by R. Chauncey
It was a simple control panel. It controlled the two stone doors leading from the Ranch to the conference room and from the conference room to the garage. And the door that led to the outside. As well as the air exhaust and intake fans from the conference room and garage, and all lighting and the intercom system.
Derrick pushed the two buttons that silently closed the two stone doors separating the control room from the conference room and the conference room from the garage, and locking them. There was no sense in creating a mess in the garage. The conference room would be permanently sealed hiding the mess inside. The other members wouldn‘t complain once they found out what he’d done. They would understand the extent of his control over the Hidden Society, and keep their mouths shut. All they were interested in was getting more money from the Society anyway to continue enjoying their luxurious pleasure filled lifestyles. And he’d make sure they got more money. When they did, they wouldn’t give a damn about who was in charge or how they acquired the power to be in charge as long as they weren’t bothered. Greed did have its rewards.
Then he turned on the computer screen that allowed him to be seen and to see the members of the Council of Twenty and the two leaders present. Then he turned on the intercom to the conference room that let him hear them and those in the conference room to hear him.
A few of the twenty heard the click and turned toward the seven by ten foot computer screen that hung on the wall facing the arranged seats in the conference room.
“Derrick is about to speak,” Sally Turbo said, turning from the handsome man she had been talking with to face the screen.
“The man does have a habit of interfering with your slut’s life doesn’t he, Sally,” John Lighter said before raising his fourth whisky and bitters to his mouth. He was drunk and unlike the other twenty-one members hadn’t been wondering aloud why Derrick had called this meeting of the Council of Twenty and two leaders. He intended getting drunker. There weren’t any young women around for him to fuck, so why not get drunk enough to pass out. He considered the women who were members of the Council of Twenty to be a bunch of old bitches far below his standards.
“Fuck you, John!” she shot at him.
He responded by finishing his drink and walking to the bar behind him for another.
“Good morning, my fellow members,” Derrick said as his face appeared on the screen. “I do hope you’re all quite comfortable. Plenty of food and drink I hope. I was going to provide you all with an early breakfast, but I realized it would have been pointless.”
“What time is it?” a female member asked.
“Twelve minutes after midnight,” Derrick answered.
“What’s the purpose of this meeting, Derrick?” Handle, a tall distinguish looking man with black hair that had a few streaks of gray in it along the temples, asked.
“I suppose by now Sally and John have told you about what Julian did,” Derrick said, ignoring Handle’s question.
“Yes, they have and we should have been notified immediately before you took any action,” Lucile a plump round pink face woman said. Though she was dressed in the best the fashion houses of Paris and New York could offer for a woman with her shape and money, she still looked like an overdressed plumb suburban housewife.
“You’re correct, Lucile,” Derrick said. His voice had a pleasant friendly sound to it, but there was no smile on his face. “But the way, you’re looking as lovely as ever.” He scanned the stylishly, and expensively dressed group of ten women and twelve men.
“Cut the crap,” Franken said. He was tall with a body builder’s physique. He was holding a drink in his right hand and standing behind Sally feeling her ass with his left hand, and knowing he was going to get more from her later on. “Get to the reason we’re here!”
Sally was trembling with pleasure and enjoying every squeeze and rub of her ass and anticipating more from him in her underground suite after the meeting ended.
“The Society has grown too wealthy and powerful to be governed by a Council of Twenty and three leaders,” Derrick began. “In this world of speed of light communications and faster than sound air travel the Society needs to be able to respond to any crises immediately. Not wait for a week, or even a few days, for the Council and leaders to meet, talk for hours, and then make a decision. Which any member can dispute and cause another meeting to be called. The Society needs a leader who can make a decision on his own, and implement it immediately. And make changes in that decision if the need arises just as quickly. Without bothering with some Council and other leaders at a meeting that usually results in nothing but drunks and drug addicts talking about their latest over-priced acquisitions.”
Derrick noticed Sally’s pleasurable expression as Franken stroked her ass and added, “Or latest sexual thrill.”
“So you want to make new rules for the Council of Twenty to vote on?” Charles, an average looking member in spite of his expensive hand tailored suit, said.
“Oh, no, Charles,” Derrick said. “I’m going to get rid of all of you.” He reached for the button that controlled the flow of air from into the garage and conference and turned it off.
The hissing sound of breathable air being sucked into the room and the corridor outside was so soft even an animal with extremely sensitive hearing passing a yard away wouldn’t have heard it. Shutting down the outside air-conditioning system didn’t make a sound either.
There was so much talking in the conference room among the Council members none of them heard the soft hissing sound.
“And how the hell are you going to do that, Derrick?” A man near the door asked in an angry voice.
“Simple. I’m going to kill all of you.”
“Like hell you are!” snapped an excellently bleached blonde said sitting at the conference table.
“He’s lying,” another female member said. She finished her drink and walked to the conference table and sat down.
“Absolutely,” a man with white hair said.
“The other members would revolt against you, Derrick,” John said. The sound in his voice indicated he wasn’t so sure that Derrick wouldn’t kill them.
“Don’t be foolish, John,” Derrick said. “The other members are like all of you. All they care about is their pleasures. And the money the Society gives them to continue enjoying those pleasures. Most don’t even run their front businesses. They’re run by non-members.” He paused and looked at them then continued. “Over the centuries the Hidden Society has become nothing but a collection of spoiled, rich, pleasure seeking asses who care nothing for the day to day operation of the Hidden Society. Well, I do.”
Sally detected a tone in Derrick’s voice that told her he may not be lying. She had never known him to lie or have a humorist nature. He was the most unemotional man she’d ever met. She pushed away from Franken and walked to the hand carved conference doors and opened them. She breathed a sigh of relief. Then she walked out into the corridor and looked toward the garage. She could see the metal door that lead to the steel and concrete door that separated the garage where their cars were parked from the corridor. She started to turn and walked back into the conference room when she realized none of them had soldiers with them. There were no soldiers around to help them if they cried out for help.
“I don’t think he’s lying,” she yelled back into the conference room.
“What do you mean?” asked one of the other female counselors close to the door.
“We’re here without help,” Sally told her. She walked out of the conference room into the corridor.
“So what?” the woman asked.
“We have to check the doors,” Sally said as she ran down the corridor to the metal door.
A half a
dozen members walked out of the conference room into the corridor and looked at Sally.
Derrick smiled as he watched them from the control room. There was a hidden camera in the center of the ceiling outside the conference room that allowed him to see everything they did in the corridor. “Show the corridor,” he said to the computer.
The camera in the ceiling of the corridor immediately showed the corridor on the monitor.
Sally reached the metal door, grabbed the knob on the wide door, turned it, and relaxed. Until she pulled the door open and saw a solid wall of the steel and concrete door a few yards away in front of her. She walked to the wall and pushed against it with all her strength. It didn’t move. She dropped to the floor in a sitting position and leaned against the door. It felt cool to her face. “Oh, please, Derrick. Please,” she whined.
“My God!” one of the women watching Sally screamed. “He is going to kill us!”
“We can move that door!” someone yelled as they all began to move toward the stone.
Expensive crystal glasses with expensive liquor in them were dropped on the expensive carpet on the floors of the conference room and corridor as they all rushed toward the steel and concrete door.
“Get her out of the way!” another yelled as some of them reached the wall.
Hands reached out and grabbed Sally and pulled her away from the door.
A few of the members stepped on her as she was pulled away and they rushed for the door.
Over a dozen hands pushed against the door trying to force it to one side.
Derrick looked at the temperature gage on the control panel.
It was eighty degrees and rapidly raising. A gage next to it showed the steady decline of oxygen in the conference room and corridor.
“You’re wasting your time,” he told them. “That door is four feet thick twelve feet high, and twelve feet wide. It weights over ten tons. And it is locked into place. The one leading from the garage outside is the same size and weight as well as the one leading to the control room I‘m sitting in. And they, too, have been closed and locked.”
Lucile was behind the group pushing against the door pushing against them. She was breathing hard and sweating heavily. Something she didn’t like doing because it ruined her expensive Paris clothes. “Why are you doing this?” she gasped as she pushed against those in front of her and hoped the door would move.
“I’ve already told you,” Derrick replied. He stood up.
“You son-of-a-bitch!” a few yelled at him while they pushed against the door or against others in front of them.
“I don’t think I’ll stay and watch you die, which shouldn’t be long since there’s no air being pumped into the corridor or conference room. You may consider me to be a monster for what I’m doing, and all of you will, but at least I’m not going to let you starve,” he said as he walked to the door of the control room. He unlocked it and opened it and walked out. The door closed behind him.
He got into the electric cart and rode it back to the hotel. As he did so, he used his com-cell to shut down the control room shutting off the lights in the conference room and corridor. When his cart left the corridor leading to the control room, the lights in that corridor went out and the steel and concrete door blocking it from the corridor leading to the Society’s underground headquarters slid into place and clicked shut. The air in-take units on the surface would slide down into the natural rock formations they were hidden in, and anyone walking around them, guests of the Ames Ranch and Hotel occasionally rode horses around the area, would see nothing but the beauty of the surrounding terrain.
When the temperature inside the conference room and corridor reached a hundred and seven, and breathing became hard, the trapped members of the Council of Twenty and the two leaders stopped pushing and fell helplessly to the floor. They lay in the darkness crying and pleading with Derrick for their lives and awaited death by asphyxiation.
*
Derrick didn’t know it, but Dorothy had watched and heard everything on her com-cell from her hotel suite. While she had done exactly as he had ordered, she had programmed the control room computer to allow her access to the computer. It was a primitive program that deleted itself as soon the control room computer was turned off. But her com-cell’s hard drive had recorded everything. She had programmed her com-cell so that it recognized only her finger prints and her voice. Anyone pushing a button on her com-cell or giving it verbal instructions would delete everything on the hard drive.
Dorothy turned off her com-cell, placed it on the night stand next to her bed, and walked into the bathroom of her suite and changed into her pajamas. The she turned off the lights in her suite, and got into bed and pulled the covers up over her shoulders.
As usual she had bolted her suite’s door and placed a chair under the door knob. Just in case. Dorothy was a woman who believed in being safe when she slept. Her weapon, an electric semi-automatic pistol was under her pillow where she could get to it quickly in case of an emergency, which she didn’t expect. If someone did try to force their way into her room, the sound would wake her – she was a light sleeper, and an excellent shot.
I must buy a basic com-cell and transfer everything on my com-cell’s hard drive to it, she thought. I’ll do that tomorrow morning after breakfast and hide the com-cell somewhere in the desert. She yawned and closed her eyes.
She was working for a madman who was capable of anything. But a madman smart enough to know she had arranged things in the control room for him to commit his mass murder. As she drifted off to sleep, she knew she was Derrick’s weak link, and she knew Derrick knew that, too. And Derrick Franks was a man who didn’t like weak links. But she was prepared. All she had to do was wait until the time was right. She didn’t know Karl or the three soldiers working with him, but she knew they were loyal and would obey Derrick’s orders without question. But she was positive Derrick provide her with the right time. And place.
*
Derrick rode the cart back to the private suite Lawrence had provided him with and stopped outside the door and entered the suite. He didn’t like it, because it was far below his standards for a place to sleep. But it was necessary for him to do what he had to do to guarantee the Society would survive with him as a the leader. In time he would eventually be able to dominate the world. He prepared for bed and five minutes later got into bed.
Now if that ass Karl and his thugs can find the fool Julian gave that drive to all shall go as I want, he thought before he closed his eyes.
Five minutes later he was sound asleep without any feeling of guilt.
***
Chapter 14
January 6, 2:45 a.m. In the abandoned cabin
Marajo wanted to ask Larson how he knew where the Society had hidden their information, but for the moment that could wait. There were more important things to do.
“I want you to go back to your hotel and check out today by 11 a.m. Then buy a ticket on the train back to Chicago. And go back to Chicago. And then get on another train and go to the Greens Motel in Wichita, Kansas. And use cash.”
“Why? Aren’t we going to work together?”
“They’re going to find out you came here. You left a trail a stupid man could follow. What we’ve got to do is convince them you’re not the one Julian gave information to about the Society. If we can do that, they’ll ignore you.”
“What about you?” he asked.
“I’ll disappear.”
“You’re not going to try and expose the Society?”
“Yes. With your help. We have no choice. Because of your stupidity.”
“Okay, I’m stupid,” he said in an angry voice annoyed at her use of the word s
tupidity a second time. “I’m new to this cloak and dagger stuff, you know.”
“Well, you don’t have much time for learning,” she told him.
“Alright, I’m willing to learn,” he said. “What have you got in mind?”
“This is what we will do, Larson,” she said. “You return home. Buy a seat on the train. Not a compartment. A seated passenger is harder to trace.”
“Where is this Greens Motel?” he asked.
“Buy a map in the train station,” she angrily snapped at him. “And take a bus not a cab the drivers kept records. Buy a bus ticket at the train station. Do you keep extra cash at home?”
“Yeah.”
“How much?”
“A little over four thousand dollars for emergency purposes.”
“How much have you got on you?” she asked him.
“About three thousand.”
“Bring all of it. Don’t go to your bank for more. Even if you use an ATM the Society is capable of tracing you.” She looked at his feet. “And wear warm clothing, and boots for outdoors. Not those damned city shoes you’re wearing.”
“Do you have a gun?”
“No. Can’t carry one on a train anyway. They have metal detectors, you know.”
“I’ll provide you with one.”
“I haven’t fired a rifle since I got out of the army more than thirty years ago.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll give you a quick refresher course.”
“Why a bus?” he asked.
“Buses record the number of passengers they carry and the tickets they use. Not the individual person,” Marajo told him.
“They have security cameras,” he said.
“Yes, but the tapes are kept only a month and reused unless a crime is committed on the bus, and the tape is needed in court.”
“If this Hidden Society is as resourceful as you are implying, a month is more than enough time to check bus company security tapes.”