Soldier On: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (6 page)

What soft feminine hands, he must be an executive
. Milo thought. All of the bankers that had been turning him down for a loan lately had the very same buttery hands. Giving out notes for twenty plus percent interest sure was highway robbery. It definitely wasn’t hard work. Milo was still sore the family business might fold. The economy had us in a bind and nothing was getting done...especially not in granite. “Sorry, I lost my train of thought. Refresh my memory, what and where?”

“It’s a piece of modern art and the property is in Ellington,
like I said
.” Milo’s potential client seemed annoyed.
Well country bumpkin
, Robert Christian thought, “Do you have time to do the job or should I go elsewhere?”

Milo gestured to the cylinder on the counter. “May I see the plans?”

The man unrolled the blueprints, trapped one side down with his tan, brick sized mobile phone and held down the other side with his free hand.

“Whoa...are these dimensions correct? Assuming they are, each of these slabs will weigh roughly ten tons each.”

“The plans are to be followed precisely. One deviation and the celestial features in the design won’t work.”

“What do you mean by celestial features?” Milo said scratching what little hair he had left on his head.

The tone of the man’s voice suddenly changed. It was even more apparent his patience was wearing thin. “
Do you want the work...or shall I move on
?”

“Let me look at these for a moment.” The old quarryman started making calculations. “Not counting the etching and there will be a lot of extra time consuming work there...”

Robert Christian interrupted Milo by placing the attaché on the counter and opening both latches. “We need it completed no later than March twenty-second.”

“The timeline will be doable. It’s going to cost roughly thirty thousand dollars though.”

Robert Christian spun the case around to face the older man and opened the lid. Inside were neatly bundled stacks of twenty dollar bills. Andrew Jackson never looked better to Milo.

“There’s fifty thousand dollars here. Get the job done on time and the difference is yours. Consider it a performance bonus.”

Milo, not wanting to seem desperate, waited three seconds before accepting. “One thing though. What does the first line mean?” He had his finger on the blueprints. The first line that was to grace the monolith read
Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature
. “Is that some kind of cryptic warning?”

He never got his answer; the bell signaled the mysterious man’s exit.

***

During the two hour drive back to Atlanta, Robert Christian contemplated his actions and the times he lived in. The world needed a wake up call. And it had to be something more than a thirty second commercial portraying a polluted landscape with a lone American Indian, in full authentic native garb, shedding a tear for Mother Earth. Any heart strings the spot might have tugged were quickly snipped by the next ad urging,
more
,
get it now
,
must have
and
consume
.

During the sixties, as a much younger man he tried to do his part. He went to rallies, marched and participated in sit-ins.

The seventies saw him get involved in politics, only to have his eyes opened to the realities of the military industrial complex and how the two were tightly woven together.

The monolith would not only enlighten the people that read the engraved words, but it would also stand as a tangible reminder to keep the Guild on task.

Although the writings etched into the granite obelisk touched on population control and leaving the earth better for the next generation, it wasn’t a blatant call for eugenic action. Sadly deep down Robert Christian knew that man would take care of that one way or another.

With the Soviet Union and the United States locked in a cold war, and a few hot wars by proxy, it was looking more and more like the
cleanse
might be accomplished through nuclear holocaust.

It didn’t matter. The Guild would be ready and waiting, no matter the world changing event, to step in, pick up the pieces and send mankind onward in a good orderly direction.

The man in the back seat drifted off still thinking about the eventual ascension of his new world order.

***

Milo had the rock quarried and carved exactly as instructed. With the help of two cranes and scores of workers-the precisely placed formation of granite obelisks that would later be named the Georgia Guidestones was erected on time. The date was March 22nd 1980.

***

Present Day

Outbreak Day 5

Guild Headquarters. Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

The rising sun illuminated the Grand Tetons making them glow as if they had been gilded by King Midas himself. The massive mountains and pristine wilderness was a fitting backdrop for the meeting about to take place. Twelve of the most powerful and influential men in America were arriving from all points of the compass. They were about to set in motion a plan that had been decades in the making.

Their latest Manchurian candidate was now dead, Odero deviated at the end and it cost him his life, still they had to press on. The crisis that had fallen into their lap wasn’t the one that they had strategized for, let alone could have ever fathomed. The United States of America was about to be drawn and quartered and each man would get their piece of the pie.

The mansion was the typical wood beam and stone construction that dominated in places where snow covered the ground the majority of the year. Sitting on a broad swath of land nestled up against the Grand Tetons, it was more compound than typical mountain Mcmansion. The first dead giveaway was the twelve foot tall, by two foot thick rock wall ringing the perimeter of the property. Ubiquitous shiny black domes hung like bats from multiple locations, they housed the many video cameras and were strategically placed to provide overlapping visual coverage of the entire grounds. Security personnel, openly carrying automatic weapons, walked the grounds in and outside of the walls.

***

Armored SUVs, of different makes and models began arriving at the grand estate, trickling in before dawn. The Escalades, Denalis and Hummers all entered through a remotely operated sliding metal gate.

Before the outbreak, the winter ski destination had been home to many Hollywood elites, CEOs of Fortune 5oo companies and a smattering of billionaires and multi-millionaires. The majority of the resort workers lived on the other side of the Teton pass in Driggs, Idaho. During the summer months in Jackson Hole, Yellowstone National Park was the main attraction.

The security gate rolled away to let in the civilian model Hummer. Three men emptied from the vehicle, their big black carbines swept the circular drive seeking out any threats to their charge. Satisfied that all was as it should be they escorted the back seat passenger from the Hummer. Even though the man wore a Kevlar anti-ballistic vest the men formed a human wall that moved with him from his vehicle, and up the flight of stairs leading to the huge wooden double doors that opened into the 28,000 square foot home. The mountain mansion had originally been owned by an A-list Hollywood actor and now belonged to Robert Christian. The flamboyant billionaire fancied himself as the most ambitious man in the world.

***

When the hidden door to the cavernous conference room opened, all eleven men seated around the dark mahogany table looked up from the documents they had been studying.

Robert Christian stood six foot two. His presence dominated the room when he entered. “Stay seated gentlemen,” the newly arrived man intoned.

“I will,” said the man still in his chair, directly to Christian’s right, “I stand for no man.”

The room broke out in laughter, as to a man, they all stood and greeted the deeply tanned, blonde haired, blue eyed man.

Each individual exchanged private words with the newcomer before taking their seats. Christian methodically worked his way to the head of the mammoth slab of polished old-growth.

“Gentlemen,” he nodded his head silently and looked each man seated around the table in the eye; pausing for dramatic effect he straightened his red power tie before addressing them. He had no reason to try and influence or impress these men; they were all equals here with the same goal. Soon they would be dividing the United States between them.

“As we speak, the first part of our global agenda has begun and is unfolding as planned.” Christian cracked the seal and poured his bottled water into an ornate crystal goblet before continuing.

“I thank all of you for choosing me as the point man in New America.”

“You have the biggest balls in the room,” said the tanned thirtyish looking man at the far end of the table. He was the youngest and yet the most outwardly confident man in attendance.

He had amassed his fortune in the dot-com bubble. An inside trader with tendrils in every boardroom in America had tipped him and all of the other men in the room off before the crash; allowing them enough time to park their money in safe havens offshore. Getting rich from the misfortune of the common man was a continuing cycle for the power elites. The first great depression had made most of these men’s grandfathers fabulously wealthy-this latest depression transferred even more spoils into their coffers.

“Gentlemen, all of you have been informed of our esteemed colleague’s untimely demise. I urged him to leave the White House and take his family to safety. Bernard Odero wanted nothing to do with our plan for this country after the fall. In fact he told me in his very own words that he despised all we stood for. It pained him to go along with our plan and run for office.”

“Why did he agree then?” asked the former President, John Cranston.

Robert Christian pressed a hidden button. At the opposite end of the rectangular table ornately carved walnut panels parted silently, revealing an eight foot wide flat screen monitor.

“I reminded Mr. Odero that after four short years he would be in his early fifties and could spend the rest of his life with his wife and daughters, taken care of and protected by us...,”
or
“I was going to make sure that copies of these found their way into the hands of his strong willed wife.”

The projector splashed picture after doctored picture of the young, then Senator, seemingly conducting an illicit affair. The woman had supermodel looks that would have given Heidi Klum a run for her money.

“Good God, those are brilliant. Whose work are we looking at?” Cranston asked.

Robert Christian couldn’t tell if the randy ex-President was alluding to the woman’s “assets” or the photo-shopped images. “It’s not important now. The bottom line is he didn’t follow protocol and now he’s no longer in control and that means we are no longer in a position to
shape
things. Furthermore he ordered the rest of his cabinet back to the White House with him, jeopardizing our plan further.”

Griffin Blackburn spoke up, “Who’s supposedly in control of the country right now?” The man was the heir to the Blackburn fortune. His family had built their wealth the same way as all of the men in the room had. Gaming the system and profiting from wars while being privy to information that any inside trader would kill for.

Robert Christian promptly answered, “
Valerie Clay
,” dripping with venom, he drew out the words. “We have
never
been able to get her in our pocket. We have sent delegates from the right and the left. Anyone that we thought might appeal to her sensibilities. It was all to no avail. Her father was a decorated World War II pilot; he went on to serve his home state of Washington for decades. Gentlemen her patriotism
will
get in our way.”

Mark Buchannan, the newest made member of the billionaire boys club made his fortune in the dot com era. He was the youngest American to amass such a fortune, at the ripe old age of twenty-seven. Now in his late thirties he thrived on power, competition and exclusivity- the reason that he initially angled to become one of them. “We haven’t a clue where she is but we have people working on it.”

“Gentlemen the second phase of our plan is hurtling forward. Soon the US Navy will retaliate against China for the sinking of the USS Seawolf. This should draw in the Russians because the engagement took place near the Kamchatka peninsula. It is one thing to lurk under their waters but it is an affront to their sovereignty to openly wage warfare there. Getting the Eagle, Dragon and the Bear fighting each other only accelerates our plan.”

Captain of industry and big Texas oilman Hank Ross asked in his thick southern drawl. “How long do we have to keep our kin sequestered? It can’t be too long because living in Texas; they won’t stand to being cooped up.”

“The theory is the walking dead only have three to nine months before the decay stops them from being ambulatory so don’t worry about them. All we do is sit back, sip cognac and wait for the infighting. Attrition is our friend.” Robert Christian leaned back and finished his water, “My good friend Chuck Heston was a proponent of the Second Amendment. I held a different view. I wanted to have the guns for myself...but in hindsight an armed America is a good thing. Now, given enough time, they will kill each other off and also take a large portion of the infected with them.”