Alex Kava Bundle - Alex Kava [403]
He was a genius when it came to catching hopelessness, that flicker of despair that, if he waited long enough, would always reveal itself in his subjects’ eyes. All it took was patience. Yes, he was truly a master at capturing on film the whole spectrum of emotions, from terror to jealousy to fear and evil. After all, the eyes were the window to the soul, and Ben knew he could one day capture the image of the soul on film. Patience.
At the time, both Newsweek and Time had been working on the mad scientist story, but neither of them had photos, not ones like Ben’s. His reward to himself after selling those photos for a nice chunk of change had been a week on a yacht with some waitress whose name he couldn’t remember. He did, however, still remember the cute rose tattoo on her tight little ass. Even had a photo of her on his darkroom wall, or rather a photo of her tattoo.
That was back in the days when kinky sex gave him a rush and kept him satisfied for a while. But there wasn’t anything that could equal the rush of these past several weeks.
Of course, the best rush of all would be to see the Reverend fucking Everett’s smug face when he finally got a visit from the FBI. Surely, even Racine and her bunch of Keystone Kops would make the connection and soon. Although if and when the feebies attempted to raid Everett’s precious compound, there probably wouldn’t be much left to investigate. If Everett truly believed he was in danger of being arrested, Ben knew the good reverend’s blind little sheep would be prepared for a suicide drill, like during the raid on that shitty little cabin on the Neponset River.
He had heard about the cyanide capsules from an ATF agent who had been on the scene. Couple more drinks and the guy probably would have given Ben more details. But mentioning the capsules had been enough. Besides, he had seen them firsthand when he spent two days inside Everett’s little compound, that concrete barricade that looked more like a prison than the utopia Everett professed it to be.
He’d also discovered that Everett had enough explosives to blow a nice-size hole in the Appalachian Mountains. The crazy thing was, Everett didn’t have the explosives for some terrorist attack. Just like the stockpile at that cabin in the woods—no complex, intricate conspiracy takeover. No, not at all. Instead, it was all for protection, all to protect his fucking fortress if anyone dared try to come in and take away his flock. It would be sort of a cross between Jim Jones’s purple Kool-Aid and Timothy McVeigh’s fertilizer bomb. What a mess the feebies would have to clean up. And boy, would they have some explaining to do. Probably make Waco look like a cakewalk.
That’s if the FBI even made it past all of Everett’s booby traps. The asshole had the entire woods filled with Viet Cong-like surprises. Ben couldn’t help wondering if his making shingle-nail pipe bombs and chemical-burn grass rags were a few of the reasons the guy had gotten kicked out of the military. Oh, but for good measure, the thoughtful reverend had posted what he probably believed to be disclaimer signs outside the area. Signs that said stuff like Survivors Will Be Prosecuted and Step Beyond This Point Only at Your Own Risk.
It was when Ben had seen the signs that he’d made the decision to gain entrance as a pathetic lost soul rather than as a renegade journalist sneaking through the woods. Weeks before he began his pathetic lost soul’s charade, he had muddied himself up like the Three Hills tribe of Mozambique had shown him, covering every inch of his body with a paste mixture, surprised that he could still remember its basic recipe. Even Everett’s ex-World Wrestling Federation bodyguards hadn’t seen him sliding through the tall grass and blending in with the tree bark. He had learned a lot that visit. The main thing had been that no one could sneak in—or out, for that matter—without getting his fucking head or leg blown off.
Ben checked