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to make a whirling motion in the air to tell Mom to roll down the window.
    As she did, the nut job in the backseat leaned forward to be seen.
    The man in the window smiled. “Sister Colleen,” he said. “Welcome back. I understand you did some excellent work tonight. We’re all very proud.” Turning away from the window, he pulled a flashlight from his belt and flashed it twice at the gate.
    Within seconds, another black-clad man with a rifle appeared in the wash of the headlights, approaching from the far side. He removed a padlock from a heavy-duty chain and pulled the gates apart. He and the man at the window both stepped out of the way.
    “Go ahead,” Colleen said, using her pistol to point through the fence opening.
    As the minivan eased through, Ryan noted through the side-view mirror that their back bumper had barely cleared the fence before the guards were pulling it closed again.
    Outside the wash of the headlights, the darkness that surrounded them was near absolute. This part of the roadway wove through trees, but he sensed that the area was more field than forest. In the dim starlight, he thought he could make out the outlines of buildings, but even that was hard to tell. Some distant windows emitted yellow light, but in each case, the light seemed dim.
    By the clock on the dash, it took six minutes to cover the distance from the gate to the sturdy block-and-timber building where so-called Sister Colleen told them to stop. This was one of the buildings with lights on, and now that they were close enough, Ryan could tell from the flickering that they were looking at candlelight. Candlelight and a gun-wielding bitch who thought she was a nun. Oh, this was bound to get interesting.
    He shot a glance at his Mom. “No electricity?” he asked.
    She didn’t answer. Maybe it was just that obvious.
    “Turn off the lights and the car,” said Sister Colleen.
    Their world went blacker still.
    The front door to the house opened, spilling a parallelogram of light across the porch and onto the ground. Two shadows filled the space almost immediately. Both were maybe six feet tall and athletic looking, though Ryan categorized the one on the right as football-athletic, and the one on the left as soccer-athletic. Neither appeared older than twenty. They each carried an old-fashioned oil lamp, the kind with a hurricane globe around the wick and handle on the top—Ryan associated them with movies about old-time railroads—and pistols in holsters on their belts. As they approached, Colleen opened the sliding door, introducing a blast of frigid air.
    “Everybody out,” she said. “And please don’t give us reason to hurt you.”
    Ryan did as he was told, pausing to grab his coat from the floor and put it on.
    “Good idea,” Colleen said. “You’ll want to have your coats with you. It can get chilly at night.”
    The one who looked like a football player looked even bigger up close.
    “The mission went perfectly,” Colleen announced. “This is the Nasbe family.”
    Football held his lamp high and peered through its shadow for better view. He looked each of them in the eye, and smiled. He exchanged nods with the other lamp bearer. “Perfect indeed,” he said. “I am Brother Stephen. This is Brother Zebediah, and you have already met Sister Colleen. Gather closer together.” He made a gathering motion with his hands, sort of like a stiff-armed clap, but without actually clapping.
    Ryan sidestepped closer to his mom’s right.
    “I have always believed that honesty is the best policy,” Brother Stephen said. He continued to hold the lantern high, and as he spoke, clouds of condensed breath occasionally obscured his face. “You should know that you are prisoners, and that Brother Zebediah and Sister Colleen and I are your jailers.”
    Christyne’s hand gripped Ryan’s arm.
    “If you behave and do as you are told, your life will be tolerable. If you cause trouble, your life will be hellish, and perhaps