by R. Chauncey
“Paul Duffy is probably dead,” Betty said.
“Of course, he is,” Dodge agreed. “But put yourself in the place of the person Julian gave the drive to.”
“I’d take it home, open it up and read it,” Karl said.
“Would you believe what’s on it?” Dodge asked.
“No rational person would,” Betty said. “Who’s going to believe a story about a secret society that’s existed for over a thousand years without anyone knowing about it except its members and soldiers? Whoever Julian gave that flash drive too would dismiss it as a fairy tale.”
“We’ve agreed that whoever Julian gave the drive to would have to contact this Done woman, right?” he asked.
“Yes, we’ve agreed to that, Dodge,” Karl said, looking at Dodge and trying to figure out what he was thinking.
“So if you were the person Julian gave the drive to, where would you start to look to verify the information on the drive?” Dodge asked them. He didn’t like doing what he was doing, but he had no choice. He had to succeed or his family would suffer.
“Of course,” Karl exclaimed in a loud voice.
Betty and Willow looked at him. Dodge already knew where his thinking was leading him.
“Only the Society has historical evidence of its existence,” Karl said. “But if this person with that drive found out that Paul Duffy did exist, then he or she would have a starting point beyond what was on the flash drive Julian gave him.”
“And that starting point would take him, or her, directly to Marlene Done,” Betty said.
Willow, a simple minded killer who did as he was told without question, finally started to think. “If Marlene Done’ death was faked by Julian, then she‘s waiting somewhere for this guy Julian gave the drive to show up. Waiting to help him expose the Society.”
“But where?” Karl asked. He was tired and not thinking too clearly.
“Let’s start with Paul Duffy,” Dodge suggested.
“The guy’s dead. And it probably wasn’t faked. Even if he was still alive he’d be well over a hundred,” Willow protested.
Dodge ignored him. “Duffy sold his all-purpose chip to a front company owned by a member in 2034. After that Duffy disappears.”
“So what?” Willow asked.
Dodge turned swiftly around to face Willow. “Start using your brain, Willow. Julian began planning to expose the Society probably a few years before he gave up his position as a leader, while he was still in a position to get information on the Society. Information that would destroy the Society if downloaded on the Internet but without the
Council of Twenty or the other leaders knowing what he was doing. But he realizes he must die to provide some protection to those he hopes will expose the Society. He helps Marlene Done fake her death. Gives a flash drive with information about the Society on it to someone he hopes is going to do some quiet checking. And find Marlene Done. The one person who knew what Julian wanted to do.”
“Somewhere Marlene Done is waiting for this person under a well-established identity. She’s been waiting for twenty years. Carefully watching everyone she comes in contact with. Waiting for that person she knew Julian would send to her, because Julian told her before she disappeared twenty years ago he would send someone to help her expose the Society,” Betty said.
“But this person doesn’t know where Done is, or if she’s still alive, or even what she looks like,” Willow protested.
“No, he doesn’t,” Karl agreed. “But when he shows up, Done will make a move to verify he’s the person sent to get her help in exposing the Society.”
“Do you guys know what you’re talking about?” Willow said. “Done dies in a fake accident twenty years ago and Julian gives a flash drive to someone twenty years later hoping he or she will make contact with Done. It doesn’t make sense.”
“Yes, it does,” Dodge said.
“Bullshit!” Willow snapped at him. “Why wait twenty years to give this person the flash drive? Why not give it to Done?”
“Because we would have found Done within less than six days had she made a move to expose the Society,” Dodge said. “So Julian waits twenty years to find the one person he is sure will check out what’s on that drive, and in doing so let Marlene Done know he or she is the person Julian chose to help her. And then Julian kills himself to avoid torture that he knew would make him talk.”
Karl was looking at the computer monitor on his desk. “So he chooses the person he wants to give the drive to twenty years ago,” he said. “Then waits and watches the person for twenty years to make sure the person will do as he expects.”
“Julian also knew that checking facts twenty years after they’ve occurred takes time,” Dodge said.
“No,” Karl said. “Julian didn’t chose this person he gave the drive to twenty years ago.”
“Damn, Julian was smart,” Dodge said.
“What do you mean?” Betty asked him.
“He chose the person he gave the drive just recently,” Dodge said. “Maybe as little as two or three weeks before he committed suicide.”
“How the hell do you know that?” Willow asked him.
“Simple,” Karl said.
Willow and Betty turned and looked at him.
Karl looked up at them and explained. “If Julian had chosen this person at the same time Marlene Done disappeared in a fake drowning, there is always a chance over the twenty years he would have inadvertently given away Julian’s plan.”
“Julian wanted to make sure there was no connection between the two of them, except that drive which Julian gave this mysterious person,” Dodge said. “When this person starts checking the information on that drive, he pops up wherever Marlene Done is and does something or says something that convinces her this person was sent by Julian to help her expose the Society.”
“What information would this person want to check on that drive?” Willow asked.
“There’s no doubt in my mind Julian would have mentioned Paul Duffy and his all-purpose chip and program,” Dodge said. “Because it is the most important thing the Society has acquired in centuries.”
“So let’s see what we can find on Paul Duffy,” Karl suggested.
***
Chapter 12
Monday, 2 a.m. January 6. In an abandoned cabin
Larson woke up and his head felt terrible. Never in his life had he had such a headache. It didn’t have the mild throb as his headaches usually had when he got one, which was very rare. It was just one long line of continuous pain. And there was a painful lump on the back of his head. It hurt him to even open his eyes. When he did he was surprised by darkness.
My God, he thought. Am I blind? He felt a cloth tied about his eyes. I’m blindfolded.
He felt uncomfortable and confused. He focused a few seconds on his body and realized he was lying on his back with his arms behind him. He tried to move his right hand from behind his back to touch his face. He couldn’t! Something was holding his right hand behind his back with his left hand. It took a few seconds of thinking through the terrible pain of the headache and painful lump on the back of his head for him to realize he was tired up.
What on earth for, immediately flashed through his pain racked head.
He tried to move his body right then left. He felt something soft under him like he was lying on a bed. He tired moving his legs and realized they, too, were tied together. Somebody had knocked him unconscious then him tied up and blindfolded him.
Events came rushing back to him. He was getting ready to get into his rented Jeep parked in that dark corner of the movie theater’s parking lot after the mo
vie when he felt something was behind him and then something struck him on the back of the head knocking him unconscious. And now here he was tired up and blindfolded.
“Who did this to me?” he demanded in an angry voice. Fortunately he wasn’t gagged.
“Who are you?” the female asked in a calm voice. She was standing a few yards away from him.
The voice sounded as if it came from his left near his head.
“Who the hell are you?” he roared in return. The pain in his head increased.
“The person who knocked you unconscious and tied you up,” she said. “Now answer my question.”
“I’m not answering any fucking questions until I’m released.”
“Your name is Larson Western. You are a retired high school history teacher for the Chicago Public School System, and a successful mystery writer. You live in the suburb of Oak Park just west of Chicago.”
“If you know all that then release me,” he demanded.
“The Society is resourceful,” she said. “Using the identity of a real person is not above them.”
“The Society?” he asked.
“There are two questions I want an answer to, Mr. Western. Are you really who you say you are? And why are you here?”
“Check my ID,” he told her. “And untie me.”
“The Society can make fake ID that’ll past any inspection.”
“Call the police. They’ll check me out.”
“The Society would intercept the call and send their soldiers dressed as the police. Why are you here?”
“I was doing research on a novel I’m writing,” he lied.
“No one comes to Westport to do research. Anything you wanted to find out about this town and its people you could have gotten off the Internet. I’m growing impatient, Mr. Western, and this cabin is isolated and has no heating system. It’s going to snow tonight, and the temperature is going to drop to twenty below. I walk out of here and it will be days before your body is found. The people at the Westport Hotel will miss you within twenty-four hours. But maybe as much as a week will pass before your body is found. And freezing to death is probably not a pleasant form of death.”
“I’m just a writer doing research for a novel,” he told her.
“I will ask you one more time, Mr. Western then I’m leaving you to a cold and most unpleasant death. Who are you?”
Her voice had a serious sound to it Larson couldn’t have missed even if he had tired.
“I’m waiting, Mr. Western,” she said in a voice that had the sound of finality in it.
Larson decided the truth was the best way to go if he wanted to avoid freezing to death.
“Two weeks before Christmas I got a letter from a Julian Franks to come to his home in northwestern Illinois. I went there earlier this month and he gave me a flash drive about a Hidden Society originally known as the Society of Merchants.”
The woman’s hardened expression softened the moment Larson said Society of Merchants. That was a name she hadn’t heard in years. Julian had told her that was the original name of the Hidden Society when she agreed to help him. Many members and soldiers of the Society didn’t know the original name of the Society. He had also told her anyone locating her would probably mention the name as proof they came from him.
“He said this Society has been around for over a thousand years, and that it was very powerful with unlimited resources. Greed and power for control are its only reasons for existing he said, and it must be stopped before it dominates the world, and destroys democracy. And, according to Julian Franks, the only way to do that is to expose it to the world.” He stopped wondering if the woman believed him. He wouldn’t have if he was in her position.
The woman looked at him with an expression that said she didn’t know whether to believe him or not. She had been waiting for twenty years for someone to show up and help her do exactly what this man had told her Julian said must be done to destroy the Society.
“Oh, one other thing,” Larson said. “Cherry Wood. Don’t ask me what the hell that means because I don’t know.”
The two words stunned her and her face went blank. She backed to a dirty wooden chair next to an equally dirty wooden table and dropped down onto it with a thud. A small cloud of dust rose up from the seat of the chair. They were the code words Julian told her a contact would give her. She had a lost expression on her face.
“Hay!” Larson yelled at her noticing she was quiet after hearing her sit down. “Are you still here?”
“Yes.” she quickly replied blinking her eyes to bring her mind back to the present situation. “Be quiet. I have to think.”
“Think about untying me,” he advised her.
“Quiet!” she yelled at him.
Larson shut up. It sounded like the safest policy.
Years ago when we faked my death he told me someone would come to me with information that would expose the Society. And he said that person wouldn’t be like anyone I’d expect. She looked at Larson tied up on the dirty cot and thought. I could never have imagined in a thousand years someone like this person. I expected a trained, experienced killer. And I get a retired high school history teacher who writes mysteries. What the hell was Julian thinking when he chose this man? Her mind went blank as she stared at him. What should I do? After five minutes she made up her mind. After twenty years of waiting it was time to take a chance because there was nothing else she could do.
She got up and walked over to the cot and took a hunting knife out of her right coat pocket, removed the black leather sheath from the sharp silvery blade, rolled him over on his left side, and cut the ropes that held his hands and feet together. “Set up,” she said. “Remove the cloth from your eyes, and listen to me.” She put the knife back in its sheath and put the knife back in her pocket and backed to the chair and sat down.
Larson freed his hands from the ropes, swung his feet over the left side of the bed, sat up, and removed the cloth from his eyes. A small flash light set up as a lamp on the dirty wooden table hit him in the eyes and increased the pain in his head. There was just enough light for him to stare into the face of the woman who had been at the information desk in the Duffy Electric Parts Company.
“You!” he exclaimed in a surprised voice.
“Remove the rope from your feet,” she told him. She was pointing a pistol at him.
Larson leaned over, the pain in his head got worse, and quickly untied the ropes from around his ankles. “Lady, what the hell is this?” he growled angrily as he straightened up.
“A forty-five caliber, six shot Smith and Wesson colt revolver. And I know how to use it.”
He looked at the dark colored pistol she was holding in her right hand and ignored it. There was nothing else he could do other than suffer with the terrible headache and the painful lump on the back of his head, and do as she said or get shot. And he had no doubt she was capable of that.
“Don’t forget I have this,” she advised him as she moved the pistol up and down.
“I have no intentions of doing so,” he assured her in a voice that didn’t have a sound of friendliness in it.
“Very wise of you, Mr. Western,” she replied.
“You knocked me out and brought me here?” he asked, looking around a dirty, dust dominated wooden cabin. The dust on the wooded floor of the cabin was so thick he could have written his name in it, erased it and written it again without touching the wooden floor underneath. “Where is this place?”
“Yes, but it wasn’t easy. And where it’s at is not your concern. You weight a lot.”
“Because of that damn fictitious nonsense about a Hidden Society Julian wro
te about?” The angry expression on his face indicated the headache and the lump on the back of his head hadn’t declined in the least.
“Nonsense?” she asked in a surprised voice.
“Yes!” he snapped at her. “Nonsense!”
Larson stood up to stretch his legs and arms ignoring the pistol in her right hand. His legs and arms felt stiff from being tied up.
“How long have I been here?” he asked her.
She ignored his question. “If there is one thing the Hidden Society isn’t, Mr. Western, it’s nonsense. They are a ruthless society of blood thirsty fanatics who are willing to do anything to maintain their secrecy, their wealth, and to increase their power.”
“Marajo,” Larson said as he started to brush dirt and dust from his clothes. “That’s what Mr. Duffy called you.”
“Sit down and listen to me, Mr. Western,” she said.
“Lady, Marajo, all I want to do is go home,” he replied.
“Sit down!” she ordered him.
Larson looked at the pistol in her right hand, realized he wasn’t in any position to argue even if he was free of restrains and could see, and sat down on the dusty cot. A small cloud of dust arose around him.
“If you have a family as if this moment, their lives are in great danger,” she said. “So are those of your relatives, friends, and neighbors. The Society will kill anyone close to you to get their hands on that flash drive Julian Franks gave you.” She sighed and added. “And now so are mine if they know who I really am and where I live.”
The tone of her voice shocked him. “The information this guy Julian gave me on that flash drive was true?” His voice contained a touch of disbelief.
“Yes. And it doesn’t surprise me you don’t believe what you’ve read. I didn’t believe the story Julian told me about the Hidden Society over twenty years ago. Until he showed me some of the intimate information the Society had on six very powerful political leaders in the world. When he predicted the deaths of five of those leaders by accidents two years before they died, I believed him.”