The Corporation

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

SHE NEVER THOUGHT southwest Montana could be so beautiful.

It was also hard to believe that a year could go by so fast.

She was thinking this as she piloted the Jeep Cherokee down Route 30 near Ryan, Montana, the town they’d settled in. Sixty miles southwest of Butte, the largest city in their area, Ryan had a population of just under two thousand people and drew the majority of its income from the Ghost Town business that catered heavily to tourists. There was also a ski-lodge twenty miles up in the mountains. In the winter the area was pretty much what Michelle Dowling had expected, only the winters here seemed a little harsher than those in Pennsylvania and New York. Here she was on the plains and the snow blew in fiercely, driving stinging pelts of it in your face if you weren’t wearing a scarf. Winter hung around longer too—it was already mid May and the evening temperatures still dipped into the thirties. Today was the first day meteorologists were predicting actual Spring-like weather. That would be nice. Michelle was tired of bundling up in heavy coats and jackets.

She supposed she’d get used to it.

Of course, her name wasn’t Michelle Dowling anymore. It was now Jane Gorman.

Her hair was no longer shoulder-length or blonde. She’d lost twenty pounds, had toned her body up a bit, and now wore her hair short in a stylish cut that accented her face nicely. She’d colored it an off-red. Donald liked her new look. In fact, he was really turned on by it.

Michelle smiled to herself as she headed home. The terrain she drove through was lonely and desolate. In many ways it resembled the American Southwest. Not too far from here there was actual desert. The badlands, it was called. This summer she wanted to go out there with Donald. Maybe they’d find dinosaur bones or something. They could pack up a weekend’s worth of clothes, get in the Jeep and check into a little motel or cabin somewhere. Get away for the weekend. It would be fun.

They were adjusting to their new life quite well.

Donald had set up a small medical practice in town which drew great business since the nearest hospital was in Grass Valley, a larger town twenty miles west. Most of the people who lived in Ryan had been so used to making the drive that they no longer gave it any thought. Major medical emergencies had been handled by a Medivac helicopter. Donald had been able to get a license to practice medicine in the state of Montana easily, and set up shop quickly, converting an old house into a state-of-the-art medical office complete with three examination rooms, a waiting room, and a small lab. Dr. Eric Brown from his old medical practice had lent considerable support, helping arrange financing with a local bank and securing equipment. Michelle and Jay had helped set up the office. Jay had been wonderful with his technical proficiency. He’d programmed all of the computers and developed a patient database that tapped into the State’s pharmaceutical database that gave Donald quick and easy access.

Legally it was easier for Donald to pick up and move. For Michelle, it wasn’t so easy.

Michelle reflected on the past year quickly as she drew closer to home.

It became apparent within the day after the destruction of

Corporate Financial Consulting Group’s Corporate Headquarters that Michelle Dowling would have to be declared legally dead by the authorities. Sam Greenberg and Gary Lawrence were among the first bodies found in the rubble. Alan Perkins was found a few days later and was identified through fingerprints. Likewise, Connie Dowling was among the six hundred and seventy-three people listed on the government’s official list of the deceased.

Her father, Michael Dowling, was on that list too. She wondered if Frank Marstein’s spirit was killed when her father was blown to smithereens.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms located evidence that the building was brought down by over twenty highly-contained explosives packed with C4 that had been placed in strategic parts of the building. Fingerprint analysis failed to yield good clues. A high-level investigation was quickly undertaken, one that drove Michelle to paranoia. She’d had to be calmed down by Rafael and Tomas that first week when she thought the feds would pound on their door any minute, but it was apparent as the days passed into weeks, and with the news reports that the feds were chasing their tails, that they’d never pin the crime to her or anybody else in the Coalition. Nobody in the group was questioned; that’s how far underground they were. All the leads dwindled to dead ends: the C4 could not be traced, and the government admitted that they could not lay the blame on any particular group or organization. Several organizations like Weather Report condemned the bombing but also said they could understand the motives behind it. Individuals from Weather Report and other groups were relentlessly grilled, some placed in custody on other charges, but in the end the government could not produce solid ties between the bombing and their activities.

The Corporate Slavery portion of the Labor bill that had been passed by Congress and signed by the President a week before the bombing was reversed after twenty-four hours of open floor debate in the House and Senate. The reversal was hailed by Labor Advocates and denounced by various Business Lobbies and was sure to be introduced in some guise again during the next session, but it was unsure if it would gain support. Polls taken in the weeks following the debacle indicated that Senators and House members who had previously supported the bill were in danger of not being re-elected next term. The President himself was facing the lowest job approval ratings since he’d taken office. Like-wise, local politicians, judges, and lawyers were facing tremendous heat and backlash from their support and enactment of the bill’s policies during the hectic three days that things went hay-wire for many workers in the U.S. In Denver, Colorado, the state, as well as a plastics manufacturer, was being sued for nine hundred million dollars by one Mel Howard for destruction of personal property, assault and battery, false imprisonment and a host of other claims. In Fountain Valley, California, a retired couple named José and Glenda Gonzalez was suing their former employer on similar charges including kidnapping; they were also claiming that the undue stress of their ordeal had contributed to their health problems. In Ephrata, PA, a twenty-six year old factory worker was suing Red Rose Medical Insurance. Likewise, the four Red Rose Insurance Adjusters who’d visited him that day were awaiting trial on various criminal charges. Donald had heard Michael Brennan had just finished a six month round of chemotherapy to fight off the cancer cells that had been reintroduced into his body. Dr. Schellenger believed his prognosis was good, much to Donald’s relief.

In Sedalia, Missouri a middle-aged divorced woman was suing her employer under similar charges. Hundreds, if not thousands, of similar lawsuits were being brought against companies, and editorials in major newspapers were unanimous in saying that corporations now had a responsibility to their employees and not just their stockholders and board members. The people who did the work that made the money made the corporations, they argued. Treat the workers right and they will respond by being more loyal which, in turn, will result in better productivity and higher profits.

Of course not all companies behaved this way during the three days things went slightly mad for a lot of U.S. workers. Some started buying out those companies affected by the lawsuits, offering to settle legal claims in exchange for a majority ownership of stock. As a result, many acquisitions and mergers began to go through. The unemployment rate hit an all time high as people in various industries and jobs were laid off suddenly, but it quickly rebounded as other companies took up the slack. Sociologists wrote articles for leading magazines and journals attempting to explain the sudden bouts of violence in the workplace, many of them pointing to a sort of hive mentality that had been helped along by the Internet. Not surprisingly, the Small Business Administration reported that there was a sudden large surge in the number of applicants for Small Business loans; in many areas, small businesses were springing up faster than larger businesses.

Meanwhile, Corporate Financial Consultant Group was tottering on the verge of bankruptcy.

While the structure that housed Corporate Headquarters was demolished, their satellite offices remained open. Many of them started closing within weeks of Headquarters being destroyed. A few continued bravely on, getting new clients, continuing the work they had been doing before the bombing, but those projects were now floundering. Many of the consultants at those satellite offices and those who were working at their client’s locations reported that after the bombing they felt a sudden sense of lethargy, as if they had just woken up from a long sleep. Productivity dipped briefly and resumed but it wasn’t the same. Many consultants left Corporate Financial for competing firms, others left the field altogether. In an article published in Life magazine six months after the bombing, one former consultant said that when he used to work at Corporate Financial his life was consumed with work. It was all he thought about. He had trouble with his wife, with his friends, with his personal obligations due to the fact that he was always working. Once Corporate Financial was destroyed he felt a new outlook on life. No longer would he take life for granted, so he cut back on his hours and eventually left Corporate Financial for another firm. He later found Business Analysis work not only too demanding, but he found the business world itself anathema to his very identity, and he dropped out all together and got a job at a hospital designing and maintaining patient databases. At least he felt like he was contributing in some small way toward something significant, he said.

Those who lost loved ones in the bombing openly grieved as one would expect. For awhile Michelle had been troubled by this; the public perception put forth by the media was that hundreds of innocent people had been killed. Rafael Gonzalez showed her an interview with one survivor in a local paper who said that as much as she missed her husband, she was glad the company he worked for was destroyed because ever since he started working there he had become a different person. He’d become so driven to work for Corporate Financial that he’d completely neglected his family. The widow’s only regret was that the last six months of his life had been consumed with working, that she never got a chance to reconnect emotionally with him. “This won’t be reported in the mainstream media,” Rafael had said, “but I bet a lot of people are feeling this way about their loved ones. They just aren’t saying it publicly.”

Still, it bothered Michelle. Her troubles were eased a few months later when John Stanley did some stealth research by posing as a journalist and interviewed no less than a hundred relatives and loved ones of people who were killed in the blast and found that all of them related to him that their loved ones had changed when they started working for Corporate Financial. They were no longer the same people, they’d become distant, aloof, uncaring toward their personal life and loved ones, and this had made the grieving process for them even tougher. The people they’d known and loved had died long before the blast killed them.

When the FBI contacted Donald Beck a few days after the bombing it was to tell him they couldn’t locate his live-in girlfriend, Michelle Dowling. Donald had contacted the task force created in the wake of the bombing to tell them tearfully that Michelle had flown to California on business for Corporate Financial business and that he couldn’t raise her by cell phone. It was one of hundreds of phone calls from concerned loved ones the FBI received in the days following the bombing. The FBI questioned Donald at his home in Pennsylvania (the Coalition had provided Donald with a one way ticket back home and came up with a solid alibi for him to explain the days he and Jay had spent driving across the country, which Donald used to great success when talking to the feds). He played the grieving, worried boyfriend well. When six bodies out of the six hundred and seventy-three remained unidentified (many of them were so badly mangled or only partially recovered), and several people who were supposed to be in the building that day remained unaccounted for, matches were made by DNA, fingerprints or dental records. Modern science helped identify three of them. The other three remained unidentified. Donald volunteered to view the scant remains of the other three and did so two weeks after the blast. One of the bodies had a piece of jewelry embedded in its flesh that Donald identified as a pendant Michelle had worn; he’d given it to her as a present. He’d presented the ruse to them expertly and they’d bought it.

Donald told Michelle on numerous occasions since then that he often wondered who that unknown person really was and why no one had stepped forward to identify them. Was that person someone who had been so consumed by the thing controlling Corporate Financial that they’d literally cut off all contact with their family and friends?

Naturally Donald Beck was investigated, as were a lot of people, including many of the deceased. It was theorized that the bomber was one of the deceased. The FBI was still conducting this investigation and they had looked into Michelle Dowling’s life briefly and found nothing alarming. They did find it a weird coincidence that Michelle’s parents were killed in the blast, but Donald explained that one easily. Yes, Michelle had been estranged briefly from her parents a decade ago but that had changed. They still kept in touch. In fact, her mother had helped Michelle get the job at Corporate Financial. It was Donald’s word against anybody who cared to challenge him on it. The Lancaster Corporate Financial office couldn’t verify or substantiate the claim, and all personnel records were kept at Headquarters anyway and were now destroyed. Plus, Michelle’s boss, Sam Greenberg was dead.

While Donald was in Pennsylvania playing the grieving boyfriend, Michelle remained in the Bay Area and underwent a Swan-like transformation thanks to the Coalition. She got a haircut that drastically changed her looks; she got a new wardrobe; she went on a strict exercise routine and diet that shaved twenty pounds off in three months. The Coalition found temporary lodgings for her, Rachel, and Jay, who was wanted by the police in Oklahoma. The time spent apart from Donald was unbearable but she managed it. They communicated by email and cell phone at special numbers set up by Tomas. Donald cashed in on Michelle’s life insurance policy—nearly one hundred thousand dollars—and quickly sold the house. His friend at Crossroads Medical Group, Eric Brown, had asked Donald to come back to the Medical Group and he did for a short period, just to keep himself busy and to make things look more legitimate. Privately he told Eric that he couldn’t remain in Lancaster. There were too many painful memories of Michelle Dowling, not just in the house but in the area. He was reminded of her everywhere he went. Eric understood and gave his blessing when Donald tip-toed around the idea of leaving the area for somewhere new where he could start over. Eric told him he’d help him any way he could. The urge to tell Eric everything was strong but he resisted. The fewer people who knew, the better.

Ryan, Montana was chosen because it was out-of-the-way and in a remote section of the country. Rafael wanted them to relocate to a big city—Chicago or Los Angeles maybe. The cost of living was a big factor against that. Michelle had a desire to remain anonymous, and with a new identity it was easier to resurface in a small town. The move was choreographed so that Michelle moved to Ryan first, securing a small apartment by herself. Under her new identity, she was a widow grieving the loss of her husband and child in an auto accident. Tomas had even come up with a real case to model her story after, which Michelle committed to memory. When Donald arrived at the end of the summer and secured a nice little house in town and began making plans to open a medical clinic, Michelle responded to his employment ad to make it even more legitimate. Privately, they were reunited in the flesh forty miles from Ryan, in a little motel off the Interstate.

Things fell together quickly after that. Jay O’Rourke had undergone a transformation as well. His hair was now shoulder length and dyed blonde, and he’d gotten some new tattoos to cover up the ones he’d had before. Tomas had been unable to get Jay to quit smoking, which was understandable since Jay had a hard time dealing with having to leave his wife and son. It was the thought of never being able to see his son that affected him the most and brought him great anguish. Tomas and Michelle spent a lot of time with Jay in San Francisco in the months following the blast when he made the decision to drop out and have Tomas and Rafael help him obtain a new identity. Ballistics tests done on the bullet that killed the Corporate Financial operative in a truck stop restroom in Oklahoma pointed to a .45 caliber handgun owned by Jay O’Rourke, from El Paso, Texas. The feds were looking for Jay and had a murder warrant out on him. Jay was not going to prison under any circumstances, and he had to keep Julie and Danny safe, so he simply stopped communicating with them.

The last time he talked to them, the day after the blast, he told Julie that he loved her and to tell Danny that he would love him forever. Then, tears streaming down his face, he’d hung up. Forever.

Michelle insisted Jay come to Ryan, Montana with her. She also invited Rachel Drummond to come along. Rachel went into a funk in the weeks following the blast, and she admitted to Michelle one night that she and Alan had been lovers. The five of them—Michelle, Jay, Rachel, Tomas, and Rafael—spent a lot of late nights talking about love and loss in the weeks that followed. Michelle told them about losing Alanis and how, despite the fact that her daughter was a preemie, it was very much like losing a full-term child. Their conversations brought them closer, and when she left California for Montana she was eventually followed by Jay, who was now going by the name Bob Ford. Rachel came a few weeks later and moved in with Michelle briefly. She didn’t have to change her name; she wasn’t wanted by the government for anything.

The town of Ryan was coming up in the horizon and Michelle sighed. She had gone into Billings that day for some DVDs, some books, some things for the kitchen. The past eight months had been a rollercoaster but they were surviving. Jay had been a tremendous help in hooking up Donald’s computer network at the office and he was now working part-time for him as their resident IT guru. He’d also set himself up as a freelance computer repairman on the side, doing work for local farmers and businesses. Rachel had moved in with him and they now shared a small apartment in town. Michelle thought it was inevitable that Rachel and Jay hook up; so far the relationship seemed to be built entirely on sex, but they got along together great as friends as well. Maybe they could make something work. Both of them were still mourning over their respective losses, Jay more so than Rachel, but they were doing relatively well. They all were.

Michelle sighed as she drove through town toward the house she and Donald now shared. Financially, they were doing okay. The sale of the house in Pennsylvania, and the money from her life insurance had helped create a small nest egg for them, one they’d had to live on for awhile until Donald could build up his patient base. His practice was doing well, so far. He’d even hired a medical assistant. Michelle had gotten back into her art and was painting, mostly commercial work for local businesses. In time, she thought she might apply for a teaching position at the local community college. It would keep her busy.

As she drove down the street she and Donald lived on she realized she had come a long way in the past year. She had made peace with her past; she’d forgiven her mother for the emotional abandonment she’d felt as a child. Part of what helped her get over that was seeing her real mother in those few minutes at Corporate Financial and learning that Connie had never wanted any of this to happen—she’d loved Michelle deeply but was controlled by the force that was Corporate Financial. Knowing this gave her a new direction in life, one she felt when she first became pregnant with Alanis. More than ever, she would never live for a collective again, even for financial purposes. No amount of money would get her to do that.

And as for Alanis…

Michelle thought about her beloved first daughter and rubbed her pregnant belly. At five months, she was already showing. She had a good OB/GYN in the nearby town of Clifford who assured her that her pregnancy was coming along well. Michelle and Donald didn’t know the sex of their baby yet, and Michelle wanted it to be a surprise. Whether the baby was a boy or a girl, Michelle was adamant that her child would always come first. She’d had to go through a hellish experience in order to get to this place, but she’d made her decisions and she could live with them. They would be okay together, the three of them. And with Rachel Drummond and Jay O’Rourke living nearby, maybe they could have a nice support system in place. They’d have to look out for each other since, technically, the bombing of Corporate Financial Group was still officially open.

Michelle made a right on Hempland Road and headed to their home, a pleasant little cottage along the middle of the street. The porch light was on, and as Michelle swung the Jeep into the driveway she saw Donald’s silhouette in the window and she smiled, feeling genuinely more happy and fulfilled than she had ever felt in her life.