by Akart, Bobby
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 protection.
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.”
Volume Five
DOOMSDAY: Civil War
The Doomsday Series: Book Five
Bobby Akart
Epigraph
“What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance. Let them take arms ...”
~ Thomas Jefferson, Founding Father, calling for armed resistance
“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
~ President Abraham Lincoln, at his inauguration before Civil War ensued
“The Civil War has not ended. I question whether any serious civil war ever does end.”
~ T. S. Eliot, author and poet
“Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.”
~ Confucius
“A nation cannot be civil without civility.
To some, civility cannot be restored until power is regained.
A Civil War was a necessary evil, but make no mistake, it was evil.”
~ Author Bobby Akart
Part I
Chapter One
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 o
ut 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 Two
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 says 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.
“I’m sorry,” she said apologetically. “This was never supposed to happen. At least, not like this.”
Blair jogged to her Prairie and took off down the gravel road, full throttle. She wanted to personally extract the information out of Frankie, but she suspected she’d have to stand in line.
Cort was the first to arrive at the front porch of the hospital, followed closely by Ryan and then, Blair, who pulled the lever for the rear brakes of her four-wheeler, skidding to a stop and throwing gravel in all directions. The Rankin kids scrambled out of the way to avoid being hit.
Tyler was waiting for Cort, holding his hands up to stop his entry. “Cort, wait, you can’t go in there. The guy’s still unconscious.”
“I’ll wake him up!” Cort shot back.
“No, you can’t,” said Tyler. “Please calm down. I heard what happened, but you gotta let Angela do her best to keep him alive.”
Cort ignored Tyler’s request and tried to push past him. The much taller Cort was manhandling Tyler, causing the Rankin kids to cry for help. Blair jumped off her four-wheeler and ran to the front door, blocking Cort’s access. She drew her pistol and held it toward the ground, but in a way that Cort could see it.
“Out of my way, Blair!” Cort snarled.
“Trust me, I want to beat it out of him, too, Cort. But let’s talk to Angela first and see what we’re dealing with here.”
“C’mon, Cort, you gotta calm down,” plead Tyler, who was still wrestling with the distraught dad.
Suddenly, the door opened and Angela emerged from the building. The white lab coat given to her as the sole doctor of the Armageddon Hospital was drenched in blood. She was wearing a surgical mask and sterile gloves. Her appearance startled Cort, causing him to stop struggling against Tyler’s grasp.
Angela removed the mask and gloves and began to speak just as the rest of the group arrived. She paused, caught her breath, and waited for everyone to approach.
As she arrived out of breath, Meredith’s eyes grew wide at the amount of blood on Angela’s clothing. She began to weep but managed to ask, “Is he still alive?”
Angela took a deep breath and sighed.
Chapter Three
The Armageddon Hospital
The Haven
Angela glanced at her husband and then nodded towards their children. Tyler turned to Kaycee and J.C. “Kids, I need you to go inside for a moment, okay?”
“We’re fine out here,” replied Kaycee.
“No, I wanna see the bloody guy,” countered J.C.
Angela stood a little taller and placed her hands on her hips. “Both of you, inside. Now! And go into my office, close the door, and don’t touch anything. Understood?”
“Yes, ma’am,” mumbled a dejected J.C. He and Kaycee slipped inside as Angela returned her attention to the group.
“What’s the story, Doc?” asked Alpha.
Angela grimaced before explaining Frankie’s condition. “Well, he’s still alive, but barely. It appears that he suffered another head trauma recently. A fair-sized gash on his forehead was treated with 3M Steri-Strips to close the wound. They weren’t sufficiently strong enough to withstand the additional beating he received.”
“What happened to him?” asked Alpha.
Blair replied, “He snuck up on the back of Haven House. There was a scuffle and he apparently hit his head on a rock. During the fight, Delta hit him in the side of the head with the butt end of his rifle.”
“A direct blow to the temple, I might add,” said Angela.
“This is all his fault!” groaned Meredith, who became emotional again. “He and his tramp wife. They’re the ones who brought this, this animal to our doorstep.”
“I’ll deal with them later,” growled Cort, who remained angry over his missing daughter.
“Hold on, guys,” Blair interrupted. “It was Ethan who attacked Frankie, preventing him from shooting Will.”
“Lucky him,” said Meredith sarcastically.
Blair stepped closer to Meredith. “Ethan is dead.”
“What?” Meredith asked.
“You heard me,” replied Blair. “Ethan was killed during the fight. Lots of people have lost loved ones today. After this, I’ve got to explain to three wives why their husbands are lying facedown in the Haven.”
“I didn’t know …” Meredith’s voice trailed off as a few remorseful tears flowed from her eyes.
“I’m sorry, Blair,” said Cort. He reached for his wife, who f
ell against his body. “Angela, please continue.”
Angela smiled. “Anyway, in a short period of time, Frankie had multiple blows to his head. While the last one, delivered by Delta’s rifle, wasn’t enough to kill him, it did knock him unconscious and close to being comatose.”
“He’s in a coma?” asked Ryan.
“Without the proper equipment, it’s impossible to provide an accurate diagnosis of his neurological state. A coma is a state of unconsciousness when a person cannot be wakened with touch, noise, or even a strong respiratory inhalant like ammonia inhalants. It’s different from sleep or even unconsciousness. Sometimes a body slips into a coma to aid its survival.”
“So you’re not sure if he’s in a coma?” asked Meredith.
“Initially, it was hard to tell because he was unresponsive. Without a PET scan, um, a positron emission tomography, it’s impossible to give you a definitive answer.”
Cort released his wife and stepped forward. He had calmed down and was speaking unemotionally. “Where is the closest place to get a PET scan?”
“Who knows at this point?” replied Ryan. “Before the news blackout, it appeared that most hospitals were overrun, and some were even shutting down in fear for their staff’s safety.”
“Well, there’s more,” interjected Angela. “I didn’t know what the situation was when I began to treat him.” She glanced over at Blair.
“Yeah, I kinda dumped him on her and left,” said Blair.