Shana Sullivan answered Ruthie's call. After Ruthie provided the known facts, including the pending wedding - and her admitting she and Lisa had sex - Shana said she and her colleagues would do what they could, but it might not be promising.
"I'm not even sure what to charge you on this one, my friend, or if I should," she said.
"We'll pay whatever it takes," said Ruthie flatly. "Peter and I still have a lot of money in our trusts. As do our colleagues. How about a thousand bucks an hour?"
"One THOUSAND? Are you sure?"
"We'd pay anything to get our friends back, but your standard rate is only one fifty, and this is a life and death situation. The children and the men in their lives need them back. Our offer stands."
"All right, deal," said Shana. "It'll take an hour for our secretary to write up an agreement, and send it to you as a PDF to your e-mail. Fax over the signed document, then mail us the hard copy by express courier - we'll pick up the tab for that; there will be a link to print out the mailing label, along with the documentation."
"Thanks, Shana ... say hi to the ladies for me," said Ruthie.
"I will," replied Shana. "Love you, sister."
After the call ended, the posse decided it was time for the families with their new babies to come home.
July passed and it was now August, one year since Ruthie and Peter had been let into the roller coaster ride of Rod and Shelby. For months, nothing had been going on in the investigation. And to their dismay, the federal District Attorney in Los Angeles was considering dropping most of the fraud charges against Hope's parents. The evidence was so overwhelming in its volume, no jury would ever be able to absorb it and that in itself would likely result in a not guilty verdict - something Harrison and Prudence had been counting on from day one. There were the civil rights charges regarding the child rapes - including Patrick's - but that trial would take another year.
"Unless we have a smoking gun," the DA told the Seven in a terse letter, "a real one, the case will be tossed out. I won't have a choice."
The summer gave the kids who could talk, plenty of time to bond with their new siblings. They had to give up a lot of outdoor activities, but the love they had for the newborns was instant and profound. And their yeoman service in handling nearly all of the tasks for the babies - with the obvious exception of the breastfeeding - impressed the parents so much they promised to give them even stronger roles at Sunday School.
During their one of their twice weekly business meetings, the ministers - and the children who had joined them since they couldn't leave the babies alone - were wracking their brains on what to do next. Ruthie sent text messages to Tom, Ashley and Elena to mine their data and find hard and specific evidence so the trial would not have to waste time.
At about three o'clock, the meeting was wrapping up, when the phone buzzed.
"Anderson," said Hope, answering the phone.
"Sister Hope, Carrie Parkinson wants to talk with you," said the secretary. "She said it's urgent."
Carrie was the head usher for the church.
"Me, or us?" asked Hope.
"All of you."
Hope reached into her purse and pulled out a gun, just in case. The other ministers retrieved theirs as well.
"Show her in," Hope said.
Carrie walked into the conference room. She was taken aback by seven guns on the table.
"That won't be necessary," she pleaded. "Not on me ... but my life is in danger. And it's because of something I did."
"What?" asked Peter.
"I understand that twenty million dollars was laundered into this church's coffers," said Carrie.
Peter paused. "How do you know about that?"
Carrie took a deep breath.
"I was Harry Anderson's runner," she admitted. "I was his front woman to dump his and his wife's dirty money. Some of it, anyway. Twenty million at this church, to be exact. And I feel horrible that I may have been part of a course of events that may lead to the world's ruin! And I got a cut - actually a commission, ten percent or two million."
"Carrie," said Hope in a voice that expressed both concern and anger, "you'd better explain yourself. Especially if you were working for Mom and Dad. Because all seven of us have several law enforcement agencies on speed dial. Since nearly all the dirty donations were made by credit card, that means you're guilty of wire fraud. So start talking."
"Yes, Sister Hope."
"Hope."
"Sure ... Hope." Carrie walked to the end of the table and sat down. She reached for her over sized briefcase and pulled out seven manila envelopes, which she passed to the ministers. The ministers, in turn, put away their guns.
"Just a minute, Carrie," said Felicity. "Is your life in danger by telling us this?"
"Well that," replied Carrie, "and because of something else I did. Not for Harry .. but because of what he did to me. I am 'Minor G' in the civil rights case. Because I turned him in, months and even years after I ran the money for him, he believes I ratfucked him and he now wants my life."
Even the kids who could talk knew that 'ratfucking' meant double-crossing someone. Specifically, dirty tricks.
"Carrie," said Heather after a long pause, "I'm not sure even the big guys here are following you. Can you clue us in?"
"Of course, darling," said Carrie. Carrie also mentored one of the Sunday School classes, and Heather was her direct boss.
Carrie took about thirty seconds to collect her thoughts. Then she continued.
"Harry raped me when I was thirteen. I wanted to lose my virginity to my boyfriend at the time - he was twelve, and as you know we ended up getting married - but the sicko got to my private parts first. Apparently he was doing it to a few of my friends who with me were all in the choir. We filed charges but before indictments could be issued against him and Prudence - she forced four boys to come inside her - the couple left for the West Coast to start their super-ministry.
"About five years ago, when I was changing planes in Chicago, I ran into Harry. He offered to pay an upgrade for me to first class for the rest of the trip to Halifax, where I have relatives and he happened to be having a crusade. He also paid for first class for the return all the way home. On that forward flight, he told me that he was truly sorry for what he did. I wasn't sure what to make of it. After a moment, I told him bluntly, 'I accept your apology, but you should know I'll never forgive you. There's a difference.'
"Harry told me, he understood why I felt that way. His mother, raped him when he was fourteen. He said he never forgiven her and never accepted any apology from her when she finally admitted that she was wrong. With that said, he made an offer I should have refused. But I didn't because my husband and I were in financial straits.
"Closing the curtain between us and the aisle, he confided in me that Prudence and he were into inside trading. Had been ever since they moved to Anaheim. They had ways of finding people working in companies who would take grease for privileged information and make a huge stock sale or purchase prior to official announcements being made. From stocks, they went into bonds, foodstuffs and then precious metals. They created multiple front companies who acted for them. In all four Channel Islands, the Isle of Man, most of the British territories in the Caribbean, some outposts of all nationalities in the Indian Ocean. As well as Monaco, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg - and Livigno and Campione, Italy. Over the twenty years between his raping me and our unwanted reunion, Harry and Prudence had piled up five hundred billion dollars."
"Oh my God, Hope, you were telling us the truth!" said Maighread.
"And now we have independent confirmation. But Carrie, that's not quite a smoking gun. We need to know more," said Hope. "You already know about all the money I skimmed off - then returned, so we don't have to repeat all that. But you also need to know that there has been a change of DAs in LA. I lucked out with immunity. You are likely to get jail time. Even if it's plead down to one count of wire fraud, you face ten in the slammer and a quarter giant."
Meaning two hundred fifty thousand dollars.
"The money laundering laws got a lot tighter after 9/11," continued Hope. "You're going to have to make one hell of a pitch to get leniency."
"In those envelopes," said Carrie, "you each have one of seven disks in a series. Put together, you'll see that during that entire time, Hope's parents have been funding terrorists all around the world. And they don't just limit themselves to Christian and Jewish extremists - despite their anti-Arab talk they do support Muslim extremists as well. I don't know for sure, which is why I didn't include it on those disks, but I think a portion of the money used to execute 9/11 came from them. Anything to start World War III, they'll do.
"But sitting on that much money ... well, several things happen. You get arrogant with power. Or you see yourself as too powerful, and you start giving the money away. Either out of benevolence, or in their case malevolence. You also figure out how to dispose of it without being seen as being behind it.
"So Prudence and Harry decided to go through their old index files and find everyone they had ever harmed or hurt in any way. Or many of their followers they had ripped off. The deal would be, funnel money into a legitimate charity. The runner would get to keep the tax receipt, plus get a bonus for making the money turn from dirty to clean.
"These were small amounts, say a hundred thousand bucks so the vigorish would be ten thou. But even after about three years, only about fifty billion had been disposed of. So they decided to go big time. After moving even more money into the offshore accounts, they decided to find the ones they harmed the most. In effect, they wanted to buy our silence about the abuse in exchange for cash.
"So I agreed to it. I hacked into the accounts of many of your parishioners and made bogus donations using electronic transfers via those tax shelter states and making it look like they made the donations and not the Andersons. And truth be told, yours was not the only church I played tricks with. There were twenty other churches. Twenty million each. Four hundred million, my commish was forty. That's how much I got paid, in exchange to not to rat Harry out for what he did to me."
"Carrie, you were the last person we ever thought would do something like this!" said Rod. His voice was equal amounts of shock and anger. "You weren't even on our short list of suspects."
"That's because I made it look like it might be them," said Carrie. "I was trying to throw you off."
"So why does Harry want to kill you?"
"A friend of mine at the CIA - George Grayson -"
"Whoa, my uncle?" said Ruthie.
"Yes," said Carrie. "Running an investigation totally separate from yours, he and his father Will found out about what I had been doing. He has a keen sense of if something's wrong - it took him five minutes to figure out I was being blackmailed. He got in contact with me - I don't know how but Harry and Prudence got bailed out last week -"
"WHAT?" screamed the posse. Even the children were shocked.
" - and he told me the only way to make it right was to file charges against Harry. In turn, he said what he and his father would do everything they could do to get me leniency for the wire fraud. I'm telling you now, because I got a direct death threat from Harry ... this morning. On my phone, which is unlisted. And, he wants Hope and Ruthie to admit they had sex, and that Ruthie is planning to marry Lisa and Brigitte ... or he'll make sure you are all dead. Including the babies."
"I knew someone would find out! We all did!" said Jim in dismay. "Carrie, who ratted Mom and Hope out?"
"Me," admitted Carrie. "I discretely followed you while you were skiing. The guest house was already rigged with video cameras and I taped the whole thing. I gave him one of the copies - I have the original here which you can have - but then I realized I did something horrible by betraying you. So I called Harry. I told him I wanted his tape back. He said he wanted his money back, all foty million ..." Carrie was so apoplectic that she mispronounced "forty". "... and for me to drop the civil rights charges too. I said no dice. And that's when he made the threat - do or die. I replied, let me think about it. And then, Harry - and clearly he was drunk when he said it to me in front of my face, but he meant it -"
"He's still planning an attack, isn't he?" interrupted Patrick.
"He is," acknowledged Carrie. "This will be a huge one, one that even the Israelis and Palestinians together won't be able to handle. I don't know the date, but on a single day, he and Prudence will order simultaneous attacks on the Temple Mount, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, Rachel's Tomb, the Cave of the Patriarchs, and other sites holy to all the Abrahamic faiths - with the intent of destroying all of them - and naturally, the city of Armageddon will also be bombed. This will be a multi-front war. And the crazy thing is, he's collected billions to do it, when an operation like that can be done for maybe a couple of million bucks.
"Ministers, I don't deserve to be part of this congregation. Or any congregation for that matter. But I know what I did was wrong, and those disks are the answers you've been hoping for. Out of more than a half a million pages, you have just the five thousand you need, plus recording of phone calls that my husband - an IT expert - hacked into. This will nail the SOB and battle ax once and for all. But my guess is we only have thirty days to put a stop to it all."
"Carrie, would you step outside for a minute, please?" said Shelby.
Carrie did so. Shelby made a phone call to the DA handling the prosecution and gave a précis of what Carrie had said. The DA said she could call back. She did within five minutes. Then Carrie was called back in.
"Here's the deal," said Shelby. "You plead guilty to one count of wire fraud. Jail time will be waived but you have to pay a quarter mill in fines plus forfeit another ten million of the ill gotten gains. You can keep the rest and you'll be given immunity for the rest of the shit you did, but you have to give full and complete disclosure to the prosecutors and the jury. And you have to keep on the civil rights charge too but you must name yourself publicly like Patrick did. Matter of fact, the trials will now be consolidated so you and the other victims don't have to wait till next year. In return, you and your family will get protection.
"However, there is something from us too. You have to give us the two million you got from dumping money here illegally. You resign as an usher, a Sunday School teacher as well as from any committees you're on, and you get out of town as soon as the trial is done. Your whole family. You will not be disfellowed, but you and your family are banned from this congregation for five years, once your testimony is completed.
"There it is. Take it or leave it."
Carrie started crying. She loved this church, and was fond of all the ministers. But this was a one-time offer and she had only a few seconds to decide.
"I'll take it, sister ... and I'm so sorry!"
She collapsed onto the floor, her tears uncontrollable. Shelby picked her up and hugged her as did the ministers and the children.
The phone rang again. It was the DA. Harry and Prudence had taken off their ankle bracelets and were on the run.
"Twenty bucks they're not on their way to Saint Louis," said Felicity, sarcastically.
"NO BET!" everyone else replied. Even Carrie.