' chief headhunter, possibly the most feared man in all of New York.

Carlisle hurried down the stairs, angrily demanding answers from the riot squad. "I thought I told you to seal this place!"

"We did."

"So how did these people get in?"

"They brought their own warrants."

Cold black sunglasses were regarding him. When Dreisler spoke, it was a patrician drawl that seemed almost decadent. "You must be Carlisle."

Harry nodded. "I'm Carlisle,"

"And you're the one with the theory. You think someone here is in cahoots with the LPs."

"I find it a little too much of a coincidence that a triple assassination should happen just a stone's throw from this establishment."

"You suspect a direct co

"I thought it merited investigation."

Dreisler removed his sunglasses. "Or did you just see a chance for the PD to humiliate the deacons?"

Carlisle did not answer.

Dreisler shrugged. "As it happens, I agree with you. With the first part, that is. That's why I'm taking over this investigation as of now."

Carlisle folded his arms across his chest. "I don't think I can go along with that."

Dreisler's pale eyebrows shot up. "You don't?"

"I'm the officer on the scene here and I've got the authority to keep anyone out if I decide they might compromise the investigation."

Dreisler had a white silk evening scarf draped around his neck. He was slowly twisting one end of it between the ringers of his left hand. "Go on."

"There's the possibility that a deacon has been turned by the terrorists, or that you have an infiltrator among you."

"If anyone fingered those boys, it was more likely one of the girls."

"Sure it is, but until I'm satisfied that it wasn't a deacon, I'm not letting any one of you near this."

Dreisler was smiling as if he admired Carlisle's gall. "Are you always so gung ho on procedure?"

Harry shook his head. "Not usually, but now and then it comes in handy."

"Do you know who I am?"

Carlisle nodded. That was the warning shot that he had been waiting for. "I know who you are, Deacon Dreisler."

"Either you have a lot of balls, or you're plain stupid."

"I'm a New York cop, Deacon Dreisler. Everything mat might imply."

Dreisler laughed as if he were conceding the point. "You have forgotten one thing, though."

Carlisle was instantly on his guard. "What's that?"

"There's been no crime committed here. You're not the officer on the scene because there is no scene."

Carlisle looked bemused. "We're standing in the middle of a functioning brothel."

"In that case you should have brought a vice warrant. We've been talking terrorism, and I don't see a single terrorist on the premises."