Storming the Kingdom (13 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY

Four Days Ago
Early Morning

D
ouglas Hall waited outside the doors as the four friends entered what some referred to as the “jewel of Main Street, U.S.A.” The Emporium was massive. The chase through a crowded Emporium earlier stood in stark contrast to the cavernous gift shop they entered in the early morning hours. Standing inside the doors, they took in the look and feel of the Victorian-styled gift shop, complete with ornate doorknobs, brass fixtures, velour wallpaper, and the gold-framed photos of various townsfolk of the era. Hawk couldn’t believe he had never noticed the name of a proprietor on the Emporium. It always amazed him; no matter how much he knew or thought he knew, there was always so much more to be learned. He had discovered that to be true of Disney, and of life—and most of all, of following God.

“I never knew about Osh Popham,” Hawk admitted to the others. “Great pickup on the name, Shep.”

“Thanks. I had never noticed the name there before but just happened to glance over as we were walking.”

“I had never made the connection either, although I know the name Osh Popham,” Jonathan said.

“You’ve heard of Osh Popham?” Juliette asked.

“Yes.” Jonathan shrugged. “I just didn’t connect the dots, I guess.”

“So, who is Osh Popham?” Juliette followed up with another query.

“Osh Popham is a character played by Burl Ives in the Disney film
Summer Magic
,” Jonathan informed them. “I think it came out in 1963. In it, Osh Popham was the local postman who also ran the general store. It’s funny, but now that I think about it…when we were at the Chapeau a few minutes ago, I vaguely recall the back-story for that shop had it owned by Nancy and Julia Carey. They were also characters in
Summer Magic
.” Jonathan grinned as he remembered the details.

“The clue said, ‘Recapture the magic or the results could be tragic,’” Hawk reminded them. “‘Recapturing the magic’ could be referring to the title of the film.” Then he paused and said to Jonathan, “How do you know those details?

“What? You think you’re the only one who knows Disney trivia?” Jonathan feigned disbelief. Then he gave a sheepish look. “The truth is,
Summer Magic
is one of Sally’s favorite movies. So we’ve watched it together, well…more times than I can count.” He began to hum the famous song from the film, “The Ugly Bug Ball,” and conducted himself with a finger as he did so. The minister of music stopped after the first line of the song and looked toward Hawk. “I can’t believe you didn’t know that.”

“Heard of the film, never heard of any of the characters.” Hawk shook his head from side to side as he began to make his way deeper into the huge store. “If I am supposed to bring this MagicBand to the proprietor of the store, I’m going to assume I’m supposed to buy something with it.”

“But what are you supposed to buy?” Juliette asked. “And how?”

“I don’t know, but I suppose I could take this to a checkout counter in Osh Popham’s place here and see what happens.” Hawk moved to his right to the first checkout counter he came to. They were placed strategically throughout the store, near the multiple entrances and exits, and gave guests a number of places to pay and depart the building. On a normal day, this gift shop would do more business than any Macy’s or JCPenny store in the world, partly because of the efficiency in moving people in and out of the store.

Since the introduction of the MagicBand, there were mechanisms at most pay stations that allowed guests to line up and tap the golden Mickey icon to activate the transaction, causing a swirl of light on the screen. A lighted outline of the Mickey icon in the center of the mechanism would light up green when the transaction was complete.

Hawk stepped to the first of two of these stations at the checkout stand and touched the band to the icon. The lights swirled white but then the Mickey icon turned red. The transaction did not go through. He moved to the next station and got the same result.

“Well, it couldn’t have been that easy.” Juliette placed her hands on her hips as the friends turned to move to the next checkout stand. The next stand also featured two different pay stations, yielding the same result. They moved to the third stand and with three opportunities there, again they got the same flashing red Mickey icon that let them know the transaction was not approved. Undaunted, Hawk moved to the next checkout station, deeper in the store, and again was met with the same result. Shep sighed, as they now moved to yet another pay station. Noticing that an Out Of Order sign was displayed across the readout of the register, Shep continued to walk, abruptly bumping into his boss, as he hadn’t anticipated trying this one anyway.

This time, as Hawk watched, the swirling lights surrounded the Mickey icon in a circle of green light. Instantly, the Mouse-head itself glowed a bright green, the light pulsating, signaling an approval of the transaction. Then with a soft click, the cash drawer of the register, which was not out of order at all, released and opened slightly. The four looked at one another before Juliette moved to go behind the counter. Stepping to the register, she pulled it open. A puzzled look crossed her face.

“What?” Shep asked, leaning over the counter.

“Is there something there?” Hawk waited for her to respond.

She reached into the drawer and pulled out a slip of paper that resembled a dollar bill in size and shape. After looking at it carefully, she handed it over the counter to Hawk. He took it, noticed it had writing on it in black pen, then held it in front of him to read it. He recognized the easy-to-read handwriting of Farren Rales. It was written in black pen.

“Track down Walt Disney’s famous last words.”

He turned the paper over to see if there was anything on the other side. It was blank, One handwritten line was all it contained. It was a simple note from Farren with another clue to track down Walt Disney’s famous last words. Whatever that might mean.

“Well, what were Walt’s last words?” Shep looked to Hawk.

“I have no clue.” Hawk waved the paper in front of him. “No clue at all.”

“Oh, you have a clue.” Juliette snatched the paper from Hawk’s hand and reread it. “You just have no idea what the clue means.”

“Well, how hard can that be to figure out?” Jonathan asked.

“I’m not aware of anyone knowing what his last words were. They aren’t in print, not talked about, I’m not sure they were ever made public. I don’t think anyone knows,” Hawk stated, his voice flat.

“And this clue is different.” Juliette continued to inspect the note. “I mean, think about it…all the clues this far have been high-tech, electronic, state-of-the-art kinds of clues. Really elaborate and very carefully done. An application that only updates in the right geographic location, videos that are encrypted in such a way that only you can see them, you even have a MagicBand that opened a specialized register, and then you have an old-school, handwritten note…it just doesn’t fit.”

“But it has to mean something.”

“I’m sure it does.” Juliette handed the note back to him and then placed both hands on the counter. “And that is what we are going to figure out next…but not tonight. I’m going home. It’s late, or early, and the kids have school in just a few hours.”

“She’s right.” Jonathan yawned and stretched. “One clue leads to another and then another. Whatever this is, you aren’t going to solve it tonight. I’m going home as well. I promised Sally that…”

“You promised Sally that you would give me some space, not get as involved, and keep yourself safe,” Hawk finished for him. Hawk understood that Jonathan’s wife was seriously concerned about her husband and family. He knew it wasn’t anything personal directed toward him. He had a tendency to attract trouble over the last few years, and she didn’t like it. “That is probably the wise thing for all of you to do. Go home, think about the new clue. We can talk tomorrow. But more than anything else, stay safe.”

“Speaking of staying safe and being wise…” Juliette came around the counter and joined her friends but addressed Hawk. “I really think you should cancel your charity gig tomorrow.” She held up her hands as Hawk opened his mouth to protest. “We can reschedule. Every single person will understand. Just give the word and I’ll cancel it.”

Silence surrounded them as Hawk thought. A slight smile cracked the corner of his mouth, and he shook his head slowly side to side. “Don’t cancel it. I’ll do it.”

“It’s a bad idea,” Juliette scolded him.

“It won’t be my first.”

“But these days a mistake could be your last.”

“It will be fine.”

“If you insist, but I am not going to let the public or the press—which we have a parking lot full of, by the way—know about this appearance. OK?” Juliette huffed in frustration.

“Low key it, no key it, tell no one about it, you can even start the rumor that I won’t be there with the charity itself. But I will be there, and it won’t take long.”

“I’ll meet you before the event.” Juliette knew better than to keep pushing.

An hour later, Hawk had showered and tried to sleep, but his mind was still mulling over the last words of Walt Disney. So many times his knowledge of Disney trivia, not just as it relates to the themed resort, but details about the life of Walt himself, his history, and the company he created had not failed him in solving the mysteries he was thrown into. But right now, he couldn’t seem to focus, couldn’t recall the facts, and had no answers. Tonight it had been Jonathan and Shep who had provided the answers, and now he was faced with trying to figure out the last words of a legend.

He had slipped out the secret entrance of his apartment and made his way into the private tunnel that carried him into the bunker. There he sat, watching the early morning activity of the cast trying to ready the Magic Kingdom for a new day. As the dawn broke, he was running every search engine he could, trying to see if there was something, anything, he had missed about the life of Walt Disney. He was focused on accounts of the day Walt passed away, a very sad day in history, to see what he could find of his last days, his last moments, and his last words. He could find…nothing.

Fatigue began to creep in from the corner of his brain, and he yawned. Leaning back in the overstuffed leather office chair, he allowed his eyes to search the command center that surrounded him. His eyes slowly began to close. The sleep that had eluded him hours ago finally had been caught. In the comfort of the chair, the quietness of the command center, and the security of being safe from the rest of the world, he drifted off to sleep.

CHAPTER TWENTY - ONE

Four Days Ago
Day

T
he car wound through the streets of Orlando. It was dark, and the lights of the city at night illuminated the interior of the car with a soft glow. The conversation was nice; the voices of his friends were some of his favorite sounds in the world. Farren Rales smiled as he said, “That is why you are in charge… I did my job when I selected you.”

An explosion rocked the world, glass shattered across the vehicle, and Grayson Hawkes jerked back to consciousness. Eyes wide and searching, he took in the sights around him. Screens, monitors, and workstations surrounded him, and he slumped back into the plush chair in which he had fallen asleep and ultimately had been having a nightmare in. Shaking his head to clear away the cobwebs of slumber, he yawned and tried to reconnect with reality. It had been nearly dawn, best he could recall, when he drifted off to sleep. He had been exhausted, the sleep had felt good; the reentry into the new day through a horrific memory left much to be desired.

Groggily stretching, he got to his feet and made his way to the private passage that would carry him from the bunker, up the hidden stairwell, and back to his apartment on Main Street. He glanced down at his wrist to see what time it was. His watch was not there. Retracing the memories from hours ago, he realized he had not placed it back on his arm after his shower and change of clothes. It was still sitting on the bathroom sink. The heavy security door opened, and he closed it behind him. Locking it, he now found himself in a storage room, where he closed a faux bookshelf that kept the secret doorway hidden from anyone that managed to get this far. The storage area was off his bedroom, and as he made his way back inside, he heard a noise coming from the living room. After stepping into the doorway, he came to a halt. He had a guest.

“Hi.” Juliette turned toward him as he emerged from the back of the apartment. She was seated by the window that overlooked the theme park. She glanced at her watch then back at him and wrinkled her forehead as she stood up. “I can see you’re not planning to make your charity event appearance today, which is what I suggested in the first place.”

“Wait.” Panic and confusion danced across his brain. “Of course I’m going to do it. What time is it?”

“Four o’clock. You’re supposed to be there in fifteen minutes.”

“Oh, no. I was in the bunker and fell asleep. I had no idea what time it was.” Hawk raced back into the bedroom, grabbed a fresh shirt from his closet, and stepped into the bathroom to see his face in the mirror. He yelled back toward the living room, “I’ll be ready in a minute.”

“I think it’s great you got some sleep,” Juliette responded with raised voice from the living room. “When I got here, I stuck my head in the door and saw you weren’t here. I thought you might be out doing some mystery solving.”

“No, I think I was just exhausted,” Hawk said between brushing his teeth and rinsing his mouth. He slipped his watch back on. “I still don’t know any more about the clue than I did when I saw you last.”

“Hawk, I really think…” Juliette stopped speaking so loudly as Hawk entered the living room, looking surprisingly refreshed and buttoning the last few buttons of his shirt. “I think it would be better not to do this appearance. It puts you out in the middle of the Magic Kingdom, and it’s crowded today.”

“I know. How many times are you going to tell me this is a bad idea?” Hawk knew Juliette took her role seriously. As team leader in executive press relations, she had been pivotal in introducing Grayson Hawkes to the world as the new chief creative architect of the Disney Company. The role had allowed her to work alongside Farren Rales to help design, craft, and create; and it had allowed Hawk to get his footing to become a leader within the organization and emerge to the world as a force in the industry. Most of the time, she would describe her job as one where she had to protect Hawk from himself. She, her husband, and kids considered Hawk family; when he was in trouble, like he now was once again, there was nothing they would not do to take care of him.

“OK.” Juliette smiled and changed the subject. “You haven’t gotten any insight into Walt’s last words?”

“I did work on that some before I went to sleep.”

“Of course you did.”

“But the day Walt died is full of accounts of the events the day before, how he seemed to rally a bit, how there was a glimmer of hope that he was going to make it.” Hawk rolled the sleeves of his shirt up to his elbows as he spoke. “We know that didn’t happen. The rest of the accounts that have been shared are about how the family reacted, what they did, but not about what Walt said or even who he spoke to.”

“So what do we do now? Where do we look next?” Juliette motioned at her watch that they needed to go.

“I haven’t figured that out yet.”

Hawk held the door open for Juliette and they exited his apartment and headed down the stairs toward Main Street, U.S.A. Some guests saw them coming down the stairs and rushed toward them. The security team at the bottom of the stairs created a boundary and kept them back at a safe distance. Hawk waved as people greeted him, took pictures, and asked him for autographs. He paused and moved to reply to the requests, which caused the security detail problems. The crowd instantly doubled in size and pressed closer.

As his popularity had grown, Hawk often ran into this kind of situation. Many people considered him a new Walt Disney or realized that he was very much a leader like Walt had been. Juliette had worked along with Farren to craft the image initially, but the success of the Company had perpetuated his celebrity status to unplanned heights. Even the notoriety driven by the events of the last few days had guests on Hawk watch when they were in the Magic Kingdom.

Hawk took the autograph book shoved toward him, and signed it. There was another, and another, and then another. Someone placed a souvenir park map in front of him and he signed it, then a piece of paper was thrust at him. Security grew tenser as the crowd swelled. As Hawk opened the paper, he saw it was not blank. Inside was a sentence, typed on a computer and printed out onto this slip of paper. It read “I’m watching…and waiting.”

Juliette leaned in to see what was going on. Hawk asked, “Who handed me this?” He saw a hand shoot up and wave at him. It was a young boy, maybe ten or eleven years old. Hawk bent toward him and said, “You gave this to me?”

“I did,” the boy responded. “The pretty lady over there gave me ten dollars to give it to you.”

Hawk felt Juliette’s hand grip his shoulder. She too had heard what the boy had said. Hawk straightened up and looked over the crowd. Glancing down at the boy he asked, “What pretty lady asked you to give this to me?”

“Over there.” The boy turned and pointed toward the center of Town Square. The place where he had thought he saw Kiran Roberts before. “She has beautiful dark hair and real cool green eyes…Hey, wait. She’s not there anymore.”

“ We need to go,” Juliette whispered.

“I really have to go, sorry I can’t stay and visit longer.” Hawk addressed the crowd and stepped back, still looking to where the boy had pointed. Whoever the pretty lady was, she was gone now. Moving to the edge of the street, they stepped into an offstage area that would allow them to head down into the underground tunnel system and carry them toward Fantasyland.

Hawk handed Juliette the note and she read it. As she did, Hawk could see her grow tenser, and she looked at him, her eyes concerned. They moved into the Utili-dor, and security eased and gave them some space as they walked.

“You need to tell Al and Mitch Renner about this.” Her voice was filled with concern. “It has to be Kiran Roberts.”

“Maybe.” Hawk waved at some cast members passing them in the other direction.

“What do you mean, maybe?” Juliette watched as he effortlessly engaged the other cast members, masking anything might be wrong, as they walked.

“How do you know it wasn’t just some pretty lady sending me a note?” He smiled, trying to melt her concern.

“Do you usually get notes from pretty stalkers who pay someone else to deliver the note to you?”

Hawk too believed Kiran was back. Her arrival could not be a coincidence. She was a part of whatever was happening now. Juliette was right about the next course of action. He nodded his agreement before he spoke.

“Let’s call Al Gann and Renner. We’ll let them try to track her down.” Hawk’s tone did not give away his concern. “Hold on to the note. I don’t want to lose it. Give it to them later.”

The doorway they now arrived at would lead them upstairs; they would emerge in Fantasyland and have a brief walk into the expanded areas of the themed world. Once again, security prepared to tighten the circle around them as they moved. Wordlessly, they went up the steps, their footfalls echoing in the stairwell around them. The doors swung open and they moved into a plain hallway, past small rooms, a few doors noting mechanical maintenance instructions, and then through another set of doors which placed them on the streets of Fantasyland.

Hawk kept his head down and his hand on the shoulder of the cast member in front of him. They moved quickly through the streets; they drew attention of the crowd, but this time they kept their pace fast enough that by the time someone recognized him and reacted, they had moved on. Along the castle walls, past the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, around the corner past the Be Our Guest restaurant and back toward Gaston’s Tavern, they continued. In a matter of a few moments, they reached their destination and moved between the tavern and gift shop. Stepping out of guest traffic, they again stepped off set into a backstage area.

“That was crazy,” Juliette exhaled as they were finally off the streets. “On the way back, we’ll take the long way and stay out of guest areas, agreed?”

“Agreed.” Hawk was mentally shifting gears, trying to focus on the event at hand.

“Give me a second, I think they should be ready…I’ll introduce you.” Juliette patted him on the shoulder. “You’re here now, so focus, you’ll be great.” She walked back through the doorway, leaving Hawk with the security detail to wait for her signal.

He was excited about this brief greeting and presentation for his favorite charity, Christmas Dreams. He had personally invited some of the organization’s leadership team to be here today. They were getting a behind-the-scenes look at how things operated, getting access to some designers and Imagineers, and they had just finished a late-afternoon private meal in the mysterious West Wing of the Be Our Guest restaurant, creatively themed as Beast’s castle from the animated film
Beauty and the Beast
.

Christmas Dreams was an organization that provided Christmas experiences for chronically ill children and their families. Whether it was providing gift boxes in local hospitals, creating Santa Claus encounters for sick children, or even moving into a neighborhood in the middle of the summer and organizing a Christmas in July, the organization’s focus was on caring for and ministering to families in crisis who were dealing with illness. The reason they did it? Some children just can’t wait for Christmas. Ultimately, they were going to construct an indoor theme park, a North Pole where children could come and create one more Christmas memory with their family.

Hawk had personally gotten involved with the charity organization and had promised to support them with the force of Disney behind him. Today, some of their advance planning team, some of the staff, and some of their designers were at the resort. The brief meeting with Hawk was to encourage them, and he was supposed to give them a quick, inspiring chat. He had been the one who had chosen this very unlikely spot for the event because he wanted to show them something most people missed.

The door in front of him creaked open, and a security guard waved him forward. He moved quickly across the short pathway between Gaston’s Tavern and the cottage right out of Belle’s hometown from
Beauty and the Beast
, known as Bonjour! Village Gifts, where guests could grab a unique set of themed gifts available exclusively in this Fantasyland shop. Hawk stepped around the outside of the shop to the back door, then waited again as security spread out in front of him. Inside, he was in a cast-member-only area; the next door would carry him into the shop itself. It would be filled with the group from Christmas Dreams, not shopping but waiting for what had been promised as a bonus presentation for them. He heard Juliette’s voice on the other side of the door, inside the shop, introducing him.

“We have a very special surprise for you today. You might have heard news over the past few days that our Chief Creative Officer has had a bit of trouble, and there have been attempts made on his life. He knew you were coming today, and he really wanted to be here. As you can imagine, this was impossible considering the circumstances.” Juliette gave her words a moment for the crowd to process them. “But as he has always done, he makes the impossible possible, so I am excited to introduce to you…Grayson Hawkes.”