• Chapter One

October 21st

Route 43 was a tricky enough road to navigate in the daylight, let alone at 8pm in the pouring rain. Several hundred feet of rock towered over both sides of the road which was notorious for miles of dark spots at night, especially if there was cloud cover. But Detective Hal Roberts had driven this route for twenty five years and he knew every twist and turn.

“Honey, I’m on my way,” Hal informed his wife Linda. “Peter had me sorting through a mountain of paperwork up until twenty minutes ago. This Abbott case is driving us all up a....whoa!....Linda...there’s an accident ....I’ll call you back!”

Just around the bend, at mile marker 37, a sedan sat nearly perpendicular to the metal guard rail that served as the median. The back end of the sedan stuck out into the left lane, and Hal had to slam on the brakes to avoid a collision. In a split second, his eyes had caught the back left tail light - if it weren’t for that, he would have smacked right into the sedan.

Hal swerved his pickup and managed to stop just ahead of the accident. He made a quick call to emergency dispatch to inform them of the accident. The rain now was coming down in buckets, so he threw his jacket over his head after realizing that Linda had recently borrowed the umbrella that was always in the truck’s front seat. Hal was able to find the metal flashlight in his glove compartment, but, as he made his way over to the crashed car, the light from the device proved to be a mouse against the giant rain drops. After only a few steps, Hal’s shoes were soaked through.

“Sir, are you alright?” he yelled into the driver side window. A man in maybe his late thirties was slumped over the steering wheel and didn’t respond to Hal. The doors were locked in the still running sedan.

The detective started to ram his flashlight into the glass and managed to make enough of a hole for him to reach in and unlock the door. The victim had a pulse, yet deeply unconscious for some reason. Maybe he hit his head on the wheel upon impact with the guard rail. Maybe he had a heart attack to cause the sedan to swerve. Maybe he was diabetic and fell into a sugar coma. Too many maybes.

Hal flicked on the interior lights to be more visible to oncoming traffic. Several cars had already passed with no incident, but the detective wasn’t taking any chances. Hal knew enough not to move the body, so he stood outside the car to wait for help.

A police car arrived not a minute later and pulled up with his flashing lights.

“What do we have here?” the officer yelled as he stepped out of his squad car.

Hal flashed his badge to the officer.

“I don’t know....I came around the bend to find this guy crashed into the rail,” the detective yelled through the rain. “He’s alive and unconscious but I don’t have a clue what caused him to swerve like this.”

“Well, the medics are on the way,” the officer responded, while taking a look inside the car. The rain was beginning to let up, which Hal certainly appreciated.

The officer pulled the victim’s shirt collar down in the back, revealing what looked like a tattoo of three 7’s. Hal could see the officer rub the image quickly before looking around elsewhere in the car.

“Strange how he ended up like this, huh?”

Hal’s stomach dropped to the ground. He’d seen this image before, long ago as a child. But they were pictures his father had - never had he seen the 777’s in real life. As the questions started piling up in his mind, the detective was certain about one thing: this crash victim was going to be a target for elimination.

“That is weird,” Hal offered, taking a step or two back from the sedan before reaching for his gun.

How did that cop know to look for the image and why was he rubbing it? The 777’s weren’t visible unless the victim’s collar was pulled down.

“Well, detective, I can handle things from here,” the officer stated. “We’ll get this guy off to Franklin in no time.”

Hal knew as did all metro police that Franklin didn’t accept evening ER patients.  Instead, all evening ER activity was sent over to St. Luke’s.

“Sounds good,” Hal said. “No need to bother Commissioner Thompson with this incident.”

“You got that right, detective!”

Except the Commissioner’s name wasn’t Thompson.

 The officer was still bent over inside the sedan, so Hal moved in with his gun.

“All right, step away from the car with your hands up!” Hal ordered the officer.

Silence. No movement was made for what seemed like an eternity to the detective. The rain was picking up again.

Finally the officer began to stand up and shouted, “What the fuck is this, detective?” His right hand was inside his raincoat, so Hal sent a warning shot passed his left ear.

“Get your fuckin’ hands up, I said!”

The officer chuckled softly before putting both hands up and smiling at Hal.

“Oh, you have no idea who you are dealing with here.”

“Leucippus Zeno, that’s who!” Hal shouted back. “Leucippus Zeno!”

October 21st

Leucippus Zeno was an atheist group founded in England in the 1700s and set up with one primary mission: to eliminate those marked with the Sign of Seven. This mark began to appear on people in the late 1700s causing perpetual spiritual debate over its meaning. The Church of England declared that these marks were ‘heavenly miracles’ in 1795. As the fervor grew across England and, ultimately, Europe, Leucippus Zeno was quickly started up to kill off these marked people and put a stop to the fervor. Those with the mark were targeted for kidnapping and private beheadings.

Detective Hal’s great grandfather was a member of the group in England and in America around the turn of the 19th century. By that point, the markings were happening every few years and those marked were quickly rushed into hiding out of fear of the Leucippus Zeno.

The group terrorized the western world with a vigor never seen from a private, non government organization. Funding came from wealthy business owners who viewed spiritual fervor as detrimental to economic progress. The Industrial Revolution was well on its way by the turn of the century and many joked that Leucippus Zeno had more wealth than the US government.

A painful rift erupted between Hal’s great grandfather and his son, after the son decided not to join the atheist group in the early 1900’s. At least that’s what Hal had heard all these years from his father.  But the scars remained nearly a century later, with the bitter awkwardness of the family’s past perfectly capable of rearing its ugly head every now and then.

Now it was front and center for Hal to deal with on a level he never had imagined. Somehow, this Leucippus Zeno member acting as a police officer had found the crash scene and the marked victim, either by intercepting Hal’s emergency call or causing the crash himself and returning to the scene a few minutes later. This second part didn’t add up because if this guy caused the crash he would have stayed at the scene to finish off the marked victim. There was no way of knowing that Detective Hal would be there.  In any case, how on earth did this Leucippus Zeno member get his hands on a metro police vehicle?

Hal made the ‘officer’ put his own hand cuffs on himself and led him to the back of his truck.

“Joe, I have a problem out here on Route 43,” Hal told his partner on his personal cell phone. He was certain that Joe had never heard of Leucippus Zeno, so he had to be careful in his description of what just happened. “I came across an accident just outside of Rockwell and called it in, but the only response so far is from this guy that came in one of our squad cars and is dressed like an officer but definitely is not one.”

“What?” Joe shouted. “Are you sure, Hal?”

“Damn sure,” Hal responded. “He thought we were taking the crash victim over to Franklin and didn’t know the name of the commish.”

“I’m on my way.”

“Hey, can you check with the EMTs and see what the delay is?”

“Will do,” Joe replied. “I’ll be there in fifteen.”

If this Leucippus Zeno guy in the back of Hal’s truck had intercepted his call to emergency dispatch, the EMTs would not have gotten the message to pick up the crash victim. But to play it safe, Hal was planning on quizzing the EMTs about where they were taking him. Maybe Leucippus Zeno had members on the police force. If that were the case, just what was Hal up against? His paranoia began compounding with every minute of waiting for Joe. He kept his eyes trained on the guy in the back of his truck, who every now and then would stare back at Hal and then look straight ahead. The detective had the handcuff key, so unless the guy was Houdini, he wasn’t going anywhere.

Hal’s cell buzzed. It was his partner.

“Hey, uh, dispatch never got the call from you about an accident on 43....the EMTs just left and I’ll be there in ten. Hal, what the hell is going on?”

“I’ll fill you in when you get here.”

The crash victim suddenly began to moan loudly against the now sputtering rain fall. Hal ran over to the man.

“Sir, relax...you’ve been in a car crash.” Hal began rubbing the gentleman’s back. “An ambulance is on the way. I am detective Roberts.”

“No, we can’t go to the hospital!” the man yelled, shifting away from the detective. “They’ll find me there easily.”

“Who?” Hal asked. “Leucippus Zeno?”

The man shot a puzzled look at the detective.

“How do you know about them?”

“Uh...long story, but tell me what happened here,” Hal pressed. “How did you end up like this?”

“I don’t know,” the man replied. “I’ve been getting these visions lately and I think I got one while driving just now.”

“So, nobody ran you off the road?”

“No, nothing like that...but I know this group is after me. A priest I went to talk with told me to watch out for them and gave me some papers that talk all about the group. They’re crazy, you know? In any case, we need to get out of here, right now...before the ambulance arrives.”

“All right...sit tight.”

Hal walked over to his truck and led the fake cop over to the back seat of the squad car. He had keys to the squad car, so he locked the car, knowing that since there are no lock buttons in the back seat, the guy was stuck there until Joe got there. The flashing lights were still on.

“Can you get up and walk over to my truck,” Hal asked.

The guy hopped out of his sedan and headed over to the truck’s front passenger seat. Hal was not planning to call Joe until they got back onto the road.

The rain began to pour down again so Hal hustled over to his truck. He was pretty much drenched at this point.  As he opened his truck door, he heard a voice...it sounded like a soft whisper.

“Take care of the marked one, Hal,” the whisper told him.

He spun around, expecting someone to be right behind him, but saw nobody except the cars going by in the other lane. Again, he heard it. This time it was almost like it came from above.

Hal hurried into the truck and took off. It was going to be a long night.

October 21st

8:55 p.m.

 “Have we heard from Thomas yet,” David Hearn asked over the phone.

David Hearn was a corporate litigator for Stevens, Watson and Dooley, one of the fiercest law firms in New York City. He made his name with the Asbestos trials, but more recently had found fine success with tobacco and oil disaster litigation. The tobacco work was steady gravy, as each case lasted 9-10 years due to the dastardly plan of the tobacco companies appealing every ruling to death. The oil work, on the other hand, was the jackpot every few years because these oil companies just couldn’t stay away from oil spills. Right when David had thought that Big Oil had figured out how to avoid these big disasters, along came another huge spill with whole communities to defend at trial.

David Hearn was also the Northeast head of Leucippus Zeno. This honor went back six generations for the Hearn clan. Twelve of David’s Yale buddies were still quite active with the organization.

“No, David, we haven’t heard back from him,” Roger Simpson told his boss. “We last heard that he was on his way to deal with this problem, but that was an hour ago and he’s not picking up his phone.”

“Okay, well, if you do hear anything....let me know,” David responded.

David sat up in his office chair and poured out two glasses of 20-year old Highland Malt.

“This could be our finest hour, Jonathan,” David said as he handed a glass to his friend across the desk.

“We have waited several years for his, David,” Jonathan told his Yale buddy. “Let’s just hope that Thomas knows what he is doing.”

“Well, he was the one to finally get the information out of that priest, so I have a lot of trust in this guy,” David said before leaning back in his mahogany chair that had belonged to his father.

“We’re gonna need to get that cop car back before the night’s over,” Jonathan asserted.

“Yup, that part was tricky…we don’t want any public mistakes here.”

David stared at his gigantic book display along the far wall behind where Jonathan was sitting. Mostly legal books with some mystery fiction thrown in for a twist. He considered legal thrillers nothing but drivel.

David’s office landline rang.

“Hearn,” he answered.

“David…Frank,” the voice responded. “How much longer we doing this thing with dispatch?”

“Hold on, bud.” David looked over at Jonathan.

“They want to know what to do with dispatch,” he told his college buddy.

Jonathan threw his arms into the air.  “We’ve got to talk with Thomas before we start changing things back.”

“Did you hear that, Frank?” David asked.

“Okay, I’ll sit tight, for now.”