by R. Chauncey
Larson turned and looked at the laptop on the desk then helped himself to coffee and added cream and sugar to his coffee. He took a swallow. It was good mint flavored coffee.
“That laptop is an antique, Mr. Western. It was made in 2018. Before the Hidden Society got control of an extremely unique computer chip and had that chip redesigned by a group of its chip technicians that enables it to read, see, and hear everything every time anyone uses a computer, including the people on the international space station, and the Martian Scientific Station.”
“That’s impossible,” Larson replied with a large smile on his face. “Computers have had security chips in them that allow their owners to prevent such things.”
“Every electrical piece of communicating equipment made on this planet made after 2034 carries a Hidden Society chip, either an older version of the chip or new one. Believe me when I tell you no computer or cell phone on this planet is safe from the Hidden Society.”
“That would include my car,” he said. He took another swallow of coffee.
Franks took two large swallows of his coffee and then said, “Yes.”
Larson placed his mug on a paper coaster on the table. “You’ve got to be kidding me, Mr. Franks.”
“I wish I were,” he said in a serious voice. His eyes fell to the coffee table with a look of deep regret in them. “I became a member of the Society from birth as were my parents, grandparents, and great grandparents. My ancestors have been members since the Hidden Society’s creation. I was given the best education available, and became one of three leaders of the Society over twenty years ago. I am an expert at acquiring and arranging information.” He looked up at Larson. “Knowledge, Mr. Western, has always been, throughout the history of the human race, the most valuable substance on this planet. With the rise of civilization over ten thousand years ago it became priceless. And whoever controls it controls the world. No matter where we humans are. The Society has always claimed it supported democracy, freedom of the individual, and the rights of all to equal opportunity and justice. I believed that when I became the leader.”
“Absolute power corrupts absolutely,” Larson said.
“Exactly. In the last fifty years I’ve seen the Society become an organization that is concerned only with power, and gaining more power. Progress, equality, freedom has never really been of interest to the Society. Though the Society has always claimed they were. Greed and the power to control governments were and has always been the sole object of the Society.” He looked at Larson with hard, gray eyes. “This planet will become sometime in the twenty-second century a united and democratic world at the rate in which democracy is spreading. And if the Society isn’t stopped, it will be a world controlled by the members of the Society, and no one but the members of the Society will know that. And those members are capable of anything.”
“Why not tell the world?”
“Just telling the world wouldn’t work because no one would believe me if I did tell the world, and within twelve hours after you leave. I will be dead. Twenty-four hours at the latest.” He reached into the right pocket of his smoking jacket and removed two flash drives and placed them on the table. “When you leave, take those drives and that laptop on the desk with you. This first one has a brief the history of the Hidden Society. The second will tell you how to get to the Society’s main information center. Only I and three others know where it is. Information on the second drive will also tell you how to expose the Society’s information to the world, because that is the only way to destroy the Hidden Society. Do it, Mr. Western, and democracy and equality and freedom for all will become a way of life on this world in the future. Fail and slavery awaits the people of the world without the people knowing it.”
“Why me? Why not tell the government, or the new media?”
“The Society controls the news media and the government, though they don’t know it.”
“If you released this information about this Hidden Society to the world, someone would believe you,” he said.
“Unfortunately, I don’t have the time.” Franks stood up. “You must be leaving, Mr. Western. I wish you God speed.”
“Someone is coming?” Larson asked, standing up.
“Within less than three hours a weather satellite will pass over head. One the Society can access, though the government doesn’t know it. That satellite will be looking for abandoned houses like this one. It will detect my heat signature in this house.”
“The Society knows your heat signature?”
“Yes. The Society always hires the best scientists, pays them well, and keeps a close eye on them. But they, like thousands of others, don’t know they’re working for the Society. Once they pick up my heat signature they’ll send men to get me. I’m too old to be taken alive, Mr. Western.” He reached into his left pants pocket and removed a small white capsule. “Cyanide, Mr. Western. Not a pleasant way to die. But considering how I’ve helped the Society over the last fifty years it is considerably better than I deserve.” He returned the capsule to his pocket. “Now put on your hat, coat, and gloves. Take the laptop and drives and leave. Tell anyone about this meeting, and the Society will win.”
Larson reached over and got his hat and coat. His mind was a blank because he didn’t know what to think. Franks had seemed serious and that frightened him.
“One other important thing, Mr. Western,” Franks said, helping Larson into his coat, and then walking to the desk for the laptop. He picked it up and walked back to Larson and gave it and the flash drives, which he took from the table, to him. “When you reach home before you go into your house and forget, raise the hood of your car, locate the travel chip in your car’s computer, and place a nine volt battery against it. Positive and negative charges are noted on the chip. The sudden surge of energy into the travel chip will remove from your car’s computer your drive here. Then remove and discard the travel chip. It will not disable your car. Your life and the lives of those whom you love will depend upon your removing that chip. I’m sorry about the position I’ve put you in but I had no one else to turn to. Good night, and good luck, Mr. Western.”
Within six minutes Larson was back in his car heading for the road that would take him back to I-88 and home.
*
As soon as Larson had driven away, Julian Franks carefully cleaned the cup, spoons, cream, and sugar bowl Larson had touched. He polished the desk, and the wooden arms of the chair Larson had sat in four times as well as the seat of the chair. Then he took out his battery operated vacuum cleaner and vacuumed the carpet Larson had walked on. Then he took the dirt container of the vacuum cleaner out to a pit in the ground behind the house, dumped the dirt into the pit, and set it afire with lighter fluid from a can he’d taken from his jacket pocket. Then he went back into the house, put on his coat, hat, and gloves and went outside again, and using a heavy wooden straw broom brushed away the foot prints and tire tracks left by Larson. When he was satisfied no clear copies could be made of the impressions left in the snow by Larson, Julian returned to the house.
He relaxed in the house with another cup of mint flavored coffee and awaited his unwanted visitors though he wouldn’t be able to greet them. He would be dead hours before they arrived. He knew they would bring with them the best forensic equipment they had and the best forensic experts, and what they had was better than that of the best national police force in the world. He prayed the Hidden Society’s intense desire to control the world would work against them. It would take the Society days, hopefully weeks to check every computer chip in every automotive vehicle in America. He prayed that by the time they were on to Larson Western it would be too late to stop him from exposing them. Assuming, of course, Larson believed what was on the two flash drives.
He got up and walked aroun
d the room for a few minutes to build up his courage to do what he knew he had to do to give Larson a chance. Then he sat down in the chair Larson had sat in and took the cyanide capsule from his pocket and put it in his mouth. He picked up his mug of mint coffee and took a swallow washing the cyanide capsule down his throat with the coffee. He could have bitten into the capsule, but he didn’t want to ruin the flavor of the coffee. It was his last worldly pleasure.
“Now if things go as I’ve planned, and Mr. Western believes what’s on those flash drives and does as I hope he will do. He will succeed and the Hidden Society will be destroyed by the one thing it fears, public exposure.”
He leaned back in the chair resting his head against the back of the chair and said softly, “God forgive those who have sinned against me, and God forgive me for my many and terrible sins.” He closed his eyes and awaited death.
***
Chapter 2
Saturday, 7 a.m. January 4
Just west of the Simpson Park Mountains in the county of Eureka in the state of Nevada is six thousand acres of land owned by the Drake Bakery Company of Northfield, Vermont. Six months earlier that land was owned by an automotive supply company in Wisconsin. Seven months before that it was owned by a California Winery. The land switches ownership in an irregular manner every six or seven months. And none of those companies knew they owned the land which didn’t matter. Since the United States Government is the real owner of the land, but has no idea what the land was really used for.
What was important about the land was at the base of one of the mountains was a man made underground chamber. Completely automated and computer controlled and protected by lasers that can kill a man with a single shot. It was the main communication and information center of the Hidden Society. The three leaders of the Society Derrick Franks, brother of Julian Franks, John Lighters, and Sally Turbo were positive the center was safe. But only Derrick knew its exact location and what was in it. The other two were more concerned with their personal pleasures than maintaining the Society’s information center or knowing what was in it.
Once a week Lester Painter, a sixty-five year age old former electrician in good health living a comfortable retired life in the town of Eureka, would drive to the center in a ten year old Jeep that was in excellent condition, and using a remote control device open up a small door at the base of the mountain, enter the center, and run a twenty minute diagnostic check on the billions of dollar worth of computer equipment in the center. Once every two months he’d bring Charlie Daniels, his replacement with him and show him how to run a diagnostic check. Everything always checked out as okay. Their lives depended upon that though they didn’t know what was in the computers or the server.
Lester never called anyone to report on the information center. Franks, Lighters, and Turbo could access the center using their computer cell phones. The most advanced in the world. Their computer cell phones had been programmed to operate only in their hands. The equipment responded only to their body heat, finger prints, and voices.
The Hidden Society had unlimited financial resources in the world. They had access to every bank and every bank account in the world. They only took money from the bank accounts of criminal organizations and drug dealers. Even though they could take money from any account they wanted. When they needed large sums of money, they simply arranged the death of a wealthy drug dealer, took every penny they needed from his account, and let the authorities of the country the bank was in deal with the aftermath. Because there was no way the legal authorities in the country could trace the missing money to the Hidden Society. The Society never used members’ money for its secret operations.
*
Las Vegas, January 4, 7 a.m. deluxe suite Caesar’s Hotel
“Why does this place always sink of pussy?” Sally Turbo grumbled. “How many of your harem whores have you had here?”
“You don’t like it, bitch, get out,” John Lighter replied.
“Now it not the time for you two to start snapping at each other,” Derrick Franks said. He was the senior of the three leaders of the Society. “My brother was found dead this morning.”
“Good,” John said. He got up and walked to the bar for another gin and tonic. “I’ve always thought of Julian as a bit of a goody two shoes.”
“No more!” Derrick snapped at him. “Right now getting drunk and having one of your naked twenty something whores sit on your face won’t solve our problem.”
“Do we have a problem?” Sally asked, wondering if that black writer she had seen at a party in Chicago was worth her efforts. She liked men her own age, but only if they were healthy and loved to fuck.
Fucking was one of the great pleasures of Sally’s life. Power and wealth ran a distant second with her. Sex was number one. But power and wealth enabled her to enjoy the sex she so loved. She had never had children, didn’t want any, and now that she didn’t have to worry about getting pregnant because she was beyond child bearing age, an annoyance she could have easily solved if she had gotten pregnant years ago, she could have all the sex she wanted any time she wanted it. Who would inherit her position in the Society was of no interest to her. Ten years ago she had gone hunting with her boring husband, and killed him with a shot to the back of his head. Her number two position in the Society, right after Derrick, had enabled her to make sure she wasn’t suspected or charged. There was no evidence to support anything anyway.
Her husband’s killing looked like nothing more than a very bad hunting accident.
“My brother may be dead, but his laptop was missing. And a recent check of the information centers shows he downloaded quite a lot about the Society on a flash drive. Basically Its history and how it controls the world.”
“Were the files checked to make sure nothing was missing?” Sally asked in a worried voice. She, like every member of the Society, knew that if the information in the Society’s files became public it could destroy the Society, and ruin her extremely comfortable and pleasure filled life.
“The information is intact,” Derrick assured them. “All Julian did was download information concerning the Society’s history and control of the world.”
“How the hell did he manage to do that?” Sally asked. “Did he get into the information center?”
“No, he did it by remote control,” Derrick said. “He had the ability to access information in the centers any time he wanted.”
John sat his empty glass on the bar and walked back to his seat and sat down. “Who has this drive?” he asked. He drank too much, and knew it and didn’t care. He was fat, hairy, with a thick head of black hair, and was neither Sally or Derrick‘s equal in intelligence which is why he was only a third as important as they. That he didn’t know.
“Evidence reveals he had a visitor in a cabin he had constructed in secret in a forest in northwestern Illinois. Who came by car and left by car. Julian tried to cover up his foot prints and tire tracks with a broom, but our forensic people got impressions. The freshly fallen snow revealed sweeping marks underneath”
“Then we can use them to find this man, kill him, and recover the information,”
Sally said. She was five nine six feet in the three inch handmade shoes she loved wearing. She was sixty-five years old, and looked at least ten years younger. She had natural full lips, and a body most women forty years her junior would have loved to possess.
“The impressions were incomplete. The tire tracks could fit a billion tires. And so could the incomplete foot prints,” Derrick told them.
“Then let’s use our computers and satellites to check vehicle travel chips,” John said. “That will tell us what vehicles came or went from Julian’s hiding place.”
“Hundreds of millions of vehicles,” Sally said.
“I know it will take time to find out who Julian gave the information to,” John snapped at her. He knew he was inferior to Sally in intelligence and resented it.
“Maybe more time than we have,” Derrick said.
“What do you mean?” Sally asked him.
John looked at Derrick with a curious expression on his face.
“What if this person knows about the travel chips and is intelligent?” he asked.
“So?” John asked. “We’ll still have time to find and eliminate him.” He looked at
Sally and added a threat, “Or her.”
“What if he removes the travel chip from his car’s computer?” Derrick asked.
“His car won’t start,” John answered.
“If you spent less time licking young cunts and more time studying the latest automotive improvements, asshole, you’d know a car doesn’t have to have a travel chip to operate,” Sally told him.
“Fuck you! You old dried up slut!” John screamed at her after he jumped to his feet to face her.
“We don’t have time for this bickering between you two,” Derrick yelled at them. He hated having to share power with them. They were too self-centered and not professional in his opinion. He knew he’d have to do something about them and soon. Fortunately he had prepared. “A thousand year old organization is in danger of being exposed to the world. If that happens the political leaders of the world will come after us and the members and soldiers, and there will be no place where we can run and hide. Our own people would turn on us to save themselves less time in prison.” He calmed down and ran his hands through his crew cut white hair.
He looked nothing like a man who possessed more power than any president or dictator on the planet. Just barely six feet in shoes, with a plain pale face that burned rather than tanned in bright sunlight, and thin to the point he didn’t like wearing swimming trunks. Which is why he always vacationed in homes he owned or could rent.