up early and go home,” Melissa said.
“If she did that she’d probably get fired. No shortage of people waiting to take her job.”
“Ain’t that the truth? You have any idea who we’re meeting?”
Tim glanced at the entrance again. “No idea.”
At that moment the door opened and in walked a small, white woman in a leather jacket, silk scarf and thigh high boots, carrying a briefcase. She made a beeline for Tim and Melissa, holding a hand out as she approached. She was in her late thirties, early forties and had a face that smiled easily.
“Senator Barns, Miss Jones, so good to meet you.”
Tim stood and shook her hand. Melissa did likewise.
“Please, sit down,” Tim said. “And you are?”
The woman slid into the bench opposite them and gave that cheery smile again, her blue eyes sparkling behind brown framed glasses.
“My name is Kirsty Frank. I write for darkmice.com, have you heard of it?” Tim and Melissa shook their heads. “Well that’s not surprising,” she continued. “We’re not exactly mainstream. In fact, we have proof that the government is deliberately throttling access to our servers and keeping our hit rates artificially low.”
Tim blinked at her. A horrible feeling was forming in the pit of his stomach. The waitress came over and took her coffee order, while suspicions crowded into Tim’s head.
“What sort of things do you write about?” he asked Kirsty, dreading her answer.
“Oh you know, we take a deep dive into issues the regular media likes to pretend aren’t real.”
“You mean conspiracies.” Tim wasn’t asking a question.
“Sometimes, yes, I suppose you could call them that.”
“Oh shit,” Melissa said. “Not all that 9/11-was-an-inside-job stuff ?”
Kirsty smiled again and shook her head. “Oh no, we would never say anything like that. Although there are some questions about that day that have yet to receive satisfactory answers.”
Tim stood up. “I think we’ve heard enough,” he said.
“Wait wait!” she implored them, raising her hands to motion them to sit. “Don’t you want to hear how I was able to tip you off about Melissa being tied up in your basement?”
Reluctantly, Tim sat down. Melissa followed suit, though she looked just as uncomfortable as he felt.
“We’re listening,” said Tim.
“We’ve been tracking Mr. Granger for quite some time,” she explained. “I know you met with him recently and I also know he tried to get you to shelve most of the platform that got you elected.”
“How do you know that?” Tim asked.
“Who is Granger?” Melissa interjected.
Tim turned to her. “Lionel Granger. Successful business leader in Virginia who financed my campaign and then tried to control what I did after my election. I was in the process of severing ties with him when you ended up in my basement.”
“So you know who kidnapped me?” Melissa appeared outraged. Tim held up a hand.
“I suspected. I don’t have any evidence and even if I did, what could I do with it?”
Kirsty nodded. “Granger has people everywhere. It’s almost impossible to investigate him without someone noticing and tipping him off. Then his lawyers get involved. He certainly keeps them busy. Sometimes, as in your case, it’s not a legal issue, so he uses other means to get his way.”
“Like kidnapping?”
Kirsty opened her briefcase and pulled out two documents. Both were missing person reports.
“These two women had affairs with Granger in the 90s. We know that because they both filed police reports saying he forced himself on them.”
“What happened to them?” Melissa asked, gazing at the faces of the women on the reports.
“Both of them disappeared soon after the reports were filed. They were never found.”
“And Granger was never linked to the disappearances?” Tim asked.
“They were never investigated. You’re looking at the only evidence in police records that these women ever went missing. There was no follow-up, no notes added to the case, nothing. It’s like the police weren’t interested in trying to find them.”
Tim frowned. “Where did you get these?”
“We have a friend at the local precinct. He pulled these out for us a decade ago. This is literally all he could find about these women on file.”
“Okay,” said Tim. “This looks really bad, but it’s not evidence against Granger.”
“No it’s not, and that’s why we’ve still got it after all these years and Granger is still a free man.”
Melissa shook her head. “He should be in jail.”
“I agree,” Kirsty said. “But no judge will convict him. No prosecutor would dare bring his case before one.”
It was Melissa’s turn to frown. “Why not? Because he’s rich?”
“Even rich people go to jail sometimes.”
Tim laughed at this. “Not in my experience.”
“It happens, sometimes, usually when the Feds get involved. But there are some people who are untouchable. Kidnapping and blackmail are nothing to these people. They’ll do anything to retain power and use every opportunity to wield it.”
Tim laughed. “Who? The Illuminati?” He said the word in a mocking tone, like he was talking about the bogeyman. When Kirsty didn’t reply, just gazed at him, Tim snorted. “You’re not serious.”
Melissa looked confused. “I’m sorry, what’s the Illuminarty?”
“The Illuminati,” Tim corrected her. “They’re a sort of shadowy organization dating back centuries. They’re supposed to be the ones with the real power, unelected, unknown, unaccountable, pulling the strings from behind the scenes and steering humanity towards a New World Order.”
“I’ve heard of New Order,” Melissa said. “My dad was a fan.”
Tim laughed. “Not quite. The New World Order is the concept of one world government. No individual nations, just one organization ruling the entire world.”
“Sounds creepy,” Melissa said.
“It is,” Tim agreed. “It’s also a myth.”
“Really?”
