Chapter X: That's not kosher.
0900hrs, 8 June 2013, Hawkings' Beef Processing Plant, Orange, Virginia, United States
"All life is a blur of Republicans and meat." Bill Griffith
The drive to Orange, Virginia had been mostly a boring one. There wasn't much traffic on a Saturday and since there were no sessions scheduled for that day (who wants to work on a weekend?), Representative O'Conner and Georgia Clemens had decided to investigate the mystery meat factory near this sleepy town of 5000 people.
"Soo…you got a boyfriend or something?" O'Conner asked Georgia. He was driving a government owned Chevy Suburban.
"Nah, didn't have time for one in college or law school. And with job now, well, don't want any more attention than needed. You got a boyfriend too?" she joked. Not that there is anything wrong with being gay, she thought. Of course, Mr. Macho here isn't so tolerant of such things.
O'Conner snorted. "Ha, ha. Very funny Ms. Clemens. How far are we to the destination?"
Georgia took out her Android Global 2 from her purse and poked around until she got to the maps. She had been often chided for not having an iPhone, but whatever.
"Okay, we're on Constitution Highway…take a left onto State Route 631. Then take a left onto State Route 612 and we should see it on the left."
Ten minutes later, they were parked outside a small group of buildings, all abandoned. The place itself was located in a big field, surrounded by trees on all sides. The smell of freshly cut grass and pine filled the early morning air, making for a serene morning in Appalachia.
"This is what they bought?" O'Conner said in confusion. There were what appeared to be a storage building, a small processing plant, some offices and a parking lot. It was all gated off as well, with big signs saying "KEEP OUT! TRESSPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED!"
"Yeah, this is the address on the property deed," Georgia said, again looking at her smartphone. "Of course, it is a Saturday, so maybe no one works on a weekend."
"I doubt it," O'Conner said. "I knew some meat packing plants in the rural areas where I lived, and they never closed. They have to be open all time. The demand for meat is just too high to stay closed on Saturday."
He studied the entrance to the plant. There were some fresh tire marks in the gravel there.
"Hold on, I have an idea." Quickly, he turned the SUV around and parked it across the street in a thicket of woods.
"What are you doing?" Georgia asked.
"Someone's been here recently," he said. "I want to see if they come back. Did you bring something to read?"
"Yeah." Georgia brought up the Kindle reader on her smartphone and started in on the newest Dean Koonz novel. "How long do you think we're going to be here?"
"A couple of hours, maybe."
"Alright then."
There wasn't much traffic on this stretch of road; being in rural Virginia made it a nice spot if you wanted to hide something. It wasn't too far a drive to Washington DC from here, and if you wanted to stage something…
One hour passed. Nothing. Two hours. Nothing. Three hours.
"I'm glad I didn't have much to eat this morning," Georgia said after O'Conner had gotten out of the SUV to take a piss. Again.
"Whatever. I have a small bladder."
He settled back into his car seat. Georgia was still reading her novel. He briefly closed his eyes, making sure to be as aware as possible in case something came up.
"Why did you want to become a Representative?"
He opened his eyes. Georgia was staring at him.
"Why did you want to become a Representative?" he retorted sarcastically, but with a chuckle. "Alright, I became a Representative because I wanted to serve my district. See, our previous rep always cared about the votes, but never any real change. The only time he came to see us is when election season rolled around. I was just a clerk at a commerce firm at the time, and I kind of got fed up with him sucking our district dry. No one would stand up to him, so I did."
"How did you ever win?" Georgia asked. "It took me an arm and a leg to just to get past the caucus."
"Turns out, everyone else was sick of him too, including his own party." He laughed at that. "Man, he lost so fast, it wasn't even a contest. That's the only time I've seen Repubs and Dems work together for a single candidate. And it's worked out ever since. I always, always make sure to go back to my constituency and listen to their problems. I don't have a big ideological stance because quite frankly, I shouldn't have one. The people of the 9th District elected me to serve their needs, not for me to grandstand."
Georgia smiled. "That's pretty noble of you."
O'Conner just shrugged at that. "Meh. I'm just a washed up Irishman with a career dead in the water. It's about time for me to go anyway." He shot a smile at Representative Clemens. "Your turn."
She sighed. "Well, the previous representative stepped down due to that sex scandal (it had to do something with bananas, a can of hairspray and a jar of pickles) and after working in law firms I was like, well, I can do this. My district is pretty working class, but they voted Republican because the got more money from them than they do Democrats."
O'Conner rolled his eyes. "Typical."
"Anyway, I served on a couple elected positions, school board, constable, that sort of thing. Then the seat opened up and I jumped at the chance. It took a while, but I got the seat and beat out all the other competitors. I want to make a difference, not only for my constituency, but for America as well."
O'Conner smiled at that. "Oh, the naivety of youth."
"Well, we'll see about that," she replied.
Suddenly, a couple of SUVs came barreling down the road and quickly turned into the entrance to the plant. They were followed closely by an eighteen wheeler.
"Hello, what do we have here?" O'Conner brought some small binoculars up to his eyes and peered through them.
Some men got out of the SUVs and unlocked the gate. The eighteen wheeler went through and stopped in front of the storage house. More men got out and started patrolling the perimeter.
"They have guns," Georgia noted. The men on the perimeter were carrying pistols, concealed underneath their coats, but some others were carrying hunting rifles with scopes.
"These guys mean business." O'Conner reached for the ignition. "I'm getting us out of here."
Georgia stopped him. "Wait, what are they doing with the trailer there?"
Some of the men were now unloading the trailer; it was one of those refrigerated ones, but it wasn't beef or slaughtered cows they were unloading. Instead, large metal boxes came out with the men and into the storage area.
One of the men with the sniper rifle got on top of the roof of the processing plant; it was about three stories high, not great, but at least the entire area around them was clear. He stared scanning the area around the plant and immediately noticed a black SUV parked in a grove of trees right across from them. He reached for his radio.
"Hey Nephrite," he said. "There's a black SUV with government plates right across from us, parked in that grove of trees. What do you want me to do about it?"
"Do you have the license number on it?" came the reply from "Nephrite".
"Yeah, got it written down here."
"Fire a warning shot."
"Sir? Firing a shot might not be the best idea. It might attract too much attention."
"Do it."
"Yes sir." The man aimed a little to the right of the car and fired.
The bullet whipped past, thwacking into an oak next to the car.
"Jesus!" O'Conner swore and promised he'd go back to mass again. He turned on the ignition and floored it out of there.
"Oh shit, oh shit," Georgia muttered to herself. She shrunk down into the car seat and tried to make herself small.
The O'Conner kept the speedometer at 100 miles an hour for a good minute after that, then slowed down when they got to the main highway.
"Fuck," he cursed. "I haven't been under fire since 'Nam."
"This thing is getting out of control," Georgia said. "We need to tell someone."
"We got to get out of here and back to Washington first." O'Conner was already looking at his ancient flip-phone for the number he had called earlier.
The VP was still drunk, and the Secret Service agents in the Number One Observatory Circle had to raid his room to remove all the bottles of liquor in his bar (they somehow never made their way back). Agent Greyson was eating his lunch when his phone rang. It was the number from before. Greyson answered, grudgingly.
"What do you want Charles?"
"Someone took a fucking potshot at us!" O'Conner's voice was extremely panicked.
That made Greyson sit up.
"Okay, you're in Orange, VA, right?"
"Yeah, we went to this meat processing plant, but it was empty! And then some people drove up and they started fucking shooting at us! I'm driving as fast as I can away from here!"
"Okay, where are you now?" Greyson's mind was racing on how he could get some agents there, call local police, set up some roadblocks, maybe get the FBI involved, somehow…
"We're driving on Constitution Highway, toward 522." He had calmed down at bit now.
"Are you being followed?"
"I don't think so, but I'm going to do some loops before coming back here…"
That was all Greyson got to hear before the line went dead.
"Hello…? Hello…?"
"Agent Greyson."
A cold voice made him look up. It was his supervisor.
"Greyson, if that call was from Representative O'Conner, you are to disregard that message in full."
Greyson blinked, then put the phone down. "Yes sir," was his reply. What the hell is going on?
"Bob! Bob?! Dammit!"
"What's going on?" Georgia was trying to call somebody, anybody, but all she kept getting busy signals.
"I don't know." O'Conner was trying to think things through. They more than likely saw us and probably got our license plate number, but all we need to do is get back and change the plates out…just have one of the shop guys do that. But they couldn't have gotten to his Secret Service contact, could they?
They made the two hour trip back in an hour and a half, O'Conner was driving so fast. He bounced the SUV into the garage building of the Rayburn House Office Building, on Independence Avenue and South Capitol Street.
O'Conner quickly shut off the SUV and jumped out of the seat. "Come on, we need to…" he started to say to Georgia, but was interrupted by a tap on the shoulder.
"Hello, you must be Representative O'Conner."
He turned around to see three men in fancy, pressed suits all smartly waiting by his parking spot.
"Shit." Lobbyists.
"Representative O'Conner. Representative Clemens," one of the men said. "We represent the interests of the North American group of the Nakanishi Group."
Oh fuck. And we were close to something then. Georgia thought.
"We've heard…reports that you may or may not have been, ah, spying for lack of a better term, on one of our facilities," another man said.
"This is a completely normal business operation."
"If you can call sniper fire 'normal'," Georgia snarled at them. The men smiled and continued on.
"Like we were saying, a completely normal business operation. If you persist in this course of action however, we will be forced to reveal your sexual escapades with each other to the public."
"What 'escapades'…" O'Conner began, but he'd been a Congressman long enough to see where this was heading. A young, naïve Congresswoman goes out with a gruff and experienced Congressman on a weekend out, they come back later "refreshed"…yeah this wasn't going to end well.
"What do you want us to do?" O'Conner said, resigned. Georgia looked at him, but she knew that they were in a tight spot.
"Please. Drop this issue, and maybe you might find some better work at our company after you retire," one of the men said (Georgia later nicknamed him "LAME": Lame ass male executive. The other two she nicknamed "SAM", or Smart-ass Motherfucker, and HAL, Hard-Ass Lobbyist). LAME continued on. "Ms. Clemens, you might find that your career here might be long and prosperous, especially for your district, which is need of jobs and money."
"But," SAM said. "If you continue on…well, we've discussed what will happen."
"And both of you can kiss your careers and social lives, away," HAL finished.
There was a moment of silence. The two Representatives didn't have much of a choice in the matter.
"Fine," O'Conner said gruffly. Georgia could only nod.
"I'm glad that we could come to an agreement," LAME said with a smile. SAM and HAL nodded in agreement. "Good day to you all."
They left, leaving Georgia and O'Conner seething in anger by their SUV.
"I can't do anything about it," Greyson said to O'Conner at Madam Organ's Bar. There was some blues music playing in the background, which was appropriate.
"Bob, there has to be something that we can do." O'Conner took a shot of whisky.
"Dammit Charles, my hands are tied on this one. My super won't let me press the issue any further."
O'Conner sighed. "There is something going on here," taking another shot of whisky. "And it's really big. And I want to know what the hell it is."
"But it looks like now," Greyson said, "You're stuck."
"Gotta lay low for a little bit," O'Conner replied. "But I'll get back at them. Me and that Georgia lady, we'll find a way." He took another sip of whisky, and leaned back in his bar stool. The band played on, oblivious to the woes and tribulations around them.