Sunday
May 27, 2012


They should have cancelled dinner tonight, Tim thought again. But everyone had wanted to come, to get close to ground zero, as Jason was calling it, since Tim and Shannon lived only blocks from the site. If he stood on his front porch would he be able to hear the roar of the crowd to the southwest? Was it swelling even as they ate, soon to engulf his house?
"I can't believe this has happened," Jason was saying. It was what everyone kept saying. "I can't believe they could just walk into the house of the company's president and take him and his family hostage. Just walk in on a Saturday morning when everyone's home and the alarm system's off. No violence, no guns, just all those radicals who'd convoyed over the mountains chaining themselves together around the house. Who'd ever think that'd work? The hostage-takers have to be as gob-smacked as everyone else at their success."
"We're never prepared," said Shannon. "Despite history, we never believe ahead of time what can happen."