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Judge took a seat as the aircraft engines roared to life. Not until they were off the ground and gaining altitude did Judge fill in Hank and his team on what he’d learned, where he’d been and the fact that Augustus was recruiting heavily as if in preparation for something big.
“Who is this Augustus?” Hank asked.
“That’s the sixty-four-million-dollar question,” Judge said. “They instruct recruits early on not to mention their given names or suffer the consequences, usually involving flogging by a big guy called Goliath.”
“Did you find Penny or PJ?” Hank asked.
“No, and yes. Because you’re not allowed to use given names, I couldn’t ask around for Penny.” Judge’s mouth quirked on the corners. “PJ actually found me at a bar in Whitefish. She was working part-time as a waitress while her counterpart Wiley recruited.”
“How did you get inside the camp?” Hank asked.
“I told Wiley I wasn’t satisfied with the way things were going and that I wanted to make a difference. He told me to meet him on an old road north of Whitefish. When I got there, they surrounded me, loaded me into their SUV and jabbed me with something to knock me out. When I woke, I was in their camp with no idea where we were. PJ and Wiley were there.”
“You’re lucky they didn’t kill you,” Hank said.
Judge nodded. “Wiley saw me out at the gun range and was impressed enough to invite me to join The Chosen Way, saying I’d require less training than someone who’d never fired a gun before. He assigned a trainer to bring me up to speed on the ways of TCW. That trainer was PJ.”
His heart squeezed hard in his chest.
“Why didn’t you get her out at the same time as the teen?” Hank asked.
His lips thinning, Judge said, “She wouldn’t come. She said she wasn’t done there.”
Hank’s brow puckered. “What did she mean by she’s not done?”
Judge shrugged his shoulders. “She wasn’t in the habit of explaining herself.”
“Was she the same PJ Liza Gray spoke of? The one who got her out of the camp with her daughter?”
Judge nodded.
“What’s her story?” Hank asked.
“They’re not allowed to share their names or their pasts. Recruits have no past identity once they become a part of The Chosen Way. They only have the present, which is structured training, and the future, which is vague.”
“Why did you leave when you did?”
“The teenager we extracted got a cut during training. The cut got infected and turned septic.” Judge’s mouth firmed into a tight line. “TCW leaders insisted they had all the medical staff, supplies and training necessary to handle the infection. But whatever the medical staff was doing wasn’t working. Mud, the name they called the kid, was so sick by the time we got him out I didn’t think he’d make it to a hospital. I’m not convinced he’ll make it even though he’s now in a larger medical facility.”
“He’s in good hands,” Hank said. “You did right to get him out.”
Judge’s lips pressed together in a thin line. “Yeah, but I can’t get back inside TCW.”
Hank nodded. “Let’s hope they’re still there and that Augustus is among them.”
“I wouldn’t count on them being there. If they are, their leader won’t be with them. He always seems to have an excuse to bug out as soon as possible,” Judge said. “Makes me think he’s someone prominent in Montana. He keeps his face covered whenever he shows up.”
“And that’s why he’s never caught.” Hank sighed. “Until he’s captured, he will always recruit more radicals to further his cause.”
“Whatever that might be.” Judge stared out the plane window at the stars in the night sky. Thankfully, the storm had moved on, giving them clear skies to get back to Kalispell. “It’s too bad I had to leave when I did. If they’re gone, we’ll have to start over in our search.” And he will have lost PJ for who knew how long. Maybe forever.
Chapter 10
When the plane landed at the Kalispell airport, Hank had a couple of SUVs waiting on the tarmac for them.
They loaded their weapons and communications gear, then climbed inside, their convoy heading out to the camp within just a few minutes.
Judge drove one of the vehicles while Boomer, one of Hank’s guys, drove the other. The other Protectors prepped the weapons and communications gear to have everything operational when they arrived.
