by Akart, Bobby
Briscoe was wrestling with the failed attempt on Michael Cortland’s life. He knew that it was a power play that could’ve reaped big rewards for him, considering the ill-health of Cortland’s father-in-law, George Trowbridge. Everyone within their circle of trust, a close-knit group formed years ago during a Skull and Bones retreat at Yale, knew that Cortland was the heir apparent to the Trowbridge legacy and power base.
Briscoe, like his ancestors before him, had grown weary of living in the shadow of others. He believed he’d earned the right to carry the torch of power once Trowbridge passed away. Not Cortland, who’d never been involved in the company business, as his fellow Bonesmen referred to their geopolitical machinations.
The fortuitous turn of events that landed Cortland a seat on Delta 322, the aircraft carrying the original target, Congressman Pratt, was too good for Briscoe to pass up. To be sure, he hadn’t received the flight manifest before the chopper took off from the remote area in the Florida Panhandle en route to the oil platform off the coast of Alabama. However, he still had the ability to call off the assassination and downing of the aircraft. He’d chosen to look the other way and allow things to play out.
He never imagined Cortland would survive. At first, he scrambled to prepare his excuses for the mistake. Then, time passed and Trowbridge didn’t contact him. When he was summoned to the Trowbridge residence, he thought his days on earth were over, but the conversation was businesslike and even cordial. He left there feeling he’d been watched over by a guardian angel.
All of which had resulted in this melancholy mood that had overtaken him since his trip to East Haven. The guilt of allowing Cortland to be put at risk of dying was beginning to weigh on him, and he was now seriously considering a mea culpa, an acknowledgement of guilt and a plea for forgiveness from the man whose wealth and contacts made this entire operation possible—Trowbridge.
Suddenly, one of the screens turned to gray snow, an indication that the CNN news network had been unplugged. MSNBC suffered a worse fate. Smoke suddenly appeared to come out of the computer monitors embedded in the news hosts’ desk in front of them. They were startled at first, but when sparks shot out of electrical outlets near their feet, the newscasters shrieked and pushed away from the desk out of fear.
The news sets from Fox News, C-Span and NBC News also experienced sudden bursts of smoke and sparks from their computer equipment. These network studios were housed in the same building in the four-hundred block of North Capitol Street in Washington.
Within sixty seconds, all of the monitors either produced a blank screen or snowy static. Briscoe smiled once again as he poured the rest of the coffee and brandy down his throat with a wince. The harshness on his throat didn’t prevent him from standing up to pour another half cup of coffee, with half a cup of brandy. Sure, it was early, but unplugging the American news networks was a moment worth celebrating in Briscoe’s mind.
He stood by the butler’s cart, taking another sip and enjoying the monitors that were devoid of any feed whatsoever, when a shadow crossed his vision just outside the ballroom’s massive doors leading to the back veranda.
Then he heard a muted thud. It was metallic sounding, but somehow coupled with the sound of his marble floor. Briscoe could sense the intruders. He tried to appear nonchalant as he slowly set his coffee cup on the cart.
He pulled his cardigan tight around his chest and nonchalantly walked toward the fireplace. The roaring blaze warmed his body, and just as he reached the hearth, that point at which the view of the ballroom was obscured by the curtains, he dropped to his knees, pulled back the area rug, and grabbed a stainless-steel ring that was inset into the wood floor.
Briscoe quickly opened the hatch and dropped to the top rungs of an old wooden ladder. As he’d practiced many times before during his lifetime, he deftly slid the rug over the top of the hatch and slowly closed the door, leaving no indication that he’d escaped.
He’d barely reached the dark, dusty basement floor when he heard the glass break in the rear doors and heavy footsteps pounding the floor above him, causing centuries-old dust and dirt to rain down upon his gray hair.
From the early days of the settlers, who feared attacks by Indians, through the days of the Civil War, antebellum mansions had safe places and tunnels built in to their foundations to protect the owners from attack. Briscoe didn’t hesitate to use the labyrinth of tunnels to hide until dark, allowing him to escape into the cold morning air at Monocacy Farm that day.
When he crawled out of a root cellar nearly a quarter mile away from the mansion, he was shoeless and shivering. But he was alive.
Chapter Four
Haven Barn
The Haven
Blair swung her body around in search of the voice that had snuck up on her. She was so enthralled with the recollection of the events by the group that she hadn’t noticed J.C. and Kaycee Rankin, who’d entered the conference room behind her.
“Kids, why aren’t you back at the cabin?” asked Tyler with a stern admonishment. He began walking toward them when Cort interrupted him.
“Wait. What did you say, young man?”
J.C. stood a little taller so he could be heard. “Minutemen. MM is used for Minutemen in some of the books I read about the American Revolution.”
Blair looked down at the youngster in disbelief. “You read books about the Revolutionary War?”
“Yes, ma’am. My dad says they won’t teach about it in school, so me and Peanut have to learn it on our own.”
“Peanut?” asked a confused Blair.
“That’s me, ma’am. My name is Kaycee, but they all call me Peanut.”
“O-kay,” said Blair, drawing out the word as the sudden appearance of the kids and their interaction with the adults threw her off guard. Blair wasn’t around kids very much so they were somewhat alien to her, although her first impression of the Rankin children changed her point of view.
Tyler and Angela had rushed to the kids’ sides and were about to escort them out of the conference room at Haven Barn when Cort asked young J.C. a question.
“J.C., do you recall in the books any examples of the colonists using the initials MM on letters or marked on buildings?”
“Yes, sir, and carved on trees too. It was a way to let the other people in town know who the good guys were.”
Cort waved to J.C. and encouraged the boy to join him by the whiteboard. J.C. pushed his way through the crowd, and when he arrived at the front, rather than taking on a shy demeanor, he took charge of the room.
“I always liked the stories about the Minutemen because they reminded me of my dad. He’s a firefighter and he’s always gotta be ready at a minute’s warning, just like the first Minutemen who fought for the revolution.”
“You learned this on your own?” asked Blair, surprised that the child would be interested in such matters.
“Yes, ma’am,” replied J.C., and then he went on to explain. “Two years before we declared independence, local towns tried to eliminate soldiers who might have been loyal to England from their local police and army forces. They wanted the patriots’ names to be kept a secret, so they told the men to be ready on a minute’s notice to fight the Indians or the British, or whatever was necessary to protect the town. That’s how they became Minutemen.”
J.C. caught his breath and continued. “The first Minutemen were used in Massachusetts, and when the war started at the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the Minutemen led the charge.”
Blair made eye contact with Ryan and smiled. He knew she was impressed with the kid. J.C. elaborated somewhat more and then yielded the floor back to Cort.
“This makes sense, especially from a symbolism standpoint,” Cort began to explain his theory. “Someone, or a group, most likely, has decided to take things upon themselves to escalate the war of words between the left and right to a whole new level. I’m sorry to say this, but I’m beginning to see a pattern here that may have well-intended purposes based on the principles o
f our nation’s founding, but the execution of which will result in the deaths of millions of Americans.”
“Wait, hold up,” interrupted Delta. “Are you saying our side started this mess? I mean, conservatives used their resources to attack typically liberal parts of the country, the consequences be damned?”
Tom was quick to respond, “Delta, this is all speculation, but I, for one, am prepared to rule out a foreign country. They’ve never had an incentive to broadside us like this without a larger plan. The events of New Year’s Eve were intended to stir an already boiling over pot, in my opinion.”
“I agree with Tom,” said Cort. “Nobody’s laid claim to the attacks. The weaponry was too advanced to be in the hands of terrorists. All of the attacks, including the downing of my plane and the incident in Atlanta at the stadium, were perfectly timed to coincide with the larger operations. This could very well be an inside job, in a manner of speaking.”
“We attacked ourselves? I can’t believe that,” said Delta.
Ryan moved in to calm everyone down. “I can. Given time, I can give you a couple of hundred examples of governments using false-flag activity to manipulate their citizens.” A false-flag event was a covert operation undertaken by a group, or a government, with the intent to misdirect the source of the action, but was ultimately used to manipulate the citizens of the nation under attack.
“It’s not that surprising,” added Cort. “Adolf Hitler once said if you tell a big enough lie, and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.”
Delta continued to argue against the notion. “You’ve already said that nobody has claimed responsibility. Now you wanna blame our own government and, in the process, point the finger of blame at conservatives?”
Ryan shot a glance at Alpha and then over at Blair. He welcomed dissenting opinion, but Delta seemed to be a little over-the-top in his counter-arguments. Blair suspected the weight of his decision to fetch his son, Ethan, or not, was causing him to be emotional.
“Delta, we’re still in the early stages of this attack on America, and for all we know, it’s not over yet,” said Cort. “That said, the facts as we know them are beginning to point to a coordinated effort from within our own government because the tools were possessed by us. And, without stirring up too much controversy or upsetting the president’s legal counsel, who is with us, war and turmoil favor the commander-in-chief from a political standpoint. When a president is under siege politically, like ours is, it helps him to divert attention away from scandals and to focus the public’s ire upon America’s enemies.”
Delta was still stinging from Cort’s rebuke the night before at Haven House after the disappearance of Ethan. He let his attitude show in his response. “Our president is tougher than any namby-pamby politician in office. He can fight his own battles without attacking our own. I refuse to believe he had anything to do with this.”
Cort shot back, “Who else would have the authority to order these types of strikes?”
Tom kicked at a dust bunny that lay at his feet and hesitated before speaking. Finally, he mumbled loud enough for those at the front of the room to hear him, “You’d be surprised.”
Ryan intervened because he saw the meeting getting off track. “Okay, okay. Let’s not argue amongst ourselves over speculation. It’s a bunch of bickering that may have led us to this debacle to begin with, if what we know is true.”
J.C. continued to stand in the midst of the adults, who were arguing over who to blame, when he raised his hand. “Um, his name is Alpha, right? And you’re Delta?”
“That’s right,” replied Alpha in his baritone voice.
“My name’s J.C. What kind of cool name can I have?”
The ladies in the room laughed at the youngster’s confidence as he inserted himself into the adult conversation.
“He’s quite a charmer, isn’t he?” asked Donna.
“Just like his daddy,” said Angela, who gave Tyler a playful shove.
Alpha walked up to J.C. and put his hand on his shoulder. “Well, J.C., the code word in the military alphabet for J is Juliett.”
“No way, not a girl’s name!” protested J.C.
“Hey, I have an idea,” said Hayden. “Since the young man is so charming, as all of us ladies will attest, let’s designate him R for Romeo.”
“Yeah, Romeo!” exclaimed J.C. “I’ll take it!”
“Romeo it is,” said Ryan. “And how about Kaycee?”
“She’s Peanut,” J.C. quickly answered.
“No, I’m grown up now and I want a code name, too. What’s the name for K?”
“Kilo,” replied Alpha.
“K for Kilo and Kaycee. Works for me!”
The adults got a good chuckle, and the exchange with the kids worked to ease tensions in the room. Angela gathered up the newly designated Kilo and Romeo. The two kids protested briefly but then agreed to find their way back to the cabin.
While the group continued conversations between themselves, Blair looked around the conference room. That was when she noticed that X-Ray, who’d stood off to the side the entire time and never once contributed to the conversation, had disappeared.
Chapter Five
Haven Barn
The Haven
Delta had tossed and turned all night, regaining his former self as Will Hightower, estranged father to two kids, one of whom had run away and likely committed a felony in the process. After he and Skylar had returned to their cabin, the two talked it through. His daughter had been remarkably calm under the circumstances and, frankly, much more rational than he was.
Skylar reassured her father that Ethan could take care of himself. She broke sister-code and revealed to Delta all of the misdeeds Ethan had committed since the divorce and Delta’s subsequent move to Atlanta. This caused Delta even more angst as he continued to pile heaps of guilt upon his shoulders, but Skylar, wise beyond her eleven years, continuously reminded her father that Ethan had experienced a lot as a teen, and if anyone could make it on his own, it was her brother. He might not be able to survive in the woods, but he could survive on the streets.
Nonetheless, after their heartfelt conversation—during which Skylar promised to be by his side the whole way, or stay at the cabin and fend for herself, which she had grown accustomed to doing anyway back home—Delta was finally alone with his thoughts.
He was torn between doing what he thought was the right thing for his child and the logical conclusions that invaded his thought processes. Naturally, Delta assumed his son was headed home, to Philadelphia, where hopefully Karen and even that louse Frankie, her boyfriend, would be waiting.
He would be searching for a needle in a haystack. Ethan was not responding to his phone calls. If Ethan had run into trouble, either by running out of gas or running into the kinds of thugs roaming the streets like the Sheltons and Hayden had, then it most likely would’ve happened by the next morning. Likewise, if he was able to travel home without difficulty, he’d be there already. In either event, nobody had attempted to call him.
Delta had to make a decision because people at the Haven were relying upon him, especially his young daughter, who’d be left in the care of complete strangers if he struck out without her. After what he’d heard that morning from those who’d had bad experiences in Richmond, he began to fear for Ethan’s safety even more. As the morning meeting broke up and everyone went about their daily chores, he felt obligated to pull Ryan and Blair aside to discuss his options. The Smarts were heading toward their Ranger four-wheeler when Delta caught up with them.
“Hey, guys, can I talk to you a minute?”
Blair grabbed Ryan by the sleeve, who was anxious to get back to Haven House for a follow-up meeting with Tom and Cort. They both stopped and waited for Delta.
“You need a ride back to your cabin?” asked Ryan.
“Well, um, sure, but that’s not the reason I need to talk with you alone. Can you give me a lift and I’ll go over it on the way?”
“Hop i
n,” replied Blair, who volunteered the front seat to the longer-legged Delta.
Ryan fired up the Ranger and got the heat going as they slowly made their way out of the sawdust and pine needle parking area that surrounded Haven Barn and onto the gravel road that ran through the heart of the former Hunger Games movie set.
Delta jumped right in. “I barely slept last night, trying to decide what to do. You know, I have an amazing kid waiting for me up ahead. Sky gave me great advice and reassurances that she’d be fine whatever I decide.”
“Including taking her along?” asked Blair with a hint of disapproval.
“Nah. I told her that was not an option under any circumstances. Naturally, I believe in the old African proverb ‘If you wanna go quickly, go alone. If you wanna go far, go together.’ If Ethan got in trouble while on the road, he’d need my help right away, and I can’t necessarily protect one child while trying to rescue another. I could lose them both.”
“Do you think Ethan is in trouble?” asked Ryan, who periodically glanced in the rearview mirror at Blair to gauge her reaction to the conversation.
“I’ve heard nothing from Ethan or his mother. It’s impossible to tell, although I could argue no news is good news.”
“You’re assuming he went back home, right?” asked Ryan.
“I talked to Sky about that, too. He doesn’t have any close friends, and we didn’t have any other family except Karen’s sister in upstate New York. He wouldn’t pass Philly to go there.”
“What are you gonna do?” asked Blair, who wanted to cut to the chase. She’d been annoyed by the drama from the beginning.
“It’s a tough decision. I feel like a crappy parent by not chasing after him. However, I have no way of contacting him. He could be anywhere or stuck somewhere in Richmond facing the same issues the others came up against.”
“Exactly,” said Ryan. “Richmond is too dangerous. I’d advise you to drive around the city if you’re going back to Philly to look for him.”