by Bobby Akart
“Because security is all important,” added Ryan. “If you can’t defend it, it isn’t yours.” Members of the group began to talk to one another and Cort moved closer to the white board. He gestured toward the markers and Ryan stepped aside to let him lead the conversation.
Cort began to create a freehand drawing of the United States. He wrote in the names of the cities that were directly attacked—Seattle, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, Washington, New York, and Philadelphia. Then, using a green marker, he wrote the words Atlanta concert and Delta 322 in smaller print over their approximate locations on the map. Finally, using a red marker, he wrote EMP next to Philadelphia; cyber next to DC; drone next to New York, followed by the various means of attack next to the other cities in the Midwest and Los Angeles. Next to Atlanta, he wrote the word terrorist. Next to Delta 322, he wrote the letters RFW.
“Okay, thanks for bearing with me and I hope you can read my chicken scratch. My mom always said I wrote like a doctor but thought like a lawyer.”
The group laughed along with Cort. Ryan spoke first.
“I’m seeing a pattern.”
Cort nodded. “Good, Ryan. Me too. You go first.”
“Let’s talk locations,” continued Ryan. “Except for your flight, all of the attacks took place in major cities, although the attack at the Mercedes-Benz stadium appeared isolated and unconnected.”
“But, the timing,” interjected Delta before Cort raised his hand to stop him.
“We’ll get to that in just a moment,” said Cort. “Ryan’s correct, but let me take it one step further. What else do these larger cities have in common?”
“Dense population,” replied Tyler.
“True, but there’s more,” said Cort. “We touched on this briefly last night before everyone arrived. Consider the demographics of these six metropolitan areas.”
Angela reeled off several characteristics. “Inner city. Minority. Poor.”
“Exactly, Dr. Rank—, um, Angela,” said Cort as he pointed the marker at her. “I’m a student of politics and like Hayden, deeply in tune to the thinking of D.C. Everything nowadays is looked at through the spectrum of a political lens.”
Hayden nodded in agreement. “I’m not a politician, but it’s apparent that these cities weren’t just chosen because of their population size. They were picked because of their political proclivities.”
“Yes!” exclaimed Cort. He turned to the map and ran his fingers around the interior of the U.S. border. “Where are the large-scale attacks on San Diego? Dallas? Houston? Kansas City? Or any of the major Southeastern cities. In my opinion, the traditional liberal voting enclaves were targeted.”
“Ethnic cleansing?” asked Ryan.
“Sort of,” replied Cort.
“Richmond was falling apart at the seams,” added Tyler. “It wasn’t attacked, but it was feeling the heat.”
“Charlotte, too,” added Meredith. “We saw gangs attacking one another in the street with clubs and rocks.”
“Same thing in Richmond,” said Angela. “These people dressed in black broke into our house and tried to attack our kids. Then, they moved down the street and ended up in a brawl with these guys wearing red caps.”
“The people in Charlotte were dressed in black too,” added Meredith.
“I saw them in D.C. before I left,” added Hayden. “They were spray-painting graffiti on a bridge abutment that looked like a fist holding a black rose in the air.”
“We saw it in Richmond as well,” added Meredith. “It was next to our truck just as the fighting began. You know what? They were all dressed in black too.”
“Rosa Negra,” mumbled Ryan.
“What?” asked Hayden.
“Rosa Negra. They’re an anarchist federation made up of the worst of the worst from Antifa, Black Lives Matter, and the Occupy Wall Street groups. Rosa Negra means the Black Rose. That’s their symbol.”
“Are they on the East Coast?” asked Cort.
Ryan nodded. “Yeah, believe it or not, not all anarchist activity occurs in Seattle or Portland. The Black Rose is well-funded, organized, and at the beckon call of György Schwartz, the international money guy.”
“The scourge of the right,” said Cort. “Schwartz and his organizations fund a lot of left-leaning political activity around the world. My father-in-law hates him.” Meredith furrowed her brow and gave Cort a puzzled look.
“It sounds to me that what y’all witnessed in Charlotte and Richmond is the Resistance fighting back,” said Ryan.
Blair had teased Ryan about spending so much time on conspiracy theories concerning Schwartz and the so-called Resistance. The point he continuously made to her was that the people who dressed up in their black garb and hid their faces didn’t have the kind of money necessary to fund their activities. He bought into the theories that the Resistance was a tool of the Schwartz family to destabilize American society and draw attention to their political beliefs. Maybe he was right?
“To me, this is only a small part of the overall picture we’re looking at,” said Delta. “You guys who know politics are probably correct. Here’s what I want to know. Who pulled the trigger to begin with?”
“Big triggers,” added Alpha. “The advanced weaponry you guys have described did not come from your local gun shop. This is heavy artillery in today’s age of modern warfare.”
“Especially the EMPs,” said Ryan.
“I can shed some light on part of it,” interjected Tom. “From what I’m hearing of the power outages in Eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey, the EMP had to be targeted, low trajectory, and fired from a fairly short distance. My guess is that it was delivered from an underwater location.”
Cort stepped closer to Tom. “Russians? They have the capability and their sub warfare program is on par with ours.”
“They certainly have the cyber capabilities that were used in D.C. and other parts of the country,” added Ryan.
“All true,” replied Tom. “But, toward what end? The Russians use cyber and electromagnetic pulse technology as a precursor to an invasion. They haven’t been beating the drums of war, nor are they amassed at our borders. In fact, they’ve reached out to the president to offer aid, according to the news reports.”
“Subterfuge and propaganda,” interjected Alpha.
“Maybe, but not likely,” said Cort. “Consider all of the scenarios. Why would the Russians risk getting their operatives caught in Atlanta and New York during the terrorist-like attacks on those locations? And why take down my flight? If they were going to deploy their radio frequency weapon to cause maximum damage, they would’ve tried it out on Air Force One or the chopper taking the president out of Mar-a-Lago. If they stuck with EMP weaponry and cyber, at least they’d have plausible deniability going for them.”
The room became quiet as everyone absorbed the theories being bantered about. Hayden pushed her way to the front and took the red marker from Cort. On a board next to the one Cort had been using, she wrote Rosa Negra on the left side and then drew two arrows in the center, one pointing left and the other pointing to the right. She paused for a moment and turned to the group.
“How many of you have received strange text messages since New Year’s Eve?” she asked as she raised her hand indicating she was a recipient.
Tom Shelton raised his hand. “I did on New Year’s Eve, and then another one after that. I must admit, the tone and tenor of the message was similar to the ones that I received when I was at Joint Base Charleston.”
Hayden turned to the whiteboard. “I received them as well. Very mysterious and cryptic, but they had one common element. They were signed …” Her voice trailed off as she wrote the letters M-M on the whiteboard. She turned and made eye contact with Tom who nodded.
“Same here,” he said.
Hayden replaced the cap on the marker and tapped the board with the end. “M-M. Who is this mystery person or group, and what does M-M stand for?”
The group looked at one anothe
r. Some shrugged and others shook their head side-to-side as they were unable to give an opinion. Then the voice of a young boy provided an answer from the back of the room.
“Minutemen.”
Chapter 3
Monocacy Farm
South of Frederick, Maryland
Hanson Briscoe’s uneasy feeling followed him from his meeting with George Trowbridge and was firmly ensconced in his psyche by the time he returned to Monocacy Farm. The damp, cold Maryland winter was unforgiving on his aging body and the spacious rooms of the antebellum mansion did little to take the chill out of his bones. Despite the roaring fire in the large ballroom, Briscoe’ sense of foreboding prevented him from relaxing.
He allowed himself a touch of brandy in his morning coffee as he prepared for the second wave of disruptive attacks within the United States. The next target would be popular with many, and a source of consternation for others. Despite the symbolism behind the next step, the real purpose was to create uncertainty by cutting off the ability for information to be disseminated to everyday Americans.
He’d pulled open the ceiling-to-floor velvet drapes that covered half a dozen television monitors on the wall adjacent to the foyer. He rarely powered on the screens, opting instead to watch important news matters inside the privacy of his study. Typically, the ballroom was used to host political events such as fund raisers and election night parties, when his candidates were expected to win, of course.
One by one, Briscoe powered on the monitors to reveal non-stop coverage from both the cable news networks and the Big Three—CBS, NBC, and ABC. Each of the networks either interviewed pundits who did their best to prognosticate, or the screens displayed images of chaos transmitted from around the country, depicting an America on the brink of collapse.
Briscoe pulled out his phone and initiated a series of texts to his cyber operatives around the world. It was important for the cyber sleuths to be misdirected to potential locations outside of North America. He was keenly aware of the problem of attribution when cyber attacks were initiated, especially when it came to an attack on the nation’s critical infrastructure. Thus far, anyone with an opinion was able to point a finger of blame at the perpetrator of the New Year’s Eve attack. His next move would add to the confusion and provide even more arguments as to who the guilty party was.
He sent the final text message instructing the well-paid and highly-talented cyber warriors to initiate the next step in his intricate plan. He settled into an over-stuffed settee in front of the screens and watched the images come in from Richmond and Charlotte. The news reports interspersed graphics with the live feeds showing the spray-painted graffiti of the Black Rose Federation who’d suddenly become a prominent source of coverage.
He sipped his coffee and winced, not at the temperature but rather, at the strength of the brandy that he added to the cup. A second sip took away the sting of the alcohol and he allowed himself a smile as he considered that he might just partake of several more cups of the concoction before the day was over.
“La Rosa Negra,” he muttered aloud to no one. Briscoe was alone in the spacious home as the staff was told to stay away while he conducted this next phase of the plan. They were all good people and he trusted them, to an extent, but he also wanted to be alone with his thoughts.
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 & 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 with 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 in route 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 chose 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 worst fate. Smoke suddenly appeared to come out of the computer monitors embedded in the news host’s 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 had either produced a blank screen, or a 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 sweater 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 in 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 settlors 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 Farms 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.
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Copyright Inform
ation
© 2019 Bobby Akart Inc. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of Bobby Akart Inc.
Table of Contents
Dedications
Acknowledgements
About the Author, Bobby Akart
Author’s Introduction to the Doomsday Series
Epigraph
Previously in the Doomsday Series
January 2, The Dawn of a New Day
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
