“Mr. Mast, people know I’m here. Someone from the sheriff’s office is aboveground, looking for me. It’s over.”

“No one knows about the tunnels.”

“I told them. They’ll find my vehicle. It’s only a matter of time. Do yourself a favor and give it up.”

Mast stares at me as if I’m some unpleasant chore that must be completed. There’s no hatred, no passion in his eyes. I’m not a person to him, simply an impediment to his mission. There’s no doubt in my mind he means to harm me. Kill me. Or maybe chain me down here with the others.

“No more talking,” he tells me. “My work here is larger than you or me, and I will not let you interfere. I will not let you stop me.”

I stare back, my brain scrambling for some way to get through to him. But my earlier calm has transformed into a twitching mass of nerves. The truth of the matter is, I’m in trouble. He’s got the upper hand and we both know it.

Mast isn’t a large man—maybe six feet tall, 170 pounds. He’s thirty years older than I am, so I’ve got the advantage of youth. I’m physically fit and fairly adept in the arena of self-defense. But I’m injured; he’s got fifty pounds on me and a lot more muscle.

Cautiously, I ease myself to a sitting position, try a different tactic. “God would never ask you to hurt anyone. He is benevolent. He wouldn’t ask you to harm another person.”

“He that spareth the rod hateth his son.”

“T alt shall not kill.”

Mast sighs, as if none of this is his plea sure, but a burden placed upon him by a merciless God. “I took no plea sure in that. Annie King was an accident. She ran . . .” He shrugs, his words trailing off. “It made my heart heavy. But it is a burden I must bear. A sacrifice I have been asked to make.”

I want to tell him that’s a total crock of shit, but I hold my tongue. “You’re hurting people,” I whisper. “This is not what God wants you to do.”

“The young people have lost their way, Chief Burkholder. Surely you see that in your line of work. Our youth have become morally corrupt. Spiritually destitute.” He shakes his head, a parent ravaged by disappointment. “Ruth Wagler had become a slave to the white powder. She sold her body, her very soul to get it. Bonnie Fisher murdered her unborn child. Leah Stuckey seduced her own uncle. Young Sadie Miller lies with the English boys. She gives freely of her body. She drinks alcohol and her head is filled with prideful ideas.