The Echelon

by Jillian Dodd

  Each person is told to put on their ring, and then they raise the cut-crystal glass in front of them, filled with the rarest of scotch—a tradition he read in Lorenzo the Magnificent’s journal that dates back to the group’s beginning and should not be changed.

  “We might not be able to give every citizen of the world Arcadia, but it is our ultimate goal. Welcome to The Echelon,” Lorenzo says.

  MISSION COMPLETE:DAY ELEVEN

  On the eleventh day, once he has everything in place, Lorenzo addresses his people from the balcony of the palace.

  “Our country faced a great challenge recently. As throughout our storied history, the people of Montrovia have stood at the ready for king and country. Our founder and first king, Lorenzo the Magnificent, felt that greatness must be earned, and the people made him their king of their own free will during a time when force was oft taken.

  “When Lorenzo the Magnificent left Italy, he desired to create his own perfect world. His Arcadia. While the world has been in constant turmoil for centuries, we have continued our founder’s desire of a peaceful place to live, to love, and to be. My role as your king is to continue that tradition, and it’s why, throughout our history, the military has pledged their loyalty to the crown. Lorenzo’s reasoning for that was simple—so politics wouldn’t get in the way. But I couldn’t be prouder of the way the government and the monarchy worked together through the tragedy that swept our country. As we move forward, you will see me working closely with Parliament for the good of our people, not political gain.

  “On a personal note, you might have heard through the grapevine that Lady Elizabeth Palomar and I have called off our engagement. Many of you were shocked when our arranged marriage was announced because I had been spending time with a wonderful young woman named Huntley Von Allister.” He lowers his voice just a notch, his emotions flaring. “I’m here to confess something to you, for it’s pained me to pretend otherwise. I am in love with Huntley. I believe I have been since the moment I first laid eyes on her over six years ago when she was on a tour of the palace with her mother. The events that took place after that are tragic. But I want you to understand them because they have brought us to where we are today.

  “I’m sure, like me, you will never forget the day that my uncle, Prince Alessandro, died. But what we weren’t privy to is the event that had led to his death. An event that rocked my father to his core. Because Alessandro, with the help of a small group of powerful men, had planned a coup and attempted to murder my father. None of this has ever been shared with the public, and I’ve only recently learned of the truth myself. Our country is very fortunate that an Israeli agent saved my father’s life. In the process, Alessandro fell to his death.

  “A few days later, while going through Alessandro’s belongings, trying to make sense of his treachery, my father discovered a Montrovian currency bill with a few remarkable modifications. The first being that Alessandro’s photo was on it as our king. The second was that the country had been renamed Arcadia.

  “My father, feeling deeply disturbed and not knowing who to trust, gave the bill to his close friend, Ares Von Allister. Ares was a lover of history and had studied Lorenzo the Magnificent’s quest to make Montrovia his personal Arcadia. My father asked Ares to try to figure out who was behind the coup. But, to understand that, we have to go back to the past again. It has long been rumored that Lorenzo the Magnificent started a secret society. I stand before you today and acknowledge that rumor as true, for his society known as The Echelon still exists today.

  “Lorenzo the Magnificent was a very wise leader. He had a small province and a small army compared to others, so he married his heirs into royal families all across Europe and befriended men with power. While Lorenzo’s brothers were in Italy, amassing houses and artwork for all the world to see, Lorenzo was amassing gold and other treasures in secret. He crafted ten emerald rings that not only proved inclusion in the secret group, but were also a literal key to access his treasure. He held secret meetings with this group, their goal to gently guide the world toward peace, for Lorenzo did not want war or strife to fall upon our great country.

  “Over the next few centuries, the rings were passed down through generations to the firstborn son. When there was no son, the group brought a new powerful and usually wealthy family into the fold. Lorenzo the Magnificent’s group met around a circular table, so all members’ thoughts would be considered equal. It was a place where Lorenzo wasn’t a king, just a man with good intentions.

  “But, in the last twenty years, one man decided to take over as leader. His name is not important, but his role in our recent history is. He was a powerful man in the world and had heard of a brilliant young inventor named Ares Von Allister.

  “Ares had drawn up plans for something called the TerraSphere. Although originally done for the government as part of a doomsday scenario—a way to live in harmony with our planet after a catastrophic event, like nuclear war—Ares wanted to build these Spheres around the world. He even came up with a plan for governing the world after such an event, one whose capital would be located in Montrovia. What was left of the world, in his plan, would have to band together to survive, becoming a single country known as Arcadia.

  “One night, among his friends after a night of partying at the Montrovian Grand Prix, he created a crest for this new world on a bar napkin. Each piece was based off his friends’ nicknames. It was that crest my father saw on the currency bill.

  “Upon seeing the bill for himself, Ares feared that The Echelon wanted to force a new world order rather than wait for a catastrophic event to occur, so he turned to his longtime friend and CIA operative. She took a two-week vacation where she and her twelve-year-old daughter traveled the world, tracking down clues as to who was behind the coup attempt. The agent did figure out The Echelon’s plan and discovered who two of their members were. Because of the very powerful positions in the world these men held, she knew she was in danger, so she hid a series of clues in the event of her demise.

  “The agent tried to tell my father what she had learned, but he was away on business at the time, so she turned to a man she thought was my father’s good friend and shared her findings with him. That man was General Agueda. He betrayed both her confidence and my father’s that day by contacting the men she had named rather than telling my father. The general was promised control of the world’s military in the new world order and has been on their payroll ever since. The Echelon then ordered a hit on the CIA agent. She was shot, execution-style, in her home in front of her young daughter.

  “In a way, the young daughter had sort of been taught to be a spy since birth. She traveled the world with her mother on missions, providing an additional level of cover. The daughter managed to escape from the assassin and fled to the office of the man she thought to be her father, her mother’s CIA partner. They were going into hiding together when a bomb attached to the car they were in went off. The girl got out just in time. I will remind you again, this girl was only twelve years old. She went to a safe house where a man she believed to be her uncle hid her away. The CIA believed the agent’s family to be dead, and when Ares Von Allister learned of her death, he feared for his own life as well, which caused him to become a recluse.

  “While all of this might seem like ancient history, I’m sharing these details because they relate to our present. Six months ago, The Echelon decided to try again—this time, killing my uncle Marcelo in a way to make it look like an accident and giving my father the poison that would eventually end his life. For The Echelon had recruited my cousin, Princess Ophelia, who was behind the recent attempts on my life. The general, meanwhile, was planning another coup where he would kill the entire royal family during the Olympics. When he was being arrested for crimes against our country, he took the coward’s way out, pulling out a gun and ending his own life.

  “Flashback to a few months ago, and not only did we think that Ares Von Allister was dead, but we all also learned of his long-l
ost daughter, Huntley Von Allister. What you don’t know is that Huntley Von Allister is the CIA agent’s daughter. She witnessed her mother’s assassination. She escaped from both an assassin and a car bombing. Things get a little messy here because, well … that’s life, so I’m going to stick to the facts.

  “Her mother and Ares were in love, but due to her job, she did not tell him when she became pregnant, for she planned to give the twins she was carrying up for adoption. She did give her son, Ari, to a military family where he was raised with the last name Bradford. When Huntley was born thirty minutes later, her mother changed her mind and kept her. She told everyone Ari had died, probably in an attempt to cover the guilt she felt for splitting up the pair.

  “It wasn’t until six months ago, on the twins’ eighteenth-and-a-half birthday, that Ares received a previously written letter containing the truth. He immediately set out to find his son, faked his death, and sent his children to Montrovia because of the rumors of a plot to kill me—a plot he knew was related to Huntley’s mother’s death.

  “Needless to say, when Huntley and I met, we instantly fell in love, and her quick thinking helped to save my life on three different occasions. After the Queen’s Ball, we were actually kidnapped by Ophelia, who was planning to kill me so that she could become queen. We were rescued by a British intelligence agent and continued to work with British and Israeli intelligence to keep our country safe.

  “But it was Huntley, using her mother’s clues along with memories of their trip, who figured out how The Echelon planned to kill off over ninety percent of the population with their vaccines. Although, until now, we have let Sophie Andersen and Prince Kresten of Denmark face the public, it was Huntley who snuck out of our country, tracked down Sophie, and brought the antidotes to us.

  “I would be dead—we all would be dead—if it wasn’t for her.

  “You also might have heard rumors of a treasure of museum pieces being brought back to our country. I stand before you and confirm that the priceless treasure amassed by Lorenzo the Magnificent is real and that treasure is safely back on Montrovian soil, where it belongs. Select key pieces will be housed in the museum being built to honor my father, but the large majority of the artifacts will be housed in Ares Von Allister’s futuristic TerraSphere, which was built for the Olympics. Modifications are already underway, and we expect it will open to the public within the next year. All profits will be used to support children’s charities around the world. Our goal is for each country and each citizen to be allowed to live their idea of a perfect life. There will be no strings attached to our donations. We simply want all people in the world to have access to their own Arcadia.

  “I know many of you have felt that I am too young to rule. And, to be honest, there have been many times I feel that way myself, but my parents taught me how to rise to a challenge and instilled in me a love for my country. I will confess, however, that I did lie to you about one very important thing during all of this—and that is my love for Huntley. My engagement to Lady Elizabeth Palomar, who is one of my dearest friends, was a way to publicly separate myself from Huntley. It was supposed to show my seriousness and stability. It was a bit of a distraction to allow my fellow countrymen to focus on something positive while, behind the scenes, we were uncovering the threats.

  “Huntley’s engagement to Olympic athlete and First Son of the United States, Daniel Spear, was also strategic, as it allowed Huntley to freely move about the world. I’m happy to announce that Lady Elizabeth and Daniel were married a few days ago and are expecting their first child.

  “And there’s something else I need to share with you. The eve before my engagement to Lizzie was announced, I did something both very wonderful and very rash. I acted simply on emotion.

  “Huntley and her brother, Ari, were involved with a British agent in what was supposed to be the simple surveillance of a man believed to be connected to The Echelon. The man was also thought to be a possible suspect in the transportation of eight missing nuclear backpacks. Things went badly, there was a shoot-out, Huntley was mistaken for the man’s girlfriend, and she was taken hostage. Her brother bravely chased after her on a motorcycle, during which he was shot and involved in an accident. The men took Huntley to the home of one Marquis Dupree. You have probably recently heard the Dupree name, as it was his company, PureGen, that created and distributed the vaccines that would have killed us all.

  “Dupree held a gun to Huntley’s head that night, told her he was a member of The Echelon, told her part of their plan, and then pulled the trigger. At the last moment, he moved the gun to kill himself. A British agent managed to get inside, take down Dupree’s men, secure the bombs, and rescue Huntley. She flew straight to Montrovia.

  “On that night, we confessed our love for each other, and I proposed. We were immediately married at sea in a wedding that was not legal but meant everything to us.

  “It is my great pleasure to announce to you today that Huntley and I are unofficially married and officially engaged. You might have noticed in my interview with Lizzie that I mentioned having put great thought into a recently chosen engagement ring. That was the ring I had given to Huntley the night we were wed. Just days after I’d met her, I was so smitten that I found myself spending hours of time in the royal vault, studying the history of the rings and trying to determine which one I would present to her when the time was right.

  “Now that we are past the threats to our country, I find the ring I chose very fitting. It was the ring our first king, Lorenzo the Magnificent, gave to the woman who would become the first queen of our country. The jewels, which Huntley will wear on our wedding day, are aptly named the Arcadian suite because that is what she is to me—my perfect world.

  “So, what do you think? Shall I bring her out?”

  The crowd goes wild with cheers and starts singing the Montrovian song for long health in the old language—the one that started with the first Lorenzo.

  I step out onto the balcony and take my place next to the man I love.

  Tears fill my eyes as I look into his.

  He holds my hand up to the camera, showing off the ring and then telling them about the flaming heart design and how his heart flames with love and desire each and every time we are together.

  “Now, for the bigger news,” Lorenzo says. “Huntley and I will be married in the church and will celebrate with our country in a very short time. As a matter of fact, since you’re all here anyway, how about today?”

  “What?” I say to him as happy screeches and applause fill the air.

  “So, here’s our plan,” Lorenzo says to both me and the crowd. “Invitations are now being sent via text message to family and friends, who we’d love to join us in the chapel on the palace grounds. As per tradition, your future queen will be driven down Queen’s Boulevard before making her way to the chapel. I hope everyone in Cap de Playa will pause their daily activities and step outside their businesses and places of work to offer well wishes to the woman who not only saved our country, but also our world.”

  “You lied to me,” I say under my breath.

  He continues speaking to the crowd, “After the wedding ceremony, there will be a private coronation where Huntley will officially become queen consort. And, as per tradition, Huntley and I will reconvene here, on this very balcony, so that I may present to you my bride and your queen.”

  Lorenzo pulls me back inside. “I didn’t lie to you.”

  “Uh, yeah, you did. You told me the flowers being used to decorate the town were for a parade to celebrate Montrovia.”

  “A simple error of omission,” he says, possessively sliding his hands down my backside. “We are having a parade to celebrate Montrovia as well as our wedding and your coronation.”

  I suck in a breath. “I want to legally marry you more than anything, but—”

  “You need to wear the dream dress?”

  I nod as tears fill my eyes. “Yes, I’m sorry. And, since you announced it already, I�
�m not sure what to do.”

  “What you should do,” Blair Bessemer says, marching into the room, “is come with me.”

  Lorenzo draws me even closer to him. “I couldn’t marry you in anything else. The dress is practically a character of its own in our love story.”

  “Have you seen it?”

  “Absolutely not!” Blair exclaims, aghast. “I told him who the designer was and how to get in touch with him, but under no circumstances would I have allowed him to see the dress until you walked down the aisle in it.”

  “Uh, about that part,” Lorenzo says.

  “What part?” I ask.

  “Since we’re already married, I was told a first look wouldn’t be in poor form. Besides, I have a dream of my own to fulfill today.”

  I squint my eyes at him, trying to figure out what he’s talking about, but Blair grabs my hand and pulls me away.

  “We must hurry. We have just two hours’ time.”

  Blair hustles me down the hall to the queen’s study where I find the Kates, who have both agreed to stay on staff; the celebrity wedding planner, Ariela Ross, who did Ari and Allie’s wedding; as well as Lorenzo’s mother, Allie; and surprisingly, Lizzie.

  “Mrs. Daniel Spear,” I say, giving her a hug. “What a wonderful surprise. I thought you were still on your honeymoon.”

  “We were,” Daniel says, sneaking up behind me. “But no way we could miss this wedding.”

  I launch myself into his arms. “I can’t believe you’re both here. You don’t know how much it means to me.”