Part 17 (2/2)

”That halo around the child's head looks like the peace symbol,” said George.

”Peace symbol, my a.s.s,” said Hagbard. ”That's the oldest symbol of evil there is. Of course, in the cult of the Unbroken Circle it was a symbol of good, but that's the same difference.”

”They can't have been so vicious if they produced that statue,” said the Oriental woman stubbornly.

”Could you deduce the Spanish Inquisition from a painting of the manger at Bethlehem?” said Hagbard. ”Don't be naive, Miss Mao.” He turned to George, ”The value of any one of these statues is beyond calculation. But not many people know that. I'm sending you to one who does-Robert Putney Drake. One of the finest art connoisseurs in the world, and the head of the American branch of the world crime syndicate. You're going to see him with a gift from me-these four statues. The Illuminati were planning to buy his support with gold from the Temple of Tethys. I'm going to get to him first.”

”If they only needed four statues, why were they trying to raise the whole temple?” George asked.

”I think they wanted to remove the temple to Agharti, their stronghold under the Himalayas, for safekeeping. I haven't been any closer to the Temple of Tethys than we were today, but I suspect it's a treasure-house of evidence of High Atlantis. As such, it would be something the Illuminati would want to remove. Until now there was no reason to, because no one had access to the seabottom other than the Illuminati. Now I can get around down here just as well, better in fact, than they can, and pretty soon others will be following. Several nations and many groups of private persons are exploring the undersea world. It's time for the Illuminati to finish taking away whatever tells of High Atlantis.”

”Will they destroy that city we saw? And what about the Pyramid of the Eye?”

Hagbard shook his head. ”They'd be willing to let later Atlantean ruins to be found. That wouldn't say anything about their existence. As for the Pyramid of the Eye, I suspect they have a real problem with that. They can't destroy it, and even if they could they wouldn't want to. But it's a dead giveaway to the existence of a supercivilization in the past.”

”Well,” said George, not at all wanting to meet the head of the American crime syndicate, ”what we ought to do is go back and raise the Temple of Tethys ourselves, before the Illuminati grab it.”

”Good grief,” said Miss Mao. ”This happens to be the most critical moment in the history of this civilization. We don't have time to fiddle-f.u.c.k around with archeology.”

”He's just a legionnaire,” said Hagbard. ”Though after this mission he'll know the Fairest and become a deacon. He'll understand more then. George, I want you to act as a go-between for the Discordian movement and the Syndicate. You're going to bring these four statues to Robert Putney Drake and tell him there are more where they came from. Ask Drake to stop working for the Illuminati, to take the heat off our people, wherever he's after them, and to drop the a.s.sa.s.sination project the Illuminati have been working on with him. And as an earnest of good faith, he's to snuff twenty-four Illuminati agents for us in the next twenty-four hours. Their names will be contained in a sealed envelope which you'll give him.”

FIVES, s.e.x. HERE IS WISDOM. The mumble of the breast is the mutter of man.

State's Attorney Milo A. Flanagan stood on the roof of the high rise condominium on Lake Sh.o.r.e Drive in which he lived, scanning blue-gray Lake Michigan with powerful binoculars. It was April 24, and Project Tethys should be completed. At any moment Flanagan expected to sight what would look like another Great Lakes freighter heading for the Chicago River locks. Only this one would be carrying a dismantled Atlantean temple crated in its hold. The s.h.i.+p would be recognizable by a red triangle painted on the funnel.

After being inspected by Flanagan (whose name in the Order was Brother Johann Beghard) and after his report had been sent on to Vigilance Lodge, the North American command center, the crated temple would be moved downriver to Saint Louis, where, by prior agreement with the President of the United States, it would be trucked overland to Fort Knox under the guard of the U.S. Army. The President didn't know with whom he was dealing. The CIA had informed him that the source of the artifacts was the Livonian Nationalist Movement, now behind the Iron Curtain, and that the crates would contain Livonian art treasures. Certain high officers in the CIA did know the real nature of the organization which the U.S. was helping, because they were members of it. Of course, the Syndicate (without even a cover story) was keeping three-quarters of its gold in with the government store at Fort Knox these days. ”Where could you find a safer place?” Robert Putney Drake once asked.

But the freighter was behind schedule. The wind battered at Flanagan, whipping his wavy white hair and the well-tailored jacket sleeves and trouser legs. The G.o.dd.a.m.ned Chicago wind. Flanagan had been fighting it all his life. It had made him the man he was.

Police Sergeant Otto Waterhouse emerged from the doorway to the roof. Waterhouse was a member of Flanagan's personal staff, which meant he was on the Police Department payroll, the Syndicate payroll, and another payroll that regularly deposited a fixed sum in the account of Herr Otto Wa.s.serhaus in a Bavarian bank. Waterhouse was a six-and-a-half-foot-tall black man who had made a career for himself in the Chicago Police Department by being more willing and eager to hara.s.s, torture, maim, and kill members of his race than the average Mississippi sheriff. Flanagan had early spotted Waterhouse's ice-cold, self-hating love affair with death, and had attached him to his staff.

”A message from CFR communications center in New York,” said Waterhouse. ”The word has come through from Ingolstadt that Project Tethys was aborted.”

Flanagan lowered his binoculars and turned to look at Waterhouse. The State's Attorney's florid face with its bushy pepper-and-salt eyebrows was shrewd and distinguished, the sort of face people vote for, especially in Chicago. It was a face that had once belonged to a kid who had run with the Hamburgers in Chicago's South Side Irish ghetto and bashed out the brains of black men with cobblestones for the fun of it. It was a face that had come from that primitive beginning to knowing about ten-thousand-year-old sunken temples, spider s.h.i.+ps, and international conspiracies. It was stamped indelibly with the lines of Milo A. Flanagan's ancestors, the ancestors of the Gauls, Britons, Scots, Picts, Welsh, and Irish. Around the time the Temple of Tethys was sinking into the sea, they had been driven forth on orders from Agharti from that thick ancient forest that is now the desert country of Outer Mongolia. But Flanagan was only a Fourth-degree Illuminatus and not fully instructed in the history. Though he did not display much emotion there were blue-white flames of murderous madness burning deep in his eyes. Water-house was one of the few people in Chicago who could meet Flanagan's baleful stare head-on.

”How did it happen?” Flanagan asked.

”They were attacked by porpoises and an invisible submarine. The spider craft were all blown to bits. The Zwack Zwack came in and counterattacked, was damaged by a laser beam and forced to disengage.” came in and counterattacked, was damaged by a laser beam and forced to disengage.”

”How did they find out we had spider s.h.i.+ps at the temple site?”

”Maybe the porpoises told them.”

Flanagan looked at Waterhouse coldly and thoughtfully. ”Maybe it leaked at this end, Otto. There are JAMs active in this town, more here than anywhere in the country right now. Dillinger has been spotted twice in the last week. By Gruad, how I'd like to be the one to really really get him, once and for all! What would Hoover's ghost say then, huh, Otto?” Flanagan grinned, one of his rare genuine smiles, exposing prominent canine teeth. ”We know there's a JAM cult center somewhere on the North Side. Someone's been stealing hosts from my brother's church for the past ten years-even at times when I've had as many as thirty men staked out there. And my brother says that there have been more cases of demonic possession in his parish in the last five years than in all of Chicago in all its previous history. One of our sensitives has reported emanations of the Old Woman in this area at least once a month during the past year. It's long past time we found them. They could be reading our minds, Otto. That could be the leak. Why haven't we got a fix on them?” get him, once and for all! What would Hoover's ghost say then, huh, Otto?” Flanagan grinned, one of his rare genuine smiles, exposing prominent canine teeth. ”We know there's a JAM cult center somewhere on the North Side. Someone's been stealing hosts from my brother's church for the past ten years-even at times when I've had as many as thirty men staked out there. And my brother says that there have been more cases of demonic possession in his parish in the last five years than in all of Chicago in all its previous history. One of our sensitives has reported emanations of the Old Woman in this area at least once a month during the past year. It's long past time we found them. They could be reading our minds, Otto. That could be the leak. Why haven't we got a fix on them?”

Waterhouse, who only a few years ago had known nothing more unconventional than how to turn a homicide into ”killed while resisting arrest,” looked back calmly at Flanagan and said, ”We need ten sensitives of the fifth grade to form the pentacle, and we've only got seven.”

Flanagan shook his head. ”There are seventeen fifth graders in Europe, eight in Africa, and twenty-three scattered around the rest of the world. You'd think they could spare us three for a week. That's all it would take.”

Waterhouse said, ”Maybe you've got enemies in the higher circle. Maybe somebody Wants to see us get it.”

”Why the h.e.l.l do you say things like that, Waterhouse?”

”Just to f.u.c.k you up, man.”

Eight floors below, in an apartment which was regularly used for black ma.s.ses, a North Clark street hippie named Skip Lynch opened his eyes and looked at Simon Moon and Padre Pederastia. ”Time's getting very short,” he said. ”We've got to finish off Flanagan soon.”

”It can't be too soon for me,” said Padre Pederastia. ”If Daddy hadn't favored him so outrageously he'd be the priest today and I'd be State's Attorney.”

Simon nodded. ”But then we'd be snuffing you instead of Milo. Anyway, I believe George Dorn will be taking care of the problem for us right now.”

Squinks? It all began with the squinks-and that sentence is more true than you will realize until long after this mission is over, Mr. Muldoon.

It was the night of February 2, 1776, and it was dark and windy in Ingolstadt; in fact, Adam Weishaupt's study looked like a set for a Frankenstein movie, with its windows rattling and candles flickering, and old Adam himself casting terrifying shadows as he paced back and forth with his peculiar lurching gait. At least the shadows were terrifying to him him, because he was flying high on the new hemp extract that Kolmer had brought back from his last visit to Baghdad. To calm himself, he was repeating his English vocabulary-building drill, working on the new words for that week. ”Tomahawk ... Succotash ... Squink. Squink?” Squink?” He laughed out loud. The word was ”skunk,” but he had short-circuited from there to ”squid” and emerged with ”squink.” A new word: a new concept. But what would a squink look like? Midway between a squid and a skunk, no doubt: it would have eight arms and smell to He laughed out loud. The word was ”skunk,” but he had short-circuited from there to ”squid” and emerged with ”squink.” A new word: a new concept. But what would a squink look like? Midway between a squid and a skunk, no doubt: it would have eight arms and smell to hoch Himmel hoch Himmel. A horrible thought: it reminded him, uncomfortably, of the shoggoths in that d.a.m.nable Necronomicon Necronomicon that Kolmer was always trying to get him to read when he was stoned, saying that was the only way to understand it. that Kolmer was always trying to get him to read when he was stoned, saying that was the only way to understand it.

He lurched over to the Black Magic and p.o.r.nography section of his bookshelves-which he kept, sardonically, next to his Bible commentaries-and took down the long-forbidden volume of the visions of the mad poet Abdul Alhazred. He turned to the first drawing of a shoggoth. Strange, he thought, how a creature so foul could also, from certain angles and especially when you were high, look vaguely like a crazily grinning rabbit. ”Du haxen Hase,” ”Du haxen Hase,” he chortled to himself.... he chortled to himself....

Then his mind made the leap: five sides on the borders on the shoggoth sketches ... five sides, always, on all the shoggoth sketches ... and ”squid” and ”skunk” both had five letters in them....

He held up his hands, looked at the five fingers on each, and began to laugh. It was all clear suddenly: the Sign of the Horns made by holding up the first two fingers in a V and folding the other three down: the two, the three and their union in the five. Father, Son and Holy Devil ... the Duality of good and evil, the Trinity of the G.o.dhead ... the bicycle and the tricycle.... He laughed louder and louder, looking-despite his long, thin face-like the Chinese statues of the Laughing Buddha.

While the gas chambers were operating, other features of life in the camps were also contributing to the Final Solution. At Auschwitz, for instance, many perished from beatings and other forms of ill treatment, but the general neglect of elementary sanitary and health precautions had the most memorable results. First there was spotted fever, then paratyphoid fever and abdominal typhus erysipelas. Tuberculosis, of course, was rampant, and-particularly amusing to certain of the officers-incurable diarrhea brought death to many inmates, degrading as it killed. No attempt was made, either, to prevent the ubiquitous camp rats from attacking those too ill to move or defend themselves. Never before witnessed by twentieth-century doctors, noma also appeared and was recognized only from the descriptions in old textbooks: it is the complication of malnutrition which eats holes in the cheeks until you can see right through to the teeth. ”Vernichtung” ”Vernichtung” a survivor said later, ”is the most terrible word in any language.” a survivor said later, ”is the most terrible word in any language.”

Even so, the Aztecs grew more frantic toward the end, increasing the number of sacrifices, doubling and tripling the days of the year that called for spilled blood. But nothing saved them: just as Eisenhower's army advanced across Europe to end the ovens of Auschwitz, Cortez and his s.h.i.+ps moved toward the great pyramid, the statue of Tlaloc, the confrontation.

Seven hours after Simon spoke of George Dorn to Padre Pederastia, a private jet painted gold landed at Kennedy International Airport. Four heavy crates were moved by crane from the belly of the plane into a truck which bore on its side the sign ”GOLD & APPEL TRANSFERS.” A young man with shoulder-length blond hair, wearing a fas.h.i.+onable cutaway and knee breeches of red velvet with bottle-green silk stockings, stepped down from the plane and climbed into the cab of the truck. Holding an alligator briefcase in his lap, he sat silently beside the driver.

Tobias Knight, the driver, kept his thoughts to himself and asked no questions.

George Dorn was frightened. It was a feeling he was getting used to, so accustomed in fact that it no longer seemed to stop him from doing insane things. Besides, Hagbard had given him a talisman against harm, a.s.suring him that it was 100 percent infallible. George slipped it out of his pocket and glanced at it again, curiously and with a wan hope. It was gold-tinted card with the strange glyphs: [image]

It was probably another of Hagbard's jokes, George decided. It might even be Etruscan for ”Kick this b.o.o.b in the a.s.s.” Hagbard's refusal to translate it suggested some such Celinean irony, and yet he had seemed very sober-almost religious-about the symbols.

One thing was sure: George was still frightened, but the fear was no longer paralyzing. If I was this casual about fear a few years ago, he thought, there'd be one less cop in New York. And I wouldn't be here either, probably. No, that's not right, either. I would have told Carlo to go f.u.c.k himself. I wouldn't have let the fear of being called a copout stop me. George had been scared when he went to Mad Dog, when Harry Coin tried to f.u.c.k him up the a.s.s, when Harry Coin was killed, when he escaped from the Mad Dog jail, when he saw his own death just as he was coming, and when the Illuminati spider s.h.i.+ps had attacked the Lief Erickson Lief Erickson. Being scared was beginning to seem a normal condition to him.

So now he was going to meet the men who ran organized crime in the U.S. He knew practically nothing about the Syndicate and the Mafia, and what little he did know he tended to disbelieve on the grounds that it was probably myth. Hagbard had sketched in a little additional information for him while he was preparing for this flight. But the one thing that George was absolutely certain about was that he was going unprotected among men who killed human beings as easily as a housewife kills silverfish. And he was supposed to negotiate with them. The Syndicate had been working with the Illuminati until now. Now they were supposed to switch over to the Discordians, on George's say-so. With, of course, the help of four priceless statues. Except, what were Robert Putney Drake and Federico Maldonado going to say when they heard these statues had been dredged up from the bottom of the ocean floor out of the ruins of Atlantis? They would probably express their skepticism with pistols and send George back to the place he claimed the statues came from.

”Why me?” George had asked Hagbard earlier that day.

”Why me?” Hagbard repeated with a smile. ”The question asked by the soldier as the enemy bullets whistle around him, by the harmless homeowner as the homicidal maniac steps through the kitchen door hunting knife in hand, by the woman who has given birth to a dead baby, by the prophet who has just had a revelation of the word of G.o.d, by the artist who knows his latest painting is a work of genius. Why you? Because you're there, schmuck. Because something has to happen to you. OK?”

”But what if I f.u.c.k it up? I don't know anything about your organization or the Syndicate. If times are as crucial as you say, if's silly to send somebody like me on this mission. I have no experience meeting people like this”

Hagbard shook his head impatiently. ”You underrate yourself. Just because you're young and afraid you think you can't talk to people. That's stupid. And it's not typical of your generation, so you should be all the more ashamed of yourself. Furthermore, you are experienced with even worse people than Drake and Maldonado. You spent part of a night in a cell with the man who killed John F. Kennedy.”

”What?” George felt the blood rush out of his face and he thought he might faint ”Oh, sure,” said Hagbard casually. ”Joe Malik was on the right track when he sent you to Mad Dog, you know.”

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