The Hidden Society

by R. Chauncey

  “Wait a minute,” he said. “How do you know I got a flash drive from Mr. Franks?”

  “Because he told me years ago someone would come to meet me with information about the Hidden Society, and a flash drive is a convenient way to carry such information.

  And you just told me you got a flash drive from Julian Franks.”

  “Yes, I did, didn’t I?” he asked. “This headache and that painful lump on the back of my head is confusing me.”

  Marajo said nothing.

  “Then you believe me?” he asked as he looked around for his hat.

  “Give me your wallet?” she said.

  “Why?”

  “Give it to me!”

  He stood up and unzipped his parka from the bottom up to his stomach and reached into his front left pants pocket and took out his wallet and tossed it to her. He turned around and looked on the other side of the cot and saw his hat lying on the floor. He sat down and leaned over and picked it up, but didn’t put it on his head. The lump on the back of his head was too sensitive for his hat.

  I’m slipping, she thought. I should have taken his wallet earlier when he was unconscious. She placed his wallet on the wooden table next to her and reached into her parka pocket and removed her com-cell. “Turn around with your back to me. Put your hands on the cot by your sides where I can see them. And don’t argue with me. I’m tired and not in the mood for an argument.”

  Larson did as she said, thinking, She’s not in the mood for an argument. Hell, neither am I! And my head hurts.

  She placed the pistol on the table and opened his wallet to his driver’s license, removed it, and removed her com-cell from her coat pocket and punched his driver’s license number into her com-cell. Within a minute she had everything about him on her com-cell. From his date of birth, schools he graduated from to his marriage, divorce, bank accounts, mortgage, and when he paid it off to the title of his first novel and his literary agent’s name, home phone number, com-cell number.

  “Your mother’s maiden name was Ruby Lockers. She was born in a small town in Louisiana, and moved to Chicago, Illinois when she was young where she met your father a few years later who was also born in a small town in Louisiana,” she said. She returned his driver’s license to his wallet, and put her com-cell back in her pocket.

  “How do you know that?” he asked without turning around.

  “We live in a world, Mr. Western, where getting information on people is easy, if you have the proper equipment.”

  “Paul Duffy’s all-purpose chip,” he said. “You’ve got one.”

  “The chip was important, Mr. Western, but it’s what the Society did with the chip that gave them the ability to go anywhere in the cyber world they wanted to go whenever they wanted to without anyone knowing it.”

  “And you’ve got that chip in your com-cell?” he asked her.

  “Yes,” she answered.

  “Julian gave it to you?”

  “Yes.”

  Larson thought for a few minutes then said, “Software. That’s what makes the chip so valuable to the Society.”

  “Exactly. Software only the Society has and no one knows about.”

  “They’d have to update it every year or so,” he said.

  “They do. Their software experts are members of the Society and the best in the world. And they are all one hundred percent loyal.”

  “So all of this nonsense about a Hidden Society is really true?” he asked. The pain in his head had lessened some, but not the lump on the back of his head and he still felt terrible.

  “Yes, all of it,” Marajo said.

  Larson shook his head and asked, “What about me?”

  “I have two choices. Kill you. Or let you join with me in exposing the Society.”

  “Which one do you intend choosing?”

  “My options are very limited.If I kill you the Society will find me anyway, because of your stupidity. If I let you join me, we could both fail. And everyone we love will die terribly painful deaths, and Julian’s fear of what the Society will do to the world will become a reality.”

  “Since Julian told the truth on that flash drive, my options are the same as yours, Marajo.”

  “We both appear to be fucked.”

  Larson yawned and said, “So we join forces and avoid trying to be fucked.”

  “So the situation appears, Mr. Western,” she said as she put the pistol in her coat pocket. “Turn around, Mr. Western.”

  He turned around to face her, and was glad to see she wasn’t holding the pistol.

  “The absence of the pistol says we’re allies?” he asked.

  “It says I’ve no choice, Mr. Western, but to work with you.” She tossed his wallet to him. “And neither do you.”

  “Call me Larson, Marajo. You don’t mind Marajo, do you? I don’t know your last name.”

  “No, I don’t mind Marajo, Larson.”

  “So we’re going to allies. How much time have we got?”

  “As of this moment, the Society’s soldiers are hunting me and you. By now they know or at least suspect I’m alive. Where? They probably don’t know yet. But it won’t take them much time to find out. And once they’ve located me finding you will be much easier.”

  “I shouldn’t have used my real name. Should I?”

  “All that is prologue as the saying goes. What we’ve got to do is find out where the Society keeps its information and reveal it to the world. Then we will be safe.”

  “They’ll be too busy running and hiding to care about us,” he added.

  “Or hiring high priced lawyers to lie them out of the mess they’ll be in,” she said, standing up.

  “But we’ll be safe and our families, too,” he said.

  “Yes, but only if we are successful,” she replied.

  As he stood up and put his wallet back in his pocket, he said, “I know where they keep their information hidden. It’s on a chip I’ve got.”

  Her mouth fell open in surprise.

  He looked at her. “You look surprised.”

  “I am,” she said.

  ***

  Chapter 13

  January 6, 11:54 p.m. Hidden Society Main Headquarters

  “I’m tired,” Betty announced. Her long face showed she was tired.

  “I’m fed up,” Willow said.

  “We’re all tired and fed up,” Karl said. “But we’ve got to find out where this woman Marlene Done would have gone.”

  “Assuming, of course, she isn’t dead and was a part of Julian’s plan to expose the Society,” Betty said.

  “Got anything new, Dodge?” Karl asked looking at his back.

  Dodge was busy working though he was exhausted. And he didn’t want to help them anymore. He didn’t want to be a part of the Society anymore. But he had little choice. “No,” he said. “Nothing new on Marlene Done. If she’s alive, she’s as invisible as the wind.” He knew where they should start looking for her, but he wasn’t going to say. Let one of them do some positive thinking for once.

  “Let’s get some sleep. And start again tomorrow,” Betty suggested.

  “Agreed,” Karl said. “We’re all half asleep anyway.”

  “Agreed,” Willow said standing up and stretching. He opened his mouth and made a loud yawning sound, dropped his arms by his side and said, “When we come back let’s start with Paul Duffy. Like you said, Karl, whoever Julian gave that flash drive to they’d verify Paul Duffy’s existence before believing anything on the drive.”

  Dodge
didn’t like hearing that.

  *

  Saloon Lounge of the Ames Ranch and Hotel, Midnight

  Derrick hadn’t gone home though he would have preferred to. But he had important business to tend to before he left for Big Sur on Tuesday morning the seventh. Once his business was finished all he’d have to do next was make sure Karl and his soldiers cleaned up the mess Julian had created for him. And then have them killed. There was no sense in leaving loose ends.

  He was sitting in a dark corner of the Ames Saloon Lounge waiting for Dorothy Mayberry to arrive. He was hoping she‘d arrive soon so he could find out if she had done as he’d told her so he could finish his business before he left. He started to look at his watch when he heard the employees’ door to the left behind the bar open. Always on time, he thought.

  Dorothy Mayberry looked nothing like the special soldier he had selected from

  among the Society‘s soldiers. She was five-five without shoes – she never wore heels because they were too hard to run in, was at least a hundred and forty-five pounds, she had wide fleshy hips and thighs, and a behind that attracted the attention of men who liked large fleshy hips and thighs and big asses on their women. Her breasts were a nice attractive size, but men who liked big ass women, like Dorothy, were seldom interested in tiny tits on such women, so hers were a necessity to complete her as a desirable woman for such men. She had short, black hair cut in a page boy style, and a pleasant, but not attractive face with a cute button nose. And she wore granny metal glasses, and looked ten years younger than her fifty-two years.

  She didn’t dress in the latest fashions. But in common styles that no one noticed.

  Physically she was as common looking as a woman could be. The kind of woman who attracted the attention of men who liked big ass common looking women and fortunately for her, big tits and Hollywood skinny was still the sexy look among western women which made Dorothy invisible to most men and women. People saw her, but didn’t really remember her.

  She was also a trained, experienced killer. Dorothy could drop a man dead with a pistol or semi-automatic at sixty yards with one shot. She was also an expert in the martial arts, and she had given a deadly demonstration of that expertise to two men as a soldier many years ago. Two fools who thought, because of her common looks, they could do as they wished with her. She had an excellent memory and an intelligence level that was above average, and she was also a very good arranger.

  Dorothy looked toward the right end of the bar and saw Derrick sitting at a corner table next to a wall where he could see anyone passing by the wall of windows to his left without being seen by them.

  Like many soldiers of the Society, Dorothy was following in the footsteps of parents and many great grandparents. In her case, it was her grandmother’s going back seven hundred years and her mother. Her grandfathers and father had also been soldiers, but not of the high quality her grandmothers and mother had been. In her family the women had always been the best killers, but they had always been in love with their men and fiercely loyal to them. But both the men and women of her family did as they were told and never caused trouble for any leader, which put them in high standing with the leaders. Her family history and reliability were the reasons why she’d been chosen by Derrick.

  She had worked exclusively for Derrick for the last twelve years of her twenty-seven years as a soldier, and she knew his habits better than he knew she did. She looked at the curtained windows, saw no one in the corridor outside then walked silently toward his table. She knew the corridor would be empty. She had accessed the security cameras on her way to the saloon with her com -cell and checked the corridor around the saloon. The whole area was off limits to the hotel’s guests. A ‘Remodeling Under Way’ sign answered guests’ questions as to why the area was off limits to them.

  And there were remodeling being done on this section of the building to make it more attractive to guests. Lawrence believed in keeping his guests happy so they’d keep coming back, and he was successful in doing that.

  She walked to the table dressed in the casual western style popular among the Ames

  Ranch and Hotel guests, jeans, western style shirt and flat heel cowboy boots, and stopped.

  She waited for him to ask her to sit down.

  “You arranged things as I requested?” he asked her. It would never have occurred to him to ask her to be seated. She was, after all, just a soldier, and according to his thinking inferior to him.

  “Yes, sir,” she said her voice flat and emotionless to hide her feelings of contempt and hatred for him. The thought of pulling out a chair and sitting down without his saying so crossed her mind, but she dismissed it. As long as he thought she was just some plain Jane soldier afraid of him who did as he told her, he would never think once about her except when he wanted her to do something which is how she liked their relationship. The fact that she had killed sixteen people for him over the last twelve years without ever showing any fear or making a mistake wasn’t important to Derrick. Just that she had done as he told her, and had done it efficiently and quietly.

  “Has that ass Lawrence asked any questions?” he asked, without looking up at her.

  “No, sir,” she replied. “I am nothing but another guest to him. I’ve managed to do as you ordered without him knowing anything.”

  “You’ve kept an eye on Karl and the thugs he’s got working for him?”

  “I’ve accessed the computers and com-cells he and those working with him are using and downloaded everything to your com-cell, sir,” she answered.

  Few knew it, but Dorothy was also skilled in the use of computers. It was a skill she had taught herself many years ago, and kept up with.

  Derrick looked up at her as if he had just become aware of her presence. “How are they doing?” he asked.

  “They are still trying to find a lead on someone known as Marlene Done. So far they’ve got nothing.”

  “Stay on them and remain invisible,” he ordered her as he stood up. “Must go,

  Dorothy, my guests await me.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said, stepping back like an obedient slave which is how she sometimes thought of herself to allow him to walk pass her.

  He walked pass her without saying good-by, goodnight, or sleep well. She was nothing to him except a soldier who killed for him and she knew that.

  *

  Conference room of the Hidden Society

  The Council of Twenty didn’t meet that often, three times a year, but when it did meet it demanded and got a lavishly furnished conference room in which to hold those meetings, even though the meetings seldom lasted more than a few hours. Like the other two conference rooms, one in a private lodge in the mountains of Switzerland the other underground on a Jamaican coffee plantation owned by a member of the Society. This one, half a mile behind the underground headquarters and four hundred feet underground, provided the Council of Twenty with every comfort it would need for a meeting. Including underground parking for their expensive cars, as well as a private road disguised to look like the surrounding wilderness terrain. There was also a bar with the best in food and alcoholic beverages, and comfortable chairs arranged around an expensive, polished ebony wood table. And clean bathrooms with cotton towels for both women and men.

  All of this had been setup by four soldiers who asked no questions.

  Access to the underground garage was through a stone door on the side of the hill the conference room was under. It moved to one side and was four feet thick, twelve feet high, and twelve feet wide. The parking spaces in the brightly lit garage had the names of each member of the Council painted on the ground in bright yellow paint. Every member of the Council of Twenty wanted to feel special.

  A carpeted, w
ell lit corridor led from the lighted garage to the conference room. Garage, corridor, conference room, and control room where the computers were which controlled the doors leading to the garage were all provided with fresh air from air-conditioning units on the surface cleverly designed to look like the natural rock formation of the cliff the conference room was hidden under. The door from the garage to the conference room was also four feet thick, twelve feet wide and twelve feet high and as sound proof as the door to the underground garage. Only the members of the Council of Twenty and the leaders who attended were allowed to know what discussions took place inside. Once a decision was made the other members and soldiers were informed through their com-cells. Members could dispute a decision and demand another Council meeting. But once a final decision was made complaints about the decision were not permitted.Obedience was mandatory.

  As Derrick rode underground in a private electric cart down a corridor no employee or guests knew about that lead from the Ames Ranch and Hotel and pass the Society’s underground headquarters, he looked at a diagram on the computer screen on the dashboard of the cart of the conference room, corridor leading from the Ames Ranch, and the corridor leading from the conference room to the garage. He was glad this secret conference room had been secretly built more than seventy years ago on the orders of the Council of Twenty and the three leaders. All the soldiers who had worked on it were long dead – of old age, and no one knew about it or the other conference rooms but the members of the Council of Twenty and Lawrence Ames, who was nothing but a gutless coward. Once Julian’s flash drive had been recovered and the person with it killed, Lawrence would die in some sort of accident. He was too public a person to be killed and dumped in the desert.

  Derrick stopped the cart outside the control room of the conference room and got out and entered the control room and closed and locked the door. He walked to a desk with a computer control panel on it and sat down.