Chapter 141

“No! No, please! Rutherford innocent! Me told you, me don’t know what happened!”

No response was given by the two suited men who dragged the young auto apprentice down the long, quiet hall, their arms hooked under each of his. They passed several other suited men along the way, none of whom averted their eyes from a straight-forward position as the pleading captive went by, his feet dragging on the carpet behind him.

At the end of the passage, they passed through the frame of a thick, steel door, much like that of a bank vault, to find themselves in a large room with another steel door on the immediate left. The space to the right was much deeper, with various artifacts decorating its dark gray marble walls, most of them religious in nature. Along with those hung large-framed photographs of old churches, some of them with people standing in the foreground.

As Rutherford was dragged deeper into the room, he noticed one picture in particular, featuring a pair of bearded men who looked similar enough to be family —brothers, most likely— standing side-by-side and smiling proudly. Mounted next to it was a golden plaque, engraved with scripture that read:

Conveniently enough, one of the men in the image appeared to be a younger version of the man who was seated at the desk in the center of the far wall. Behind the desk was a violet shroud that ran the length of the wall, flanked by a dark, marble pillar in each corner and centerpieced by a large, embroidered yellow cross.

Rutherford stopped struggling when the man caught his eye, and he peered through his dreadlocks at the scene as the men dragged him across the smooth, solid red carpet—until they abruptly tossed him to the floor, next to a chair that sat facing the desk.

The young man groaned as he rose to his hands and knees, looking over his shoulder to see the pair that’d deposited him there heading back to the steel door. He faced forward again, using one hand to move his dreadlocks from his face so he could see clearly.

Immediately, he noticed a second man standing beside the desk. He was middle-aged, wearing a gray suit with a red tie, sporting a short, gray buzz cut.

Rutherford recognized him immediately.

“Uh! Uh, M-Mr. Hopper—“ he stammered as he jumped to his feet, one hand outstretched. He was silenced, however, when the older man scowled and put his finger to his lips.

Hopper then pointed at the large man at the desk. Rutherford hadn’t noticed that he was talking on a cell phone, which was all but hidden within the grip of his massive, sausage-like fingers.

Rutherford ducked his head apologetically and faced Hopper once more, who pointed to the chair that faced the desk, directing him to sit. The young man complied, side-stepping in front of the chair and lowering himself slowly into the seat. He folded his hands between his knees, trying to hide his nervousness as he listened in on the big man’s conversation.

“Yes… yes, Mrs. Crinkle,” he was saying. His voice was deep and gruff, but he spoke in a manner that was strangely soothing. “I understand. These things can be difficult to deal with, but we must remember to keep faith, and that the word of God will prevail. I’m reminded of Psalm sixty-two, verses one and two: ‘My soul finds rest in God alone, my salvation comes from Him, He alone is my rock and my salvation.’”

He paused to listen as a tinny voice rang out from the phone’s speaker, too quiet for Rutherford to understand. His free hand came up to adjust the collar of his black shirt, which was adorned with a clean, white square just below his Adam’s apple.

Drawing a long breath, he nodded. “Yes…” he said softly, letting his dark, vacuous eyes rise from the desktop to meet Rutherford’s.

Making eye contact with this individual haunted the young man, and it caused his breathing to stop. He looked down at his lap almost immediately, unable to maintain it.

“You are more than welcome, Mrs. Crinkle,” the man continued. “Help is always a phone call away. You can get a hold of me any time, or, for true inspiration, the Lord Himself is there, through prayer and reflection.”

CLANG!

The sound made Rutherford jump. He nearly fell out of his chair as he spun around to find the steel door now closed. One of the men who’d dragged him in remained inside, standing next to the large, metallic panel. He faced the desk once again when he heard the big man talking, his breathing accelerating to match his heart rate.

“…Yes, all my love, and the love of the Lord as well. And I’ll see you at this Sunday’s sermon, bright and early.” He followed with a little nod. “Yes. Goodbye, Mrs. Crinkle… and God bless.”

He then took the phone from his ear and touched the screen with his thumb before setting it on the desk, keeping his massive hand on it. He stared into space for a moment, then he let out an exasperated sigh.

“Stupid old bitch,” he grumbled. “Why don’t you just die, huh? No one cares about you.” Raising a brow, he turned the phone over once more to verify that he had in fact ended the call properly. Then his eyes rose to meet Rutherford’s again. “Mr. Hopper. What is this animal you’ve brought in here? He a pet of yours?”

Hopper cleared his throat. “Ah… Reverend, this is young Rutherford. He is, unfortunately for him, the young chap who botched the Rakyat deal.”

The reverend kept his eyes on Hopper for a moment, rolling his jaw. Then his head slowly turned to face Rutherford. “I see.” He folded his massive hands and set them on the desktop with a soft thump. “Well...” he asked, shrugging by pointing his laced fingers outwards, brows raised. “Do you have anything to say to me, my son?”

The poor kid’s mind was paralyzed with fear, so much so that he failed to answer. Instead, he simply moved his hands to his knees to stop them from shaking.

“HEY!” Hopper shouted, making the young man jump. “The reverend just asked you a question; don’t be disrespectful!”

With a trembling jaw, Rutherford forced a reply. “M-m-me don’t know what happened! Rutherford follow direction exactly!”

The reverend looked unimpressed. He drew a breath and took a moment to think, running his finger along the cleft that ran from his nose to his upper lip. “The Ministry took a very large loss over that deal, did you know that? That was a major international proposition; an untapped market we could have broken into—a whole new continent!” He raised his hands as a gesture to the world at large. “An entire market that we lost, because of one stupid delivery boy.”

Rutherford shook his head, eyes wide. “No! Me telling the truth!” He brought a pair of trembling hands up to emphasize his point. “Rutherford deliver package; in exact spot he was told; at exact time! Me don’t know what happened! M-maybe someone intercept… o-or maybe receiver go to wrong place?”

“Our directions to the receiver were very clear,” Hopper chided, silencing the young man, who simply stared back, jaw chattering.

The reverend drew a long breath and then released it, letting a deep growl accompany it on its way out. “I don’t think you understand the gravity of your mistake, my son. Bottom line, the client did not receive the product. Ten million dollars worth of product has vanished —while in your charge— but that number pales in comparison to potential sales lost when the arrangement went south.“

Rutherford folded his hands like he was praying, shaking them rabidly. “Me sorry!” he pleaded. “Rutherford know this was big deal; he would never mess up on purpose!”

“If it was an honest mistake, then why didn’t you come back to inform us of the fact? If a competitor truly did steal the package, we might have been able to track them down, retrieve the package, and eliminate them for good. But instead, you run off and leave us in the dark while everything goes down the toilet.”

Rutherford gripped the edges of the chair, his forehead beginning to glisten with cold sweat. “Rutherford... scared.”

The reverend tapped his temple. “Rutherford wasn’t thinking,” he grumbled. “You realise that when we learn about the client not receiving the package and that you’ve run off, we’re gonna assume that you’ve stolen it, right?”

The young man stared, wide-eyed and terrified. It was difficult to know if he was shaking his head in protest or if he was trembling. “No… No, Rutherford would never do that! Ministry took good care of Rutherford, but me was scared! Me didn’t know what Ministry would do!” He raised a hand in search of mercy. “Me was scared and ran away! Don’t want trouble! Rutherford just want to start over, make new life…”

As the young man spoke, the reverend looked down to open one of his desk drawers, from which he quietly produced an old —and rather large— revolver. After pushing the drawer closed with the barrel, he set the gun on the desk, letting his hand rest on the handle.

“…promise me won’t tell anyone… about…” Rutherford trailed off when he saw the weapon pointing at him. After staring at it for a moment, he brought his eyes up to meet the dark stare of the minister. “No… please…” he whimpered, his whiskered chin shaking, eyes moistening behind those dreadlocks. “Let Rutherford go, he cause no more trouble.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that, my child,” the reverend said softly. He waved to himself with his free hand. “You’ve seen me. You know who I am. Once that happens, you can’t go back. You know, like the rest of us, that all members of The Ministry are members for life—which may or may not be a long time, depending on their loyalty. I’m afraid, son, that you cannot be trusted to work for us anymore; your sins have tarnished your reputation, and I can’t allow you to simply go forth into this world to… ‘start a new life.’ You can’t be trusted to go out on your own. If word of my business here got out, it would tarnish my reputation in the public eye. Irreparably.”

“Please… p-please…” Rutherford’s jaw trembled as he leaned forward in the chair, reaching his hands toward the desk as he begged for forgiveness. “Please, Father! Let Rutherford work for you again. Me do good job, me swear!”

With a disgusted scowl, the reverend glanced over the young man’s shoulder and nodded to the guard, who was no longer standing by the door, but rather right behind the chair, holding a length of rope in his hand.

After receiving the signal, the guard reached above Rutherford’s head and shoved the noose down onto him, causing him to stop mid-sentence and cry out in panic. The guard yanked the line backwards, bending Rutherford’s head over the back of the chair, his screams stifled when the rope pinched his airway shut. With his other hand, the guard tossed the middle of the rope over a large cast iron hook attached to the ceiling.

He pulled hand-over-hand, threading the rope through the hook until it pulled tight, at which point he leaned back, hoisting the young man out of his seat. Rutherford hacked and wheezed, grasping at the noose to try and relieve the pressure; his legs kicked in a circle, making his knotted hair swung about. Hopper and the reverend watched with a frightening sort of collective boredom, like watching a kid hang to death was as normal as watching the morning news over breakfast.

Eventually, Rutherford was able to wiggle his fingers under the rope and hoist himself up enough to speak. “Please…” he coughed, “Rutherford don’t wanna die, me do anything!”

The reverend, leaning on the desktop with his elbow, was resting his chin in one hand, looking quite unmoved by the plea. After watching the desperate young man for another moment, he, keeping his forearm on the desk, angled the gun upward and pulled the trigger.

The resulting BANG! filled the room with its deafening ferocity. The round hit Rutherford low in his abdomen, just below his belt buckle. His body jerked and then went stiff when the pain struck him, and he released the rope to reach down and cover the wound with his hands.

The men watched through the thick cloud of gunsmoke as the poor kid strangled to death, blood and urine gushing from between his fingers and soaking his jeans. Gurgles of agony filled the room as the reverend drew a breath and opened the drawer to put the weapon away, after which he began to recite scripture, folding his hands on the desk once again.

“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures…”

His voice lowered to an inaudible grumble as he continued under his breath, watching his victim twitch violently as his short life drained onto that red carpet—the colour of which was chosen for this very reason. Seconds before his consciousness faded away, Rutherford removed one hand from the bullet wound and reached up for one last pitiful attempt to pull some slack into the rope, but his hand stopped only partway. There he hung, stiff, twitching for one last horrid moment before finally slipping away. His body went limp, his head and limbs hanging lifelessly as he swung gently from the ceiling.

“...surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord… forever.”

After waiting in silence for another moment to be sure the deed was done, the guard released the rope, letting Rutherford’s corpse fall. It hit the chair on the way down, kicking it violently to the side before coming to a rest in a heap on the floor.

The reverend leaned back in his chair, waving a dismissive hand. “Clean that mess up.” He turned to face Hopper as the guard complied without question, bending down to hook his hands under Rutherford’s armpits to drag him away. “Well?”

Hopper shrugged. “I guess that’s that.”

The reverend nodded slowly as he drew a breath through his nose, renewing the smell of gunpowder in his senses. “Where did they find him, anyway?”

“Canterlot.”

He turned in his chair to face Hopper, brows furrowed in confusion. “Canterlot?” he sneered. “The boy had balls going there; it’s barely two hours away. Was he really that stupid?”

“Yet another mistake on his part,” Hopper replied. “Making excellent decisions was clearly not his forte.”

The reverend chuckled softly as they watched a second goon approach to check the floor for blood and then take the chair with him as he went to fetch the cleaner. He poked the inside of his cheek with his tongue, ruminating quietly as the chair left his sight, followed by the steel door swinging shut with a sharp clang. Then he faced Hopper again.

“What was he doing there? Living with someone? Someone he might have run his mouth to?”

Hopper shook his head. “We don’t think so. It looked like he had an apartment to himself. BUT… if he could afford a place to live, then he must have had a job.”

“Or he was selling the product he stole—if he did in fact steal it.”

“We didn’t find any product in his home, Father. It’s possible he was keeping it somewhere else, but I honestly don’t think he stole it, otherwise he would have been able to afford to get farther away.”

The reverend brought his hand up to scratch his jaw. “Hm.” Then he cocked his head and gave Hopper and inquisitive look. “Think he had anything to do with the massacre at my hotel?”

Hopper shook his head. “No, sir. I don’t think so.”

“Have we learned anything new about that?”

“No,” Hopper replied quickly. “Nothing yet. All we have are eyewitnesses who said there was a masked woman; maybe even a few of them. We ordered urine tests from all of them and they came back negative, so that checks out—still doesn’t make sense, though. Other than that, there was no camera footage, nothing left behind, no messages or communications whatsoever. We have no idea how or why they did what they did.”

“Could they be the ones that intercepted the Rakyat package?” the reverend asserted.

Hopper looked up to the ceiling, considering this. “It’s possible. There’s no way of knowing, though.”

“Hm.” The reverend rubbed his forehead to dull the stress. “It’s been an interesting few weeks, hasn’t it? This,” —he gestured to where the kid was sitting— “the hotel, and before that, two of our people attacked at a bar in the outskirts.”

Hopper nodded. “A pair of low-tiers, nothing major. One killed at the bar, the other we’re not sure —we think maybe she died in the hotel— but on the bright side, the attacker from the bar has been looked after. The young lady who picked that fight is literally swimming with the fishes, as I understand it.”

The reverend looked up at his right-hand man and sighed. “Well, at least that’s one problem solved. Perhaps it’s a sign of good fortune to come; the Lord works in mysterious ways, after all,” he said as he stood, towering over Hopper. At over six and a half feet tall with broad shoulders, the pastor was a beast; closer in size to a bear than a man.

“You could be right, Father.”

“In the meantime, I want you to find out where that little piss-ant was working,” he ordered as he took his suit jacket from the back of his chair to slip it on. “I want you to see to it yourself, Mr. Hopper. I’m trusting you to make sure he didn’t leak our secrets to anyone. Find the place, have a friendly chat with his coworkers, and find out what they know.”

Hopper gave an obedient nod. “And if they know too much?”

The reverend, who was in the midst of adjusting his collar, paused to glance over at Hopper. “Then may they rest in peace.” He straightened his cuffs and headed around the desk toward the exit. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to prepare this week’s sermon.”

Author's Notes:

I’m just gonna preemptively point out that Rutherford was not the minister’s son.