She saw now how Corporate Financial had made it their goal to intertwine with government to advance their goals. Change the laws and you change the business climate in your favor.
She only hoped they had been able to stop it in time.
They watched the news in relative silence for the next thirty minutes as other stories seemingly unrelated to the Corporate Financial bombing and the last-minute effort to reverse the so-called Corporate Slavery law were related: violent disturbances in New York (one on Wall Street when a Finance Executive hung himself in the men’s room of a trading firm), Los Angeles and Chicago. There was one story about a violent skirmish in Lincoln, Nebraska when a secretary beat her supervisor to death with her shoe. The secretary had apparently been working at her office for the past two days non-stop. “Flip the channels,” Bill said. “Let’s see what else is going on.”
Rafael flipped through the stations. The news was reporting more of the same. In addition to the main stories on Corporate Financial and the show-down in Washington, there were scattered reports of violent incidents in the work place. “People are waking up and breaking free of Corporate Financial’s hold,” John Stanley said. He was sitting on the sofa now, on Michelle’s right. “If you notice, a lot of what’s happening is people who were forced to work against their will saw a chance and struck back. Some of them had pent-up anger and unleashed it.”
“The people Corporate Financial was controlling,” Michelle said, remembering Alma Smith and David Harrington and the others who displayed similar zombified expressions. “What happened to them?”
“Many of them most likely died,” John Stanley said. “We have reports that there were numerous Corporate Financial Consultants who succumbed to exhaustion and heart attacks and died but they were animated by Corporate Financial. The corporate entity itself kept them going, sort of like a puppet master.”
“Like Dennis Harrington,” Michelle said, remembering the story Jay related to Donald, that Dennis Harrington looked and appeared dead in his hotel room. She quickly told the story to John, who nodded.
“I’ve heard similar stories but have never witnessed them myself,” he said. He looked troubled. “I’d like to think that with the destruction of the building, we’ve destroyed the source of possession.”
“What about people who weren’t like Dennis?” Michelle asked.
“It looks like some of them may be confused now,” John Stanley said, indicating the current news story with a nod. The news story in question concerned a mini-riot at an office park after several hundred office employees destroyed office equipment, smashed windows and computers, and assaulted each other. One of the witnesses was being interviewed. He looked haggard and bruised and was described as an Office Manager. “It was like everybody snapped,” he said. “One minute I was… well… I was working and the next I heard this great… well… it’s hard to describe, but all of a sudden everybody in the office just started screaming. My secretary screamed that she was going to kill me. I looked up, saw one of my Analysts hog-tied with duct tape under the desk and I immediately went over to help him when I was attacked.”
The stories were so similar in their outlandishness and surreal quality that they had Michelle mesmerized. She couldn’t help but stay glued to the TV as the rest of the Coalition members wandered in and out of the living room, talking in small groups, nibbling on plates of food. It was the only thing she could do to convince herself that the world, in some way, was returning to normal.
WHEN THE KNOCK on the apartment door came at ten minutes past midnight, Michelle Dowling was off the sofa quickly. One of the Coalition members was already positioned at the door and drew a small caliber handgun as he looked through the peephole. Michelle had to fight the urge to yell, “Donald!”, she was so excited. She’d been aching to see him since Jay called a few hours ago and told her and Rafael that they were passing Bakersfield and would be in the Bay Area in a few hours. Rafael had given them directions and Michelle had stayed awake running on pure adrenaline. She was so tired but she couldn’t go to sleep. She had to see Donald!
The Coalition member with the gun unlatched the bolt, and opened the door just as Michelle reached it. “Donald!”
Donald Beck went to her and held her, and Michelle knew right then that somehow everything was going to be okay.
A FEW HOURS later.
It was closing in on three a.m. Most of the Coalition members who lived in other parts of the city, or who had secured lodgings elsewhere, had left. Rafael Hernandez and Tomas Rodriguez were the only ones left, as this was their apartment. Jay O’Rourke was sitting in the kitchen at the table, his laptop open, talking to Tomas in quiet tones as Michelle bundled down with Donald in sleeping bags on the sofa and the floor. Donald was stretched out in a sleeping bag on the floor by the sofa. Michelle was lying on her side, dressed in sweat pants and a T-shirt Tomas had found for her. Rafael had already gone to bed. Rachel was sleeping in the one guest room of the apartment and had turned in over an hour ago. Michelle had heard her crying a while ago but now the room was silent.
Michelle looked down at Donald as he lay on his back, his eyes open. “I still can’t believe any of this happened.”
“What do you mean?” Donald asked.
“It just seems so surreal,” Michelle said. “The fact that I participated in this… the media’s calling it the worst terrorist act in this country since the Twin Towers attacks… it’s just surreal. I don’t think of it as a terrorist act.”
“I don’t either,” Donald said softly.
“I’m sure other terrorists have thought the same thing,” Michelle continued. “Osama bin Laden, Mohammad Atta, Timothy McVeigh… they didn’t think of themselves as criminals. They really thought… still think in some cases… that they’re fighting the ultimate evil.”
“Don’t start thinking you’re the same as them,” Donald said, raising himself up and looking at her. “You aren’t a terrorist. You aren’t a monster.”
Visions of her mother came to her and she felt the tears again. Donald held her; she’d told Donald everything within the first thirty minutes of his arrival. Now she held back the tears and said, “I know this is different! I can see from what’s going on today that what we did affected everything! I mean… look at what’s going on in Congress… all those… incidents across the country—”
“We’re all a part of it as much as you are,” Donald said softly. “You, me, Jay and Rachel… Rafael and Tomas. All of us.” Donald looked tired. “If I didn’t know your heart the way I do, I would have been inclined to think you were going over the deep end when this all came up a few weeks ago, but I didn’t. I saw it happening myself in the medical field. Part of me so much wants to pick up the phone and call Dr. Brown and find out how Michael Brennan is but I can’t. Especially if the police or the FBI has already put two and two together and are looking for you.”
Michelle wiped tears from her eyes. She knew what Donald was talking about. Rafael told them all before the others left that they would convene in the morning to discuss the next phase: picking up and moving on, was how he termed it. He had an operative already assigned to Donald’s situation and was working to see how much the authorities might know about him, if they didn’t already. For Michelle it was a different story. The FBI was eventually going to find out that she had flown to California for Corporate Financial Business and had most likely died in the explosion. If they found her alive they would want answers, namely where she was when the blast happened. And if any kind of surveillance equipment survived the blast and evidence obtained from it pointed her way, there would be trouble. That’s why they needed to discuss the next move. “Don’t worry,” Rafael had said soothingly. “We can make sure you are either out of the country or have a new identity. We’ve been working on something like this for a long time now. We figured that when it all came down, we’d need the resources to disappear.”