The Doomsday Series Box Set | Books 1-5

by Akart, Bobby

  They laughed together as they politely mocked the developers of the Haven. Tom finally regained his composure.

  Tom directed the subject to the Smarts. “You know, I never got the sense those two were trying to sell us property. It was more like, I don’t know, an interview. It’s as if they were trying to surround themselves with people they could trust.”

  “And get along with,” interjected Donna. “They didn’t seem to need our money. They needed us more.”

  “That’s what sold me on the place, and it’s the best insurance policy we’ve ever purchased. I could call Blair or Ryan, and even Tommie, but I think I know what we should do.”

  “Listen, Tom. The Haven is practically on our way home anyway. Why not stop there, ride out this storm, and decide whether it’s necessary to stay or not. Our cabin is stocked with food and drinks. The closets are full of clothes. You love to fish, and I’m sure I can hang out with some of the kids who are there. I just got an email from Blair the other day with pictures of the new schoolhouse. I’d love to put some of my old teaching skills to work.”

  “It’s settled, then. Crack of dawn, we’re up and at ’em, headed to the Haven.”

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  New Year’s Day

  Richmond, Virginia

  It was three hours before the CSI unit had adequately processed the crime scene, cleared the crashed vehicles, and removed the dead bodies. Although Tyler and Angela had been cleared to leave, they were cautioned against backtracking up to the interstate. Wilmington’s streets were out of control, and social unrest had spread into Baltimore and Washington, DC. Despite the anticipated delay, the Rankins were still better off waiting for the tunnel to be cleared. So they napped until they were given the go-ahead.

  It was almost midnight when they pulled into the driveway of their modest Richmond home near VCU Medical Center on East Clay Street, where Angela worked. Tyler insisted that he was fine to go home and argued repeatedly against going to the hospital for X-rays. Angela constantly felt his forehead and neck for signs of a fever. She gave him a pass on a hospital visit because he wasn’t exhibiting any signs of a concussion or broken ribs.

  The military bases around Virginia Beach, Norfolk, and Newport News were bustling with activity as they drove past. The National Guard had been called in to regain control of the cities from Washington, DC, to New York City, as well as those that had been attacked in other parts of the country.

  Despite being exhausted, Angela and Tyler flipped through the news networks, gathering as much information as possible. The events of the last twenty-four hours had frightened them, and they feared for their family’s safety.

  “Tyler, even Richmond is in chaos as refugees are spilling into the city from the north. It’s just a matter of time before the crap that we’re seeing in Baltimore shows up at our doorstep.”

  “Agreed. We’ve got to go. It’s like we’ve said, we can always come back. I mean, look at the trouble we had getting home. In another few days, we may have trouble getting out of town.”

  Angela wandered around the living room as she spoke. “I think you’re good to travel. I mean, at least from a medical perspective. But how do you feel?”

  “I’ll let you know in the morning. I’ve been banged up before. Remember the West End fire?”

  Tyler had been in one of the first fire crews on the scene of a massive house fire in the city’s West End neighborhood. During an effort to save a child trapped on an upper floor, a support beam fell on him, knocking him to the floor. He managed to get up and reach the child before they crawled onto the roof and were assisted to the ground. He suffered a back injury in the process that took weeks of recovery and rehabilitation.

  “Is your pain as bad as that?” asked Angela.

  “No, not even close. I swear, I’ll be fine. Besides, we have no choice.”

  “Agreed,” said Angela. She reached for the remote to turn off the television. “I’ve seen enough news, how about you?”

  “No doubt. Plus, I’m tired of being part of the news. Between last night and this evening, it makes me wonder what tomorrow will bring.”

  Angela helped him off the sofa and stood in front of him. “I love you, Tyler Rankin. When I met you, I found me. I’ll never forget the moment, and that day. We’d known each other for forty-seven days, practically living and working under the same roof. And then, all of a sudden, it struck me on day forty-seven. I really love this guy and I want to spend the rest of my life with him.”

  “Yeah.” Tyler beamed. “I remember. Just out of nowhere, you told me that you loved me.”

  Angela teared up, a rare show of emotion. Then she laughed. “Trust me, I remember. And what did you say in response?”

  “Um,” Tyler hesitated.

  Angela laughed as she wiped a few tears off her cheeks. “Yeah, exactly. Nothing. Nada. Crickets.”

  “No. Not really. I said—”

  Angela was not gonna let him off the hook. “You said something like we share the same secret.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Tyler, that was so lame. When a woman says she’s in love with you, you say it back.”

  Tyler was in big trouble, and he knew it. “I did, eventually.”

  “But you left me hanging!”

  “I know, I know. I mean, I couldn’t believe it. You’re beautiful, smart, and way better than I deserve. I thought for sure you’d change your mind after we got to know one another.”

  Angela led him into the bedroom. “Nope, and here we are, twelve years later. We have our beautiful kids, Kaycee and J.C. Our life is anything but boring. And the future is, well, if nothing else, gonna be interesting, right?”

  “No doubt.”

  Chapter Fifty

  Schwartz Estate

  Katonah, New York

  Jonathan Schwartz finished up a phone call and joined his father standing in front of the fire. Father and son had a nightly ritual in which they shared a glass of brandy and focused on their accomplishments in order to finish the day on a positive note. Tonight, as midnight approached, the mood was solemn. Millions weren’t made. Hundreds weren’t freed. Today, thousands weren’t given an opportunity at a better life.

  “The future is far from certain, son.” The old man was philosophical. He took a sip of the brandy and grimaced as it soaked his throat going down.

  Jonathan toasted him. “Lincoln once said the best way to predict your future is to create it.”

  “It is hard to disagree with that statement except there are so many uncertainties. One of my adversaries believes that either you control destiny, or destiny controls you.”

  “An adversary with one foot in the grave, Father. Unlike you.”

  “Do not underestimate him. He is tired, and his body may be ailing, but his wits are sharp. There is no more formidable adversary than he.”

  “Still, he’s no longer a field general. He has an army, but how are they led?”

  Schwartz finished his brandy and set the glass on a cocktail table near two leather chairs facing the fireplace. He gestured for his son to join him as he lowered himself onto the luxurious Italian leather.

  Jonathan hovered near the fire for a moment, gently running his fingers along a blackish-bronze sculpture of a fist holding a black rose in the air. He adjusted it so the base lined up with the edge of the mantel. Then he joined his father, who responded to the question.

  “He fights differently than I. I rely upon raw emotion and the will of the people. He is subtle. Even mysterious, as if form and sound doesn’t exist in his actions. His forte is deception and sleight of hand.”

  Jonathan interrupted his father. “In that way, he determines his opponent’s fate.”

  Schwartz laughed. “That, my son, is how he wins. Many consider fate and destiny to be interchangeable, but they are not. Fate is predetermined by the natural order of things. Regardless of what man does to alter their actions, their fate is the end result of the culmination of events in one�
��s life.” He took a deep breath and continued. “Destiny is much different. There is an element of choice in destiny. Qualities such as courage, compassion, willpower, and patience all have a profound impact on one’s destiny. Fate is that which you cannot change.”

  Jonathan sat a little taller in his chair, always confident in his assertions. “I believe that destiny is on our side.”

  His father countered. “George Trowbridge believes it to be on his.”

  “We’ll see,” mumbled Jonathan as he finished his brandy and set it forcefully on the table between them. “The fuse has been lit.”

  Volume Three

  DOOMSDAY: Anarchy

  The Doomsday Series: Book Three

  Bobby Akart

  Epigraph

  In the beginning of a change, the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.

  ~ Mark Twain

  The following five attributes marked Rome at its end; first, a mounting love of show and luxury; second, a widening gap between the very rich and the very poor; third, an obsession with sex; fourth, freakishness in the arts, masquerading as originality and enthusiasms pretending to be creativity; and fifth, an increased desire to live off the state.

  ~ Edward Gibbon (1737–1794) in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

  Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

  ~ George Santayana, philosopher and novelist

  The real rulers, you’ll never see.

  ~ Anonymous

  January 2

  The Dawn of a New Day

  Chapter One

  American Airlines Flight 5463

  Pensacola to Charlotte

  Humans were not meant to be airborne. Michael Cortland repeated this to himself throughout the ninety-minute flight from Pensacola to Charlotte on that New Year’s night. It had only been fifteen hours since he’d been plucked out of the Gulf of Mexico following the ill-fated Delta flight on New Year’s Eve. Somewhere during the ordeal, he’d sworn off flying forever, he was sure of it.

  Yet, there he was, buckled into a Canadair RJ-700, a sixty-eight-seat regional jet manufactured by Bombardier. Cort knew all of these details because during the preflight checks, he’d read the safety instructions backwards and forwards and insisted that Meredith and Hannah do the same.

  His anxiety was so bad that he admonished a passenger seated in front of him to pay attention as the flight attendants went through their safety briefing. The two exchanged words before Meredith was able to calm Cort down. She’d pulled a bottle of water out of her carry-on and insisted he take two of her Zoloft tablets, a medication prescribed to her for premenstrual dysphoric disorder. PMDD was similar to PMS, except more serious.

  Before they left the house, Meredith had researched whether Zoloft would help Cort with the aftereffects of the plane crash and the post-traumatic stress he would most likely encounter. Her online research, and a quick conversation with Cort’s attending physician at the hospital, confirmed the medication would help.

  The doctor made it abundantly clear that he did not approve of Cort’s flying so soon, especially the same evening following the crash. Meredith didn’t approve either, but Cort was very convincing. He was genuinely concerned for the safety of his family.

  The Mobile airport was still closed due to the investigation, so they made the one-hour drive into Florida to catch a flight from Pensacola to Charlotte. They’d purchased their tickets online but still had to go through the check-in process because Cort was traveling with weapons and Handsome Dan.

  Interestingly, his ability to bring guns on board the aircraft was easier than convincing the American Airlines personnel that their seventy-pound English bulldog was an emotional support animal under the FAA guidelines.

  Cort was unaware of any limits placed on the number of weapons that could be checked aboard an aircraft, but he assumed the handgun and two rifles he brought would not be a problem. Still, procedures would need to be followed. Cort lived in a time in which pocket knives, snow globes, and gel inserts for your shoes couldn’t be brought through a TSA checkpoint.

  His weapons were stored in sturdy, hard plastic cases that contained fitted foam made for each gun. His ammunition, because it was less than .75 caliber, could be stored in the same cases, and Cort ensured the magazines were empty.

  The ticket agent studied Handsome Dan throughout the check-in process, even going so far as to call in two different supervisors to assess the situation. Meredith had obtained by fax an ESA letter from Cort’s attending physician, the second reason for her phone call.

  In recent years, the major airlines had tightened the leash on comfort animals as passengers began to abuse the privilege. Everything from squirrels to miniature ponies had emerged as candidates to help fearful passengers get from one destination to another. Passengers had become lax in their restraints of the animals as they were allowed to wander the cabin midflight, at times misbehaving, biting other passengers, or defecating at will.

  It became incumbent upon the ticket agents to determine if the passenger had the proper paperwork, which included the ESA letter—a signed letter from a veterinarian stating the animal was trained to behave without a kennel—and a health vaccination record from the vet.

  Meredith had the ESA letter and Handsome’s vaccination history, but not the training letter. After explaining to the American Airlines agent the circumstances behind Cort’s crash, the three personnel made a judgment call and allowed Handsome on board. To his credit, the stout pup sat quietly as he passed inspection, despite the fact that a yappy poodle disrupted the entire terminal.

  The process helped distract Cort from the task at hand. It wasn’t until the family was buckled in and the pilot had pushed the aircraft away from the gate that reality set in for Cort. His palms became moist and then sweat began to pour down his forehead. After his stomach rolled over the first time, he looked around to see how many rows he’d have to race down to reach the lavatory. This thought process reminded him of swimming through the Delta aircraft in search of Congressman Johnson Pratt, a noble gesture that almost got him killed.

  Cort had applied some logic when he booked the flight. He wanted to sit with Handsome next to him, but Hannah and Meredith nearby. He pulled up the seating chart and found an entire row open. He purchased all six seats. Meredith and Hannah sat across the aisle, and he strapped Handsome in the middle seat next to him. Cort felt most comfortable in the aisle and immediately pulled down the window shade after they boarded. He had no intention of looking outside.

  Several times throughout the flight, he second-guessed his decision to leave so abruptly and, especially, the choice of transportation. The news reports coming in from around the country indicated gas shortages had swept the nation as panicked Americans topped off their tanks and fuel trucks stopped running altogether due to the attacks.

  Then there was the matter of the electronic failure of the Delta flight. Cort wasn’t all that familiar with the operation of commercial jets, but he did understand the effect an electromagnetic pulse could have on one. He’d been part of many Pentagon briefings with his boss, Senator Hugh McNeil, in which the use of EMPs in warfare were discussed.

  The development of directed-energy weapons capable of disabling electronics on a specific target was a high priority for the Department of Defense, as well as other military powerhouses around the world. The downing of Delta 322 had all the earmarks of a pulsed energy attack.

  Now Cort needed to know why. Was it purely coincidental? Sure, Congressman Pratt, the man who would lead the impeachment charge against the president, might be a target of political opponents. But was murdering everyone on an airplane to get to one man necessary?

  Or was there more than one target?

  Cort’s mind raced to many different scenarios and plausible explanations. The Zoloft managed to keep him in his seat and not throwing up in the lavatory, but it
did little to calm his anxiety.

  He kept a constant watch on the Flight Tracker display on the small monitor embedded in the back of the seat in front of him. They were making their final approach into Charlotte, and a sense of relief began to wash over him. Then he recalled he had been less than a mile from home when Delta 322 hit the water, and a wave of anxiety hit him again.

  To reassure himself, he elected to open the window shade. He stretched to reach over their passed-out, snoring bulldog. “Some comfort you are,” Cort whispered to his bestest pal with a grin. With a slight grunt to overcome the pain in his midsection, Cort reached the shade and forced it upward.

  He closed his eyes and shook his head before opening them again to confirm they hadn’t betrayed him. Fires roared out of control throughout the Charlotte cityscape.

  Chapter Two

  Schwartz Estate

  Katonah, New York

  György Schwartz knew that it didn’t matter whether he was right or wrong. What mattered was how much money he’d made when he was right, and how much he lost when he was wrong. He was a rich man financially because he survived by recognizing his mistakes and admitting when he was wrong. He was rich spiritually because he’d had a profound impact on the geopolitical affairs of the world for decades.

  When pressed on the issue of his political influence during an interview with the BBC, he dryly quipped, I cannot and do not look at the social consequences of what I do. Nobody believed that statement, least of all Schwartz, yet it was delivered with conviction and sincerity.