“We have long known that global environmental goals cannot be achieved through democracy. They must be achieved through force. Yet, how can the few force the change that is needed on the many? History teaches that even great military might is not sufficient to permanently quell the desires of the majority—for examples we have only to look at the failed Soviet military occupation of Afghanistan at the end of the twentieth century or the failed Western colonial exploits of Africa and the Near and Middle East in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Though the occupying powers possessed greater military strength, weapons, and training, they never impacted the will of the people, and over time their grip on the places they occupied slipped away. That is the way military occupation always ends—with the conqueror being rejected by the conquered.
“No, what I am proposing tonight is that we must advance our goals using a different type of force. The New World Order can succeed only when we are able to shape the desires and will of the people to conform to global environmentalism. When we are able to manipulate the thoughts, the desires, the ambitions of the plumber, the teacher and the accountant, as well as the monarch, the professor and the industrialist, then and only then will we be able to persuade the billions who occupy this planet to embrace the changes that are necessary to save it—even if in that embrace they must cease to exist.
“This is my pledge to you as your new secretary-general: In less than a decade, I will accomplish what this organization has failed to do in the past three quarters of a century. I will persuade the world’s population to make the necessary changes, to embrace sacrifice and the loss of everything they value—every comfort, every luxury, every pleasure. I will bring the world into submission to the ideals of a New World Order unlike anything it has ever experienced. I invite each of you to join me as we redefine what it means to be a citizen of the world.”
As he concluded his speech, Josef’s audience applauded more enthusiastically than they felt. For many, the experience of staring into the crystals had been a disconcerting one. Now he had essentially promised to further the goals of environmentalism through mind control on a global scale. That was fine—as long as he limited his techniques to plumbers and teachers and accountants, but what if he unleashed these techniques on them? After what they had just experienced, they were not at all certain that they trusted this strange German. Still, he had assured them that he could achieve what no one else ever had, and they were confident that no force was powerful enough to shield him from them if he became too much of a problem.
As dinner ended, Josef and Amanda made their way outside. He was being stopped by various members of the Club who were calling his speech “brilliant” and “masterful”. Amanda was watching the midnight show of the Fountains—the last one of the night in which the waters danced to Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman singing Time to Say Goodbye. The Fountains had concluded their performance to this duet for over forty years, and Amanda had seen videos of it on YouTube. Normally, she would have been thrilled to be here, but tonight the song and the dance seemed so melancholy—as if she were the one who was saying goodbye. From the remarks of the other people who had attended the dinner she could tell that they had experienced vivid memories as they stared at the crystals. Why could she remember so little?
Josef appeared at her side. “You seem sad, my darling. Can I do anything for you?” She looked up at him. His voice was low; his tone was warm and reassuring. This was a side of him that she had not seen. Tears came to her eyes. “I…I’m sorry. I just left New York suddenly. The man who hired me, Stan, said that I couldn’t tell anyone where I was going so I didn’t. I was just wondering if my mom’s worried about me…She didn’t know I was going away…”
“Shhh.” He drew his arm around her. “I have just the thing. When we get back to my apartment, call your mother and tell her that you are here with me and that you are working. That will set her mind at ease—and yours. I don’t want you to worry. You are going to experience the most amazing night of your life, and I want you to enjoy it.”
Taking her hand in his, he lightly kissed her knuckles, and they walked back to the room together. His confidential tone reassured her, and the warmth of his hand holding hers calmed her. When they entered the apartment, he pointed to an old-fashioned telephone on his desk. “I have to go back downstairs for a few minutes. I took the liberty of having your mother’s number pre-programmed into this phone along with the international dialing code. All you need do is press 1, and you will be connected. Call her and let her know where you are. I will return in five minutes.”
He kissed her gently, and she watched him leave and close the apartment door behind him. She could not entirely shake her feelings of apprehension, but she was glad he was gone and that she was going to talk to her mother alone.
Standing at the desk, she picked up the phone and pressed 1. She could hear clicking on the line as the long series of numbers needed to make an international call from Dubai to the U.S. were entered; then she heard her mother’s PCD ringing and, finally, her mother’s voice on the other end.
“Hi, Mom. It’s Amanda. I wanted to let you know that I took a job in Dubai this weekend. I left Thursday morning and flew here on a private jet, and now I’m in the apartment of the guy who hired me, and….Mom. Mom….” The line was dead. She felt a hand on her shoulder and her blood turned cold. She did not need to turn around to know who was standing behind her.
Chapter 16
It was 8:00 the evening after Josef’s induction as secretary-general. He was alone in a private dining room with Hemraj Ambani, who had requested the meeting immediately after the conclusion of Josef’s speech the previous evening. Ambani had been both fascinated and appalled by Josef’s demonstration; he had to know more. Josef had watched Ambani closely during his experiment, and he relished another opportunity to make him squirm. Besides, Josef suspected that what Ambani really wanted was a personal introduction to Amanda.
As the men sipped their champagne and ate their lobster, each engaged in a mind game intended to manipulate the other.
“That was quite a show you put on last night,” Hemraj began. “For a moment I almost believed that I was living out my past, my present and my future in another dimension. Would you care to share how you did it?”
“The powers that allow me to bend space and time are not to be shared,” Josef replied coolly.
“Really, Josef? The powers that you claim would give you the status of a god; we both know that you are just another purveyor of parlor tricks,” Hemraj pursued, knowing full well that his remarks would incense his host. Josef’s eyes flashed. Hemraj persisted, “It was an entertaining show, of course, but did you stop for a moment to consider what would have happened if anyone in the room had actually rubbed the prism and recited your incantation? What then?”
“Of course I considered it,” Josef snapped. “If anyone had repeated the incantation and rubbed the prism, he would have instantly ceased to exist, and today the Club of Rome would have a vacancy. However, there was no danger whatsoever that anyone in that room would actually do so because all of you are much too selfish to sacrifice yourselves for any higher purpose. Your collective narcissism insured that all of you were quite safe.”
Hemraj stared at Josef. He had assumed that in private Josef would admit that this was a cheap magician’s trick; instead, he was insisting that the prisms really were the gateway to another universe. That was preposterous—unless it was true. And if it were true—what would that kind of power mean to a man like Hemraj? If Josef actually possessed such power, what would it mean for all of them? The thought was exhilarating…and terrifying.
“It is one thing to use a sort of mass hypnosis on one intimate gathering of unsuspecting people, Josef. What you promised last night was something vastly greater. You indicated that you are in possession of a means to control the thoughts of billions of people—to persuade much of the world’s population to abandon its own ambitions, to relinquish its own ri
ght to exist. No such force exists—you and I both know that. So what is your real plan?”
“You are quite wrong, Hemraj. Such a force does exist. It is the power to command armies, to control the minds of men, to corrupt the virtuous, to transform otherwise decent, educated, ordinary people into mass murderers. It is the power to cause loving families to kill and betray each other, to cause mothers to kill their own babies, to cause neighbors to turn on each other without any reward for doing so. I will use it to transform the world.” Josef stared coldly at Hemraj, “You think I relied on a carnival trick last night when, in fact, I performed an experiment—for demonstrative purposes only. I wanted to prove my point—that the basic inclination of people is to protect their own stations in life, regardless of how meager or grandiose those may be. However, I can also promise you this,” Josef’s tone became more confident, “if I had wanted to do so, I could have induced every one of you to eradicate every trace of yourselves from off this earth.”
Hemraj put down his utensils. “This is what everyone is talking about today, Josef. I have come to you tonight as your friend, but I will not do so again. Many members of the Club perceived a veiled threat in your remarks last night—as if you could and would eliminate us at will. I told them that it was merely your flare for the theatrical, but now I see that I was wrong. I am warning you: Any mind control or mass hypnosis that you choose to unleash on the world’s population or its leaders has our consent as long as you can accomplish what you claim. We must reduce the world’s population from just over nine billion people to just short of one billion in the next eight years; no action that accomplishes this goal is too over-reaching, but do not make the mistake of thinking that you can hypnotize and control us. The 150 of us in the Club of Rome are the true Guardians of mankind’s future. You have built most of your personal fortune through your connection to us. Your station in the world is due to our influence. We made you, and if you turn on us, we will destroy you.”
Josef did not answer, but he looked directly into Hemraj’s eyes and smiled. Ambani felt his own blood run cold and the hair on the back of his neck stand up as his eyes met Josef’s. In that moment, he was convinced that Josef really did have the power to do anything he chose.
“You are amused?” Hemraj tried to steady his own voice and to keep Josef from seeing the terror that was consuming him.
“I am. My father also used to tell me that he had made me. Now he is dead, and I am here. You and I have done a lot of business together, so I am going to pretend that you did not just make that last speech. You may deliver this message to your 150 Guardians of Mankind: Do not ever threaten me, or I will force each of you to disembowel yourselves as I watch. Do you understand?”
Hemraj pushed his chair back and stood to go. His legs were weak and his stomach was churning. He could barely speak. “Good evening, Josef,” he gasped.
“Good evening, Hemraj. Get some rest; you look as though you need it,” and Josef finished his meal alone.
As he left the dining room, he was greeted by Luis Carlos. “How good to see you, Josef. Where is your exquisite companion this evening?”
Josef returned the monarch’s greeting with a charming smile. “Ah, my young companion needed her rest this evening. As I am sure you can imagine, we had a very exhausting night together.”
The two men laughed knowingly, and Josef headed back toward the lobby and took the elevator to his apartment.
ψ
At that same hour Paolo Castro, a Filipino kitchen worker at the Club Armani, was carrying some refuse to a trash receptacle in the alley behind the hotel. The stench was so terrible that he could hardly approach the dumpster; even in a land of intense heat such as Dubai where a few hours of exposure to the elements reduced all waste to an almost instant state of putrefaction, the stench was both unusual and unbearable.
As Paolo neared the dumpster, he caught sight of the source of the stench. A badly-burned female body had been thrown across the top of the dumpster so that it was partially in the receptacle and partially out. Flies covered her. Most of her clothing had been dissolved, but he could still see remnants of a shell-pink beaded dress. Her face and body were so mutilated that he could not tell her age or even her ethnicity. Paolo vomited in the alley before running back into the kitchen and reporting the body to his supervisor.
Within an hour the Dubai police had arrived and were reporting back to the chief inspector. The woman had been burned with acid poured over her face and body, and she was apparently covered from head to foot with numerous lacerations. The body had probably been in the alley less than twelve hours when it was discovered, and the massive damage indicated that she had suffered for a long time before she had died. She had no identification, and thanks to the acid, she did not even have fingerprints. It was a grisly crime, and without victim identification it would be nearly impossible to solve.
The chief inspector appeared uninterested. “Where was she found?” he asked his subordinate.
“With the trash, in the alley behind the hotel, like the others,” answered the officer. He already knew what the chief inspector’s answer to this problem was going to be—the same as it had been for the other dozen or so women who had been found tortured and discarded at this same site over the past year.
“She is a prostitute. There is nothing to investigate. Send the body to the landfill with the rest of the trash, and don’t come back to me with another of these cases.”
Chapter 17
Mel was lying by the pool of her Malibu rental house when the call came in. She was still trying to come to grips with Amanda’s death four months earlier. Everyone had assured her that after the funeral things would begin to return to normal. That was ridiculous! Her life would never be normal again. Mel had invested everything in Amanda’s career, and when Amanda’s life ended, so did hers.
It was true that when she moved to New York Amanda had fired Mel as her manager, but Mel was working on that. Before her death Amanda had called her mother nearly every day. It would have been only a matter of time until Amanda realized how much she needed Mel. Mel had secretly planned to move to New York to live with Amanda when their relationship improved. She would persuade Don to buy her an apartment with a view that she and Amanda would share. As soon as she made the right contacts, Mel would arrange for the two of them to have their own reality show.
Mel would finally have her place in the sun. She would be known as the woman behind Amanda Sutton. Amanda would achieve supermodel status—of that Mel was certain—but she did not have Mel’s business savvy. Mel would emerge as the true star of the family—a smart, sophisticated businesswoman who knew how to make things happen.
She would remain married to Don for a while—until she got a better offer. She could imagine herself married to one of New York’s elite—a true socialite. To have that dream snatched away from her was almost more than Mel could bear. She could not help feel that Amanda was a selfish, ungrateful girl to get herself murdered just when Mel’s plan was starting to come together.
Mel had partied the night before and was still dealing with a slight hangover when her PCD rang. She almost didn’t answer it, but she was hoping to get a callback on the idea she had floated to a movie executive at the party. Without opening her eyes, she picked up her device and said in her most sensual voice, “Hello.”
When she heard the voice on the other end of the line, Mel sat bolt upright. It was Amanda! She had longed for this—to find out that Amanda was not really dead, that the girl they had buried was only an imposter look-alike. Now, she was living out her fantasy, only it was real, “Hi, Mom. It’s Amanda….” and the line went dead.
“Amanda! Amanda! Amanda!” Mel screamed into the device, but the only sound that came back to her was the hum of a dial tone. With trembling fingers she punched in Don’s number. “Amanda just called me!” she screamed.
“Mel, are you drunk?”
“No! You pig! I’m not drunk!”
Mel blurted
out what had just happened and told Don that he needed to do something.
“What? What would have me do? Amanda is dead. We went to her funeral.”
“That’s what you want me to think, isn’t it! That’s what everyone wants me to think! But I know better! She called me. You didn’t count on that, did you? You always tried to come between us, but it didn’t work! She needs me, and she knows it. You had better find my daughter, or you’ll be sorry!
“The only thing you care about is your stupid restaurants and your cheap little girlfriends. You think you’re a big man, but you’re not! You’re a loser! You’ve always been a loser!”
Don sighed, and said, “Tell me again, slowly, what happened.”
When the call ended Don called a friend who was a detective in the New Orleans police department and asked him if he could find out who had placed the call to Mel.
Three days later Detective John Breaux called Don with a report. “I ran every call that came in on Mel’s device during the twenty-four hours before she called you. Just the usual stuff. The last call that she received before she talked to you was from a call center in India; that’s why it was blocked. I talked to the supervisor; it was just a routine sales call for PCD service. I even talked to the guy who made the call. His English isn’t very good, and he’s hard to understand; maybe that’s why Mel freaked.
“I don’t really know how to ask this, but is Mel having mental issues? I know that Amanda’s death was hard on her, but I’ve never heard of anyone doing something like this.”
“I don’t know,” Don replied. “Six weeks after the funeral Mel rented a house in Malibu. We haven’t talked much. The only time she calls is when she needs something. I thought that getting away from here would help her get herself together, but, apparently, she’s not doing so well.”
ψ
During the course of the next four months Mel received five more calls. They were all some variation of that first call:
The Force (The Kingdom Chronicles) Page 10
