Jennifer Government: A Novel (22 page)

But this was how Nathaniel wanted it: Violet plus twelve members of the Police—who were soldiers, really, with uniforms and guns and belts with plenty of stuff on them. They rode to Shell in the back of a UPS van. Violet watched to see if they looked competent. She wasn’t used to working in a team. She was starting to freak out a little.

“Two minutes,” the leader said. The Police began pulling on balaclavas and slapping weapons together. “Ma’am, we’ll be between you and them at all times. Just go where we push you.”

“You’ll look after me, right? You won’t lose me?”

“No, ma’am.” She looked for his name tag. It said only: ONE. “Trust me.”

T
he van slowed and everyone inside shut up. Then it moved on, then finally stopped. This was the cue everyone except Violet knew: Police soldiers jumped up and slapped open the doors. She was immediately surrounded. Someone kneed her in
the butt; she accidentally headbutted a man’s back. Her only view was straight up, of the office tower they were about to enter.

She heard glass smash, then a soldier manhandled her through a broken revolving door. Someone said, “Down! Down! On the ground!” She caught a glimpse of a white-faced security guard. He didn’t look as if he felt like taking on a dozen heavily armed soldiers. Violet thought:
Maybe this is going to be all right
.

A few soldiers stayed in the lobby, but the rest stormed a stairwell. Violet’s soldier kept one hand on her back, pushing her all the way up. At first she was resentful, but ten stories later, she was pretty much relying on him. When they exited onto a floor, she could hardly breathe.

Then there was a lot of shouting. The floor was a cubicle farm full of shocked-looking employees. The Police kept breaking out of formation to push someone to the ground, and Violet began to feel more vulnerable. A girl with glasses met her eyes. She looked young and scared. Violet felt bad for her.

The speakers in the ceiling said: “All personnel, all personnel. We are experiencing a dangerous security situation. Take cover under your desk until further notice. Do not attempt to leave the building. This is not a drill.”

“Down, down, down!” the soldier to Violet’s left shouted. He ran to where a man was leaning over a desk, talking on the phone. “Put that down! Get on the floor!”

“I—I’m just closing a deal,” the man said. Violet froze: she couldn’t believe anyone would be so stupid.

The soldier thrust his rifle barrel into the man’s face.
“Put it down!”

“Please, just one more—”

The soldier did something to his gun. It made a
click. “
—minute, please—”

The soldier jumped, twisted, and fell on top of him.

Violet didn’t know why she never heard the shot. She was
left to infer it from the businessman’s horrified expression and the blood. There was a young man across the room, a kid in a suit and a bright tie. He was holding a pistol.

A soldier tackled Violet hard, throwing her to the ground, and then there was a lot of gunfire; she heard
that. “
Get off!” Violet shouted, but he had her pinned. “Get off me!” She didn’t know why she was struggling.

The shooting didn’t last long. There was some screaming, and the Police shouted some more, then Violet’s soldier hauled her up and pushed her along. “Wait!” She twisted, trying to see. “Wait, what happened to—”

The kid with the pistol was gone. On the wall behind where he had been was a red spray.

“Oh, no,” she said. “No no no—”

“Get a hold of yourself!” the soldier snarled. He sounded strange, so she turned to look. He was carrying the wounded soldier over his shoulder, who was trying to hold his neck in. Blood ran between his fingers.

She screamed, recoiled against the man in front of her, tripped, and fell.

“Get up!” the soldier yelled. Hands were on her, pulling at her hair and clothes. “Get up, get up!”

“No! No!”
She kicked at them. Someone reached a hand toward her and she bit it.

“Ahh!
Goddamn it—”

“Carry her!” someone ordered, and they did. A soldier picked Violet up and slung her over his shoulders. She slapped wildly at his head. She felt terribly exposed: she could see employee eyes peeking at her around desks and through potted plants.

The soldiers broke open some glass doors. This was the computer room, so busted doors were really going to fuck with the temperature control, Violet knew. Featureless computer servers
stood about, spaced evenly across the floor. The soldier dropped her to the ground.

“You! We’re here! Do your stuff!”

“No—”

“Do it!”

“I can’t!”

He slapped her so hard she fell to her knees. It was so surprising and absurd that Violet started laughing.

A Police soldier pulled her so close that she couldn’t see anything except his eyes, surrounded by the balaclava. It was enough for her to recognize him: it was the leader, ONE. His hand gripped her neck. “Do your job or I’ll kill you here.”

His words were funny, but his eyes were hard and suggested to Violet that ONE was not the kind of guy to kid around. She struggled for air. “Wait—wait—I need a terminal. Not the actual computer. A terminal.”

“What the fuck’s a terminal?”

“They’re in the—” In his grip, she tried to peer around. There was a small, glass-walled room to one side. Three techs stood inside, looking out nervously. “I need to get in there.”

“Move!” ONE said, and dropped her. She rubbed her throat while the soldiers kicked in the door and hauled the techs out. Violet followed them in and walked between the rows of terminals until she found one that said:

ONE was right behind her. “Is this what you need?
Is this it?”

“Yes,” she said, and began to work.

In John’s opinion, if you’d seen one stock exchange, you’d seen them all: giant screens, paper-strewn floors, and too many sweaty people in close proximity to each other. John hadn’t been on the trading floor before, but all that added to the experience was strangers shouting mumbo jumbo in his ear. The only words he understood coming out of these people’s mouths were “gimme” and “fucking.”

The Shell Liaison was tall, thin, and jumpy. His eyes roved around the boards, and he kept losing concentration while John was talking to him. Between him and the Pepsi kid, John was less than impressed with the quality of US Alliance personnel engaged here.

The takeover had been announced at nine-thirty: Shell was offering $58 for every common share of ExxonMobil sold before the close of trading. “Is that a lot?” John asked, and the Shell Liaison said, “It’s
double
the opening!” which John took to mean yes.

Since then there had been a lot of excited brokers and the Shell Liaison biting his nails, and John was getting bored. “What are we doing here?” he asked the Pepsi kid.

“You’re talking to me again?” the kid said. He had collected some ripped paper stubs from the floor and seemed to be trying to stick them together. “We’re here for defense. If T.A. tries to storm the exchange, we coordinate with the NRA to repel them.”

“They think Team Advantage will attack the
exchange?”

“Those NRA dudes aren’t for show, man.” John had assumed they were part of normal security. He began to feel vulnerable. He hadn’t replaced the pistol Hack’s girlfriend had stolen from him yet. “Do you have a gun?”

The Pepsi kid patted his jacket. “Always.”

“Great,” John said. “Just great.”

“You’re unarmed?”

“No one told me people were going to be shooting at me.”

“Aw, nothing’s probably going to happen. We caught T.A. off guard, and we’ve got like fifty guys here.”

“Hmm.” He noticed a commotion spreading through the floor. The brokers were getting even more agitated. “What’s going on?”

The kid was squinting at his torn dockets. “Dunno. Ask Stretch.”

John saw the Shell Liaison shouting into his cellphone. The cords in his neck were bulging. “This doesn’t look good.”

“Maybe T.A.
are
coming.” The kid sniggered.

A groan rippled through the hall. One of the big boards flashed up: ROYAL DUTCH/SHELL (RDS) BID FOR EXXONMOBIL (XXN)—SUSPENDED.

John walked to the Shell Liaison and took his arm. “What’s happening?”

He covered the mouthpiece. “We’ve lost our integrated trading systems. We can’t verify buy orders until it comes back up. We’re trying to—”

“Is it temporary?”

“I’ll let you know. Okay?”

John went back to the Pepsi kid. “So?” the kid said.

“Some computer problem.”

The kid blew air through his teeth. “Eggheads, man. You can never rely on ’em.” He smirked. “If we were being attacked, I would have given you my gun, you know.”

“Sure you would have,” John said.

A
n hour later, the BID SUSPENDED sign was still up and brokers were getting increasingly pissed off. John was restless: he was here to make sure the buyout went smoothly, and it had come to a grinding halt. This was not looking like a good career move.

“What’s taking them so long?” the Pepsi kid said. “Don’t their computers have backups?”

John spotted the Shell Liaison in conversation with a floor trader. “Let’s find out.” He stood behind the man until he turned. “Are we doing business here or what?”

The Shell Liaison whispered, “The entire Shell net has been toasted. They don’t think they can bring it back up today.”

“Son of a bitch!” the Pepsi kid said. “What happened down there?”

“An armed group entered the Shell building and disabled our I.T.”

“T.A.
attacked
us?”

“Those fuckers!” the kid said.

“We don’t know for sure it’s Team Advantage. There’s no way we can identify particular—”

“Of course it’s them,” John said. “It’s ExxonMobil, it’s T.A. What’s our counteraction?”

The Shell Liaison rubbed his forehead. “We need to prepare an announcement for the floor…we’ll extend the bid until tomorrow, maybe the day after—”

“No,” John said. “Your competitor just invaded your building. What’s our counteraction?”

“There’s nothing we can do.”

“Bullshit.” Some people couldn’t salvage anything from a defeat, John thought. Well, he wasn’t one of them. He was prepared to seize opportunities. “How many men do we have here?”

“Whoa, whoa,” the Liaison said. “Nobody’s going to—”

“I’m with John,” the kid said. “Let’s kick some ass!”

“We’ll refer the incident to the Government, and they will—”

“The
Government?
The enemy kicks you in the balls and you want to fill out a complaint form? You think the Government’s even on our side?”

“T.A. are dissing us,” the Pepsi kid said. “Listen to John-boy.”

“But what are you going to do?”

“I’m going to take these NRA guys and go tell ExxonMobil they made a mistake.”

“Let me talk to the Shell CEO first. Just—John, wait!”

“Too late,” John said.

“
Y
ou,” he said. “I need your men to come with me for a counteroffensive against ExxonMobil.”