by Bobby Akart
He descended upon his caretaker’s home, a loyal couple who’d watched over Monocacy Farm for decades. Briscoe, after thanking them for their hospitality, murdered the older couple and stole their vehicle. Hoping to escape to Canada, Briscoe travelled north into Pennsylvania and then came up with an idea.
THE ENEMY OF MY ENEMY IS MY FRIEND
Briscoe was aware that György Schwartz had been arrested. He knew Jonathan Schwartz was a smart guy and likely presumed that Trowbridge was behind it. Briscoe wanted revenge against Trowbridge and he expected Jonathan would be seeking it as well. So, he reached out to one of Jonathan’s top henchmen, the anarchist—Chepe.
Chepe had terrorized Richmond, Virginia and had been reassigned by Jonathan to do the same in Charlotte, North Carolina. Jonathan wanted to take the battle to Main Street USA, not just the usual locales for anarchist activity on the West Coast or cities like Chicago, Detroit, and Washington D.C.
Briscoe was convincing and Chepe put the two powerful men together by phone. Hours later, they sat in the hunting lodge outside Kutztown, Pennsylvania, sharing a bottle of brandy and plotting the demise of George Trowbridge, or the next best thing, the powerful man’s family.
Meanwhile, there were lots of enemies in the story as Ethan Hightower, who had survived the brutal beatdown administered in South Richmond thanks to some good Samaritans who took him in, was reunited with his mother. Karen, Will “Delta” Hightower’s ex-wife, and Frankie Scallone, Will’s ex-partner. There was no love lost between the two exes and Will, who’d fully adopted his new persona as Delta, member of the Haven’s security team.
Ethan led his mother and Frankie directly to the front gate of the Haven where the trio attempted to gain entry. After a confrontation in which Blair Smart laid down the law, Ethan was readmitted, Karen was invited in, with conditions, and Frankie was unconditionally sent on his way.
This didn’t set well with the ex-partner and now ex-lover, and he angrily made his way to Charlotte to look up an old acquaintance. He found an old acquaintance, all right, but it was not who he expected. Instead, it was Chepe and his band of anarchists.
You see, Frankie had arrested Chepe years before while the two were in Philadelphia and now, fate had brought them together. Fearing for his life, Frankie acted on instinct and played up to Chepe. Through quick-thinking and smooth-talking, Frankie went from being the anarchist’s next victim to a member of the club. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
The two men soon learned that they had common interests and the Haven suddenly became their mutual target. They compared notes, sent out a scout team, and then devised a plan of attack.
THE HAVEN
The Haven had settled into a routine now that all of its residents had arrived. Jobs were assigned, relationships were formed, and the Smarts implemented the plans for surviving Doomsday that had been formulated over the years.
But, as was often the case, even the best laid plans can go awry because of a single reason—the human factor. People had a way of changing any dynamic and the same was true at the Haven.
The Haven’s perimeter was threatened by passers-by and at one point, two men attempting to cross the Henry River into the former movie set of the Hunger Games got entangled in some fallen trees. One man was badly injured, and both suffered from hypothermia. Through the efforts of Tyler Rankin, and his trauma physician wife, Angela, the men were resuscitated and saved. One of them, however, in a particularly ungrateful move, chose to escape the Armageddon Hospital, prompting a manhunt.
He was later captured, and when the two intruders’ loved ones appeared at the main gate, the whole lot of them were expelled from the premises.
The security team at the Haven beefed up their monitoring of the river portion of their perimeter, a fact that didn’t go unnoticed by Chepe’s scouts who’d observed the activities. When they reported back to their leader in Charlotte, coupled with Frankie’s knowledge surreptitiously obtained from Ethan, a plan was formulated.
Chepe would eliminate his target, the Cortland family and Frankie would exact his revenge on Will Hightower, Karen, or both.
The assault upon the Haven began during the security shift change was taking place. Chepe’s men hurdled the walls using ladders stolen from Lowe’s and several teams of two entered the Haven in search of their prey.
When the breach was discovered, gunfire erupted. Several of the anarchist’s were killed, but the Haven suffered losses as well. Two well-placed snipers across the river were designated to locate and kill Cort. He and Tom Shelton were patrolling the riverbanks near the cabins when the hyperaware former Naval Commander caught a glimpse of light on the hill across the river.
Instinctively, he shielded Cort from view and took a bullet in the back for his efforts. Members of the Haven security team closed ranks around Cort and Tom which enabled Tyler to rush Tom to the Armageddon Hospital.
In the woods, Frankie and Chepe worked together to get into position. Chepe opted to stakeout Haven Barn as he knew it was a center of activity for the security team. Frankie chose to approach Haven House, where he presumed women and children would be kept. He suspected that Will would focus on protecting Karen, Skylar, and Ethan.
Frankie was right, except he never expected that Ethan would be back on duty as a drone operator. Ethan had successfully convinced Ryan and Alpha that he was remorseful. He wanted to help the Haven and with the security team shorthanded, he was put in charge of the kids operating the drones.
This turned out to both fortuitous and cursed. Ethan recognized Frankie through the high-definition camera lens of the drone. He followed the former boyfriend through the woods and when he saw that Frankie intended to shoot Will, Ethan manned-up to protect his father.
He knocked Frankie into some large rocks, causing the man’s head to bleed profusely. Blinded by the blood in his eyes, and lashing out like a cornered animal, Frankie fought back, landing blow-after-blow against the teenage boy’s head and body. With one final swing, he knocked Ethan hard against the boulders, causing his skull to crack open, killing the boy instantly.
As this battle between man and child came to an end, the security team at the Haven successfully repelled the larger attack. The leaders of the Haven gathered at Haven Barn to check on one another and compare notes. That’s when they discovered that one of the children was missing.
During the melee and confusion, the drone brigade, which now included Hannah Cortland, split apart in fear. Hannah was last seen running toward Haven Barn, but a quick search yielded nothing.
As Cort and Meredith melted into despair over their missing a child, the buzzing sound of a drone could be heard.
From Doomsday Minutemen …
The others heard it too. They wandered around the gravel area in front of the barn, looking skyward in all directions for the drone. Both Hayden and Alpha fanned out, scanning the woods in search of any threats.
The high-pitched sound emanating from the four motors of the quadcopter grew even louder, until it suddenly sailed over the roof of the barn and down the gravel road toward Haven House. Then, it suddenly stopped and swung back around.
Slowly now, the quadcopter returned to the barn. Moving painstakingly slow, it inched closer and lowered its altitude as if it was an airplane preparing for landing.
The group stared at the device. Some were confused, others pointed their weapon at it, anticipating that the machine might attack them in some way.
Cort hesitated, and then he began to walk toward the drone. Meredith quickly caught up to them until they stopped. The operator smoothly set the drone a few feet away from them and the motors suddenly shut off.
The rest of the group gathered around as the four propellers stopped, leaving them in complete silence.
Meredith began to wail as she pointed at one of the arms of the drone. Tears poured out of Cort’s eyes as he lowered himself to pick it up. Attached to the arm was the double-cross pendant necklace Meredith had given Hannah earlier that day for protecti
on.
Also wrapped around the arm was a note, affixed with one of Hannah’s colorful hair ribbons. Cort wiped the tears and sweat out of his eyes. He tried to regain his composure long enough to read and comprehend the words.
“The King needs to come to the Queen City and we will turn over his Princess. Frankie knows where to find me. Come alone.”
Scores will be settled as the Doomsday series concludes with—Civil War …
PART ONE
Chapter 1
The Varnadore Building
Uptown Charlotte, North Carolina
“Dammit!” Chepe slapped his hands against the dashboard out of anger and frustration. The pounding caused dust to billow through the air vents designed to defrost the windshield and prompted Hannah Cortland to shriek in fear. “Shut her up! I told you I wanted the kid gagged!”
“She was having trouble breathing,” replied one of the guys who’d participated in the raid upon the Haven. “The way she was hyperventilating, we’d lose our bait before we got back to the Varnadore.”
Chepe shook his head and turned around to stare at Hannah, whose eyes grew wide. Chepe scowled, causing her to whimper. His death stare was sufficient to calm the child down, or at least keep her quiet.
Almost unconsciously, Chepe reached into his torn shirtsleeve and found the dark ink of his tattoo, the black rose, indicative of his involvement in Rosa Negra. It was his reminder that he fought for a greater cause than engaging in the kidnapping of children.
The entire attack on the compound where Michael Cortland and the others were holed up was necessary. He had the tools to blast them all off the face of the earth, yet he didn’t. It wasn’t because he had scruples. Chepe had lost those years before. Somehow, the thought of using the advanced military weaponry provided by Jonathan Schwartz was overkill for the task at hand—assassinating Cortland.
His mind wandered as he recalled when the black rose tattoo had been etched onto his body. He was in Greece at the behest of Schwartz. At the time, Occupy Wall Street was all the rage, and their successes in garnering press attention changed Chepe’s life.
Springing up under the counterculture of the 1960s, anarchists in Europe actively participated in student and worker revolts. Conferences were held to form groups that spread throughout the Old World. Soon, anarchist enclaves sprang up throughout Western Europe, especially Greece.
The Schwartz family had funded and supported Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’s leftist group, SYRIZA. Chepe embedded with the urban guerilla group known as the Conspiracy of the Cells of Fire, which was known for its letter-bomb campaigns and packaged explosive devices. The leaders of SYRIZA taught him how to mobilize his followers into a formidable force that could easily overwhelm law enforcement if necessary.
None of his training, however, schooled him on how to raid a compound, assassinate a man, or kidnap a little girl. Now he found himself in a quandary as to how he should proceed.
He had to make a decision. Putting it off wouldn’t make it any easier, though, and returning the girl was certainly not an option. After the raid, he doubted the people at the Haven would shrug it off and be thankful the girl was returned.
He reached for the satellite phone and contemplated calling Jonathan and his new pal, Hanson Briscoe. He pressed the first three numbers on the dial pad and then quickly hit cancel repeatedly. His anger built up again and he slapped the dashboard twice. Naturally, this prompted Hannah to begin crying.
“You know,” Chepe began with an eerily calm voice, “we could just drop the kid on the side of the interstate. We’ll gather the troops and find another place to conduct business. Hell, we could just move on to another city. Savannah could burn again, right?”
Chepe made reference to the swath of destruction toward the end of the Civil War when Union General William Tecumseh Sherman did more than defeat his enemy, he savagely punished Southerners and their way of life. He pillaged and burned the majestic plantations and antebellum homes of the Old South, from Chattanooga to Atlanta to Savannah. Sherman was no gentleman.
None of Chepe’s lieutenants responded to his statement. The driver, who hadn’t participated in the raid, remained stoic. The two men who flanked a whimpering Hannah in the back seat were tired or partially wounded themselves.
“Jesus,” he muttered. The layers of emotions Chepe felt could be conveyed with just one word. He continued to chastise himself for the reckless attack, one that looked good on paper, but had easily been repelled by the security team at the Haven. He glanced to the back seat again and reminded himself of the one success he had achieved. I have a bargaining chip.
“Or we let it play out,” he continued. “The Varnadore is built like a fortress. We’ve got at least a mile of unobstructed views in three directions. The houses in the neighborhood behind us have been cleared out for the most part by either our people, or because the residents took off.”
One of his lieutenants offered encouragement. “We can post snipers and spotters on the roof. We’ve got the heavy artillery plus a few guys who are good shots. And I think we outnumber them.”
“How would you know that?” asked Chepe.
“Well, I don’t know for sure,” he replied. “I do know, however, that they’d have to bring everybody they’ve got to come close to matching us man for man. I know they want the kid back, but they’re not gonna abandon the safety of those walls. Not all of them anyway.”
Hannah’s eyes darted around the interior of the SUV, listening to the men debate her fate. She suddenly grew quiet, calming her emotions.
“Good point,” said Chepe. “I mean, let’s say that Cortland is stupid and comes alone. Then this is a piece of cake. Even if he brings six, hell, a dozen of their best guys, we’ve got him outnumbered by a few dozen.”
“That’s right,” said the driver, speaking for the first time.
The fourth man in the vehicle, who was nursing a gunshot wound where a wildly fired shot had grazed him as he climbed over the wall, offered his opinion. “I think some of their people are ex-military. They could come at us in a way we never expected. I mean, we’re trained to break things, not defend—”
Chepe scowled and turned to stare at his lieutenant. “It doesn’t matter. It’s a numbers game. We’ve got them by at least six to one. Plus, we’ll hide the princess in the castle really good. I’m a chess player. We’ll lay out a nice gambit that traps them.”
“So we play it out?” asked the driver.
Chepe smiled, confident in his decision for the first time.
“We play it out.”
Chapter 2
Haven Barn
The Haven
Sweat poured off Cort’s brow and down the sides of his face. He’d kept in shape after his years as a college basketball player at Yale, but it wasn’t the type of sweat released to cool the body down from overexertion or exposure to heat. Stress sweat was different. It was milkier, full of fatty acids and proteins, and was released from glands around a person’s brow or armpits. The chillier temperatures did nothing to prevent Cort from soaking his shirt and drenching his face.
“Who could’ve done this, and why?” asked Alpha. “I can’t imagine they attacked us to kidnap Hannah.”
Cort kicked at the rocks beneath his feet. He paced rapidly back and forth, his eyes darting between the ransom note, the quadcopter, and his wife’s trembling hands holding the double-cross necklace.
“They were after me,” Cort replied. “I just don’t know why. I mean, for sure, anyway.”
“What does that mean?” asked Alpha.
Blair stepped in because Alpha wasn’t privy to all of the information they’d received from Tom, Cort, and more recently, X-Ray. “Listen, for now, it doesn’t matter who’s behind it. We’ll deal with that another day. Personally, I think that Hannah was taken because she was readily available to the guys who staged this raid.”
“I agree with Blair,” interjected Ryan. “She wasn’t the target, and the note pretty much say
s that. They’re after Cort. We’ll have to figure out why, later.”
“What are we gonna do?” Meredith’s question came out more as a despondent wail than a series of words.
“Honey, we’re gonna get Hannah back. I promise.” Blair moved in to comfort her, but Meredith pulled away. She was too distraught to be touched, yet she needed someone to help her through the pain of losing her child.
“You don’t know that!” Meredith shouted. “We know nothing about these people! All we know is that this guy Frankie is our only hope. And he’s lying half dead on the porch back there.” She turned and pointed in the direction of the hospital.
Cort set his jaw and spoke through gritted teeth. “I’m gettin’ some answers.” Before anyone could stop him, he raced toward the Armageddon Hospital, where Blair had dumped Frankie’s body earlier.
“Cort, wait!” shouted Ryan. “Let’s talk this through first.”
Cort ignored Ryan’s plea, and Meredith took off after him, at one point stumbling on the gravel and ripping open the skin on both of her knees. She recovered, raced forward again, and then fell harder.
Blair turned to Alpha. “Call Tyler and tell him they’re coming for Frankie. We can’t let Cort get there first.”
Angela and Tyler had remained at the hospital with their two kids and Skylar. Frankie had been taken into the hospital by the Rankins while the kids were being watched by Donna.
Ryan jumped in his Ranger, with Alpha crawling into the passenger seat at the same time. Ryan floored the gas pedal and spun the vehicle around in pursuit.
Blair was left alone, staring at the children’s dead guard. By her count, the Haven had lost three men during the attack, with several others seriously injured, including Tom Shelton. She walked around the man’s body, which had been ignored by the group in the urgency to find Hannah. She knelt down next to him and closed his eyelids.
