True Believers

May 31, 1999
Screenwriter Richardson (Die Hard II) is true to form in this cinematic treatment of a U.S. senator's nightmare, orchestrated by a barbaric cult leader from his death row cell. Wesley Dean Theroux, convicted of murdering most of his cult, saved a few acolytes to carry out his plot to father an heir. The woman chosen to give birth to Theroux's offspring is Boston political campaign strategist Gwen Corbett-Sullivan--the wife of a Massachusetts senator and vice-presidential hopeful, Will Sullivan. The infertile Sullivans are inexplicably lured to a bogus clinic in Texas run by cultists and Gwen is artificially impregnated, possibly with Theroux's semen. Then cult henchmen kidnap near-term Gwen and imprison her near Spokane, after murdering her watchdog aide and setting up the senator as a suspected wife abuser. Theroux's prison cell laptop (allowed for his self-run legal defense) has a hidden cell phone chip that lets him instruct his "children" and plant phony Internet rumors to sabotage Will's career. With the FBI on his tail, only the senator's loyal chief of staff and a few employees help him search for Gwen and fight the bottle. An ally appears in Theroux's prosecutor, whose own life has been devastated by the cult and who drops secret clues about Theroux's plan. When it turns out that Theroux's media interviews contain evil commands when played backwards (like the rumored Beatles' album); and when Theroux's laptop is confiscated, the action ramps up to a flaming climax. Richardson (Dark Horse) riffs off aspects of real-life cults and his many shady characters--like the cybersleaze journalist--fill the plot with histrionic, even gimmicky twists. Still, this is a good beach read for high-tech thrill-seekers, as the action is fast-paced and as frantically energized as Internet stock.