Not quite twenty miles from the Bolton house, the members of a group that called themselves the “MAGI” were gathering at a sprawling brick mansion that sat atop Castle Hill overlooking Charlottesville. Though the metal fence that surrounded the house was artfully crafted, it was as deadly as the cottonmouths that were occasionally found fried into crispy commas at its base. At the gate stood a guard house, its interior dark and empty on this particular night. Instead, as each man arrived, he was required to utter an assigned password into a small speaker box before the gate. All of them thought the password alone allowed their admittance; none were aware that the box was part of a sophisticated computer system that measured their voice patterns to further assure their identity. Once they were on the estate land, cleverly concealed video cameras spaced out along the long, circular drive provided additional monitoring.
Though the lawn was elaborately arrayed with well-trimmed shrubs, magnificent old oak trees, and a lit fountain at the center of the circular drive, the house itself was rather unpretentious. Though large and sprawling, it was constructed of plain brick and bore little in the way of decorative enhancements. Looking equally incongruous – particularly among the arriving cars, which included a Mercedes, a Rolls Royce, two Jaguars, and a Cadillac – was the older model, red, Volkswagen beetle that was parked in the carport at one end.
The eleventh and last member of the group to arrive joined the others in a room that was called, appropriately, the library. They huddled loosely together at one end of a massive, mahogany table that dominated the center of the room, its surface gleaming with the color of a freshly-hatched chestnut. Twelve chairs surrounded the table, each one covered in rich burgundy-colored leather with tufted seats and backs, the arms and legs composed of the same mahogany. The walls behind and opposite the men were lined with shelves that reached from floor to ceiling, every space neatly occupied with hardcover books: some of them classic first editions in mint condition, some less expensive perhaps, though no less valuable for their literary merit, and others that were weighty tomes of information on every conceivable topic from archaeology to zoology. A third wall opened onto a lushly furnished greenhouse that contained a jungle of award-winning flora.
The fourth wall of the room held a fully stocked wet bar backed by a massive antique mirror whose glass wavered in the soft light. Unbeknownst to the men in the room, the mirror was a well-constructed fake that served as a portal for the video equipment set up behind it in a tiny, hidden room. It was from this room that the twelfth member of the group – both the host and the group’s leader – watched his guests as he prepared to make his entrance.
The group’s leader made one final check of the cameras. Though his fear of someone else monitoring the room’s activities bordered on the paranoid, he had no compunction whatsoever about documenting the activities for his own use. The monitors served a dual purpose; they provided insurance by committing the other members’ participation to a celluloid policy, and they also helped the leader to evaluate the meetings, and each participant, once they were adjourned. By reviewing the tapes, he was able to assess the body language and facial expressions of each person present, something he simply couldn’t do during the course of the actual meeting. His meeting “minutes”, as he called them, gave him all the input he needed to assess and anticipate each member’s particular leanings.
Satisfied that everything was working properly, the leader exited the tiny room and strode into the library with an air of preeminence, suppressing a smile as the other eleven men fell into an abrupt and awkward silence. He scanned the room with a practiced eye before moving to his designated seat at the head of the table.
The leader looked as out of place in this room with these men as a mongrel dog would look in the midst of the Westminster show. While the other men were dressed in expensive suits, tailored shirts, and Gucci leather shoes, he was clothed in a pair of worn blue jeans, a faded blue polo shirt, and ratty-looking sneakers with grass stains along their sides. Most who knew him thought that this habitual uniform, along with his tenacious devotion to the twenty-year-old Volkswagen parked outside, were mere aberrancies – short circuits in an otherwise well-wired individual. No one suspected that the image these eccentricities portrayed was one that was carefully manipulated and honed by the leader. His belief in his own superiority over the average man was so strong, so ingrained, that the accoutrements of his life were a conscious message to others: it was definitely not the clothes or the car that made the man. It was intelligence, class, and of course, money.
At thirty-five, the leader was also younger than the other men in the room by at least a decade, a difference that was accentuated by the youthful looks afforded to him by his blonde hair, cherubic face, and round, blue eyes. Yet the acerbic sting of his tongue, combined with an intimidating manner and a short-fused temper, left little doubt who was in charge.
As the leader took his seat, the other men in the room shuffled quietly to theirs, some eyeing the leader expectantly, others keeping their gaze lowered. When they were all settled, the leader leaned forward with hands folded and arms resting on the table. One by one, he fixed his gaze on each man at the table, finding great satisfaction in the response. As each person met that flinty glare, most for only a brief moment, some tiny quirk revealed their discomfiture: eyes quickly averted, a twitch of a cheek, a fidgeting hand, a subtle clearing of the throat. When he had finished his intimidating survey, the leader smiled, though the smile never quite reached his eyes.
“Gentlemen, welcome,” the leader said. “This meeting of the MAGI is hereby called to order.”
The acronym, MAGI, stood for the Mid-Atlantic Group Initiative. Its inherent association with the Wise Men of biblical fame made it, in the leader’s mind, an innately appropriate acronym. The appeal it held for him had nothing to do with any religious connotation; rather he felt it offered a definitive description of this elite and visionary assembly.
During his lighter moments (which were not all that common) the leader’s fondness for acronyms led him to call their counterpart group to the north, NAG, and those to the south, SAG. The habit generated enough chuckles among the other members of the group that it caught on quickly, so that before long they were referring to the “naggers” and the “saggers” with regularity. If the leader’s worst fears were recognized and someone managed to listen in on the group, the eavesdropper would get the impression that the members of MAGI knew their counterparts well, when in fact only one – the leader – had any real knowledge of who was in the other groups, where they met, or even if there really were other groups. Secrecy and absolute protection of all identities was the first tenet learned by each member, a rule so ingrained that they even referred to one another during the meetings with code names.
“The first item on the agenda is a report on our initial experiment,” said the leader, or Zeus as he was known within the confines of these walls. “I am pleased to say that it was an unparalleled success. The subject killed his entire family, and as an extra bonus, did in himself as well. Eight inferiors eliminated. A fine night’s work.” The leader nodded toward one of the men at the table. “And we can thank our doctor friend, Hippocrates, for our success.”
The other men nodded their approval.
The leader then focused his attention on the man directly to his left. “Item two. It is time, gentlemen, to move on to our Stage Two experiment. Pythias, why don’t you explain.”
The man known as Pythias shifted nervously, making the leather beneath him squeak faintly. He cleared his throat and ran a finger around the inside of his collar as if it chafed him. When he spoke, he looked at each man in turn, starting to his left and working his way around the table until he ended with the leader.
“I am working on a protocol that combines our special therapy with varying degrees of behavior modification. The biological effects incurred in the Stage One subjects seem to be all we had hoped for. With more behavioral study, we are hoping to achieve greater control over the outcome.
“Our first Stage Two subject is progressing quite nicely. If all goes according to plan, we should have the first soldier in our army of assassins ready in another day or so. The intended target’s schedule is known and we have the opportunity.” Pythias smiled then, the resultant expression on his face offering an unsettling mix of pride and malevolence. “Our first bleeding-heart liberal should be eliminated by the end of the week,” he said cheerfully.
The leader’s eyes drew down to a steely glint, impaling Pythias like a butterfly on a pin and wiping the grin off the man’s face like a hand swiping across a steamy mirror.
“I certainly hope you can keep that time line, Pythias. The man’s momentum must be stopped. And stopped soon. Senator Tranley is a direct threat to everything we are working toward.”
“Yes,” was Pythias’s only response. His hands fell resolutely into his lap and, buckling under that fierce glare, his eyes quickly followed.
The leader leaned back and folded his arms over his chest. “As some of you are aware, a small snag has developed in our plans. However, I have been assured that the situation is well under control.” His eyes shifted pointedly toward two of the members, the one known as Hippocrates, and another, who used the name Socrates.
The two men nodded.
“See to it. I don’t like screw-ups, gentlemen. We must move ahead with our plans. The time is imminently ripe. Every day the papers and newscasts are filled with reports of senseless and increasingly violent crimes. We are well on the way to the very levels of chaos and revolt we seek. We must seize the moment and use it to our advantage.” He punctuated this last statement by slapping his open hand on the table’s surface. A few of the men flinched.
“We are the pioneers of the new world order, gentlemen. The founding fathers, so to speak. Our cause, The Cause,” he said with great reverence, “is the only answer to mankind’s continued survival. The fact that the majority of society is too dim-witted and narrow-minded to see that only proves our point.
“Though none of you had the opportunity to meet the man who made The Cause possible, you are all familiar with Tim Bolton’s work. It was his brilliance, his pioneering drive that laid the groundwork for us. Though his unfortunate death delayed our plans, through hard work and patience we are now at the threshold of success. We must exercise extreme caution and perseverance, gentlemen. Nothing, and I mean nothing,” he said, glaring at Hippocrates and Socrates, “must get in our way.”
For a long moment, no one at the table moved; every one of them had their eyes fixed rigidly on the leader. So perfect was their stillness that to an outside observer, the men assembled around the table looked like a diorama in a wax museum. Then the melting ice in the bar bucket shifted, and the men all jumped and issued forth a collective sigh of nervous relief.
The leader grinned, clearly amused by the reaction.
“So gentlemen,” he said, “let me share with you the successes our counterpart groups have encountered with their Stage One experiments.” He picked up the top newspaper from a pile on the table beside him and read the headline.
“Crazed Man Involved In Unemployment Office Shooting Spree.” He slid the paper toward the man on his right and removed the next one from the pile.
“Community Shocked By Murder Rampage.” Again he slid the paper and grabbed another.
“Riots Feared In L.A. Project.”
He continued to read until he had worked his way through the pile. The men at the table scanned each article in turn, nodding their heads with tacit approval. When the newspapers had completed their rounds and were restacked on the corner, the leader leaned forward and again addressed the group.
“So, as you can see, our plans are moving forward. But we must be cautious. Now is not the time for sloppy mistakes. For the sake of review, I would like each of you to go over your current assignment. We’ll start with you, Titus.”
The leader glanced toward the man on his right, then leaned back and listened as the various phases of the plan unfolded.