The Illuminati (29 page)

“To Washington,” he responded without further elaboration.

“D.C., I hope,” she said sarcastically. The guard didn't respond.

When she had been pulled from the car at Livermore, she had envisioned being beaten or tortured, but not only had she not been abused, she had not even been questioned. In a way, that infuriated her even more. It was as if she was of no importance, except as a detainee.

First they kidnap me, then hold me illegally
, she thought angrily as they prepared to take off.
Except for Jeff, no one in the world even knows I'm here. What can be going on? Is it the file Jeff discovered?

And what about Daddy?
she wondered. Panic struck again as she considered what he must be going through. If they wouldn't tell her anything, she knew they wouldn't let her father in on their plans either. For all his bravado, she knew he was a sensitive, devoted father. She was all the family he had left.
Don't let Daddy worry
, she prayed—something she hadn't done in a long while.

As the military jet—the equivalent of a commercial DC-12, twin turbo-fan passenger line—took off from Vandenberg, she felt the plane jink first to one side and then to the other. The moves, almost neck wrenching in intensity, were standard military maneuvers designed to confuse a ground-launched, surface-to-air missile. White phosphorus flares were launched from a tube in the rear of the plane every thirty seconds to deflect heat-seeking missiles. Normally this procedure would have been limited to combat conditions, but since the terrorists had easy access to some of the older SAMs sold by the government to third-world countries to raise cash, California was considered a combat zone. Twelve military and two commercial aircraft had been lost or damaged over the last two years, clearly demonstrating the willingness of the terrorists to use missiles. Commercial airliners flying into Southern California had also been equipped with flares, although the violent jinking had to be tempered greatly on commercial flights because of the panic it caused among the passengers.

By the time the plane reached its cruising altitude of forty thousand feet, Karen was violently ill. As she lifted the air sickness bag to her mouth again, she thought,
After all that, I don't care if we are shot down
. In spite of her churning stomach, she felt satisfaction watching her guard of the last few days heaving into his bag too.

Upon arriving at Andrews, she was whisked into a waiting limousine and within minutes was speeding toward Washington. Not surprisingly, she was secreted into the White House long before the normal contingent of White House watchers appeared. What did surprise her was who awaited her: Kathy Alton, president of the United States.

The setting in the president's breakfast room was very informal. Only two places were set, and the president already occupied one. Karen was overwhelmed by it all. She had often read about Kathy Alton and admired what she stood for, but the events of the last few days had made her very cautious.

“Sit down, Karen,” the president said politely.“You don't mind if I call you Karen, do you?”

“No, not at all, Madam President,” Karen replied hesitantly.

“Please, call me Kathy,” the president said warmly. “Actually I'm not used to the presidential title yet. Things have changed so suddenly these last few days.”

“That's for sure,” Karen said as she shook out her napkin.

“I understand that you and Mr. Wells have been put through some difficulties,” the president said as the maid began serving their breakfast of assorted fruits. “I hope you like fruit for breakfast, Karen. I enjoy fresh fruit.”

“Yes, this is fine,” Karen replied, somewhat amazed. Grapefruit was virtually all she ever ate in the mornings, but somehow she knew the president knew that also.

“I sincerely apologize for what has happened during the last few days, dear. With all the chaos in this city and around the country, I'm afraid some of our bureaucrats got carried away. Dr. Siever was acting in what he thought to be the best interest of the country, but nothing justifies violating the rights of our citizens. We are a nation that protects individual rights, and I will allow no one to usurp them from even one person.”

The words and the demeanor of the new president totally disarmed Karen, just as they were planned to do. Kathy Alton had been selected for her position long before the ill-fated flight to Mars thrust her into the public's eye. She had an amazing ability to make even large groups of people feel at ease. Karen found her previous anger and caution beginning to fade.

“What about Jeff?” Karen asked cautiously.

“He has been working diligently on the Data-Net for several days now,” the president replied smoothly. “Obviously, he has also been concerned about you. I had some difficulty in determining your location,” she lied. “Since Dr. Siever's death, things have been a little hec—”

Karen interrupted, “Dr. Siever is dead?”

“Yes. I'm sorry; I guess you haven't heard. The strain of the last few days was apparently too much for him. He died of a stroke. I appointed his wife, Elisa, to serve in his position until Congress reconvenes.”

All of Karen's resolve melted as she heard the president describe how her administrative assistant, Cal Rutland, had confronted Dr. Siever and his blatant disregard for civil law in having Jeff and Karen arrested. “Actually, I think Dr. Siever had the best interests of the nation at heart. He just allowed his zeal to overwhelm his judgment.”

“These are trying times, Karen,” she said as she got up from her chair. Karen immediately stood and the president put her arm around Karen's shoulder. “I need people like you and Jeff to help me put this nation back on the right track. Data-Net is essential to our long-term prosperity if we are again to become the leader in the world's economy.”

Karen's mind was reeling in confusion. She had been so certain that the government was corrupt. Now she was unsure.

“I want you to go back to work, Karen,” the president said as the maid reappeared to clear the table. “You and Jeff keep an eye on things. If you see anything that you even think is wrong, please bring it to my attention immediately. If you have any difficulty from anyone on my staff, let me know. I'll tell Cal that you are to have access to me anytime you need. Okay?”

“Sure . . . okay,” Karen said hesitantly.

“Karen, I represent more than just the first woman president,” Kathy Alton said as small tears formed in her eyes. “I represent all the people who feel like they have no voice in their government. I need your help. Will you help me?”

“Yes,” Karen blurted out. “I will.” She suddenly felt like a schoolkid who had been asked to erase the board for the teacher. Her face turned a slight pink.

“Great!” the president exclaimed enthusiastically. “Now let's both get back to work.”

16

F
LEE TO THE
M
OUNTAINS

“Karen!” Jeff exclaimed, as he looked up and saw her entering the room. He rushed over and wrapped his arms around her, his big frame dwarfing her. “Tell me what happened,” he said, seeing the tears in her eyes.

“Nothing, really,” she responded as she hugged him. Karen knew that she was in love with Jeff. She wondered if he felt the same way or was simply responding as a concerned colleague. “I was kept in confinement for several days and then suddenly flown back to Washington late last night.”

“Did they uh . . . were you hurt in any way?” Jeff asked hesitantly, his natural shyness causing him to blush.

“No, I'm fine,” she replied, as her eyes swept around the room. Nothing had changed, except that the master laptop was missing.

“What happened to you?” she asked.

“About the same, I guess, except that they flew me back the same day. I met with Rutland, and he gave me a song and dance about Siever being the heavy and going beyond his authority.”

“I met with the president this morning. She told me the same thing.”

“The president?” Jeff exclaimed with surprise.

“She said that Dr. Siever had exceeded his authority. She also said he suffered a stroke and died; she implied his actions were due to stress.”

“Do you believe her?” Jeff asked in a tone that betrayed his skepticism.

“I think so,” Karen replied. “That would explain a lot.”

“Well, maybe,” Jeff said in a low tone. “But look.” He pulled a small electric device from his pocket and flipped a switch. Instantly the device blinked green and then red on the indicator. “It's a bug detector,” he said softly as he turned up the stereo he had placed next to the bug he had found earlier.

“We're being monitored?” Karen whispered in disbelief.

“In my apartment, too,” he whispered again. “Yours, too, I suspect.”

Now she really was confused. She had been so certain the president was sincere. “Should I take this to the president?” she asked Jeff.

“Better wait until we're sure who's doing what,” he answered. “Look at this.” He pulled up the Data-Net specifications written by Dr. Loo. “It calls for the new file to be loaded externally. Once it's operational, we won't have any control over who goes into it.”

“How did Dr. Loo get involved?” Karen asked as doubts began to crowd her thoughts again.

“Apparently the government brought him in after I shut them out of the system. Rhinehart is gone and Loo is going to be operations director.”

“But I thought that was your job, Jeff.”

“Rutland says my function is design. Dr. Loo's is operations. That probably does make more sense in the long run, but we need to be careful all the same.”

As he spoke, Jeff picked up a notepad, wrote something, and handed it to Karen. She read, “Look at the file coded ‘Illuminati' when you get the chance. I've done a rundown of our leaders. They all seem to trace back to a secret society known as the Illuminati.”

“Let's get to work,” Jeff said for the benefit of those he knew were listening. “We need to get the system operational.”He pointed Karen to the laptop he had programmed to bypass any monitoring devices set up by Dr. Loo.

In the other Data-Net terminal room, Dr. Loo smiled agreeably toward them as they passed, even though he couldn't understand all their conversation.

That music drives me crazy
, Dr. Loo thought, as he switched off the headset and cycled the recorder on. The listening device he had planted was extremely low power and not very selective in frequency range, but Rutland had warned him that any more powerful device would be detectable. He checked his tripwire program to see if Wells had been into any part of Data-Net except the subroutine for programming the new file. “Ah, good,” he said out loud. “He cannot get around my trap.” He checked the log file and saw that Wells' only entry had been to the authorized file.

Dr. Kim Loo would have been amazed had he realized how simply Jeff Wells had been able to bypass his trap—almost as simply as he had been able to detect the listening device with the monitor he built. In truth, the best efforts of the second-best computer scientist in the world had not even been a challenge to Jeff. He had simply commanded the central computer controller to interrupt Loo's “trap” and then reinstate it once Jeff had gained access to the main compiler. In essence, he had trapped the trap.

As Karen scanned the screen before her, she was again amazed at what Jeff was able to do with a computer. He had traced every transaction for the previous twenty years by Cal Rutland and then run a comparison of locations and dates for virtually every government leader during the same period. Soon a pattern began to emerge that showed specific dates and places where several of the leaders, and future leaders, had assembled at one time. The list included Rutland, Siever, Lively, Hunt, and hundreds more.

Jeff had set up his program in such a way that any name could be queried and verified against the selected dates and locations. With her hand shaking slightly, Karen typed in the name of Kathy Alton. “Verified,” the screen responded. “Correlation positive.” With that, the program began to spew out the dates when Kathy Alton had met with the leadership of the Illuminati. Karen was startled to see that it began long before Kathy had ever met her husband—long before he had even been selected to head the expedition to Mars!