Amnesia

by Michael Cross

  “Oh, I see what’s going on now,” I chuckle.

  “Yeah? And what’s that?”

  “You and Tommy Elkins are old friends, yeah?” I ask rhetorically. “He mentions our little dustup to you, so you figure you need to come rattle my cage.”

  I can barely notice his lip twitching beneath that bushy mustache, but I can’t miss the narrowing of his already squinted eyes. There’s also a flush in his cheeks that tells me the man’s blood pressure is rising.

  “Got it all figured out, don’t you?” he growls.

  I shrug. “What can I say? I can put two and two together to make four.”

  “Well, good for you.”

  A silence descends over us that’s charged with tension and the whispered threat of violence. I know I shouldn’t be going out of my way to antagonize the Sheriff. Pissing him off means he might be watching me closer—which would be inconvenient, given the reason I’m here. But there’s just something about him—other than the fact that he’s defending a domestic abuser—that I really don’t like.

  “So, am I being charged with anything here, Sheriff?” I press. “Because if you’re not, I’d like to get back to my food before it gets cold.”

  He clicks his tongue in his mouth, never breaking our gaze, staring at me as if he’s considering the question. On that, I’m not worried—he has nothing to charge me with. If he was going to, I’d be in cuffs already. My guess is that ol’ Tommy isn’t going to press charges and admit he got his ass whooped by a smaller guy but got the Sheriff here to promise that he’d come yank my chain.

  “Not at present,” the big man says as he gets to his feet. “But can I give you two pieces of advice?”

  “Pretty sure I couldn’t stop you even if I wanted to.”

  He chuckles at that. “True enough.”

  “Well, go ahead then.”

  “First, you probably want to make your stay here as short as you can,” he replies. “And second, as long as you are here, stay away from the hornet’s nests. Or, in the case of Ms. Chandler, the honey pots. Man shouldn’t go pokin’ his nose—or anything else—into business that ain’t his.”

  “Noted. Thanks for stopping by, Sheriff.”

  He continues to stare daggers at me as he puts his hat back on his head. “Uh huh. You have yourself a nice evenin’.”

  I watch him lumber off, tipping his hat to a couple of the other diners. He gives me one last glance over his shoulder as he pushes through the doors and steps back out of the restaurant, heading toward the parking lot.

  For a guy who is supposed to be keeping a low profile, I’m doing an absolutely shit job of it.

  You never were one for subtlety.

  “Shut up,” I mutter to the voice in my head and take another bite of my sandwich.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The next morning, I grab my things and head out of the motel. After a restless night filled with nightmares of fire, explosions, and images of the woman and child in the photo, I need some fresh air. I can’t seem to get the faces of the woman and the boy out of my head.

  The guy who gave me the photo hinted that they were my wife and child, but when I looked at the photo—all ten thousand times—I felt zero connection to them. Nothing. When I reach for memories of them, it’s like grasping at fog—it just vanishes in my hand. And it’s that lack of substance that makes me question their authenticity. Some of my vague memories, when I think of them, feel real. Substantial. But that’s not the case with the mystery woman and the boy.

  “Why can’t I remember you?” I grumble to myself. “Or is this just some game Delta is playing with me?”

  Maybe I’m the ghost of Christmas past trying to help you become a better man.

  Of course, hearing what I assume is her voice in my head isn’t helping matters any. I know it’s my own subconscious trying to fill in the gaps in my head, but it’s making me feel like I’ve got one foot in the loony bin. I mean, why in the hell did my subconscious pick, or rather make up, a woman’s voice to pipe into my head instead of my own?

  I get to the coffee house and take a seat out on the patio in front—the same place I sat my first day in town. Although the air is brisk, the sun is shining down. I will say, the climate up here is pretty nice. Of course, I imagine the winters up here can be pretty harsh, which might knock the charm factor of this place down a few points.

  I take a bite of my bagel as the computer boots up. I glance up and see Sheriff Cedars cruising down the street in his truck. He’s driving slow, arm cocked out of the window, staring at me from behind a pair of mirrored aviator shades. Not even trying to hide it.

  “Christ,” I mutter to myself.

  I give him a friendly wave as he passes the coffee house, but he doesn’t react. He just stares daggers at me until he’s gone from sight. Shaking my head, I turn back to my computer. Apparently, I really did kick a hornet’s nest by roughing up Tommy Elkins, good friend to Sheriff Cedars.

  This is going to complicate things in ways I do not need right now. The last thing I can afford to have is the good Sheriff breathing down my neck as I move to assassinate a goddamn federal judge. But he can’t be awake twenty-four hours a day. No, I take the Sheriff as one of those good ol’ boys who knocks off at five, maybe six, satisfied he made the world a safer place, then goes home to watch the ballgame with a beer and a bag of pork rinds.

  Turning back to my computer, I call up the search engine and get to work. It’s time to start doing some research on Miller Blankenship and hopefully answer some of my questions—like why does the Tower want him dead?

  “Who are you, Judge Blankenship?”

  I scroll through all of the articles that immediately pop up and take notes. I find that most of the stories are glorifying him as he nears the confirmation hearing, which most predict will be nothing more than a formality, as he is well respected on both sides of the aisle. He does have critics on both sides of the political aisle to go with those admirers, which makes most of the pundits think he’s a safe middle of the road choice. He’s not a screaming radical or an unrepentant ideologue, which makes people feel safe in these troubled times.

  From what I can tell, Blankenship is a political moderate, neither flaming-eyed conservative or bleeding-heart liberal. He seems to rule on the merits of his cases, established law, and precedent. But his record, so far as I can see, is decidedly bland. He has never ruled in a landmark case, and there’s nothing particularly remarkable I can see about his judicial record. I don’t see anything that makes him uniquely qualified to earn him a seat for life on the Supreme Court of the United States.

  But then, I’m certainly no expert in the political or judicial arenas—at least, not as far as I know.

  The other side of the coin is that although I haven’t found anything that makes him uniquely qualified to sit on the Court, I haven’t found anything that seems to warrant a greenlight from the Tower.

  “Why do they want you dead?” I ask myself.

  Something inside my head clicks, and all of a sudden, I find myself doing a deeper dive on Judge Blankenship. I find myself digging into the deep, dark, musty corners of the Internet like I’m a professional hacker. Skills I didn’t know I possessed are suddenly surfacing. My fingers fly over the keyboard as I call up a treasure trove of information on Judge Blankenship—things not being reported by the media pundits who are analyzing his nomination.

  I read through the reams of information on the judge, going deeper into his life and learning more things than I bet ninety-nine percent of the suits who will be voting to confirm him will ever know. I guess in my former life, I had some skills on the computer. I sit there sipping my coffee and reading all I’ve dug up, impressed with myself.

  A couple of things catch my eye that could be problematic, but they were from his far younger days and don’t necessarily reflect his current thinking. Back when he was a prosecutor in Maine, he espoused some views that could be considered—authoritarian. At least in a certain light. He
seemed to believe in creating a more powerful government and also seemed to have little to no tolerance for the poor or people of color. I can’t say that he is a racist, but I find some of his views—problematic.

  Age has seemed to mellow him. Or maybe the experience that comes with age has taught him to bury those things deeper. Either way, from everything I’ve found, he rules fairly from the bench and doesn’t necessarily hold to those beliefs he spoke out about when he was younger.

  Again, I don’t see why the Tower would greenlight somebody so—bland. I mean, he’s not out there eating babies, calling for a revival of eugenics, or planting bombs on subways. If I had to use just one word to describe the man, it would be milquetoast.

  I just don’t see anything that justifies an assassination. I sigh and rub my eyes as I try to figure out a way to force Delta to tell me why they have a greenlight on the man. I’m not going to kill somebody without knowing why. I don’t know if that’s the way I was before—if I was the good soldier who pulled the trigger without asking why—but this is who I am now. I will not kill without good reason. Without just cause.

  I’m just about to shut down the computer when a blog post on a site called The Clarion Call catches my eye. I skipped most of the blogs I came across, knowing they’re nothing more than personal soapboxes people use to rant or spin out wild conspiracy theories. But this one is different. I know this one. It’s a self-styled news site that, for some reason, is totally familiar to me. I don’t know in what context, but I know I read this site—and read it often.

  It’s the headline that grabs my attention: Blankenship is a Manchurian Candidate. I read through the article half a dozen times, absorbing everything being laid out about the judge by an author who refers to himself only as Publius.

  Publius of course, was the pseudonym used by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Monroe when they wrote The Federalist Papers, urging ratification of the U.S. Constitution.

  “So, you see yourself as a defender of democracy,” I mutter, jotting down a few notes as if understanding the writer’s psychology would make this all make sense in my own mind.

  I’m sure most people would dismiss the Call as whacked out conspiracy theory. But the writing is solid. The writing is clear and sharp, not that of a wild-eyed, foaming at the mouth crazed fanatic. That, combined with the fact that it pings so familiar in my head, is what made me stop and take it more seriously than other people would.

  According to the post I’m reading, Blankenship is actually an undercover extremist with a radical agenda. It posits that his entire milquetoast, middle of the road career, has been manufactured with the idea that once he ascended to the SCOTUS, he would be able to implement that agenda.

  Publius briefly chronicles Blankenship’s early life and career—paying much more attention to his membership in a highly secret organization called the Hellfire Club while at Yale. I do a quick Google search and find a plethora of information about the Hellfire Club—but it’s an eighteenth-century group of the wealthy and social elite in England.

  I find next to nothing about a Hellfire Club at Yale in the twentieth century. A few mentions of it in various blog posts comparing it to Skull and Bones—an underground club also at Yale that caters to the wealthy elite and boasts members ranging from Wall Street tycoons to former U.S. Presidents. There are many conspiracy theories around Skull and Bones, many of them even making it into mainstream books and movies.

  But the Hellfire Club, if it actually exists, does not share that notoriety. Other than a few mentions of it here and there—most of it historical records and outlandish conspiracy theories about England’s Hellfire Club—there isn’t anything I can find on the supposed secret society.

  That doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist of course; it simply means they could be very good about covering their tracks. Let Skull and Bones take the slings and arrows that come with the notoriety while the Hellfire Club moves silently in the shadows. At least, that’s the theory Publius is pushing.

  Turning back to the slew of articles posted, they go on to describe the agenda of the Hellfire Club, which is nothing short of global domination—what most people believe is the agenda of Skull and Bones. In this case though, the Hellfire Club boasts only the wealthiest of the wealthy and the ultra-elite. According to Publius, they have their fingers in a thousand different pies, including all three branches of government, the FBI, the CIA, and even the vast network that makes up Homeland Security.

  Publius believes the Hellfire Club has infiltrated so many different governmental organizations that they are shaping policy and instigating coordinated events to put themselves in positions of power and influence, with the sole goal of remaking the world—one fit only for the wealthy elite. The one percent of the one percent, with everybody else in the country becoming a permanent caste of poor and working labor intended only to serve them. It would be a regular Utopian paradise for those who can afford to be in the club, while everybody else is just fit to starve in the streets.

  “This is crazy. I mean, really crazy,” I mutter to myself. “Right?”

  Is it though? Is it really all that far-fetched? Haven’t we seen some of those very things taking root over the last three or four decades?

  I want to deny what the disembodied woman’s voice in my head is saying, but I really can’t. There are a hundred different things I can point to right now that bear out some of Publius’ theories. The thing I don’t know is whether those things are naturally occurring or a result of the Hellfire Club’s manipulations.

  Or whether the Hellfire Club even exists.

  “Right. That too.”

  “Sorry hon, what did you say?”

  I snap my head up to see a woman about my age with dark hair and green eyes staring down at me. She’s got a bored smile on her face and a tray in her hand.

  “Oh nothing,” I grin. “Just talking to myself.”

  She laughs. “I do that too. Don’t worry; I won’t think you’re too weird.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  “Can I get you something else?”

  Feeling like I’m onto something and not wanting to break my momentum by going to my motel, I give her a smile and a nod.

  “Another cup of coffee please?” I ask but know I should add something else for how long I’ve been monopolizing the table. “And a blueberry muffin maybe?”

  “Comin’ right up.”

  I roll things around in my head until she returns with my coffee and muffin. I pay her and leave a generous tip and watch her walk away before diving back into the articles on the Call.

  Publius goes on to explain that there are three members of the Hellfire Club already on the SCOTUS. Blankenship would be the fourth—one away from an ironclad majority on the highest court in the land for the next thirty years. I can’t verify they were members of the secret society, but a Google search proves that Justices Charles Ortega, Mary Carlin, and Jefford Robbins are all graduates of Yale.

  Is it merely a coincidence? A case of pareidolia perhaps? Or is this a case of where there’s smoke, there’s Hellfire?

  Excellent questions. But I’m no closer to answering it now than when I first fell down this particular rabbit hole. I’m not only interested in this, but I feel invested in it now. If this is true, if the Hellfire Club exists and it really is a cabal within the government, this is the reason the Tower wants Blankenship taken off the board. It keeps the Hellfire Club from creeping closer to a SCOTUS majority and the domination of the rule of law that comes with it.

  I read another piece about Blankenship’s predecessor—Justice Arnold Jay, who is supposedly a descendant of John Jay, noted Federalist, one-third of the original Publius pseudonym and the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, just for a little added conspiracy flavor.

  According to articles I’ve found online, Jay died after suffering a heart attack while driving and his car slammed into a freeway abutment. While those seem to be the generally accepted set of facts, Publius deta
ils something far more sinister. According to whoever is behind the pseudonym, Jay’s initial autopsy report listed an unusually high amount of epinephrine—a vasoconstrictor—in his system. He had even posted a picture of the alleged autopsy report, highlighting the amount of epi in his system.

  None of the mainstream news sources had mentioned this. It was simply ruled a fatal heart attack that had killed the Justice. Publius wrote about the whitewashing of the official autopsy report and the reason for it—to get rid of Jay, who was seen as an obstacle to their objectives, and clear the way for Justice Miller Blankenship, who has embraced them.

  So if I’m reading all of this right, Publius believes the Hellfire Club murdered a sitting Supreme Court Justice so they could replace him with one they had been grooming for almost thirty years. These folks in the Hellfire Club certainly know how to play the long game.

  Frankly, though it makes for good and exciting reading, it sounds like something straight out of a John Grisham novel or something. I mean, it’s outlandish. And yet, I can’t seem to dismiss it out of hand entirely either. I suppose that means I need to get fitted for my own tinfoil hat or something.

  Either that or I need to get some proof. Which means I’m going to need to get into Blankenship’s house.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The world around me is turning gray and murky as the sun dips below the horizon, and dusk comes rushing in to fill the void. It’ll be full dark soon, but I still have enough light to see by. And through my binoculars, I see Blankenship, his wife, and his assistant, all in well-tailored formal dress, climb into the back seat of a black SUV.

  His driver shuts the door then climbs in behind the wheel. His four-man security detail loads into a second SUV, and then the small procession drives down the half-mile-long driveway that will lead to the highway. I check my watch, giving them fifteen minutes before I break cover and head across the estate.