David Kent - The Triangle Conspiracy

But why am I here?

To find Daryn McDermott, of course. To do a job, to convince her to go back home. To have Senator McDermott put in a good word for me and redeem my career. He repeated the words to himself like a mantra. But even as he did, the images of Daryn-above him, below him, inside her, the way she used her body, giving it to him as if he owned it-crowded his mind, jostling his thoughts like people standing in line for an amusement park ride.

A part of him didn’t want this to end.

God help me, Sean thought.

A communal living situation in an old house outside the tiny town of Mulhall, Oklahoma. All the liquor he wanted, no demands placed on him, and imaginative, unbridled sex every night, sometimes with two women at once.

Sean felt he could just drift away on a tide of the Coalition for Social Justice, with Daryn McDermott, as Kat Hall, steering the way.

He closed his eyes against the sun again. Don’t be stupid. You have a job to do. Don’t be led around by your cock.

Then he looked at Daryn again, the big dark eyes. The conflicting feelings careened through him. He swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry.

“Let’s go,” Daryn said.

Sean nodded. Later. Later, after they’d done the demonstration. He’d talk to her then. He’d get her away from Britt, away from Franklin Sanborn, and they would talk.

Later.

They started toward the Cherokee, two others of the group following silently. Daryn stopped, watching Don Wheaton putting the suitcase he’d been carrying carefully into the bed of one of the pickup trucks, then climbing in the bed himself. The man named CJ-Sean had never heard his last name-had an identical suitcase.

“What’s in the cases, guys?” Daryn called.

Wheaton and CJ looked at each other.

“Hello?” Daryn said.

“Nothing,” Wheaton said. CJ nodded. Sean hadn’t heard the man speak once during the entire week.

“Nothing?” Daryn echoed. “Hey, this is me, guys. What’s in the suitcases?”

Sanborn stepped between them. He’d been just about to get behind the wheel of the dark sedan. “Problem?”

“I’m just curious about what Don and CJ are carrying,” Daryn said. “Those cases seem awfully bulky, and I think we have everything we need for today.”

“Don’t worry about it, Kat, my dear,” Sanborn said. The words were meant to be reassuring, but an edge crept into Sanborn’s voice.

Daryn’s voice rose. “I will worry about it. You don’t keep things from me around here. What’s in the cases?”

“Leave it alone,” Sanborn said, his voice low.

“Goddammit, Franklin, what’s in the fucking cases?”

Sanborn faced her savagely. “C-4. Plastic explosive.”

All movement had stopped, as if choreographed.

“Oh, shit,” Sean said.

“What?” Daryn whispered.

“Come on now, Kat,” Sanborn said. “Don’t be foolish. You’re not as naïve as your little pet over there, after all.” He pointed at Britt. “You understand the world. Going and making speeches or putting on sex shows or sending out press releases will not get the attention of the rulers. Those things are components of the plan, but they will be useless, utterly pointless, unless we get their attention first!” His voice had risen steadily until he was almost shouting.

“But you said…” Daryn was trembling. “Franklin, what about how violence dilutes the message of the Coalition? You said-”

“This is what we’re doing, Kat!” Sanborn shouted, and all resemblance to the genial, easygoing professor was gone, as if it had vanished along with the morning mists. “Does anyone want to challenge me?”

No one moved. No one spoke.

“Well?” Sanborn thundered.

Britt shuffled her feet.

“You keep quiet, young Britt,” Sanborn said. “I only allowed you here so Kat could have a toy to play with. Stay in her shadow where you belong.”

“Look, Sanborn…” Sean said.

“The same with you, you drunken fool!” He lowered his voice, then softened his posture. “Listen to me, people. The explosives are only enough to break some windows, to grab attention. Then we go through with the demonstration.”

Sean swallowed. “You think you can set off an explosive at a downtown bank building, and calmly go about doing an organized demonstration? It’ll never happen. It’ll be pure chaos, and you’ll be arrested. You stand around there to make speeches after doing that and everyone will be arrested under the Patriot Act.”

“And how do you know so much about this, Michael?”

Sean tossed his duffel bag into the Jeep and slammed the door. “Drunken fool or not, I do pay attention to the world around me. It’s suicide for yourselves, and for the movement, if you do it this way.”

“I can do without your input,” Sanborn said. “But perhaps I should clarify one thing-the demonstration won’t be at the same bank as the attention getter. There are other banks downtown. Alan?”

Davenport, who’d been standing by Sanborn’s car, stepped forward. “There’s a Chase Bank around the corner from Bank of America Plaza, at Main and Broadway. Those of us doing the demonstration will be there instead of at B of A. We point out that while the ruling classes and their law enforcement puppets scurry to find out what happened to their banking center, real people everywhere have no choices. It’s a fine point and counterpoint.”

“You’re crazy,” Sean muttered.

“Wait, Michael,” Daryn said.

Sean turned, his heart pounding. Daryn was looking at him strangely. She looked at him for a long moment, then slowly turned to Sanborn. “We don’t want to hurt any real people.”

Sanborn exhaled noisily. “Of course not. We break some glass, that’s all. Don and CJ simply walk up to the door and put down the cases. They walk away. There’s a small explosion. We’re around the corner. We do our public demonstration. By the time anyone figures out what’s going on, we’re finished and on the move again. Don’t you see, Kat? It has to be this way.”

Daryn waited for a long moment. “We’ve come too far to let the Coalition fall apart.”

“I know that,” Sanborn said. “You have to trust me, Kat. I don’t want real people to be hurt either. But if we don’t first start with getting their attention, then the message itself will be lost. We’re not terrorists, because the message is always secondary to whatever action we take to open the door to it. People will listen this way.”

Daryn waited again, looking across the clearing, watching every face.

“Let’s go,” she said.

“Kat,” Sean said.

“Shhh, let’s go.”

“And you should control your pets a little better, Kat,” Sanborn said.

“They’re not pets, Franklin. They’re real people.”

“Perhaps,” Sanborn said, and walked to his car.

“Kat,” Sean said.

“Get in the car, Michael,” Daryn said.

“But-”

“Get in the car!”

The other two Coalition members who’d been assigned to ride with them approached the Jeep, but Sean said, “No, ride with someone else!” and they melted away.

Sean, Britt, and Daryn climbed into the Jeep. “I’m not a pet,” Britt said. “He shouldn’t have called me that.”

“No, sweetie, he shouldn’t have,” Daryn said without looking at the other woman. “And he shouldn’t have kept it from me that he was planning to use explosives.”

She stared through the glass of the windshield. Sanborn’s car pulled out of the clearing. Next came one of the trucks. Don Wheaton sat in the bed, staring at her as they passed. Jeannie Davis’s minivan went next. CJ sat in the front passenger seat. Sean pulled the Jeep in behind them.