Bare-Faced Messiah (PDF) - Apologetics Index

marks and Swiss francs in high-denomination notes. I couldn't begin to guess how much was
there, but it was certainly more than the three of us could carry.'
It took nearly two weeks to make arrangements to move the cash to a bank in Liechtenstein and
then the serial numbers - the first and last note of each bundle - had to be noted. When the mission
returned to the Bahamas, Kima had to describe to the Commodore the exact size of the various
piles of money. 'He was very pleased,' she said. 'He thought he'd outdone the Swiss.'
Hubbard's mood, as always, remained mercurial and very much subject to his notorious phobias.
He discovered that the unfortunate Hana Eltringham possessed a particularly acute sense of smell
and employed her as a 'sniffer dog' to root out the source of the smells that plagued him.
'Whenever he complained of bad smells,' she said, 'I would be called out of my office by a
messenger to go to his quarters and crawl around on my hands and knees to try and locate where
the smell was coming from. I would trace it to one corner, then we would rip off the wall cladding
and very often find something like mildew.'
It was in the interests of every member of the crew to bend over backwards to keep the
Commodore sweet, none more so than Kathy Cariotaki, head of the ship's 'household unit', a
position which, because of its proximity to the Commodore, almost guaranteed an extended
assignment in the RPF. But Kathy had won considerable praise for extracting an apology of sorts
from the Greek government after the Corfu debâcle and she used her innate diplomatic skills to
good advantage while running the 'household unit'.
'If a cycle started up when he began claiming things tasted funny, you had to be ready to handle it. If
a dish didn't taste right, he'd start hollering and yelling that we were starving him and everyone
would be under the gun. My solution was to have two back-up meals prepared at dinner every night
so that there was always something else to put in front of him quickly.
'Mary Sue was a diet addict, she was always trying this diet or that diet. One day she sent orders
down to the galley about what she wanted to eat that evening according to her latest diet. When the
meal was served I'd usually listen to see if there was going to be an upset, but this night everything
seemed fine so I went into my office. Then a messenger came round and said the Commodore
wanted to see me on A Deck lounge. By the time I got there he was hollering at the top of his lungs.
I couldn't understand what in the world he was saying until he brought it down several decibels and
shouted that the cooks were starving Mary Sue. He'd given her his dinner and I saw that she was
shovelling it down like it was the end of the world. She gave me a look which said, "Don't open your
mouth."
'Their relationship was very strange. I got them to celebrate their wedding anniversary, organized a
special dinner with candles and made sure she had a present for him and he had one for her. Mary
Sue was close to the children, but he wasn't - he hardly ever saw them. Diana was married by then
and ate with her husband, while the younger children ate with the crew. I initiated Sunday dinners
for the whole family and took every opportunity to get them together at birthdays and anniversaries,
otherwise they hardly ever saw each other.'[10]