Balance of Power Shifted (31 page)

Relieved to have the interview done and to have our position communicated to the global audience we decided to hit a local tavern down the street from the studio.  We were a little worried about Gwen but she had her mother staying the night so she was good to go.  Gwen was gushing on how we handled the interview and told us that by being here tonight she had a good understanding of our ability to handle public
speaking, which was important to develop a public relations strategy.  The easy banter continued for a while until Fiona caught my eye to indicate it was time to wrap it up and catch the limo home.  On the way back we were all worn out and did very little talking.  Fiona fell asleep with her head on my lap and was in such a deep sleep that she drooled some on my pants leg.  I laughed to myself, since she had been doing this as long as I have known her.

S
itting in front of my PC the next morning I was reading an email from Julius discussing a meeting that had been requested by a group saying they represented a consortium of oil and gas companies.  I knew this day was coming, I thought to myself.  Looking up I saw Bill at the door with a big smile on his face.  “Morning” he said. I just want to let you know I have interviews at two universities scheduled for later this week.”  “Which ones” I asked?  Princeton and your old alma mater Georgia Tech” Bill smugly replied.  “Nice” I said, “those students will be tougher than Ed you know.  Bill just waved his hand and headed to his office two doors down from mine. 

Looking out my window
with a view straight down the drive to the building, I noticed two white cargo vans drive in and stop halfway down.  I started to get curious but at the same time, my PC chirped and told me to plug into an outlet since the battery was at 10%.  Seeing that my plug was actually in, I checked the connection at the back of the base station for my laptop, which looked OK so I figured I had kicked the wire out of the transformer.  Bending under the massive desk that used to sit in my Grandfathers den, I found the loose plug and pushed it firmly into the socket.  Just before I sat up a blinding flash and massive concussion washed over me.  I felt myself slammed down into the floor where things went dark for me.

Outside,
the vans roared out of the parking lot with a Clavis security guard, John Tabor on the right side shooting at the vans as they left.  Over to the left, two bodies were laying there.  The closest body was that of a man of Middle Eastern descent with a shoulder fired missile launcher lying next to him in a growing pool of blood.  The other body was that of a Clavis security agent Jason Rich.  Jason had reported in that two vans had entered the parking area and almost immediately reported that four men had gotten out of the vans with missile launchers.  Jason engaged the closest attacker and took him out, but the driver of the closest van had gotten out and sprayed his AK-47 catching Jason with a round to his neck, which on the way out literally ripped out his spinal column.  Extra guards had come on that morning in case curious onlookers came by after the exposure on the Ed Renault show and that is why John was on this shift.  John looked towards the building, saw three impact areas, and based on the areas he knew that Mr. Carter and Mr. Bates were the targets and he said a quick prayer for them as he headed to the building.

Entering the building’s main entrance it was apparent that this was one of the impact area
s.  The young receptionist was laying on the floor in a bloody mess among the carnage of what once was a beautiful reception area.  Kneeling next to her was Ty checking for a pulse.  Looking up Ty caught site of John and simply said report.  John recounted quickly the events outside and ended with an all clear.  Ty said follow me and headed to the executive office areas.  On the way, he pulled a fire alarm lever to get people out of the building since there was a lot of smoke.  Heading towards Mike’s office the first thing observed was that most of the wall of his office along the hallway was gone.  The explosion had taken out the wall and the conference room across from it.  Ty did not have a good feeling about Mike, and after climbing over some debris where the office door used to be, he saw a pair of legs sticking out from behind a desk.  Ty we surprised and elated to see that Mike did not appear to have any serious injuries.  Ty rolled Mike over onto his back and lightly tapped his cheek while calling Mike, Mike, Mike.

Mike
’s brain was fighting to figure out what was going on.  It was almost like falling upwards towards a bright light. With his eyes still closed, Mike came in to consciousness and the first thing he noticed was that his head hurt, the next thing was a sharp burning smell like burnt plastic.  What was that noise I am hearing, he thought to himself?  As he focused in on it, he realized someone was calling his name.  With some effort, he opened his eyes and when they focused, he saw Ty kneeling over him calling him.  Ty sounded as if he was in the next room and not right there and I realized that my hearing was the problem.  Sitting up and gently shaking the cobwebs from his head, I saw the destruction.  This frightened me into action and on unsteady legs stood up while asking Ty, "What the hell happened?"  Watching Ty’s lips closely, I heard the words “missile attack.”  Taking in the carnage of my office, I had no doubt he was telling the truth and realized that my Grandfather’s desk and the need to get under it to fix my laptop power saved my life.  I thought to myself that someone above must have been looking out for me.  “How is everyone else?” I stammered.  We are going to check on Bill right now and we have at least one employee casualty and one Clavis dead.

The news galvanized Mike into action instead
paralyzing with despair on what had happened.  Walking through what used to be his wall he saw twisted aluminum studs and ceiling tiles blocking what was the hallway.  Ty started to try to remove some debris to get through but Mike just used what was left of the wall as a brace and carefully placed his feet on top of the carnage and slowly stepped his way over the top.  A couple of times his weight compressed the material, but he did not fall through.  At the very end, he cut his hand on jagged metal but felt no pain.  Where Mike's office wall on the hallway side had taken the brunt of the explosion, Bill’s was intact.  Walking through his doorway, he could see that the missile must have hit just above the window outside since there was a large hole in the outside wall.

It took him a minute to locate Bill and he heart skipped a beat when he saw him.  Bill was
haphazardly sticking out of the sheet rock on the hallway wall.  It looked as if the force of the blast must have picked him up and thrown him into the wall.  There was a lot of blood on him and Mike could see numerous puncture wounds from flying glass and other debris.  Mike quickly worked his way to his friend and remembering some basic training from his local volunteer ambulance squad days, looked for a pulse.  Elated at finding one, Mike calmed himself and slowly assessed the injuries that he could see.  The most obvious one was a deep laceration on his scalp that had bleed profusely and most likely caused a concussion.  His buddy was dead quiet, which put the fear of God in him thinking he would die.  Ty and John finally made their way in and I said, “He’s still alive.  He has numerous puncture wounds, but his head wound looks the worst and until we get him out of the wall, I cannot determine if there is anything else.  Ty then took charge mainly due to his military training, which included some basic medical care.  “You hold his head and neck as still as possible he said while John and I ease him out of there,” he said, while clearing a space on the floor with his shoes.  It was not until we were easing Bill out of the wall that we heard his first moan.  I held his hand as we laid him on the floor and I could hear clearly through the giant hole in the outside wall, the wailing of many sirens approaching.

Sitting in the back of an ambulance while one medic took care of my hand and another was checking my pupils for a concussion
, Fiona was finally able to locate me.  She had tears streaming down her face since the first ambulance she saw had rushed out of here with Bill onboard and she had heard that there were some fatalities.  Squeezing me so hard that it hurt more than my injuries did, she kept saying thank God you are all right.  Finally she stepped back and told me she had organized an evacuation using the back stairway and out to the trees behind the building.  I also found out that she had risked going back in to the third floor to see if anyone was still there and had tried to make her way down to the first floor, but the smoke scared her away and one of the Clavis people told her it had been an attack and to go back outside.  I broke the news to her that our receptionist and a Clavis security guard died, which shook her up even more.

My phone started ringing and
when I answered Jeremy was on the line.  He had already been on the phone with Ty, the FBI and Homeland Security and told me to expect representatives to be showing up soon.  He said, “You and Fiona cannot go back to her place until we figure things out.  I am working on an option and am just waiting for an approval to come through.  For now if you need to hang around. I suggest you go over to the showroom building and Ty will make sure there is security there.  Julius and Iris had not been in the building when the attack happened, but arrived as the ambulances did.  Julius came over to check on me and said he and Iris will head over to the hospital to see how Bill was doing and will keep you updated.  I said thanks and I will get there as soon as I can.  As we were talking, Ty had walked up, showed us a picture on his phone of the dead attacker and asked if I had seen him before.  I shook my head no, but Julius looking over Ty’s shoulder said, “That’s the bastard that snapped each one of my fingers.” “Are you sure?” Ty asked.  “I can’t forget that face” Julius responded angrily.

I
dealt with issues at the site the rest of the day and had multiple discussions with the local police, FBI and Home Land security.  They took the serial number off the missile launcher and fingerprints and pictures of the deal assailant.  I had asked Fiona to set up a command center at the showroom building and to make sure she had contact information for all our employees.  We had a contingency plan in place that allowed employees to work from home during inclement weather.  We implemented that plan, and asked the employees to perform their duties as best as they could from their home offices by connecting over the Internet using our secure remote connection service.  Fiona confirmed that all corporate systems were operational and not impacted.  We also had our backup servers in California online if we needed them.  If any employees felt safe enough to work at the showroom, in particular the R&D people, they were more than welcome.

Gwen was standing in front of
about 25 reporters outside the show room building.  She was still trembling from the tragic events of the day. Nevertheless, was able to push it aside and address the boisterous crowd.  Ladies and gentlemen, at approximately 9:10 am this morning two vehicles drove into the parking area of Efficio’s corporate headquarters.  There was an attack on some of the senior management of the company in an effort to deter the launch of a new our energy source.  The senior management attacked, though injured, survived the attack with one in grave condition.  We however regretfully inform you that one employee and one security guard died in the attack.  Our heartfelt condolences go out to their families.  Since this is an active investigation, this all I can speak to you about and for more information I turn you over other our Chief of Police.

Chief Roscoe did not have much to say since
jurisdiction belonged to the FBI, which is what he told the pool of reporters.  He reached out through the cameras trained on him to ask the audience to report anything they may have seen that was suspicious.

A tall well-built man dressed in a suit and tie approached Mike.  The
person looked all business as he strode closer with a set of piercing eyes and forceful stride.  He looked to be in his late 30’s or early 40’s with close-cropped hair but not quite a crew cut.  “Mike Carter I assume,” he said, as he held out his hand to shake.  I nodded yes and shook his hand.  “I am Agent Matt Morgan out of the Newark FBI office,” he informed me as he showed me his badge.  “I am personally sorry about this tragic event and the loss of life.  I am the agent in charge of this case and will use all of the FBI’s resources to track these perpetrators down.  I have the statements provided by the local police, but wanted to know if you could think of anything else.”

“Do you know that the dead attacker was one of four people who tortured our Finance officer a few weeks
ago?” I asked.  “We are aware of it Mr. Carter.  I am sorry to ask this again, but can you repeat to me why you think you, Mr. Bates or your company are targets?”  “Agent Morgan, there are literally hundreds if not thousands of people who would be negatively impacted financially if our Electricus power source is pushed out globally.  The price of oil and gas are predicted to plummet over a short timeframe.  Mr. Bates and I are the only two people on Earth who know how to replicate the organism that is Electricus and if we are gone, the threat is gone.  The company itself is not the target.  We have been aware of the danger from day one and have engaged a well-known security firm called Clavis Aurea run by their CEO Jeremiah Stevens, but I do not think anyone expected an attack like this.”   Agent Morgan was writing in a black notebook the entire time and then asked me questions about the attack in California.

As
I finished up about our location and attack in California, I caught sight of Stevie searching through crowd of people still working the scene.  I raised my hand and waved, which caught his attention and he headed our way.  “Mike, man are you all right?  How is Bill?  Who were the casualties?”  “Slow down Steve,” I said, “First off meet Agent Matt Morgan from the FBI.”  Steve shook hands with agent Morgan and introduced himself.  “Hi, I am Steve Kerry I work in our research area but am currently working with the Ar…my.”  Steve looked at me like a dear in the headlights since he did not know if he could mention the Army connection.  “Don’t worry Steve,” I said.  “What my friend here was indicating is that we have R&D projects going on with the Air Force and Army” I confided to our new FBI friend.  “The work is confidential but you should know.”  “Good,” Steve said, “Because it is linked into what I was going to tell you.  Jeremiah was able to go through channels and contacted me at the base to tell me what happened today as well as to get my butt over here and pick you and Fiona up.”  “Pick us up,” I repeated.  “Yeah, Jeremy pulled some strings and got you a couple offices near where I’m working, until we figure what the hell is going on.  You and Fiona have been authorized to a base house.”