Chapter XIX: I have a dream…

1230hrs, 6 October 2013, Alexandria, Virginia

"I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together." Martin Luther King

Representative Georgia Clemens was glad that her computer was fixed now. She could finally get around to reading those emails from her constituents. She was in her modest Alexandria loft apartment, resting after a marathon day of special sessions, meetings, lunches and more meetings.

She clicked on the online email server that was run by her office, and was inundated with emails. A lot of them were spam that had somehow made it past the filter, but several of them were from the same person, unhappy with her adding the new Nakanishi corporate office in her district that would completely destroy a popular park that was visited by many of her constituents.

"Junk…conspiracy theorist….junk…junk….conspiracy theorist."

Georgia was about to give up on the emails until she came across one that read "From a concerned technician."

"Who could that be from?" It didn't really concern her all that much, but considering that it was not in all caps and wasn't demanding anything in the subject header of the email, this actually might be a legit thing.

She clicked on it.

"Representative Clemens. I am from a company that you have contacted in the last couple of days for computer technical support. Although I am grateful for your business, I have discovered some disturbing details about your computer. When I was remote accessing your computer, I discovered that the North American branch of Nakanishi was monitoring your computer from a location in Orange, VA. I do not believe that spying on elected members' computers is the right of large corporations, and I am alerting you to this fact because I do not want any more harm to come to you and your continued work as an elected official. I am attaching log files of these events so that you may see the proper authorities about this.

Sincerely, A Concerned Technician."

Georgia looked at the email with a little disbelief. It would make sense that Nakanishi would be monitoring her, but this person was taking a huge risk by sending her this information. She didn't even know this person's name. Well, she knew who "John" was, but that wasn't really helpful at all.

"Dammit." Those lobbyists from Nakanishi came by her office every week to make sure that she was staying in line. Instead of serving her people, she was serving the interests of the Nakanishi Group. Every day, she woke up and thought that it was worse than the last one, because the lobbyists needed this or that, and they promised compensation, of course, but that wasn't why she was there. Not at all.

She picked up her smartphone and looked at her contacts. Representative O'Conner was still there. She barely talked to him nowadays, and he seemed down, depressed, and outright drunk most days. But this was something that had to be done.

Georgia dialed O'Conner. It took him thirty seconds to pick up the phone.

"Yeah. Whadda want?"
"Charles? Charles, it's me. Georgia."

"Georgia who? Oh yeah, Georgia who got shot at with me." He sounded completely out of it.

"Charles, look, I know you've been having some trouble as of late, but could you meet me in Alexandria?" He took forever to respond.

"And why would I do that?"

"I'll buy you a Bacon Cheeseburger at Five Guys."

That was a bribe that Representative O'Conner couldn't resist.

"Oh fine, I'll be there."

Twenty minutes later, they were at one of the original Five Guys restaurants in Alexandria.

O'Conner looked like shit. He showed up in his undershirt, stained with grease and whisky, and was wearing equally stained sweatpants.

"So, why did you drag me all the way out here? Cause I know you don't like to eat these burgers here," he said, juices spilling everywhere.

It took a second for Georgia to respond.

"Charles, look…it has to do with the Nakanishi Group."

O'Conner immediately put down the burger. "Fuck," he snarled. "Those guys again? I don't want to ever do anything concerning that ever again."

He stood up to leave but Georgia stopped him

"Charles, please," she hissed. "This is really important."

He tried to shrug her off. "That's what you said last time."

Georgia only tightened her grip. "Goddammit Charles, look at yourself. You're a mess, a disgrace to your office. Now are you going to listen to me, or are you going to run away like the coward you are?"

O'Conner looked at her, then sat back down. "If you weren't a lady," he said. "I would have punched you halfway across this room by now. Nobody calls me a coward."

"Well then, listen to this." She told him of the story of her computer, the technician who helped her, and then the email that he sent.

"Shit man," O'Conner said. "That's why my computer has been running so slow as well. Even on a government network, it's been compromised by the Nakanishi Group."

"Charles." Georgia looked at him. "This has to stop. We need to tell somebody or else this will spread to everyone in Congress, if it hasn't already. I don't really care to work for Nakanishi, and neither do you."

Representative O'Conner stared up at the ceiling. He was going to risk it all…again. They had gotten close to that plant in Orange, Virginia, but then things had gotten bad from there. Nakanishi lobbyists emailed him, pestered him, came by his office often to "remind" him of their presence. He was tired of being a lapdog for them, and all he wanted was to stab them where it hurts.

There was one last thing he could do.

"Georgia," he said. "I'm going to call in all the favors that I can. Some people still owe me, and I guess if I want to go out, I might as well as do it in style."

"Let me…"

"No." O'Conner stopped Georgia midsentence. "This is something that I have to do by myself. Otherwise, you'll be dragged deeper into this mess and I'm not going to pull you down with me. My career is over. If I'm going down, I'm going to do it on my terms. Send those log files to this email address."

He pulled out his cell phone and started dialing.

"Well, that could have gone better."

Senator Gloria Patterson (Democrat-Pennsylvania), was the chair of the very powerful Senate Committee on Finance, but that meant most days were a hassle. Especially when she had to meet with the president. Everyone wanted money for their junkets, their pet projects, their own offices, for this, that and the other. To make it worse, she was in charge of funding Medicare AND Medicaid, the third rail of American Politics. Cutting funding from either of those programs would bring the wrath of voters among her, and she would be quickly out of a job.

"Oh come on, you the president has a soft spot for you," replied her counterpart, Ranking Member Senator James Plum (Republican-Texas).

"Just because we're both women, doesn't mean we don't bitch at each other." Patterson poked at her iPhone. "Dammit, in that thirty minutes we were in there, I got one-hundred emails."

"Hey, that's nothing," said Plum, taking out his smartphone. "I got over three hundred."

"That's madness." She continued walking down the hall of the West Wing, toward the exit when her screen showed that she had an incoming phone call.

"Oh dammit," she muttered.

"What is it?" Plum asked.

"It's him."

"Shit, that Rep you were…"

"Don't remind me." She sighed and swiped to answer the call. "Go on without me, I'll hail a cab or something."

"Alright, take care now." Plum walked on down the hall, leaving Patterson to talk on the phone.

"Hello, Charles," she icily said into the phone.

"Hello, Senator," was the equally cold response.

"What do you want?" This was the last thing that Patterson needed at the moment. "I'm very busy, doing important things. Unlike you."

"You're going to want to hear this," he said.

"Oh really? And what is it that's going to make me drop everything that I'm doing right now, including managing the funds for an entire country?"

"Two words. Nakanishi Group."

Senator Patterson sucked in a breath. She could really go for a smoke right now, but her PR specialist told her to quit. It sent a bad impression to her constituency, but she didn't give a fuck.

"Charles, don't bug me with those guys right now," she said. "I'm up to my elbows in lobbyists."

"I might have something on them. But you're going to have to meet me, I can't discuss it on the phone."

One thing that she knew about Charles O'Conner is that when he had something to give, it was really important. He wasn't the type of guy to give bad information. In bed however…

"You got me. Where and when?"

"King Street Metro Station, ASAP."

"I'll be there."

It wasn't hard to jump onto the Metro rail, and take a ride down to Alexandria. She travelled without security, even though most of her colleagues did so some out of the need for protection, but mostly out a need to inflate the ego a bit. The Capitol Police did do a good job of that.

Despite all the dysfunction that happened inside of the Beltway, the one thing that (seemed) to work smoothly was the Metro system. Still, the trip took about forty minutes in total, from the White House to the King Street Metro Station.

He was waiting for her as the Metro pulled up.

"Caution, the doors are opening." The doors opened up and she stepped out to meet O'Conner.

"Charles."

"Gloria." The two of them stared at each other for a second, their breath puffing out in little clouds in the crisp fall day.

"I assume you have something for me?" she asked in an impatient tone. "This better be worth the forty minutes I spent travelling on the Metro."

"Yes. I do."

He repeated the story that Georgia had told him.

"Jesus," Patterson said. "I really wasn't expecting that."

"There's something else to it though."

"What?" Patterson took some cigarettes out and started smoking one. Screw the PR department.

"I thought you quit."

"Nah. Anyway, go on."

O'Conner took a deep breath, inhaling the secondhand smoke. "Okay. So Georgia and I decide to check out something dealing with the Nakanishi Group in Orange…"

"In Orange? That's two hours from here. What's there?"

"I'm getting to that. The Nakanishi Group has been coming up a lot in our hearings, and Georgia dug a bit further. She found that the Nakanishi Group owned both a beef farm in Japan, a shipping company, and a couple of beef processing plants in the United States. Beef was being shipped to the US, but there wasn't any cattle at their farm."

"And Nakanishi is a tech and banking group, not really related to the food industry." Patterson knew all too well about the long reach of that particular company, but the food industry? That was a really big stretch.

"Exactly. Georgia found that they owned a beef processing plant in Orange, VA. So we took a drive down there and…"

O'Conner paused for a second.

"You okay, Charles?" Patterson asked. She hadn't seen him like this…well, not since he had gotten back from 'Nam.

"I'm fine. I parked across from the plant and waited for a bit. Then some guys in SUVs came by with an eighteen wheeler and started unpacking it. But the thing is, they were all carrying guns and whatever they were unloading, it wasn't beef. Then…then they shot at us."

Patterson put a hand over her mouth. No wonder O'Conner had been in a foul mood for such a long time now.

"It gets even better. When we got back to DC, Nakanishi lobbyists were there to meet us. They threatened to 'leak' incriminating evidence that me and Georgia were having…intimate relations. I've been pestered by Nakanishi ever since."

"Dammit Charles," Patterson said. She leaned closer to him. "Why didn't you tell me sooner?"

"Because…you know. Our history together isn't all that good. And you still have a great career ahead of you, in that Finance Committee stuff. You don't need an embarrassment like me to ruin everything that you've worked for."

She sighed. O'Conner was right, and she knew it. But she could also see that he was backed into a corner and that he was trying to do something right.

"I can look into the matter further," she said. "I don't know what I can do, or how far I can take this, but every day the Nakanishi Group gets more power, more subsidies and even with the power I have, they're just too great."

"Thanks Gloria." He hugged her.

"You're welcome Charles," she replied. "I just wish…"

"Don't. Stop wishing for me and let's take down what they have planning."

She pulled back from O'Conner.

"I guess you're right. I'll go and talk to the president…or somebody soon about this matter, but again, my powers are limited on this."

"That's all I ask."

"Please stand clear, the Metro is approaching the station."

O'Conner and Patterson both looked at the incoming train. "I guess you'd better take that one," he said to her.

"Thanks. I'll be in touch."

She wanted so bad to lean in and kiss them, but like he said, those times were over. The Metro arrived and she boarded the train, looking at him all the while.

O'Conner stared at Patterson as she left. "Those were some good times," he said to no one in particular.

"That's nice to hear," a voice said behind him.

Shit. Time to face the music, he thought to himself. He turned around.

The three lobbyists from before were there (LAME, SAM, and HAL) along with several burly looking men. There was also a thin, tall man with long brown hair standing with them as well.

"Mr. O'Conner," LAME said to him.

"That's Representative O'Conner," he corrected.

"Representative O'Conner," LAME replied, with that stupid smile of his. "I think all of this information that you've been telling…certain people is against what we agreed upon a couple of months ago."

"I really don't give a fuck," he spat back. "Whatever you people are planning, it's not good. And you need to be stopped."

The tall, thin man stepped forward and looked at him. "Hmph," was his only word for a little bit.

"Cat got your tongue?" O'Conner mocked.

"Not really."

"So, care to tell me your name? Unlike your lackeys over there?"

"Maxfield Stanton."

O'Conner could barely keep from laughing out loud. "Really? That's your name? Did you get it from 'As the World Turns?' Or 'All my Children?' Maybe even 'Guiding Light'?"

"Please, Mr…"

"Again, that's Representative O'Conner, to you." He was going to drag this out as much as he could. This was kind of fun, to be honest.

"Representative O'Conner," Maxfield said. "You are in no position to be making jokes, let alone demands. I thought that my lobbyists would make it clear to you that you were to forget about your investigation into Nakanishi Group operations."

"Well, maybe you can clear this up for me then." O'Conner cleared his throat, and then reached in his coat pocket. Several of the burly men flinched and reached underneath their blazers.

"Calm down boys. Just some whisky." He pulled out his trusty flask and took a pull from it. He did have a gun underneath there too, even though it was against DC law, but hey, he didn't give a fuck.

"So, I get to thinking, what do I have to lose if I reveal you? Tell some people that you shot at me, and another member of Congress? I have no career left, thanks to your constant inference, and now you threaten me with your 'roid rage bodyguards and your threats to expose that 'affair' you keep on about with Georgia. You could have done that a long time ago. Then I realized today, I don't have anything to lose. At all. So that's why I'm telling people. Powerful people, that you don't own, or will ever buy out."

He took another swig. "So fuck you. Fuck your corporation. Fuck your money. Cause I have nothing, I mean, nothing to lose now."

LAME stepped forward to rebuke O'Conner, but Maxfield stopped him.

"Representative O'Conner," he replied. "You are clearly drunk. I think it would be best that you went home and forgot that this ever happened."

"Well, screw you!" He tossed his flask at Maxfield, but he dodged it easily. It did however, clobber LAME in the face.

"Hey!" LAME was really pissed off and motioned for the bodyguards to move forward but again, Maxfield stopped them.

"We'll be going now. I assure you, this will be your last chance. I am willing to let this one slide because, well, you're not in a right state of mind."

"Heh. That's what you think. Wait until Gloria goes to the president and tells her all of this."

"With what evidence? Those log files that Georgia sent to her will never reach her. And even if they did, we've scrambled her hard drive so that she actually needs a new computer now."

O'Conner sucked in a deep breath. I knew it was too easy. Oh well. Nice try…again. Maybe on the third time.

"Glad to see we have mutual understanding. Have a good day."

"What do you mean, they turned you down?" Georgia had called O'Conner after she had come home to a fried computer.

"It didn't work. Gloria won't get the email that you sent her, and she'll have nothing to present to the president. She can only relay second-hand testimony at best, and with everything else she's got on her plate at the moment, it won't be enough for her to start an inquiry on the Nakanishi Group."

"Dammit," Georgia said. "It's just like last time. Me and my big fat mind, thinking I could change something."

"Kid, you did good," O'Conner replied. He was still standing at King Street Station, watching the people go by. The lobbyists HAL and SAM had pestered him after his altercation with Maxfield, only leaving when he threatened to do something really drastic, like throw himself in front of an oncoming Metro train.

"I just wish that it had worked this time around," Georgia complained. "We're on to something, something that is really big, much larger than…the Livestock, Dairy and Poultry Subcommittee."

She laughed at hearing herself say that. "God, I wish sometimes I had never run for office."

"Well, you would have never had the chance to hang out with an old fart like myself."

"That's true. We'll get em though."

"I don't know kid," O'Conner said, more seriously now. "There are some battles that can't be won, and there's nothing I can do after this. Maybe go to the press, but I'm just going to bide my time. Perhaps something will come up, and I can get back at these guys for sticking all these lobbyists on me."

"I'm sorry for getting you into this. If I hadn't had dug deeper…" She sighed. This was completely bullshit.

"Hey, now, don't beat yourself over this. If not you, then someone else, and someone who might be more expendable than a Representative of Congress. We still have some power, and I'm going to use every ounce of it I have left to finish this. But for now, stay low. They don't know who they're dealing with. We can't be bought out or threatened."

"Alright. See you tomorrow in session."

"You too."

Senator Patterson had just gotten back to her office when she saw the three lobbyists there. She recognized them, but always forgot their names.

"Senator," LAME said. "We need to talk."

"Don't have the time for you," Patterson tersely replied to him.

"I think you do," HAL stated, stepping in front of her, blocking her access to her office.

Patterson looked at them.

"Do you realize what you're doing? I'm a Senator, for crying out loud."

LAME stepped forward. "We know about O'Conner and his plans. So, drop it."

"Or what?"

"I don't think your husband would appreciate it if he found out that you were engaged in an affair with Representative O'Conner some time ago."

Patterson sighed. It always came back to that. The only other person who knew about that was Senator James Plum, and he kept his mouth shut when it came to that kind of stuff.

"Goddammit, what do you people want out of us!" she snarled. The bitchy side of her was starting to come out, and it was going to get nasty.

"Come now, Senator, we just need some space to operate," SAM told her. "We just want to be left alone."

"Oh, I haven't heard that one before," Patterson shot back. "I know you. You've been trying to buy out all of Congress so you can operate with impunity so you can get favorable pieces of legislation passed. You haven't bought out me, and I don't intend to be a corporate toady."

"Look," LAME said to her. "Be reasonable. What are you going to tell the president? Or the police? Or whatever authority that you plan to go to? That a drunk and aging representative got shot at by Nakanishi employees? Please. There's no evidence."

"Well, I'm going to get some info very soon…"

"No, I don't think so," SAM said. "Georgia won't be sending emails from her computer anytime soon now."

Patterson frowned intensely. She was backed into a corner and there was no way to get out. This time anyway.

"I'm glad that you understand our position," LAME said, a smile on his face. "Please refrain from any more rash actions…especially involving former lovers. Have a nice day to you."

She glared at them as they left her office door. This was ridiculous…a US Senator being threatened by sleazy lobbyists working for a corporation that had something devious going on. But what was it?