The Program Read Online Free PDF Page B

last night while walking him and Emma to their car, and Will had mentioned he'd cut off Leah's credit cards. But she still, presumably, had a bank account with a checkbook. Unless she'd signed that over to the cult in addition to her trust fund.
    Leah's ad, which had run nearly a month ago, offered a bureau, two nightstands, a bookcase, a mattress and frame, her bicycle, and an array of computer equipment. The sell-off fitted the profile of either a fugitive preparing to go underground or someone moving overseas. The latter, a distinct possibility, worried him. He didn't want to have to inform the Hennings that their daughter was hoeing fields in a cult colony in Tenerife.
    More focused now, he headed out, mumbling to himself and drawing a few glances from his colleagues.

    Chapter three
    Tim worked the phone on the drive up the coast, networking through contacts and eventually placing calls to the Leo J. Ryan Foundation, the Cult Information Service, and the American Family Foundation. When he informed the phone counselors that he needed to bring his teenager in for postcult therapy in Los Angeles, the same name topped all three referral lists: Dr. Glen Bederman, a UCLA psychology professor, one of the country's foremost cult authorities.
    Tim dialed the number, keeping an eye on the winding road.
    "You've reached the office of Glen Bederman. If this is a harassing phone call, please leave all slurs and deprecations after the beep. If you're suing me, please phone my lawyer, Jake C. Caruthers, directly at 471-9009. Process servers looking to locate me, here is my calendar for the week...." Listening to Bederman's lecture schedule and office hours, Tim couldn't help but smile. "I'd like to close with Articles Five and Eighteen of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: No one shall be subjected to torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, and everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion. Good day."
    After the prolonged beep that indicated a surfeit of messages, Tim introduced himself briefly and mentioned he'd try to catch up with the professor later that day.
    Next he reached the postal inspector in charge of San Fernando -- a nasally voiced fellow who introduced himself as Owen B. Rutherford.
    "Yes," Rutherford said with thinly disguised irritation, "I recall fielding questions about this particular already."
    "I was just wondering if you'd consider --"
    "You should know better, Deputy. Bring me a warrant and I'll arrange a time to see to your concerns."
    "Look, work with me here a little. I don't have enough for a warrant --"
    "Not enough evidence for a warrant, yet you want me to root through privileged billing and registration information?"
    Rutherford's prissy tone was surprising, but his vehemence was not -- postal inspectors were 1811s, investigators who toted guns and tracked leads hard. They had a near-fanatical regard for the mails, which Tim respected though found difficult when it inconvenienced him. Realizing he lacked good reason for his frustration, he held his tongue.
    "The mails are sacrosanct, Deputy. I'd like you to consider something for a minute...." Rutherford's voice, high and thin, took on the tone of a rant. "People only complain about the mail. When it's late, when it arrives damaged, when some unwashed misanthrope uses it to deliver anthrax. Think about the fact that for thirty-seven cents -- thirty-seven cents -- less than the price of a pack of gum, you can send a letter from Miami to Anchorage. Thirty-seven cents can buy one ounce a four-thousand-mile trip. This country has the finest mail system in history," Owen B. Rutherford continued, seeming pleased to have secured a scapegoat for what Tim could only imagine was an elephantine bad day. "We move forty percent of the world's mail, seven hundred million pieces a day, and -- unlike you big-budget DOJ agencies -- we're entirely self-supporting. This country runs on its postal service. Taxes are