The Illuminatus! Trilogy Part 17

Mavis strode onto the balcony, pulling the door shut behind her. She was wearing forest-green tights with white patent leather boots and a wide white belt. Her small but well-shaped b.r.e.a.s.t.s jiggled naturally under her blouse. George found himself thinking back to the scene on the beach. That was only this morning, and what time was it anyway? What time where? Back in Florida it was probably two or three in the afternoon. Which would make it one p.m. in Mad Dog, Texas. And probably about six out here in the Atlantic. Did time zones extend beneath the water? He supposed they did. On the other hand, if you were at the North Pole, you could skip around the Pole and be in a different time zone every few seconds. And cross the International Date Line every five minutes if you wanted to. Which would not, he reminded himself, make it possible to travel in time. But if he could go back to this morning and replay Mavis's demand for s.e.x, this time he would respond! He now wanted her desperately.

Well and good, but why did she say he was not not a schmuck, why did she imply admiration for him because he would not f.u.c.k her? If he had f.u.c.ked her because she asked him and he felt he should but without wanting to, he would have been a pure and simple schmuck. But he could have p.r.o.nged her simply because she would have been nice to f.u.c.k, regardless of whether she would have admired him or despised him. But that was their game-Mavis's and Hagbard's game of saying I do what I want to do, and I don't give a d.a.m.n what you think. George cared a great deal about what other people thought, so not f.u.c.king Mavis at the time was at least honest, even if he was beginning to see some merit in the Discordian (he supposed it was Discordian) att.i.tude of super self-sufficiency. a schmuck, why did she imply admiration for him because he would not f.u.c.k her? If he had f.u.c.ked her because she asked him and he felt he should but without wanting to, he would have been a pure and simple schmuck. But he could have p.r.o.nged her simply because she would have been nice to f.u.c.k, regardless of whether she would have admired him or despised him. But that was their game-Mavis's and Hagbard's game of saying I do what I want to do, and I don't give a d.a.m.n what you think. George cared a great deal about what other people thought, so not f.u.c.king Mavis at the time was at least honest, even if he was beginning to see some merit in the Discordian (he supposed it was Discordian) att.i.tude of super self-sufficiency.

Mavis smiled at him. "Well, George, had your baptism of fire?"

George shrugged. "Well, there was the Mad Dog jail. And I've been in a few other bad scenes." For instance, there was the time I held a pistol to my head and pulled the trigger.

She'd sucked his c.o.c.k, he'd watched her in manic ma.n.u.stupration, but he was desperate to get inside her, all the way, up the womb, riding her ovarian trolley to the wonderful land of f.u.c.k, as Henry Miller said. What the h.e.l.l was so special about Mavis's c.u.n.t? Especially after that induction ceremony scene. h.e.l.l, Stella Maris seemed like a less neurotic woman and was certainly a cla.s.sic lay. After Stella Maris, who needed Mavis?

A sudden question struck him. How did he know he'd laid Stella? It could have been Mavis inside that golden apple. It could have been some woman he'd never met. He was pretty sure it was a woman, unless it was a goat or a cow or a sheep. Best not put that kind of joke past Hagbard either. But even if it was a woman, why visualize Stella or Mavis or somebody like them? It was probably some diseased old Etruscan wh.o.r.e that Hagbard kept around for religious purposes. Some Sibyl. Some wop witch. Maybe it was Hagbard's rotten old Sicilian mother with no teeth, a black shawl, and three kinds of VD. No, it was Hagbard's father who was Sicilian. His mother was Norwegian.

"What color were they?" he said suddenly to Hagbard.

"Who?"

"The Atlanteans."

"Oh." Hagbard nodded. "They were covered with fur over most of their bodies, like any normal ape. At least, the High Atlanteans were. A mutation occurred around the time of the Hour of the Evil Eye-the catastrophe that destroyed High Atlantis. Later Atlanteans, like modern humans, were hairless. Those of the oldest Atlantean ancestry tend to be rather furry." George couldn't help looking down at Hagbard's hand as it rested on the railing. It was covered with thick black hair.

"All right," said Hagbard, "it's time to head back to our North American base. Howard? You out there?"

The long, streamlined shape performed a somersault on their right. "What's happening, Hagbard?"

"Have some of your people keep an eye on things here. We've got work to do on land. And-Howard, as long as I live I will be in debt to your people for the four who died to save me."

"Haven't you and the Lief Erickson Lief Erickson saved us from several kinds of deaths planned for us by the sh.o.r.e people?" said Howard. "We'll keep watch over Atlantis for you. And the seas in general, and that which Atlantis has sp.a.w.ned. Hail and farewell, Hagbard and other friends- saved us from several kinds of deaths planned for us by the sh.o.r.e people?" said Howard. "We'll keep watch over Atlantis for you. And the seas in general, and that which Atlantis has sp.a.w.ned. Hail and farewell, Hagbard and other friends- "The sea is wide and the sea is deep But warm as blood through it there rolls A tide of friendship that will keep Us close in Ocean's blackest holes."

He was gone. "Lift off," Hagbard called. George felt the surge of the sub's colossal engines, and they were sailing high above the hills and valleys of Atlantis. With the special lighting of Hagbard's television screen system, it seemed much like flying in a jet plane over one of the continents above the ocean's surface.

"Too bad we don't have time to get deeper into Atlantis," said Hagbard. "There are many mighty cities to see. Though of course none of them can approach the cities that existed before the Hour of the Evil Eye."

"How many of these Atlantean civilizations were there?" asked George.

"Basically, two. One leading up to the Hour, and one afterward. Before the Hour, there was a civilization of about a million human beings on this continent. Technically, they were further advanced than the human race is today. They had atomic power, s.p.a.ce travel, genetic technology and much else. This civilization was struck a death blow in the Hour of the Evil Eye. Two-thirds of them were killed -almost half the human population of the planet at that time. After the Hour, something made it impossible for them to make a comeback. The cities that came through the first catastrophe relatively undamaged were destroyed in later disasters. The inhabitants of Atlantis were reduced to savagery in a generation. Part of the continent sank under the sea, which was the beginning of the process that ended when all of Atlantis was under water, as it is today."

"Was this the earthquakes and tidal waves that you always read about?" George asked.

"No," said Hagbard with a curious closed expression. "It was manmade. High Atlantis was destroyed in a kind of war. Probably a civil war, since there was no other power on the planet that could have matched them."

"Anyway, if there'd been a victor, they'd still be around now," said George.

"They are," said Mavis. "The victors are still around. Only they're not what you might visualize. Not a conquering nation. And we are the descendants of the defeated."

"Now," said Hagbard, "I'm going to show you something I promised when we first met. It has to do with the catastrophe I've been talking about. Look there."

The submarine had risen high above the continent, and it was possible to see landscapes stretching for hundreds of miles. Looking in the direction in which Hagbard pointed, George saw a vast expanse of black, glazed plain. Out of its center jutted something white and pointed, like a canine tooth.

"It is said of them that they even controlled the comets in their courses." said Hagbard. He pointed again.

The submarine sailed closer to the jutting white object It was a four-sided white pyramid.

"Don't say it," said Mavis, giving him a warning look, and George remembered the tattoo he had seen between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. He looked down again. They were above the pyramid now and George could see the side that had been hidden from him as they approached. He saw what he had half-feared, half-expected to see: a blood-red design in the shape of a baleful eye.

"The Pyramid of the Eye," Hagbard said. "It stood in the center of the capital of High Atlantis. It was built in the last days of that civilization by the founders of the world's first religion. It doesn't look very big from up here, but it's five times the size of the Great Pyramid of Cheops, which was modeled after it. It's made of an imperishable ceramic substance which repels even ocean sediment. As if the builders knew that to last it would have to survive tens of thousands of years of ocean burial. And maybe-depending on who they were-they did know that. Or maybe they just built well in those days. Peos, as you saw, was a pretty durable city, and that was built after High Atlantis fell, by the second civilization I spoke of. That second civilization reached a level somewhat more advanced than that of the Greeks and Romans, but it was nothing like its predecessor. And some malevolent force seemed bent on destroying it, too, and it was destroyed, about ten thousand years ago. Of that civilization we have the evidence of ruins. But of High Atlantis we have only records and legends dug up from the later civilization-and, of course, poetry from the Porpoise Corpus. This is the only artifact, this pyramid. But its existence and durability prove that as long ago as ten Egypts, a race of men existed whose technology was far advanced beyond what we know today. So advanced that it took twenty thousand years for that civilization's successor culture to disappear completely. The men who destroyed High Atlantis did their best to make it disappear. But they couldn't quite manage it. The Pyramid of the Eye, for instance, is indestructible. Though it's probable that they didn't want to destroy it."

Mavis nodded sombrely. "That is their most sacred shrine."

"In other words," said George, "you're telling me that the people who destroyed Atlantis still exist. Do they have the powers they had then?"

"Substantially, yes," said Hagbard.

"Is this the Illuminati you told me about?"

"Illuminati, or Ancient Illuminated Seers of Bavaria is one of the names they have used, yes."

"So they didn't start in seventeen seventy-six-they go a long way back before that, right?"

"Right," said Mavis.

"Then why did you lie to me about their history? And why the h.e.l.l haven't they taken over the world by now, if they're all that powerful? When our ancestors were savages, they could have dominated them completely."

Hagbard replied, "I lied to you because the human mind can only accept a little of the truth at a time. Also, initiation into Discordianism has stages. The answer to the other question is complicated. But I'll try to give it to you simply. There are five reasons. First, there are organizations like the Discordians which are almost as powerful and which know almost as much as the Illuminati and which are able to thwart them. Second, the Illuminati are too small a group to enjoy the creative cross-fertilization necessary to progress of any kind, and they have been unable to advance much beyond the technological level they reached thirty thousand years ago. Like Chinese Mandarins. Third, the Illuminati are hamstrung in their actions by the superst.i.tious beliefs that set them apart from the other Atlanteans. As I told you, they're the world's first religion. Fourth, the Illuminati are too sophisticated, ruthless and decadent to want to take over the world-it amuses them to play play with world. Fifth, the Illuminati with world. Fifth, the Illuminati do do rule the world and everything that happens, happens by their sufferance." rule the world and everything that happens, happens by their sufferance."

"Those reasons contradict each other," said George.

"That's the nature of logical thought. All propositions are true in some sense, false in some sense and meaningless in some sense." Hagbard didn't smile.

The submarine had described a great arc as they talked and now the Pyramid of the Eye was far behind them. The eye itself, since it faced eastward, was no longer visible. Below, George could see the ruins of several small cities at the edges of tall cliffs that fell away into darker depths-cliffs that doubtless had been the seacoast of Atlantis at one time.

Hagbard said, "I've got a job for you, George. You're going to like it, and you're going to want to do it, but it is going to make you s.h.i.t a brick. We'll talk about it when we get to Chesapeake Base. Now, though, let's go down into the hold and have a look at our acquisitions." He flicked a switch. "f.u.c.kUP, get get your finger out of your a.s.s and drive this thing for a while." your finger out of your a.s.s and drive this thing for a while."

"I'll see the statues later," said Mavis. "I've got other things to do just now."

George followed Hagbard down carpeted staircases and halls paneled in glowing, polished oak. At last they came to a large hall which was apparently paved with marble flagstones. A group of men and women wearing horizontally striped nautical shirts similar to Hagbard's were cl.u.s.tered around four tall statues in the center of the room. When Hagbard entered the room they stopped talking and stepped away to give him a clear look at the sculptures. The floor was covered with puddles of water and the statues themselves were dripping.

"No wiping them dry," Hagbard said. "Every molecule is precious just as it is, and the less disturbed the better." He stepped closer to the nearest one and looked at it for a long moment. "What do you say about a thing like this? It's beyond exquisite. Can you imagine what their art was like before before the disaster? And to think the Unbroken Circle destroyed every trace of it, except for that crude, stupid pyramid." the disaster? And to think the Unbroken Circle destroyed every trace of it, except for that crude, stupid pyramid."

"Which is the greatest piece of ceramic technology in the history of the human race," said one of the women. George looked around for Stella Maris, but she wasn't there.

"Where's Stella?" he asked Hagbard.

"Upstairs minding the store. She'll see them later."

The sculptures were unlike the work of any culture George knew, which was to be expected, after all. They were at once realistic, fanciful and abstractly intellectual. They bore resemblance to Egyptian and Mayan, Cla.s.sical Greek, Chinese and Gothic, combined with a surprisingly modern-looking note. There were some qualities in the statues that were totally unique, though, qualities doubtless lost by the civilizations to which Atlantis was ancestral, but that might have been found in known world art, had there been other civilizations to preserve and emphasize them. This, George realized, was the Ur-Art; and looking at the statues was like hearing a sentence in the first language spoken by men.

An elderly sailor pointed at the statue farthest from where they were standing. "Look at that beatific smile. A woman thought of that statue, I'll bet. That's every woman's dream-to be totally self-sufficient."

"Some of the time, Joshua," said the Oriental woman who had spoken before, "but not all of the time. Now what I prefer is that." She pointed to another statue.

Hagbard laughed. "You think that's just nice, healthy oragenitalism, Tsu-Hsi. But the child in the woman's arms is the Son Without a Father, the Self-Begotten, and the couple at the base represent the Unbroken Circle of Gruad. Usually it's a serpent with its tail in its mouth, but in some of the earlier representations the couple in oral intercourse symbolizes sterile l.u.s.t. The Unloved Mother has her foot on the man's head to indicate that she conquers l.u.s.t. The whole sculpture is the product of the foulest cult to come out of Atlantis. They originated human sacrifice. First they practiced castration, but then they escalated to killing men instead of just cutting off their b.a.l.l.s. Later, when women were subjugated, the sacrifice became a virgin female, supposedly to give her to the Unloved Ones while she was still pure."

"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 ship 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 ships, 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 ships 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 ships 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 fashionable 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 ships 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."