by Akart, Bobby
He did consider himself the right guy for his side job. When he’d received instructions from his benefactors just after his arrival at the Haven, he found the request to be odd and likely harmless. He didn’t know this Michael Cortland, and he didn’t even bother to research the name online. He was in the process of unpacking and setting up his gear, not to mention trying to assimilate into his new community.
Now it appeared he’d been drawn into some kind of conspiracy. One that involved the chief of staff to a powerful senator. X-Ray looked through the Google images of Cort standing with his beautiful wife and daughter at various Mobile social functions. They were a loving family. Why is he anyone’s target?
He swapped windows and studied the coverage of the downing of Delta Flight 322. The reporting focused on the death of Congressman Pratt and the impact his demise would have on impeachment proceedings against the president. There was no mention of a Michael Cortland being a survivor of the crash.
Was the information given to him by Alpha false? Was Cortland not on the plane? Or was his name scrubbed from media attention for a reason?
Besides all of that, X-Ray was genuinely bewildered as to how his handlers knew Cortland would be there in the first place.
There were more questions than answers, and X-Ray’s head began to pound as he tried his best to compartmentalize what he knew. He considered leaving it be, chalking it up to much ado about nothing. Yet the coincidences were too great and the cryptic message he’d received earlier in the day was emphatic.
Tell no one. Will advise.
“When?” he shouted the question aloud, instantly covering his mouth as if he’d just yelled Fire! in a crowded movie theater.
X-Ray stood and wandered about his small cabin. He ran his fingers through his hair and wished he’d smuggled a bottle of gin into the Haven. A Tanqueray and tonic would hit the spot, he thought to himself as the burner phone in his pocket came to life, vibrating relentlessly.
He quickly pulled the phone out of his pocket and flipped it open. He pushed the select key to change the display to the text function. He read the message and then collapsed back into his swivel office chair.
Beware of those around you.
All is not as it might seem.
Godspeed, Patriot.
MM
“What?” he shouted again. “Beware of who? You? Jesus!”
In a rare show of anger and raw emotion, X-Ray flung the phone across the room, where it careened off a lampshade and landed safely on the leather couch in front of the fireplace, its light-blue screen continuing to illuminate despite the attempt to kill it.
Volume Four
DOOMSDAY: Minutemen
The Doomsday Series: Book Four
Bobby Akart
“Cruelty has a human heart, and jealousy a human face; Terror the human form divine, and secrecy the human dress.”
~ William Blake, English Poet, 1795
“The Patriot’s blood is the seed of Freedom’s tree.”
~ Thomas Campbell, Scottish Poet, 1795
“The best medicine against the grapes of wrath is a whiff of grapeshot.”
~ Napoleon Bonaparte, the newly installed commander of the Army of Italy, 1795
“Our task is not to bring order out of chaos, but to get work done in the midst of chaos.”
~ George Peabody, 1795–1869
“Scores will be settled …”
~ Early American idiom, circa 1795
“It’s never too early to start over, but it can be too late.”
~ Unknown
Prologue
One Summer day at Yale, 1984
Late Afternoon
New Haven, Connecticut
Secret societies have existed since the dawn of man—rituals, partnerships, alliances, clubs, and organizations whose activities were generally concealed from nonmembers. It should come as no surprise that Americans have created hundreds of secretive organizations since the days of the early settlers.
Early on, these clandestine groups were largely political in nature as the early colonists sought a means to break free from the grasp of British rule. The American Revolution had been centuries in the making. Successful revolutions never start overnight. Beginning with the early settling of the New World and the attempts to colonize Roanoke Island in 1585, the Seeds of Liberty, the important stones that were laid into the foundation of American freedom and independence, had been sewn.
Another secretive society was formed in 1832 at Yale University. A disagreement among collegiate debating teams resulted in a gathering of the school’s class valedictorian, along with fourteen others, to become the founding members of the Order of the Scull and Bones, later modernized to Skull and Bones.
The exclusive Order of Skull and Bones existed only at Yale. For nearly two centuries, new Bonesmen, as they were called, were initiated into the secretive society. The seniors in the group tapped fifteen juniors at the university, literally, in a ritual evidenced by a tapping on the shoulder and a nod of the head. These select few became Bonesmen.
The family names of former Bonesmen were historically notable—Vanderbilt, Bush, Rockefeller, Goodyear, Taft, Weyerhaeuser, Kellogg, and Trowbridge. The Order of Skull and Bones helped one another to greatness in America, rising to become influential leaders in business, Supreme Court justices, and presidents.
From the beginning of its formation, the Order was under attack from professors who objected to its secrecy and from fellow students who claimed the Bonesmen enjoyed financial perks and educational favoritism.
One such group of students started a new school newspaper at Yale called The Iconoclast. In its first volume, the editorial board of the paper dared to take the Bonesmen head-on. They tried to expose members of the Order and the alleged control over the university’s financial dealings the Bonesmen exerted.
Year by year, the deadly evil is growing, they wrote in their inaugural issue. Out of every class, Skull and Bones takes its men.
The article closed with this statement: It is Yale College against Skull and Bones!! We ask all men, as a question of right, which should be allowed to live?
One thing was certain, The Iconoclast, a publication named for a person who attacked cherished institutions, was not allowed to live. The paper was immediately shut down, and many of its student-editors were expelled from Yale.
The legend of the Skull and Bones grew further when, in 1856, the Tomb, a windowless, brownstone meeting hall, was constructed. To this day, outsiders claim strange, occult initiation rites are held twice a week. This was all speculation, of course, because Bonesmen never speak of what happens within the structure’s walls.
Within the Tomb was lodge room 322, the supposed sanctum sanctorum, the holy of holies, that contained pictures of the founding Bonesmen, together with the emblem of the file and claw.
The old engraving had become a symbol for the Skull and Bones with a meaning known only to them. Even the number, 322, had a special significance. Speculation had always run rampant, with no definitive answers emerging.
One summer day at Yale, in 1984, the Bonesmen gathered at their private island retreat, known as Deer Island, on the St. Lawrence River. The forty-acre retreat was intended to give Bonesmen, students and alumnae alike, the opportunity to rekindle friendships, negotiate business deals, and discuss the politics of the day.
On that particular summer weekend, a divisiveness grew within the ranks of the Bonesmen. President Ronald Reagan had pleased the conservative members of the Order while enraging the liberal constituency. In a rare showing of the breaking of the ranks of the Skull and Bones, the two disagreeing groups congregated in separate parts of Deer Island.
The purpose of the agreed-upon separation was to allow cooler heads to prevail so the political acrimony could subside. The alcohol was locked up, and the most influential Bonesmen of the time hoped the arguments could be stopped.
What actually happened during the cooling-down period would go down in history.
The conservative contingent, led by George Trowbridge and Hanson Briscoe, used the rift as an opportunity to plan for the future. The two men could see the direction the country was taking, and in their opinion, it was a path reminiscent of Rome as the empire began to collapse.
Trowbridge was a student of history. He recognized that collapse had happened to every empire in human history. It was, as he deemed it, a natural law that an empire achieves a certain level of success, its height of power and economic security, and then it implodes.
In his mind, debauchery and decadence began to rule the day during the time of the Roman Empire, and its decline came soon thereafter. It became a society that was mired in political unrest. Trowbridge, Briscoe, and the other Bonesmen on the right side of the political spectrum agreed and made a solemn vow—this will not happen to America.
Beginning that summer weekend, through the next three and a half decades, those Bonesmen, and others who agreed with their underlying premise, prepared for the day when they thought America would reach the breaking point.
They were opportunists who wielded great power over the military-industrial complex and the politicians who controlled the purse strings. For decades, secretive alliances were formed. Politicians were bought. Rank-and-file employees of the government, the media, and strategic businesses were brought into the fold. An army, of sorts, was built, awaiting the moment when they were given the signal. A signal that would come from a single source—MM.
The collective minds of these Bonesmen had come together that evening in October at Briscoe’s Monocacy Farm to celebrate their attempt to rescue America from a certain decline into anarchy. They set their plan into motion. It was a plan that had been developed, revised, and finalized, waiting for the right moment. It was a plan that was to be trusted.
To these Bonesmen, the only way to save America was to bring it to the brink of destruction in order to build it back in the vision of the Founding Fathers. Their efforts created a framework, a plan, to give the nation a second chance.
Trust the plan.
Part I
Chapter One
Haven Barn
The Haven
Blair Smart never looked back upon her life and thought—what might’ve been. As a high school freshman, she was pretty, popular, and full of potential. Then, one fateful day, while riding in the pickup truck of a classmate with her friends, the sixteen-year-old driver sped up a hill toward a railway crossing, hitting the tracks too fast, and lost control. Blair, who was sitting in the lap of a friend, was thrown forward into the windshield, causing significant injuries to her back and spine.
The surgeries and recovery associated with the accident forced her to withdraw from high school and abandon the extracurricular activities she enjoyed. For months, as she fought through the pain—both physical, from the accident, and emotional, due to her withdrawal from her normal activities—Blair tried to focus on her future.
Years later, when she first met Ryan, he told her that his father always suggested that he go to college. “You trade four years for forty,” Ryan had relayed to her his father’s sentiment. Four years of college would set him on a career path toward retirement.
Blair would never forget the conversation the two of them had over beers at a beach bar on Longboat Key, Florida. They talked about the board game The Game of Life. After you start the game, you quickly have to make an important choice that sets the tone for your life. One path, college, enabled you to make more money in salary, but it took longer to get into the real world, so to speak. The other path, career, threw you right into life and the school of hard knocks.
At age fifteen, due to the accident, Blair’s choices in the Game of Life were taken away. Her dreams of college and becoming an attorney were over. She was facing physical therapy, home-schooling, and a goal of attaining a GED rather than walking in the graduation processional with her friends.
Yet she still had options. She was pretty and most certainly could find a husband, have kids, and follow the path of motherhood that so many of her girlfriends had in mind. Or she could enter the business world and find her own way.
Which she did. With the bulk of her physical therapy behind her, Blair got a job in a beauty salon. Not as a stylist, but as the receptionist. Within just a few months, her organizational skills impressed the owner and she was elevated to the position of office manager. By seventeen, she’d abandoned hope of being an attorney but still pursued her paralegal training. This also led her to training to become a private investigator.
The consummate overachiever, Blair had barely blown out the candles on her eighteenth birthday cake when she applied for, and received, her licenses in Florida as a paralegal and a private investigator.
After meeting Ryan, the two worked together and developed various businesses together. Some were successful and others, not so much. But they didn’t care as long as they had a roof over their heads and they could be at each other’s side.
When the Smarts won the lottery, they could’ve followed in the footsteps of other mega-millions winners by throwing lavish parties, spending money on toys, or impressing friends with expensive trips. Instead, they stuck to their plan, which focused on the safety and future of their family.
Now, as she stood in Haven Barn watching introductions being made and small talk exchanged between the strangers who knew nothing of one another, her chest swelled with pride. None of the people gathered for the morning meeting realized that they were all brought together for a purpose, one that was conceived many years ago in the minds of Ryan and Blair Smart long before those lucky numbers had appeared on those ping-pong balls of the Florida lottery.
Fate determines who enters your life, but actions determine who remains.
“You! You’re the young lady that helped us in Richmond!” shouted Donna Shelton as she rushed to Hayden Blount’s side. “I’ll never forget your face, even in the middle of the chaos.”
“You’re the gold Yukon?”
“Yes, dear,” replied Donna. “Tom! Tom! Come here, quick!”
Tom Shelton was speaking privately with Ryan when Donna got his attention. He excused himself and rushed over to her side with a concerned look on his face, until the recognition overcame him.
“Impossible,” he began. “It’s you! My God, this is an amazing coincidence! My name is Tom Shelton.”
Donna exuded exuberance. “I’m his wife, Donna. I can’t believe we’ve crossed paths again.”
Hayden was also in shock at the unexpected turn of events. Her eyes darted around the room as she noticed the others pausing their conversations to listen in. “My name’s Hayden Blount, and I work in DC. I was on my way here, of course, when the whole thing happened at that bridge overpass.”
“This is like the Twilight Zone,” said Donna as she spontaneously hugged Hayden. “Young lady, I don’t know how we can thank you enough.”
“Let me echo my wife’s sentiments,” added Tom. “We’d been traveling in New York City and had been given a ride to nearby Norfolk from a, well, a friend.” Tom glanced at Meredith Cortland, who gave him a knowing smile.
Donna picked up on his sudden pause and continued for him. “And here we are. What a small world this is, right?”
“It sure is,” said Hayden.
Tom recovered and his curiosity got the best of him. “Hayden, I have to ask you something.”
“Okay,” she replied with a hesitant look on her face. Hayden lived in a world full of opportunists and vultures in Washington. Her legal training always kept her on guard.
“During the melee, one of the men was trying to get into your vehicle,” Tom began. “Suddenly, he fell backwards onto the pavement, and his face was …” He grimaced as his voice trailed off.
Hayden nodded and allowed herself a slight smile. “Prowler didn’t take too kindly to the guy invading his space.”
“Prowler?” asked Donna.
“He’s my Maine coon cat, and let’s just say he’s bigger than the average cat
.”
“More like a lion,” quipped Alpha from the other side of the room. Hayden glanced in his direction and then realized everyone had stopped talking as they became intrigued by the chance encounter between Hayden and the Sheltons.
“He’s a big one,” added Ryan. “What happened?”
“This guy, one of a dozen or more who attacked us, was trying to grab me through the passenger window,” Hayden replied. “Prowler was pissed. He did some real damage to the guy’s face.”
“I can attest to that.”
Hayden and the Sheltons turned their attention to the woman’s voice.
“I’m Dr. Angela Rankin, a doctor at VCU. I was working in the ER when this patient came in, handcuffed to a gurney and escorted by police. We’d never seen anything like it. The consensus was he was attacked by a bobcat or something larger.”
“No, just Prowler, although he’s as large as many dogs. He’s, well, very territorial.”
The room erupted in laughter, except for Cort, who said, “There are a lot of coincidences here, including one that I haven’t mentioned yet. By the way, I’m Michael Cortland, but you can call me Cort. This is my wife, Meredith, and our daughter, Hannah, is with us too.”