“Damn! You trying to kill me?” Travis screamed.
Patton and the big man started laughing at the younger man’s discomfort. Then Patton turned serious.
“That’s exactly what we’re going to do, Travis, if you don’t do what we tell you to.”
Travis gulped audibly. He was tough, but these guys had the upper hand and they seemed willing to do whatever it took to get him to cooperate. To punctuate the point, Patton put his face close to Travis’s, almost to the point where their noses were touching.
“We will kill you Travis,” Patton said blandly, letting his words hang ominously in the air. “It would be the just thing to do. You’re behind a lot of the stuff that’s happened. Now you’re going to fess up to it.”
Travis hung his head. He had no more cards to play. Hadn’t he just been complaining to himself about Asher and Anna and this whole mess? Wasn’t he looking for a way out? What better way to do that than to be forced out? To run away and never come back?
He raised his eyes to meet Patton’s gaze and nodded.
It was the third time he’d tried calling the number, but Asher kept getting a ‘disconnected’ notice. Asher blew off their meeting two nights before, but he knew Travis would never hold a grudge—at least not this long. He was tempted to call Anna and ask her if she’d seen or talked to Travis, but they’d made a deal—no more direct contact.
But he didn’t need Travis to talk to Anna. He needed a direct line to Travis. As far as he was concerned, Governor David Asher no longer needed Anna or her pet monkey, Charlie Henry. They’d accomplished what they’d set out to do. What were they going to do if he struck out on his own? If they lost him they would lose their connection to power in this community. Before Asher could close the book on the entire enterprise, though, he needed Travis one more time. He opened his phone and dialed the number again.
“Is he gone?” Patton asked his old friend Wildcat, who was driving back to the airport.
“You could say that,” the man said cryptically.
Patton’s interest piqued, but he was pretty sure what his friend and old comrade meant.
“Was there a problem?” he asked, almost wanting to not know the answer to his own question.
“You could say that,” Wildcat said again, laughing this time. “Okay, sorry. Our friend had a nasty nose bleed and I had to take care of him.”
Patton’s thoughts were confirmed.
“Okay, so it’s done then?” Patton asked hopefully.
“Done and done.”
Travis’s phone didn’t even go to voicemail when Asher dialed the number. Asher hit the “End” button and thrust his phone angrily into his pocket.
Asher wondered if he’d left town again. If he had, who told him to do so? Was Charlie behind this? A ball of nerves formed in Asher’s gut and he began to wonder if something was about to happen to him. Without Travis, he had no real connection to the others. He and Anna were basically finished. He suddenly thought of one other person who he could talk to, he just needed to find a way to contact him.
Wasn’t he supposed to be the most powerful person in town? Despite having the office and title, Asher felt powerless now, like an island out in the middle of the ocean. Never the type of person to take things lying down, Asher started to concoct his plan.
Bao slid the trays into the compartments on the side of his delivery truck, slammed the doors closed, and blew in his hands to warm them. He was finishing up a long day that started when it was dark and was now going home in the dark. He just wanted to get home, take a long, hot bath, drink some tea and play some computer games. Canceling out the euphoria of his completed workday was the fact that somebody had been following him.
Bao was technically a spy, but of the corporate variety. He’d never gone through specialized training in either surveillance or counter surveillance. Despite that, he was a street-smart kid who knew when he was being watched and followed. Whoever it was apparently didn’t watch many movies, he thought. They’d been in the same vehicle all day and had rarely been cautious enough to lag behind him in traffic.
There they were, though, sitting in their car, apparently waiting to follow him home. Not knowing what else to do, Bao decided to do what they thought he would do—he returned his delivery truck to his small warehouse and then drove home in his personal vehicle. And just as he’d thought, the dark red sedan had followed him there.
After his bath, Bao looked for the car out his front window. He saw it sitting across the street. He checked again before heading to bed, but to his relief, the car was no longer there. Not taking any chances, or let doubt about his instincts creep into his mind, Bao sat at his computer and typed out an encrypted report.
Bao’s instinct to ask if other agents were reporting being followed had been brilliant, his superiors thought. He was the fourth agent to report such suspicious activity. Had there been a breach? Why would someone follow their agents? How did they even know that Insight had spies in Blue Creek? He was worried that something dangerous was happening and the issue quickly became Insight Resources, Inc.’s CEO, Michael Varner’s number one priority.
CHAPTER 23
Although many Blue Creek residents felt like their vote was stolen with the death of Mike Wilson, they had no choice but to move on with their lives. David Asher’s pain-inducing economic policies would continue despite the ferocious opposition. Although the governor remained very unpopular, most people were burnt out by politics and didn’t want to be involved anymore. This was exactly what Charlie Henry had counted on—people get angry at first, but after a while, they accept the new normal. If things happened to get better, it would be a bonus. If they get worse, the leaders would get out and find a boogeyman to blame, distract with a disaster or a scandal, or make new promises.
As planned, Asher proposed to lighten some of the city’s regulations on outside parties. While the marginal lessening of these laws didn’t have a huge impact on the economy, the fact that citizens felt like things were opening up made them feel better. Consumer spending increased slightly and other surface economic indicators looked better. Lying just under the calm surface, however, was a return of higher unemployment, higher government spending, a larger debt, and higher taxes.
As fall turned to winter, and winter gave way to spring, the feeling that things were improving emerged. While the long-term economic outlook was bad, things in the short-term were improving. With this, Governor Asher regained some of his popularity, and with popularity came more trust. If Governor Asher came on TV and said things were looking up, well, things were damn well looking up.
This new positivity continued on through April, and this was only intensified by the warming weather. The triumvirate of Charlie Henry, David Asher, and Anna Radinski seemed to have weathered the storm, at least for now. Anna felt that this calm in the storm was their opportunity to repair their broken relationships and begin to move forward.
Their ploy had worked. David Asher would continue to serve as Blue Creek governor for the remainder of this original three-year term. Despite this, the room did not have a celebratory feeling. The five people in the room—David Asher, Charlie Henry, Anna Radinski, Tyler Redding, Brian White—were united in purpose, but were in disagreement on how to get there.