The Flagler Legacy

Rick O'Grady returned to his hometown of Jacksonville, Florida with his new Harvard Law degree, eager to pass the Florida Bar and join his father's law firm. The O'Shea Family Trust Fund, originally established by the wealthy Henry M. Flagler in 1897, was funded annually by Flagler's company, Florida East Coast Railway (FECR), to the oldest living namesake of Patrick Michael O'Shea. In 1976, the Trust had been declared invalid by the Florida Supreme Court, upon the litigation of the...
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Rick O'Grady returned to his hometown of Jacksonville, Florida with his new Harvard Law degree, eager to pass the Florida Bar and join his father's law firm. The O'Shea Family Trust Fund, originally established by the wealthy Henry M. Flagler in 1897, was funded annually by Flagler's company, Florida East Coast Railway (FECR), to the oldest living namesake of Patrick Michael O'Shea. In 1976, the Trust had been declared invalid by the Florida Supreme Court, upon the litigation of the chairman of FECR, Edward Ball, brother-in-law of the now-deceased millionaire, Alfred DuPont, and then reputed to be the most powerful man in Florida.Rick's goal, once he passed the Bar, was to find the means to have this judgment reversed and restore the annual payment to his family Trust Fund. At the age of 26, this tall, handsome new graduate was not considered a threat by Mr. Ball.After Rick settled into his new apartment, he was awakened by an enormous explosion near his new home. The FECR Broward Yard had been blown up, raising fears that the multi-year battle between Ball and his employees over wages had been renewed, despite recent court decisions and jail terms to the contrary. Investigations soon proved that the O'Shea family was not involved, but rather an unidentified foreign national was threatening to purchase the FECR or destroy it if refused.In the interim, the eightieth birthday party of Rick's grandfather, Patrick Michael O'Shea, Junior, gave Rick an opportunity to meet the beautiful Chandra Jones, a popular television news reporter and prominent young African-American personality. She invited him to lunch the following week, where she revealed her research on the O'Shea family and sought his cooperation in pursuing their joint interests in legal research on the dispute with FECR. He agreed, and the two young people began a research quest starting with local newspaper files and continuing into other cities in pursuit of the mysterious rich foreigner behind a terrorist plot to blow up the centers of five large American cities.