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  “All of these people are ready to make the ultimate sacrifice to their Father,” Spencer said. “They’re ready to ascend.”

  “You said you were taking these people to South America. That you were going to start a new society for the Dare descendants.”

  “I have to be honest with you, Brad. That was bullshit. These people are no one special. Just ignorant fools stupid enough to follow some hippie’s dream of a resource-based economy. There aren’t any members of the Dare bloodline in the Marshall Village. Except for me.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Think about my name. Spencer Goad. Goad. What does the word goad mean, puzzle man? A goad is a dare. The Dare family has been living in hiding for centuries, right under the Masons’ noses.”

  Dale’s face flushed. He’d had enough of Spencer’s warped perceptions. “Spencer, dammit. You’re not a Dare. It’s a homonym! A coincidence! No one was looking for you until you kidnapped over a hundred people. The government’s not trying to get you.”

  Spencer motioned to the door and the continuous cracks of gunshots beyond. “No? I find that hard to believe at the moment. But I tell you what, Brad. You wire real money to me, and I’ll be on my way to South America and you can save all these people.”

  “My government doesn’t—”

  “Negotiate with terrorists. Yes, I figured that was what you’d say. Such a pity.”

  Spencer turned the microphone back on and looked out upon the people. “My children, this government rat has just told me their plan. They intend to torch this place to the ground. To burn every man, woman, and child like they did at Winyah Bay. Dying like that, we will not make our final ascent. Raise your bowls with me now.”

  Everyone in the audience raised their bowls. Spencer raised his own bowl.

  Dale pulled the microphone over. “Stop! You can’t listen to this man.”

  There were angry jeers from the crowd. Some of them stood up, began to approach the podium.

  Spencer raised a hand at the audience and leaned toward the microphone. “Children, sit. Before our revolutionary protest, I will allow him to speak. You should be able to hear from the very government’s mouth what they have planned for you. Then you will see why our decision here tonight is truly divine.”

  Those who were standing returned to their seats, though there was still a current of hostility crackling through the crowd.

  Spencer took a step back and locked eyes with Dale. There was a slight smirk at the corner of his lips. “Do what you may,” he said under his breath.

  Dale licked his lips and looked out before him. The crowd moved and shifted, waves in a solid mass. Whispers and shouts. Moving lips and clenched teeth. Curled fists. There were plenty of children, four in the front row alone.

  “You cannot listen to this man,” Dale said. “He’s not who he claims to be. He’s not a descendant of Virginia Dare, and he doesn’t believe you are either.”

  There was a fresh wave of anger in the crowd, even stronger than before. There was screaming. Women wailed. One of the men in the front row threw his chair toward the podium.

  Spencer laughed. “It looks like that went over well. Face it, Brad. These people will do whatever I tell them.”

  “Not if I can get through to them.”

  Spencer glanced out at the screaming crowd again. “And how are you gonna do that?”

  “Like this.” Dale pulled the tape recorder from his back and smacked it down on the podium next to the microphone. Before Spencer even had time to react, he’d pushed play.

  I have to be honest with you, Brad. That was bullshit. These people are no one special. Just ignorant fools stupid enough to follow some hippie’s dream of a resource-based economy. There aren’t any members of the Dare bloodline in the Marshall Village. Except for me.

  The people in the crowd looked at one another and their surroundings. They spoke and shot scared, concerned glances up at the podium. In the front row, a woman quickly snatched the bowl from a child’s hands and put it on the ground.

  He’d gotten through to them. A wave of relief rushed over Dale.

  Then something grabbed him from behind.

  Chapter 58

  Spencer wrapped his arm around Brad’s neck. He yanked hard and pulled him back, his heels dragging on the ground, toward the small door in the rear. Back at the Worldwide Weekly Report office, Brad had looked surprised when he saw how much Spencer bulked up. Now the bastard was getting an up-close demonstration of just how much stronger he’d gotten.

  Spencer kicked the door open and pulled Brad outside. They were at the rear of the factory grounds now, isolated from the rest of the buildings. Moonlight shone off the water of the Pamlico Sound beyond.

  There were sounds of gunshots in the distance, but they began to dissipate. The fight was dying down.

  Brad finally got his feet beneath him and, despite the strong hold Spencer had on him, threw Spencer over his hip and onto the ground.

  Spencer grunted.

  Brad dropped to his knee and pulled his fist back. There was fire in his eyes, and Spencer loved it. He almost welcomed the punch, the pain. But he had to pose his next challenge.

  “Don’t you want to know where they are?” Spencer said. “Your women.”

  Brad hesitated, lowered his fist. “What have you done with them?”

  Spencer laughed and flicked his eyes toward the river, showing Brad the little gift he’d left for him earlier.

  In the distance, there was another fishing boat on the water. Just visible were the forms of two people. Brad’s mother and his latest tramp. They’d put up quite a struggle when he’d tied them in. Especially the old bitch.

  Brad’s mouth opened, and palpable fear poured out of his bewildered eyes.

  “Now you have a little decision to make,” Spencer said and pointed to the dock, about ten feet away. “See those? One of them is for you. The other one is for me.”

  He’d left them earlier in the day—a shiny new speedboat and an aging fishing boat with a rickety engine.

  “Mine’s going to take me up the Pamlico Sound,” Spencer continued, “toward The Lost Colony play, where the blasphemous story of Virginia Dare’s death is perpetuated. I’ve already loaded the stage at Manteo with a hundred pounds of explosives. We’re just out of range.” He reached into his pocket and retrieved a small, black detonator with a translucent green plastic button in the center. “A mile north of here, this button will light up. All I have to do then is push it. Your choice is this. Use your boat to chase after the bad guy and save dozens, maybe even hundreds of lives, abandoning your two ladies. Or you can save the women and leave the people at Manteo to die.”

  “Save the women from what?” Brad said.

  “From this.” Spencer took out another detonator, this one with a lit, red button. He pushed the button. The detonator beeped, and the red light began to flash. “You now have three minutes.”

  Chapter 59

  The rage grew out of Dale like a cancerous bulge. He gritted his teeth, and his arm instinctively swung at Spencer. As his fist came down to meet Spencer’s face, he pictured it exploding in a mist of teeth and skin and eye.

  Spencer dodged the blow, and Dale punched into the muddy ground. He immediately threw another punch, this one connecting and tossing Spencer’s face to the side. It was amazing he didn’t knock him out.

  Spencer laughed and wiped blood from his lip. “Not bad, Brad. But you still haven’t incapacitated the bad guy.” He looked at his watch. “And look at that. You’ve already wasted twenty seconds. See ya.”

  Spencer quickly rolled to the side and sprang to his feet. He darted for the boats and tore off his robe as he ran, beneath which he wore a T-shirt and jeans. Dale sprinted after him. He reached for his .38 and found his holster empty before remembering that it had been seized back in the warehouse.

  Spencer hopped into the speedboat and untied the rope from the cleat. Dale leapt in behind him and tore at Spencer’s arms, pu
lling him away from the controls. Spencer threw a fist into Dale’s ribs, and he staggered back momentarily before grabbing Spencer’s arms and throwing him backwards. Spencer hit the rear end of the boat and tumbled onto the dock with a loud slap.

  Dale rushed to the controls at the front of the boat.

  “Forgetting something?”

  Dale turned. Spencer was dangling a set of keys. Dale lunged to the end of the boat and tried to snatch them, but Spencer pulled them away.

  Spencer looked at his watch. “Damn, Bradley. You’re wasting an awful lot of time. Try as much as you want, but you won’t be getting these keys from me. But as you’ll see, the keys are there waiting for you in the other boat. The one I so graciously provided.”

  It was yet another game. The logical choice was to take the fishing boat. As to the choice of saving Susan and his mother or stopping Spencer from getting to Manteo, he knew how he was going to fix that problem as well.

  Dale stepped onto the dock and leaned in closer to Spencer. “I’ve solved all your little riddles so far. I can solve this one.”

  Spencer stepped back and extended the arm holding the keys behind him. “Time’s wasting.”

  Dale crossed the dock to the other boat, got in, and quickly threw off the rope. He started the engine, pushed the throttle to full blast and headed toward the women in the little boat in the middle of the water a quarter-mile away.

  The temperature had dropped since earlier in the day, and the air whipping past his face made his eyes water. Dale had little experience on the water, and the boat bounced about viciously.

  Drawing closer, he could see the women’s faces. They were screaming. Each of them had their hands tied behind them at the waist. As he crossed the water toward them, he looked back.

  Spencer took off from the dock going in the opposite direction. The sleek speedboat zipped across the water. Headed north. To The Lost Colony play in Manteo. Dale thought about Sherry Conrad at the theatre. She’d acted so strange. She too was under Spencer’s spell.

  He began to hear the women’s voices over the roar of his outboard. They were yelling at him for help, to hurry. Spencer had not bothered to gag them. He’d wanted Dale to hear their fear.

  Dale tried to slow the boat down in time, but again his lack of nautical skills proved a problem, as he clipped the corner of their boat and went past them by several feet. Running against the boat’s forward momentum, he dashed to the back and used the motor as a springboard, leaping off of it and running through the air. He splashed awkwardly in the water and swam to their boat.

  He pulled his sopping body aboard, and the women yelled out to him.

  “It’s right there! Look, look!”

  The women had each been tied to one of the boat’s two seats. There was a box affixed to the boat under the seat in the back, Susan’s seat. It was black steel, a foot wide, and had long, vertical grooves.

  “Hurry, Waddy. Hurry,” his mother said.

  “I’m trying, Mom.”

  He dropped to his stomach and examined the box. A sense of dread filled him. Bombs were not his specialty.

  There was a clock face on top of the box. It read thirty-three seconds.

  Chapter 60

  Spencer enjoyed the fit and finish of a quality product, and this boat was a fine piece of engineering. He bought it seven months ago in preparation for this very night from a man upstate who had more money than sense and had only bought the boat because he saw it in a James Bond movie. To his credit, the man gave Spencer lessons on driving the thing before he left, and now Spencer had full command over it.

  Spencer held the highly polished wooden steering wheel in his left hand and felt the power of the engine course through the throttle. Very soon, all his dreams would be secured. The briny air flowing past him and filling his nostrils tasted sweeter than it had any right to. By this time tomorrow, he would be on his way to freedom from the oppressive American government under which he’d lived his twenty-four years. His only regret was that he would not be able to see how thoroughly he had destroyed Brad Walker’s life.

  At the rate he was flying across the sound, Walker would soon disappear from his sight, so he turned around and looked one last time upon the man who had taken so very much from him. Brad had abandoned his boat and was now in the women’s boat.

  Spencer smiled. “Any moment now.”

  He looked at his watch. He had synchronized a countdown. Twenty-five seconds left.

  He would certainly hear the explosion and likely see the ball of flame. But he didn’t have time to stop. Any moment now the feds would be wrapping up with the forces he left back at the factory, and they would soon figure out what had happened to him and Walker.

  Spencer had been surprised when Brad headed toward the women’s boat instead of chasing after him. He had been certain that Brad would take the option of saving more lives over saving two lives that personally matter to him. That would have been the more admirable decision. For once, Spencer had overestimated Brad instead of underestimating.

  There was one more stop to make before he made his grand escape to South America. He thought back to earlier when he rigged the Lost Colony theatre with explosives. The damn thing had begun in 1937 and been performed continuously since then, perpetuating the lie that Virginia Dare had perished. It was a Freemason operation. Before he left the U.S. forever, he was going to correct one of its greatest historical errors.

  There were ten pounds of explosives on each end of the stage, thirty pounds in storage shelters behind the stage, and fifty pounds spread throughout the seating area. When he pressed the button, the whole place would be destroyed. It was pushing 8:30 p.m. They would be into the second act by now, the audience drowsy with bellies full of food and lies. Spencer would make examples of all of them, especially those involved in tonight’s performance. Whereas ruining and killing Brad Walker had been personal, this act was his gift to the world.

  He never cared about the money anyway.

  He looked at the detonator. The green button had not lit up yet. But it would soon. He was getting very close.

  Spencer’s motor began to sputter. He whipped around. He could see nothing wrong with it, but he was definitely losing speed. Rapidly. Then it began to make an awful coughing noise. And died.

  At first he didn’t know what to do. He just stared at the motor. Sometimes things just didn’t work right. Hiccups. If he gave it time it might start back up. But several seconds passed, and nothing happened.

  He stomped his foot on the bottom of the boat. This couldn’t be happening. It wasn’t fair. He’d planned things out so well. Everything was accounted for. He jumped up and down, smashing his feet into the floor. Hell, for all he cared he could crash right through into the water. He screamed and tried not to cry.

  He lowered the throttle, wiped his eyes, and stepped to the back. He looked over the motor and found the problem. A small rubber hose on the engine had been cleanly severed, and it was spitting amber-colored liquid out into the sound. He put his finger in the stream and brought it to his nose. Gasoline.

  He was stranded.

  Spencer peered out at the other boats, just visible in the distance. He could see movement. That would be Brad trying to diffuse the bomb.

  He looked back at the severed gas line on his motor.

  It had been Brad. Goddammit, he just knew it had been Brad Walker.

  Chapter 61

  Dale hovered over the bomb with his pocketknife in hand. He looked through the colors of the wires and wondered, like he had recently with the Willard Ledford situation, which one he should cut.

  His clothes were soaked from his swim, but there was still a lingering smell of gasoline coming from his jeans. Moments earlier, as he jumped from the speedboat onto the dock, he deftly reached out with his pocketknife and cut Spencer’s gas line.

  Spencer had tried to present him with an unsolvable conundrum. Save the people he cares about, or save a group of innocent people he’d never met? Spenc
er had wanted so badly for him to be torn by this decision; he wanted him to anguish over it. But in Dale’s experience, there was almost never an unsolvable problem. You just had to give it enough time.

  And it never hurts to have a pocketknife.

  Spencer’s motor would be dying any time now, but Dale didn’t have a moment to turn back and look. The bomb before him was reading ten seconds left.

  The women screamed louder now, struggling in their bonds. Their words were unintelligible. Every part of him was focused on the bomb.

  Seven seconds.

  He didn’t have time to figure out the color, and in his haste he could easily pick the wrong one. Not that he knew what the right one was.

  So there was only one thing he could do. He put his hands on either side of the bomb and tried to lift. It didn’t move. The housing must have been solid steel. That explained the grooves in the sides. Like the grooves in a grenade, these were designed to create huge pieces of shrapnel upon detonation.

  Four seconds.

  Dale planted his feet on the base of the boat, which shook unsteadily beneath him, and put his hands on the sides of the bomb. He thought about the squats he did at the gym, the strength that had built up in his quadriceps through all those years of lifting weights. He thought of his mother, his memories with her, and of his new friend Susan, the girl who’d finally let her hair down.

  And he lifted with all he had.

  His legs burned like fire, and there was pain in his lower spine. Lift with your legs, not with your back. He threw his shoulders back and dug in his heels. Blood rushed to his face. The bomb began to slip beyond his fingertips, sliding down and trying to escape his grasp. His right arm was weaker than usual, still smarting from the blow back at the factory.