The Blackfire Protocol by Clifford Beck - HTML preview

Chapter 9

Winter break was only two weeks long, but having acquired his books for the next semester, Frank began studying. He was not one for doing nothing and always feeling the need to be productive. But he did take a break now and again. And being particularly drawn to history, he spent a day at the Library of Congress. Walking in, he was struck by the mazelike arrangement of shelves and the smell of ancient paper. After a few hours of perusing, he got access to the rare books section. Required to wear white cotton gloves, Frank carefully searched through the shelves, looking for anything that might catch his interest. It didn’t take long before he discovered a handwritten diary penned by Abraham Lincoln. Carefully opening the fragile codex, he deftly separated its thin leaves, and after reading as much as was legible, he discovered something he did not expect. He had always understood Lincoln as the ‘Great Emancipator’, the man who brought an end to slavery, but there was something else to the man Frank had never learned. Written within the pages of

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Lincoln’s journal was an entry outlining the detaining of those suspected of being Confederate sympathizers. Such an act, even for a president, was generally a violation of the fourth amendment, specifically the writ of habeas corpus—no one can be detained without charges. Lincoln, however, had that element of the amendment suspended, therefore giving him the authority to detain anyone he felt could be a threat to his life. History records that there were, indeed, many threats against him and several assassination attempts. Congress, however, felt differently about the matter and acted to reverse what Lincoln had undertaken. But in the mind of a developing sociopath, the idea of detaining people while at the same time violating their constitutional right carried a slight glimmer. Under the circumstances surrounding that period of history, Frank might have gone a bit further. He would have sent a message to the Confederacy by having them shot. An idea was now taking shape in his mind, one that would manifest as a grasp for absolute power. The authority to do as thou wilt, in spite of any legal ramifications, was hypnotic, and having read enough news, he knew that the constitution could be violated if the correct legal trickery was employed. It was all a matter of wording. By this one act, Abraham Lincoln had quickly become Frank’s personal hero. He was not interested in the emancipator or the now famous speech given that freed tens of thousands of enslaved human beings. It was Lincoln’s boldness that he admired. It was his will to live that had produced an act that flew in the face of everything the founding fathers had created. In Frank’s mind, this required true courage.

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After a few hours of exploration, he made his way back to his apartment. On the way, he picked up some dinner at a nearby store and, after eating, retired to bed, where he quickly fell asleep. He never dreamt, or perhaps he never remembered dreaming. This, he believed, was the product of the head injury he sustained only two years before. There were no other symptoms, so he had that to be grateful for, knowing things could have been much worse. But the experience of opening his eyes in a hospital bed with a tube down his throat hung in his mind like a sliver in a place out of reach. He supposed he should have gone into therapy, but the thought had never occurred to him; he was too focused on recovery. Now, his only direction was forward, and Frank would bury himself in his studies in order to escape what had become the ghost of his past. And then there was Ava. He had never been involved with a girl before—much less a woman. Already, he felt the unpredictable nature of arousal. It wasn’t the feeling that bothered him, but the unpredictable nature of human emotions. Frank needed his life to be orderly and without surprises or discord. This isn’t to say that he couldn’t deal with the unexpected. He simply preferred not to. This would be a feature of his personality that would later stand in the way of establishing any emotional self-control.