The words your majesty and the scorn with which they’d been spoken must have inflicted at least a small laceration on Emmerich’s ego, considering that he considered himself a godling, above mere royalty. Yet he didn’t react to the slight in any visible way. With papal beneficence, he said, “The Oasis is also the Temple of the Way. We gather in this sacred place because we believe two things about the desire for pleasure and possessions. As to our pleasure, it is always an alpha’s right to have whatever he or she wants, and one alpha will always agree to satisfy another. Among alphas, there is no competition, only a mutual seeking after the many pleasures that the body provides. Satisfaction is the source of peace.”
His spiel was as puerile as that of any film producer flacking a movie crafted with the grandiose intention to change the world. I listened to it nonetheless. If I hadn’t allowed him to drone awhile and cool my fury with his chilling nonsense, I might have shot him before he told me what I wanted to know.
Bridget, Panthea, and Sparky—and for sure Winston—evidently knew my trigger wire was dangerously taut, so they took their cue from me and indulged the Light.
“As to material possessions,” Emmerich continued, “whatever an alpha wants is rightfully his or hers, to be taken not from other alphas, but from the masses of Moujiks by any means necessary. We revere Nature in her fertile goodness, for the ecstasy she allows. They revere her in her darker aspect as the Queen of the Void. We value life. They value death. I’ve taken fortunes from the Moujiks. You won’t be taking from me, but from them, when I share with you what I wish. In recognition of your alpha boldness, I’ll give you a few million dollars each. More important, I will welcome you into the Way and teach you how to use the internet and other tools to extract your fortunes from the Moujiks, so that each of you might build your own Oasis. I have been waiting for potentials as bold as you, that the Way might be evangelized across this troubled nation.”
Emmerich’s supreme confidence beggared belief. Four people and a formidable-looking dog had penetrated a front entrance that was as thick as a bank-vault door, bypassed his electronic locks, foiled his fingerprint scanners. We now stood with four weapons trained on him. Yet I had no doubt that his apparent calm was real. If he had founded his cult in the spirit of a con man, seeking an absolute power over others that money alone couldn’t buy, he had nevertheless come to believe his own crazy rap. He thought he was immortal, that his words and carriage and demeanor and charisma wove together to form a body armor to ensure that no assault could even so much as abrade him.
I took a deep breath. “I’m interested in the people you call the Special Selections. Soul Timothy showed us photos. One was exceptional. He said her name is Camilla.”
His pencil-line smile widened into a generous brushstroke. In his sun-bronzed face, his teeth appeared sufficiently irradiated to peg a Geiger counter at the high end of its scale. In part, Bodie Emmerich’s delight might have arisen from the mistaken belief that we had recognized his invulnerability and had entered negotiations. But it was also the leer of a satyr, ravisher, rapist for whom the name Camilla conjured potent memories of the brutality with which he had treated her. His own words belied his pose as some New Age holy man when he said, “What you want to do with her is a confirmation of your alpha nature. If I had to encapsulate the fundamental meaning of the Way in a single word, it would be Camilla, for to do with her what you will is to do to all the Moujiks what must be done to make this a world of pleasure and peace.”
“What’s that word—‘Moujiks’？”
“It’s Russian for peasants.”
“Why not just call them peasants?”
“Because ‘Moujiks’ is the better word. It means poor but not always in a financial sense. Moujiks may be rich or penniless or in between. They are peasants because they’re ignorant and willfully so, grievously superstitious. The Moujiks are devoted to customs and traditions and stifling institutions and ways of thinking that they believe provide stability in their lives but that in fact only prevent them from being truly free.”
For as long as I could tolerate, in order to be able to draw him out on the subject of Camilla, I needed to play to his absurd belief that he had, by his charisma, bespelled us into negotiations. I returned my Glock to its holster. Turning to my three companions, I said, “Hey, guys, we’re all right. We’re all of like minds here.” I smiled at Emmerich. “Sorry about clubbing Tim. I wasn’t sure how our unconventional entrance would ultimately be received. But you’re a man I think we can do business with.”