AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Perhaps that is why we couldn’t find her,” Conrad suggested. “We have been looking for a woman alone, instead of a couple.”
The idea infuriated Parrish. He ground his teeth as they walked swiftly to the computer room and he opened the door. Everything looked normal, except for a chair that was out of place.
Conrad pointed at the ceiling. Directly over the chair, a panel was slightly out of place.
“Find her,” Parrish said in an almost soundless whisper. She had been there, so close; she had taunted him, coming there with another man. He didn’t know yet if she had actually found anything of use in his computer system, but just the fact that she had dared invade it made him shake with rage. “Find both of them. And kill them.”
Chapter 16
GRACE’S SECOND SLEEPLESS NIGHT IN A ROW MADE HER EYESIGHT blur, but she couldn’t stop reading parts of the Hitler file over and over, couldn’t get it out of her mind even when she laid it aside. She kept coming back to it, rereading it to assure herself she hadn’t imagined any of it.
The Foundation had been founded in 1802 by a strange assortment of men; Napoleon Bonaparte had been one of the original members, perhaps the most important one and the moving force behind the forming of the organization. Certainly he had been the only one at that time who had ambitions to conquer the world. A grandiose scheme, on the surface of things, but not so unexpected when the entire picture was seen.
The Hitler file gave a different and disturbing look at well-known history. In 1799, Napoleon invaded Turkish Syria, advancing as far as the fortress of Acre. He hadn’t managed to take the fortress, which the Templars had built in 1240, but perhaps he had heard something there, or found something. It was after he returned from Acre that his ambition had become full-blown; he had immediately made himself dictator of France, and then Emperor. He conquered Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Holland, Poland, attacked Russia and Austria.
Perhaps a lot of men wanted to rule the world, but few, luckily, really tried to do it or even thought they could. Napoleon had thought it possible; his intention was plainly stated in the Hitler file. He had launched an all-out search for the lost Templar Treasure, certain that when he found it he would be unstoppable, for it was promised in the papers: he who controls the Power controls the world. What was the Power? Not gold, but certainly something tangible, such as the Ark of the Covenant. Whatever it was, the Foundation believed it controlled unimaginable power, and for almost two centuries the Foundation had devoted all its resources to finding the Treasure.
There were three distinct levels within the Foundation. At the lower level were the employees, paper pushers or hired muscle. The center tier was made up of “contributors,” people who were members of the Foundation and who contributed large amounts of money to it, whether by choice or coercion. From what she read, coercion was most common. At the top level were relatively few names; she recognized most of them. Napoleon. Stalin. Hitler. Two American presidents. A Middle East dictator. A French general. A British prime minister. A famous labor leader. Tycoons, both male and female. One name particularly surprised her, for he was an extremely wealthy man known for his humanitarian works. And Parrish Sawyer. His name seemed minor compared to the fame of the others, but they hadn’t been famous at the beginning of their careers, either. The presence of his name on the list was a testament to his ruthlessness.
The power to rule the world. The concept was far more ridiculous now than it had been no more than fifty years before. How could any one person, or Foundation, rule the entire world? But when she looked at it in terms of national power and influence, something most nations lacked, it was indeed possible to control the world by controlling key nations. A political takeover wouldn’t even be necessary, so long as the politicians obeyed the money men. Media, banking, commerce—take control of those three elements, and one did indeed control the world. World rule wasn’t measured in terms of military conquest, but in economic ones.
To rule the world was a strange ambition, reasonable only to the megalomaniac personality. What was unusual was that so many of these men had joined the Foundation, for by their very personalities each would have thought himself smarter or greater than all the others. But each one had been drawn in, and in his way served the Foundation while he thought he was serving himself.
The Foundation of Evil.
Hitler and Stalin had been overtly evil, their twisted, conscienceless psyches exposed to world view. Most of the others on the list appeared, or had appeared, normal, but she knew from Parrish’s example how misleading appearances could be. All of these people had pursued unlimited power and ambition, their actions guided by the Foundation. Did they use the Foundation, or did the Foundation use them?
What was the nature of evil? What face did it wear? Was the capability to do evil in every person, and like any seed it flourished in some places but not in others? Or did the impetus for evil come from without? Was evil itself a separate entity, or nothing more than a result?
Was the Foundation evil because evil people served it, or was it evil in and of itself? Had the Foundation existed, in some other guise, far longer than a mere two centuries?
When had the Guardian been created? Had the Templars created the post, or served it? Had the Order been destroyed by the servants of the Foundation? Certainly the motives of Philip IV and Clement V were suspect, greed and jealousy and a thirst for power.
Evil.
In the silence of predawn, exhausted beyond sleep, Grace paced and thought, wondering if sleep deprivation was making her crazy or if she was indeed battling nothing less than Satan.
Just when she would decide she was definitely crazy, she would remember the Gaelic papers. “The Evil one shall be called Parrish.” And “In the Year of Our Lord 1945, the Guardian slew the German beast.” The words had been written more than six hundred years before the event actually happened, and were accompanied by a recipe for time travel. The papers were either masterpieces of prophecy, or the Templars had known the secret of time travel.
Perhaps that was the Power the Foundation sought. Time travel! The possibilities were endless. One could zip around in history and make enormous profits by using prior knowledge. What if someone made a large bet against enormous odds that the Titanic would sink, or invested heavily in munitions manufacturing before the onset of World War II? Why, just knowing who would win the World Series would make someone rich beyond belief. The possibilities were endless: take out life insurance policies on someone who would soon die, lotteries, horse races, political elections.
On the other hand, it seemed the Guardian had used time travel to protect the Power, so she was still in the dark.
Finally dawn lightened the sky, and she watched it through her dingy window. A sane person would call in sick and try to get some sleep, but instead she showered and drank a pot of coffee. She felt strangely restless, and it wasn’t caffeine jumpiness. Instead there was a growing sense of urgency, as if she should be doing something but she didn’t know what.
Perhaps it was time to pack up and move on, find another job, another room. She had been Paulette Bottoms for a couple of months now, as long as she had kept any identity. Her instincts had kept her alive this long, so she saw no reason to ignore them now.
She hadn’t made the mistake of accumulating a lot of possessions. A few clothes, the truck, the revolver. The coffeemaker was a two-dollar yard-sale find. It took her exactly ten minutes to have everything she owned packed and loaded in the truck. The room was paid for through Saturday, so she dropped the key in the super’s mailbox and walked away.
The day was Friday. She would work, collect her pay that afternoon, and quit; that would be the end of Paulette Bottoms. She would pick another name, find another room, get another job. Perhaps she would even leave Minneapolis. She had come back because it seemed the best hiding place, under Parrish’s nose, and with a fierce need for vengeance. She had never managed to come up with a reasonable plan, but neither had she devoted herself to it; instead she had concentrated all her energies on translating the papers. That task was finished. With Kris’s help, she now knew more than she’d ever imagined about the Foundation. She didn’t know yet what she could do with the information, but she felt she should leave and she could barely control the urge to get in the truck and drive until she couldn’t stay awake any longer.
Leave Minneapolis. The realization eased through her, bringing a sense of relief. Yes, that’s what she should do. Get away from Parrish, from the memories that always hovered at the edge of her control, threatening to crush her if she ever relaxed her guard. She didn’t know yet what she was going to do with the information she had, but she wanted to get away from the snow and cold, from the short winter days. She would drive south, and not stop until she found warmth and sunshine.
All she had to do was this one day of work. Clean a few houses, collect her pay, and then she would get on I-35 and head due south.
Paglione sipped on the last of the coffee in his thermos. Winter stakeouts were the worst. You had
to drink coffee to stay warm, and then you had to piss all the time. Took two people to do a decent stakeout, because one of you was always off somewhere taking a leak.
