The Hidden Society

by R. Chauncey

  “How could Julian have done this without someone finding out about it,” Sally asked. “Even we leaders have to occasionally let the Council of Twenty know where we are.”

  “During the last two years of his leadership Julian had been keeping to himself and working to improve the Society’s power and control,” Derrick said. “No one knew, especially I, that he was downloading information about the Society from its information centers. He made sure to act as if he wasn’t doing anything wrong, thus deceiving all of us.”

  “Julian was one the leaders of the Society for twenty years,” Sally said.

  “Yes,” Derrick said. “And during the last two years he downloaded information about the society on a flash drive.”

  “What has he been doing since he gave up his leadership position ten years ago?” John asked.

  “Preparing to destroy the Society,” Derrick told him. He sounded as if he was surprised John didn’t know that considering what they now knew about Julian.

  “So what do we do, Derrick?” John asked, sitting back down.

  “We find and kill this person who has that drive and laptop, and then destroy both.”

  “Who among the soldiers should we assign the job to?” Sally asked. She wasn’t concerned as long as it didn’t interfere with her private pleasures.

  “We put Karl Winters on the case.”

  “The man’s a cold psychopathic killer,” Sally said with the sound of disgust in her voice.

  “He’s reliable, determined, intelligent, and he’s the best soldier the Society has.”

  “I don’t trust him, or like him,” she said. “He’s not above replacing us, you know. And that has occurred in the history of this organization.”

  “No you’re wrong,” Derrick said. “Karl would never try and do that. He’s very loyal. But if you both are against him, recommend someone else?” He knew they couldn’t. Keeping up with the violent section of the Society wasn’t something they enjoyed doing and had left that up to Derrick since they were elected as leaders nine years ago.

  Enjoying the benefits the leaders of the Hidden Society had available to them was all that concerned Sally and John.

  Derrick had always thought it foolish that over four hundred years ago the Society had decided to elect three leaders who would report to a Council of Twenty rather than continuing the policy of the strongest member running the Society. But the rise of faster means of communication, plus the rapid expansion of the industrial revolution had brought immense wealth into the coffers of the various powerful members of the Society, and had led to bloody fighting between those powerful members for the position of leader. Only the adoption of the practice of electing three leaders every ten years had saved the Society from self-destruction. Three leaders guaranteed an equal sharing of power preventing either of them from dominating the Society.

  And for over four hundred years none of the one hundred members and one hundred soldiers had questioned the practice, though soldiers didn’t have the right to vote for the three leaders.

  But now things were a bit different. Rapid communication, first the telegraph, then the telephone followed by wireless radio, television, and then the computer with the world Internet, had brought far greater wealth to the Society and its members and soldiers than anyone had ever imagined, but for over fifty years the intelligent members of the Society knew these great money making inventions could also mean the exposure of the Society and its end. One leader they felt would increase the risk of exposure, but three leaders working for the good of all could act in such a manner with the support of the Council of Twenty to prevent such exposure.

  Derrick didn’t believe in the policy, but he had never challenged it. To do so would have resulted in his removal by election as a leader, and being just a member didn’t appeal to him. He enjoyed the power and prestige of being a leader too much to resign as Julian had done ten years ago.

  Every member thought, just imagine what the world would do if it found out that since 1049 a secret society had existed among the nations of the world and had manipulated every invention and scientific discovery of the human race to make money, chose presidents, dictators, and control what people thought and believed? Three leaders and the

  Council of Twenty, the members believed, would prevent that from happening.

  “Alright,” John said. “Karl Winters it is.”

  “If he’s available,” Sally said reluctantly, hoping he wasn’t.

  “He will be notified within seconds,” Derrick said removing his computer cell phone, com-cell, from his pants pocket and pushing three buttons. Waiting ten seconds and pushing three more.

  “What about the Council of Twenty and the members?” John asked. “They have to be notified.”

  “We can each do that separately,” Derrick said. “Be sure to use the Society’s coded e-mail.”

  “Let’s do that now,” Sally suggested, reaching into the pocket of her pleated skirt and taking out her com-cell.

  Within five minutes all of the ninety-seven members of the Hidden Society were informed by e-mail of the events of January third and what was being done about it. The Society’s soldiers would be told only if it was necessary. Responses would be coming in for the next four hours. After that all the members would have to do would be to wait for the notification of the death of the person Julian Franks had given the information to, and the recovery of that information. Derrick expected that to occur within forty-eight to seventy-two hours. More than enough time for him to call a meeting of the Council of Twenty with Sally and John in attendance and do what he had been planning for the last five years.

  Derrick didn’t like admitting it, and wouldn’t to Sally and John and certainly not to the Council of Twenty, but Julian’s actions had helped him. The fool had given Derrick the opportunity to do what he had always wanted to do, but couldn’t because there was no reason for him to call an emergency meeting of the Council of Twenty. Now he had a reason.

  “I shall be meeting with Karl Winters at my house in Big Sur this afternoon,” Derrick announced as he stood up and headed for the door.

  “Keep in touch,” Sally said as he opened the door and left.

  A few minutes after Derrick was gone Sally jumped up and rushed from the suite crying, “God, I need some fresh air.”

  ***

  Chapter 3

  Saturday, 4:33 a.m. January 4, three hours and thirty-three minutes earlier

  Larson had made it back to his suburban home outside of Chicago within seven hours in spite of the snowstorm. He could have done it in four or five hours, but unlike far too many drivers during the winter, he didn’t believe in driving like a damn fool during a snowstorm. Such drivers seldom made it home, but they did attract the attention of the local paramedics and the state police, as well as the new media desperate for interesting and exciting news to tell their viewers.

  As soon as he entered his garage and closed the overhead door, he did exactly as Julian Franks had told him to do.

  Lucky for him he believed in having a smoke and heat detector in his garage even though garage fires were now very rare now that internal combustion engines were now no

  longer manufactured except for the few eccentrics who believed internal combustion engines were more romantic than electric engines. Some of the eccentrics even kept gasoline in their garages in plastic containers. Very foolish considering the heat internal combustion engines produced.

  Larson also kept a box of six nine volt batteries on the narrow work bench at the back of his garage, one could never tell when you’d need a nine volt battery – at least that’s what Larson told himself, and the batteries still had two years to go before they reached their expirat
ion date.

  The plastic computer boxes in electric cars in the last quarter of the twenty first century sat on top of the engines and were red in color making them easy to identify. That way an electrical automotive engineer, mechanics were a thing of the past, could pop the air-watertight plastic cover off the box, plug his or her diagnostic machine into the car’s computer’ s USB port and adjust the car’s engine back to its original 99.89 percent efficiency level. Nothing was one hundred percent.

  An electric engine, unlike an internal combustion engine, produced very little heat. Burnt hands and elbows were a thing of the past, and no toxic fumes. But they produced a tremendous amount of voltage, and warning signs were placed right where anyone could see them on top of the engine and the computer box. Government regulations required Danger High Voltage warning signs in red two inch high letters.

  The computer box was bright red in color when the car was new but now it was a dull, dirty red after twenty-eight years of driving. It was twelve inches by twelve inches by one and a half inches in thickness with a lid that could be easily popped opened with the tip of a screw driver, one that didn’t conduct electricity. The travel chip was incased in its own little plastic box, and like the computer box easily opened. Placing a nine volt battery against it, positive to negative, would wipe out the last trip a person took in their car, motor bike, or any other electric-automotive vehicle. Someone as unfamiliar with electric engines, as was Larson, could do it in ten minutes or less. It took Larson seven minutes and he wore heavy rubber gloves he’d taken from the bench to be on the safe side. Then he removed the chip, put it in his pocket, and closed the plastic box and the hood of his car.

  He walked into his kitchen five minutes later, hung his coat on the wooden coat peg sticking out from the wooden bar in the kitchen closet, removed his shoes and put on his slippers, and closed the door and walked into his first floor twenty-five by thirty-two feet study a few minutes later.

  I should get some sleep, he thought as he placed the laptop and the two flash drives next to it on his ebony, brown leather covered desk. But no I want to read the bullshit this Julian Franks guy put on this laptop. I may get a good story out of it. But coffee first.

  Twenty minutes later Larson placed a gray clay mug of hot coffee on a coaster on his desk and settled down in his high back black cloth chair, opened up the laptop Julian Franks had given him and turned it on.

  ‘For security reasons this computer will not respond to verbal commands or respond verbally.’ appeared on the monitor.

  Larson smiled and shook his head. Melodramatic as hell. Hope there’s no song and dance show, because I’m tired. He reached for the keyboard and pushed enter.

  ‘Please place flash-drive one in the USB port,’ appeared on the screen.

  He looked at the two flash drives laying to the right of the laptop and picked up the first one and stuck it into the USB port and pushed enter.

  ‘This is flash drive two.’

  Larson removed the drive and put the other one into the USB port and pushed enter.

  After you have read this drive either destroy it or hide it some place where no one will look. And do not let anyone know you have it. Do not place it into a safety deposit box. The Hidden Society can get into any safety deposit box in any bank in the world at any time.

  Larson shrugged and continued reading.

  The Hidden Society was formed in the year 1049 in Lyons, France. It began as a guild of various types of merchants whose only desire was to get their wares safely to the nearby village markets as soon as possible and without trouble from the local highway men that operated on the roads in of all Europe at that period in European history. The members quickly learned to get their wares to the various village markets they would need the help of the most vicious band of highway men in France. The Society of Merchants, as the Hidden Society was known then, hired these highway men, and from 1049 till the First Crusade it prospered.

  The highway men gave their protection to the Society of Merchants because a

  Society member convinced them they could make more money, and live better protecting the Society’s goods than stealing from the Society’s merchants and killing them. The local

  powerful feudal lords would not bother the highway men if they protected the movement of

  goods through their fiefdoms because the lords would be able to collect taxes on the goods moving through their fiefdoms and taxes on those goods sold in the various villages of their fiefdoms.

  It was an arrangement in which everyone prospered especially the Society of Merchants and the highway men who worked for them.

  The victory of the Frank Crusaders over the Moslems during the First Crusade opened up a whole new world of trade for the Society of Merchants. They relocated part of their operations from Lyons to Venice, and began trading with the Moslems. To avoid attracting the attention of the wealthy merchants of Venice, The Society divided their trading operations in Venice into five different companies, and met only once a year, and never on the same day or date or in the same place to develop plans to stay in business.

  By this time the Society of Merchants consisted of a hundred and two members with a force of a thousand well paid military supporters. None of these soldiers, as they became known, looked or acted like soldiers though all were well trained in the use of weapons of the period. From board sword and battle ax and even poison which was considered a woman’s weapon.

  Unlike the Templars Knights, the Society of Merchants operated in secrecy. Never attract attention, pay your taxes, respect those in power, and avoid displaying the Society’s wealth became the unwritten motto of the Society of Merchants. By the end of the Crusades in the 13th century, the Society of Merchants had become richer than the Templars, but remained unknown to the powerful princes and kings of the period. Even the Popes of the

  Catholic Church knew nothing of them.

  The Society of Merchants would do business with anyone regardless of their religious views as long as they could make a profit on what they bought and sold.

  This ability to remain unknown was due to the Society’s practice of never allowing any one member to accumulate great wealth in gold and silver, and having no great land owners among the members. By constantly diversifying, spreading their wealth in gold and land into the hands of all the members the Society never appeared to be anything but a small collection of obedient, moderately prosperous merchants and of no interest to any prince, king, or the Popes of the Catholic Church.

  To convince the powerful kings, princes, and lords of Western Europe, the area where they found it best to operate because of the growing power of the kings, they were no more than individual merchants who were sometimes successful. Certain merchants of the Society were told to make foolish decisions that cost them their businesses.

  But no member ever went poor. The other members would always secretly come to the failed members’ assistance. And the failed member would always move into a town or city where the Society had no one, and start up in business again. That way the Society continued to expand and not attract the attention of kings who were always in need of money because of their continuous wars, which the Society secretly financed and profited from.

  With wealth comes the problem of inheritance. Medieval Europe did not believe in women inheriting large estates or wealth. And since no male member could guarantee they would have only male children, and not all arranged marriages are happy and produce male heirs, the Society allowed women to inherit secretly. A blood male member whose loyalty was proven inherited for a female member with the understanding that the property he inherited belonged to the female member, and the females worked hand in hand with the males to keep the Society of Merchants wealthy, powerful, and secret.

  And
secrecy, plus the policy of keeping all members, including the highway men of the Society of Merchants well paid and happy was the secret of the Society’s long life.

  In the 14th century the Bubonic Plague, which killed nearly sixty percent of the European population, solved the problem of the growing membership. Too many members endangered the Society. Since too many members meant too much idle talk and talk endangered the secrecy of the Society of Merchants. And more members meant more soldiers to protect the members and their businesses. The Plague killed off four-fifths of the members and soldiers leaving only fifty members and eighty-one highway men, soldiers, alive out of a membership of over three hundred and nearly six hundred soldiers.

  The sharp reduction in the population of Europe favored the Society. Trading opportunities expanded, and so did learning. The Bubonic Plague had helped bring about the age of science and exploration. And both favored the Society of Merchants.

  By the mid fifteen hundreds the Society of Merchants was no longer involved in just trade, they were involved in banking and financing and profited from both. Smalls sums from the various members were invested in trading and banking, and made millions for the Society. They didn’t care how the money was made by trading or what was traded, or what banking agreements were made as long as the Society’s members made money. Profits were the only concern of the Society of Merchants. And God help the merchant or banker who was foolish enough to think they could cheat the Society of Merchants.

  The Society of Merchants grew richer than the most powerful state in the World.

  To guarantee the Society’s existence a decision was made in 1660 by the three most powerful leaders that the future membership of the Society must never be larger than one hundred. The number of highway men was also reduced to one hundred, and they as before remained soldiers educated, trained, and armed with the best weapons in secret. But their services were only for the Society of Merchants. This decision also meant that only the smartest sons and daughters of the members would rise to membership level. And from their ranks three leaders, always the most intelligent, were chosen. One of which was the Leader. Murder by poison became a way of eliminating those that were considered undesirable. And any sign of weakness and disloyalty to the Society by any member was immediately punished by a slow, painful death. Fear was now combined with wealth to keep members obedient.