The Hidden Society

by R. Chauncey

  Betty looked at him with an angry expression on her face and said, “If I’d known you were going to be such an asshole when you make sense, I’d asked Karl to let me work with him.”

  “Yeah,” he said, turning and looking around the backyard. “Karl has such a warm, friendly personality.”

  “Fuck you, Dodge,” she replied as she turned and looked in the direction he was looking.

  They both turned around and looked in the side window of the garage again when someone behind them spoke.

  “Looking for Ms. Smith?” a young male voice asked.

  Both turned slowly toward the voice as if they didn’t want to alarm the person by suddenly turning. They knew a slow calm turn tended to put people off their guard making them more vulnerable. It made people think they were harmless or frightened of them giving those people a false sense of safety and them an edge. Both slipped their right hands into the right pockets of their parkas where their weapons were.

  A teenage boy holding two full black plastic garbage bags in his left hand was standing next to a large, green plastic garbage can and staring at them with a friendly smile on his face from behind a fence in the next yard that bordered an alley. He was wearing a short brown leather jacket and no hat over his long black hair.

  “Yes, we are” Dodge said in a friendly voice. His cold face was hard. “Have you seen her?”

  “Naw, not since three this afternoon on my way home from school. You guys here about that Toyota Highlander?” He raised the lid of the garbage can with his right hand and raise and dropped the two garbage bags inside. He released the lid and it closed with a bang.

  “Why yes,” Betty said. “We heard about it. Is it as fast as we’ve heard?”

  “Aw,” the boy said with a big grin. “It’s a sweet ride, but not very fast. Built high, too. At least two feet off the ground and it’s got an excellent suspension system. But it can go zero to sixty in under twelve seconds.”

  “Safe?” Dodge asked.

  “Yeah, real stable. Even off road. She gave it a wide suspension system to make it a stable ride, and put them extra wide all terrain tires on it. Must have cost her a thousand a tire.”

  “Did you see her leave?” Betty asked him.

  “Yeah, about three this afternoon like I said. Saw her on my way home from school. She asked me to keep an eye on the place. Nice lady. Cold out here,” he said as he headed back to the light coming from the open kitchen door of his home. “Bye.”

  “Wait a minute!” Dodge said. “What color is it?”

  The boy stopped on the stoop near the door and turned toward them. “It’s a sort of a dirty gray green color. That’s the only thing wrong with it. It needs a good paint job over all that primer.”

  “By the way what does Ms. Smith look like?” Betty said, smiling at the boy. “We haven’t seen her in years and she may have changed her appearance a bit. You know how we women are about our looks.”

  “Average looking older woman,” the boy said. “About five seven. Fat shape.”

  “Thanks,” Dodge said.

  “Bye,” the boy said again and disappeared into the house closing the door.

  “She’s Marlene Done alright. The Beaver Bay newspaper said she was about five seven,” Betty said. “And she’s made contact with whoever Julian gave the drive to.”

  Dodge looked at his wrist watch. It was 7:30 p.m. “And she’s over three hours ahead of us,” Dodge said. “And we don’t know where she’s going.”

  Their com-cells rang. Each pushed their parkas back a few inches and reached into their pants pockets and took their com-cells and answered the call.

  “It’s from Karl,” Betty said, looking at an eighteen digit number with two letters of the alphabet in front of the first eight numbers and two letters in front of the second eight numbers with Karl’s name under it. “What are those numbers?”

  “They’re map coordinates,” Dodge said, looking at the small screen on his com-cell. “And detailed ones, too.”

  “Where the hell are they?” she asked.

  He punched the numbers and letters into his com-cell and typed ‘locate’. A second later the exact spot appeared on his com-cell monitor with the state name.

  “I don’t exactly know where,” he said. “But these coordinates are for some place in Nevada.”

  “Why would Karl send us map coordinates in Nevada?” Betty asked him.

  “Let’s call him and find out,” Dodge suggested as he dialed the number of Karl’s com-cell. No one could hear them because the Society had its own special frequency.

  “Karl here,” Karl said. “What did you find out?” He knew it was Dodge from the caller id number on his com-cell.

  “Marajo Smith is probably Marlene Done and she’s gone,” Betty told him over her com-cell. She had the same frequency.

  “Do you have a description of her?”

  “Poor one given to us by a teen-age boy,” Dodge said. “He said she was average looking about five seven with a fat shape.”

  “Is that all?” Karl grumbled at them.

  “We got that from a teenage boy, Karl,” Betty said. “If she looked like some young sexy, skinny Hollywood star he would have given us the exact sizes of her boobs.”

  “Get back to headquarters. There are weapons and clothes waiting for both of you. And come to those coordinates. Drive don’t fly. Use the Land Rover,” Karl ended the call.

  “Why in Nevada?” Betty asked him as she put her com-cell in her pocket.

  “Isn’t it obvious, Betty,” Dodge told her as he put his com-cell back in his pocket and started walking toward the block the Land Rover was on.

  “No, it isn’t, Dodge,” she replied sharply walking beside him.

  “Marlene Done and her accomplice are heading there,” he said. “How Karl found out I don’t know. But when they arrive Karl and Willow will be waiting for them.”

  “Why did he tell us not to fly?” she asked him.

  “I don’t know but let’s get back to headquarters and get going to those coordinates,” he said. “Once we get on the road we can call Karl and tell him we’ve got a description of the car Marlene is driving.”

  ***

  Chapter 22

  Tuesday, 10 p.m. January 7

  Larson woke up with a start. As if something terrible was in the motel room with him and Marajo. He lay on his back for a minute before he sat up and put his feet on the carpeted floor. It was warm and that made him happy. He didn’t like putting his feet, even with socks on, on a cold floor. The chill from the floor ran through his feet to his legs and to his body. He wasn’t young anymore and he was a bit more sensitive to cold floors than he’d been when he was younger. He knew he could adjust to the cold once they started on the road, but he also knew he wouldn’t enjoy it.

  He turned to his left and looked at Marajo. She was lying on her left side sleeping quietly as if she didn’t have a care in the world her chest falling and rising with every breath. She looked peaceful.

  “Years of hiding from monsters has apparently taught her how to control her fear and get a good night’s sleep.

  He looked at the telephone on the night stand next to her and saw the time on the cradle.

  10 p.m.

  He looked at his watch. 10 p.m. He looked back at Marajo and shook his head thinking, she probably hasn’t had a nightmare in ten years.

  It was dark outside and he couldn’t hear the noise of traffic on the street, but he did hear the roar of planes coming and going from the airport. Everyone else, except night workers, was probably at home in bed.

  He got
up and walked to the window and pulled back a corner of the heavy beige drapes and the thin white curtains and looked out.

  There wasn’t even a moon out and no clouds that he could see. The clear sky had a few bright stars in it the city lights couldn’t hide, and a foot of snow on the ground meant the temperature was probably at zero or below. He secretly wished he was back at his warm home in Oak Park instead of preparing to go on a wild adventure to expose a society of damn greedy, ruthless fools.

  Someone should have exposed those bastards centuries ago.

  He looked at the tops of the trees on the outside edge of the parking lot behind a dull grayish-green slapped together looking Toyota Highlander. Their branches weren’t moving. That meant no wind, but the wind chill was still probably low. He closed the drape and curtain and walked back to the bed around to Marajo’s side.

  “It’s dark out,” Larson said, gently pushing Marajo’s right shoulder.

  She snorted once, resisted waking up, then opened her eyes and looked into Larson’s face. “What?” she asked.

  “It’s dark outside,” he repeated as he turned and walked toward the bathroom.

  “What time is it?” she asked.

  “Ten o’clock,” he said as he closed the bathroom door.

  “I guess we’d better go,” she said, sitting up.

  He heard her through the closed bathroom door.

  “Yeah,” he said in a depressed tone of voice. In the back of his mind, he wished he could wish himself back home. Of course, that was impossible. Like it or not he was going on an adventure filled with the possibly of a violent, and probably, painful death.

  It took them only fifteen minutes to wash their faces, gather up their things – including the towels from the bathroom, and leave the room.

  “How do we get to where we’re going?” Larson asked, standing behind her as she closed the door of the motel room. “Take public transportation?”

  “It would be a little less conspicuous, but no,” she said. “That make shift looking Highlander across the lot is our ride. I told you about it.”

  Larson turned and looked at it. “I remember. It looks like it’s made up of rejected auto parts.”

  “No most of the parts are original and first rate,” Marajo said as she walked toward it. “I made it to go places other SUV’s can’t go. And it can go faster.”

  “Why?” he asked, following her.

  “You ask me that when we’re headed to a place where the Society keeps its information?”

  “Oh, yeah I keep hoping I’m having a terrible nightmare and I’m having trouble waking up.”

  “If we fail, neither you nor your family will ever have to worry about nightmares again,” she said, stopping at the driver’s door and taking a key out of her pocket. She stuck it in the lock and gave it a slight twist. A clicking sound indicated the door was unlocked.

  “Rare,” he said, watching her. “Keys to unlock cars have all been electronic since 2007.”

  She opened the door. “Electric key locks can be easily bypassed with a good com-cell and a little imagination. Simple key locks, on the other hand, are a lot harder to get pass. I don’t want anybody stealing this vehicle. I spent a lot of time and money building it, and I don’t want to lose it. I even took public transportation to work rather than drive it.” She pushed a button on the armrest unlocking all the doors. “You can get in now. Throw your stuff in the back. By noon I want to be way out in the country side with as few people around as possible.”

  “You opened the doors electronically,” he said as he watched her. “Why have a key when you can do that?”

  “First you have to open the driver’s door to unlock the others electrically,” she told him as she walked to the back of the Highlander and raised the back gate. She tossed her backpack and the other empty bag in the back. “Put your bag back here.”

  “There’s no way the Society can track this SUV?” he asked, walking around to the back of the Highlander and tossing his bag in the back next to her backpack. Then he walked to the passenger’s side and opened the door. Cold, stale air with just the hint of a woman’s perfume in it hit him in the face.

  “No. It’s just a simple SUV without any global positioning or trip recording devices in it,” she answered as she slammed the back gate close and walked to the driver’s side and climbed into the two foot high SUV. “I spent a lot of time thinking about what sort of car I’d need when Julian’s chosen person contacted me, and more time building it. My female neighbors thought me crazy. They thought I should have spent my time looking for a good man.” She reached out with her left hand grabbed a steel door rail just above the armrest and pulled the door shut.

  The door slammed shut with a thick and heavy sound.

  Larson pulled his door shut. “Sounds heavier than it feels,” he said. “You must have some strong hinges on the doors.”

  “The best heavy duty hinges I could find at the local junk yards. I got them real cheap, too.”

  Larson looked around at the gray clothe seats. He bounced once on the seat, and nodded his approval at the comfortable feel. “You should have been an electrical auto mechanic,” he said. “You would have made a good one.”

  “I use to work in my brother’s garage before I started college.” She started the engine. A soft whine came from the engine compartment. She shifted the gearshift to drive and looked at him. “I started working for Julian’s hardware stores two years after college. I gave up my life to help Julian expose the Society twenty years ago, Larson.” She paused and looked at him as she buckled her seat belt. “We can’t fail. I’ve sacrificed too much, and your family and mine with suffer terribly if we fail.”

  He didn’t want to respond as he buckled his seat belt. He kept thinking what a fool he was to go see Julian about that letter. He kept wishing it would all just go away. He refused to think about what would happen to his children and ex-wife - he still liked her and felt responsible for her, if they failed. “Don’t you think you should check out of the Motel?” he asked her.

  “I paid for ten days,” she said as she drove off. “I’ve been here only one day. They’ll consider the towels we took as an acceptable loss. Why don’t you crawl in the back and put your things in that extra backpack? It’s behind the backseat.”

  “Why did you choose a Highlander?” he asked.

  “I didn’t know what type of vehicle I’d need so I chose one that could go on the roads and across country,” she said. “Then I made changes to it that made it much better than the average SUV.”

  “Tell me how you got involved in all this to begin with,” he said as he turned around and moved with some effort between the seats into the backseat.

  “It’s a long, long story.”

  “We’ve got the time,” he said as he pulled the backpack over the back of the seat his traveling bag was on and opened the backpack.

  “Where are we going?” Marajo asked him as she drove out of the parking lot onto the street and turned right.

  “Head west,” he told her.

  “There’s a lot of west ahead of us, Larson.”

  “We’re going to the Simpson Park Mountains in the state of Nevada.”

  “Do you know how to get there?” she asked him.

  “I’ve got maps in my bag that shows where it’s at, and roads that pass by it,” he told her.

  “We’ll go overland,” she replied.

  ***

  Chapter 23

  January 8, 7 a.m. Big Sur

  Derrick hated leaving his comfortable house. But he had no choice. He had to make absolutely sure no one but he knew exactly where the Hidden S
ociety’s information was stored. If any of the other members knew where the Society kept its secret information, his assumption, by mass murder, of power would be threatened. It was his ace in the hole. No one would dare challenge his leadership if they knew he could ruin them all by the mere press of a button on his com-cell. So it was important that he travel to the site where the information was stored and make sure no one else would ever know the exact location.

  Karl and the three soldiers with him may know the general location of the information center – as well as Dorothy, but they didn’t know how to get inside the information center. That was a secret only he must know. Of course, there was the problem of Lester Painter and his helper Charlie Daniels, but they were minor problems he could handle after he’d disposed of this Done woman and her accomplice.

  The only problem was he’d have to drive himself, and he hated driving. Derrick felt it reduced him to the level of common people, and in his mind he certainly wasn’t common. Could some common Joe acquire the power he had? Was there some common Joe in the world with his intelligence, of course not! But once he reached the Simpson Park Mountains Dorothy would be waiting there to carry out his every command without question.

  Such a mess, such a terrible mess he had on his hands and all the fault of Julian. If only that damn fool brother of his had stuck to running his hardware stores and making money and enjoying the benefits of being a former leader of the Society like those two idiots and the Council of Twenty he had to kill did, he wouldn’t have this mess on his hands. But no! That fool brother of his had to develop a conscious. And all because he’d learned about the implants, and that he, Derrick, had murdered their father, as if that was rare among the members and soldiers of the Hidden Society.

  Derrick didn’t like admitting it, and had never admitted it to anyone but himself that it was his fault that Julian had learned about the implants. His killing of the two doctors, both members of the Society, who had implanted the chips into all the members and soldiers in 2055 had aroused Julian’s curiosity. Julian knew both doctors and knew them to be loyal members of the Society. Their deaths didn’t make sense to him, until he realized their deaths were necessary to hide something. It was his fault, Derrick reluctantly admitted, that started Julian’s quiet checking into their father’s accidental death. The damned old fool was in the way anyway. Their foolish father wouldn’t move a muscle without the approval of the other two leaders and the Council of Twenty. The old fool believed in tradition. Even though he hadn’t informed the other two leaders and the Council about the implants.