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A novel of brainwashing and death

"Barney Harrigan!"

The name, the voice, the memory stunned her. Her fingers shook and she steadied the instrument against her ear.

"Is this Naomi Forman?" the voice inquired, still tentative and uncertain. The red numbers on the digital clock read three a.m. The hour of desperation. Would the voice of Barney Harrigan announce disaster? No call could come at that moment without a reason. Barney Harrigan! She shivered at the ancient memory, the old painful love, her own awful guilt. From the beating pulse in her throat and the sudden emptiness in the pit of herself, she knew it still lingered. Hadn't she killed it four good years ago? Five. Nearly six.

"I can't believe it."

"I'm sorry." He offered the obligatory apology.

Kicking off the comforter, she sat cross-legged on the bed.

"Where are you?" she asked.

"Fort Lauderdale."

"I didn't know you moved out of Manhattan."

Had he moved since she had last looked up his name in the Manhattan directory, a guilty whim? The address had changed. It was not the place in SoHo they had once shared, in which they had once loved. The flame had burned hard and hot, ending finally, the reasons blurred by time.

"I'm at my parents' place in Lauderdale. I dropped off Kev."

"Kev?"

"My son."

"Son?"

"I married a few years ago. He's four."

A brief pause, a mite too long.

"Congratulations." Her tone was sarcastic, and she was embarrassed by her reaction. He ignored it.

"Why I called..." He hesitated, clearing his throat. "...At this ungodly hour. But you see, I just found out. And you were the only person I could talk to in Washington."

So it was Washington he needed. For a fleeting moment, she had allowed a part of herself to yearn for something more. He had her at a distinct disadvantage. He had found someone else to love. She had not. As if he had won and she had lost.

"It's very complicated," he said. "But it boils down to this."

So he was boiling down again. He had once called it the bottom line. How bitterly she had reacted to that phrase. The bottom line, he had ranted, is that I cannot live a life that is totally political. Not everything is politics and causes, there is home and hearth. Family. Sharing.

Their old one-note argument. She hadn't been ready for surrender. Not then.

"Charlotte." He coughed. "My wife." A bark of hoarseness quickly cleared. "She has been captured by the Glories." He paused, obviously waiting for a reaction.

In her mind, the Glories were merely a vague collection of information. Rich, powerful, right-wing, espousing a totalitarian view of the world, a dubious religious sect. Some called it a cult with political pretensions. Their leader was Father Glory, an Indian businessman, who believed he was the Messiah. She thought of Jim Jones, the People's Temple Guru who commanded 900 people to die in Guyana; David Koresh, who created a standoff with the government, then ordered his band of crazies to head for Armageddon; Marshall Applewhite, who talked his followers into believing that suicide would buy them a UFO to trip to a "higher level," wherever that was. Other images came to mind, shaven-headed Krishnas chanting on street corners; neatly dressed Glories selling candy, knickknacks, flowers on street corners; stories of frantic parents chasing lost adult children.

And of course, there was Bin Laden and all those associated crazies who believed, really believed, that paradise awaited them, paradise being an eternity with 72 virgins. An eternity? Yuck. Sounds like a headache to me. She remembered her own clumsy and painful deflowering. It was equally horrendous for what was his name. She had forgotten, only that his "thing" stabbed mercilessly and the whole experience was appalling. But a cult was a cult, and fools who believed such things were just that, fools and worse. Seventy-two, no less. The "thing" would have to be made of wrought iron.

Besides, this only happened to other people. Unless, of course, you were caught in the crosshairs of their horror, like on September 11th. The date stirred her disgust, and she shook it away and recalled what Barney had said about the Glories.

"How awful," she said, shrugging. It seemed an appropriate response.

"I just found out."

"How..." she asked, but he was already off, explaining in a choppy narrative. As she listened, she wondered, Why me? What has this got to do with me?

"She had gone to Seattle to visit her sister," he explained. His voice conveyed a touch of hysteria and she forced herself to listen respectfully, patiently, although her interest in the subject of his pain was marginal. "She has this sister, Susan. Both their parents are dead. I said fine. She hadn't seen her in two years. Why not? She worked pretty hard with Kevin. What's one lousy week? We both knew Susie was involved with something. But we didn't know it was that. Not the Glories. Sure, go ahead, I told her. I encouraged her. So she went." Out of the cage, Naomi thought, pulling together a picture of Charlotte and her life, hoping it would bring back the old image of her own rebellion. It didn't.

"She called every day from the coast. Spoke to Kevin and me. Told us how much she missed us. Said she had gone with Susie to some kind of farm, had met fabulous, really caring, loving people. Wonderful, I said. Just wonderful. Then she called and said she'd like to spend some more time out there." He was talking at her, not to her, compulsive, slightly hysterical. She let it happen, trapped by the old tie.

"Charlotte is 25. That's the age in their target range. They zeroed in and got her. Just like that. Imagine." She heard him swallow, picturing his bobbing Adam's apple.

A ten-year difference, Naomi calculated. From her vantage point, he had robbed the cradle. She was his age, 35.

"She seemed happy." State of mind was another. "We have this big apartment, a co-op on 74th and Fifth." Financial status. "And she loved the kid. Loved him." He paused. "Me, too. We were all very close." Family ties. Naomi winced, resisting the gnawing envy.

"Then she called two days ago." His voice broke, and the panic slid into the dark room, raising involuntary goose bumps on her thighs and arms.

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