Flash 02: Career Changes

"She was just the flavor of the month, so to speak," I said. "If it hadn't been her, it would've been someone else. So, how are things at work?"

"Same ol', same ol'," he said. "You know how it goes. Not quite the same without you there. I heard you took three weeks off. Is that true?"

"Yeah, it is," I said. "I need to take care of some things." We drank our beer and shot the breeze about this and that for another hour or so. Then Bill stood to leave.

"Well, it was good talking to you," he said. "If there's anything you need, give me a call."

"You okay to drive?" I asked. "You can rack out here tonight if you want."

"I'm fine," he said. "But thanks for the offer anyway."

"Thanks for coming by, Bill, I really appreciate it," I said. "And thanks for the beer."

"Any time," he said. "What are friends for?" After he left, I sat back down and thought about what to do next. I opened the manual Smith and Jones left and found that a few new sections had translated themselves for me. A plan began to form in my mind as I read. I smiled at the possibilities.

Sitting back at my computer, I pulled up Bergstrom's memories. Using the directions in the manual, I learned that he has a very strong dislike of spiders. Actually, it was worse than that. He feared spiders more than anything else, thanks to an incident from his youth.

Connecting to his mind, I discovered that he was just getting into bed. Perfect. It was time to unleash hell on Bergstrom. I imagined the dream in my mind the way the manual suggested. Then I planted the seed in his mind and waited outside his mind in what some might call a form of "remote viewing."

It was simple, really. Bergstrom would dream that his bed was being overrun by large hairy spiders with long teeth and yellow eyes. They would crawl all over him, whispering, "the truth will set you free." Then they would open their mandibles and sink their large teeth into his flesh.

It took a while for the dream to activate, but when it did, Bergstrom shot up in his bed, screaming, his eyes wide. He brushed the covers off his body and looked around, but of course, there were no spiders. His wife woke up and tried to calm him down, but to no avail.

"What's the matter, Harold?" she asked.

"Spiders," he said. "Hundreds of them. Big, hairy monsters with huge teeth. They were all over the bed. All over me."

"It was just a dream, Harold," she said. "It's okay. Go get yourself a glass of warm milk and come back to bed. There are no spiders."

"Yeah, okay," he said. "Tomorrow, I want you to call the exterminators. Have them check the place out."

"We just had them out a couple weeks ago, Harold," she said. "But I'll call if it'll help calm you down." He went downstairs and warmed up a cup of milk and drank it, but I made sure the seed of the dream was firmly planted in his mind. He would remember this for a very long time. I smiled to myself and went to bed, where I slept like a baby.

Over the next few days, I researched the other board members' memories, crafting custom nightmares designed to scare and terrorize them. I kept the pressure up on Bergstrom, knowing that he was the ringleader. I figured that if he fell, the others would quickly follow suit. I could tell the non-stop nightmares were taking their toll on him when I connected to his mind. He was becoming skittish and jumpy. Others noticed as well, Jack told me.

"Do you know anything about that?" he asked one day at my condo.

"Let's just say he's not sleeping too well these days," I said. "In fact, the whole board is having problems sleeping at night."

"What did you do?" he asked.

"Let's just say I'm using his own fears to nudge him into doing the right thing," I said. I continued the nightmares, but changed them after I learned Trisha brought in the FBI to investigate Bergstrom and his "board." Shortly after that, I eavesdropped on a conversation between Bergstrom, Jake, Sherrie and a couple other members of the board when I connected to his mind.

"They're closing in on us, Mr. B," Jake said. "We need to do something, fast."

"What do you suggest, Jake?" Bergstrom asked.

"Maybe we should have someone go to the hospital and finish the job on Ginger," Jake said.

"You mean, kill her?" Sherrie asked.

"That's exactly what I mean," Jake said. "Tie up any loose ends. We don't want her waking up and blabbing to the doctors, or the police. Once we deal with her, then we take out her husband." Bergstrom remembered the way his chest hurt when I was at the board meeting, then thought about Hammer and the men they sent to watch Jack.

"You may be on to something," he said. "There's something about Drake that bothers the hell outta me. Let me give it some thought. We need to be very careful here."

"Alright, Mr. B," Jake said. At that point, I decided to ramp up my campaign of terror against Bergstrom and his board. I considered making an example out of Jake, but rejected it, thinking back on what Smith and Jones had told me earlier. After I learned that federal agents visited Bergstrom, I had the spiders in his dreams tell him to confess everything, otherwise they would never leave him alone.

By the time the FBI pulled them in for questioning later in the week, they were ready to confess -- to everything. They sang like canaries, telling agents everything they had done. Bergstrom even confessed to giving Chad the order to have Ginger killed.

After learning that, I stopped the nightmares, but kept tabs on him to make sure he wouldn't recant his confession. The fallout from his confession was widespread. Jack's wife and daughter were also brought in and arrested. Jack filed divorce papers, using the prenuptial his father-in-law insisted upon when he got married. Bergstrom's wife also filed for divorce, as did many of the other jilted spouses.

Other executives were also arrested for their roles in Bergstrom's efforts. By the time the feds were finished, Jack found himself having to replace many of the executives in the company. Using the federal charges against Bergstrom and the board, his attorneys were able to have the contract between Bergstrom and the Peabody family rendered null and void.

The US Attorney in charge of the case was pushing for the maximum in all of the cases, meaning Bergstrom would face life in prison. The idea of Bergstrom and his buddies being Bubba's fuck toy for the rest of their miserable lives appealed to me.

"We did it," I told Jack as we sat in his office with a glass of bourbon.

"Yes, but at what cost," Jack said as he took a sip. "The board is behind bars, along with my wife, my daughter and over half of the executives in the firm. We're recovering most of the money that was stolen from us, but our reputation has taken a pretty serious hit. I don't know if we'll be able to recover from this."

"Sure you will, Jack," I said. "You were the one who told me how your great-grandfather saw it through the Great Depression, and how your grandfather saw it through World War II. Ask yourself what they would do."

"How did you get so smart, Cameron?" he asked with a chuckle.

"I had a good teacher," I said, raising my glass. He smiled in return.

"You're far too kind," he said. "So, have you decided what you intend to do about your wife?"

"I'm going to see her through this coma," I said. "I'll take it one day at a time. You know it was her work that made all of this possible."

"I know," Jack said. "And I owe the two of you more than I'll ever be able to repay. Which reminds me." He opened a desk drawer and pulled out an envelope. He handed it to me.

"I promised you a bonus when the job was done," he added. I opened the envelope and saw a bank draft for $100 million. I looked at him, shocked. He smiled. "That's on top of the other $100 million I already gave you for Ginger's expenses. If you like, I can set you up with a good financial advisor. Someone who can help you deal with the IRS. I don't think you want to explain to the feds how you earned that."

"Good point. I may just take you up on that offer, Jack," I said.

"Have you thought about a career change, Cameron?" he asked. "There's a lot of people out there who could benefit from what you have to offer."

"It's crossed my mind a time or two," I said. "What about you? All of this has left you without an heir to your business."

"Well, maybe not a direct heir, but my sister's son, Nathan, has said he's getting a bit tired of the hustle and bustle of Wall Street. Wants to come back home. I've offered him a position and he's expressed an interest," he said.

"I hope it works out for you. Both of you," I said. We toasted to our success and called it a day.

"Stay in touch, Cameron," he said.

"I will, Jack," I told him. I felt like a great burden had been lifted off my shoulders when I went to see Ginger. I sat next to her bed and told her we had won, thanks in large part to all her hard work putting those spreadsheets and reports together. My celebratory mood left, however, a little while after I got there.

"Mr. Drake, I'm glad you came by," Dr. Samuels said. "Do you have a few minutes?"

"Sure, doc, what's up?" I asked. I followed him to his office, and got concerned when he closed the door behind me.

"Good news and bad news," he said. "Which do you want to hear first?"

"I'll start with the good news," I said.

"The good news is that Ginger is responding to the audio you provided us," he said. "If things go as well as they have these last couple weeks or so, I don't think we have to worry about her going into a persistent vegetative state."

"That is good news," I said. "And the bad news?" He put a photo into a light box and turned it on.

"This," he said, pointing to a dark area on the photo.

"What is that?" I asked.

"It's from her last scan, taken this morning," he said. "It looks like a tumor, but I'd like to perform a biopsy to confirm it."

"Can it be removed?" I asked. He shook his head.

"Not where it's located, no," he said. "If it is a tumor, we'll have to find other treatments for it. There are non-invasive procedures like gamma knife that's been very effective in cases like this, though."

"Gamma knife?"

"Yes. It's a form of radiation therapy that concentrates highly focused beams of gamma radiation on the tumor. Quite effective, I might add. We're set up for that here so she won't need to be transported to a specialized treatment center."

"And you're just now finding this tumor?" I asked.

"It's quite small, so it probably hasn't been there very long," he said. "The sooner we can address it, though, the better."

"What are her chances?" I asked.

"With the gamma knife, very good," he said.

"Do what you have to do, doc," I said.

...

More to come...