The Illuminati (59 page)

Rutland wondered what Razzak would do if he knew about the search file being open so long on Loo's terminal.
Well, there is nothing that can be done about it now, he told himself. The task is to kill Wells before they can relocate again
.

“We can't use Data-Net to schedule any of our people,” Rutland told Razzak. “Wells would intercept the activities and warn his people.”

“How will you handle it?” Razzak asked, his eyes flashing with the hate seething inside of him. He wanted Wells dead, along with Elder and the others. He had erred by not having Elder killed when he had the chance, but he would not make the same mistake twice.

Rutland had already devised a plan. After the incident in Atlanta, he would not try to draw in outside agents to attack Wells and the others. He would use four agents from New Orleans to locate and destroy the camp. Loo didn't have the exact location, but it wouldn't be hard to find. There was no way they could operate a camp housing several dozen people without leaving some telltale signs.

Rutland called the detainment center in New Orleans to talk with Ralph Butcher, the area director for the secret service. The secretary could hardly believe it was really Rutland who was calling. “I'll get him for you, sir,” she said, her voice shaking slightly. Talking to Rutland was almost like talking to the president.

“Yes, sir,” Butcher said as he tried to get his breath. He had literally leaped up the two flights from the detention area below. It was chaos, as it had been for weeks. The orders he had been receiving from Washington were a jumbled mess. Often the arrest orders were drawn up for the wrong people. Just yesterday he had sent men out to arrest the four-year-old daughter of a local official—as a terrorist no less! He was rapidly losing the confidence of his own people.

“I want you to handle a very important job for me,” Rutland said as politely as his authoritative manner would allow. “It's crucial to the president and to the country.”

Butcher, a minor official in the State Department until a couple of years before, was flattered.
Do something for President Alton! I didn't even think she knew I existed
.

Rutland outlined the plan, without telling Butcher who the people at the camp really were. “I want everyone there killed,” he said emphatically. “No one is to escape!” He wished he could handle the job himself, but Wells had him isolated in Washington. But that would be over as soon as Wells was eliminated.

“Listen carefully,”Rutland continued. “You must not use government vehicles or access Data-Net for anything until this is completed.”

“How will we get to this camp then?” Butcher asked. He clearly wasn't the most skilled agent in the world, and he thought only as he had been trained to think in the State Department:
The government is the great provider of all needs
.

“Steal a car! And steal whatever you need on the way. But do not use Data-Net. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, sir,” Butcher replied, though clearly he did not understand. He thought terrorists were the ones who stole stuff—not government agents.

“Call me as soon as it's over,” Rutland commanded as he hung up.
Idiots
, he muttered.
The whole government is full of idiots!

In spite of Butcher's seemingly weak personality, he had one redeeming characteristic: the ability to select capable men. It was why he was tolerated by his superiors. Using that talent, he quickly selected four totally qualified agents for the task. Butcher knew they were ruthless . . . but intelligent. They would locate the terrorists and stamp out the vermin.

The men he selected were well qualified indeed. All had been drug dealers, recruited by the government for terrorist roundup after drugs had been legalized. They were all anxious to get off the detention detail.

It was menial work that had little or no prospects for profit. To these four, profits were all that mattered. They used their roles as government agents to maximum advantage. They had no respect for Butcher, but at least he knew enough to let them alone.

They narrowed in on the area to be searched, based on the information provided by Dr. Loo. They were confident they would be able to locate the camp once they got close enough.

Their first move was to steal a car from a nearby community, which they did with no difficulty. Armed with several automatic weapons, they knew they would have no trouble securing what they needed from citizens along the way. The leader, Andy Mowr, said to the others, “Maybe we can make this trip entertaining as well as profitable.”

The team left New Orleans, driving toward the town of Dentville, Mississippi. The locator map they had showed Dentville to be closest to the area Dr. Loo had identified. They were glad to be back in their chosen profession: looting.

The four had been able to supplement their incomes by dealing in some of the new drugs. But Data-Net made it difficult to convert the drugs to cash, so they had starting robbing locals for whatever they needed. But the pickings hadn't really been that good lately.

“Who do you think these people are?” one of the agents asked Mowr.

“Who knows?” Mowr replied. “And who cares? From what Butcher said, they must have a pretty good racket goin'.We'll just help ourselves to whatever they have. Once we're done, they won't have any need for it. Besides, dead men won't say nothin'.”

“You think there will be some women there?”

“I wouldn't be surprised boys, so watch where you shoot. We wouldn't want to hurt no ladies, would we?”

The others laughed coarsely. Under Mowr's direction, they had been raping and killing around New Orleans. Their technique was simple; they used their credentials to force their way into homes and then looted them at will. They left no witnesses behind to identify them, including women and children. But the local authorities were beginning to close in. Only two nights ago they had almost been trapped in a home they were looting. One of the neighbors had seen them enter the home and had heard the screams from inside. The police arrived only moments after they left

“By the time we get back, the heat'll be off and we'll be able to start havin' fun again,”Mowr said, snorting at his own sick humor.

They had been traveling about two hours when the agent driving said, “We're runnin' low on gas. We'll have to stop soon.”

“Find us a good out-of-the-way place,” Mowr said. “We'll use our credit cards.”

“I thought Butcher said not to use our cards.”

“I mean our ‘thirty-caliber' cards,” Mowr said, laughing like a snorting pig.

The others laughed too. They always did what Mowr said. They were afraid of him. He seemed to have no humanity; he got pleasure out of hurting people.

Pulling off the interstate, the driver followed a narrow rural road into a small farming town. “There's just one station here,” he said to Mowr.

“That's all we need,” Mowr growled, as he armed his automatic weapon. “Pull in.”

As the car rolled to a stop, an old man came out of the run-down building. “You need gas?” he asked nonchalantly.

“Naw, we came in here for lunch,”Mowr replied in his typically sarcastic manner.

“I don't cotton much to smart alecks, mister,” the unintimidated man retorted.“If you're a comedian, you missed your turn. This is a gas station.”

The others in the car started to snicker, but one glance at Mowr's face told them that would be the wrong thing to do. The last thing the station owner saw was the muzzle of Mowr's automatic poking out the window. Mowr pulled the trigger and sent a hail of bullets ripping through the startled old man.

Mowr had not wanted to kill the man before they had their gas. There was always the chance that someone would hear the shots and come to investigate.
Well, that'll be their tough luck
, Mowr thought darkly.
The old hick deserved what he got
. “Get out and fill the tank,” Mowr ordered one of the agents in the back seat.

He lost no time doing as instructed and began pumping the gas. He had barely begun when someone came out of a store down the street, staring in their direction. He called out, “What happened? I thought I heard shots.”

Mowr cut him down where he stood. He slumped to the dusty street just as his wife came out of the store. She began to scream when she saw her husband fall to the ground.

Mowr leveled his weapon and pulled the trigger again. The woman died instantly as she fell across her husband's lifeless body.

“Too bad,”Mowr said without emotion. “She wasn't bad lookin'.”

In the other stores several people were peering out their windows. They were shocked at the drama unfolding before them. In the rural community of Compton, most of the problems confronting the nation had passed them by. They had seen the Christians and Jews hauled off by government agents, but they assumed they were terrorists. They had never seen anyone killed—certainly not their own friends.

Mowr knew what had to be done. The little town was dead from the time the agents entered it. There could be no witnesses. “Fan out,” he instructed the other two men, who were still in the car. “Kill 'em all.”

With that, he began spraying the store windows with his weapon. As the glass shattered, screams of terror could be heard. Those who tried to flee were cut down in the streets. Those who begged for mercy were shot where they stood. In less than three minutes, the carnage was finished. Twenty-three law-abiding citizens had learned, the hard way, that their rights could be violated too.

The killing was like a narcotic to Mowr. He searched every building, looking for someone still alive that he could kill. When he was sure there were no witnesses left alive, he went back to the car.

“Are you finished?” he growled at the agent pumping the gas.

“Y-yes,” he stuttered, still staring past Mowr down the street.

“Then stop pumping gas into the street, stupid,” Mowr said, as the gas poured out of the nozzle.

The other man quickly released the trigger and replaced the nozzle in the pump. The four men piled into the car and roared away toward the interstate again.

In the back room of the hardware store, a small figure opened the trap door to the cellar where she had been taking inventory of the canning supplies. When she heard the shots, she had opened the door only enough to see outside. What she saw frightened her so badly she had slammed the door shut and cowered in the cellar. That reflex had saved her life. Now she exited to find her mother and father both lying dead on the floor of their little store. She almost fainted at the sight. The hatred that took over her gave her the strength to overcome her anguish. She had seen the car as it had pulled up to the gas station across the street.

She had noticed it because they seldom saw strangers in town. She tried to recall as much detail as her racing mind would allow. She knew it was a white car, a Chevrolet, with four men inside.

She reached the phone and called the country sheriff 's office. Even the automated Data-Net phones had not reached her little town yet. The call was routed through Jackson where the transaction was recorded for Data-Net billing.

“Sheriff 's office,” the phone dispatcher answered.

“This is Melissa Graves in Compton,” the young woman said sobbing. “Someone has just murdered everyone in town! I was hiding, or I would have been killed too. Please, you've got to come. It's awful!”

“Calm down now, and tell me exactly what happened,” the dispatcher said.

Melissa told the entire story, including a brief description of the car involved. The dispatcher, who would normally not issue an alert until an officer had investigated, sensed Melissa was telling the truth. She instantly sent out an all-points bulletin to the state police. At the same time, she dispatched a local deputy to the town.

At the CRC headquarters in Dentville, Jeff was pondering what to do. He was totally comfortable working with computers, but when it came to planning for an attack, he was at a loss.
Should we evacuate the camp?
he wondered.
And if we did where would we go?
That was Shepperd's or Pastor Elder's responsibility, but he had the nagging feeling that if he did nothing they were in trouble.

Come on Jeff
, he told himself.
Think
. Then it came to him.
What would Rutland do if he knew where we are located? He sure couldn't get out of Washington in time himself—not with me watching his every move, or more correctly, his every transaction
.

Transactions
, Jeff said silently. Rutland would need to contact someone close to find the camp. New Orleans was the closest city of any size. Even as he was thinking, he activated the Data-Net link. As his fingers flew across the keyboard, he initiated a search for any phone calls made from the White House to New Orleans. Immediately the system responded: a call had been made from the president's office to a number in New Orleans. He searched the matching file for an address. He found it and cross-matched the address to known government facilities. They matched. Rutland, or someone, had called New Orleans almost immediately after Dr. Loo's trace had been initiated.