by T S Paul
“Simplicity my dear. Simplicity. I will have the house troops keep them occupied.”
Dar helped Boyle and Carter drag the two men out to the gate, Gaston followed along behind. Amalie’s house guard pulled up in an armoured vehicle and stepped out to take possession of the two men. The loud echo of a shot being fired cause everyone to hit the ground. One if the EMS workers stood nearby with a gun in his hand. As the Marines and security forces scrambled to react he turned the gun on himself and another shot echoed down the street.
Dar checked her prisoners. The major was dead. The point-blank shot was to the head. “Damn it to hell!” The other man was still living, but she suspected that he knew very little. She looked around at the various agencies present and shook her head. They could be anyone and anywhere. Capturing the Ambassador was priority one now. She yelled at her men and they returned to the embassy.
Wilson had already informed me of the bad news. “Dar, Wilson is stripping the databases looking for more information as we speak. We have to take Phillips alive. He is the key to all of this!”
Dar nodded her agreement. “Athena stay here please. Tell Wilson to reactivate the security cameras and monitor the situation upstairs. I will take my men and catch the rest of the rats. Stay safe.”
Gathering her three Marines, Dar began climbing the stairwell.
Ambassador Arthur Phillips was frantic. His embassy had been attacked! When the general alarm sounded he hid in his safe room awaiting the all-clear notice. Now the power was out and the sounds of gunfire and explosions was closer. Not a very brave man, Arthur hid under his desk. The sound of a doorbell made him jump and hit his head on the underside of the desk. Rising he rubbed his now aching head. The doorbell sounded again. Checking his outside cameras Arthur saw his wife Isabella at the door.
The wall receded with a hiss and gush of air. “Isabella, come inside where it’s safe.”
“Arthur, come out of that ridiculous hole in the wall. You are the ambassador. I doubt these invaders want you dead.” His wife had that look that meant he was being childish.
“Bella, they have to be here for that chit of a girl downstairs. Maybe they won’t come up here at all. Are the guards still at the doors?”
“Arthur, have you tried calling the local police? They can protect you!”
“You know we can’t call them. This is foreign soil, they have no jurisdiction here. We are on our own.”
His wife had the strangest look upon her face. They had been married for over ten years since shortly after the death of his first wife Margaret. In all that time she had never looked as she did now, Arthur was confused. Isabella cocked her head and looked at her husband. “Then I guess the game is up.”
“Game? What game? Isabella what is going on?” Her whole demeanor seemed to change. She now stood straighter and her vocal mannerisms changed.
“Silly little man, that is what you are. Never noticed the manipulations, the directions that you allowed yourself to be pulled in. It really is a shame though. You were starting to grow on me a bit. We shall never know shall we?”
“Know what? Isabella you aren’t making any sense! Whatever do you mean?” As he watched his wife removed a gun from a wall safe, he never knew existed.
“What it means, dear husband, is that it’s time for you to take your exit bow leaving me the unfortunate widow.” She pointed the gun at him.
“You want me to kill myself? Ridiculous, no true Phillips would ever disgrace himself like that! I won’t do it!”
“Who said that you had a choice in the matter? Monkeyshines!” When Arthur heard the code word he froze, his body was unresponsive. He was trapped in his own body!
“Amazing the conditioning worked. I wasn’t sure. I have had ten long years to work on you my dear. It really was not that hard to change a decision here, a contract there. You were too easily manipulated. We worked very hard to get me into the position of your wife. Margaret was only a stepping stone. I see from your look you figured it out. Yes, Margaret’s unfortunate accident was no accident. I pushed her myself actually.”
Arthur just stared in horror. This creature killed his first wife and then married him in her place? Who was she really?
Isabella smiled at her frozen husband. “Now why don’t you join her? I do need time to get a good cry on before the enemy arrives.” She walked his body over to his desk and pushed him down. Taking her gun she put his hands around it and held it up to his head. “Any last words my love? No? That's good.” She pulled the trigger.
Dar and her Marines were almost to the top floor when they heard the shot. They quickened their pace and burst through the doors into the ambassador’s office. The door to the safe room was open behind his desk. Ambassador Phillips was lying across his desk. His head was half gone, a smoking gun in his hand. Isabella, his wife was huddled in the corner of the room sobbing.
Chapter 8
The last of the Embassy Marines were found up on the roof along with the last intelligence goon from the basement. They were trying to contact someone in the city to send an aircar. Our rooftop snipers shot all but two with sleepy-time darts. The remaining two attempted to shoot it out with Dar’s Marines and were killed. I confronted Isabella the Ambassador’s wife myself.
“Mrs. Phillips while we are sorry for your loss, the death of your husband has left us with a great deal of unanswered questions.” I was watching the crying widow very carefully.
“… He just killed himself! He did not even leave a note or tell me why!” She continued to sob and cry.
“Ma’am can you tell us again the sequence of events?” I watched Dar and her men move in on all sides of the room.
“Why? I have told you the story already five times! I need to get out of here. I have family in the city I will go and see them! Let me go!” I smiled. She really was a good actress.
“Isabella why don’t you tell us the real story?” I switched on the large vid screen on the wall.
The screen lighting up caught Isabella’s eye. The screen showed the events of the past few hours in living color. “So, sure you don’t wish to change your story?”
“Impossible I turned those cameras off…” Dar caught my eye and smiled. Gotcha!
“With computers all is possible. So would you like to tell us who you really are? Cat got your tongue?”
“I am a Martian citizen! I demand to be released! You cannot hold me here! It is illegal on this planet.”
“What do you think Dar, should we release her?”
“I don’t know Ambassador. Why don’t you call your great-grandmother and ask her.”
“That is an excellent idea Dar.” The screen showing the video lit up as a connection was made. My great-grandmother appeared on the screen in front of our prisoner.
“Hello Granddaughter. Is this your prisoner?”
“It is. She’s demanding her release as a Martian citizen.” This should be good.
“Is she now? Well if you release her into my custody, I will find the truth out for you.” I glanced over at Isabella, the look of horror on her face said it all.
“Well, I suppose we can do that. She is a Martian citizen after all…”
“Wait, I’ll talk! What do you want to know?”
I turned and looked her. She was actually scared! I should ask Amalie about that one day. “We want to know everything that you know about the Cabal, all of it!”
“The story is really long. Do you promise not to prosecute me for what I say?” I glanced at the screen. Amalie had a stern look on her face.
“I will try to persuade the Martian Government not to if that is your condition. However, it really depends on what you say to us. Grandmother? What do you say?”
“I agree. I will withhold prosecution if you tell us everything that we want to know and I do mean everything.”
Martian prisons must be really bad. Isabella looked resigned. “I was recruited at an early age. Both of my parents were members. As a child I can remember go
ing to these gatherings. They alway explained it as Dad’s club membership. There was a picnic and a party. The adults would go to meetings and we would have cake and play games.”
“Do you know the name of this organization? The one your father belonged to.”
“Yes. It’s called the Round Table Charity.”
“Is it really?” Amalie looked very surprised.
“What is the Round Table Charity?”
Amalie did not let her tell me. “Athena, it is only the biggest and most exclusive charity organization on Mars. They support hospitals and send underprivileged children to college.”
“Yes, Ma’am. That is how they do some of what they do. The children. They recruit you early. Give you everything that you think you need. When you reach a certain age, they take it all away and dangle it in front of you. Join or lose it all. Most everyone joins.”
“What about those that don’t?” Amalie asked what I wanted to know too.
“It depends. If they know something or were legacies, they would have an accident or just disappear. The others would be shunned and cut off from any contact with a member.” Isabella had a sad look on her face.
“My parents took me to the parties and on vacation. I met other kids and made lots of friends. When I was fifteen my parents introduced me to what the Cabal really was. I was given a choice to either stay or go. The Cabal believes that at fifteen you are old enough to make a decision that will affect your whole life.” Tears were streaming down her face and she began to sob.
“Isabella are you alright?” I was concerned.
She waved me away. “Sorry. I hated it. The decision was the hardest thing I had done yet in my short life. My parents were there along with most of my older friends. I chose to stay. I had no idea that the two of my closest friends in the world chose to go. We three were inseparable our whole childhood. They rebelled and chose to leave rather than follow the ‘herd’ as they put it.” She smiled. “They were very independent. That is something that the Cabal frowns upon. Independence is not allowed. Control is their mantra. On the way home from the meeting the aircar they were riding in malfunctioned and crashed into a deep ravine. Rescue workers reached them too late. I will always ask myself if I had chosen to go, would they have killed me too? After that ‘demonstration’ they put the rest of us through our paces. I was sent to a private college where I learned both the basic education that everyone got and other things like infiltration techniques, spycraft, combat training, and intrusion.”
“I’m afraid to ask, but what school was it?” Isabella just laughed at Amalie.
“Sorry Primus, I shouldn’t laugh but you will see my joke in a moment. The school they sent me to was the Foucault Academy.”
“Athena that is the most prestigious finishing school on the planet. Is she serious?”
“The name is a joke Primus. It comes from a twentieth-century novel where an ancient Old Earth organization called the Illuminati is featured.” Both my grandmother and I froze at the mention of the word Illuminati.
I subvocalized, “Wilson would you please…” All I heard was Yes and then he was gone.
“Grandmother I sent a friend to go check it out.” She nodded at me. I looked at Isabella. “Is this school only for the Cabal?”
“Pretty much. I think they have a few classes not related to the organization, but everyone I met there was either a member or an affiliate. All of my classes centered around Cabal lessons. After my second year they began grooming me for my position as the Ambassador's wife.”
“He was married at that time, wasn’t he?” I was both fascinated and horrified at the implications of all what she was saying.
“Yes, his wife’s name was Margaret. You may have heard me tell Arthur that I pushed her? That is mostly the truth. Let me finish and I will explain. For two years they trained me to be the perfect wife. I was trained in every aspect of his life: Politics, his diet, hobbies, sports, and sexual preferences. I knew the man better than I knew myself. I was trained to understand what he liked and disliked. My training was almost complete when the Cabal tested me. Everyone is tested constantly for reliability and fervor to the cause. My test was the second hardest thing to do in my life.”
“What happened?”
“Margaret’s aircar was pulled off course by a malfunctioning GPS system. The Cabal arranged it to happen of course. She ended up in a mountainous region of Mars. Unable to contact anyone she was beginning to panic when the Cabal hit team arrived. She thought they were there to save her. She was wrong. I had been brought along to observe the whole thing and report back. It was also my test. I was given another choice. Either I push her off the cliff or I would join her at the bottom of the ravine. I made my choice and was officially inducted into the Cabal. My parents… My parents were proud of me! I later discovered that every member had done something similar as their test. After that it was child’s play to put me in the right place at the right time to meet and marry Arthur.”
“Did they keep in touch with you, give you orders to influence him?”
“Of course they did. I gave him regular drugs in his food or drinks that altered his memory. Agents sent by the Cabal used hypnosis on him and set certain trigger words in his brain. It was one of those that I used to help him kill himself. I have done so many horrible things in my life. I promise I will try to make amends before they kill me.”
“What do you mean by that?” I wanted to know too.
“There is no escape they always kill traitors or those that disappoint them. Rule one is…”
“Rule one? There are defined rules?”
“Oh yeah. There are three basic ones. Never tell anyone about the Cabal. Do not involve friend's and family in the Cabal, if the Cabal wishes a family member to know they will tell them. Assume that the Cabal knows everything. Breaking rules one and two are very bad for everyone.”
“How bad?”
“When the rule is broken they know. They always know. There is a group of assassins that protect and control the members of the Cabal. They are called the Wardens of the Gate. Most just call them the Wardens. The will kill the rule breaker and his whole family including any close friends and supporters. If possible, that person will just vanish from all records and accounts. Gone!” She pursed her lips as if in thought. “A good example would be Senator Colman. He was part of the Imperial Senate. Rumor has it he screwed up really badly. If you check, you will find that his whole family is gone. Any close friends have either moved or died.”
Amalie turned to her right and yelled at someone to check that out. Most likely Gaston since he was her go-to-guy. “We will check into it.”
“Your planet should look into Governor Norton. If he’s not dead yet he will be. The Wardens are very scary.”
“I witnessed a possible attempt when my brother tried to kill our father. He said something about gaining access to Norton’s prison.”
She nodded her head. “They are very good at worming their way into your life and then making you work for them.”
Amalie stared at her through the vid screen. “What about you? Aren’t you worried about your parents or close friends?”
Isabella began to laugh. “Close friends? What are those? No, Ma’am. I don’t care a bit what happens to my family. They are the ones that killed my friends all those years ago. My father owns an aircar repair service. I’m pretty sure he’s the one who made their car crash and explode. It doesn’t matter any more. The signal has been sent. They are coming for us.”
“Signal? What signal?”
“The main purpose of the Cabal is to infiltrate and subvert the galactic governments to prepare the way.” She looked at me. “You didn’t know?” She began laughing.
“What is it we are missing, child? Who are they preparing the way for?”
“It’s too bad I am no longer associated with them, they would love this conversation. They think that Norton told you already. The reason you were locked up Commander was they were afraid of
whatever the friend of yours, Sam, may have mentioned to you.”
“Sam? Why do they care about Sam?” Now I was puzzled. What did Sam have to do with the Cabal?
Isabella just shook her head. She looked up at the main screen and pointed at Amalie. “You old woman should have guessed the answer already. Earth is coming to claim the Galaxy for their own. The Cabal is just the stepping stone for that.”
Chapter 9
Minerva was just staring at the robotic cat on the table. It looked like a cat; it acted like a cat, but it was not really a cat. Wilson, that insane little AI created something here. She was not sure what but; it was not just a robotic cat! This thing was built at the new RAM factory maybe they could tell her what it really was.