Phillips worked at the main FBI building on 10th Street. Barney and Naomi obediently went through elaborate security checks, clipped on badges, and eventually followed a prim secretary towards the end of a long corridor to Phillips' office.
On the way over, Barney said nothing more than superficial conversation. The reunion had clearly been a disappointment for both of them. She had been a fool to even let herself think otherwise or even acknowledge her secret speculation that something might rekindle their old relationship, then dismissing it with embarrassment. Any feeling for her had died in him, she concluded. He had let her go without a fight. But hadn't she left him that long apologia, which precluded any recourse? Wrong man. Wrong time. I'm sorry. Now, the man wanted his wife back. He had come to her for that purpose only.
"Naomi filled me in," Phillips said. He had the scrubbed typical look of the quintessential J. Edgar soldier, despite efforts by later FBI chiefs to exorcise the type. He was an executive now, in charge of others. But under his shaggy dark eyebrows, he looked kindly. He made a practiced effort to keep Barney at ease. Naomi had begged him to see Barney.
"Just see him, Hal. Please. He has nowhere to turn."
"Is he a relative?"
"Sort of." For some reason she resisted explaining their relationship. "He's at wit's end."
"I don't think I can help him. I've been down that road. You can't make a case."
"Just see him. Hear him out."
It was enough of an explanation for Phillips to be persuaded, as Naomi knew he would. They went back a long way.
"It's not against the law," Phillips said after Barney had outlined the situation. They were seated around a small conference table. The prim secretary had brought them coffee. There was a picture of the President on one wall. A flag stood in a corner of the room.
"No one gives up a home, a husband, and a child in two damned weeks," Barney said. He looked briefly at Naomi, seeming incongruously accusatory. Although Phillips tried to mask it, the interview was a transparent courtesy, a bureaucratic shuffle. Nothing useful for Barney would come of it. Naomi saw that immediately. But Barney, a trained salesman, had a certain tenacity. She had always admired that quality about him. He would never give up, never admit that defeat was possible.
"Could it be drugs?" Barney asked Phillips, despite his previous denials.
"Not in the case of the Glories. We would know."
"She crossed state lines," he said with waning hope.
"Of her own volition."
"It wasn't her own volition. She was lured by her sister," Barney persisted.
"But it was her decision, Barney," Naomi said gently.
"How did you first find out about it?" Phillips asked, crisply professional. It was a question that she had not thought to ask.
Barney coughed, his body shifting, as if he hurt. In the harsh office light, she could see heavy puffs under his eyes, a sagging of his jaw. There were specks of gray in his gilded hair. He seemed ravaged by life, yet a few weeks ago he might have been smug, self-assured.
"I called my sister-in-law's old boyfriend. There's only two of them, Suzie and Charlotte. Charlotte is older. Twenty-five. Their parents are dead."
Robbing the cradle, Naomi thought not without a pang of jealousy. She had just turned thirty-five.
"He told me Suzie had been a Glory for six months. It was Suzie who brought her in." He swallowed hard. "Bitch," he muttered.
"You didn't know this?" Phillips asked.
"If I did, would I have let her go?"
"You know, Mr. Harrigan, it's not an FBI matter. Not now."
Did that imply that one day it would be? Naomi thought.
Phillips looked at Naomi, then at the anguished Barney. His kindly mien had disappeared. He was all business now.
"We've been in these cases," Phillips said. "Kidnapping. That's part of our mission."
They are always burrowing into organizations, paying informers, working undercover, she couldn't help but think.
"Kidnapping?" Barney asked, strictly rhetorically. She could see his interest. Obviously, the idea had crossed his mind earlier.
"Parents. Brothers. Friends. In desperation, they pull a snatch, then turn the subject over to a deprogrammer who attempts to reverse the process. The objective is to pressure the subjects out of their beliefs. Technically, we have laws against such activity, but deprogramming is an industry. Kidnapping has severe consequences for all perpetrators."
There could be no mistaking his meaning. It was a warning.
"It's a federal offense. The FBI gets involved."
"So I have no recourse," Barney said suddenly, slapping his thighs and standing up.
"Not here, I'm afraid."
He exchanged glances with Naomi. Hal had done his duty. No small talk, quick, brief, to the point. The interview was in its last gasp.
"You might try to talk with Charlotte," Phillips said.
"I'd love to," Barney said bitterly. "I've tried. Boy, have I tried. They won't let me. I don't even think they'll let me see her. They have these camps…." He cleared his throat and his lips trembled. "You guys just don't know. I mean, what good is the FBI if they can't protect people from this?"
"It's not in our jurisdiction. But that doesn't mean I don't empathize." He looked toward Naomi.
"Empathy is not what I came here for," Barney said.
"I understand," Phillips said. "I hope your wife comes home, Mr. Harrigan."
"Give it time."
He stood up and held out his hand. Barney took it heartily. In a salesman's eyes, Naomi had learned, no potential deal was ever completely dead, no bridge ever burned.
"Don't do anything foolish," Phillips said, with a look at Naomi.
"Foolish?" He forced a wry chuckle. "Have I ever, Nay?"
An answer seemed superfluous.
***
In the cab on their way to Mrs. Prococino's, Barney came out of his silence to mumble, "Dead ends. It all leads to dead ends."
"I'm sorry, Barney."
He patted her arm.
"Not your fault. You shouldn't even be in this, Nay. Phillips was… by the book. I didn't expect much."
"He did it as a favor, Barney."
"I appreciate your calling in your chits."
"I see what you're going through… and I can see how much it hurts."
"They all say that. In the end, you're alone."
"Not quite," she whispered.
She felt his eyes on her, but she did not raise hers to meet them.
It wasn't fair to judge him now, she decided. Not in the midst of this crisis in his life. Poor Barney. He could not transfer his outrage.
Mrs. Prococino lived in a quiet street in Silver Spring, a split-level suburban home, typical of those built in the '50s, the complacent Eisenhower years. Naomi had found her through a newspaper story she had discovered online.
Four years ago, the Prococino's son, Paul, had been recruited by the Glories in Seattle. The Prococinos, who, according to the clipping, originally came from Brooklyn, refused to accept their son's fate. The Glories had picked him up on a street corner and brainwashed him. The Prococinos had found him, and by grit and subterfuge got him home and successfully deprogrammed him. For a time, they were Washington media heroes of sorts, a position of notoriety often measured in milliseconds.
"Why not?" Mrs. Prococino had eventually said when Naomi called her for an appointment. At first, the woman had been reluctant, but Naomi had been forceful. Barney could expect no help from Washington, so Naomi's reaching out to Mrs. Prococino seemed a logical way to deflect Barney's attention from the disappointment of any official support. It seemed a logical way to deflect Barney's attention from official Washington, from which he could expect no help. At least Mrs. Prococino would offer him the succor of a common experience.
"For a while that's all I did," Mrs. Prococino told them. "Help other people who got caught up in this… this horror."
They sat at a marble table on a screened porch looking out over a garden heavy with plantings of flowers and vegetables. At its edge was an arbor, and the smell of semisweet grapes floated through an open window. She had set out iced tea and Italian cookies in colorful wrappers. Behind the uniformly sterilized fa?ade of the split-level, she had somehow put her ethnic stamp. The atmosphere was indisputably Italian.
Mrs. Prococino's olive skin had drained of color, but her eyes dominated the fleshiness in her face. They were large, dark, and expressive, ringed by undiminished thick black lashes under heavy, plucked eyebrows. There was a tough earthiness about her, a determination so strong that it had come through even in the reporters' stories.
"Finally, I couldn't take all this sentimentalism, especially after Vinnie died. I think it killed him… my husband. No, I don't think. It killed him."
"It's my wife, Mrs. Prococino," Barney said.
"I feel for you." She shook her head. "You're dealing with the most ruthless bastards in the world."
As they listened to the bits and pieces of Mrs. Prococino's story, anger flared up in her. Barney had read about her in the printouts that Naomi had provided, but the sound of her voice, her expression and emotion, gave it another dimension. Her son had gone on a skiing trip. He had stopped first in Chicago, met two beautiful girls who took him to one of the Glory houses in downtown Seattle. They persuaded the young man to go with them to their camp in a nearby rural area. All very harmless. No mention of the Glory Church. They worked behind the guise of some do-gooder group. Franco was an innocent, an idealist. Not a New York street kid like Mrs. Prococino or her husband.
"They would have smelled a rat within ten seconds. But this suburban life weakened kids, didn't expose them to the hustle, the con game," she said bitterly.
The emotion, Naomi sensed, despite the number of times Mrs. Prococino had told this story, would never go away. It came out of her fresh, raw, with all the bitterness and vitriol intact.
"Once they lure you into isolation, it's all over. There's no newspapers, no television, no conversation, unless it's controlled by them. Control! That's what they want. Control! And every time you say you want to go home, they lean on you, push you to stay, supposedly "for your spiritual health." That's a laugh. Besides, it's not easy to find your way back to civilization. Their camp is far away from any means of public transportation. They've got you cornered. They usually bring the kids in during the night and hand them sleeping bags, lining the boys up on one side, the girls on the other. They crash in on your sleep. Cut it down to three or four hours. You're exhausted all the time." Mrs. Prococino took a sip of her iced tea.
"That first morning they wake you up with familiar songs, with restructured lyrics with words like "centering" and "glory," innocent words that float into your subconscious. They split you into groups of twelve. Six are Glories, only the new kids don't know that. Each kid had his own Glory watchdog, a girl for a boy and a boy for a girl. They call them spiritual brothers and sisters. They're with you all your waking hours, even when you go to pee. They control you with eye contact, a kind of hypnosis. Eyes! Powerful instruments. It's all titillation at first to draw you in, but they withhold sex. You start off the day by marching around to the head, a wash, then off to breakfast. There, you get sugared up. Cereal with sugar; Kool-Aid, sugared up; coffee with sugar. They withhold protein."
"But how…." Naomi heard her voice, then retreated when it was ignored. It was a question that had arisen since the meeting with Phillip. How can they make someone believe, commit their lives, so quickly? It was a stonewall against her reason.
The boy must have been weak, ready for it, vulnerable, she decided.
"After breakfast you all sit around and talk about your lives, your innermost secrets, real heavy personal stuff, whatever sins against themselves or society they had imagined or actually committed, all to great applause. It was called 'getting out the garbage.' Like Catholic confession. The Glories liked to tell him they were just like Catholics. They record what you say, ready for use. Blackmail. Everything you do is declared marvelous by them. You're Mr. Wonderful. When you fart it's like you sang the "Star Spangled Banner." You're back in the womb, in a warm bath of manufactured admiration. They control your environment. Your information. Your diet. Your time. You play crazy games, like dodge ball. They call it 'team building.' They sardinize you." She paused.
"This goes on for three days. Then they start to fill your mind with the Father Glory pitch. You're ready, you've been prepared, you're not thinking clearly, your ego inflated to its furthest limit. You are never alone. They take you to the bathroom, to your meals, to the lectures. And they push you to call home, telling you exactly what to say, listening in when you talk. It's a critical time. They don't want intrusion."
"I spoke to her at the beginning," Barney interrupted. "It was like you said. I knew something was wrong."
"Bet she told you she'd met these fantastic, wonderful, caring, loving people, that she was having a fabulous spiritual experience."
"Yes. Exactly that."
"And she was going to stay just a little while longer."
"Yes."
"And when you finally inquired where she is or got suspicious, she wouldn't tell you where she was. Not precisely. Not enough for you to hop a plane to find her."
He nodded, trembling with anger.
"Finally, it's too late. Franco would scream at him when he called. I would get hysterical. We had no idea. No idea." For a brief moment, Mrs. Prococino's large eyes welled up and her voice broke. "They give you this amulet or charm and you wear it around your neck for the rest of your life. It's in the likeness of Father Glory's head, complete with his wide smile and foreboding eyes. There's a liquid in it, 'holy water' blessed by Father Glory. I think it's poison. Maybe one day it'll be like Jonestown.
"We're ordinary people, Mr. Harrigan. Second-generation Italians. Not good Catholics. Not bad Catholics. Vinnie worked for the Post Office in New York and was transferred to Washington. He had a good administrative job. Franco had just graduated from college. We got his medical school acceptance while he was in their hands. Imagine that kind of explosion in a family that lives on dreams for our children. He was going to be a doctor. You know what that means to a family like ours. A doctor. It tore our hearts out to get that acceptance letter. He was giving that up for nothing." She sighed. "We researched. We did all the things you're doing now. We read Father Glory's alleged Bible. Bullshit. All bullshit. They want numbers. People they can turn into moneymakers. People are money. Money is power. They have an apparatus. They're a force. They're something now, like Waco was. The Glories are a million times worse, because they're a million times bigger." She shook her head and sucked in a deep breath.
"He was our child, our hope. Finally, we flew out there and went through hell to get to see him. They had this lawyer you had to go through. Real Ivy League. Pompous. An obvious phony." Her anger peaked and ebbed. "By some miracle, we finally got to see our boy. He was zonked out, glassy-eyed, a zombie. He was always with this girl, his Big Sister. He couldn't make an independent decision. He called us Satan's people. Imagine that."
As she talked, Mrs. Prococino explored Barney's face, as if she were gauging the effects of her words on him, testing, prodding. "The law was with them. There was nobody to turn to for help. We couldn't do a damn thing about it."
She seemed to be debating whether or not to continue. Then she nodded and went on. "All Vinnie and I could think about is what we'd done wrong, where we made our mistake. At night… we just lay there in bed, the two of us, Depression babies from Italian immigrants who came up the hard way, and they had reduced us to two quivering jellyfish. Nobody ever told us how to handle this. Nobody. In the camp, these bastards would tell us, 'Withdraw. Withdraw,' and call us Satan. Franco would shout back, 'Fuck you, you monsters. Fuck you.' But that only made it worse."
Naomi understood her earlier reluctance. "They had taken away my boy, not only from me and Vinnie, but from himself. And the worst part was that I hated him for it. My own flesh and blood."
She held back tears to the limit of her control, then they came gushing out. Turning away, she wiped them, embarrassed. When they saw her face again, she was smiling thinly.
"Listen. It has a happy ending. We went through six months of hell, trying to figure out ways to get at him. We tried everything, letters to our congressmen, to the FBI, even the CIA. We contacted others who had lost loved ones to the Glories, spoke to ex-members. Nothing. Just like you. I'm sorry, Mr. Harrigan. Your plight is not unique."
"But how did they start?" Barney asked.
"Who knows? They're tyrannical, especially in politics. It may sound nuts, but they want to take over the world. God help us. Father Glory as the great one, leader of the world. The living Jesus."
"Unbelievable," Naomi said.
"Bastard," Barney muttered.
"Father Glory," Mrs. Prococino said contemptuously. "He lives like a potentate. He's a front within a front within a front. He's got worldwide business interests. He needs numbers, believers, and the best way to get them is through religion. Then he sends these kids out to raise money. That's all they do once they're completely under control. Raise money and get other kids in… to raise money. That's the scam."
"The meek aren't the ones who inherit the earth," Mrs. Prococino said suddenly, and a sour bitterness filled the room.
Naomi couldn't help but wonder if Mrs. Prococino was letting her hate blind her.
"And your son?" Barney prodded. "How did you get him out?"
It was, of course, the central issue for Barney. He asked the question with frantic anticipation.
"Kidnapped him. That's the truth of it. Call it what you want. We told the press 'subterfuge.' Sure it was illegal, but who gave a rat's ass? It was, believe me, the only way. Kidnapping. Pure and simple. We picked him up selling candy. He was on one of their fund-raising teams. They either raise money or do things to gain credibility and acceptance so they can raise more money." She checked herself. She had started off again on the well-rutted path, stopping suddenly when she realized that she had continued to stray.
"To do all this cost us plenty. We hired a guy to kidnap him, a deprogrammer. It was like planning the snatching of a President. All cloak-and-dagger. It cost us every cent we had. We got him into a van and raced away as fast as we could. Then we holed up in a deserted cabin and the deprogrammer went to work. We had to lock him in a room. It wasn't fun to watch. It was awful. He was kicking and screaming all the way. It was heartbreaking…." She laughed, but it was not with joy. "We were lucky. If it hadn't worked, we would have been sued by our own son. Maybe even worse. Heartbreaking. It ruined my husband's heart in the end. He had been through the Brooklyn streets, wars, the Depression. But this finished him off. The old ticker gave."
"Can you give me details on this deprogramming?"
"They reverse the process. You see, the Glories stopped his ability to think, to make decisions on his own. Something to do with the brain."
"What did he, this deprogrammer, do to him?" Barney asked. He had been fidgeting with his fingers, now he locked them together to keep them from shaking.
Naomi had heard about the process, but it was always cloaked.
"Talk. Talk. Talk. I told you. I don't really understand it. He believed that he would rot in some eternal hell if he wasn't true to Father Glory. His mind absorbed it like a sponge. I'm told it clogs all receptors. The deprogrammer has to break down the fear, fight fire with fire. It worked with Franco. He came down like a rock dropped from a mountain.
"How long did it take?"
"Three days. Depends, I suppose, on the person."
"It's incredible," Naomi said. Above all, a mind is free, she told herself militantly.
"So he's fine?" Barney asked. Telling the story had drained Mrs. Prococino. She looked exhausted, taking a moment now to sip her tea.
"It took eleven months for him to really be fine. He was afraid to go to sleep in the dark, jumpy, but mostly he slept. He had no desire to do anything. It was another nightmare. We were perpetually afraid that he would wander back, or they would come and get him. They do that. You don't know these people." The flume of her hate revived her.
"Can you really completely blame…?" Naomi asked.
"Yes, I can. I saw it with my own two eyes. It's hell."
"How is he now?" Barney asked.
"Franco's great. He lost two years is all." She sighed and smiled, calm now. She had saved her boy. "He's in his third year of medical school."
"And does he remember?"
"Not if he can help it. It embarrasses him."
"Why?"
"He blames himself for letting it happen."
"Everyone is a little at fault," Naomi said. It had come on her too fast, like a tornado. She watched as Mrs. Prococino shook her head, then sipped her tea. Naomi watched the tendons in her neck work as she swallowed, trying to figure out what she was thinking. Finally, she leveled her eyes at Naomi, seeming to search her. Naomi felt a twinge of discomfort and the sudden realization that she was being looked upon as a skeptic.
"It can happen to you, lady," she said. "To any one of us."
She decided she would not express any more doubts. She had not wanted this involvement and she did not want it now. Now, she wanted to get away, to run as far from here as she could.
Then, Mrs. Prococino appeared to retreat, as if accepting the realization that, despite all she had said, she could not properly express her passion. The interview was over. Barney stood up and held out his hand.
"I really appreciate this," he said gently. "And I'm sorry if I stirred it all up for you again."
Mrs. Prococino walked them to the front door and opened it. Naomi left first, starting down the stone steps edged with blooming mums. But when she turned, Barney was not behind her. He was framed in the doorway, clinging to Mrs. Prococino. They were locked in an embrace, rocking back and forth, lost in private consolation, two poor souls mourning a dead loved one. Embarrassed, Naomi turned away and got into the car.
