The Abandon Series | Book 3 | These Times of Cessation Page 3

  Rowan McDaniel

  Rowan McDaniel was at work in downtown Columbus when he decided things were bad enough for him to call his parents. His mother answered and they had a rather casual conversation despite the chaos that had plagued the country of late. Like always, their conversation had turned to Constanza.

  He knew his mother wasn’t overly fond of his fiancée, but she didn’t dislike the woman either. He thought that maybe she was in a wait-and-see-how-she-is holding pattern. His friends told him that mothers-in-law almost never liked the women their sons choose, so not to freak out if that ended up being the case. Still, her ambivalence was strange, and he was having a hard time trying to understand how she actually felt.

  “How’s Constanza doing with you working so much?” she asked.

  “She’s pregnant, Mom,” he said. “Very pregnant and more than ready to have this baby.”

  “What about you? Are you ready, too?”

  “Yeah, I’m game.”

  “That’s it?” Faith McDaniel asked with humor in her voice. “You’re game?

  “Actually,” he said with an unusual smile, “I’m pretty excited.”

  They talked for a while longer about Constanza’s condition, how she was doing mentally, as well as the health of the baby. It was then that he confessed to really missing the family. He was close with both of his sisters, but he hadn’t spoken with them for a while, which was maybe his fault since he’d become so busy.

  “Have you heard from Uncle Walker?” he finally asked.

  “No, not recently,” she said.

  From there, the conversation dragged a bit. It was obvious she didn’t like talking about Walker. It seemed no one did, not after the blow-up between him and Rowan’s father. He wondered what his uncle would think of the things he’d done recently. Looking around the office, he had to imagine Walker would be proud.

  Rowan’s offices occupied the fourth floor of a four-story office building in downtown Columbus. Saying he leased the entire floor sounded far more impressive than it was. The building was tall and narrow, shimmied into a tiny lot that shared a parking garage with the neighboring building. That neighboring building was taller and more impressive looking, but it was also about twice the rent. Either way, his office had floor-to-ceiling windows that offered him a nice view of the downtown district, which was a definite plus to the building and the location.

  Despite the other leasing options, or his company’s recent financial success, he didn’t care about the way things looked, or which building carried more prestige than the others. He was far too focused on his real purpose to care about such materialistic endeavors. Rowan, his business partner, and their three employees ran two publications. One publication was known to all—a local newspaper—while the other was an underground publication the five of them had signed Non-Disclosure Agreements just days before launching the first issue.

  While his mother was fond of telling him how proud of him she was, she had no idea what he was really doing. More often than not, he wondered how she would feel about him if she knew about the second publication.

  When his father jumped on the phone to say hello, Rowan perked up. But then he saw a gas tanker stopped at a traffic light below getting the wrong kind of attention by four guys dressed in all-black. The four of them ran out into the street in a coordinated effort, each taking one side of the two gas tanks.

  Seeing this, he held his breath, not sure what was happening, if anything.

  After each man stuck something black to the sides of the silver tanks, they turned and sprinted in opposite directions, fading into the nearby crowds.

  Seconds later, multiple detonations ignited the tanker’s fuel loads, the main explosions not just rattling the windows and setting off car alarms, but shaking the very foundation of Rowan’s building.

  A huge fireball boiled into the sky, thick black smoke pillowing up behind it.

  “Oh my God!” he heard Clair yell in the main office.

  His business partner, Brian, rushed in, saw that Rowan was on a call, and mouthed the words, “Did you just see that?”

  “What was that?” his mother asked on the other end of the line.

  Rowan felt a shot of worry course through him. Their offices were too close for comfort for this kind of violence and unpredictability. Four floors down, at the intersection below, anarchists fanned out into the streets, cheering, pumping their fists into the sky and applauding the fiery spectacle.

  “Mom, I gotta go,” he said. “These idiots just blew up a gas tanker.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I think, but it’s close to us,” he said, standing before the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking downtown Columbus. “Too close.”

  “I love you,” she said, worried.

  Before he could respond, his father said, “Love you, son. Be safe, and call if you need me to come up there.”

  “Will do,” Rowan said. “Love you guys.”

  He hung up the phone, not once having taken his eyes off the scene below.

  “What the hell, Rowan?” Clair said now that he was off the phone.

  Rowan looked at the twenty-two-year-old graduate of the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University. She looked as scared as he felt.

  “I don’t even know what to say,” Rowan told her.

  He and Brian were lucky to have hired Clair, even though she probably wouldn’t stick around much more than a few years. The pay wasn’t great and there was no prestige in doing what they did, but they’d sold her on the satisfaction in knowing the truth of things. Nowadays, that in itself was a rare commodity.

  “Why would they do that?” Clair asked.

  “Why do these guys do anything they do?” Rowan asked in response to Clair’s question.

  After graduating NKU, Rowan moved to Columbus to hang out with a group of anti-activists who got off on infiltrating some of the more oppressive activist movements. These were guys he met online and on various websites. But those guys were crazy, and they got too much negative exposure from the press for his tastes.

  He was hooked on truth, though. It was like a drug. As a self-described investigative reporter, Rowan took his obsession with the truth to the next level. He took more chances than most, pushing himself because he knew he could protect himself. He’d learned early on to fight dirty and never back down. Walker taught him that. Before long, however, this bravado and spirit of defiance landed him in hot water with some of the local officials, specifically those with a history of corruption. That’s when he went legit with a weekly news publication.

  Following the principles of yin and yang, he showed one side of his business (the light side) to the world, while concealing the other side of his work (the dark side) from those who would seek to harm him. This two-pronged approach was the reason he kept his team and his operation small. He needed to keep a close eye on things so as not to run afoul of the wrong people again.

  Clair started snapping her fingers in his face, bringing him back to the moment. His eyes cleared and he focused in on her. “I’m sorry, what?” he asked.

  “I said, what do you think this is about?” she asked.

  He looked out the window, saw people trying, but failing, to put out the fire that started on the side of one of the nearby buildings.

  “I think this is the big one,” Rowan heard himself say.

  If these radicals could commit such bold acts of terror in broad daylight—just blow up a truck, kill a man, set buildings on fire—then they were no longer concerned with hiding. And when they weren’t concerned with hiding, that meant a mass escalation of terror was underway.

  “You think it’s really the big one?” Clair asked, scared. “Or are you just being overly dramatic?”

  “I think it might be the big one.”

  Rowan never spoke like this, but he thought about it all the time. He was afraid of it. But as much as he was concerned by the situation unfolding before him, he was more worried about Const
anza.

  Looking down, he saw more of these roaches pouring into the streets to celebrate. Cars were trying to get by, but these divisive thugs were blocking traffic, slapping the sides of their cars, the tops of their hoods, even their trunk lids as they roared off.

  One knucklehead jumped onto the hood of an Audi and fist-pumped the air. He looked like one of the guys who planted the explosives on the tanker truck.

  “Like moths to a flame, eh?” Brian said.

  Brian and Rowan were the same age, but Brian lacked that killer instinct that Rowan had. Where Brian excelled was in his passion for business. But his tendency to avoid risk was what made him second in command. Rowan couldn’t care less about the business end of things, he only wanted the truth beneath so many lies. His and Brian’s operational balance, along with their employees, was what allowed for a relatively stable operation.

  Tommy and Dhanishka opened the office door and walked in with lunch in hand and terrified looks on their faces.

  “Did you see what’s going on outside?” Tommy asked.

  “We’re watching it now,” Rowan said.

  Tommy was tall, halfway good-looking, and personable. Beside him was his assistant, a guest worker from Bangalore, India. Both were carrying take-out bags from the local deli. Like Tommy, Dhanishka was tall. But where Tommy was bigger-boned, Dhanishka was thin, her features simple and attractive.

  “We were just walking into the building when the truck blew up,” Dhanishka said. “If we had been just two minutes earlier, we might not be here.”

  “Those scumbags blew that guy up for no reason,” Tommy growled, shaking his head.

  “We watched for a few minutes, but it doesn’t seem safe to be out there anymore,” Dhanishka said. “They’re everywhere, the guys who did this.”

  “Should we evacuate?” Clair asked.

  “Hell, no!” Brian said. “This is the best view in the house!”

  “We’ll wait and see,” Rowan said, calming everyone down. “We still have newspapers and newsletters to get out, people. Don’t forget that.”

  “Yeah, but—” Clair said.

  “If we tucked tail and ran every time some moron tossed a boulder into our otherwise calm pond, we’d have to change our name to Forrest Gump Publications. We don’t run, people. We work. And if the situation necessitates it, we will leave. But only if things get out of hand, and only if our lives are in danger.”

  “I think we might have already missed that window,” Tommy said.

  Seeing the thugs pouring into the streets was like watching ants swarming a picnic. There were now forty or fifty of these disgusting creatures in plain view. Even more alarming, one of them was carrying a large rifle. Was this part of the escalation? They attacked with fireworks, iced water bottles, and bats before…but never bombs and seldom any guns.

  “Let’s get to work,” Rowan said, clapping his hands.

  “Um…maybe no one is saying it,” Clair said, “but everyone’s thinking it.”

  “Yeah? What are they thinking?” Rowan turned and asked. “Because if you’re thinking about leaving, I think Tommy already said it. Our window might have already closed.”

  Clair fell silent.

  “If any of you wants to leave right now, feel free to go,” Rowan said. “I won’t hold it against you or treat you poorly later, either as a friend or as an employee.”

  He looked from face to face, noting every expression. This was his team. His team was supposed to be solid. Meaning everyone knew the stakes and they were locked and loaded. Were they now deciding to run? He didn’t think he could take that. Fortunately, no one gave him further cause for concern.

  “Good,” Rowan said. “Then let’s get back to work.”

  Even though they all went about their regular duties, Rowan tried to measure each employee in terms of their individual reliability. Only Dhanishka presented any potential problems.

  Your operation is intact, he told himself again.

  Their above-ground paper, The Columbus Contribution, was a weekly budget rag they circulated for free around the local market. Their circulation was around twenty-thousand people per week and healthy ad sales kept them in the black. Most of what they covered in the publication were local arts and entertainment pieces, but they also ran ads for restaurants, strip clubs, and small-venue concerts when the city health inspector allowed it.

  Clair wrote the main articles, most of them local interest pieces, but other articles on state and local government, or the occasional article on things like controversial presidential policies or Constitutional violations, of which there had been many. Rowan oversaw everything as the editor. But as a paper, they basically toed the line of the left/right paradigm, making sure not to offend anyone or ruffle anyone’s political feathers.

  As an organization, where their hearts lay, however, was in their second publication, The Dissident Weekly. This underground periodical was mailed out all across the nation. Interest for the paper soared after Brian placed a few optimized ads on Facebook and Twitter. When their accounts were suspended for selling access to non-sanctioned content, Brian leapt from the more draconian social network sites to Parler and Gab, where he was able to amass a pretty solid following.

  Where Rowan’s and Brian’s company made their real money for their real causes was in the sales and distribution of this particular paper. This was where they published their grittier stories, stories that investigative reporters like Rowan got blacklisted, or even killed, for covering.

  Brian was at his office door again, knocking twice before coming inside.

  “Dude…” Brian said.

  “Yeah?”

  Rowan was standing in front of the window overlooking the pandemonium unfolding below.

  “We have to be smart about this,” Brian said. “If those guys get each other too wound up—and you know how the hive mind for these idiots and vandals works—we’re half a block away.”

  Meaning they were in the danger zone.

  Clair burst into his office and said, “Rowan…I think it might be time to leave? Because…like…how are we going to even get our cars out of the parking garage with this going on?”

  Clair was slightly chubby with a cute face and a deep well of journalistic integrity. She always smelled like lavender and orange, and she had perfect hygiene. She was always on time, worked harder than most, and her attention to detail was second to none. This is why Rowan liked her. Brian, however, had a thing for girls with big butts, small breasts, and just the right curving of a woman’s thighs in jeans. He and Brian both thought Clair was perfect, but for different reasons entirely. If Clair had one downfall, though, it was that she would not engage in on-the-ground reporting or investigating. And now she was wanting to leave.

  “As I was saying,” Clair repeated, “if we can’t get our cars out—”

  “I heard what you said, Clair,” Rowan snapped. “The problem is that from the minute those clowns blew up that tanker, their soldiers have been pouring into the streets from all directions. Five minutes after the explosion, our window closed. I didn’t want to say that, but there it is, alright?”

  He was talking to Clair, and standing next to Brian, but all he could think about was Constanza. The phone in his front pocket began to vibrate. Both he and Brian looked down at the same time.

  “You’re going to radiate your nuts,” Clair mumbled.

  “I already made my baby,” Rowan replied without a hint of humor or offense.

  Looking at the lock-screen photo of the South American beauty he’d met only two years ago had him feeling a bit better. He shooed Brian and Clair out of the office, then smiled and answered the call.

  “Babe?” he said.

  “Yeah, I’m here,” she replied, sounding happy to hear his voice.

  He knew she had gone to the OB-GYN today. He offered to go with her, but she said she was fine going alone. She had tried to keep the pressure of the many appointments off his plate, but secretly, he knew she would
have a hard time being herself in front of him. Especially if being herself meant acting somewhat erratic and not wanting to follow the OB-GYN’s instructions to the letter. Constanza had always been a free spirit, which was one of the things he loved most about her, even if she unknowingly clipped her own wings from time to time. He tried not to hold it against her when it came to having their first child.

  “There’s something going on downtown,” he said.

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  He told her about the gas tanker and the influx of scumbags, but as he was explaining this, he realized the explosion did more damage to the surrounding area than he first thought. Two nearby buildings were now on fire, as was the car that had been next to it at the light.

  One of the buildings was a residential loft, the kind where there was commercial real estate on the first floor and overpriced lofts on the many floors above it. On the other side of the street, the corner of the high-rise condominium complex was still burning, but not out of control. It looked more like something on the surface was burning, but it could not penetrate the surfaces below.

  Neither building should have caught fire, considering the new building codes. But the way some of these contractors cut corners with their products then bribed the inspectors for their signatures…it was worse than criminal, it was criminal negligence.

  “I’m worried about you,” Constanza said, her tone softening. God, he loved the sound of her voice. It was the only good thing he could think of at that moment.

  “Yeah, this is a little crazy,” he replied. It was more than crazy…this was insane! “All the rioting and looting, and now this?”

  “How close are they to you?” she asked.

  “Too close,” Rowan said. “If things get a bit dicey, I’ll try to get out. If not, I’ve got Uncle Walker’s bag and a couch to crash on while this all blows over.”

  “You should leave now.”

  “I kind of think there are more of these anarchist pukes coming in, but I can’t be sure,” he said.

  He knew in the back of his mind that he wouldn’t be leaving anytime soon. He’d just have to dig in and see if he could weather the storm.