The Things We Bury - Part 1: In Anticipation of the End of the World [Completed]

Chapter 5: The Monster That You Are (part 3 of 7)

Darren wondered if he would be let loose, thrown aside in favor of a new up-and-comer.  Would he be left for dead, parked in some cubicle, with blood on his hands he'd never be able to scrub off?

He had moved into dark realms with his new work. 

Every day as he commuted home, he blasted Mozart on the stereo in his Lexus.  The strains of the genius's music washed the black, devil tar from his brain.  At work, he could allow himself to be a demon.  But by the time he got home, he had to be a husband and a father.  He couldn't let the taint on his skin ever reach his dear Carrie and Madeline.  The two sweet girls were so pure, so innocent.  He would do everything he could – anything he could – to ensure they had only the brightest of futures.

He had been given an order that tested him: obey and put that future at risk, or refuse and... There was no second choice.  There was only obey.  Obey and perhaps be deemed irrelevant, or refuse and be declared a liability.

But when he told Connor it was done, the man said not to worry, he was in safe hands.  Darren was ready for the next level, and Jorgenson wanted to meet him personally to discuss his continued role in the operation.

He reached the desk.  The blonde woman was young.  Much younger than most of the executive assistants at the company.  She looked like a model.

Is he banging her? Darren mused.  Wouldn't surprise me.

She pushed the mute button on the phone and said, "You can go in.  He's waiting for you."

Waiting for me.  Did I keep him waiting?  No, I'm early.

He tried to be unobtrusive about wiping the sweat from his palms on the tail of his jacket.  He looked down to make sure the spot on his shirt was still hidden.  His tie sat flat on his chest.  His heart was beating so hard he felt like it should be fluttering like a flag in the wind.

The office of the powerful Walt M. Jorgenson was breath taking.  It was like stepping into a museum.  In particular, a museum of Viking history.  It was a grand hall as big as the reception area – each of the rooms took up half of the floor.  The waiting area was all cream and birch wood – light and airy.  The office was heavy dark woods, black surfaces, and rough stone pillars held up decorative hewn beams, which masked the generic architecture – turning the contemporary building into an ancient Norse longhouse.

Sprinkled at uniform intervals, artifacts sat in glass cases on pedestals.  Darren passed daggers, pots, horned helmets.  On a low platform beside the massive onyx desk sat the full figurehead of an antique ship.  It was carved to resemble a dragon with a tongue spit out between its teeth.

Although the more he looked at it, the more it resembled a wolf.

The man himself stood in silhouette.  The windows were tinted giving only about half of the outside daylight to the office, but a heads-up display lit up the glass behind him with a chart of the phases of the moon.  It was the same image Darren had on his own computer.

Faintly, masked by the image of the approaching lunar eclipse, the Statue of Liberty stood, looking impossibly close.

"So nice of you to come on such short notice."  Like the wood on the figurehead held a patina of age, Jorgenson's voice still held a touch of his native Norwegian accent.

"It is my pleasure, sir."  He walked towards him praying he wouldn't do something stupid like trip.

His brain wasn't functioning properly.  He knew he had would need to give a report of the operation, but the wheels in his head were spinning like all the teeth had worn off of the cogs. How would he explain that things had been set in motion to rob the government of their prize?  His mouth was as dry as the desert surrounding The Music Box.

The great man was lanky, tall and almost gaunt.  His hair was a mop of blond, coiffed to perfection.  In the lobby, there was a twelve-foot high portrait in oils of the megalomaniacal bastard.  He looked almost identical right down to the black suit.  Except that in the painting, he had a bushy mustache, which he had since shaved off.  It left a wide, bare, semicircle plane of tender pink flesh with a deep crease down the center.  Darren found he was unable to keep his eyes from drifting to it.

Jorgenson reached out his hand.  "Please, call me Walt.  That is how my family knows me.  And what do they call you at home, Mr. Palmer."