Fire Sweeping: The California Ballot Killings Book II

by H M Wilhelmborn

  Larry took the phone and walked to his suite at the end of the corridor.

  “I’ll never forgive Larry for this,” Albertine-Rose told Hannah and me. “He’s told me that he’s applied to join the CWP, and they’ve expedited his application. Like that changes anything. I’m not even sure what going up to Menlo Park will do for my son because there’s still no cure. This is Larry Wagon’s fault. If my son dies from this . . .” She shook her head, sniffled, and walked away.

  Shortly after, we heard Albertine-Rose yelling at a doctor. “I wanted my son in his own luxury suite, but you said that quarantine patients must be in that room!” she said. “I’m paying almost five thousand dollars a night for me, my son, and Larry! I have a right to know why he isn’t in a luxury suite and why someone isn’t sitting beside Hudson’s bed attending to his every need!”

  “Please lower your voice, Mrs. Wagon,” the doctor said. “We’re trying to treat everyone equally in these times. The other boy is from a poor family, and—“

  “I don’t care that the other boy is from a poor family,” Albertine-Rose said. “That’s not my problem. I paid for a luxury suite for my son, and I expect you to deliver on that.”

  “It’s hospital policy to place all those who have the hatred in the same quarantine unit,” the doctor said. “Please try to be reasonable. And please lower your voice. Some quiet, please.”

  “You don’t talk to her like that,” Larry told the doctor. “You don’t tell a woman to be quiet. I will have your medical license revoked by this evening. Apologize to Albertine-Rose. Now.”

  The doctor apologized and told Larry and Albertine-Rose that he’d have a nurse seated beside Hudson till he was airlifted.

  “Is Lloyd OK?” Albertine-Rose asked.

  “He’s with your parents and your siblings,” Larry said. “He’ll be OK.”

  “Larry,” Hannah asked, “can you really have his medical license revoked by this evening?”

  “The CWP can,” Larry said, “and I’m becoming a member.”

  “They’ve only been in power for a few months—” Hannah said.

  “And a few months is all it takes to bend the law to your will,” Larry said. “In a few years, they’ll run it all. I have a business to run, and I intend to stay in business. I have two sons, and, well, Allie and I are going through what we’re going through, and people still need excellent legal help in these times, and I can provide it. I have my conversion exams in two weeks, spread over seven days, and Jeremiah approved Amandine and Andy’s conversion requests this morning.”

  Hannah looked at me with a contrite look on her face, almost as if she knew that I’d consider what came next as a betrayal.

  “I want an expedited conversion, too, Larry,” Hannah said. “It would make my life so much easier. And there’s the story of Mike . . .” Hannah shook her head. “Can you put that request in for me? Please, Larry. This is not only a professional request but also a personal request. I’ve worked for you—”

  “Are you sure?” Larry said. “Because Punishments and Purges and Beliefs and the Afterlife make it clear that once you join, you are considered an eternal part of the CWP family, and you are bound both here and in the Right Path in the next life.”

  “In the Right Path?” Hannah asked.

  “This is just crazy, Janet,” Albertine-Rose said, “which is why I’ve joined the Mothers for Mercy over in Aspen. They’re like the best group of people to take on these wackadoos. So, Larry, Mothers for Mercy will be seeing you in court because Gregoria Handbloom and Mothers for Mercy have just announced that they are suing the CWP over the Law of Lavish Things and Section 1(a)(1).”

  “I wrote Section (1)(a)(1),” Hannah said with pride. “That’s my work.”

  “I heard,” Albertine-Rose said. “And I’ll see you also in court, too. Well, Mothers for Mercy will.”

  “Larry,” Hannah pleaded. “I wrote these laws—well, with your supervision, but that’s my work. Which lawyer can say her work changes people’s lives forever? No other Condorvine grad ever can say the same thing. My work governs tens of millions of people.”

  Larry said he’d see what he could do, but if Hannah’s request for an expedited conversion were approved, she’d have less than a month to prepare for the exam, which she’d have to pass on the first go, or they’d make her wait for fourteen months before she could apply to take the exam again.

  “I was the top student at Condorvine,” Hannah said. “I’ve never come second in any class. I’ve never failed an exam, and I’ve never known failure because I don’t fail. The only time I ever experienced failure was when you took my work away from me Larry—”

  “He’s good at that,” Albertine-Rose said. “Taking things away from people. If you care about something and he finds out, he’ll just take it away from you. Couldn’t give a damn, but he’ll bleed you dry and then run off with that diamond-digging cook, Michelle, who serves burned jellyfish—”

  “Allie,” Larry said. He sighed. “Not in front of Janet and Hannah, please.”

  Larry stared at his son for a while, bowed his head as if in prayer, and then it seemed as if he’d experienced Albertine-Rose’s comment about him taking without giving as a personal challenge, so he pulled one of the blue CWP cellphones out, and he sent a quick message to Anton.

  His phone rang.

  It was Anton.

  They chatted for a few seconds. Larry thanked the CWP, the governor, Scrimmage, and the Right Path for everything they had done for him and his family. “Thank you for Scrimmage. Thank you for the Right Path.”

  Albertine-Rose folded her arms and walked away.

  “Wackadoos,” she said. “Cruel. Wackadoo. Poisonous. Just like Larry.”

  The doctor introduced Albertine-Rose to the nurse who’d be watching over Hudson. The nurse wore a hazmat suit, and he told Albertine-Rose that it was “an honor to serve friends of the governor. As a member of the CWP family myself,” he said, “I am proud to provide this service. Thank you for Scrimmage. Thank you for the Right Path.”

  The nurse walked into the quarantine unit, checked on Hudson, and he sat beside Hudson’s bed.

  Larry ended his call with Anton and told Hannah that Anton said that the CWP would get back to Larry within twenty-four hours regarding Hannah’s request.

  “Thank you so much,” Hannah said. “My work means everything to me.”

  Larry said he’d be out of the office for at least another three weeks. He’d send me an e-mail with everything that needed to be done in his absence.

  I thought of my sons, on the way home.

  Had I just seen glimpses of their future, my future, our future?

  Would Mauru and I fight over my decision to remain in San Diego?

  20

  Couldn’t Be Happier

  Hannah was ecstatic. Her request to expedite her conversion had been approved.

  “Once I ace their exams, I’m back on my projects, Janet,” Hannah said. “I don’t need to worry about my job security anymore, and I don’t need to worry about my bonuses. I can shop to my heart’s content at Zanzivahl.” Hannah was practically floating on a cushion of glee. “And now I get to see Mike again. It’ll all be water under the bridge, Janet. Water under the bridge.”

  Gertrude congratulated Hannah on the approval of her request for an expedited conversion.

  “Almost all requests of that nature are rejected,” Gertrude said. “And with reason. People just want to get on the gravy train in these times. Congrats, Hannah. Once you convert, you’ll get your uniform free of charge—”

  “Uniform?” Hannah and I said simultaneously.

  “You’ll have to wear a uniform for your conversion, for all CWP events, and on the seven CWP holidays each year.” Gertrude counted each one of the official CWP holidays on her left hand. “Jeremiah’s Day is February 21. The Right Path Day is April 18. Scrimmage Day is July 4. Water Day is October 26. November 2 is Beliefs Day. December 3 is Postulates Day. And December 25 is
Punishments and Purges Day.”

  “Punishments and Purges Day?” I asked. “Do you guys whip each other, flagellate each other?”

  Gertrude stared at me. Hannah seemed anxious.

  “No,” Gertrude said. “We just atone and seek redemption. It’s nothing.”

  Hannah scratched her head and adjusted her white-rimmed glasses.

  “Anyway,” Hannah said, “I received an e-mail from Menlo Park saying that my conversion package will arrive by the end of the day today. You’ve got to love the efficiency, Janet. And get this: the materials and the exam are also free. As Gertrude said, you don’t even pay for the uniform. The membership fee is graduated depending on annual income; not an issue.”

  I tried to be happy for Hannah, and I said I hoped it worked out for her.

  Larry sent me an e-mail reminding me that he was going up to Menlo Park with Hudson. He gave me a list of clients to contact, files he wanted shipped to him overnight, and a hyperlink for a diamond bracelet that Michelle wanted from Zanzivahl. He told me that some of the files he needed were CWP files, so I should get Diana Li, the new hire, to access the files in the computer system, print them (because he still preferred receiving hard copies of all documents he reviewed), seal them in envelopes and give them to me to send with the other files on the desk in his office. He’d cleared it with Sheila, who was up in Menlo Park for the week.

  As I walked over to Diana Li’s office, LSD, the junior associate who’d told me at my birthday that she and her husband, Bo Lin, were considering leaving San Diego, called me into her office.

  “I just need to tell someone,” LSD mumbled. “You’re probably the most trustworthy person around here.”

  LSD looked alarmed and tired. I guess we all did. The news of Hudson’s illness had prompted a few associates to talk of resigning, of moving somewhere safer and more manageable. Many worried about jobs if they moved. Would they find jobs that paid them as well as WS&X? What would it be like to live in a new place?

  Learning from Our Forebears, a popular TV show, which ran on the CWP’s California Homeland Channel, had run a widely discussed episode about a surgeon and a lawyer who’d moved to Alaska and were still trying to find long-term employment. They’d thus decided to live off the land, which they had to learn from scratch, and it wasn’t intuitive for them at all.

  I liked the surgeon featured in that episode because he’d openly stated that he and his wife had left California to get away from the CWP and “that fool, Trehoviak. The world,” the surgeon said in a memorable quote, “is filled with mediocrity. When mediocrity meets power, it’s at its most dangerous because it mistakes itself for genius.”

  “Bo Lin and I,” LSD told me in her office, “are leaving San Diego.”

  “That’s great,” I said. “It’s what you both want—”

  “We must.” LSD sneezed.

  She wiped her nose with some tissue, looked out her window, and remarked that there was another dust storm coming in. “We have two boys, Janet, and I’m just not chancing it. Please keep this between us. I’m resigning at the end of the month, and we’re moving to Alaska. There’s no hatred up there, at least not yet, and we have more than enough in savings to see us through at least a couple of years.”

  Why was she telling me this? I had enough problems in my own life without having to take on someone else’s. I liked LSD as much as one can like someone one increasingly finds annoying. I even remember once asking Mauru why people just felt it OK to tell me stuff, private stuff, unsolicited stuff, of which I wanted no part.

  “People don’t tell us their stories for us but for themselves,” he’d said.

  I suppose that LSD had wanted me to say, “But, of course, you must make that decision, LSD. It makes absolute sense. What a wonderful, loving parent you are! Few parents put their children’s needs first like you do. Your decision to leave San Diego shows some terrific personal growth!”

  LSD looked at me, waiting for a response to her revelation that she was moving to Alaska.

  “Alaska?” I said to LSD.

  “Yeah,” she said. “I need to put my kids first, Janet. There’s no immigration process to move to Alaska. God bless the USA! I’ll be turning my resignation in tomorrow. Anyway, Bo Lin and I kind of fought last night. Kind of. You know, Janet, we never fight. When we first started dating, I got really mad at Bo because he doesn’t like to fight. How can you ever know that you love someone if you don’t care enough to fight with them? Fighting’s like the clearest indication of love.”

  “Oh?” I said.

  “Yeah,” LSD said. “I knew you’d agree. Janet, I really enjoy talking to you because you’re such a great listener. I could talk to you for hours; you’re just so approachable.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah.” LSD looked at her computer screen. “I already feel so much better since I’ve told someone who understands me. You just have to do what you need to for your kids. They always come first.”

  I’m not sure she was aware of it, but her final two sentences, ostensibly addressed to me, were said while still staring at the e-mails she’d just received on her computer screen.

  “Thanks for dropping by,” she said with a smile on her face that told me that I could leave the door open on my way out. “I’ve got to get back to work. You know just how busy they keep us around here.”

  I went to Diana Li’s desk to get the files, and Diana smiled when she saw me.

  “Janet,” Diana said. “Here are the CWP files you requested for Larry. I’ve sealed them as you requested. Careful. They’re pretty heavy. Would you like me to help you with them?”

  “I’m good,” I said. “Great to see you, Diana.”

  “To have someone believe in you in these times, Janet, is everything,” she told me. “I still can’t believe I’m here. Maybe in two or three years, I can put a down payment on a little condo somewhere inexpensive. It’s always been a dream of mine to own my own place.”

  “I’m sure you will,” I told her. “Good things always come to good people.”

  Diana’s phone rang, and I took the files to my desk, where Gertrude was talking with Hannah about the conversion exams. Seeing me approach, they went into Hannah’s office and shut the door.

  Amandine asked if I could book a flight for her and Andy to Texas to see the oil client they had over there. They’d be gone for three days.

  For some reason, I felt furious. It was as if everything had caught up with me, and I was mad. I was living on my own. I was forced to see my kids for a few hours every day. I was crying myself to sleep. I was angry at Mom, Dad, Anna, Giulio, Elisa, and Mauru. I also felt that Jon had betrayed me. He’d chosen his father over me, and he still refused to talk to me, which only drew him closer to Mom.

  I found myself wishing that Mom fell in a pool of mud—with Greta, Sheila, Trehoviak, and Mauru. Mauru had taken my kids from me.

  I stared at the CWP files.

  What if . . .

  What if I protected myself?

  The CWP had gone after my family, which was everything to me.

  The CWP files contained confidential materials. And I had them in front of me. Unlike Hannah and the name partners of WS&X, I wasn’t about to betray my beliefs to advance professionally. So, I’d probably rarely—if ever—have access to CWP files again?

  I wasn’t sure what exactly was contained in the sealed envelopes, but I knew from having worked with the CWP from the beginning, that there was only incendiary stuff; I’d taken the notes during the meetings in question.

  Even for the most recent meetings, which Hannah and I hadn’t attended, there’d be a lot of incendiary stuff. Why? Because the CWP spoke freely around their attorneys, and they’d even visited Larry, Amandine, and Andy in the early hours of the morning to threaten them, in the past. All of that was captured in the files.

  From the notes I’d taken during CWP meetings at WS&X, there was also a lot of information on the CWP’s electoral strategy, on their bribe
s and threats to sitting judges and officials, various members of the public, people abroad, and so on.

  There was also extensive discussion of Section 1(a)(1), the Law of Lavish Things, and even Larry’s notes on meetings with the governor regarding the Law of Water Allotments. There was a discussion of legal bills and of Eleena.

  As I sat with all the files in front of me, I fancied myself a spy in a political thriller, and I took a deep breath, filled with confidence and satisfaction at the thought that I might commit an act of corporate espionage by duplicating confidential documents and keeping a copy for myself.

  The documents would be my insurance.

  Given how powerful the CWP was, the documents would come in useful at some point.

  I smiled at the sealed envelopes.

  I salivated at the thought of revenge.

  Diana—sweet Diana—had made a rookie mistake. If Larry had asked me to send highly sensitive materials, I would have placed them in tamper-evident envelopes with multiple security features that would reveal if the envelope had been opened in transit. Such envelopes were available from the mailroom upon request, but Diana had placed the materials in manila envelopes on which she hadn’t even signed her name on the back flap or stamped it with a rubber stamp.

  I had precisely the same manila envelopes in my drawer, lots of them, so no one would know I had opened Diana’s envelopes, copied the contents, and had placed them in new manila envelopes. In fact, once I was done copying the contents, I could seal them in manila envelopes placed in tamper-evident envelopes, a few of which I also had in my drawer.

  As I opened the envelopes, Gertrude walked out of Hannah’s office, and I stopped and stared at her. Gertrude looked at me with all the interest of an exhausted security guard. She ambled toward the restroom.

  When she was out of view, I quickly sliced the envelopes open, walked over to the duplicating room, and I copied all the CWP files Diana had given me, careful to ensure that the “scan and deliver” function and the “remember this job” functions were turned off on the photocopier.