by Greg Krojac
“I want to know the location of everybody who was in this meeting, for the next forty-eight hours. At any time, day or night, I want to know where they are and what they’re doing.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
19:30 TUESDAY 15 MARCH 2068
New technology is generally perceived to be an example of progress. As years and decades go by computers have more processing power and are smaller. Televisions left cumbersome cathode-ray tubes and valves behind around seventy years previously, having passed through the development of flat-screen LED and Plasma models, on the way to the 360° 3D Overhead Projection models that became de rigueur in the 2050s, allowing the action to appear more like a theatre experience in one’s own home. Travelling by car was now a much safer process, thanks to the automatrix, self-drive cars, and their 99.9% inability to crash.
But sometimes new technology just will not do the job properly. Pulse gun technology had taken the personal weapon market by storm due to its flexibility of being able to stun instead of killing its target. Even a head-shot wasn’t necessarily fatal, there being only a very small area on the surface of a human head where the stun setting could result in a fatality. A shooter had to be either very unlucky or an excellent marksman to kill anybody with a pulse gun set to stun.
However, the new technology had its limitations and the loss of power over a long distance was one of them. It was almost impossible for a sniper to kill someone from a long distance using a pulse-gun; the strength of the electrical charge decreased exponentially as the distance increased and a kill shot could easily become a stun-shot. Weapons scientists were working on a method of turbo-charging the pulse but had had no success to date.
***
At home, sitting on a wicker chair in his conservatory, Councillor Bruce was just about to relax with a cup of camomile tea. It’d been a stressful day and it’d taken all his reserves of courage to confront Marcus that morning. He wasn’t normally so forthright but he and his principal allies, Councillors Cavendish, Romanov, and Krupp, felt aggrieved that their opinion was being dismissed so lightly. He nibbled the rich tea finger biscuit that accompanied his evening cup of tea, and turned to his wife, Emma, to remark how a good cup of camomile tea always made him feel better after a bad day.
Old technology burst through the window of the living room of his luxury apartment as two high calibre armour-piercing sniper bullets tore into Councillor Bruce’s skull. He’d felt as safe as it were possible to feel safe, thanks to the bullet-resistant glass that had been installed in all the windows of the apartment but he hadn’t reckoned on his killer firing five high-velocity shots in rapid succession. In the open air, with no protection, the sniper would have needed only the one shot to kill his target but this gunman was armed with a sniper’s rifle modified to fire five bullets rapidly into exactly the same spot as the first had landed. The first bullet acted as a marker for the subsequent bullets to follow, each bullet weakening the protective structure of the glass until it gave way and allowed the final two bullets to continue on their trajectory until hitting the real target.
***
Similarly, Councillors Cavendish, Romanov, and Krupp knew virtually nothing of their impending deaths. The cull was clinical and perfectly executed.
Cavendish had found it a little strange that he was the only customer at the golf driving range, as it was normally quite busy on Tuesday nights. However, he ignored his initial misgivings, deciding that only the direst emergency could ever drag him away from an activity – no, a ritual – that he considered sacred. Even a confrontation with the Pindar didn’t come under that heading. Marcus was only ‘acting’ Pindar anyway, and Nathan would soon be back soon. He looked at the target in the distance, altering his stance a little to give his body more balance. He flexed his legs to gain the perfect striking position, drawing his golf club behind him in preparation for the perfect drive. He had a good feeling about this one. The club swung in a beautiful arc and struck the golf ball cleanly, the impact setting off the high explosive that had been packed inside it. The Councillor was ripped apart, body parts littering the area around the tee.
***
Romanov and Krupp hadn’t spoken up at the meeting but were just as incensed at Marcus’s attitude as Bruce and Cavendish. They could not afford to have invested so much money into the two projects without receiving a healthy return. What did Marcus think he was doing? The Illuminati wasn’t supposed to be somebody’s personal plaything. It’d been run for hundreds of years for the benefit all the thirteen families. This is how it should always be run. Sitting on the deck of Romanov’s luxury yacht, they considered what should be their next step.
A slight humming in the distance caught their attention. They looked up and saw what appeared to be a small plane, flying at very high altitude. They were not unduly concerned. Drones were in common usage as delivery vehicles for many things bought online, or to monitor traffic, although Krupp did think it a little unusual to see one working after 6 p.m. He looked up again and saw a flash of blue light emanate from the drone.
His last words were ‘what the fuck’ as a missile plunged into the engine room of the boat, leaving only splinters of wood and plastic bobbing up and down on the surface of the water.
There was no need for these deaths to appear to be accidents. The whole point of the exercise wasn’t only to rid Marcus of dissidents on the Council of thirteen but to also send a message to anyone else who might be thinking of opposing him. Marcus was not to be trifled with. Retribution would be swift and decisive.
CHAPTER THIRTY
10:45 THURSDAY 6 JUNE 2069
Looking down from Flight SKR 147, the Sky Runner service from Salvador to London, Érica Santos could see her tropical home city disappearing in the distance. The forward thrust of the engines sent the space-plane hurtling towards orbit at Mach 5.4, but the passengers hardly noticed the force of the acceleration upon their bodies thanks to the G-Stabilizer technology that dampened the physical effects of the launch and allowed the passengers to relax as if nothing out of the ordinary were happening. The view that Érica could see out of her window wasn’t a true image but a slowed down holographic image, for experiencing physically or even visually the true speed of the aircraft would likely cause severe nausea and probably vomiting. The introduction of the holographic windows coupled with the G-Stabilizer system had solved that problem, turning what had been quite a harrowing passenger experience into a very pleasant two-hour trip.
All Sky Runner flights were first class. The technology had cost a lot of money to develop and to subsequently introduce into commercial service and costs had to be recouped somehow. The aircraft interior was more like a high-end hotel, with passengers not being placed side by side in rows of seats, but instead having a small but comfortably functional room of their own, complete with private bathroom facilities. To the casual observer, who could never imagine having the money to spend on such a frivolous luxury, flying by Sky Runner seemed the height of debauchery, an unnecessary extravagance, but the kind of people who could afford to travel in such a way didn’t see it as such, most of them being high-ranking members of the ruling party of their home countries and thus part of the network of the Illuminati.
The Illuminati rewarded its partners (it considered the use of the term employee to be counter-productive and found that its staff reacted much more favourably when referred to as partners) very well indeed. At the levels below the Council of Thirteen Families, The Order was a meritocracy and everyone was encouraged to better themselves and advance through the ranks as far as possible. However, there wasn’t just a glass ceiling in place within the top tiers of the organizational hierarchy, it was more of a thick lead ceiling. Nobody outside of the thirteen ruling families or their respective ruling councils was aware of the true strategic ambitions of the upper echelon; they just knew that their alliance with the Illuminati provided them with a lifestyle that the average person could only ever dream about.
It was the first time
that the Pindar had been born into one of the more successful member families of his organisation, and he’d thoroughly enjoyed the experience. So many times he’d been reincarnated into normal families which had provided him with, at best, a comfortable life. He knew that his parents always did their best for him, providing him with the best education and conditions that they could afford – and he appreciated their efforts – but this was the first time that he hadn’t had to take a significant drop in quality of life at his rebirth. Ana Lucia and Roberto, Érica’s parents had forged a meteoric rise through the Brazilian political system, Roberto rising from his position as a judge to becoming the Minister of Justice for the entire country, an ascent unknown for a non-Recarn. This had been achieved by knowing the right people, and making judgments that were highly favourable to the objectives of the Illuminati – in return he’d received extremely high financial compensation, compensation that some might consider to be bribes.
However, if Marcus had realised exactly who Roberto’s daughter was, his life would no doubt have taken a completely different trajectory.
Érica had wanted for nothing as a child and it was no surprise that, when she told her parents she wanted to study English in England, they insisted that she should travel in the fastest and most luxurious manner available. And so here she was, in her own small but very comfortable room on the state-of-the-art Sky Runner space-plane.
The two-hour journey from Salvador to London passed very quickly. Like any adolescent for the last sixty or so years Érica was mesmerized by social networking and, like most of the developed planet, she had an account with the latest online social network, HoloMeet. This global application allowed its users to have face-to-face encounters and conversations with hologram projections of other members. If you didn’t have a HoloMeet account you were nothing and suffered the social stigma that accompanied the label. Even so, Érica guarded her true identity diligently; it was important that she shouldn’t show her hand too early. Nobody could know the intentions of the soul that inhabited the young Brazilian woman who was now on her way to reclaim her rightful position at the Illuminati. Not even her parents. She had no idea how they would have reacted had she told them that their daughter was actually the reincarnation of the Pindar, that she was the head of the global organisation that had provided them with such a financially rewarding lifestyle. She was, in her eyes, her parents’ boss. Perhaps surprisingly, Recarns nearly always developed a strong emotional bond with their parents and Érica was no different. She loved her parents and didn’t want to do anything that could hurt their feelings, so there was no way she could have told them who she really was. It would have destroyed their relationship. They’d been both excellent parents to her and excellent servants to the Illuminati. But now was the time to cut loose those emotional ties and reclaim her rightful position as head of The Order.
She felt secure that there would be no problem. She was sure that she’d left the organisation in good hands when she’d appointed Thomas McCall as her interim successor. Although she had limited access to what was going on within her organisation, what she’d heard through a very elite grapevine wasn’t giving her cause for major concern. Thomas must now be approaching his eighties and in the twilight of his life. He must be ready for a rest, just as Nathan had been when he self-terminated and his soul took over Érica’s body.
The gentle chimes of the intercom interrupted her chain of thought.
“Would passengers please take their seats, flight SKR 147 will be landing at London Heathrow in five minutes. There is no need to use the safety belts as the G-Stabilizer system will compensate for the reduction in speed and you will experience a sensation no stronger than an elevator stopping. Thank you for flying with Sky Runner Airlines and we hope that you have enjoyed the last two hours in our company.”
Érica sat down in the armchair and relaxed as the space-plane descended rapidly and touched down on the tarmac of the dedicated Sky Runner runway, before taxiing to the Sky Runner terminal building.
The space-plane had only fifty passengers, so it wasn’t long before Érica was at Immigration Control. She stood on the assigned mark on the floor whilst her DNA and fingerprints were automatically matched to the international traveller’s database, allowing her to enter the United Kingdom. After passing successfully through immigration control she went to the VIP arrivals lounge to wait for her baggage to be brought to her. Once she had been reunited with her baggage, Érica was met by a company driver who would take her to her accommodation.
***
The apartment that her parents had rented for her was befitting someone of her social standing. It was spacious, lavishly decorated, and she had two maids who had been sent from Brazil – economy class of course – to attend to her every whim. A team of three security men meant that she was never alone. This was the main problem that Érica would have to overcome; getting past her own security guards. It wouldn’t be easy. She’d have to plan it like a military operation. However, if necessary, that could wait for a day or two. She had to see the three security men and make a judgement as to who was the weakest link. She’d spent various lives as a woman and knew pretty much every trick in the book when it came to dealing with the male of the species.
The next day, although she had staff to attend to her every whim, she allowed her cook to take the morning off, saying that she wanted to do a little cooking herself. Of course, this was a lie – she hated cooking – but this would mean that there would be one less witness to her escape. She hunted through the kitchen cupboards and found the most difficult jar to open. Arranging the kitchen to look like she was in the middle of preparing a meal, she sliced a few carrots and placed them on a small plate, alongside a very sharp Santoku knife. She spread various ingredients in dishes around the work-surface of the kitchen, leaving the knife easily accessible. The jar that she’d chosen was a mayonnaise jar, whose lid was indeed impossible for her to remove by hand. She pulled her blouse open a little to show the beginnings of her cleavage and walked towards the front door of the apartment, knowing that there was a security guard by the name of Craig posted outside. She opened the door and saw Craig standing there, alert to react to the slightest threat.
“Craig? Could you help me, please? I have a jar that I can’t open. I need the help of a big, strong man.”
“Sorry miss, I can’t leave my post. Not even for you.”
“I’ll bring it to you shall I? It’ll only take a few seconds.”
“If you could, miss. That’d be better.”
This wasn’t quite how she’d imagined her plan going, but it was only a very small hitch. She’d hoped to draw Craig into the kitchen, but it wasn’t obligatory to her escape plan. She checked her watch. Her unwitting accomplices should be at the front of the building now. Earlier, she’d arranged for two private security men – men not employed by her father – to escort her from the apartment and take her to a destination of her choice in an SUV with dark tinted windows. The windows had to be dark enough that nobody could see inside the vehicle. It had seemed a strangely specific request but the receptionist at the private security firm that Érica had called, had assured her that their employees would be very punctual and bring with them a luxury SUV exactly as she’d requested.
Èrica placed a pre-packed overnight bag just inside the entrance door and went back to the kitchen to fetch the offending jar. She returned to where Craig was waiting, the mayonnaise jar in her left hand and gripping the Santoku knife with her right hand, hidden behind her back. She handed the jar to Craig and the security man did what anyone would have done – he held the jar tightly with one hand and attempted to loosen the lid with the other. His hands thus occupied in fighting the forces of physics, his grimace of effort suddenly changed to an expression of incredulity. Why had Érica drawn the blade of a knife across his throat, slicing into his windpipe? Why was he slumping to the floor, blood pumping from a fatal wound? He would never know the answer; not in this lifetime, anyway.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
11:47 SATURDAY 8 JUNE 2069
Érica had many trusted contacts inside The Order. Indeed, why would she not have – she’d been Pindar for nearly three centuries and holding that position for so long brought with it much loyalty. She’d been forced by the laws of nature to take her sabbaticals but had always been able to count upon her elite corps of bodyguards to ease her passage back to her rightful place at the head of the Illuminati. Arriving at the palatial building that housed the upper echelons of The Order, she was met outside by three of her most trusted guards. She gave them the combination of passwords – each of these most loyal officers had locked in their memories a distinct component of the final password – and, once identified, she was free to enter the building. Érica had seen these bodyguard duties pass down from parent to child for generations, and their allegiance was unquestionable; this was how she’d been able to consistently reclaim her throne for centuries.
