Conspircaies

'Don't get me wrong. She wasn't really into all that stuff—she was more of an interested observer than a serious participant in those groups. She was looking for something—she's been looking for something most of her life—and didn't know what it was. She once told me she wasn't looking for answers from these groups, just enough information to know what questions to ask.'

Could have been a Bob Dylan lyric.

'And did she find it?'

'No. And she was very frustrated until last year when SESOUP was formed.'

'Sea soup?' Sounded like an appetizer.

'The Society for the Exposure of Secret Organizations and Unacknowledged Phenomena.'

'SESOUP…' Jack had heard that name, but couldn't remember where. 'For some reason, that sounds familiar.'

'It's an exclusive organization, started by—' Lew froze as he glanced toward the front. 'There!' he said, pointing at the window. 'Tell me that guy isn't watching us!'

Jack looked—and damn if Lew wasn't right. A figure was silhouetted against Julio's front window, nose pressed against the glass, hands cupped on either side of his face. He sure as hell seemed to be staring their way.

Jack jumped up and headed for the door. 'Come on. Let's go see.'

The figure ducked away to the left, and by the time Jack reached the door, he'd vanished into the rest of the foot traffic on the sidewalk.

'See anybody who looks familiar?' Jack said as Lew joined him in the doorway.

Lew eyed the stream of shoppers and workers and mothers with strollers, then shook his head.

'Could have been a thirsty guy just checking the place out,' Jack said as they returned to the table.

Of course that didn't explain why he'd hurried off when Jack started moving.

'Could have been,' Lew said, but no way he believed it.

'All right. You were telling me about this soup society or something.'

'SESOUP.' Lew looked spooked, and kept glancing at the window as he spoke. 'It was put together by a fellow named Salvatore Roma. Membership is by invitation only, which has caused a lot of bad feeling in the conspiracy subculture—some well-known names were excluded. It's designed as a clearing house for most of the major conspiracy theories. Roma's idea is to sort through them all for the purpose of finding common elements among them. Melanie loved the idea. She's sure that's the path to the truth.'

'The truth? About what?'

'About what's really going on in the world. Something that would help identify the powers, the planners, the string-pullers behind the mysteries and mayhem and secret organizations that plague the world.' He held up his hands again. 'Not my words—Roma's.'

That rear door was calling like a siren.

'And who's this Roma?'

'Salvatore Roma came out of nowhere—actually he's a professor at some university in Kentucky—and got everybody fired up. He's been very helpful to Melanie in her research.'

'I take it then that you're not into that stuff.'

'Not like Melanie. I got involved out of pure curiosity—plus, attending the various gatherings and conventions around the country gave us an excuse to travel—but I've got to tell you, mister, after spending time with these people, I'm not so sure they're half as crazy as they're painted. And in some regards, I don't think they're crazy at all.'

'It's called brainwashing,' Jack said.

'Maybe. I don't say I'm immune to that. But Mel…Mel is so tough minded, it's hard to imagine her being brainwashed by anything or anybody.'

'Does any of this have anything to do with Mel's disappearance?'

'I'm sure of it. You see, over the years Mel became convinced that none of the conflicting theories about secret societies and UFOs and the Antichrist and world domination conspiracies was completely right.'

'I'm glad for that,' Jack said.

'But she also thought that none of them was completely wrong. She figured each formed around a kernel of truth, a tiny piece of the big picture. She spent years analyzing them all, trying to come up with what she called her Grand Unification Theory.'

'And?'

'And a couple of months ago she told me she believed she'd found it.'

'And you're going to share it, right?'

'I wish I could. All she told me was that she'd identified a single heretofore unsuspected power behind all the world's mysteries and unexplained phenomena, something totally unrelated to current theories. She refused to say any more until she had absolute proof. That was the 'research' I mentioned before. She thought she'd found a way to prove her Grand Unification Theory.'

'Let me guess: You think that she maybe did find this proof, and whoever's behind it all has abducted her.'

More like a job for Mulder and Scully, Jack thought.

'That's a possibility, of course,' Lew said, 'but I'm afraid it might be something more mundane. And part of it might be Mel's fault. You see, she's been so excited about finally pulling her Grand Unification Theory together, that she's been sort of bragging.'

'To whom?'

'To anyone who'll listen.'

'But didn't you tell me you two have very few friends?'

'She's been bragging in the Usenet groups she participates in.'

'Isn't that part of the Internet?'

Lew looked at him strangely. 'You have a Web site and you don't know about Usenet groups?'

Jack shrugged. 'I had a guy at my ISP throw it together. You didn't see many bells and whistles, right?' Christ, the designer had wanted to festoon the site with animated tools—bouncing screwdrivers, pirouetting pliers, slithering tool belts. Remembering the demo still made Jack shudder. 'It's not there to impress anyone. It's just another way for customers to get in touch with me. And as for the rest of the Internet, I don't do much surfing. It's a black hole for time, and I've got other things to do. So…what's a Usenet group?'

'It's a kind of bulletin board divided into interest topics where people post messages, news, facts, theories, opinions. The Internet is loaded with conspiracy topics, and Mel visited them all regularly, mostly lurking. But recently she began posting and, uncharacteristically, bragging, saying how her Grand Unification Theory was going to 'blow all other theories out of the water.' She said she was going to reveal her findings at the first annual SESOUP conference.'

'And that's bad?'

'Well, yes. I think someone in one of those Usenet groups is trying to silence her.'

'That doesn't make sense. I thought these conspiracy nuts—sorry, no offense—were supposed to be looking for the truth that's presumably been hidden from them.'

'That's what you'd think, of course. But once you've gotten to know these folks…well, you can see how some of them would feel threatened by a theory that proved theirs wrong, or worse yet, made theirs look foolish. You've got many people out there who've blamed all the problems in their lives on a certain conspiracy; some of them have built reputations in the conspiracy community by becoming experts on their section of the conspiracy landscape. Jack, these people live in that landscape, and the conspiracy community is all the social contact they've got. Someone like that wouldn't want to be proved wrong.'

'Badly enough to move against your wife?'

'Loss of face, belief, support structure, status—think about it. That could be utterly devastating.'

Jack nodded. Damn right. Take a guy who's not too tightly wrapped to start with, and a threat like that could completely unravel him.

Now we're getting somewhere, he thought.

If Lew had started insisting that his wife had been abducted by aliens, or fallen victim to a faceless bogeyman or agents of some all-powerful shadow government, Jack would be waving bye-bye now. He wasn't into chasing