Robert Wilson - The Illuminatus! Trilogy

Maldonado raised a warning hand. "Wait. Up, everybody. To the bathroom."

Drake sighed. "Oh, Don Federico! You and your tired notions of security. If my house isn't safe, we're all dead men as of this moment. And if the AISB is as good as it's said to be, an old trick like running water will be no obstacle to them. Let's conduct this discussion like civilized men, for God's sake, and not huddled around my shower stall."

"There are times when dignity is suicide," said Maldonado. He shrugged. "But, I yield. I'll settle the question with you in hell if you're wrong."

"I'm still in the dark," said Richard Jung. "I don't know who this guy is or where he's from."

"Look, Chinaman," said Maldonado. "You know who the Ancient Illuminated Seers of Bavaria are, right? Well, every organization has opposition, right? So do the Illuminati. Opposition that's like them, religious, magical, spooky stuff. Not simply interested in becoming rich, as is our gentlemanly aim in life. Playing supernatural games. Capeesh?"

Jung looked skeptical. "You could be describing the Communist party, the CIA, or the Vatican."

"Superficial," said Maldonado scornfully. "And upstarts, compared with the AISB. Because the Bavarian Illuminati aren't Bavarians, you understand. That's just a recent name and manifestation for their order. Both the Illuminati and their opposition, which this guy represents, go back a long ways before Moscow, Washington or Rome. A little imagination is called for to understand this, Chinaman."

"If the Illuminati are yang," George said helpfully, "we're yin. The only solution is a Yin Revolution. Dig?"

"I am a graduate of Harvard Law School," said Jung loftily, "and I do not dig it. What are you, a bunch of hippies?"

"We never made a deal with your bunch before," said Maldonado. "They never had enough to offer us."

Robert Putney Drake said, "Yes, but wouldn't you like to, though, Don Federico? Haven't you had a bellyfull of the others? I know I have. I know where you're from now, George. And you people have been making giant strides in recent decades. I'm not surprised that you're able to tempt us. It's worth our lives- and we are supposedly the most secure men in the United States- to betray the Illuminati. But I understand you offer us statues from Atlantis. By now they should be uncrated. And that there are more where these came from? Is that right, George?"

Hagbard had said nothing about that, but George was too worried about his own survival to quibble. "Yes," he said. "There are more."

Drake said, "Whether we want to risk our lives by working with your people will depend on what we find when we examine the objets d'art you are offering. Don Federico, being a highly qualified expert in antiquities, particularly in those antiquities which have been carefully kept outside of the ken of conventional archaeological knowledge, will pronounce on the value of what you've brought. As a Sicilian thoroughly versed in his heritage, Don Federico is familiar with things Atlantean. The Sicilians are about the only extant people who do know about Atlantis. It is not generally realized that the Sicilians have the oldest continuous civilization on the face of the planet. With all due respects to the Chinese." Drake nodded formally to Jung.

"I consider myself an American," said Jung. "Though my family knows a thing or two about Tibet that might surprise you."

"I'm sure," said Drake. "Well, you shall advise, as you are able. But the Sicilian heritage goes back thousands of years before Rome, as does their knowledge of Atlantis. There were a few things washed up on the shores of North Africa, a few things found by divers. It was enough to establish a tradition. If there were a museum of Atlantean arts, Don Federico is one of the few people in the world qualified to be a curator."

"In other words," said Maldonado with a ghastly smile, "those statues better be authentic, kid. Because I will know if they are not."

"They are," said George. "I saw them picked up off the ocean bottom myself."

"That's impossible," said Jung.

"Let's look," said Drake.

He stood up and placed the palm of his hand flat against an oak panel which immediately slid to one side, revealing a winding metal staircase. Drake leading the way, the four of them descended what seemed to George five stories to a door with a combination lock. Drake opened the door and they passed through a series of other chambers, ending up in a large underground garage. The Gold amp; Appel truck was there and beside it the four statues, freed of their crates. There was no one in the room.

"Where did everybody go?" said Jung.

"They're Sicilians," said Drake. "They saw these and were afraid. They did the job of uncrating them and left." His face and Maldonado's wore a look of awe. Jung's craggy features bore an irritated, puzzled frown.

"I'm beginning to feel that I've been left out of a lot," he said.

"Later," said Maldonado. He took a small jeweler's glass out of his pocket and approached the nearest statue. "This is where they got the idea for the great god Pan," he said. "But you can see the idea was more complicated twenty thousand years ago than two thousand." Fixing the jeweler's glass in his eye, he began a careful inspection of a glittering hoof.

At the end of an hour, Maldonado, with the help of a ladder, had gone over each of the four statues from bottom to top with fanatical care and had questioned George about the manner of their seizure as well as what little he knew of their history. He put his jeweler's glass away, turned to Drake and nodded.

"You got the four most valuable pieces of art in the world."

Drake nodded. "I surmised as much. Worth more than all the gold in all the Spanish treasure ships there ever were."

"If I have not been dosed with a hallucinogenic drug," said Richard Jung, "I gather you are all saying these statues come from Atlantis. I'll take your word for it that they're solid gold, and that means there's a lot of gold there."

"The value of the matter is not worth one one ten-thousandth the value of the form," said Drake.

"That I don't see," said Jung. "What is the value of Atlantean art if no reputable authority anywhere in the world believes in Atlantis?"

Maldonado smiled. "There are a few people in the world who know that Atlantis existed, and who know there is such a thing as Atlantean art. And believe me, Richard, those few got enough money to make it worth anyone's while who has a piece from the bottom of the sea. Any one of these statues could buy a middle-sized country."

Drake clapped his hands with an air of authority. "I'm satisfied if Don Federico is satisfied. For these and for four more like them- or the equivalent if four such statues simply don't exist- my hand is joined with the hand of the Discordian movement. Let us go back upstairs and sign the papers- in pen and ink. And then, George, we would like you to be our guest at dinner."

George didn't know if he had the authority to promise four more statues, and he was certain that total openness was the only safe approach with these men. As they were climbing the stairs, he said to Drake, who was above him, "I wasn't authorized by the man who sent me to promise anything more. And I don't believe he has any more at the moment, unless he has a collection of his own. I know these four statues are the only ones he captured on this trip."

Drake let out a small fart, an incredible thing, it seemed to George, for the leader of all organized crime in the United States to do. "Excuse me," he said. "The exertion of these stairs is too much for me. Would love to put in an elevator, but that wouldn't be as secure. One of these days my heart will give out, going up and down those stairs." The fart smelled moderately bad, and George was glad when he had climbed out of its neighborhood. He was surprised that a man of Drake's importance would acknowledge that he farted. Perhaps that kind of straightforwardness was a factor in Drake's success. George doubted that Maldonado would admit to a fart. The Don was too devious. He was not your earthy sort of Latin- he was paper-thin and paper-pale, like a Tuscan aristocrat of attenuated bloodline.