Chapter Forty-Nine
Born To Run
“What?”
“When Chuck comes to, I will tell him I will begin shooting you, starting with your left foot, until we have his part of the formula. If the run bombs, I’ll put one in your brain.”
“That’s cold blooded murder. You’ll never get away with it.”
“That’s the beauty of it. I think I will. It should take about thirty minutes to know if the pilot run proves successful. Then we will go ahead and kick off an X-400 run here. I’ll have Dusty input temperatures that ensure an aggressive run away reaction that should blow the plant sky high in a few hours. Of course, given your security around the formula, no one will be able to stop it. Just to make sure, you, Chuck, your two person skeleton crew out there (thank you Elwood), and that sleepy guard will all be hogtied in the control room next to the X-400 reactor. Dusty and I will be in the jet stream on the way back to Ohio about the time you join us. Of course, you’ll be joining the jet stream outside the plane after the big ka-boom.”
“And if the pilot run fails?”
“I don’t think that is going to happen. Chuck doesn’t have the grit to lie to me with your life in the balance. But, if he does, same plan. Boom! Dusty and I cut our losses, collect the insurance and the world goes on without X-400. We find another project to amuse us. That’s the beauty of business. I love it.”
“But, Daddy, he might have a point. Are we really going to kill them? Is that the right thing to do?”
“Dusty, I sent you to one of the best schools on the planet so you could become a true business leader. As a leader, you have to be able to see the big picture. If the plant in Asia can’t produce X-400, we’ll not be able to hire the hard working low priced locals over there to run it. They will lose a chance to increase the standard of living for their families. Heck, we shut down the plant here and the government pays these workers months of unemployment. There are plenty of Burger Shacks and Wally Shops for them to find jobs at. So, a few overpaid hicks die here as a result of a tragic industrial accident. Isn’t that better than denying many others in the world a chance at a better life? Besides, we have key man life insurance on Chuck and Mick that will pay us a nice wad.”
“Daddy, I can’t say I like it, but I do understand. You are a true born leader.”
“THAT’S INSANE!!!!!”
“C’mon honey, shut him up, wake up sleeping beauty over there and get dressed. We have some work to do.”
Dusty slapped a piece of duct tape over my mouth. Oh, that witch was now permanently carved in stone on my revenge list. She went over to Chuck and waved some sort of smelling salts under his nose. As his eyes started to flutter open, she bent over and picked her bra and panties up off the floor. Despite all that had happened, deep within my cerebral cortex, my inner Harry Horniness wished that her rear had been pointed toward me instead of the window.
I was beginning to chastise myself for thinking such thoughts when there was a huge crash. Chuck’s office window exploded into a million pieces. I heard an ungodly roar and a high pitched scream. Dusty came flying over the desk onto my lap. The two of us, along with my chair, went catapulting backwards head over heels. I landed on top of Dusty with the chair on top of me. The desk wound up on its side in the space where my chair had been. It missed me, but Dusty wasn’t so lucky. It fell on her ankle and she was screaming to high heaven. Amazingly, I was able to scramble to my feet. Apparently the chair back had broken away from the rest of the chair in the crash. The tape had also come loose from my mouth in all the commotion.
My taped on chair back hump and I spun around and viewed the carnage behind us. Chuck was lying to one side of the crashed out window with an even more dazed look on his face. On the other side, a grizzly bear was sitting on top of Rich. On second glance, it wasn’t really a grizzly bear, it was Earl. I had never been so happy to see my hairy old friend in all my life.
“Earl!”
“Tarzan, King of the Forest, at your service.”
“Get off me you big ape.”
“Rich, Shareholder, lunatic, whoever you are, you are in no position to give orders at the present time. I suggest you shut the up.” I had to shout to be heard over Dusty’s whining. “You too, Darlene.”
“Mick, once again, you are the one that’s wrong.” With that, Rich managed to pull his gun from beneath him and point it toward my forehead. This was starting to get old.
“I am quickly running out of patience and I’m really angry. So I suggest you get off of me, Sasquatch, before I blow your friend straight to Hades.”
“I’m sure you are a majority owner there, too.”
“You’re a real funny guy, Mick. Let’s see how funny you are when you’re watching your guts spill onto the floor.”
Hard to have a snappy comeback to that. Earl looked me in the eye awaiting a clever signal. I had nothing. He rolled off and Rich stood up shaking shards of glass off his thousand dollar Italian suit.
“Nobody move except you, Mick. Move away from the door.”
I slid away from Dusty who was moaning and writhing on the floor. Rich stepped over her and slowly made his way towards the door. He put his back against it and grabbed the handle with one hand. The other had the nine still pointed at me.
“Nobody leaves this office for the next ten minutes. If I see anyone come out of the building, I will shoot them without warning. If I see a police car anywhere near me, I’ll shoot them also.”
“Daddy, get this desk off me. I think my ankle is broken.”
“Sorry, honey. No can do. Daddy’s heading down to the Islands for awhile until this all blows over. To use a song title, as that idiot over there might, your daddy is Born to Run.
“No, Daddy, don’t leave me. If you do, I will hunt you down. There is another song title more of your generation. It’s called Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.”
Rich cracked the door open without taking his eyes off us. “Don’t be like that, honey. You’re naked lying on the floor with these three stooges lying around you. Make up some story about how they lured you up here and tried to rape you. You’ll be fine.”
“Daddy!”
“I’d like to say that it’s been a pleasure doing business with you guys. Once all the dust settles, I’ll get a new management team in here. I’ll have them get the X-400 formula for me and execute my plan sometime down the road. Adios, muchaches.”
With that he opened the door and backed out…straight into the arms of Will. Will somehow got his long wing span locked around The Shareholder’s massive chest in a vicious bear hug forcing his arms down. The nine went off literally and figuratively shooting The Shareholder in the foot.
MBA - Moron$ Ba$ and A$ PG Version Page 50
