“Hello.” Elsa gave him a cursory glance and turned her attention back to the security monitors.
Victor signed the false name he’d picked earlier—Randy Dubrow—jotted down who he was going to meet and put the pen down. “Thank you,” he said, picking up his briefcase.
“Don’t forget to fill out a visitor’s badge,” Elsa said.
“Of course.” Victor filled out the name of his pseudonym on a blue-bordered badge, peeled it off the adhesive backing, and affixed it to his breast pocket. “Thank you.” He turned and headed to the elevators near the building’s atrium.
He recognized all of the people who rode in the elevator with him but none of them recognized him. He’d put himself through a lot to change so drastically in so short a time.
When the elevator dropped him off at the fifth floor—the top level of the sprawling corporate structure—he walked purposefully and confidently toward the thick double glass doors of the executive suite. He had an eight o’clock appointment. The CEO, James Whitmore, had agreed to hear his presentation on how he, Randy Dubrow, a representative from the firm ValueTech, would be able to save Free State millions of dollars in helping them streamline their outsourcing initiative. Whitmore had not only been receptive to the meeting, he’d told Victor he’d been looking forward to speaking with him ever since his secretary, Gayle, told him about his phone call three weeks ago. Gayle had researched the company via the web link Victor had forwarded to her in his introductory email. The website, which Victor had created over the span of a week, detailed all the ways ValueTech helped save millions of dollars for various Fortune 500 companies, private firms, and small businesses by creating plans to outsource costly white-collar positions that could be performed elsewhere for much cheaper rates—largely third world countries like Thailand, India, the Philippines, and Mexico. Moderately educated people in those countries could perform light desk clerk duties for pennies on the dollar in jobs that normally paid ten dollars an hour and up at US firms. It was the wave of the future. Outsourcing Information Technology jobs had already proven to be a godsend in high stockholder returns and big bonuses for management and executive staffs, not to mention resulting in larger corporate profits. Whitmore had been particularly interested in hearing about the financial planning software the company had developed. ValueTech claimed that MoneySoft, their key product, was revolutionary in its calculations that offered the business user everything they needed to see when it came to corporate outsourcing, downsizing, and company profit. The software calculated all income levels, taxes, profits, and executive bonuses. Whitmore was especially interested in hearing about the bonuses, and he explained to Victor over the phone last week that he was sure his colleagues—the Vice President, the Treasurer, a few of the company executives—would want to hear how ValueTech could best benefit them and their year-end profit sharing. Victor was only too happy to oblige.
Inside Victor’s dark gray briefcase were two Glock semi-automatic nine millimeter pistols with ten round magazines filled with hollow point bullets, along with extra magazines. These handguns were strapped to the underside of the briefcase lid. Nestled within the body of the briefcase was a fully assembled Tec 9 Semi-automatic rifle and ten thirty round magazines; the rifle was an imitation of the standard military-issued Tec 9 full automatic rifle. He had a Kimber .45 with a full clip of hollow points in a shoulder holster beneath his suitcoat, a Smith and Wesson .38 caliber handgun tucked in a holster that hung off the small of his back, and he had spare magazines for all the handguns stashed in both pockets and his suit pockets. Strapped to a holster on his ankle, tucked beneath the cuffs of his slacks, was a .45 semi-automatic Kimber. This was all Victor needed to make his point that ValueTech was a bullshit company, created from the fertile depths of his imagination for the sole purpose of appealing to the underlying greed of the corporate suits that comprised Free State Insurance.
It was the corporate executives who were directly responsible for the loss of his job and his medical insurance, which had directly impacted the chemotherapy treatments his nine-year-old son, Brent, received for bone cancer.
When Victor showed up for work one morning six months ago and was told his job, along with the jobs of one hundred other IT techs at Free State, was being outsourced to Thailand, his medical insurance was cut off midway through the aggressive chemotherapy treatments his son was undergoing. Victor had tried to persuade Human Resources to at least let him keep his insurance, but they refused. Sorry, the doe-eyed HR girl told him that day. I really have no control in the matter, she said. I’m really very sorry, but there’s nothing I can do. So sorry. Fuck you, have a good life, don’t come crying to us if your kid dies, we really don’t give a shit. We need to fatten the corporate purses of the assholes on the fifth floor.
With no medical insurance the hospital refused to continue treatments without adequate payment. Victor spent weeks feverishly trying to continue Brent’s treatment, but the hospital administrators were adamant that they needed some kind of advance payment, which Victor and his wife Sarah didn’t have. They took out a second mortgage on their house but that wasn’t enough. Brent had a few more sporadic chemotherapy treatments, his doctors tried different cheaper drug therapies, all to no avail.
Brent Adams died three months ago at home, surrounded by his parents and two siblings, Matt and Jessica. After a quick prayer over his body and some tears, Victor called the hospital and told them they could pick up his dead son, their dead patient, thank you very much for killing him you sorry fucks. Then he slammed the phone down and lost his mind.
The wounds were still so fresh that thinking about them hurt. Victor took a deep breath, pulled open one of the double doors to the executive suite, and stepped inside.
Gayle Henderson, the executive secretary looked up from behind a large oak desk as he approached. She was in her early forties, dressed in a conservative business suit, her blonde hair pulled up. “Can I help you?”
“I have an eight o’clock appointment with Mr. Whitmore and several of the executives,” Victor answered crisply. He handed her one of the business cards he’d had made up: Randall Dubrow, Senior VP of Sales, ValueTech Corp.
“Very good, Mr. Dubrow. You can go right in to the conference room on your left. They’re waiting.”
Victor nodded at her. “Thank you.” He headed down a short hallway toward the conference room. He’d recognized Gayle Henderson but she hadn’t recognized him.
In the three months since his son died, Victor had the website built, the business cards made, the pitch crafted and perfected and, most important, he’d assembled his armament. He’d had to travel to Arizona to purchase the hollow-points since they were illegal to sell in California; the Tec 9 he’d purchased at a gun show in Las Vegas. The rest of the handguns were purchased legally. Victor had owned one of the Kimbers for a few years and sometimes took it to the local firing range, and he’d fired the standard military-issued Tec 9’s when he served in the U.S. Army fifteen years ago. When he bought the imitation, he’d taken it out to Riverside County at a firing range and broken it in, along with the other weapons. Sarah didn’t know what he was doing; she barely knew what was going on now since Brent’s passing. She spent most of her time in front of the television, slack-eyed from medication to calm her nerves. Victor did what he could to take care of Matt and Jessica and keep the house running; he kept the bill collectors at bay, diverted funds from Brent’s medical bills to paying the mortgage and other bills (ignoring the bill collectors from the hospital was easy and they could fuck off and die; he was never paying them). In general, he kept up a good front. And he planned.