by R. Chauncey
Karl’s body was against a cubicle facing the door.
Charlie lay on his right side in a pool of his blood dead, and Lester was leaning against the side of a cubicle dead with his head resting against the stone as if he had crouched down to take a nap. A blood pool had formed around his knees.
Larson led the way out of the office with his weapon in his right hand pointing at the floor ready to be raised and fired if necessary.
“Who did this?” Marlene asked as she followed him on his left side looking around at the bodies.
“We did,” Dodge said from his position on the side of a cubicle to the right. He couldn’t see them but he’d heard Marlene’s question.
Larson and Marlene immediately ducked to the left and right of the opened door with their weapons pointed in the direction the voice had come from and dropped to couching positions.
“Who are you?” Larson asked in a loud voice.
“One of the two soldiers Julian recruited years ago to help you,” he answered. “You have nothing to fear. They’re all dead and Dorothy and I aren’t interested in harming either of you.”
“Where are you?” Marlene asked.
“Follow my voice,” he told her.
Larson looked at Marlene and said, “Seems safe. Or he would have fired upon us as soon as the door opened.”
Dodge heard what he said. “It is.”
Both rose to their feet and walked slowly and cautiously in the direction the sound of Dodge’s voice had come from with their semi-automatics tightly held in their cupped hands ready to start shooting if they were being set up. They stopped when saw him knelling in front of Dorothy holding her head on his lap.
Dorothy’s left shoulder was soaked with her blood. A pool of blood was forming on the carpeted floor in front of Dodge’s right knee. Her red lips stood out sharply against her extremely pale face.
Dorothy looked up at them and smiled and said in a weak voice, “So you were the ones Julian chose to expose the Society. You both did a very good for amateurs. I am so pleased to finally meet you.”
Marlene moved to Dodge’s right side, putting her weapon in her parka pocket, taking her backpack off her back, and kneeling next to Dorothy. She opened her backpack and took the medical kit out of her backpack, opened it, and removed gauge bandages from the kit.
“Too late for that,” Dorothy whispered in a very weak voice as she looked at Marlene.
“Much too late.” She closed her eyes and died.
“I don’t understand,” Larson said. “Exactly who are you two?”
Dodge moved back and gently lowered Dorothy’s head to the floor. He stood up and looked at Larson. “I, like my father, grandfather, and all the members of my family going back over five hundred years, worked for the Society as a soldier. One of my ancestors worked as a slave hunter in West Africa in the 1500’s for the Society. He was recruited and trained as a soldier and since then all the men of my family have served as soldiers. In the twenty-five years I’ve served the Society I’ve killed over a dozen people, women as well as men.”
Marlene stood up, leaving her backpack and medical kit on the floor. “But why did you help us?” she asked him.
Dodge looked down at Dorothy’s body, and corrected her question, “Why did we help you?”
Marlene and Larson said nothing.
“Julian knew the Society had grown too powerful and rich. He knew his brother Derrick,” he nodded in the direction of Derrick. “That thing over there would use the Society’s wealth and power to dominate the world. He knew his brother was a monster. So he recruited us to help stop him. He knew we alone couldn’t do it. As he knew you two alone couldn’t stop Derrick and exposed the Hidden Society. The Society watched its soldiers and members much too closely for us to try and reveal the Society’s secrets. No one but the leaders and maybe some of the members of the Council of Twenty knew where its information was kept anyway, but only the leaders had the codes and knew how to get into the centers and download the information. So he chose you two to do what he knew Dorothy and I couldn’t do. Our jobs were to protect you by removing obstacles the Society would put up to stop you.”
“Which one of you fired that shot that came from the right at that ambush just west of the Nevada border?” Larson asked.
“I did. I killed Betty another soldier and an obstacle to you and Marlene Done.”
“She didn’t know about you?” Marlene asked him.
“If she had, I’d be dead and so would you two,” he answered. “Betty was loyal to the Society, and an excellent soldier.”
“When were you and this lady recruited?” Larson asked.
“Her name is Dorothy. I don’t know her last name. She wouldn’t tell me. She said it wasn’t important,” he said, looking down at her body. “I didn’t know her first name or that she’d been recruited by Julian until I met her outside this cave.”
“Why wouldn’t she tell you her last name?” Marlene asked him.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe she just wanted her name to die with her.”
“Why?”
“Maybe she has relatives or someone she loved out there in the world who knew nothing about her and her involvement in the Society and she didn’t want them hurt once we had done what Julian recruited us to do. Or maybe she just wanted what she and her family have done for the Society to die with her.”
“What’s your name?” Marlene asked him.
“It is of no importance,” he answered.
“When did Julian recruit you and Dorothy?” Larson asked him.
He looked up at Larson with a hard look on his face and continued. “I was recruited fifteen years ago. Julian called me in on a kill mission when he was still a leader and told me what he wanted me to do.”
“How did he know you wouldn’t tell the other leaders about him?” Marlene asked him.
“A year before he told me what he wanted me to do he sent me out on a kill mission to kill a man who was standing in the Society’s way to gaining control of a new weapon system. He told me to kill only the man and not his family. He told me to kill him at his home while his family was asleep. That is never done by Society soldiers when we kill a person in their home we are also supposed to kill everyone in the house. Leave no possible witnesses alive. When I did as he ordered, he knew I was the man for the job he planned.”
“Because you didn’t report him to another member for ordering you not to kill the man’s family,” Larson said.
“It was a test,” Marlene said.
“Yes, I suppose. When I did as he ordered, he knew I was loyal to him.”
“So he chose you to help expose the Society,” Larson said.
“Yes,” he said.
“Did he use the same method to recruit Dorothy?” Marlene asked.
“I don’t know how he recruited her.” He looked down at Dorothy’s body as he spoke. There was the sound of sadness in his voice. “She wouldn’t tell me. He would have had to develop some way of testing her loyalty to him, or he would have been ordered killed by the other leaders and the Council of Twenty. Whatever way he chose to test her loyalty to him, she passed the test and Julian knew he could depend upon her.” He looked up at Marlene and Larson and said, “Julian apparently did a very good job of researching what soldiers and civilians he could rely upon.”
“So you two knew about each other?” Larson asked.
“No. Secrecy was an absolute necessity if we were to succeed. All Julian told me was I had to protect whoever he chose. He probably told her the same thing. I knew there had to be someone else helping me, because alone I would have been able to do nothing
. When I got a call a few days ago telling me about a tracking chip in my back, I knew I wasn’t alone. I didn’t know it was her until today. She found out about the tracking chip when she overheard Derrick tell Karl about it. She recorded it on a com-cell Derrick didn’t know she had.” He held up his right hand to stop them from asking questions. “Derrick had selected her twelve years ago to be his special killer. The fool didn’t realize she’d be listening in on everything he said, or he foolishly trusted her. Julian had recruited her a month before Derrick chose her. It was a stroke of luck for both of us and Julian, too, because Derrick didn’t know anything about us working for Julian until today. He didn’t know about Dorothy until she started shooting at him and the others.”
“So how did Dorothy know you were the other soldier Julian had recruited to expose the Society?” Larson asked him.
“When Karl reported to Derrick that Betty had been killed in an ambush we’d set up to kill both of you and I had been wounded, she knew no untrained civilians like you two could have gotten pass an ambush set up by two trained experienced soldiers like Betty and I. So she contacted me by com-cell and told me about the implanted chip in me. When I had it removed and Karl reported to Derrick I was dead, Dorothy knew I was still alive and that I was the other soldier Julian had recruited.”
“Julian didn’t tell me anything about this part of his plan when he convinced me twenty years ago to help him expose the Society,” Marlene said. “All he told me was to be patient and wait for someone to contact me. He assured me I would be contacted by someone who would work with me to expose the Society.”
“He couldn’t afford to,” Dodge said. “The Society’s resources are excellent. There was too much of a chance that you might do or say something that would expose his plan.”
“So you and Dorothy were our back up?” Larson said.
“We didn’t know who you were or how Julian selected you. All he told me, and probably Dorothy, was there would be someone unknown to the Society who would have all the information needed to expose the Society. When Julian gave you those two drives, he knew
Derrick would choose the best soldiers the Society had to find and kill you. He chose Karl because he was a killer who loved his work. And Karl chose me, Betty, and Willow because we were the best among the other soldiers. When Karl told us Julian was dead and what our jobs were, Dorothy knew about it because Derrick had her watching us, and she and I knew Julian’s plan had been put into operation.”
“So what now?” Larson asked.
“I’ll bury Dorothy out here in the desert somewhere and disappear,” he said.
“But you and Dorothy are in those files we downloaded,” Marlene said. “Every killing you and she ever carried out has been released to the world.”
That brought a look of concern to Dodge’s face.
“No they’re not,” Larson said.
“What’s not?” Marlene asked him.
“The files on Dorothy and this man weren’t among those we downloaded,” he said.
“How do you know?” Dodge asked him.
“Common sense,” he answered.
“What are you talking about?” Dodge asked him.
“When you and Dorothy didn’t tell the other members of the Society about Julian recruiting you, he knew he could trust you to do what he wanted you had to do. He had access to the files stored in the computers at all three locations because he was still a leader.”
“So he used his com-cell to remove their records out of the files,” Marlene finished.
“How did Julian know one of the leaders wouldn’t run a check on the files to make sure they were still in proper order?” Dodge asked. “Such a check would have revealed Dorothy and my files missing. That would have aroused suspicion right away. Especially after he gave the drives to Larson and killed himself.”
“Only leaders had access to those files,” Larson said to Dodge. “Correct?”
“I don’t know,” Dodge replied. “As a soldier I would have never been allowed to know about the Society’s files, or where they were kept. The only thing I knew was the Society kept records on all members and soldiers, and every one they did business with. I suppose it was the
leaders’ and probably the Council of Twenty’s way of keeping people who weren’t members or soldiers of the Society under control.”
“Julian knew once he was dead the leaders of the Society would start a thorough check on what he did before he committed suicide, and they would learn about the drives. They would know, or at least suspect, he’d given vital information about the Society to whoever he gave those drives to. Checking the files in the information centers became less important than finding the person with those drives. Me.” Larson said.
“I should have checked the files,” Derrick moaned. He had heard them. “I could have avoided all of this, if I had only checked the files of the soldiers Karl chose.”
Larson spun around immediately and pointed his weapon at Derrick. Marlene pulled hers out of her pocket and pointed it at Derrick.
Larson walked over to where Derrick’s weapon was and kicked it farther away and turned back to Derrick and leaned over and asked him, “You didn’t bother checking the files on the soldiers this Karl guy chose?”
Derrick didn’t answer. For the first time in his life Derrick was crying.
“He had Dorothy do that,” Dodge said.
“Anyway they had no reason to suspect the information in the files had been compromised,” Marlene said, putting her weapon away. “Julian knew he could delete your and Dorothy’s files from the Society’s records without anyone in the Society knowing about it.”
“In such a manner no one will know they were ever there,” Larson said, walking back to them.
“And what manner would that have been?” Dodge asked him.
Larson stared at him for a few seconds then put his weapon into his right parka pocket and took out his com-cell. “Remember Paul Duffy,” he said.
“That was the code to open the files for us, Larson,” Marlene said.
“Yes,” Larson agreed with her as a smile came across his face.
“What the hell are you smiling about?” Dodge angrily asked him.
“You guys don’t get it, do you?” he asked them.
“Get what?” Marlene asked him.
“Remember Paul Duffy wasn’t just a code to open those files, but also to delete the files on Dorothy and you,” he said, looking at Dodge. “He could have told me on that second drive to delete your files, but why take the chance? He knew Marlene and I had a very slim chance of being successful, so why endanger the lives of two soldiers who had been loyal to him.” He turned around and looked at Derrick. “He knew, or at least suspected, his brother would be smart enough to check the files on every soldier he’d choose to come after us, or have someone else do it and report to him.”
“So why delete our files and let Derrick know he had selected Dorothy and me,” Dodge said. He looked down at Dorothy’s body and said, “She told me not to underestimate Julian when we were outside the center waiting for the door to open.”
“She knew that Julian wouldn’t recruit you two to help expose the Society and then let you two fall with the others,” Larson said. “She probably didn’t know what he had done to protect you two. It would have been risky to tell her, but she knew he had done something. That’s why she told you not to underestimate Julian.”
“I wonder if she knew about Remember Paul Duffy,” Marlene asked.
“I don’t know and we never will,” Larson said.
“Which brings us down to the three of us,” Dodge said.
“Which means we go our sepa
rate ways and let the political leaders of the world handle the rest of the Society,” Larson said.
“How do we know they won’t use those files for their own purposes?” Dodge asked him.
“That’s easy,” Marlene said.
Dodge and Larson turned and looked at her and waited for an answer.
“The files were downloaded on the Internet,” she explained. “Everybody in the world with a computer will be able to read what’s in those files. No one will ever have the power of the
Society, and no one or organization in the world will ever try to gain such power.”
“Makes sense,” Dodge said, nodding. “Once the world knows what the Society has done no one will ever try to create such a group again, because the politicians and the press will be watching.”
“We hope,” Larson said. He looked at Dorothy’s body and said, “We’ll help you bury her.”
“No,” Dodge said. “I’ll do that myself.”
“Where will you bury her?” Marlene asked him.
“Out in the desert where she’ll never be found,” he said.
“And then you?” Larson asked him.
“I will disappear.”
“I suppose you’ve made plans for that?”
“I’ve always had a plan to disappear. Now that you and the lady have exposed the Society I will never have to worry about being hunted. I will be safe.” He wanted to add that his family would be, too, but he saw no reason to tell them he had a family.
Larson turned to his left and looked at Derrick. “What about him? Maybe we should call for medical help for him?”
“Let him rot right here,” Dodge said in a nasty voice. “He’s never given a damn about anyone else so why should we care about him now?”
Larson walked over to Derrick and looked down at him and asked, “I’m curious. Would you have really kept those promises you made to us when we were in that computer room?”