Chapter 20

January 7, 5 p.m. Hidden Society’s Armory

Lawrence had angrily disapproved of letting Karl and Willow into the Society’s Armory when Karl walked into his office followed by Willow and demanded access to the armory. He hadn’t been told by a leader or a member of the Council of Twenty to open the armory for anyone. Let alone a common soldier. If the government should find out what kind of weapons were in the armory, the FBI would descend upon the Ames Ranch and search it from top to bottom. All the guests would leave the Ames Ranch and Hotel and the Hotel would be in the news with a bad reputation that would take years to live down. And, most terrible, the leaders and Council of Twenty would hold him responsible.

But he hadn’t been able to stop Karl from getting the information necessary to get into the armory. In spite of his loud, angry protests the brutal animal of a human had thrown him out of his chair onto the floor of his office and gone through his computer files till he found the computer code that told him where the armory was located and how to get into it. Using that code Karl had unlocked the armory, and then stepped on his left leg right on the pants leg of his ten thousand dollar hand weaved and hand stitched woolen and cotton suit on his way out of his office to the armory with that mindless flunky soldier Willow following blindly in his footsteps like some goose stepping Nazi SS goon. Except Willow didn’t goose step.

Lawrence had followed them in his own special made electric cart. Instead of returning to the hotel to romance one of the rich beautiful older women, a job he considered most important, who came to the hotel for the purpose of being romanced by him. Or one of the hotel’s handsome employee. Women he knew would be ever so grateful for the pleasure of his attention, in their overpriced deluxe suites of the hotel ranch.

The expression of outage on Lawrence’s face as he stood watching Karl and Willow enter the armory said he didn’t approve of letting Karl and his three thugs have the electric guns.

They were the most sophisticated weapons in the world. They looked like regular semi-automatic hand guns, but instead of firing metal projectiles they fired electric volts half the size of a twenty-two caliber bullet with ten times the killing power of a .44 caliber slug and five times the speed. The volts fired by an electric handgun could travel half a mile, and instead of hitting the ground like regular bullets the volts simply broke into harmless electrons because they had a greater resistance to gravity and broke up before gravity claimed them. But if one hit a person they’d penetrate an inch into the body then break into electrons that electrocuted a person with the equivalent of 6000 volts. Depending upon what part of the body was hit, the chest or head were the best places to hit, death would be instantaneous or long and painful.

Where the average semi-automatic had a magazine of 12 to fourteen rounds of ammo an electric gun had a battery that carried a hundred volts of electric bullets. The battery took an hour to recharge itself, and could be used four times before it had to be replaced. And the battery could be recycled. Electric guns also weighed less than a third of weight of a regular semi-automatic and were not affected by water or any weather conditions. They could even work in space. The electric bullets would travel a million miles in space before they dissipated. They could even be fired underwater and were deadly at thirty feet. The electric handguns didn’t produce a noticeable flash, just a bright spark and only a soft cracking sound, and were made out of fiber optics and plastic. They looked like regular handguns. They were illegal everywhere in the world, because no government wanted them falling into the hands of criminals. And only the Hidden Society had them. One hundred hand guns, and one hundred rifles each of which had a range of over two miles and the power to penetrate a six inch brick wall.

“I suppose Derrick and the other leaders know about this,” Lawrence said in a disapproving voice as he stood next to the door of the armory. “As well as the Council.”

“I don’t give a fuck what they know,” Karl answered, checking one of the automatics to make sure its battery was fully charged. But Karl had assumed Derrick would make the assumption he would help himself to electric weapons if he needed them.

“Then why are you taking these?” he demanded. “Only the leaders with the approval of the Council of Twenty can authorize the use of these weapons. These are top secret weapons!”

“Yeah, I know,” Karl replied.

“I am responsible for these weapons, you know,” Lawrence yelled at him.

“I’ve got an important job to do. And I need these.”

“I don’t care what sort of job you have to do, Karl! You have no right in here.

You’re just a damn soldier!”

“Do you have someone to run this ranch hotel for you if you suddenly leave?” Karl asked Lawrence as he turned toward him concealing his strong dislike of him behind a blank face.

“Of course, I do. If it is any of your concern,” Lawrence answered.

“Good,” Karl said. He pointed the semi-automatic in his right hand at Lawrence’s chest and pulled the trigger.

The electric volt hit Lawrence in the chest and he was killed so quickly he didn’t have time to adopt a shocked expression or cry out in pain. He dropped to the floor like a sack of sand.

Willow calmly watched the killing and said, “You didn’t like him, did you?”

“Piece of shit,” Karl replied, putting the gun in the holster he’d taken for it and putting both in the red canvas bag on the table. “Get one for yourself. And take two for Dodge and Betty, too. And an extra magazine for each of us though I doubt we’ll need them. I’ll leave the ones for Dodge and Betty in their rooms when they return from Westport.” He grabbed two red bags from a metal shelf and handed them to Willow. “We’ll need medical kits, night goggles, sleeping bags, and a heat detecting unit, too.”             

Karl moved to the metal shelves in the large armory that had the equipment they needed and began filling the red bag he carried with the equipment.

“Never fired one of these,” Willow said, liking the weight of the weapon he’d taken from the gun rack.

“Just like a regular automatic,” Karl said, closing his bag and turning toward the door. “Get what I said you’d need.”

Willow immediately began loading the red bags he had with the equipment Karl told him to take. As soon as the bags were filled he took them out to the cart Lawrence had come to the armory in and put the bags in the back. Then he went back inside the armory for sleeping bags. He took the solar electrically heated sleeping bags. He picked up one of the three portable heat detecting units from the floor next to a gun rack and carried it to the back of the cart Lawrence had used.

“That everything we need?” Karl asked him.

“Yeah, except for food and drink,” Willow said.

“Okay, we stop by the supply room for food and a good field coffeemaker and a fresh water filtering can, but no alcohol. This ain’t going to be no pleasure trip if what I suspect about this Marlene Done woman is true,” he said. He looked at the cart Willow had put their equipment in. “Why’d you use his cart?”

“It’s better than ours and bigger, too, and he ain’t going to need it.”

Karl nodded and accepted Willow’s reason.

“What about him?” Willow asked, pointing at Lawrence’s body lying on the floor in the armory.

“Fuck him. Let someone else clean up that shit,” he answered, knowing he wouldn’t be back to worry about it once his job was done. He suspected none of them would have to worry about anything anymore once the job was done. He walked out the door.

Derrick couldn’t take the chance that Karl wouldn’t tell the others about the code he’d been given. Even though he had no intention of doing so because it wasn’t in Karl’s nature to reveal secrets told to him by a leader or any member or soldier. Karl had his faults like everyone else, but lack of loyalty wasn’t one of them.

Karl’s only interest was to complete his job. After that, he’d make plans to stay alive. How he didn’t know or care at the moment.

Karl stood in the hallway next to Lawrence’s expensive cart thinking. “I guess we’ve got everything we’ll need,” he said. “Let’s go.” He got into the cart behind the wheel and started it.

“I take it we’re leaving here,” Willow said as he got in the passenger seat of the cart and Karl started to drive.

“Within the hour.”

“I didn’t get much on the John W. Strong guy,” Willow told him.

“I’m not surprised,” Karl said. “The name’s probably a fake anyway.”

*

5 p.m.

Dodge and Betty had acquired warm clothing from the hotel ranch’s special warehouse immediately after lunch and took a car from the hotel’s fleet of cars and drove two miles to an open area where a black helicopter was waiting to take them to Westport, Kansas.              

The electric powered thousand miles per hour quiet chopper took off as soon as they got in it and strapped themselves into their seats and flew at five hundred feet. It wasn’t necessary to fly below radar, since the Society chopper possessed radar blinding equipment and followed a route over unoccupied land. Some people may see it, but that didn’t matter since there was no flight plan filed with FAA and if anyone reported seeing the chopper to the FAA the Society could access their computers and remove any report filed.

Being overtaken by a passing jet fighter on a training mission didn’t concern them either. The chopper possessed rockets that were faster and more accurate than any the United States Air Force had and could shoot the jet down. Or jam its transmission with its advanced jamming equipment. And at five o’clock on a cold January night most people were inside.

The few people who’d be outside wouldn’t be interested in a super speed helicopter they wouldn’t hear at five hundred feet until it had passed over them. The chopper was better and faster that any helicopter in the American arsenal or any other nations’ arsenal. The Society had twelve of the helicopters at four different bases in isolated spots around the world.

Dodge and Betty didn’t worry about the car being found. There was no way to prove they’d been in it since they had worn gloves and didn’t leave any prints, and the car was parked behind some thick tall brush where it couldn’t be seen from the air or ground. If it was found by someone, the hotel would just report that some guest had taken it and left in the country.

In the back of the chopper was a four wheel drive Land Rover with hot coffee and a computer that had a secret coded programmed into it no one but the Society’s members knew about. The pilot was a soldier and like all soldiers of the Society he didn’t ask any questions. He just flew the helicopter.

***