by Akart, Bobby
“Yeah, sure. But what do I tell—?”
Ryan cut off Delta’s question. “We’ll talk after I’m done,” he replied before bellowing across the barn, “Alpha! Come with me!”
The two men rushed past Delta, leaving him wondering about his future.
Chapter Twenty-Six
New Year’s Day
The Haven
Ryan was perturbed as he drove the final stretch of driveway to the front gate. This was day one of what could be public unrest and panic exploding across the nation, and one member of his security team wanted to gallivant into the dead zone, as the media called the regions surrounding Philadelphia without power. Now a group he rejected was trying to beg their way inside the Haven. As he pulled the Ranger to a stop, he retrieved his cell phone from his pocket and read the mysterious message he’d received earlier.
This is just the beginning.
Truer words were never spoken, he thought to himself as he noticed the family of four huddled together under the watchful eye of his guards. He’d barely reached the gate when the holistic healer and his wife, the emergency room nurse, began to speak at him simultaneously.
The husband spoke first. “Have you seen the news?”
“We can’t go home! There’s no power,” the distressed wife shouted.
Like a tennis match, the husband took his turn. “We have no other options, Mr. Smart.”
“Please let us in!” The wife’s volley was more forceful.
Ryan held both hands up and walked closer to the gate. “I’m sorry, but it doesn’t work like that. We can’t let you in.”
The chair umpire had spoken. The husband’s mouth fell open, and his distraught wife immediately gathered her children against her hips. She began to cry. Between sobs, she asked for an explanation. “But why? I don’t understand. You brought us here to—”
“Ma’am, hold on. I didn’t bring you here. This was part of a process, and you both knew that. During our interview yesterday, I got the distinct sense you have an issue with our use of weapons—”
The husband immediately interrupted. “She’s over that, right, honey? Weapons aren’t a problem. It’s just, with everything in the news, we kinda agreed that there are too many guns. But now we get it.”
“It’s not just that, sir,” continued Ryan. “Yesterday was the most important part of the process of bringing new residents into the Haven. My interview with you, and the feeling I get from it, is the determining factor. There can only be one decider, as they say, and that’s me.”
“Why did you exclude us?” asked the wife.
“Ma’am, with all due respect, you excluded yourselves,” replied Ryan frankly. “Your most important role to the Haven was your medical training and expertise. You had no interest in seeing our medical facilities. You seemed more concerned with giving your children an opportunity to see the Hunger Games filming locations.”
“I know, but the kids had traveled a long way and—” the woman began before Ryan cut her off.
“Listen, things could get ugly at some point when we’re all called upon to defend these gates. The other men and women of the Haven need to have confidence that you’re all in. I didn’t get that sense from either one of you.”
The wife continued to cry, and now the children were whimpering, staring at Ryan as if he were the evil man who’d just run over the family pet in the street. The husband separated himself from his family and approached Ryan at the gate. Instinctively, the guards raised their weapons slightly, prepared to open fire if the man tried something rash.
“Mr. Smart, you don’t understand. We live in Trenton, New Jersey. There is no power. In fact, CNN reported the outage extends as far south as Wilmington in Delaware. That’s a hundred and forty miles of mayhem according to the reports. We’re unarmed. We’ll never make it.”
“Sir, I’m sure you can find a place to wait it out here in North Carolina. Do you have any friends or family that you could call on?”
“No, everybody we have is in Jersey,” he replied as his voice trailed off. He was naturally dejected, and Ryan was feeling bad for the family.
“Wait here,” Ryan instructed.
Ryan walked away from the gate and rubbed his temples. He called Blair and they discussed the pros and cons of allowing the family in despite their earlier decision. On the one hand, both parents had valuable skills needed in the Haven, and everything else about their background was positive. However, their apparent lack of seriousness yesterday, when the world wasn’t collapsing around them, spoke volumes about their commitment as unrest escalated around them.
Blair, who was more levelheaded and unemotional in her decision-making, looked at it from an outside recruiter’s perspective. She asked two simple questions.
Were you satisfied with your decision yesterday to reject them?
Is your reconsideration of their application based upon what’s best for the Haven or your emotions?
Ryan couldn’t argue with the conclusion. They would remain outside the gates. Now the compassionate side of the Smarts tried to find a solution. This was when Ryan dropped the bombshell that Delta wanted to retrieve his ex-wife.
Blair immediately objected. “Ryan, we don’t need any soap-opera drama within the Haven, especially now that our worst fears have materialized. He just needs to explain to his kids that it’s not gonna happen.”
Ryan wanted to agree, but he’d talked with Delta directly and recognized the conflict that was brewing inside him. He was being forced to choose between his commitment to his children and the Haven.
After Ryan didn’t speak for a moment, Blair continued. “Here’s the thing,” she began. “When Delta accepted his role here and the cabin we gave him, there was never any expectation that he’d have his kids here full-time. Heck, at the time he accepted our offer, his ex-wife was keeping the kids from him.”
“I know,” said Ryan sheepishly.
“My point being this. Like the family outside the gate, everyone we’ve dealt with knew what was expected coming in. Delta knew it was just him and not his children. So what’s next? He goes and gets the ex-wife? What about her boyfriend, the wife-thief? Does he get to tag along?”
“Probably,” replied Ryan.
“No. No way. This is a no-drama zone. We have excluded so many people for less than allowing a totally dysfunctional family unit within our gates. Tough love, Ryan. It’s the only way.”
“What do you suggest?” he asked.
“The family from Trenton can find their way home or get a hotel room somewhere until things settle down, which you and I both know isn’t going to happen. It’s up to them.”
“And Delta?”
“He either stays put, with his kids respecting his authority as a father. If that’s his choice, we’ll allow an exception to our agreement because they are his children. Or he can deliver them home to their mother and then get himself back here ASAP.”
Ryan agreed, and as part of the role he accepted within the Haven, he was charged with delivering the bad news to all involved.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Congress Heights
Washington, DC
Prowler deserved to live in the wild. The Maine coon, considered the oldest breed of American domesticated cat, had a storied past. Distinctive in their physical appearance, the long-haired breed was frequently mistaken for raccoons when seen in the wilderness of Maine, their native state. Many theories existed as to this unique breed’s ancestral origins.
One folk tale posited that before Marie Antoinette, the Queen of France, was executed in the late 1700s, she attempted to flee France aboard a ship captained by Samuel Clough. She loaded the ship with her most prized possessions, including her beloved Turkish Angora cats. Although she never made it to America, her pets reached the shores of Maine, where the Angoras bred with other cats to create the Maine coon.
A more interesting theory, one that scientists deemed to be genetically impossible, but then again, what do they kno
w, was that long-haired feral cats mated with bobcats in the wild. This accounted for the combination of the large size, bushy tale, and unusual tufts of hair commonly seen on the tips of the Maine coon’s ears.
Whatever the explanation was, Prowler, Hayden Blount’s Maine coon, was as much a dog as he was cat. He weighed twenty pounds, the size of a beagle and larger than most terriers. Coupled with his long grayish-black hair, he was an imposing creature with eyes of steel. In the dark, he’d frighten the bejesus out of any burglar or invited guest, not that Hayden ever had either.
Looking into his golden-yellow eyes, it was clear Prowler possessed an inner confidence and above-average intelligence. Fiercely loyal, the breed was known to be cautious, but not mean, around strangers. Prowler was different. Unlike most families who made a point to socialize their pets, Prowler had only known one human—Hayden.
He was independent and clingy, as many cat breeds could be, but he was hardly a lap cat. If one were to discuss the average Maine coon with a breeder, they’d describe them as a gentle giant, very vocal in their mannerisms, and an excellent pet for families.
They’d never met Prowler.
Hayden was not a drinker, but last night was the exception and not the rule. An empty bottle of cabernet sat on the coffee table between the television and the sofa, where she’d finally passed out after watching the news reports for hours. Hayden had slept until ten o’clock on New Year’s Day, partly due to exhaustion from the ordeal she’d been through in the subway, but also aided by the wine.
Prowler, however, was not a patient cat. He’d grown accustomed to a schedule, one in which his mommy fed him at oh dark thirty, left for a dozen hours or more, and then returned well into the evening for a second feeding. While it was true that Prowler ate a hearty meal of Beneful wet dog food supplemented with a dose of taurine, an amino acid used in the metabolism of fat, late last night, his internal body clock was pissed that he hadn’t been fed breakfast.
He began to let Hayden hear about his displeasure with a chorus of yowls and trills, a high-pitched, chirp-like sound usually made by songbirds, but one adopted by Prowler when he wanted attention.
The cacophony of vocalizations stirred Hayden, whose head immediately began to pound upon the ambient sunlight hitting her eyes. She had a few choice words for Prowler, who gave it right back to her in spades. The odd couple got their respective feelings out on the table, and then Hayden apologized to her bestest pal for a number of things, including drinking too much, sleeping on the couch instead of their comfy bed, and not feeding him on time.
Prowler indicated that all was right with the world again by rolling around on the floor, playfully swatting at the cork that had rolled off the coffee table, while emitting a gentle meow.
Hayden quickly fed Prowler before heading to the shower for the second time that day. The first was an absolute necessity to wash off the stench of the subway. The second was required to shock her body back to life after her self-pity wine party as she watched the nation collapse around her.
The attacks, and the potential impact they had on the political climate of the country, consumed her thoughts as she watched the news reports. In America, everything was politicized. The attacks could be blamed on the president for not maintaining his focus on the nation’s defense amidst his various scandals. The president, on the other hand, could point the finger of blame on the other side of the aisle, arguing their past Defense Department budget cuts had resulted in a lack of resources to track terrorists.
Either way, the side with the best narrative would win, although the playing field was not exactly level. The president had made a mortal enemy of the mainstream media, and he rarely was the beneficiary of a favorable news report. As the chilly water poured over Hayden’s head, she wondered if the finger-pointing blame game had already begun.
She toweled off, wrapped herself in a robe, and walked across the cold tile floors to the kitchen, where she popped a K-Cup pod of Death Wish coffee into her Keurig coffee maker. Known as the world’s strongest coffee, Death Wish coffee was Hayden’s choice for when she had to stay up late working on a legal matter at home.
Despite the high caffeine content, the smooth, never-bitter coffee had a hint of chocolate and cherry, her favorite combination in candies. Hayden, who took pride in her body and maintained a near-perfect, toned physique, had a weakness for chocolate-covered cherries. When she didn’t have time to make her own, she opted for Cella’s—America’s oldest brand of chocolate-covered cherries, having been first produced at the end of the Civil War.
With her coffee made, Hayden took a deep breath and walked to her oversized windows and looked at the Potomac. More snow had fallen overnight, and a sudden chill overcame her as she experienced a déjà vu moment. She had stood in this exact spot, in her robe, overlooking the Potomac just hours before when she had learned of the attacks in New York City.
Since that time, she’d learned the terrorists had struck in many ways and in many places. Her mind raced as she wondered what that meant for her future.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Congress Heights
Washington, DC
Hayden got settled on the couch with a three-day-old cheese Danish and her lap cat. Most of the CNN coverage showed a repeat of the images flashed across the screen from earlier that morning. Surfing the cable networks, she landed on the FoxNews channel, which featured a panel discussing the options available to the president if he deemed the attacks upon the nation were part of a larger, coordinated effort. The group debated whether the actions taken thus far constituted an act of war.
Judge Andrew Napolitano, one of the participants in the roundtable discussion and a renowned libertarian voice, recounted the words of a book he’d read years ago on the subject of American autonomy titled Choose Freedom or Capitulation, America’s Sovereignty Crisis.
“In that book, the author, a Harvard professor at the Kennedy School of Government, argued that by most definitions, an act of war, as established by accepted legal precedent, involved violent acts by an aggressor against a country or people who did not consider themselves to be formally at war with the attacker.
“However, with the advent of terrorism, and especially as a result of technologically advanced weaponry, the author proposed that any act dangerous to human life should constitute an act of terrorism, especially if it was intended to intimidate or coerce a nation, its government, and its civilian population.”
“Judge,” began the panel’s moderator, Bill Hemmer, “based upon what we know at this point, the terrorists have employed several types of, as you called it, technologically advanced weaponry—cyber, electromagnetic pulse, and autonomous drone-delivered dirty bombs.”
Napolitano interjected his opinion. “And, Bill, let me throw in the prospect of the incidents in Atlanta, and quite possibly Mobile, as being connected as well. All totaled, six of our major cities have been attacked, all of which by what some might argue to be nonlethal weapons.”
Bill Hemmer interrupted Napolitano’s thought. “Judge, are you saying that these attacks might not authorize the president to retaliate in kind or invoke some of the protections outlined in the Constitution or by past precedent?”
“There are many factors to consider, Bill. First off, any retaliatory strikes need to be approved by Congress, in my opinion. The practice of circumventing the War Powers Act by this president, and his predecessors, must stop. In the context of declaring an act of war, neither the Constitution nor any Act of Congress has stipulated what format a formal declaration of war must take, despite the fact they have the force of law. Once that declaration is made, the president’s options widen considerably.”
Hemmer asked, “Martial law? Invoking continuity of government?”
“Yes to both, but under circumstances such as these, a formal declaration that the events constitute an act of war is probably not necessary, especially with full public support. Remember, Bill, in a political climate such as the one we live in t
oday, I believe public opinion constitutes nine-tenths of the law, as the saying goes.”
Hayden retrieved her laptop and began to research the practical impact a declaration of martial law or implementation of the government’s continuity-of-government plan would have on the operation of the Supreme Court.
Her research began with Executive Directive 51 signed by President George W. Bush in 2007. Formally known as the National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive 51, the executive action replaced and expanded upon a similar directive signed by President Bill Clinton in 1998.
The directive provides that during a catastrophic emergency, in order to preserve the Constitution and the nation’s government, the president may appoint a National Continuity Coordinator, whose task was to work between the three branches of government to protect and ensure the functionality of certain national essential functions, from critical infrastructure to law enforcement functions under a martial law declaration.
Hayden, who considered herself a very capable attorney, one whom the president trusted with the future of his presidency, read the actual verbiage in Directive 51 and shook her head in disbelief. This executive order granted the president complete control over both private and public sector activities, all in the name of national security.
From the definition of catastrophic emergency, determined solely by the president, to the specific tasks given the assistant to the president for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism who became the designated National Continuity Coordinator, this was a power grab that belied everything Hayden knew about constitutional law. Yet it was in place and Congress had done nothing for two decades to curtail its mandate.