The Hidden Society

by R. Chauncey

  A nice looking woman who appeared to be in her late fifties or early sixties, was intensely working on a computer.

  “Pardon me,” he said.

  She looked up at him. “Yes?” she asked with a pleasant expression.

  “Is it possible to access other libraries from the computers here?” he asked.

  “Oh, yes sir,” she replied. “We’re a part of the International Library Association.

  You can use any of our computers to access any library that’s a part of the ILA. No charge. But printing an article costs twenty-five cents.”

  “Cash?” he asked.

  “Credit or debit card or if you wish you can buy a print card from one of the card machines,” she said. “They are located in the far corners of each floor.”

  “Thank you,” he said and walked away looking for a card machine. One he hoped would take cash. The last thing he needed was to use his debit or credit card and leave a transaction trail for someone to follow. Assuming, of course, Julian Franks wasn’t some raving lunatic. Which Larson was beginning to hope he was.

  He found a card machine sitting in the corner at the end of a row of a dozen computers, and it took cash. He bought a five dollar print card and went to a computer with a clean desk, and a comfortable looking heavy dark wooden chair in the third row of twelve rows of six computers facing the main entrance to the research department. He put his navy blue, extra-large tall parka over the back of the chair, after he put his gloves in his parka pockets, his hat on the top of the wooden ledge over the computer, and sat down.

  Within a few seconds he had a list of all the libraries in the world that were members of the International Library Association scrolling down the monitor of the computer. The Library of Congress of the United States caught his eye. It was one of the largest libraries in the world. Thank God for a Congress that was still cheap to buy, stupid, and narrow minded when it came to the needs of the common people, and obsessed with bigness. Larson had no doubt not one of the damn fools of Congress used the Library of Congress. That would require intelligence something most of the members of Congress lacked. Lying to the people was something most of them were experts at.

  If the Hidden Society did exist and it checked on anyone checking on the Arden Chip Company of Arden Nevada, they would run into the vast number of people using the Library of Congress through other libraries. They would have hundreds of millions of people to check out before they even got close to the Harold Washington Library, and even then they would still have millions of people to check out before they even got close to him. Hopefully the Hidden Society would get bored and stop.

  No. If Julian was right they won’t get bored and stop.

  Within seconds he had accessed general American Business Information and asked if there was a company in Nevada known as the Arden Chip Company.

  ‘The Arden Chip Company of Arden, Nevada was established in 1990. It was sold in 2036 to Paul Duffy and relocated to Westport, Kansas in 2038 as the Duffy Electrical Parts Company.”

  Right so far, Mr. Julian Franks, Larson thought as he stared at the screen. The sudden thought that Julian Franks could be right about the Hidden Society frightened Larson. A society that had existed for over a thousand years for the sole purpose of making its members rich and gaining power didn’t seem like such a wild thought after all. Let’s take a look elsewhere, he thought as he went to the bottom bar of information under the Arden Chip Company, and brought up a map of the area of Northern Illinois he had been in on the night of the third.

  He kept reducing the area until he had a detailed road map of the area. Bay Route appeared on the map as a paved two lane road. Then he looked at the date on the map. Last year. So the map was recent and should be accurate. He reduced the area again till he could clearly see buildings. There were none in the area he had stopped at last night.

  I doubt if I drove a mile down Bay Route before I saw the house so it should still be there, he thought.

  It was possible to build a house in one day. He had seen on TV the Army build an aluminum city to house twenty thousand people twenty years ago in an African wilderness in four hours. And remove it in half that time. But there was evidence left that the city had been there. Trees had been cut down. Boulders moved. Drainage ditches dug.

  But the map he was looking at showed trees intact, and Bay Route dead ended in a forest far short of where Julian Franks’ cabin was located. Less than twenty four hours had passed, and there was no evidence Julian Franks’ cabin had every existed, and it was built of stone and brick. It was possible to do such a thing, but very expensive.

  Larson pulled up a real estate map of the area. Such a map would show all recent purchases and sales of land. It took him only seconds to get the map on the computer screen and it showed that no land had been sold or bought in that area for four years.

  He decided to try the Secretary of State computers to see if a deed of ownership or rental for a cabin at the end of Bay Route had been issued by the Secretary of State’s office to Julian Franks. There was nothing except an entry that showed land had been bought two years ago miles away from where Julian Franks’ cabin was for agricultural purposes.

  Building and removing a cabin in the woods within an hour was quite possible but to remove all written evidence that the cabin had ever existed indicated that someone or some organization had a lot of money, power, and the ability to access state real estate computers to eliminate any evidence from those computers the cabin ever existed.

  If Julian Franks had bought the land the cabin was built on, which he had to because I saw the cabin and went inside it. Larson leaned back in his chair and thought, unless Franks didn’t buy the land, but had just had the cabin built to use as a place to arrange a meeting with me. And if that’s right, then that cabin didn’t exist when I received the letter through the mail. Mr. Franks probably had it built twenty-four or less hours before I arrived. He said he was a former leader of the Hidden Society and he would have had the influence to have the cabin built. He leaned forward and looked at the information on the computer screen. Mr. Franks didn’t buy the land. He just had the cabin built to use as a place to meet me.

  Larson leaned back in his chair and carefully looked around with a thoughtful expression on his face. As if he was thinking of something. He was looking to see if he was being watched. The research department was almost devoid of people. He hadn’t bothered to notice that when he entered. Too busy thinking about what he was looking for. But now he did. There were only nine people, counting himself, he could see in the wide room. He wiped his suspicious mind clean and returned to the information on the screen.

  Julian Franks may have been telling the truth, he thought. Should I say fuck it, and go home? Or continue?

  Larson knew himself quite well. He was faced with a real mystery. And he liked mysteries. All his life he had wanted to solve a great historical mystery. But he had never made any attempt to do so. Though there were still many unsolved historical mysteries. But they took years to solve and cost millions. And he had never been willing to spend the few million he’d made from writing murder mysteries to solve some historical mystery. He enjoyed his comfortable upper middle class life too much to spend his money answering one of the many great questions of history. But this was different. Or so he felt.

  He took the cash card he’d bought, stuck it in the card slot on the computer, brought up the information about the Arden Chip Company, and pushed print.

  The printer at the end of the row of computers immediately started printing. Within ten seconds he had a print out. He exited the information on the screen and wondered if Paul Duffy was still alive? Probably not. He must have been in his twenties maybe thirties when he invented that all-purpose chip. Bought the Arden Chip Company 2036 and
moved it to Westport, Kansas in 2038 thirty eight years ago.

  He thought for a minute then typed Westport, Kansas into the computer and waited a second while the map of Westport appeared on the screen.

  It was little more than a small western town with paved streets sitting next to a railroad station.

  He typed city hall and pushed enter.

  A list of city hall offices appeared on the screen.

  He chose the office labeled birth and dead certificates. Then he typed the name Paul Duffy. The monitor produced a split screen. A birth certificate appeared on the left half of the screen. A death certificate appeared on the right half. Larson read both. Paul Duffy was born in 1985 and died in his sleep March 24, 2056 at the age of seventy-one.

  Surely Julian Franks knew this so why write remember Paul Duffy? Why remember a dead man if you aren’t related to him? Was there something in Westport that was important?

  He typed town newspaper, and the Westport Reporter appeared on the screen. The Westport Reporter had computerized their editions of the paper. He brought up the March 24, 2056 paper went to the obituary section of the paper and typed the name Paul Duffy. The picture of a smiling white man with thinning gray hair appeared on the screen with the name of Paul Duffy underneath accompanied by a short article about him.

  He had been born and educated in Westport, went to Kansas State University and majored in computer science, left for a job with a computer company in Nevada in 2015, returned in 2038 with the company and provided jobs for a hundred of Westport’s citizens.

  His death by natural causes was noted by the mayor. The company was still operating in

  Westport.

  “So far,” Larson said softly to himself. “Everything Julian Franks wrote on that second drive was true.” He stared at the screen and thought for few seconds. Then shook his head thinking, Franks could have gotten this information the same way I’ve gotten it and then weaved an elaborate story about it. Any good mystery writer could do it.

  He realized there was only one thing left to do, and if he found nothing else to verify what Franks had written was true he was going to forget everything he’d read on those two flash drives.

  Larson printed out the information, and decided to go to Westport, Kansas by train. It would be nice to travel by train. He couldn’t remember the last time he was on a train. To drive in the winter was foolish. And driving would leave a trail. But he wouldn’t buy a ticket to Westport with his credit card. Cash was better and safer. Why leave a trail for someone to follow?

  Like it or not, Larson couldn’t get rid of the feeling that Julian Franks may be right about the Hidden Society. Though he prayed Julian was wrong. The thought of such a Society really existing frightened him.

  As he rode the L home he looked out the window and thought, the cabin doesn’t exist and there’s no record in the Secretary of State’s Office that it ever existed. Why go to such lengths just to create a lie?

  ***

  Chapter 7

  Sunday, 6 a.m. January 5

  Sundays meant nothing to Karl Winters. Why should they? He never went to church or even admitted to himself there was a God and life after death. It wasn’t that Karl didn’t believe in God or a life after death, he just didn’t care about such things. If there was a God and life after death, he’d deal with those two once he was dead. And he didn’t know how he’d deal with them or cared as long as he was alive.

  So Sunday was just another day to him. Only this day he was busy gathering his team. He had called the three soldiers he was going to work with at seven p.m. Saturday, and told them to report to the Ames Ranch and Hotel on Sunday at noon.

  *

  The Ames Ranch and Hotel was a dude ranch seventy-three miles southwest of Albuquerque, New Mexico in a wild area where the closest town was the small town Cakes, forty miles away, and there was only one road leading from it to from the Ames Ranch and Hotel. And it was a two lane blacktop road used only by residents and employees of the Ames Ranch and Hotel, and the hotel’s guests. Guests came to Cakes by train and were taken to the hotel by bus.

  It was real ranch of two hundred thousand acres over two hundred years old with cowboys, horses, and cattle. And it was a beautiful place for city people to come and live what they thought was the true romantic Hollywood life of a true American cowboy. The residents of Cakes had only the best things to say about the Ames Ranch and Hotel because all three hundred employees lived in Cakes. A very comfortable bus took those working a two week period, which every employee did, from the town to the hotel. Every employee got a week off, without pay, of course. Starting salaries at the hotel were five dollars higher than the minimum wage with medical and dental benefits for the employees and their families paid entirely by the hotel. And food and lodging for employees were free along with laundry facilities. Every employee had their own assigned bedrooms with matching bathrooms, and a keycard for the doors. The Ames Ranch and Hotel had very loyal employees. And none of them were members or soldiers of the Society and knew nothing about it.

  The Ranch House, three stories high, was the administration building. It was a hundred and fifty yards by a hundred and fifty yards wide. The first floor consisted of a vast southwestern styled lobby that looked like it was a Hollywood designer’s version of a realwestern hotel from the 1880’s. But it wasn’t ostentatious because western historians had been hired to assist in the construction of the hotel. Even the registration desk with its seven registration places looked like an oversize version of what a real western hotel’s front desk really looked like. It had been built from an 1872 photograph of a real western hotel registration desk. Behind that desk were the offices of the manager and his personal staff. A bell captain’s office was opposite the registration desk on the other side of the rough stone floor lobby that was constantly being cleaned by robotic cleaning machines that kept the floor spotless and slippery free even in the winters. Luggage storage and other administration offices were next to the bell captain’s office. The second and third floors consisted of living quarters for the Ames’ Ranch’s employees.

  A quarter of a mile south of the administration building was a three story western style adobe hotel with seven hundred suites that formed a semicircle around a large swimming pool designed to look like a desert watering hole with trees, cacti, and other desert succulents. They were surrounded by two foot wooden fences to prevent guests from walking into them. But there were always a few guests who’d had too much to drink who manage to walk into them, even during the day. The pool was heated so that guests who liked to swim in the winter could do so without freezing. But getting to and from the pool in a swimsuit and robe in the winter could be a cold experience.

  There were three real wooden stage coaches drawn by six large draft horses and a driver who controlled them with a shotgun guard who carried a fake shotgun to meet visitors after they registered and take them to their suites. Luggage was brought to the hotel by an old covered wooden wagon, and carried to their suites by employees dressed in western style clothing. Tipping was permitted.

  A block south of the adobe hotel there was an entertainment building where there

  were three saloons each with a dozen dance hall girls and cowboys who put on excellent western style shows in each of the saloons, waitresses, a gambling hall, three restaurants, that served excellent western style meals along with foreign dishes too, a theater which featured live shows, and a movie theater that showed western movies. Both theaters had four hundred seats each, and next to them was a dance hall that offered all forms of western dancing. And no employee yelled ‘Yahoo!’ even though it was heard in western movies made before 1960. And original Indian dances were featured outside the entertainment building in a grassy open area when weather permitted by real Indians. They were als
o offered in the theater that had live shows.

  Beyond the entertainment building was a two hundred and seventy foot high hill that was four hundred and twelve feet long with boulders and rocks dropped there over thirty thousand years ago by retreating glaciers. Beyond the hill of boulders was the power plant for the Ames Ranch and Hotel. It provided electricity for the hotel. It had its own generators, fifteen of them. Next to it was a water filtration plant that provided clean water to the hotel taken from a river that ran fifty yards behind it. The power plant provided the power to pump the water into the hotel. The same power plant also cleaned all waste water coming from the hotel before it was returned to the river.

  Just south of the power plant and separate from it were two four hundred yard long and two hundred yard wide basements built two hundred feet below ground, stretching to the east and west. The basements were where the Hidden Society kept its main headquarters and armory. Any guest riding a horse or taking a long walk behind the hill of boulders would have seen nothing but the power plant, the water filtration plant, the two hundred thousand acres of the Ames Ranch, and over three thousand head of cattle wandering around eating grass and drinking water from the two special built springs.

  The Ames Ranch and Hotel was owned by Lawrence Ames. His family had been members of the Society since it was created in 1049. The family had acquired the ranch in the late 1880’s, years after the Apache wars had ended, and ran it as a cattle ranch. It had become a dude ranch and hotel in 1959, and like all businesses owned by Society members it had made a profit every year since though some years the profits were much less than the Ames family liked. It was the Ames family’s front business, a business behind which the family’s share of the Society’s income was hidden.

  Lawrence’s job was to manage the Society’s headquarters, which he had been doing for over thirty years without any trouble, along with the Ames Ranch and Hotel and two other family owned hotels. One was on the Island of Lesvos in Greece, and the other on the Virgin Islands just outside the capital of Charlotte Amalie. But they were just hotels.