The illuminatus! trilogy Read Free Page A

One”—he-held up a finger—“a building is bombed. Two”—another finger—“an important executive disappeared three days before the bombing. Already, there’s an inference, or two inferences: something got him, or else he knew something was coming for him and he ducked out. Now, look at the memos. Point three”—he held up another finger—“a standard reference work, the
Encyclopedia Britannica
, seems to be wrong about when the Illuminati came into existence. They say eighteenth-century Germany, but the other memos trace it back to—let’s see—Spain in the seventeenth century, France in the seventeenth century, then in the eleventh century back to Italy and halfway across the world to Afghanistan. So we’ve got a second inference: if the Britannica is wrong about when the thing started, they may be wrong about when it ended. Now, put these three points and two inferences together—”
    “And the Illuminati got the editor and blew up his office. Nutz. I still say you’re going too fast.”
    “Maybe I’m not going fast enough,” Saul said. “An organization that has existed for a couple of centuries
minimum
and kept its secrets pretty well hidden most of that time might be pretty strong by now.” He trailed off into silence, and closed his eyes to concentrate. After a moment, he looked at the younger man with a searching glance.
    Muldoon had been thinking too. “I’ve seen men land onthe moon,” he said. “I’ve seen students break into administration offices and shit in the dean’s waste basket. I’ve even seen nuns in mini-skirts. But this international conspiracy existing in secret for eight hundred years, it’s like opening a door in your own house and finding James Bond and the President of the United States personally shooting it out with Fu Manchu and the five original Marx Brothers.”
    “You’re trying to convince yourself, not me. Barney, it sticks out so far that you could break it into three pieces and each one would be long enough to goose somebody up in the Bronx. There
is
a secret society that keeps screwing up international politics. Every intelligent person has suspected that at one time or another. Nobody wants war any more, but wars keep happening—why? Face it, Barney—this is the heavy case we’ve always had nightmares about. It’s cast iron. If it were a corpse, all six pallbearers would get double hernias at the funeral. Well?” Saul prompted.
    “Well, we’re either going to have to do something or get off the pot, as my sainted mother used to say.”
    It was the year when they finally immanentized the Eschaton. On April 1 the world’s great powers came closer to nuclear war than ever before, all because of an obscure island named Fernando Poo. But, while all other eyes turned to the UN building in apprehension and desperate hope, there lived in Las Vegas a unique person known as Carmel. His house was on Date Street and had a magnificent view of the desert, which he appreciated. He liked to spend long hours looking at the wild cactus wasteland although he did not know why. If you told him that he was symbolically turning his back upon mankind, he would not have understood you, nor would he have been insulted; the remark would be merely irrelevant to him. If you added that he himself was a desert creature, like the gila monster and the rattlesnake, he would have grown bored and classified you as a fool. To Carmel, most of the world were fools who asked meaningless questions and worried about pointless issues; only a few, like himself, had discovered what was really important—money— and pursued it without distractions, scruples, or irrelevancies. His favorite moments were those, like this night of April 1, when he sat and tallied his take for the month and looked out his picture window occasionally at the flatsandy landscape, dimly lit by the lights of the city behind him. In this physical and emotional desert he experienced happiness, or something as close