Reverend Jackson saw Aggie McPherson much sooner then he expected. The next Saturday, he stood at his church’s threshold, greeting his congregation as they exited. His church hardly looked like a church, being an old converted Legion Post, and its long and narrow main hall didn’t hold many. So it was only a few minutes before he noticed, across the street, standing in front of a shuttered hardware store, stood someone that, at first, he mistook for a short young man. Then, though, his keen eyesight made out the dark, short hair blowing around the narrow, pale face in the City’s cold autumn wind.  Noting the well-tailored coat wrapped around them, he realized who he was looking at.

Cindy, a rude young woman who routinely wore shirts with slogans such as “Chicks with Dicks” or “MAGA Poor and Stupid” (to church no less) stopped beside Taggart, noting his gaze. A keen observer, as many members of the church’s support groups had found out, Cindy asked, “Is that,” she squinted her eyes, then still unsure, proceeded with, “someone you know, Reverend?”

Taggart turned to Cindy, and was grateful to see Jin, Cindy’s more merciful partner, slide up next to her and slip a hand through the crook of her arm. Jin smiled, wished Taggart a nice day, and they led Cindy away, pulling her away from her own curiosity.

Finished with seeing the rest of his congregation off, Taggart moved to cross the street, but the dark-haired figure was gone. He needn’t have worried, though, as the moment he closed the door the familiar voice of his new investigatorsaid, “I suppose in this setting I should call you Reverend Taggart?”

Still in the black suit that passed for his vestments, Taggart was strangely pleased to see Aggie had removed her sunglasses and he could see her lovely violet eyes.  Her tone, though, suggested some disapproval. He decided to ignore it.

“That’s impressive. Most people can’t sneak up on me, Ms –”

“We discussed that, Mr. Taggart.”

“Quite right. I apologize. I try to be sensitive about such things, Aggie.”

“I should hope so. It looks like a good number of your congregation might be particular about their pronouns.”

Taggart, hearing what he thought might be judgment, replied, “Yes, there are a fair number of trans members of my community. Are you particular about your pronouns, Aggie?”

“Not at all. I hope you don’t mind, though, that I was going to spy on a few your members, follow them and ask some questions.” He sensed Aggie was teasing him until she turned serious with, “But then I noticed the van.” Out of her smart-looking coat, Aggie held up a smartphone. It displayed a white and grey utility vehicle. Taggart recognized the bodega it was parked across as being down the street. “You’ve been right to feel observed, Reverend. Your church is under surveillance.”

Small hairs on the back of his hand stood up and Taggart chastised himself for having missed it. As if she could hear that internal voice, Aggie stated, “You seem surprised.”

“I’m alarmed” Taggart conceded. “I think someone may be out to kill me, so I’m disappointed that I hadn’t noticed the van before.”

Aggie patted Taggart on his crossed forearms with a gentleness that surprised the Reverend. “It may not have been there before,” Aggie reassured him. “Besides, if someone wanted to kill you, there would be easier ways than triggering you on an airplane filled with innocent people.”

Taggart found the last statement far from comforting. This wasn’t helped by Aggie’s next statement. “The question is, were they here before the crash, or only after?” With no answer to that question, Taggart stared at Aggie until she nodded with what he sensed was approval. “If they were there before, they may have something to do with what happened to you, Reverend. If they were only here after, then they’re most likely law enforcement surveilling you because they don’t believe your story about missing the flight.”

“And how do you plan on determining that?”

Aggie’s smile curled up at its ends. “I’m going to ask, of course.”

When the police showed up at the front of the church, lights flashing, Taggart thought they had come for him. After her mysterious mission statement, Aggie had disappeared, as quickly and as easily as she had arrive. Not wanting to drag anyone else into his trouble, Taggart moved to go out front and greet the police. Or surrender, depending on what they wanted. The very idea of being put into a cage against his will made Taggart’s long hands itch and his teeth ache, his body reminding him he could tear through whatever forces men had aligned against him. He breathed deep, thought of the sweat lodge of his mother’s guided meditations, and stood still, until he was certain of his control.

Reverend Taggart was surprised (an increasingly frequent thing of late which he decided he was not enjoying) when the polite but quick and stern police officer, uniformed in tactical gear and clearly not fucking about, led a squad of similarly equipped men into the vestibule. Taggart felt the hair on his back rankle as the officer held up a badge, but this turned to lightening as the policeman explained, “Sir, there’s been a credible bomb threat. Is there anyone else in the building?”

Taggart said there wasn’t and allowed himself to be led outside. As they moved, the officer (his name tag identified him as HENRY) asked permission to search the church. Out in the fresh air, Taggart felt himself breathe easier and nodded, knowing there wasn’t anything illegal in the church, and almost certainly no bomb. It was only when Henry left him to be questioned by one of his juniors that Taggart heard Aggie’s voice again. “Whatever is going on, Reverend?”

Taggart turned to find the smallish investigator standing a few feet from him and the policeman, shawled in her stylish coat and too-big sunglasses, the same impish smile on her face. He stared at the investigator, the light of what was actually happening going off in his head and, he felt, shining through his eyes onto Aggie. Surprise, relief, and anger all whipped together in Taggart, feeling them harden into an outer calm. “There’s been a bomb threat.”

“Oh dear.” Aggie held a hand to her chin in what Taggart thought was an overly theatrical gesture, a tell for an obvious lie, and hoped the policeman wasn’t the observant kind as Aggie continued. “This doesn’t have anything to do with the van up the street, does it?”

His head swerving between Taggart and the new entry, Aggie’s question caught the young officer’s focus. “What van?” He paused, then add uncertainly, “Ma’am?”

Even from behind her sunglasses, Taggart could see the formality bounce off Aggie’s hard shell of disapproval. She maintained her poised astonishment, though, and pointed up the street to the bodega. “There’s a van up the street. It’s been there for some time. We think it’s been watching the church.”

The office spoke into his radio quickly. The reply was garbled with enough static that Taggart assumed the miracle of the officer’s understanding it had something to do his proximity to the church. Whatever it was, though, it caused the policeman to say, “Can you show us where it is?”

Aggie didn’t smile, but Taggart could smell the satisfaction coming off her. “Of course.”

Cordell Hull was sitting in the van watching the church of perverts down the road. Deviants and traitors were the least of it, though. Haddo had shown him the light, brought him into the Silver Shirt Brigade and slowly opened up the world to him as it truly was. The City, the country, wasn’t just in danger from the commie liberals, the sharia ragheads, and the woke mob. There were much worse things hiding in the dark corners of the Earth.

So when he saw one of the “Reverend” Taggart’s trannies walking up the sidewalk towards the van, Hull wasn’t worried. Of all of the dangers out there, human ones could be taken care of with just a bullet and he made sure he had plenty of those. This one looked more spoiled than the rest, with a nice warm jacket and an outfit that probably cost enough to feed his family for a month. As it got closer, though, he noticed it wasn’t alone. Men in black tactical gear holding submachine guns were leap frogging between parked cars, using them as cover. One exposed himself in an attempt to command or perhaps pull the tranny behind cover.

Hull swore and reached for the keys in the ignition.  The adrenaline now coursing through his veins caused him to jump at the small fist that knocked on the driver’s side window. The figure with boyish hair and large sunglasses was standing next to the car, smiling. It gestured for him to roll down the window.

Hull checked his rearview mirror to see the police, as usual, were moving with more caution, but weren’t far behind. Through the window, the tranny spoke loudly. “You can talk to them or you can talk to me. If I’m with you, they might not fill you full of holes.”

He rolled down the window.

To read the next chapter, go here.

See the author’s published work here.

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