The Eye of Moloch by Glenn Beck Page A

filthy caves one prehistoric morning to find an unexpected messenger. They gathered around it in wonder, awestruck, marveling at the dark obelisk that had arrived from somewhere beyond their understanding to nudge them toward an evolutionary rise.
    He returned his mug to the cup-holder, reached into a side pouch of his satchel in the passenger seat, took a fistful from the many pounds of Krugerrands there, and then cracked open the door and tossed a small shower of gold coins out onto the nearby ground.
    At first only one of the men outside broke ranks, and then another did, and another, until finally all but one of them had laid down their weapons and dropped to their knees to hunt for the shiny treasure he’d scattered in the rough-mown weeds.
    The last armed man kept his discipline, and gave a specific, silent order with a motion from the muzzle of his gun. Landers eased the door open wide and smiled his most winning smile, his hands held high in mock surrender.
    “Take me to your leader,” he said.

Chapter 8

    I nside the labyrinthine house the dank atmosphere was heavy with hanging smoke and the pungent stink of mold and close living. The halls were a trifle narrow, the rooms haphazardly placed, the doorways cut a little too low; refined architecture is something you so rarely notice until it isn’t there.
    He’d been thoroughly searched at three different stations, and Landers was still walking at gunpoint. Nevertheless, along the way he’d begun to sense that his escorts knew how to treat a superior being when they encountered one. They’d grown effusively polite as they directed his way through all the circuitous halls. Near the final flight of stairs one of them excused himself and ran on ahead, perhaps to alert the man in charge should he wish to groom himself before the arrival of a visiting dignitary.
    After a final pat-down the guard detail left him on the shag-carpeted landing at the top of the steps.
    Framed by the last open doorway, George Pierce was seated at the head of an austere conference table built up of sawhorses and wavy sheets of knotty plywood. A pair of shaved-headed, muscle-boundhooligans stood by, one on either side of his highness, each doing his level best to look as threatening as possible.
    Pierce himself was a slighter wisp of a man than his notorious credentials might have suggested. Not that a bantamweight should lack authority simply because of his size, but in this one’s self-conscious comportment, even while seated, he seemed determined to puff himself up in a way that only emphasized his below-average stature.
    The monogrammed satchel from the helicopter’s passenger seat was on the table at the far end, already fully ransacked, pockets splayed open and contents stacked to the side. Landers’s personal effects and identification had also been laid out for examination.
    “That money is a greeting to you from my employer,” Landers said. “It’s about a half million in gold, and a few hundred thousand in laundered bills—”
    “My men and I can count all right,” George Pierce replied. He paused to glance again at the details of the open passport before him. “Mr. Warren Francis Landers, is it?”
    “That’s correct.”
    “What you brought there has bought you five minutes.”
    “Well, then. I suppose we’d best dispense with all pleasantries and get down to the brass tacks.” Landers pulled a chair around and took a seat at his end of the table, flicked out his silver reading glasses and put them on, and then as an afterthought looked over the top of the half frames with a question. “May we speak freely in front of your associates?”
    Pierce hesitated a little longer than he should have, and then he nodded.
    “Fine.” Landers caught the eye of one of the henchmen, pointed across the table to a pair of navy blue folders from his emptied bag, and said, “We’ll need those.”
    When there was no immediate movement to comply, he snapped his fingers and made a