by Martha Carr
“It looks like change has found me,” he whispered, not wanting to get involved just yet in whatever might be headed his way. A small giggle escaped him.
“Get down,” yelled someone and Harry fell to the floor behind the bed without even looking to see who had said it. He couldn’t even be sure they had meant him.
The door splintered with the first shots through the reinforced wood and steel. When they built this fortress the creators had probably never envisioned someone getting this far. Just then, an enforcer, a long, solid battering ram came splintering through, quickly followed by four men who surveyed the room for a moment.
Harry was still on the ground, barely peeking over the bed.
“You alone?” asked one of the men. Harry nodded his head, unable to do much more. They quickly stepped toward him and scooped him under the armpits, pulling him to his feet and half-carrying him toward the remains of the door.
There wasn’t time to grab a jacket. Harry Weiskopf didn’t care. He was getting out of that room.
They were shoving him quickly along the hallway toward what he remembered as the front door. Once he was placed inside that room, 745 days ago, all he had seen beyond it were glimpses of the hallway when they had brought him food or done wellness checks. Now, he was whisking past the pale grey walls being carried along by new faces.
His makeshift prison, as it turned out, sat on a fairly busy street along what counted for a main street in Bartow, Florida, population 17,545 people, including the elderly snowbirds from much further north. People who couldn’t let go of their family or friends but had enough of trying to navigate ice or snow.
At first they had held him on an estate along River Road in Richmond, Virginia until the house in Bartow was ready for him. That place had been nicer, he thought. The window had a nice view of the James River and the decor was more thoughtful.
Old money chic. Everything was well-made and showed generations of careful wear.
Occasionally, the elderly owner had stopped by to talk to him about what had happened, asking him for more details about who he had talked to in Management.
Harry had enjoyed the visits with the old man, Thornton somebody. It was hard to remember anymore. At first, Harry had been reluctant to say much, in case he would have to look at how he had helped to plot something even he was unaware of till it all came out in the open.
Isn’t that what Norman had kept shouting at him?
Harry’s mind played a lot of tricks on him lately. Memories came and went and seemed to blend together with nothing new to really break them up anymore or distract him from just the passing of hours.
Thornton had been kind to him though, and over time Harry had started to trust him and told him everything he knew. He had even worked at trying to remember more details. Names, dates and things he overheard in case they were important. Maybe this was his way to not only redeem himself but get out of that room in Richmond and actually get to go back home to Florida. He looked forward to Thornton’s visits and tried not to pepper him with too many questions about what was going on outside in the world. Thornton had seemed reluctant to say too much, anyway and Harry didn’t want to ruin things. He lived for their meetings.
They had even talked a little about learning how to accept things and find some peace. It wasn’t too long though before all of the visits from Thornton stopped and he was left with just the guards. That’s when he was abruptly moved. He wasn’t sure what day of the week it was when they came to get him, he never was. The guards had told him to get up and follow them. He tried to get his clothes but they said someone else would see that his things were moved, such as they were.
All he had were some toiletries, a small wardrobe and a picture of his family when the brothers were all in their twenties and their parents were still alive. A woman, Esther and her husband, Herman were also in the picture. Harry had known them his entire life. They owned a bookstore in Richmond now, at least he thought so. He had lost touch with them a long time ago.
He tried to ask about Thornton and where he was going but no one would answer him until they were on the plane. Bartow, Florida, final stop.
Someone must have decided he was too close to where so many people had died. Too close to his brother, he thought. That was probably the real reason.
He was just starting to feel a small amount of acceptance at his fate in the upscale prison when they had dragged him off to Bartow on a private plane.
Bartow, Florida, named for the first Confederate officer to become a martyr, thought Harry, just like me.
Harry knew a lot of facts and figures from the old magazines and books his guards would allow him to read. There was nothing else to do. He was seen as a threat to national security and wasn’t allowed to have access to any kind of real-time news. Everything he knew about the world pre-dated the last two years.
He had felt some remorse when he was first deposited on that estate in Richmond. His mind kept whirling, stuck on what he had done to so many people.
But it wasn’t long before the tedious days started to string together and he saw how they had decided to blame him for everything. No trial, no jury and worst of all, no visitors.
The thought made him bitter in equal measures with a sense of pride that he had finally shown his brothers, Norman and Tom that he could do something on his own that made a real difference.
“I have no family,” he muttered as they hurried him along outside.
“Street clear?” asked the older man. He was clearly in charge, thought Harry. The oversized men that surrounded Harry looked nervous even as they kept moving efficiently through the large, Spanish style house that had been Harry’s prison. Not much longer, thought Harry. He knew that he could be headed to something worse but he pushed the thought away. Anything is better than this small space for the rest of my life, he thought. “Even death,” he whispered, surprising himself at how comforting the idea sounded.
As they pulled him outside, a large hand in the center of his back pushing him with a steady strain, he twisted around to get a good look at the house. It had been dark when they arrived and he had felt so beaten by all of his dreams that he didn’t lift his head. He wanted to remember where Norman and Tom had left him to rot.
The house was a Spanish revival and looked like a cheap version of something that an American dreamed up who liked bling but couldn’t stop himself from cutting corners.
Just inside the front door would have revealed a different story.
The two-story was really a fortress designed to quietly keep someone inside. The walls were reinforced and heavily insulated for sound. The windows were level-eight panes of polycarbonate surrounded in glass and could withstand early rounds from even an AK47.
That was all the Circle guards thought they would need to keep Harry Weiskopf secure. No one was even supposed to know he was still alive, much less his whereabouts. Fewer than ten people knew what had really happened.
His family held a funeral back in Richmond, Virginia and buried a John Doe from the local morgue. The church was full to overflowing with people who knew Norman and his wife, Wallis. Norman had wept as if Harry was really dead and had said a lot of nice things about the three brothers when they were little. Both he and Tom had even been pallbearers bearing the token brother out of the church on their shoulders. His stand-in was now resting comfortably in Hollywood Cemetery near the soldiers who had died in the War Between the States
A guard told him all of that but was overheard and quickly replaced. That had been the end of any kind of real news and had hurt Harry the most. It was as if he had never existed and was easily forgotten. “I have no family,” he said, this time with a little more volume. The leader seemed to smile a little but quickly went back to softly barking orders.
Harry never knew what they listed as the cause of death. He was hoping it was some kind of accident and nothing as boring as heart failure. His brothers had stopped by only once to say goodbye and never made contact again. The
y blamed him for all of the murders but that wasn’t fair. That’s not what he was trying to do, after all when he told a Management operative about Carol Schaeffer and the thumb drive she had in her possession. It had all gone horribly wrong and they had killed her. Nothing was really right after that and more people had died while everyone fought over that thumb drive. “Like a fumbled football at a championship game,” said Harry, to no one in particular. It didn’t matter, no one was really listening to him anyway.
He felt his stomach sour and he pressed his eyes shut, hesitating and trying to stop for just a moment.
“Move it,” hissed the older man. The hand in Harry’s back pushed a little harder. They pushed Harry into the back seat of a large, black SUV with dark, tinted windows. “I thought these were illegal in Florida,” said Harry, as if that mattered. He could feel a steady stream of fear starting to creep up inside of him.
Suddenly, clear as day, a memory of Norman, Tom and Harry hanging out with their dad popped up in his head. It was one of those rare Richmond winters where the snowfall was heavy and the ground stayed cold. School closed for a few days and before long their mother was tired of seeing them draped all over the furniture, complaining about nothing to do.
They had all hiked to the Virginia Country Club with its wide, steep hill that would have made for a perfect ride. But the groundskeeper was watching out for interlopers and had shooed them away, saying it would hurt the golf course grounds.
Norman was starting to fade and said he was cold but for once, Tom had sided with Harry and insisted they had come too far to turn back. There aren’t going to be many snowfalls like this, Harry had said. He felt a certain surprise of delight when Tom had agreed and told Norman to keep walking.
They had pressed on to Boatwright Lawn at the nearby University of Richmond and found a lot of their friends already happily throwing themselves down the hill on trays from the cafeteria, or on round plastic sleds and old-fashioned Flexible Flyers. The brothers had a long, plastic toboggan that could fit all three of them on one run if they squeezed together. Their combined weight made the sled tear down a hill and the air rush into Harry’s lungs. He loved being in the middle where he could feel secure between them.
They had kept at it, trudging back up the hill so many times till his legs burned from the effort and the snow was jammed into his boots. The walk home seemed to take forever and by the time he was by the fire in the family room his fingers and toes were bright red and numb for what seemed like hours. Their clothes were soaked and hung on a makeshift line their mother had strung in their little laundry room.
“My Weiskopf men,” their father had said, smiling broadly as Harry had drifted off to sleep in front of the fire. He had wanted to stay awake forever just to keep this day. It was the best day of his life.
A sadness settled over him as the car accelerated and he left the Florida prison behind. He turned and looked at it, wondering if this was going to be the last day of his life. “I have no family,” he said, and shut his eyes, trying to rest up for whatever was coming next. Maybe he would see Thornton again.
Two cars trailed the SUV that held Harry Weiskopf and up ahead two more would quickly glide in front of that one till Harry was protected from all sides. George Clemente was in the car immediately following the SUV so he could keep an eye on his prize. Clemente was thought to be a rising star in Management. A comeback of sorts. He was rising even more than those who still stood above him could even realize. They would know soon enough when they were replaced.
He had almost died two years ago at the hands of an old enemy. A bothersome Episcopal minister, Reverend Michael had beaten him badly but he had managed to survive, even if his rehabilitation had taken months. That only gave him the time he needed to come up with a viable plan.
He gathered around his hospital bed the lieutenants who had come through what happened in Richmond and given them their orders. They were to keep working as a cell within Management, known only to themselves. The rest of Management had not discovered them so all was not lost. Not by a long shot.
Clemente had known for some time about a former Management operative, Mark Whiting who had successfully gone over to the opposing forces, the Circle and had risen in the ranks at the Federal Reserve based in Richmond. Whiting had run out of town not too long after Clemente’s beating and just ahead of a hit squad from Management. No one really knew where he was anymore. Clemente didn’t really care. He had other things on his mind but for a while Mark had proved useful.
He had discovered that Mark had also spent the last years of his career at the Reserve quietly stealing millions by shaving off amounts from Management accounts that no one would ever notice. They were so small, but so continuous that over time millions of dollars had been drained.
Clemente had tripped over the plan almost accidentally when he was looking for his own way to create an army. He had dreams that involved reshaping Management into the force it had once been in the world. That was going to take a real army and a lot of money.
He had piggybacked on Whiting’s idea and taken larger amounts but still small enough to avoid notice, at least until he could take enough power that no one would say much of anything to him.
He was tired of being pushed around by Management operatives who had grown accustomed to a softer way of life. They had forgotten what it had cost to get this far and if someone didn’t step in soon, the Circle was going to take enough away that it would become close to impossible to regain a footing.
Clemente wasn’t going to let that happen, even if his methods were going to have to be a little harsh. They had already quietly purged a few of the weaker members from their cell. Such a disappointment but they were given a proper burial in a potter’s field. Clemente had pulled the trigger himself on each one of them. Personal responsibility was very important to him.
They didn’t suffer, he thought.
The car ahead slowed to let the two lead cars, a BMW and an older sedan glide in front of them. It was only a thirty minute ride to the private landing strip where a plane was waiting for them but Clemente wasn’t going to relax till the son of one of the original twenty enemies was safely locked away under his command. Clemente had plans for Harry Weiskopf.
The thumb drive had eluded Clemente and he had taken a beating from that sanctimonious priest trying to capture it. The incident in Savannah had almost cost him his life but in the end, something good came of it all.
That’s the way it generally worked, thought Clemente. Stay calm, look for the solution.
He was confined to a hospital bed for months as the bones in his back repaired and then more time in a rehabilitation facility as he learned to walk again and regained his strength.
Right from the start, even before he was off of the painkillers he had started to come up with ideas.
There was a Presidential election that was coming in less than two years but the incumbent, Ronald Hayes was a Circle operative and was most likely going to win a second term. Four more years of the Circle being in control of key moves was more than Clemente could stomach.
The key was to somehow unsettle the American public, who were unaware of the two world-wide giants and shake their faith enough in the current sitting President. Make them beg for change.
At the same time, the hidden Management cell could use circumstances to their advantage and take out enough Circle operatives to leave their side wounded and vulnerable, maybe even sloppy.
The bigger picture, the grand idea had come to Clemente all at once. Really, it was obvious once it had settled in and he could see how much good it could do for everyone, especially in Management. Even the unsuspecting middle class would eventually benefit, whether they would ever know the details or not.
They would start a civil war, a quiet war. They would organize and plan military operations exactly like an established country but carry it out in front of an unsuspecting American population. Most operations would have to be small in size and move through
buildings or even subdivisions and the planning would have to be careful and well thought out. If the general public ever caught on to the plan, too much could be lost.
Their ignorance to the bigger picture of the two world powers was necessary so that Management could more easily wield their power. Perhaps someday Management could step out from the shadows and operate on a more transparent basis. The idea made George Clemente smile. Then he could name himself the President and stop all of this nonsense. Instead of one man, one vote he could finally parse votes out based on wealth.
It wasn’t a new idea. For hundreds of years that’s the way the civilized world had worked and had gotten along just fine. Frankly, democracy was in its infancy, thought Clemente and was proving to be mostly annoying.
The war was only part of the plan. The financial institutions would have to be consolidated so that they could more easily be controlled and manipulated. In order to do that Senators and Congressmen who were part of Management had pushed through enough legislation to deregulate the banks and trading floors. The two could now write their own rules and they wasted no time figuring out tangled ways to make more money that quickly became hard to trace to their sources.
It wasn’t long before the economy was struggling to right itself and the problems quickly spread to the rest of the world. Sometimes a good plan just comes together, thought Clemente.
They pulled up to the airstrip and quickly loaded Harry Weiskopf onto the plane. If he wasn’t so valuable as a trading chip with the softhearted Circle, Clemente would have killed him on the spot and left him for the Circle to find.
As it was, the roaring fire back at the Bartow house was going to be a problem for someone to explain to locals if they realized the interior of the house wasn’t exactly burning down. The exterior would have come down by now, exposing the frame of the inner rooms. It would somehow get taken care of by local Circle operatives, Clemente knew that, but it would also slow them down just a little and time was what he needed most these days.
