by Max Barry
“Oh, okay. Good idea.”
“Christ!” John said, but she thought he might be talking to someone else. “Be there at six.”
The phone clicked. Violet put down the handset, exalted. She had done it! She felt dazzled by her victory. She thought about Holly T.A. in the limousine, telling her You’ve got a lot to learn about how the world works. Well, that just showed how much Holly knew. People were always underestimating Violet. She reached for the phone. She was going to gloat a little.
Holly would be in New York, of course. Violet got the T.A. number from directory assistance. She didn’t know what time it was there, but someone answered the phone and switched her through to someone else. “Holly T.A.’s office, can I help you?”
“It’s Violet ExxonMobil. I want to speak to Holly.”
“Just a second, ma’am.”
Violet waited, trembling. This was so exciting!
“I’m afraid Holly isn’t available. I can take a message, if you like.”
She blinked. “Did you tell her it was me?”
“Ah, I’m afraid Holly doesn’t recall you, ma’am.”
“What?”
“Ms. Holly deals with many people, ma’am. Please don’t be offended—”
“You get that bitch on the phone,” Violet said. “I sat next to her at the London conference. I just got three million dollars out of her, you get her on the phone!”
“Please stay calm, ma’am.”
“I am calm!” she shouted. “For me, this is very fucking calm!”
“I’ll…just a second, please.”
There was a click, then Violet was listening to Muzak. Holly must be pretending, surely. She must be too stung to talk.
The phone clicked again. “Okay,” Holly said. “What’s up?”
“Ha,” Violet said. “It’s me.”
“Yes, yes, Violet of the three-million-dollar invoice. What about it?”
This wasn’t going how she expected. “I got it. I got paid.”
“Did you now?” Holly said. “Well, good for you.”
Violet opened her mouth to say: I got it from you. But that wasn’t true, was it? Holly wasn’t playing with her. Holly hadn’t been approached by John Nike at all. Violet put down the phone.
Kate was still sniffling. She kept looking at Violet, then away.
“Something fishy is going on,” Violet said slowly. “Someone’s trying to screw me.”
Maybe John was going to pay her three million out of his own pocket. That was possible. But it was also possible he was planning a nasty surprise for her at the Nike Town. That was very possible.
She checked her pocket. She still had the gun. “Funny business,” Violet muttered; there would be some funny business, all right. She took hold of Kate’s arm. It was time to go shopping.
74 Assault
Hack hadn’t been to the Chadstone Wal-Mart mall for years, and it seemed to have grown in his absence, sprouting additional shops and food courts. The parking lot was jammed, and the bus took a long time to fight its way through. He looked at his watch, impatient. Claire would be waiting.
The bus wheezed to a halt and Hack disembarked into a mass of people, shouting and pushing and clutching bags of merchandise. Hack hadn’t seen anything like it since the January sales.
He forged his way to the mall’s entrance and found a map, which said Nike Town was on level four. Hack walked to the escalators, past a raffle for a BMW convertible, and rode up. His bag was much heavier than it had been for McDonald’s. He took the opportunity to rest it a second.
Claire was outside the Borders store, wearing Jackie O sunglasses. She smiled when she saw him. Hack touched her hands. “How are you?”
“Last one, Hack.”
“Yes,” he said. “Last one.” They entered the store.
Rows of carefully lit shoes adorned the walls. There was a row of chairs in the center, rock music pumping out of the speakers, and a counter at the back. Hack put his bag down on one of the seats and began unzipping it.
“Can I help you?” a clerk said.
“Yes,” Claire said. She pulled a pistol from her coat and pointed it at him. They had planned fake guns, but it turned out to be easier to get real ones and not load them. “You can run.”
“Everybody out of the store!” Hack shouted. “Nike’s going down, you don’t want to be here!” He pulled a paint tin from his bag and pried off the lid with a screwdriver. The smell was awful.
“Nike kills children!” Claire said. Hack had written her speech; he was pretty pleased with it. “They pay substandard wages in non-USA countries and sell shoes at inflated prices! One of their factories in China burned down and killed fifty-eight workers! They make huge profits but screw over their own employees in performance evaluations! Their Mercurys campaign killed fourteen children, including one girl right here in this store!”
But the customers just stood there, like at the McDonald’s. People were stupid, Hack realized. You couldn’t make anything too simple for them.
So he heaved. His tins were filled with blood and offal, courtesy of a visit to a butcher’s this morning. The mess burst against the wall. It was almost too authentic. The light bulb above a pair of sneakers blew, spraying sparks.
“People before profits!” Hack shouted. The clerk had split, but customers were still standing around. “What’s the matter with you people?”
“Is this, like, a promotion?” a kid said.
“No!” Hack said. “It’s a protest! Nike is a murderer!” He grabbed another tin from his bag, but it slipped out of his hands and hit the floor. The lid popped off. Offal spattered his pants. “Aw, crap!”
“Are you gonna be giving away shoes?”
“It must be a new product line,” another kid said. His eyes widened. “Is it, like, ‘Nike Murderers’? Is that it?”
“Oh, that would be so cool,” the other kid said.
“No!” Hack said, outraged. “This isn’t a promotion!”
“Throw some more blood, dude,” the kid said.
“Am I wearing a Nike sweatsuit?” Hack demanded. “Do you see any logos on me?”
“Hey, he’s right, man,” the other kid said. “He ain’t wearing logos.” They looked at Hack nervously.
“Out!” Hack yelled, and they ran. One grabbed a pair of sneakers on his way out. Hack felt disgusted before remembering he was planning to do that himself.
“Let me help you with those tins,” Claire said. “Let’s get this done and get out.”
“Okay,” he said. Their hands touched as they reached for the same can of blood. They smiled at each other.
“Hey,” someone said. “What’s going on?”
“Jesus,” Hack breathed. Some people were really slow learners. He turned. But it wasn’t one of the kids. “Violet?”
“Hack! What are you doing here?”
“I’m—” She was leading a kid by the arm, a girl of about eight or nine. “What are you doing?”
“Are you doing the swap?”
“Swap? Violet, if you’re following me around—”
“Hold it,” she said. “Are you John Nike’s contact or not?”
Hack opened his mouth to reply. A man entered the store behind Violet. His face was distorted, like a melted wax sculpture. A line of thick black stitches marched from one ear to the middle of his forehead. His hair was gone. But Hack recognized him anyway.
“No,” the John said. “I am.”
75 Threat
“Gark,” John Nike said, or something similar.
“Hey, now,” Jennifer said. “You don’t seem pleased to see me at all.”
He turned and fled. She took off after him. Max Synergy and the US Alliance suits just stood there. This, she discovered, was a common thread to the next four and a half minutes: office workers standing around gaping while she and John zipped past them. John was screaming for the NRA or security or anyone with a gun, please, but there was not a lot of action from the suits and skirts at U
S Alliance. Companies claimed to be highly responsive, Jennifer thought, but you only had to chase a screaming man through their offices to realize it wasn’t true.
John tried to catch an elevator, but she was closing on him so he ran up the stairs instead. He gained a little ground by pushing a woman with a stack of files into her path, but only a little, and the more floors they climbed, the more her regular gym workouts and John’s regular big lunches became evident. He was gasping and wheezing at the twenty-ninth and her fingers closed on his jacket. He wriggled free and burst out of the stairwell. She followed and found herself in an enormous board room. Two walls were glass. The view over L.A. was incredible. John was flat against a pane as if he were trying to squeeze through it. It was, she realized, a lot like the room in which she’d told John about her pregnancy, eight years ago, when they’d both worked for Maher. She hoped he noticed the symmetry.
“Get away from me! You stay back!”
“Sorry, chum,” she said. “Can’t do that.”
“Where’s the fucking NRA?” he screamed, and that she couldn’t answer. “Wait. Wait a second!”
“Uh-uh.”
“Stop! Or Kate will regret it!”
Jennifer stopped. “What?”
“Talked to your daughter recently?”
“John,” she said. “You don’t want to give me any extra reasons to be pissed at you. You really don’t.”
“You’d better call home. Your daughter’s been missing since this morning.”
“You lying piece of shit.” Her voice trembled. “How dare you say something like that.”
“You think I’m kidding?” He sprayed spittle. “You think I’d wait for you to come for me without taking steps to protect myself? You think I’d believe you’d give up? You think I’d be unprepared?”
She hesitated.
He saw, and his eyes brightened. “You know me, Jen. Am I the sort of guy to take half-measures?” There was a phone on the counter. “Go on, call home. Find out for yourself.”
She took a deep, steadying breath. “If you’re lying, I’m going to beat the shit out of you.”
“Do I look worried?”
She walked over to the phone and dialed Buy’s cellphone. “And if you’re not lying, I’m going to kill you.”
His smile flickered.
It only rang once. She heard Buy’s voice. It was anxious and strained. “H—hello?”
“It’s me.”
“Oh Jen. Jen. I’m so sorry.”
She put down the handset.
“So,” John said. “Now we understand each other.”
She started walking toward him.
“Ah-ah! Not a good idea, Jen. Not smart. You want to hold it right there.”
Jennifer stopped. Her hands were shaking. “She is your daughter.”
“Oh, please,” John said. “I made this very goddamn clear eight years ago. I never wanted a kid. You wanted it, and I couldn’t stop you. I couldn’t do a goddamn thing to stop you. So, fine, you had a kid. But don’t think you can turn me into a father.”
The elevator dinged behind her.
“At last!” John said. “What took you assholes so long?”
She felt rough hands seize her arms. “Sorry, sir! There’s a disturbance out front. We responded as soon as—”
“Not good enough. I’ll be speaking to Li.”
“Sir, what would you like us to do with…?”
“Take her somewhere,” John said, “and shoot her in the head.”
The soldier said nothing.
“You have a problem with that?”
“Sir, I’m not sure you can authorize me to do that.”
“I fucking can!” John shouted. “Don’t make me take this to Li!”
“Yes, sir,” the soldier said. Jennifer could barely see him. She was starting to cry. She let herself be dragged.
The two NRA soldiers took her down the stairwell. She felt as if she were shaking apart. She wanted to catch the first flight back to Melbourne, and hunt down John and kill him, both at once. But she couldn’t do both. She couldn’t do either.
Halfway down, one of the soldier’s radios said something, and he spoke into it. Then he looked at his companion. “They want us out front. It’s getting worse.”
“What about her?”
“I dunno.”
Nobody said anything for a moment. Jennifer waited for them to decide whether they were going to kill her.
“I mean, if they want us out front, that’s an NRA order. That takes precedence over what Nike wants.”
“Does it?”
“Shit, I dunno,” the soldier said. “But I’ll tell you right now, I don’t want to shoot this woman in the head. That’s just wrong.”
Suddenly, Jennifer’s cellphone rang. Her nerves were so frayed that she jumped.
“What’s that?”
“It’s my phone,” she said.
“Uh…well, you get that,” the soldier said. “We need to discuss this situation.”
She answered her phone. It was Buy. She could hear the pain in his voice. They spoke briefly but usefully. Then Buy had to go. She closed her phone and looked at the soldiers.
“Okay,” the first one said. “We’re going to reinforce the front entrance. You’re coming with us. Then what you do is up to you.”
“Thank you,” she said. Her voice broke.
“Don’t thank us yet,” he said. “You don’t know what’s going on out there.”
76 Divestiture
Buy left Mitsui late, but the traffic was light and he arrived at Mattel Primary School on time. Normally he had to doublepark or leave his car around the block, but today the street was almost empty. That was weird: children should have been dribbling out the gates, parents jamming the street. He got out and walked down the school path.
In the administration building, six people were conferring on the other side of the counter. He saw Government IDs. “Help you?” a woman said.
“I’m here to pick up Kate,” Buy said. “What’s going on?”
The woman’s hand rose to her mouth. Suddenly everybody was looking at him.
“What?” Buy said.
“Sir,” an agent said. “Would you like to take a seat?”
“Where’s Kate?”
“Our security didn’t slip up,” the woman said. “I want you to know that. A guard did try to stop her. There’s nothing wrong with our security.”
“Stop who?” Buy said, but he already knew: the answer was thickening in the air.
“Sir, there’s been a kidnapping.”
“But…who was kidnapped?” Then a loud rushing sound filled his head and fluorescent lights like blurry comets passed through his field of vision.
They made him coffee, but his hands wouldn’t stop trembling. The agents spoke on their phones and asked him questions. With each one, Buy felt himself forced into a new reality, where Kate was missing and it was all his fault.
“You’re already under investigation,” one of the agents told him, covering his cellphone. “The Nike Town shootings? You were interviewed by Field Agents Jennifer and Calvin.”
“I… was at the mall that night,” Buy said. “That’s all. I tried to help the girl who was shot. Hayley McDonald’s.”
The agents exchanged a glance. “She was a relation of yours? A friend?”
“I just tried to help her. Why is this important?”
“Now another girl you’re associated with is missing,” an agent said.
“So…what?”
“Sir, can you tell us your movements this morning?” “I dropped Kate, I drove to work.”
“Is there anyone who can confirm you left the school grounds?”
“But why—you think I took her?”
“Settle down, Mr. Mitsui,” an agent said. “Is there anyone who can confirm you left the school grounds?”
“I—yes! I spoke to another parent, she would have seen me leave. Her name was…Violet. I didn’t get her surname, but s
he works as a veterinarian.”
“Can you describe this woman for me?”
“Young, short brown hair… she was wearing a green parka.”
The agents exchanged a glance. “Sir, that fits the description of the kidnapper.”
“What? How is that—”
“We’re going to need you to accompany us to the station.”
“No,” he said, rising. “I have to look for her!”
“Sit down. Now.” Everyone was looking at him.
“You must have been pretty angry with the Government after they let that girl die at Chadstone,” the other agent said. “Maybe you thought you’d get even by snatching a Government kid.”
“No!”
“But you admit you had prior contact with the kidnapper.”
His cellphone rang. Everyone stopped.
“Answer it,” an agent said. “Maybe it’s your little friend.”
Buy pulled it free. The display was no number he recognized. “Hello?”
“It’s me,” Jennifer said.
“Oh Jen.” He didn’t know what to say. “Jen, I’m so sorry.” He heard his voice break.
“Is that Jen Government?” the agent said. “Give me that.” He took the phone out of Buy’s hands. “Hello? Hello?” He looked at Buy accusingly. “There’s no one here.”
“She was—you must have pushed something.”
“I didn’t push anything.”
“Call that number back,” the other agent said.
“Good idea.” The agent pushed buttons. Then his expression changed. He handed the phone back to Buy.
“What?” Buy said. He put it to his ear. “Jennifer?”
The phone said: “Sir? US Alliance switchboard, can I help you?”
“But—that makes no sense.”
“Jennifer Government, my ass,” the agent said. He detached his cuffs and reached for Buy’s wrists. “Don’t make this difficult.”
Buy made no conscious decision to run: it just happened. He turned and took three steps and only then did he realize: I am fleeing the Government. The office door was mostly glass and then he made a decision: Buy had had an accident with his younger sister when they were kids, so he knew how this worked. He flung the door closed behind him and heard an agent go through it. By the time they were clearing the school grounds, Buy was inside his Jeep.