She went into the bathroom and quickly brushed her teeth and gargled with Listerine. She applied deodorant and dressed quickly in a pair of blue jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt. She ran a brush through her hair, inspected herself in the mirror briefly, then went back into the room and pulled on a pair of white gym socks and put her tennis shoes on. As she dressed, she thought about what happened and what she’d learned from Donald and Jay shortly after she returned to her room after the meeting.
Things had worked out at the meeting as Alan said they would. When they returned from the Ladies Room, Michelle quickly found her seat and sat down, her attention riveted on the presentation which Nick Dowd was still conducting. She barely noticed Alan leaning forward and whispering something in Sam Greenberg’s ear, but she caught a glimpse of her boss’s face as he nodded at what Alan was telling him. A moment later he was giving his undivided attention to Nick’s presentation. That told Michelle he’d bought whatever bullshit story Alan told him. That was good enough for her.
She talked to Donald the moment she got to her room and learned the latest: Crossroads Medical Group had fired him and two other doctors over the Michael Brennan case; he and Jay had gone searching for Michael and later came upon his trailer park and saw two police cars and an ambulance. Donald had gone out and talked to a neighbor woman who said Michael had called 911 and reported a break-in and an assault. Donald and Jay had followed the ambulance to Ephrata General Hospital and Donald was able to speak to Michael briefly. “He was hysterical,” he related to Michelle. “He claimed four guys from Red Rose broke into his house and held him down while one of them gave him an injection of what he claimed was his cancer cells. Lancaster General is running tests on him now and I called Red Rose to find out what the hell was going on. They wouldn’t talk to me, said Michael was no longer covered, either. I spoke to the attending physician and gave him a brief outline of what’s been happening, and he’s promised to monitor Michael’s prognosis.”
“Is he going to die?” Michelle had asked. When she heard Michael was injected with his own cancer cells she’d gasped.
“No,” Donald had said. He’d sounded tired and worried. “At least I don’t think so. We won’t know until the lab tests come back and give us a definite answer on his cancer.”
She was concerned about Michael, whom she’d never met, and even more concerned about how the powers that be—the American Medical Association or whoever it was that governed the Health Care Industry—was going to respond. Donald didn’t know either. While he was at the hospital, Jay had taken the car to retreat away from the limelight and the police. After conferring with various hospital administrators and other physicians, Donald had left the hospital, called Jay on his cell phone, and they’d hightailed it back to the house to come up with a strategy… and that strategy alarmed Michelle.
“Jay insists on us driving out there,” Donald said. “I feel very strongly for it, myself. I left a message with Dr. Brown and told him not to expect me in Monday, that I would call him when I return. Maybe he’ll think I’m out of town to apply for a new position somewhere.”
The conversation ended with Michelle telling Donald and Jay to be careful. “We’ll call when we get there,” Donald said before telling her he loved her and hanging up.
Michelle inspected herself in the mirror one last time, then grabbed her ID, keys, room passkey, and exited her room.
When she reached the lobby, Alan Perkins was waiting for her dressed casually in jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt near the double glass doors of the hotel. “This way,” he said.
They stepped into the chilly, Illinois night. “You okay?” Alan asked.
“Fine,” Michelle said. “Anybody else up?”
“They’re out like a light,” Alan said, leading her between parked cars toward the end of the lot. “We still have to be careful, though. No telling how much of a hold they have on this place.”
Michelle glanced around at the parking lot and noticed a security camera directed toward the north end of the lot. Alan was leading her away from that area, but she was certain they’d been caught on another camera somewhere else. She wondered if this was something she had to worry about, and then Alan opened the passenger side door of a white Toyota Camry.
Michelle slid into the passenger seat wordlessly and shut the door. A voice from the back seat spoke and the suddenness of it scared her so bad, she jumped.
“Sorry.” The voice was young, female, and when Michelle turned around and looked in the backseat she caught the curious gaze of a young woman. The young woman was slim, wearing a dark baggy jacket and dark jeans—Michelle couldn’t tell what was on beneath the jacket; the woman had it bundled shut. Her hair was dark, almost shoulder length, and her features were delicate, pretty, yet possessed of an intelligence and cunning that set her apart from most pretty girls Michelle had run across. This woman gave her the impression she was not only street-smart, but book smart, too.
“It’s okay,” Michelle said, feeling her heart race. “You just… I wasn’t expecting you to be there.”
“Michelle,” Alan said, turning around in his seat so he was facing her. He gestured toward the back seat. “This is Rachel Drummond. She’s a member of the Coalition.”
“The what?” Michelle shook Rachel’s hand, still confused and curious and nervous about everything that was happening.
“Slow down, Alan,” Rachel said. “Give her brain some time to process.” Rachel rummaged around in the back seat, pulled out a pack of cigarettes. She held the pack out to Michelle. “Smoke?”
Michelle shook her head. “No.”
Rachel held the pack out to Alan, who took one. Rachel lit his cigarette with a silver butane lighter. She lit her own cigarette from it and they took their first drags. Michelle was restless, not knowing which of them she should be talking to or listening to for that matter. She decided to get the ball rolling by addressing Alan. “Okay, I’ve followed things according to plan. You got me out here. Now tell me what’s going on.”
“Here it is in a nutshell,” Alan said. “Rachel and I are members of an organization called the Coalition. We’re an anti-corporatist organization, and one of our goals is to influence public opinion and distribute information to the public on the growing threat of corporatism.”
“Corpora-what?”
“Corporatism, the new economic system,” Rachel said from the back seat. She leaned forward, elbows on her knees. “It’s been around for the past hundred years or so but it’s become stronger in the last thirty… especially the last ten. You want a lesson on it, I’ll be glad to tell you at another time. Right now, Alan needs to give you a brief history lesson on the Coalition and what’s happening so you have a better understanding of why you’re here.”
Alan cut in immediately. “The Coalition’s other goal is to infiltrate companies and government organizations who are embracing corporatism over classic capitalism and determine if they’ve been influenced by Corporate Financial Consultants. If they have, the ultimate goal is to destroy them.”
Michelle looked at Alan. “Destroy them? You mean… what? Blow them up or something?”
“That’s not a bad idea, really,” Rachel said. She took a drag on her cigarette. “Would be hard to do, but it’s certainly crossed our minds.”
Visions of the World Trade Organization protests in Seattle, Washington from 1999 came to Michelle. She remembered watching news coverage of the protests, which turned to riots as various anti-World Trade Organization groups clashed with police, counter-demonstrators, and each other. She remembered watching the coverage one night when a bomb scare was called in at one of the main buildings hosting the conference, and a group called the Socialists Union for Workers claimed responsibility. “So you guys are terrorists?”