The Illuminati (26 page)
“One thing about it,” the guard said in dead seriousness, “no one can deny we have a national emergency. You can't walk the streets of D.C. unless you're armed to the teeth. And if a civilian is caught with a gun, he's arrested; so only the criminals carry guns.”
“You said D.C.,” Elder interrupted. “Does that mean I'm being held in Washington?”
“You mean they didn't even tell you where you are?” the guard asked. “Actually, you're in Maryland, in the detention center at Andrews Air Force Base.”
Elder thought a moment before he ventured, “Can you help me?”
“I don't think so, Pastor. At least not right now. You're under constant watch and all the gates are locked tight. Maybe I can get some word out about where you are. Is there anyone you can trust that I can call?”
“The only person I know of is my attorney, Archie Warner, in Atlanta. If he knows I'm here, maybe he can help.”
“I'll try to reach him when my shift is over,” the guard promised.
“Thank you,” Elder responded. “I know Archie will do all he can.”
In the Oval Office, Kathy Alton was meeting with Cal Rutland and Russell Siever to discuss the Data-Net situation.
“Is there any word on Wells?” the new president asked Siever.
“None,” Siever replied nervously. “We have people out everywhere. He must have left Washington.”
“What about the girl?” Rutland asked.
“No word on her either,” Siever replied brusquely. The tension between Siever and Rutland was becoming constant now. Siever was determined that Rutland was not going to dominate him or make him the heavy in this Wells thing.
Trying not to show any reaction to Siever's obvious irritation, Rutland asked in a slow and calm voice, “Have you checked with Eison at Livermore to see if he's heard from her?”
“Of course we have!” Siever barked. “IfWells shows up there my men will call immediately. I'll get him. You do your job, and I'll do mine!”
“Easy, Dr. Siever,” the president said. “I asked Cal to ride herd on this problem. You will remember he has my full authority. We need to find Wells before something more serious develops. We have too much at stake to allow any problems at this point.”
Siever knew he had been outmaneuvered by Rutland again. He felt depressed and deflated. “I'll do what I can,” he responded dejectedly.
“You'll do better than that, Siever!” President Alton said sharply. “You will remember what is at stake here. We are talking about the future of the world. This is a battle we cannot afford to lose. We will not allow anyone to stand in the way. Remember that!”
Siever dropped his head. He was defeated. And he knew it. He had hoped President Alton might not rely as much on Rutland, but it seemed she trusted him totally. He was genuinely frightened for the second time in his life. He knew Rutland had directed Hunt's assassination. But even if he wanted to tell someone, who would it be?
Siever laid awake for hours that night, trying to think of an answer for his predicament. When he finally fell asleep, he became immersed in a familiar nightmareâone that had dogged him since one evening when he was eleven years old.
His father had been drinking heavily as usual and began arguing with Russ's seventeen-year-old brother, Ryan, about the loud rock music he had been playing. The elder Siever began destroying Ryan's CDs. The argument quickly dissolved into a minor shoving match and a major swearing match. Finally the father grabbed Ryan's stereo and threatened to smash it on the concrete driveway outside the second-story window.
Russ, who had been hiding outside the door listening to the battle in silent fear, rushed in, pleading with his father not to break the stereo. As he ran toward him, his father swung his free hand and cuffed Russ alongside the head, sending him sprawling across the floor. In a reflex action, Ryan hit his father with a solid blow to his chin; he went down, striking his head on the stereo cabinet.
Russ' mother came running into the bedroom just in time to see her husband hit the floor, blood streaming out of the wound on his head. The scene was chaos with Russ crying and blood covering the carpet.
“Ryan, what happened?” his mother screamed as she knelt down by her husband.
“He hit Russ,” a defiant Ryan said angrily. “I just hit him back. I didn't mean to hurt him. But he'd better not hit Russ again.”
Just then his father made a moaning sound and started trying to get up. The wound to his scalp was bleeding profusely but was not a serious injury. He looked up at his oldest son. “You get out of my house!” he growled through clenched teeth. “I don't ever want to see you again. You're straight from hellâyou're a demon!”
Ryan's mother tried to intercede, “No, Roy, he didn't mean it.”
“I want you out of my house, you devil,” the father ordered now that he had regained some of his strength.
“I'll go,” Ryan responded defiantly. “I don't need any more of your phony religion anyway. You're just a falling-down drunk, looking for somebody to save you from your own stupidity.” With that, he picked up his jacket and the keys to his Corvetteâa present for his sixteenth birthday.
“Oh, no, you don't!” his father snarled. “I paid for that car. You leave it here.”
“It's my car. You gave it to me,” Ryan protested.
“Well it's still in my name, and if you take it out of this driveway, I'll have you arrested for car theft!”
“Keep your car! I don't need anything you've got!” Ryan shouted as he threw the keys at his father and stormed out of the room.
Russ ran after his brother. “Please don't go, Ryan,” he cried. “Dad didn't mean it. He'll cool off.”
“I'm sorry kid, but I have to go. It's going to get worse around here with this Holy Joe stuff from him. He won't let up. Just don't let him con you into that junk, okay?”
“Okay, but where are you going? Will you call me?”
“You bet, kid. As soon as I'm settled, I'll give you and Mom a ring. Just remember, I'm your buddy. If anybody bothers you, you give me a call.”
With that, his brother left. Russ didn't know it at the time, but he would never see his brother again.
A few weeks after Ryan left, Russ heard the phone ring and picked up the receiver. His father had already answered the call and he listened in when he heard his brother's voice. “Hi, Dad. It's Ryan.”
“What do you want?” his father asked gruffly.
“I'd like to come home, Dad. IâI miss the family. It's been pretty tough these last few weeks.”
“Well, we don't want you back,” his father snapped. “You made your choice, now you can live with it. We're doing just fine without . . .”
Russ quickly shouted into the phone, “Dad, I want him back. Please let him come home. I love Ryan.”
“Get off the line, Russ!” his father ordered. “You don't have anything to say about this. Your brother is possessed by the devil, and I don't want him in this house.”
Russ heard the other end of the line go dead before he even had a chance to talk to his brother. As he sat crying, his father came into the room.
“Russ, don't you ever contradict me again,” he said with clenched fists. Russ knew he had been drinking and was just likely to hit him again. “If you don't like it here, maybe we can arrange for you to leave, too,” his father said as his eyes narrowed. “Do you want to leave?”
“No, sir,” Russ said as he felt himself wet his pants. He lived in fear of his father more than ever after Ryan had left. It seemed like he was drunk more than he was sober. But even when he was drunk he insisted on the family accompanying him to church meetings that often turned into little more than witch hunts and hate protests. Virtually no one ever contradicted his father, who was by far the largest single supporter of the small church he attended.
When the call was made for sinners to repent, his father would literally shove Russ and his mother out of their seats and push them up front. His timid, Presbyterian-raised mother lived in constant terror as the group would shout and wail to drive the “devils” away. Even the slightest protest from Russ resulted in a blow to his head that would make his ears ring for several minutes. He usually made his confession of sin, all the while hating the group, especially his father.
When Russ was thirteen, his father died of a brain hemorrhage. He staunchly refused to attend the funeral held by the group of fanatics his father had joined.
Russ and his mother made a concerted effort to find Ryan, who had last been heard from in the Los Angeles area. When calls to the various police departments failed to turn up any news, she hired a detective agency to find him. A few weeks later she received a report that a young man, thought to fit her son's description, had just been killed in a drug-related crime in the Hollywood area. Complete dental records were requested, and upon receiving them, positive verification was made.
The shock of this news, along with the stress of the years with Russ' father, was too much for his mother. One evening she took a bottle of sleeping pills and simply never woke up again. Russ heard a scream somewhere in the distance as the image of his mother lying in her bed flashed before his eyes. He awoke with a start. Once awake, he knew it would be another long sleepless night.
At Data-Net headquarters, in the congressional office building in Washington, Jack Rhinehart was already at work on the problem of locating Jeff Wells. He was still smarting from the tongue lashing he had received from Siever about his screwup with the earlier program.
“I think I've got it,” he said aloud to no one in particular. The staff assigned to assist him did what was required but nothing beyond. Collectively his team probably could have matched the abilities of Jeff Wells, but no single person was Wells' peer. Without a total team effort, Rhinehart could accomplish little and they knew it. So they mostly steered clear of him.
Rhinehart was furiously typing instructions into the system console. He had been frustrated at every turn in trying to crack Jeff Wells' access code into the Data-Net. Specifically, he wanted a complete record of Jeff Wells, ID #JDW 100091. He finally accessed the information by instructing the Data-Net operating system that he was a bank official requiring credit information on Wells. The program began to sort out all transactions for Jeff Wells and route them to the printer.
One of the last transactions was the purchase of two coach class airline tickets on Delta. He then called up the Delta file and requested booking information. The tickets had been purchased to Sacramento, California, for Wells and Karen Eison.
“He's on his way to Livermore,” Rhinehart exclaimed jubilantly. Rhinehart closed the computer file and dialed Russell Siever's office.
Siever had been sitting at his desk for the better part of an hour just looking out at the city. He was frustrated that he was being blamed for allowing Wells to lock them out of the Data-Net system.
How was I to know Wells would go off the deep end?
he thought morosely.
