Charles Sheehan-Miles

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Republic: Chapter Seven

Republic

Charles Sheehan-Miles

Chapter Seven

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CHAPTER SEVEN
JUNE 8


The chair of the House Health and Welfare Committee called the hearing to order at five minutes after ten in the morning. The room, one of the largest and most ornate hearing rooms in the Rayburn Building, held at least a couple of hundred people, and from his seat just behind the witness table Murphy could see that all the seats were filled. Men and women stood in the back of the room, and the area between the witness tables and the raised semicircular dais where the twenty-five committee members sat was crammed with reporters and cameramen, who sat on the floor. Behind the witness tables were thirty rows of chairs, the first row reserved for witnesses.

Sitting on the dais facing the audience, Represenative Clark sat toward the left side of the room, near the windows. The other members of the committee were arrayed in a semicircle on either side of him. Valerie was just to Clark’s left, in a row of chairs behind the members of congress, reserved for aides. She looked pensive as she leaned forward and said something to the Congressman.

Murphy was as uncomfortable as he’d ever been. He wore his dress uniform today, with all his awards and decorations, and sat stiffly, waiting for the hearing to begin. He hadn’t expected this hearing to gain so much attention, and wondered again if he should really be here. He wasn’t political. He hardly voted, except for Presidential elections. Martha would have laughed at his discomfort. Her self-confidence would have propelled her through any situation, but for Murphy, the politics and intrigues of Washington were too treacherous.

At the head of the room, Clark seemed tense, his back ramrod straight, and looked straight ahead as Valerie continued speaking in his ear.

A few minutes after nine, every member of the committee was seated. Valerie had once told him that for most hearings, only a few representatives showed up, and they rarely stayed for the entire hearing. But this one was getting a lot of attention from the national press, and he supposed most congressmen and women couldn’t pass up the opportunity to get some free ink. Murphy looked around the room, wishing he could make for the exit.

Too late. The chairman slammed his gavel into the table and called the committee to order.

“All right, Ladies and Gentleman, let’s call this hearing to order. We are meeting today to conduct our review of H.R. 172, the Fiscal Responsibility Act, introduced by Representative Mark Skaggs of Kentucky. Now, there is a great deal of in interest in this bill, so I would first of all like to ask our spectators despite the crowding to please stay quiet and not disrupt the proceedings. We’ll start with the gentleman from Kentucky, Mr. Skaggs. You have five minutes, sir.”

Mark Skaggs sat to the right of the dais, almost directly across the semicircle from Clark. Skaggs was a slight man with a narrow face, high cheekbones and blonde hair. He looked younger than his nearly fifty-five years, and Murphy caught himself wondering if Skaggs had undergone cosmetic surgery. He began his statement and Murphy leaned back, barely following ’his convoluted argument. He seemed to go on interminably, droning about the fiscal status of the country, deficits and trade balances, welfare statistics and God only knew what else. Murphy looked down at his hands, folded in his lap. It was long past time for him to leave, but he couldn’t go.

The audience and the reporters in the room stirred as Skaggs completed his statement.

The chairman said, “Thank you, sir. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from West Virginia. You have five minutes, sir.”

Clark leaned to his microphone and glanced down at Murphy, meeting his eyes.

“Thank you, sir. I shall be brief. Ladies and gentlemen, when I think about this question, I have to think about the people who elected me to come to Washington to represent them. I have to think about the coal miners, and the factory workers, and the engineers, and the farmers, the mountain folks of my home. I think about the many, many poor people who have struggled for what is theirs, only to see staggering tax rates that no one could have believed a generation ago.

“I have to think about the men and women of my district, such as the eight hundred families in Highview, West Virginia, who lost their jobs and their livelihoods three weeks ago.
I might add they lost their careers as well. There are no more computer chip manufacturers left in the United States of America, which means there is nowhere left to ply their skills. Eight hundred families in my district were given a simple choice: change careers, start over from scratch and maybe lose everything, or leave the country. Come to Jakarta, they were told, to the workers’ paradise, made so on the backs of hardworking Americans who lost their livelihood.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, these are not crack mommies or drug addicts. These are not the liars and cheats my esteemed colleague Mr. Skaggs speaks of. No, these are hardworking Americans, who have served their country in wartime and served their communities in peacetime. And yes, most of them are going to need a little help. A little help starting over in their devastated community. Maybe a little help paying for medical care for their children. Until they can start over. This bill will take that helping hand away and replace it with a fist.”

Clark let out a sigh and took a drink of water.

“Mr. Chair, I’d like to request unanimous consent to revise and extend my remarks.”

“So be it, Mr. Clark, and thank you.”

Murphy stretched. He was on the second panel—still a long ways away. The Chair introduced the first panel, a passel of government beauracrats who were going to talk about numbers and policies far removed from reality. Murphy leaned back in his chair and prepared for a long, dull morning.



***

It was quiet in Highview. Too quiet, as far as Karen was concerned. She had arrived at seven that morning, as agreed. About half an hour later, they made a great ceremony of using bolt cutters to shear off the padlock holding the new gates shut, and the workers began to stream in, preparing for the day. As she passed the gate, she saw the Sheriff and one of his deputies, leaning against their cars and watching the employees stream past. They did nothing to stop them.

No reporters or news vans in front of the factory. That surprised and troubled her. She would have expected eight hundred workers marching back into their closed factory to at least make the local news, but the press was nowhere to be seen. Maybe they would appear later, but that seemed doubtful. The dramatic moment to air on TV would have been the cutting of the locks.

In any event, she went to the lab in the Quality Assurance department, where her job was to select random samples and perform a variety of tests to ensure the chips met performance standards. The familiar white, carpetless room with wide counters, bright lights and large workbenches made coming back to work feel almost like coming home. At least all the home she had.

Karen has grown up in Hardburly, Kentucky: coal country, way the hell out in the middle of nowhere near the junction of West Virginia, Kentucky and Virginia. Her dad, chronically unemployed, spent most of her formative years mean and drunk. Right after the turn of the century, before Karen was even twelve, the son of a bitch began to eye her in a way that scared hell out of her.

One late winter night he’d arrived home drunk and beaten Karen’s mother to death. Karen might have been next, had the neighbors not heard the screaming and called the county Sheriff. The Perry County Child Welfare Department placed her in a foster home, her dad went to prison, and that would have been the end of it except that sometimes she could still hear her mother screaming, though it was half a lifetime ago.

If nothing else, her dad taught her one thing—to never depend on anyone but herself. In high school, Karen joined the wrestling team and Junior ROTC, and the first time one of her foster brothers touched her the wrong way she broke his arm. Nothing made her happier than the day she left Hardburly behind forever, on an Army scholarschip at Bowling Green.

Now, for the first time since Mike Morris had suddenly dumped her before graduation from college, she felt lost, directionless. Maybe Murphy was right, and she should try to get transferred to the regular Army. Somehow she had the feeling that despite the plant takeover, this would be a temporary thing.

Temporary or not, she had a job to do now.

She sat down and logged into her computer, and then checked her email. Nothing but junk had come in since the plant had closed; no workers, so no one to send mail. She had received one note from the Bowling Green Alumni Association, asking for money. Delete that one.

About twenty minutes later, David Firkus showed up at the door with a cart full of chips. “First load of the day, Karen.”

“Hey, Dave. It’s good to see you.”

“You too, Karen, you too. I’m very happy to be back at work.”

With an IQ of 68, David had grown up in nearby Harpers Ferry, attending a school for disabled children, which had placed him in the job here at Saturn almost fifteen years ago. He had a simple job: take the loads of freshly manufactured chips from the line up to Quality Assurance, then pick them up later and take them to packaging. He made a variety of other deliveries around the building, as well. It did take a great deal of care, as the equipment was delicate. So far as she knew, he had never damaged one. His job could probably be automated, but management had been happy with his work and happy to provide the job.

She had not thought about him since the plant closed. Realizing that was like an accusation. She wondered what he had been doing.

“How’ve you been, Dave—you know, since the plant closed.”

“Oh, pretty good. I had to move out of my apartment. I wasn’t too happy about that. I moved back into my old room with my Mom. But that’s okay, I like to watch her fish, and I might be able to get a new job at Al’s Pizza. Except I don’t need a new job now.”

“Well, don’t put all your eggs in one basket,” Karen said. “We don’t know for sure if the plant will stay open, so you might consider taking the job at the pizza place.”

“Yeah. That’s what my Mom said. But I missed everyone at the plant. And you.” He blushed, right to the roots of his hair, and started to back out of the office. “See you later, Karen,” he called. He stumbled as he backed up.

“Careful, Dave.” She paused, and then called, loud enough to be heard in the hall, “I missed you, too, Dave.”

It was the truth, too. She wasn’t the most social person on earth, but being at home all day… not her cup of tea. Dave was a nice guy, and he cared about people. She felt bad she hadn’t checked up on him at all.

Karen reached for her jeweler’s glasses. There was a small microscope mounted on the left eye. By changing the focus on the lens, she could examine objects as small as five microns and see if there were any obvious blemishes on the chips. Picking out a dozen or so, she examined them, placed them on a small plastic tray, and then carried them over to the testing station, where they would be inserted into a socket and tested for functionality.

She looked up when she heard a low rumble outside. It was a sound she’d heard a thousand times in the Army: the tracks of an armored vehicle, very faint. She shook her head. Her imagination was way too vivid. It must be a bulldozer. Except she knew for sure there was no construction anywhere around here now that the fences were all finished.

And there was no question now: a low diesel thrum, tracks banging on the road. Not the distinct whine of a tank’s turbine engine. Possible a Bradley, or a personnel carrier. She set the tray of chips down and walked, very slowly, toward the window, which overlooked the parking lot.

Remembering the words of one of the speakers last night, Dale Whitt, something about his grandfather being shot by the Army during a strike, it made her shudder, and even feel afraid. But only briefly. What was she thinking? This was the twenty-first century, not the nineteenth. His story probably wasn’t even true.

The outer wall began to shake and a shadow passed overhead, followed by the overpowering sound of more than one helicopter. The window rattled in its frame. Karen looked out in disbelief.

Four military helicopters landed at the far end of the parking lot. Their tails swung around in unison, their miniguns pointed at the factory, and they disgorged black-clad riot troops: all wearing black combat gear and helmets, and carrying rifles. Many had plastic shields as well, labeled the same as the backs of their flak vests: DHS.

She ducked away from the window. What the hell? Occupying the factory might be illegal, but it wasn’t like they were a bunch of armed crazies. They were civilians, workers with families, not terrorists. She was an officer in the goddamned National Guard. Who the hell would send in antiterrorist troops for something like this? She reached for her phone in a panic, her hands shaking. If nothing else, she had to call Murphy. He needed to know what was happening here. She didn’t want to think about what might happen if anyone in the factory was armed.



***

Murphy heard the beep of his phone and cursed under his breath, just as he sat down at the witness table. He pulled out his phone. Karen Greenfield. She could wait; he would call her after the hearing. He hit the power button and tucked the phone away.

The chairman said, “Please rise and raise your right hand.”

Murphy and the other two witnesses stood.

“Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”

“I do,” Murphy responded with the others.

“You may sit. I believe the gentleman from West Virginia would like to introduce our first witness.”

Murphy sat and laid his hands flat on the burnished table. A pitcher of ice water sat at the center of the table with several short glasses. He poured himself a glass, and then glanced up at his daughter, still sitting behind Clark. She looked cool and competent up there. Martha would have been proud.

Albert Clark sat up and said, “Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to introduce to the committee an upstanding resident of my district. The witness, Lieutenant Colonel Kenneth Murphy, is a former Director at the Highview manufacturing plant of Saturn Microsystems, which, as some of you may know, shut its doors three weeks ago in order to squeeze more profit out of a factory overseas. As you can see, he is a serving officer in the West Virginia National Guard and is commander of the Second Battalion, Four-hundred and thirty-second Tank Regiment. He has served in two wars for our country, the first as a young enlisted man and later as a company commander. During his tour in Iraq, he lost his left leg below the knee, but pushed himself until he was again able to meet the physical training standards and remain in the National Guard.

“He is the recipient of a Bronze Star for Valor and the Purple Heart. This man is one of the heroes of my district: a loving husband to a wife who was murdered three years ago, a loving father of two children. One is a Harvard graduate, the other six years old and suffering from a degenerative nerve ailment for which there is no cure. Colonel Murphy has come here to tell us about Highview, West Virginia, and what the impact of the so-called Fiscal Responsibility Act will be on the people who live there, and I thank him for being here.”

Clark finished, and the chairman spoke again. “Thank you, sir. Colonel Murphy, I’d like to welcome you before the committee, and may I say it is an honor to have you testify here. You have five minutes to make your statement, and you are welcome to also submit written testimony. We will then ask questions. Go ahead, Colonel.”

“Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First off, allow me to begin by stating as a matter of principal that I’m not happy being here. I’m not someone who feels comfortable asking anyone for help, as I’m sure my daughter could tell you. But all the same, I find myself in an unthinkable situation.

“For the last twenty years, I worked with Saturn Microsystems in Highview, West Virginia. I’ve worked in just about every position in the company, working my way up to become one of the two directors at the plant. In that role, I was responsible for four hundred men and women who reported to me or one of my managers.”

“Those men and women are now all out of work. Saturn decided to move their manufacturing operations to Indonesia. Never mind that the plant and its operations were profitable. They weren’t profitable enough. I read an article in the Wall Street Journal last week indicating that Saturn expects to make an additional two hundred fifty million dollars a year from this move. These profits will be on the backs of eight hundred families who now have nowhere to go.

“My story is simple. I loved my wife, more than you can imagine. Three years ago, a drug addict from Charleston robbed a convenience store and murdered Martha. I thought my life was going to end when that happened, but Martha and I had two children who needed taking care of. My daughter Valerie is a Harvard graduate—something Martha and I put our life savings into. Our son, Kenny Jr., is six years old. In the last year he has been in the hospital several times, averaging about twenty thousand dollars a month in medical bills.

“My family faces complete destitution. With our savings poured into college, and with no medical insurance, I will be unable to pay Kenny’s medical bills and he will… die. I am seeking new work, with no luck so far. That will take some time. I have twenty years’ experience, but the only places left still using my experience are all outside the United States. In the meantime, Kenny qualified for Social Security Disability, which isn’t even enough money to pay for his medical insurance. The only reason we’re making it at all is my VA disability, which, since it is rated at less than forty percent, I will lose because of this bill.

“I ask myself, is this why I paid taxes all these years? Is this why I served in two wars? Is this what I paid in blood for? What happened to the seventy percent of my income that has gone to taxes for the last few years? None of it will come back to my family. Is this what it was all for? So my company could take its jobs to Indonesia, so you people could deny my son the medical care he needs to live? I don’t matter, Mr. Chairman, but that boy is the future, and if you go forward with this proposal you’ll abandon the future to a horrible death. Save my son. Save my town. You can’t just cut off millions of hardworking Americans from the only safety net they have. Save our future. Don’t turn your back on the children, whatever else you do.”



***

Damn! Karen disconnected the phone and stuffed it back in her pocket. Murphy’s phone had switched over to voicemail after one ring.

The sound of the helicopters still shook the walls, but now she heard a new sound: shouting, then a woman screaming. The agents must be in the main factory floor.

Karen jumped at the sound of a shotgun blast. It was followed by a dozen more shots from a higher pitched weapon. Sounded like an M16. Somewhere downstairs, a woman screamed. Oh, Christ. Someone had shot at the feds!

A noxious smell hit her, and tear gas drifted in through the open door. Karen ducked down to look for shelter, a place to hide. Behind the desk. She moved that way.

Too late. The door burst open, and a young man armored in a black flak vest and riot gear charged in, rifle aimed in her face.

“Get on the ground, get on the ground! Now, now!” She hesitated as another, older man charged in, this one armed with a pistol. She recoiled in shock. This was the man she’d confronted the night before, Agent Lawrence Harris.

“Get on the goddamn ground, hands behind your back,” he shouted.

She froze. He ran forward, stuck the pistol against her forehead and yelled, “Get on the ground!”

He grabbed her hair and yanked her to the ground.

“Fucking hillbillies,” the younger one cursed and shifted around on both feet, too excited from the adrenaline rush. “They shot Dylan. I can’t believe they shot him!”

The other did not speak until he hit her on the side of the head with his fist, raising stars.

He leaned his head down close enough that she could feel his lips against her right ear and growled, “What is wrong with you people? I hope they roast all of you in the goddamn electric chair.”

Rage struck, and she arched her back and pulled at the cuffs.

“Keep your hands to yourself, you fucking thug. You’re talking to an officer in the United States Army.”

“Officer, huh,” he said, low in his throat. “Well, fuck you, officer cop-killing bitch.”

She saw stars again as he hit her again on the side of the head. The two of them dragged her out into the hall.

She heard a scream. “Karen!”

She looked up, startled and still disoriented, to see Dave Firkus charge at them, his face almost purple with rage, a bear protecting its cub.

“Take your hands off her. Let her go! Let her go!” he shouted as he charged.

“Stop,” shouted Agent Harris, as the other agent raised his rifle. They dropped Karen to the floor with a thud.

“No,” she screamed. “David, stop!”

The young one shot a burst from his M16. The first bullet struck David square in the chest, the next two though the neck. Blood spattered across the hallway and he fell to the floor. Blood from an artery poured out onto the carpet and stained it black.

“No, God damn it!” she screamed. “You killed him! What is wrong with you people? Murderers!”

Harris shouted. “Idiot, put that rifle down.”

Karen shrieked again, struggling. “Let me go! Bandage him! Do something, goddamn it!”

“Shut up, bitch,” the young one shouted, still rocking back and forth on his feet. He kicked her on the side of the head. The third hit on the head in five minutes, this one knocked her out cold.

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