Final Call, page 22
‘Did you enjoy living here?’ There was something eager in his question, a need for validation of his choice to live in Barrow.
‘I loved it,’ she said. ‘It was a shame it came to an end.’
‘I’m sure you’re enjoying where you live now.’
‘You know,’ she said. ‘I can say with complete honesty that I wish we all still lived here.’
‘So what brings you back for a day?’
‘Just stuff to do. Getting ready for a new phase in life, so I wanted to see some old haunts.’
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Well, good luck with whatever comes next.’
2
She sat in the diner, coffee on the table in front of her. Next to it was a piece of paper. She unfolded it and read the names:
Jill Stearns, chief executive officer
Chip Markham, chief financial officer
Jeff Ramos, chief technology officer
Marcia Fournier, chief marketing officer
Varun Miller, chief legal officer
Kevin Anderson, chief operating officer
They flew in the company plane a lot. Together, sometimes. Such as after a board meeting, when they would all be returning to Portland.
At first she had pictured doing it just to scare them.
You killed my husband and daughter! And now I’m going to kill you!
But then she had thought, Why not? Why not kill them? Why not get revenge? She could explain it all as they went down.
And then she thought, Why not make them confess? That would be the end of them and the end of the company.
So she made her plan.
There was no way she could get a job flying the plane, but if she could find out when the flight was scheduled – and that was easy enough – she could hijack it. The hangar was low security, the two pilots complacent and unsuspecting. When she opened the door to their office all they would see was a woman they didn’t recognize. She’d smile and hold out a bottle of water, a bottle that concealed the syringes.
A fast-acting sedative. Two syringes, one in each hand. Then she would lock them in, remove the barrel from the handle and get on board.
From there it should be plain sailing.
December 23rd, 2022
The Pilot
Stacy’s throat was tight, her eyes wet. Out of the window she could see the white caps. The plane was level.
She had what she wanted. She could scarcely believe it.
I did it, Jill had said. It was me. I did it.
Still, she had needed proof.
Did what? Stacy said. The plane was dropping like a stone, the nose tilted down in a steep dive. What did you do?
And then it came. The story she had known was true. Arranged a cover-up. Somehow the four kids got sick from one of our products. We couldn’t let it leak so we covered it up.
And the fire? she said.
Me too.
She had felt deflated. She had expected to feel joy or exultation or validation, but all she felt was tiredness. It was true, but so what? It wouldn’t bring Cherry or Dan back.
So she had pushed the plane into a steeper dive.
Hey! It was Ramos. You made a deal.
She didn’t respond. She gave herself up to the coming oblivion.
You’re no better than her. You’re a damn liar as well.
But she was not. She grabbed the control column and pulled back on it. The ocean was rushing up to meet them mere hundreds of feet away.
The plane didn’t respond for a few moments, and then, slowly, leveled out.
Marcia Fournier
Marcia listened to Jill Stearns in the main cabin.
‘What happened?’ Varun said. ‘What did you do?’
‘I told her the truth,’ she said. ‘I told her it was me. I did it.’
‘Jesus,’ Jeff Ramos said. ‘What the fuck, Jill?’
‘What was I supposed to do?’ she snapped at him. ‘Let it come out? They were about to discover what happened and I had to stop it.’
Marcia stared at her. She had been pretty sure this was all a misunderstanding, and that Jill had been right – the pilot had it all wrong. Maybe it would be ironed out and they would make it home, or maybe the pilot, deranged and determined to gain revenge would kill them. But she had not thought it was real. Not for a moment.
And not Jill. Maybe Anderson, or Chip. Ramos, possibly. But not Jill.
‘No way,’ she said. ‘It can’t be true.’
‘It is. I’m sorry.’
Marcia looked around the plane. Chip was dead, Jill had confessed to the murders of six people, Anderson had a broken wrist, and they were flying about a hundred feet over the surface of the ocean.
It was an unbelievable mess.
The pilot’s voice came over the intercom. She sounded flat, more tired than anything else.
‘Please take a seat. We’re heading back.’ She paused. ‘We have barely enough fuel. But I think we can make it. I guess we’ll find out.’
Jill walked back into the main cabin. Her face was fixed, her lips pressed together. Jeff followed her, and slumped into his seat.
The plane banked left and began to rise.
‘So Jill,’ Marcia said. ‘What the fuck did you do?’
Kevin Anderson
Well, what the fuck. There was going to be a major shitstorm, but all that could wait. The good news was that it looked like he was going to get back for a weekend with Katie after all. He was going to get this wrist fixed up and in a cast and then invite her round to his apartment with a bottle of champagne and some coke and he was going to party all night long.
And then he was done with this shitty company. He was going to resign – they’d fire him anyway, after what he’d said, although given what was to come it made no difference, and it’d be bankrupt soon enough – and live it up for a few months, before finding some other gig.
It wasn’t clear who he’d resign to, though. Until a few minutes ago it would have been Jill, but not now. She was fucked, well and truly fucked, and he was glad to see it. That bitch had never liked him and he had never liked her. Was it because he didn’t like having a woman as a boss? Possibly. Probably, even, but the solution was simple enough. Work for a man next time.
He had to give her credit though. He was impressed she had the balls to pull off this kind of shit. Metaphorically, of course. He watched her sit down. She looked broken. He found it thrilling.
‘So Jill,’ Marcia said. ‘What the fuck did you do?’
She didn’t reply for a long time. Anderson wondered if she ever would, and then she spoke.
‘I did what she said. What I just outlined.’
‘Any more details, Jill?’ Ramos asked.
‘We were working on a new product. A synthetic sugar. Super dense, super cheap, easy to store and transport. It preserved food for longer, too. Kind of a magic bullet for our industry: we’d have better, cheaper, tastier products. We could have patented it, too, so if anyone wanted to compete they’d have to pay us for the rights to it.
‘It was perfect,’ she continued. ‘Only it failed some early tests. It caused liver failure in mice, so we dropped it. Like many others.’
‘I think I see where this is going,’ Ramos said. ‘So how did it get to those kids?’
‘It was too valuable a product to give up, so a small group continued to research it. The group was led by Bill Standish. It was all off the books. Only me, Chip and the team knew. Standish was getting ready to test it again. He had some pellets ready to give to the mice. Somehow his son got hold of them and decided they were candy, and four of his friends might like to eat it.’
She took a deep breath.
‘Then they started dying. Standish told me and I knew right away we couldn’t let it get out. It would have torched the company, destroyed our reputation. So we covered it up. Got a doctor to say it was an inexplicable accident. Except one kid survived, and told her parents about the candy.’
‘Jesus,’ Ramos said. ‘And Chip knew about this?’
‘The product, yes. And the death of the kids.’
‘The cover-up?’
She shook her head. ‘I told him we had proof it wasn’t the product after all, and so there was no problem. He wouldn’t have gone for a cover-up, so I had to cut him out.’
‘And the fire?’ Ramos said.
‘I paid for it,’ Stearns replied, her eyes hard and hollow. ‘I didn’t know who did it – I just said I wanted it done and provided the money. Fifty thousand dollars. Not that much to remove a problem that could have cost us hundreds of millions, even billions.’
Kevin shook his head. Was it that easy? Was the country that corrupt? He’d always kind of thought so, but it was thrilling to discover it actually was. It opened all sorts of doors.
‘The fire chief made sure there was no mention of arson. Just a tragic accident. He got a nice new Grady White boat out of it. And that was that. Problem solved. The girl and her parents were gone.’
‘Except they weren’t,’ Marcia said. ‘One of them survived the fire.’
‘That’s right,’ Jill said. ‘One of them did.’
The Pilot
It was hard to see through the tears.
Years of them, all at once. She had cried plenty in the months after the fire, but at some point the tears had stopped, replaced by an empty, unfeeling determination to get justice for her daughter and husband.
And now that moment had arrived.
She listened to Stearns – she could barely face even thinking her name – explain what had happened. She was so matter-of-fact, so businesslike. The company was going to have an expensive problem, so she got rid of it.
That was what her daughter and her husband were worth.
To her they were everything; to that woman they were close to nothing.
She had read that psychopaths were much more common than people thought – maybe one percent of the population met the definition. Remorseless, lacking empathy, focused only on getting what they wanted: was it any wonder that many of that one percent ended up as CEOs and CFOs and other business leaders?
Maybe it was a requirement: if you cared about other people even a little, how could you do what was needed? Profit over people: that was designed into the system from the start, and she was just another example of it.
Well, this time Jill Stearns would not get what she wanted. Stacy would: she would have justice for Cherry and Dan and Ella and Dr. Williams and the two boys.
And then what?
What would she do with her life afterwards?
She didn’t know. She didn’t care. All she cared about was that her daughter and husband were not meaningless, and the world knew it. She would tell their story and the world would listen.
‘Excuse me?’
There was a woman standing behind her. She was kind, grandmotherly, almost.
‘Yes?’
‘I’m Marcia Fournier.’
‘I recognize the name.’
‘Are you OK?’
She bit back the sob.
‘Fine.’
‘OK. This must be very hard.’
‘Not as hard as the last few years.’
‘No. I suppose not.’ She hesitated. ‘I was wondering whether we could have the Wi-Fi back on? I’d like to contact my husband. Tell him we’re OK.’
Stacy was about to say no, you can wait but she paused. Why not? What harm could it do now?
‘That’s fine,’ she said, and switched it on.
Marcia Fournier
She emailed Mike.
Hey. You won’t believe what happened. We should be OK now, but we’ll have something to talk about when I get home. More than something! We kind of got hijacked. Love you.
So what happened now?
Chip was dead, and Jill was history. It was going to be a rough time. Lawsuits, bad publicity, plummeting stock price, difficulty raising capital. It was all to come.
The company would need leadership.
Someone established and trustworthy. A steady hand to get them through.
Kevin Anderson was a joke, Miller was too young and she was going to refocus on other things, not that she was in the running anyway.
That left only one option. Ramos. He would bide his time, let the board come to the right conclusion on their own.
There was a vibration from the engine and the plane lurched down and to the left. She braced herself against her seat. There was a high whine, and then the hum of the engines faded.
Perhaps she had emailed Mike too soon.
The intercom clicked on.
‘We have a problem,’ the pilot said. ‘We’re out of fuel.’
The two US Air Force jets disappeared out of view, rising above the plane. Except they weren’t rising at all.
The plane was falling.
‘Not now,’ Marcia said. ‘Not after all this.’
‘Out of fuel?’ Kevin Anderson said. ‘What does that mean?’
The engines coughed, and spluttered, and died.
‘That’s what it means,’ the pilot said. ‘We’re not far. But I don’t think we’ll make it.’
‘And?’ Marcia said. ‘What then?’
‘We ditch in the ocean. Everybody, take a seat, now! Make sure you’re buckled up. Prepare for impact.’
Her phone pinged. It was a group text from Jill. Marcia didn’t want to read it, didn’t want anything to do with Jill. She had given her life to the company, and she felt nothing but disgust for what Jill had done.
Then she glanced at the message, and she understood what Jill had done.
This was not over yet. Not at all.
None of this was what it seemed.
The Pilot
She watched the islands of the Casco Bay pass by: Peaks Island, Great Diamond, Little Diamond. Portland Harbor was about a mile in the distance.
They were not going to make it.
They were going to ditch in the ocean. She adjusted the flaps to try and maintain altitude, but the plane slowed; she trimmed them to try to find the optimal balance.
The ocean came ever closer, the water black and lethal, roiling beneath them.
‘Brace! Brace!’ she shouted, and then they hit the water, hard. The plane slowed to a near immediate stop, water a far better brake than anything mechanical, and she was flung hard into the wall of the cockpit. The impact caused her to lose her bearings and it took a few moments before she was sure where she was and what was happening.
The plane was still, and silent, and then she heard a sound which reminded her of childhood days spent on the lake: the lapping of waves against a hull.
Except this was not a hull. This was the fuselage of an aircraft.
She clicked the radio on. It was dead, but they knew the plane was here. It was just a matter of how quickly they could get there.
She looked out of the cockpit window. To the right was an island, the summer homes shuttered for the winter, the marina empty. No one left boats in year-round; the risk of storms or frozen seas was too great.
She measured the distance to the island. Maybe four hundred yards. Portland – where there were boats and people and warmth – was maybe a mile. So, if they had to swim, then the question was whether they could all make it that distance. She thought she could. She was a strong swimmer, but even so she was not sure. The water temperature at this time of the year would be what? Forty-eight degrees Fahrenheit? Less, maybe. That gave you about twenty minutes before hypothermia, and eventually death, set in.
Could they swim that far in that time? She had no idea.
What she knew was that they could not rely on the plane to float. If it was undamaged, it could – in theory – stay above the water for some time, but there was almost certainly damage. Hitting water at that speed was better than hitting the ground, but it still subjected the plane to massive stresses. There would be holes and cracks and they would only get worse.
So they had to get off the plane.
She reached for her life vest and got to her feet. The floor pitched and rolled as she walked back to the main cabin. It was an unnerving sensation, which underlined how much danger they were in.
The passengers stared up at her.
‘Life vests on,’ she said. ‘We have to deplane.’
‘Can’t we stay on?’ Jill Stearns said.
‘No. If it starts to go under it could happen very quickly. We’ll be trapped. So we get out. I’ll go first.’
2
She had no idea what the temperature was, but as she slid into the ocean from the plane door it took her breath away. She waited a few moments for her body to adjust – as much as it was going to – and then took a few strokes away from the plane.
Kevin Anderson was next off, followed by Mary Jo and the others. There was a pause, and then Jill Stearns appeared. She gasped as she entered the water.
‘We’ll swim to the island,’ Stacy said. ‘It’s the closest land.’
‘I can’t,’ Kevin Anderson said. ‘You broke my fucking wrist.’
Stacy did not feel like apologizing. ‘You’ll have to do your best.’
‘Maybe we won’t need to,’ Marcia said. She was facing Portland. ‘Look.’
In the distance two boats were moving rapidly toward them. One was a little ahead. At the speed it was moving it would be there in minutes.
Stacy watched it approach. It was a coastguard vessel, a large rib that could outrun anything else in the Casco Bay. The coastguard were very proud of it; whenever she had talked to them when she was in the Air Force, they had been sure to mention it. As it neared them, it slowed, then came to a halt a few feet from them. Two figures in all-weather suits leaned over the gunwale. One of them gave a thumbs up.
‘Swim over,’ he said. ‘We’ll pull you aboard.’
Stacy went last. Two hands gripped each of her wrists and hauled her over the side and onto the deck. The other passengers were already in a small cabin, wrapped in blankets.
The two coastguard officers looked at her. She read their names. Fred Coffin and Truman Kentley. Coffin handed her a blanket.
