The Illuminati (20 page)
“Are you the owner?” he asked as politely as his fear would allow. He had thought about just driving away, but he knew the attendant would call the police and they would catch up with them before they had gone much more than a few miles.
“Yes, I'm Bill Parks. What can I do for you?”the man answered agreeably.
Thank God, he sounds like a nice guy
, Randy thought. “We have some kind of mix-up with the verifying system. It won't take either of my cards. It just stops and does nothing.”
“Stupid system!” Parks snapped. “I don't know why anyone agreed to do away with cash anyway. Worked pretty good until the government spent it like drunken sailors.”
“I totally agree,”Randy said as they made their way into the store area.
Wiping his hands on the rag he had retrieved from his back pocket, the owner asked the attendant, “What's happening?”
“I don't know boss,” the attendant replied as he lit his cigarette. “It just don't work.”
Taking the debit card, the owner placed it in the system verifier and punched in the access codes for Randy's number. The machine whirred as the scanner passed over the card. But instead of flashing either the green light signaling acceptance or the red light signaling rejection, the process simply stopped. The system printer, which would normally print out the automated receipt or a message defining why it was rejected, sat silent.
“That's the strangest thing I've seen since this stupid system was installed,” Parks said, whacking the scanner with the palm of his hand. “I'll have to call the 800 number for Data-Net, mister . . . Cross,” he read from the card.
In one swift motion, he punched the access button on the terminal that would have automatically connected him to the 800 number. Instead, all he heard was a constant busy tone.
“The whole system must be screwed up,” Parks said angrily as he stuffed the rag into his back pocket. “You'll just have to wait here until they clear it, mister.”
Randy's heart nearly leaped out of his chest. “I'm in a big hurry,” he said as calmly as possibly. “We have an emergency in our family. Listen, I live in Atlanta.We'll be coming back this way. Suppose I leave the card with you and give you some collateral to guarantee payment. Could I just stop back by tomorrow?” He hated to lie but knew that each minute he spent at the station placed them in greater danger.
“What kind of collateral?” the owner asked.
“You hold these rings,” Randy said, lifting Harriet's finger in front of his face.
“My wedding rings!” Harriet protested. Then she saw the look on Randy's face and hastened to agree. “Well, I guess it's okay, if you're sure you'll hold them.” She could hardly hold back the tears as she slipped off the rings.
“I can't take your wife's rings, mister,” Parks said reluctantly as he eyed the two-carat diamond.
“It's okay,” Randy assured him. “I'm an attorney in Atlanta.We'll be back.”
“Well, okay then,” the owner said. “But if you aren't back in a week, the rings are mine. Okay?”
“That's fine,” Randy agreed as he hurried out the door.
He started the car and shifted into gear, heading back onto the interstate again.
“Randy, those rings cost nearly four thousand dollars,” Harriet said as she let the restrained tears flow.
“It was definitely the most expensive tank of gas we ever bought,” he tried to say lightheartedly. “But someone has put a stop on our accounts. Hopefully it's too soon for them to have a tracer. But it's only a matter of time until they get the computer program working on it. We need to get away as quickly as possible.”
Harriet felt the panic grow inside as she held Matthew close. “How can they do this to us?”
“I don't know, but they're doing it,” Randy replied as he made some mental calculations. “We don't have enough gas to make it all the way to Jacksonville, but we can make it to Dad's cabin at the lake. He always keeps it stocked for when he and Mom come up. We'll stay there while we try to come up with a plan.”
“But what about our home and your practice?”
“I don't know yet, honey. But the three of us are still together, and we're still free. I have to believe the Lord will help.”
“It's like the country has gone mad,”Harriet cried. “We haven't done anything wrong.”
“Somebody is behind this. It's too well-planned to be circumstantial. We need to pray for our friends. Some won't be as fortunate as we are.”
“There have been some changes made to my program,” Jeff Wells complained to Dr. Siever as he scanned the Data-Net files. “Someone has modified the search routine used to screen users.”
“I know, Jeff,” Siever said as patiently as his present frame of mind would allow.
That stupid Rhinehart
, Siever thought angrily.
He said he could modify the program to screen the names we gave him without interrupting the system. We would have been able to track the movements of every Christian in the country. Rounding them up would have been simple
.
Instead, he's probably warned the leaders that we're on to them now
.
Russell Siever had been groomed by the Society for the position he held in the Hunt administration. Orphaned at thirteen, he was sent to live with his aunt. With an inheritance of some three hundred million dollars, to be turned over to him in varying stages, he had few material needs.
Under the tutelage of his aunt, he studied international finance at Princeton and was then recruited by a member of the Society whose job it was to seek out new, young talent. While in graduate school, he was selected to be a part of a group traveling to Europe to study the development of the European community. By this time an avowed socialist and atheist, Siever was attracted to a young English woman traveling with the group. Their mutual interests included an elitist view of themselves, a disdain of religion, and a desire to establish a new world order.
It was during his studies in Europe that Siever was exposed to the one-world concept of economics. At first he dismissed it as idealistic and impractical. But, as his new friend Elisa pointed out, the European Community's Euro was the first real step in that direction. Elisa had been well trained in her home on the assets of a one-world system by her father, a British financier and member of the Society.
By the time Siever had completed his doctoral work, he was an established member of the Council of Advisers for the Society. He was easily worked into Washington society and later served as adviser for several presidents. His vast wealth and international contacts, provided by the Society, made him a coveted ally to many political leaders.
Now, as secretary of the treasury, he was overseer of the Data-Net system. The cash-less economy, long predicted by Bible scholars, was fast becoming a realityâor nightmare, depending on which side of the system you were facing.
Several days earlier Jason Franklin had instructed that Phase Three be implemented immediately. Initially the Data-Net system would be used to locate the Christians. Later the system would be used to choke off their resources.
Siever had hired Dr. Jack Rhinehart to make the necessary changes to the system after Rhinehart had assured him there would be no difficulties. Rhinehart had been trying to work his way into the system ever since his colleague, Dr. Eison, had mentioned that Wells had been selected to design it. Siever knew they would eventually need to replace Wells, and Rhinehart had sold him on the idea that he could reprogram the system.
That stupid Rhinehart screwed up the system
, he thought again angrily. When he told Franklin, the warning had been clear.
“Don't slip up again,” Franklin warned. “We can't afford mistakes at this point. Use Wells to fix the program.”
Siever was trying to think of just how to do that when Wells called him. He was trying his best to placate the young scientist. “Jeff, we tried something that didn't work very well. It's extremely important that we get the program operable again immediately. I'll send the details up to your office, but this information is top secret for now, so don't discuss it with anyone.”
Jeff Wells was clearly puzzled, and a little disturbed.
“Why would Dr. Siever have someone else modify my work?” he asked Karen.
“Really, Mr. Wells, do you think you're the only programmer in the world?” she teased.
“No, but you can't just patch into a system as complicated as Data-Net,” Jeff said defensively. “Whoever wrote the subroutine didn't understand complexity theory. I designed it with an optimal N-log(N) complexity, but somebody broke it. Now it's got N-squared complexity, which means the whole system can't help grinding to a halt.”
“I was just kidding,” Karen replied, seeing his reaction to her remark. “You're the only programmer I ever met who can make this system work. I have been helping since the start, and I still can't do more than work inside your subroutines.”
“It's really not all that complicated,”Wells said for what seemed like the hundredth time. “It's all a matter of using the right data structures for the job.”
“Okay,”Karen replied, “I know. I know. I understand what you're saying. I just don't understand why it works.”
Jeff was about to launch into his theory of complexity when the courier knocked on his door. He handed Jeff a sealed pouch and asked that he sign the receipt. After the courier left, Jeff opened the pouch. It contained a DVD-II and a letter from Russell Siever.
“What does it say, Jeff?” Karen asked when she saw his frown.
“Dr. Siever wants me to modify the Data-Net so it will screen a group of users from the system. He also wants the names and locations forwarded to the nearest local law enforcement when they try to use their cards.”
“Can you do it?”
“Yes. It's not much different from the file we set up to monitor how much credit a user has. But that's not what's bothering me.”
“What is it, Jeff?” Karen asked. She had never seen him so grim.
“The data file he wants created must be able to handle up to twenty million names initially.”
“Twenty million!”
“Think about it, Karen. We would be building a file of twenty million people who could potentially be barred from using the Data-Net. Essentially that means they would not be able to buy or sell anything.”
“But Jeff, the whole purpose of Data-Net is to allow people to buy without currency anywhere in the world. Why would anyone want to stop twenty million people from using it?”
“Control!” Jeff exclaimed as he finally realized what they were after. “Control! There is a groupâa very large groupâthat someone wants to be able to control. What better way than to cut off their use of Data-Net? They would have no way to buy anythingânot even food.”
“They couldn't do that,”Karen argued, unable to accept what Jeff was saying. “It would be illegal.”
“Not if you had the ability to change the law,” Jeff's mind was now racing in an effort to piece the puzzle together. “Why else would Dr. Siever also want their locations sent to the police? They want to be able to stop a large group of people from buying and to know where they are.”
“Who are they looking for, Jeff ?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean who are the people they want to bar from using the system?”
“I don't know,” Jeff said as he looked at the disk in his hand. “But somewhere in this file is the answer, and I'll find it. But, Karen, don't say anything to anyone about it just yet. We don't know who else is involved.
“In the meantime, I'm going to stop what they're doing in Data-Net by removing the patch. I'll tell Dr. Siever I needed to do it to restore the system's integrity.”
A few minutes later, the terminal at the Texaco station outside Atlanta, as well as thousands of other Data-Net terminals that had been hung up, suddenly came to life.