Millennium - 36. Chapter 36

December 14, 1999

 

“Don’t wreck my car,” Robbie said, and gave me a nice kiss.

“Don’t worry. I won’t hurt your precious vehicle,” I said as I wrapped my arms around him, prolonging the embrace.

“I’m not worried about the car, I’m worried about you.”

I rolled my eyes, but it was a sweet thing to say, and I knew he meant it. “I’ll try to be back by dinner.”

“I’ll be at the office late. Maybe you can stop by there on your way back? Call me,” he said. One more kiss and I was on the road.

I fired up the Ferrari and headed to San Diego. Mike was evidently stationed at Miramar, but I hadn’t been able to get in touch with him. I’d tried, but it was pretty tough to get through his secretary, who was a real bitch. So I’d made a call, pulled in some favors, and gotten a visitor’s pass to Miramar. My plan was to drive down and meet this guy and see if he was a total dick or not. Robbie insisted that I take his Ferrari. He said it would be fun, since it’s new, and figured that it would make a statement once I was on the base. I took it because it was a fucking blast to drive.

The last few days had been a dream. We had really enjoyed each other. The sex was great, but then again, it almost always was. It wasn’t that, it was the way we were when we were around each other. The little things he would do for me to show me that he cared, and the little things I would do for him. Today, for example, I was having a catered lunch from one of LA’s chicest bistros delivered to him as a surprise. I’d tried that before and had to send flowers instead. Tomorrow was the day I’d really have fun with him. I’d planned to have a box delivered with a series of clues and instructions. They’d ultimately bring him to the apartment. That really made me smile.

Traffic was a bitch, but that was nothing new. I guess if you live in paradise, it’s reasonable that everyone else wants to as well. I’m not sure Southern California was paradise, but it beat the hell out of the Midwest, or of Ohio anyway. Thinking of Ohio made me think of Claremont, and this project that JP and Stef were working on. I kept trying to get into it, but I couldn’t. I just didn’t see how those people could make the leap and invite new urban professionals and artists into their midst, and make the cultural changes they’d need to get there. I couldn’t figure out what would persuade them. Maybe it was the stunning data that showed how many of Claremont’s young people never returned after college. Maybe it was the rampant unemployment and resulting crime. Or maybe the shitty schools would motivate them. Despite the facts in front of them, there would always be the Reverend Whites there, guiding the souls of Claremont straight to hell on earth.

It took me three and a half hours to get to Miramar. The drive was kind of fun because of all the looks I got, especially from young guys. Robbie was probably right. If he’d wanted to, he could have picked up some major young dick in this thing. I pulled up to the guard station and saw the guards lusting after my car. “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell?” I could get any of these guys to let me blow them by giving them an hour in this car.

“May I help you sir?” the guard asked politely, but with that no-nonsense attitude that guys in uniform always seemed to have.

“I’m here to see Rear Admiral Harrison,” I said. “My name is Brad Schluter.” I handed him my identification and he checked his list of visitors. He evidently found me, because he made some notations and gave me a pass.

“Nice car, sir,” he said.

“Yeah, it is. It’s my boyfriend’s,” I told him, and watched that freak him out. I wondered if they’d send out an alert. ‘Fag on Base! Fag on Base!’ That made me laugh, so I must have looked like a complete idiot, driving around the base damn near in hysterics. I guess they didn’t call it ‘gay’ for nothing. I managed to regain my self-control by the time I got to Mike’s office.

I’d gotten info on where it was, and I just followed directions. I got a lot of stares when I pulled up in the Ferrari, and a lot of stares when I strolled through the halls of the building he was in, looking like I’d just walked out of GQ magazine. But this was all about projecting power to achieve my goal. I may be in their world, but they still couldn’t fuck with me. I marveled at how strong and in control I felt. That was all about getting things straight with Robbie. He really was my rock.

I walked into Mike’s office and straight up to his secretary. She was a dour looking woman in a uniform with a bunch of stripes on it. “I’m here to see Commander Carmichael.”

“Your name?” she asked. I stared at her, and then glared. “Sir,” she added. This bitch had been blocking me on the phone, and I wasn’t taking any more of her crap.

“Brad Schluter,” I said.

“Well as I told you on the phone, Mr. Schluter, Commander Carmichael isn’t available,” she said in a snotty way.

I picked up her phone, which really pissed her off. “And you are?”

“Sergeant Maguire,” she said.

“Thank you Sergeant. Please dial Admiral Harrison’s number for me.”

“You can’t use my phone,” she said.

“You appear to be wrong. You can dial it for me, or I can get to the base operator. Either way, it’s a tough time ahead for you after I talk to him. So why don’t you check your attitude at the door and go tell Commander Carmichael I’m here to see him.” I said it with anger and malice, looking directly in her eyes. I saw her flinch.

“May I have my phone?” she asked. I handed it back to her and stood there while she called him, and then tried to mumble so I couldn’t hear. She hung up and said “He’ll be right with you.”

“Thank you,” I said. I stood there, in front of her desk, making her nervous and letting her know I wasn’t willing to be kept waiting long. She finally must have gotten fed up, because she went into his office herself.

She was only gone a minute when she came back. “He can see you now. Right this way.” She led me into a nice office, although it was definitely military. He was looking away from me when I walked in, and didn’t turn around until Sergeant Maguire left.

He spun around in his chair to face me for the first time, and it freaked us both out. We didn’t look alike; it wasn’t that kind of thing that Robbie’s family seemed to have, where the guys had a distinctive look. It wasn’t even like the pictures of Billy and Steven Schluter, where they were so similar they were obviously brothers. He had a wider face than I did, with higher cheek bones and a smaller nose. I actually thought I was much more handsome than him, although I wasn’t being very objective. Still, there was no mistaking some of the core parts of our appearance. If you put us together, it would be obvious that we were related. “What can I do for you, Mr. Schluter?” he asked.

“You have no interest in meeting me? You must have a lot of half-brothers floating around out there,” I said calmly.

“Only one that I am aware of.”

“I see. Your lack of curiosity is a little surprising. I would have thought you’d be interested to see what I was like, not from a personal standpoint, but to determine if I was a threat or not.”

“I’m not quite sure how you could be a threat to me,” he said, eying me more carefully.

“The fact that I’m standing here, in your office, without an appointment should answer your own question.”

He got up and walked around his desk and looked me in the eye, which was pretty easy since we were the same height. He was trying to intimidate me, like I was some green Ensign, and that was just hilarious. “You’re right. You have interrupted my day. So why don’t you tell me why you’re here.”

“I was perfectly happy to roll on down the road and have nothing to do with you and your family. I had no desire to get involved with any of you. But over the past few months, your mother and brother have been working quite deliberately to inconvenience me.”

“I’m wondering why you think it’s them?”

“And I’m wondering why you think you can insult my intelligence by asking me such a stupid question?” I let my temper go just enough so he could see I wasn’t a pussy.

He walked back around his desk and sat down, so I took a chair, uninvited, as a power gesture. “I heard it was more than a little inconvenience,” he allowed.

“So you’re aware of their plans?”

“I’m aware of them,” he said. “So is that why you came here? To ask me to call off the dogs? If you did, you’re wasting your time.”

“That’s not why I’m here, but if I was, why would I be wasting my time? You’re obviously involved in this.”

“I’m not involved in this shit at all,” he said loudly. “It pisses me off, all of it. I wish they’d have left you under your rock. You weren’t using the family name; there was no public record that you were my father’s son, so I thought they were idiots for not leaving well enough alone. Now you’re here, in front of me, and I have to deal with the fact that my father couldn’t keep his dick in his pants.”

“So why are they doing this? I don’t get it? I never did anything to them. I could give a shit less. I don’t want to be reminded that I’m part of your family, and I sure as fuck don’t want anyone to know I am. Why the animosity?”

“That’s why you came here. To find out why,” he said. That wasn’t why, but I was curious.

“You going to tell me?”

“My mother bears a considerable grudge against your mother and my father. When you were conceived, she was five months pregnant. Your mother and my father had apparently been flirting with each other for quite some time. My mother tells it in a more disparaging way.” In other words, she’d called my mother a whore. “She caught them in a local motel having sex. The trauma caused her to miscarry. So while you were being conceived, one of her own children was being murdered, as she sees it.”

“You know, I can see why she’d be really pissed off and why she’d hate my mother. But why me? Can you tell me what I had to do with any of this?”

“No, I can’t. It’s a stupid grudge and it’s completely irrational. I can’t and I won’t defend it. But that was the moment, in her mind, that her marriage was destroyed. Even though she ended up having David, she and my father were ruined as a couple. Since both of the original perpetrators are dead, you’re the only convenient target.” He sighed. “It bugs the shit out of me, hearing her talk about you. For all of my life, you’ve just been ‘the bastard,’ but suddenly you got a name.”

“How did she find out who I was?” I asked. I didn’t think there was any way on earth he’d tell me that.

“It was thanks to my brother’s new boyfriend. He seems to have a particular distaste for you as well. When he got together with my mother and David, it was like sharks in a feeding frenzy. If it weren’t for that, I might have been able to defuse this situation. I might have gotten her to think clearly.”

“You’ve experienced my charming personality for a bit now,” I said, smiling, “so you may have realized that I have more than a few people who dislike me. Which one is this?”

He actually smiled slightly. “Brian Parnell.” I kept my face impassive, although it took every shred of self control in my body.

“He’s such a pleasant person,” I said sarcastically. “What a joy it must be for you to have him as part of your family.”

“I see you remember who he is,” Mike said. “So you wanted to know why this happened, and now you do. You wanted to know who was behind it, and now you know. You got your questions answered.” In other words, get the fuck out of my office.

“That’s interesting information, but that’s not why I’m here. They’ve started this war, and now I have to destroy them. I know your nephew, Kevin. He says you’re an honest and upstanding guy. I’m here to decide whether I have to target you as well.”

“You’re going to destroy my mother? You?” He laughed. “Good luck with that. You’re talking about a woman who took a small electronics company and built it into a giant. She’s easily got triple, quadruple your resources. And you’re going to destroy her?”

“I am,” I said firmly.

“She’s going to wipe up the floor with you,” he said. “But you didn’t ask me for an evaluation of your chances, you asked me if am I involved, and if I am a direct threat to you. The answer to that is no. I love my mother, I tolerate my brother, but as I said, I think this is a stupid fight, and I’m out of it.” He suddenly got really frustrated. “You have enough clout to get here, to get on base, and bully your way in to see me, but in my world, that’s as far as it goes. Your clout won’t stand up to my family’s power in Washington. I’m telling you this so you know this isn’t some calculated political decision. It’s a decision based on the fact that what they’re doing is wrong.”

“Well Mike, you know why I was here, and I got my answer. Quite frankly, it was the answer I expected.” I watched him digest that backhanded compliment. “Is your money tied up with hers?”

“Not all of it,” he snapped.

“Good,” I said. “You seem like an honorable guy. Since we met, and I have crawled out from under that rock, if you ever want to, I’d be willing to toss back a beer or two with you.” I took out one of my cards, tossed it on his desk, and extended my hand. Surprisingly enough, he shook it. As I turned to leave, I saw a familiar looking picture on the wall. I stopped and looked at it, completely stunned. It was clearly a picture of our father, probably when he was in his early 20s. It could just as clearly have been me.

I left the base with fury raging through my body. Fucking Brian. It made total sense that he’d do this. How did he know about this? I mean, he was a member of the family, so he knew about my background. I didn’t ever remember telling him the name of my biological father, but I guess there were enough hints about it that he could have figured it out. He must have tracked down these people and insinuated himself into their lives. He hated me that much?

I picked up my cell phone and dialed Robbie. He answered it right away. “Hey baby, how are you?”

“Pissed off,” I said.

“At me?”

“Why, did you do something to piss me off?”

“I’m not sure. Someone had an awesome lunch delivered for me today, but I don’t like peas, so I didn’t eat them. You’re not mad about that are you?”

How typical of him, and how we’d been. Here I have cold fury flowing through my veins, and he makes me laugh. “No, dumb ass, I’m not mad about that. I found out who David’s boyfriend is.”

“Go on.”

“It’s Brian. Brian Parnell.”

“You are fucking kidding me? Brian is behind this? That fucker is dead meat.” I smiled; I actually smiled, just because he was as outraged as I was. “What did Stef and JP say?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t called them yet.”

“You called me first?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Why wouldn’t I? You’re the most important person in my life.” I knew exactly why I wouldn’t have. My initial instincts would have been to call JP or Stef first. But I was learning to put him first, and I was finding that it was the smart thing to do too.

“You know why,” he said. There was a pause. “Thanks,” he said, and his voice cracked a bit. “You’ll be here in a few hours?”

“I will,” I said. “I’ll see you then.”

“I love you,” he said, and he put so much meaning into it, it was really touching.

“I love you too.” With that I hung up, and then I called Stefan.

“And what are you doing today?” he asked me.

“I’m in LaJolla right now, heading back to Malibu. I went to see my half-brother.” I had the feeling I hadn’t had his whole attention before. I had it now.

“That must have been interesting. How did it go?”

“Well, he was kind of a dick, but I think he’s an honorable guy. I found out why my wicked stepmother has it in for me. She caught them having sex, freaked out, and miscarried when she was five months along.” I didn’t have to tell him that the ‘them’ was my biological mother and father.

“I can see where that would upset her,” he said calmly. “But why would she take it out on you?”

“Mike says it’s illogical and irrational, and it pisses him off. But she’s just directed her pain and anger at me. Would you like to hear how she found out who I am?”

“Most definitely.”

“She found out from David’s new boyfriend. And would you like to know who that is?”

“I am all ears,” he said.

“Brian.”

“Brian?” he asked, as if there were more than one Brian it could possibly be.

“Brian Parnell,” I told him. There was silence on the other end while Stef digested that.

“I would like to ask you a favor,” he said.

“Go on.”

“I would like to tell JP about this myself.” There was another pause. “I think he will take it very hard.”

“Stef, if you think that’s best, then you do it. I’ll be up there within a week to tell him that this isn’t his fault. I’m not sure he’ll listen to me, but I’ll tell him anyway.”

“I think that will mean a lot coming from you. There is some more news, some very interesting news.”

“What more could be going on?” What new spear would life throw at my head?

“Amphion has not curled up and gone away. They have come back even more aggressively. They have a new strategy.”

I figured after the Tech conference, they’d be history. “Weren’t they banned from the Tech Conference?”

“They have found a way around it. They have decided to acquire another firm to merge Amphion into, to get around their ban and to expand their business.”

“Who did they acquire?” Who would sell to them, I wondered.

“They bought out Richard,” Stef said, only he didn’t sound upset.

“Why doesn’t that bother you?”

“He told me about his deal. They have paid at least five times more than his company is worth, and they have only limited him to a one year non-compete agreement.”

I pondered that. They were really determined to corner the market. “And they’re not keeping Richard around?”

“No, they are not. He is not a fan of their strategy, so they are going to move on without him. And that is a good thing, because he would be a tough competitor.”

“I heard they picked up that deal we wanted,” I said. We’d bid on a project and Amphion, as they were, managed to snake it away from us. That had surprised me. I’d figured after all the money they pledged in the City, they’d back off a bit.

“They did. With a bid twice as high as ours,” Stef said. I could feel his smile on the other end. “There is yet one more piece of interesting news.”

“Well aren’t you full of exciting information,” I joked.

“Not as full as you, evidently. Omega is a visible backer now. They are on the line.”

“What do you mean?”

“They have contractually backed all those deals that Amphion picked up in the City, and they did it with this last one too. It is common knowledge now, so no one will sign with Amphion unless Omega is on the line too.”

“I told Mike I was going to destroy his mother. He told me she was going to wipe the floor up with me. When you get here, we’ll have to strategize on how to do that.”

“It will be my pleasure,” Stef said.

I had one more call to make. This one was to Claire. I filled her in just as I’d filled in Stef.

“I’m worried that Daddy will take this so badly,” she said.

“You don’t care about me?” I asked, giving her shit.

“Bradley, don’t be an ass. I have to care about you, if for no other reason than because Jack likes you.”

“He’s so hot.”

“You’re in an awfully good mood. Now you see why I didn’t worry about you?” She sighed. “You are alright aren’t you?”

I laughed. “I’m doing fine. I’m like you. I’m worried about Dad. Stef wants to tell him, but he’ll blame himself anyway. I don’t think I’ll get up there until next week to tell him that’s bullshit, so I thought maybe you can do it for me?”

“Absolutely,” she said. I felt better knowing that Claire would be there to help JP grapple with this. She had all of our respect, and most of us were just a little afraid of her too.

It was late by the time I got to Anders-Hayes. The night guard let me in; I was lucky that he knew me. I took the elevator up to the top floor and strolled through the empty outer area where Evelyn and her group would normally be. I pushed open the door and saw Robbie, working away. He looked so cute, sitting at his desk, his eyebrows furrowed as he keyed in some words or numbers, then looked back at the papers on his desk.

It had taken a crisis in my life to get me to understand how important he was to me, and that really wasn’t fair to him. On the other hand, he’d done what I asked him to, he’d proven to me that he loved me. If he asked me again to be monogamous, I knew I would.

He must have sensed my presence, because he looked up and saw me, and then smiled. “Hey there!” He got up and rushed over to give me a big hug and a kiss. “How you doing tough guy?”

“I’m done kicking ass for the day,” I teased.

“So I’m off the hook on those peas I didn’t eat?”

“Why don’t you show me how well that casting couch works,” I said. He showed me that it worked really really well.