American Shutdown - Chapter 6: Unintended Consequences

Sam’s office looked out onto the front parking lot. He didn’t see Bernie’s car parked anywhere. Just then he saw Peg pulling in the main entrance. She grabbed a spot in the front row and came out carrying a small white box that looked like it was from a bakery. He was looking forward to a little moral support from her before his grand exit at six.

Grabbing his TracFone, Sam made his way down to the front door to greet Peg just in case the security detail wouldn’t let her in. When he got there he was proven right. The contract guard was giving her a hard time about coming in to see him. He had checked the box which had a dozen canoli from DeMarco’s in Andover. Sam noticed the security guard’s name was Dwayne and he had a TechCall logo on his uniform.

With a polite pleasantness in his voice, Sam addressed the guard, “Hey, Dwayne. It’s Ok. Peg’s my wife and we were going to go out for dinner after six. She came all the way from Andover with the bakery stuff from DeMarco’s to make this deal a little more pleasant for me.”

Peg chimed in, “Yep, he’s my hubby. Hey, Dwayne. Do you want a canolo?”

“Well, I guess so, Madam. You won’t tell anybody, will you? I’m not supposed to take bribes,” Dwayne said smiling.

With canolo in hand, Dwayne let Peg join her husband. After giving each other a peck on the lips they went to Sam’s office to await further orders from TechCall.

Peg pulled up one of Sam’s chairs and proceeded to put her feet up on its twin in front of his desk. “Gonna have a canolo, Sam? And, where’s Bernie? He loves them, doesn’t he?” she asked him.

Sam was just about to reach in to the box for a custard canolo when a loud blast shook the building. It resounded throughout the office corridors. Sam caught the frightened look on Peg’s face. She was gripping the arms of her chair and had curled her legs under the seat.

Sam recognized the sound as an ear-shattering percussion bomb used to incapacitate people in military operations. This one sounded like it had been detonated indoors.

Quickly following the percussion bomb was an explosion in the parking lot that rattled the office windows. He looked out and saw Bernie’s Beamer in one of the front row parking spots near the entrance blown apart and burning with bellowing black smoke.

A putrid smell was creeping into the office. Sam knelt down to look into Peg’s frightened eyes. He asked her if she was all right. She looked shocked but managed to shake her head, yes. Her knuckles were white as she continued to grip the ends of the visitor chair arms.

Suddenly, Jermaine stumbled into the room with a dazed look on his dust covered face.

“By God, Sam. Bernie’s gone mad. He’s up in the third floor conference room holed up with a bunch of folks in there who are supposed to be helping workers turn in their stuff,” he said with a cracked voice. “I was coming out from cleaning the johns one last time when the blasts went off. I was lucky cuz I was in the stairwell at the time. What the fuck’s wrong with Bernie? I gotta sit. My legs ain’t right.”

“They’ll be kicking us all out real soon, so don’t get to comfortable. I have no idea what’s wrong with Bernie. He’s been acting funny all day. But this. Who would have expected this,” Sam said while looking at Peg to see how she was doing.

“Peg. Jermaine. You got to get up. We need to get out of here, fast. I don’t want to wait for the cops,” Sam directed.

“You got your keys, Jermaine? There’s that equipment room back door down on the first floor that goes out to the rear parking lot. Let’s do it,” Sam shouted as the acrid smell in the room was getting worse.

Jermaine was swooning in his chair but answered Sam with a slow nod that he had his keys with him.

Peg slowly opened her grip on the chair, grabbed the canoli box and followed Sam and Jermaine out the door in the opposite direction of the front elevator. They ran as fast as they could to the end of the corridor, down the stairs to where the equipment room was located.

Jermaine fumbled for the equipment room key, finally found it and they all went inside. “Jermaine,” Sam said, “Have all the alarms been turned off? The explosions don‘t seem to be triggering them.”

“Not sure, Sam. Gonna find out when we hit the panic bar,“ Jermaine answered.

Sure enough, when Sam hit the panic bar there was no warning alarm. As Peg and Jermaine went before him through the door, Sam was thinking that Bernie knew the network wiring for the entire plant’s security systems as part of his job managing the communications network facilities.

What else could Bernie have cooked up to create a panic?

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American Shutdown by Benjamin F. Campanelli
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