The Hidden Society

by R. Chauncey

  Maize nodded saying, “Okay.”

  Dodge backed away keeping the weapon pointed at her face.

  She dropped her hands from covering her breasts and privates and started to approach him then stopped and turned around and grabbed the towels holding them in front of her to hide her nakedness.

  As soon as they were in the bedroom, Dodge said, “Don’t think about going for the phone. You’re not as fast as a bullet.”

  “No, no,” she said. Her voice was filled with the sound of fear.

  Dodge backed to the bedroom door and gently kicked it shut with his right foot. “Is there a lock on this door?” he asked.

  “No,” she replied.

  “Put the towels on the foot of the bed, then go to that desk in the far corner and get the chair and put it at the foot of the bed. A yard from the bed.” He saw a questioning look on her face. “Don’t ask why, just do it!”

  Maize did as he said.

  “Do you have a pair of scissors in that nightstand?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Sit down in the chair and close your eyes. Don’t do anything stupid.”

  She did as he said putting her right arm and hand over her breasts and her left hand over her pussy.

  Dodge moved quickly to the nightstand and opened the top drawer and saw the scissors. They were heavy cutting scissors the kind people cutting clothe used. He took them out of the drawer, closed the drawer, and walked to the bed. He stopped on the side a few yards behind her and placed the scissors on top of the towels. “You are going to do me a favor. I will not harm you if you do exactly as I say. Understand?”

  “Yes, I understand,” she said, keeping her eyes closed.

  “You will turn around, pick up the scissors and cut the towels into long strips. No wider than two inches. And don’t take a lot of time doing it. Then you will turn back around and face the front with your eyes closed. Understand?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Do it,” he ordered.

  Maize did exactly as Dodge said within a few minutes then turned around and closed her eyes.

  “Now listen carefully,” he said. “I’m going to tie you to the chair. Don’t be afraid.”

  Maize started to cry sobbing softly as she prepared herself for the worse.

  “What is your name?” he asked her. He didn’t want to use her name without asking her what her name was. She might remember him from the restaurant.

  “Maize,” she said between sobs.

  “Remain still and keep your eyes closed.”

  Maize nodded.

  Dodge knelt in front of her and quickly tied Maize’s ankles and legs to the legs of the chair then tied a strip of towel tightly around her waist securing her to the chair. He left her arms free. He ignored her crying hoping that it would make her helpless and obedient, which it did. When he was through, he stood up and walked in front of her and said, “I need your nurses’ skills, Maize. So you must stop crying. If you don’t I will kill you and leave you for your neighbors to find. Can you do that?”

  She nodded still crying.

  “I don’t have time to waste. If you don’t stop crying, you won’t be able to help me, Maize. And I will have no choice but to kill you.” He walked to the nightstand and picked up the box of tissue on it and brought it to her.

  “I’ll, I’ll stop. I’ll stop,” she said, between sniffles.

  He held the box of tissue out for her. “Take a few, blow your nose and dry your eyes. You must be calm for what I want you to do.”

  She pulled three tissues from the box, blew her nose, and dabbed her tears away.

  “Are you in control of yourself?” he asked, backing to the dresser facing her.

  “Yes. I’m okay now,” she said, looking up at him. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Drop the tissues on the floor,” he told her.

  She did as he said.

  “Don’t be foolish, and don’t be afraid. I’m not going to harm you. I need your help,” he warned her as he placed his electric semi-automatic on the dresser and removed the backpack from his back and then his parka dropping both to the floor.

  She watched him removed his shirt then his undershirt wondering what this mad man had in mind?

  “Don’t be alarmed,” he told her as he bent down and picked up the backpack and opened it. He removed a small medical kit from the backpack and sat the backpack on the floor next to his parka. He placed the medical kit on the dresser and picked up the semi- automatic. “I’m going to kneel in front of you and place my head in your lap. I’m not going to do anything freakish. I want you to feel along the upper part of my back around the shoulder blades for anything that feels odd. That’s why I didn’t tie your arms and hands.”

  “Feels odd?” she asked, looking at him with a curious expression. Her face was still white with fear.

  “Feel for something that shouldn’t be there,” he said, kneeling down in front of her. He placed the barrel of the semi-automatic against her left side then leaned forward placing his face in her naked lap. “Feel now. You’ve got trained nurses’ fingers.”

  Maize didn’t know what to make of this masked stranger and his unusual request, but she did as he told her.

  “Don’t worry about my spine,” he told her, pressing the muzzle against her left side. “If you try anything foolish, I’ll squeeze the trigger and kill you. Do you understand?”

  “I, I, eh, understand,” she mumbled her mind a maze of confused questions.

  “Okay,” he said. “Feel along my upper back.”

  She carefully ran her fingers over his left shoulder blade down to his rib cage. Pressing gently as she’d been trained to do as a nurse. Then she did the same to his right shoulder blade down to his rib cage.

  “Feel anything?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said. Her voice was calm and she felt like she was in control though she knew she wasn’t. Some of the color had returned to her face. “I felt something round and small. Like a quarter or nickel.”

  “Where?”

  “Right under your skin near the bottom of your left shoulder blade.”

  “See a scar?” he asked.

  She leaned over, ignoring his face in her lap, and the barrel of the gun pressed against her left side. “No. Just the normal skin discolorations people have. Somebody put something in your back without you knowing about?”

  “How could that be done without leaving a scar?” he asked her.

  “Easy. Just a one inch cut of the outer skin, and then a solution to hold the skin together to help the skin quickly heal after whatever this was that was put in your back,” she said. “There would be no visible scar if the doctor took the time to follow the usual skin discolorations.” She leaned over and looked closely at the small lump. “That’s just what he did. He just slipped whatever is in you under the skin and then sealed it with some sort of skin glue.”

  “How long would that take?” he asked her.

  “A few minutes at the most if the doctor wanted to avoid infecting the cut.”

  “How could that happen without me knowing about it?” he asked her.

  “You didn’t know this was in your back?” she asked as she straightened up.

  “Answer my question!” he snapped at her.

  “The doctor probably used a local anesthetic to deaden the nerves of the skin,” she told him. “After he was finished, you wouldn’t have felt anything except a minor itch that would go away within half an hour.”

  “Is it removable?”

  “Yes, I think s
o,” she said as she leaned over and looked at the lump.

  “How could a doctor have done that without my knowing?”

  “He could have given you a mild drug to put you to sleep for ten minutes,” she said. “You wouldn’t have known about it or even thought about it if you trusted your doctor.” She examined the skin around the lump closely and added, “This was well done.”

  “But I would have felt the prick of a needle before I went to sleep,” he said.

  “Yes,” she said then added quickly. “But not if the doctor used a gas to put you to sleep.”

  Dodge remembered during one of his examinations by a Society doctor over twenty years ago who was a member that he’d gone to sleep on the examination table waiting for the doctor to come and examine him. The fuck pumped a gas into the room to put me to sleep. Then he comes in puts that damn tracking chip in me, and comes back after I wake up and gives me an examination and a clean bill of health.

  “Is it removable?” he asked her again.

  “I don’t know,” she responded. “But it’s not deep. Just below the epidermis.”

  “Easy to put in. Right?”

  “Yes, very easy with the right surgical instruments. It could be done in a few minutes in a doctor’s office as I said.”

  “Can you remove it?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “It could be attached to a nerve, but I don’t think it is. It’s so close to the surface of the skin. What is it?”

  Dodge suddenly stood up his face a mask of anger which she couldn’t see. “Son-of-a-bitch,” he spat out angrily. His eyes were dark and filled with rage. They tagged me like I’m some fucking nigger dog. And probably every other soldier. Trust the Council of Twenty and the leaders is the foundation of the Society. And they tagged me like I was a nigger slave preparing to run away.

  “Why would someone do that you? You’re not some escaped lunatic, are you?” she asked, looking up at him and hoping her question didn’t anger him.

  “Do they tag lunatics in crazy houses?” he asked.

  “It’s against the law to put tracking devices in human. People do that to dogs who like to run away,” she said. “Even criminals in prison can’t be tagged with a tracking device. That’s what that is, isn’t it?”

  “That’s not your concern,” he said, looking down at her through the mask and goggles. “Can you take it out without the person who put it there knowing it’s been removed?”

  Maize shrugged, “I suppose I could but I’d have to get some surgical equipment, and something to prevent infection.”

  He turned around and picked up the medical kit and opened it and held it before her. “Will this do?” he asked her.

  She looked at the medical kit noticing the antiseptic cream, surgical gloves, scalpel, and said, “Yes, I suppose so, if it isn’t attached to a nerve, and it is just below the skin. So that may mean it probably isn’t attached to a nerve.”

  “Then take what you need, and get busy,” he said, handing her the kit and knelling back down in front of her. “And remember, Maize, I’ve a gun pressed against your side. One pull of the trigger and the blast will go through you and out your right side. The pain will be so great you won’t be able to scream.”

  “I understand,” she said in a calm voice. Her fear was replaced by the questions of who is this man, and who did this to him, and why? She took the tube of antiseptic cream, opened it, and squeezed a small dab on her right hand, recapped it, and spread it all over her hands. “Hold the kit for me,” she told him.

  He took the kit from her with his left hand and held it up while she removed the surgical gloves and put them on then put more antiseptic cream on her gloved hands then she took the scalpel, wiped some of the cream from her gloves onto the blade of the scalpel.

  “You’ll have lean forward,” she said, looking at him.

  He started to turn around and put the kit back on the dresser.

  “No. Hold it your hand. I’m going to need bandages once I take that thing out of you.”

  Dodge leaned forward and put his face in her lap again.

  “Maybe you should have let me take a shower,” she said as she relocated the object in his back.

  “Your pussy smells delicious,” he said. “Plus the smell of you will help me ignore the pain. Be careful.”

  She removed half a dozen cotton pads from the medical kit and placed them on his back. Then spread some of the antiseptic cream over the area she had to cut then took the scalpel and started to cut him.

  “Hold still,” she said as she placed the sharp tip of the scalpel just under the edge of the lump and made a one inch half circle cut.

  He didn’t even flinch when she cut him.

  It took her less than a minute to cut an inch of his skin on the bottom and sides, pull it back, and expose the tracking chip in his back.

  “The chip is round and transparent with some wires inside it and about the size of a nickel. Smooth on top, but,” she grabbed the sides of the chip with the thumb and index finger of her left and hand and gently pulled up freeing it from him. She turned it over and looked at the bottom of it. “The bottom had four points on it. Probably leads to tap into your body’s electric energy through a surface nerve. I’ve seen heart pace makers that looked like this. Small, light in weight and uses the bodies’ electrical energy to run them. The new one aren’t like those old ones that used batteries that had to be changed every two or three years.”

  “Are you finished?” he asked.

  “Fortunately it wasn’t planted deep. Or I never would have found it. And there isn’t much bleeding because it was just below the skin. There won’t be any more bleeding once I’ve bandaged it. I don’t know who you are, Mister, but you need to report this to the police. Cause this is illegal.”

  “Finish!” he ordered her.

  Within a few minutes she’d put the flap of skin back in place, applied antiseptic cream, and bandaged the cuts.

  “Okay,” she said. “I’m finished. Don’t remove the bandage for a few days, and don’t get it wet. The cut should heal within twenty-four hours. So if you do get the bandage wet after twenty-four hours it won’t affect the cut.”

  “Mop up the blood on my back and put everything back in the medical kit,” he told her.

  “Except that damn chip. Drop it on the floor on your right side.”

  A minute later she said, “Okay, I’m all done.”

  Dodge stood up, and got dressed. He took the medical kit and put it back into the backpack, closed it, and took the tracking chip from the floor where she’d dropped it and put it in his right parka pocket. He put the backpack on and walked over to her nightstand and picked up the plain battery operated clock sitting on it, and sat it on the dresser in front of her.

  “Do you think that chip is still operating?”

  “No, because it used the electrical energy from your body as a power source.”

  “Put your hands behind your back,” he ordered her in a strong voice. “And don’t worry I’m not going to harm you.”

  She did as he ordered feeling she had nothing to fear from this strange man.

  Then he walked behind her and tied her arms and hands behind her with the remaining strips of towel. He placed a strip of cloth in her left hand.

  “What are you going to do to me?” she asked. Her voice again filled with fear.

  “Be quiet,” he told her as he closely examined the floor and her hands and arms for blood. There was none.

  “You said you wouldn’t hurt me if I did as you said,” she reminded him. “And I did exactly as you said.”

  “That clock says
ten twenty-five. I’m leaving. At eleven pull the strip of cloth I’ve put in your left hand. It’ll untie your hands and you can undo the rest of the knots. I’ll be long gone by then. And you can call whoever you wish and say whatever you want. But if you want to be a friend wait three days before you call anyone and tell them about this.”

  “Why three days?” she asked.

  “That ain’t your business, Maize,” he said, walking to the door. “Get dead bolt locks for your doors. And buy a small noisy dog. Good night.” He opened the bedroom door and left.

  By eleven ten he was back in the Chrysler and driving away from Hays. When he was two miles from Hays he took the tracking chip out of his parka pocket and tossed it out the window. Now you don’t know where I am, Karl, he thought. The odds are a bit more even.

  ***

  Chapter 48

  January 11, 10 p.m.

  Karl was confused and angry. He had searched every record the Society had on trained special operations soldiers a second time. Retired and still working. And every one of them, according to the Society’s computers, was accounted for. The Society even had records on those that were dead. So how the hell did a company receptionist and her unknown accomplice manage to survive an ambush Dodge and Betty had set up, kill Betty, wound Dodge, and render the Land Rover useless? Two of the three best soldiers the Society had. Not counting himself.

  “What you find?” Willow asked him. He was sitting next to the inferred unit looking at the blank screen.

  “Every special ops soldier of every government on this planet is accounted for,” Karl answered.

  “Maybe this woman Marlene Done and her friend were specially trained by Julian,”Willow suggested. “If Julian had been planning to expose the Society for years, he’d had enough smarts to prepare the people he chose.”

  “Then why did he kill himself?” Karl asked. “When you’ve got special op killers working for you, you don’t kill yourself after wiping out all evidence you had a visitor in a house that wasn’t supposed to be where it was.”